Vol 8, No 1 (2022)
- Year: 2022
- Articles: 7
- URL: https://journals.eco-vector.com/2410-0145/issue/view/5463
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.55512/wmo.81
Full Issue
Original Papers
The Sanskrit Fragment of Kṣāntivādi-jātaka in ‘Proto-Śāradā’ Script from the Serindia Collection of IOM, RAS
Abstract
The article introduces the Sanskrit fragment of Kṣāntivādi-jātaka kept in the Serindian Fund of the IOM, RAS. A brief review of the script ‘proto-śāradā’ (in which the jātaka’s text is written) is given. The author points out that this fragment is a part of a certain Jātakamālā manuscript ‘edition’. The article includes transliteration, translation and comments on the text of the fragment.
3-15
Quotations from Zhuangzi in Tangut Literature
Abstract
Eleven quotations from Zhuangzi are found in a Tangut compilation and a Tangut translation work, in which five paragraphs prove to be missing contents of the current edition. The compilation is well accomplished, but the translation, similar to some Dunhuang manuscripts in their contents, is a shoddy work with lots of interpolations or even misunderstandings of the Chinese classics. The Taoist works, including Zhuangzi, were spread in a very limited scope in Xixia, causing a fact that nobody was familiar with it, except a few higher intellectuals serving the Emperor.
16-26
An Old Uyghur Manuscript Fragment Dedicated to Caitya Veneration
Abstract
Caitya is the name for the holy places tightly connected with the Buddha’s great deeds, that are commonly praised and worshipped in the Buddhist tradition. These worshipping texts generally called Caityastotra were most probably widespread among the Uyghur Buddhists. A rather brief text Caityastotra is included in the preface of the late edition of the Old Uyghur Suvarṇaprabhāsottama sūtra also known as Altun Yaruk sudur. Several fragments of the other versions are found in the Turfan collection of Berlin. The newly identified fragment dedicated to the third Caitya veneration is preserved in the Serindia collection of the IOM, RAS. The aim of the present article is to provide transliteration, transcription and translation of the text.
27-37
Tibetan Texts from Khara-Khoto on Acala and Jvālāmukhī Preserved at the IOM, RAS
Abstract
The paper deals with two Tibetan manuscripts from Khara-Khoto that contain instructions on a variety of Tantric rites connected with the wrathful deity Acala treated here as Bhagavān, i.e. an Enlightened one, and the demoness Jvālāmukhī (Kha ’bar ma). Summarized contents of all the fragments are introduced in the paper. Both manuscripts mention the 11th c. Indian guru Vajrāsana whose Tibetan disciple Bari Lotsāwa is said to have brought his instruction on the Jvālāmukhī torma offering to Tibet. Another line of transmission of this practice goes back to Atiśa. The practice was certainly shaped by the first half of the 12th c. but the Indian authenticity of the demoness who gave it her name seems to be somewhat dubious.
38-56
A Manuscript Russian-Chinese-Manchu Dictionary (from before 1737) in T.S. Bayer’s Papers in Glasgow University Library. Part I: Authorship of the Dictionary
Abstract
This article presents an anonymous Russian-Chinese-Manchu manuscript dictionary (from before 1737) held in the papers of Theophilus Siegfried Bayer (1694–1738) in Glasgow University Library’s Special Collections. Part I of the article introduces the Manchu materials found in the papers of T.S. Bayer, a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences from 1726 to his death, and the history of the arrival of the Bayer papers in Glasgow. Previous scholarship on the dictionary is then summarized and possible candidates for its authorship are reviewed. Although it is not possible to identify the author of the dictionary, it is clearly a product of the language-learning activities of the members of the first Russian Ecclesiastical Mission to Peking. Part II will discuss the Manchu and Chinese lexicon of the Bayer collection dictionary and the dictionary’s annotations.
57-74
Intermixture of Mongolian and Oirat in 17th Century Manuscripts
Abstract
The Oirat alphabet Clear Script was created in 1648, but few specimens of Oirat penmanship from the 17th c. have survived, and very little is known about the early history of its development and adaptation. Some information on the subject can be gathered from manuscripts that were discovered at the site of the ruined Dzungar monastery Ablaikit. Among these manuscripts are multiple fragments of the Buddhist canonical collection Kanjur and two folios from ritual texts composed by the Fourth Panchen Lama. These texts are written in Mongolian, but the scribes used graphemes from Clear Script, elements of the vocabulary and grammar of Written Oirat. Fragments of another manuscript found in Ablaikit, a small birch-bark copy of the Heart Sutra, contain a text written in Oirat with interpolations from Mongolian. Combined, the observations based on the study of these sources show that the transition from Mongolian to Clear Script was gradual, and for a period of time in the second half of the seventeenth century both writing systems were used by the Oirats.
75-87
Buryat Folklore Collector’s “Desktop”: MS Mong. E 289 from the Collection of the IOM, RAS
Abstract
The paper contains a brief description of Mong. E 289 unit from the collection of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences. This is a set of 373 folios of various formats recorded and compiled by Tatiana K. Alekseeva, a Buryat folklore scholar. Among them is the text of an epics, titled by the author as Geser qaɣan-u nom ɣaraqu-yin tuqai (“Prehistory of Geser”). The text is presented in different phonetic transcription systems. 120 folios of text in Old Mongolian scripts were done in the field. The record took place on the territory of the modern Osinsky district of the Irkutsk region during the summer of 1946 from the storyteller Morkhonoi A. Shobonov. The complex of both field record and different “whitewashed” variants of the text can help to uncover the “desktop” of the collector.
88-99