Search

In this paper we would like to introduce two newly identified Old Uyghur fragments kept in the Research Department of Dunhuang Academy, China. The first one (D0913) is a small fragment which we identified as part of another copy of the Ci’en zhuan 慈恩轉, namely of a colophon to the 4th book of the Old Uyghur translation. The second one (D0623) written on the verso side of a Chinese Buddhist scroll of T. 643 is an Old Uyghur poem which can be compared to the Ratnasūrya avadāna.

Annemarie von Gabain was an eminent scholar in many fields of Central Asian studies, her main interest was research of the Old Uyghur texts from Turfan. The paper illustrates shortly her life and some of her research areas and works.

The temple banner IB 4781 of the former Ethnological Museum in Berlin (today: Hermitage Museum ВД 585) originates from Qočo (Dakianusšahri: afterwards D 222). A. Grünwedel gave its detailed description, but after his publication in 1905 it remained more or less untouched. The picture is based on an overall composition in which individual passages from the sutra have been integrated. The groups of figures arranged in the cloud scenes were examined in detail in Grünwedel's description. They are mostly bodhisattvas. In depicting the figures sitting around the Buddhas the painter has included figures seen from behind, so that one can correctly imagine a circle, which of course should indicate that all the figures are concentrated on the Buddha. The 10 text cartouches contain quotations in Old Uygur based on the Chinese text of the Lotus sutra. They are read here for the first time. In the paper these cartouche texts are studied as well as the names of the donors on the bottom of the temple banner.

In this paper the authors edit two Old Uigur fragments that recently became accessible from Dunhuang. Both are parts of the unknown commentary on the Yuanjue jing of which already some other remnants were edited.

In 2019 Abdurishid Yakup edited a significant Old Uighur text from the National Library in Beijing in the journal “Turkic Languages”, which is of importance for research into the Central Asian religious history of the Middle Ages beyond its turkological interest. Since in the meantime further copies have appeared, through which some difficult passages of the text can be interpreted in a new light, it is appropriate to dare to revise it, even if new problems come into the limelight again. This is a kind of religious memorandum, which was intended to encourage the royal house to turn to Buddhism. Uighur Buddhists bear witness to the colourful expressions of the classical literature of the Old Uighur period, although the manuscripts themselves probably date more from the Mongolian period of the 13th and 14th centuries.

A new, critical edition of the 8th-century treatise De haeresibus et synodis (CPG 8020) by Patriarch Germanus I of Constantinople is in progress; it will provide new insights, especially into the large extent of sources that were copied or paraphrased. The article takes a close look at three chapters that could be considered as sources for different Christian heresies (Manichaeism, Montanism and Christological dissenters) in 8th-century Byzantium and some of the first new text- and sourcecritical findings. The accounts on Manichaeism and Montanism are based on older, lost sources and can therefore not be consulted as historical sources on these heresies in the Early Byzantine age. The account of the Ecumenical Councils involved in the Christological controversies attributes faith formulas to Councils that did not actually issue them and thus must be dismissed as a historical source on the course of these controversies as well. Nevertheless all three chapters, like the rest of the treatise, testify to the views of an Early Byzantine theologian on heresies and Church Councils and to how he reached his views. This scope for further study is deduced from the character of the text itself and thus especially appropriate.

In this paper, we introduce some new fragments preserved at the Dunhuang Academy. These are five detached pieces of a Chinese scroll of the Prajnāpāramitāsūtra (Da banruo boluomiduo jing 大般若波羅蜜多經)....

By mistake two text portions are missing in the paper published in JOTS 2020. As AppA and AppB they are here edited as additions. The word forms of these two fragments were already included in the index of the main article.

In this paper the authors edit two Old Uigur fragments that have recently become accessible from Dunhuang. The first is part of a poem on the famous story of King Bimbasāra and his wife Vaidehī that was popular in Pure Land Buddhism. The second is a kind of a commentary that uses Chinese phrases in original Chinese script.

In this paper two Old Uyghur fragments are edited and discussed. Both are unique, and since there are no continuous lines their interpretation is extremely difficult. While the first one seems to be part of an unknown Buddhist sūtra, the other one belongs to a Buddhist confession text. In both remnants rare words occur, among them yemdük which is so far not attested in Old Uyghur.

Here we edit a second leaf of an Old Uigur manuscript preserved in the Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage. While the leaf published in 2011 is an account of the history of the West Uigur Kingdom of Qoco, the present text refers to the early years of Buddhism as well as to the relationship between religion and state, the inner and outer sphere in Old Uigur historiography. We consider the possibility that the manuscript was a kind of World History.

The fragment we are publishing here is preserved in the Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage (the former China Institute of Cultural Relics). It is the 53rd leaf of an Uigur manuscript that contains the beginning of an unknown commentary to the Yuanjue jing. Other leaves of the same manuscript of the Hedin Collection in Stockholm were studied by K. Kudara in 1992.

The fragment we are publishing here is preserved in the Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage (the former China Institute of Cultural Relics). It is a single leaf of an Uigur manuscript originally attached to a Chinese passage of the Lotus sūtra. The Old Uigur text is a kind of terminology list containing some hitherto not or seldom attested words.

The fragment we are editing here for the first time is a specimen of a new genre of Old Uygur literature. It is a memorandum or an account on the early years of the West Uygur Kingdom of Qoco. The leaf is the 22nd of an otug that contains a vivid text changing between prose and verse reflecting the literary heritage of the Old Uygurs. Supposing that the work was written during the Yuan period (13th to 14th centuries) we have to admit that it is an ambitious work of historical retelling political, military, and cultural events that took place at least two centuries before. Since the 62 lines are completely preserved, this text presents a new valuable source for further studies on Old Uygur.

In this article the author presents an overview of the British Library's Manichaean Turkish text fragments (written in Runic, Manichaean and Sogdo-Uigur script). Besides information on all fragments published so far several pieces of a confession text on the Blessed Small Feast Day are edited in full and compared to parallels in other collections.

Anlasslich des 150. Geburtstages von Albert von Le Coq wird in diesem Aufsatz seine Arbeit an den manichaisch-turkischen Texten aus den Turfanfunden gewurdigt. Mit seinen Editionen hat er entscheidend dazu beigetragen, dass auch dieser Teil des zentralasiatischen Erbes in die manichaische Religionsgeschichte einbezogen wurde.

Obwohl das „Sūtra der Ursachen und Wirkungen“ ( Shan’e yinguo jing ) ein im zentral- und ostasiatischen Buddhismus weit verbreitetes apokryphes Werk ist, fehlte bisher der Nachweis einer postulierten altuigurischen Version. Zwar kann ich auch heute noch kein Fragment des Textes vorstellen, doch durfte der Nachweis des Titels in dem hier behandelten Bruchstuck (Berliner Turfansammlung: U 3596) einmal mehr wahrscheinlich machen, dass er tatsachlich existiert hat.

In this paper an Old Uighur fragment is published that sheds some light on a reconstruction work of Besbalik (Chinese Beiting), the former capital of the West Uighur Kingdom. Beside Besbalik the city of Solmi (Agni / Karasahr) is mentioned as well as the enigmatic term ordo ulus which probably is a designation of a “residence”.

This article discusses the mysterious Old Turkic word tulton in the Manichaean story of a drunken man who had sexual intercourse in a tomb with the dead corpse of a woman. This hapax was interpreted as a compound of tul “widow” and ton “dress”. The new interpretation of another Manichaean text in which the same word appears clearly shows that the word in question has to be read tultun or toltun with the meaning “grove”.

The author publishes a fragment (Turfan Collection of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften in Berlin) of an Old Turkic translation of the Yuanjuejing “Sutra of Complete Enlightenment”, a famous Chan work, and compares it with its Chinese original text. Although the translation strictly follows the Chinese, some deviations are of interest. The edition is accompanied by commentaries, two glossaries (Old Turkic-Chinese, Chinese-Old Turkic) as well as facsimiles.