A Fragment of the Bodhicaryāvatāra from Olon Süme
Articles/A Fragment of the Bodhicaryāvatāra from Olon Süme
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- A Comparative of Sanskrit, Tibetan and Mongolian on Prajñāpāramitā Chapter of Śāntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra (2) (The Commemoration Number Published on the Occasion of the Seventieth Birthday of Professor Ryojun Fuyo)
- A Fragment of the Bodhicaryāvatāra from Olon Süme
- A Mongolian Printed Fragment of Bodhicaryavatara from Dunhuang
- Another Chinese Source for a Biography of Čhos-kyi 'Od-zer
- Characteristics of the Buddhist Mongolian Texts: The Lineage of the Bodhicaryāvatāra
- Nachlese zum Mongolischen Turfanfragment des Bodhicaryāvatāra
- On the Duplicated Chapter of the Mongolian Bodhicaryāvatāra
- Regional Characteristics of Mongolian Buddhism: A Study on the Basis of the Bodhicaryāvatāra
- The Bodistw-a Čari-a Awatar-un Tayilbur of 1312 by Čosgi Odsir
- The Mongolian Tanǰur Version of the Bodhicaryāvatāra
- The Mongolian Tanǰur Version of the Bodhicaryāvatāra-Review by Kara
- The Third Chapter of Chos-kyi 'od-zer's Translation of the Bodhicaryāvatāra: A Tentative Reconstruction
- The Transmission of the Bodhicaryāvatāra: The History, Diffusion, and Influence of a Mahāyāna Buddhist Text
- Zum Blockdruckfragmente des mongolischen Bodhicaryāvatāra der Berliner Turfansammlung
- Über den Quellenbezug eines mongolischen Tanjurtextes
Description
At the present time there is known to us a considerable number of fragments of various Mongolian manuscripts representative of the preclassical period of the history of Written Mongolian. As most of them have never been studied, little can be said about their linguistic palæographic or literary value. It is not even known what literary works most of these fragments represent. Therefore, their identification with well-known works of original Mongolian literature or with translations from other languages is important, because the number of different fragments of the same works might serve as important testimony to their popularity in the past.
Thus, recently it was discovered that the fragment of the ḥP'ags-pa xylograph found by MANNERHEIM[1] is a fragment of the well-known didactic work Subhāṣitaratnanidhi.[2] This was the first fragment of a Mongolian book in ḥP'ags-pa script known to science and it gives evidence of the fact that the didactic work in question enjoyed so great a popularity in the Yüan period that it was chosen to be published in the new script introduced in 1269.
Another important work of the Yüan period is the Buddhist philosophic work Bodhicaryāvatāra[3] of which several Mongolian editions are known.[4]
A number of fragments of Mongolian manuscripts discovered by the Japanese expedition in Olon Süme ("Many Temples") was published in the valuable article of Professor HATTORI Shirō.[5] Professor HATTORI reproduced the original Mongolian texts by photographic means, romanized them, and gave a Japanese translation. One of the fragments characterized by him as a fragment of a Buddhist text[6] but left unidentified with any particular literary work proves to be a fragment of the Bodhicaryāvatāra.
I present a transcription of this fragment after a photograph published in Professor HATTORI'S article.
Notes
- G. J. RAMSTEDT, " Ein Fragment mongolischer Quadratschrift," Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne XXVII: 3 (1912); "A Fragment of Mongolian ' Quadratic ' Script," reprinted from C. G. MANNERHEIM, Across Asia from West to East in 1906-08, Helsinki, 1940.
- Pentti AALTO, "Altaistica I, The Mannerheim Fragment of Mongolian Quadratic Script," Studia Orientalia XVII :7 (1952), p. 3 ff.; cf. Louis LIGETI, Le Subhāṣitaratnanidhi mongol, un document du moyen mongol, Partie Ire, Le manuscrit tibéto-mongol en reproduction phototypique avec une introduction, Budapest, 1948.
- There is a Sanscrit text of the Bodhicaryāvatāra published by (undecipherable text) in (undecipherable text) T. IV, CTP. 153 (undecipherable text), and another one published by De La Vallée Poussin in Bibliotheca Indica (Calcutta) 1901. Cf. Friedrich WELLER, " Zum mongolischen Tanjur," Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Philologisch-historische Klasse, Bd. 97, Heft 2 (1949), p. 3; cf. Friedrich WELLER, " Über den Quellenbezug eines mongolischen Tanjurtextes," Abhandlugen der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Philologisch-historische Klasse, Bd. 45, Heft 2 (1950), p. 1, n. 2. The Tibetan text of the Bodhicaryāvatāra has been published by WELLER as an appendix (" Anhang ") to the work cited last. The Mongolian text is mentioned in (Undecipherable text).
- The Mongolian text has been published by B. Ya. VLADIMIRTSOV. Cf. (Undecipherable text) Bodhicaryāvatāra Çāntideva, (Undecipherable text) Čhos-kyi Ḥodzer'a I, (Undecipherable text), Bibliotheca Buddhica XXVIII, (Undecipherable text), 1929. VLADIMIRTSOV knew of two different Mongolian translations, i.e., one by Čhos-kyi Ḥod-zer (1305) and another by Bilig-ün Dalai (1748). Cf. VLADIMIRTSOV, op. cit., p. I. A xylographic edition of Čhos-kyi Ḥod-zer's commentary on the Bodhicaryāvatāra of 1312 has recently been identified by Erich HAENISCH, "Mongolica der Berliner Turfan-Sammlung I, Ein buddhistisches Druckfragment vom Jahre 1312," Abhandlungen der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Klasse für Sprachen, Literatur und Kunst, Jahrgang 1953, Nr. 3 (Berlin, 1954), pp. 1–22 + "Texttafeln," and, independently, by Francis Woodman CLEAVES, "The Bodistw-a Čari-a Awatar-un Tayilbur of 1312 by Čosgi Odsir," HJAS 17 (1954) .1-135.
- HATTORI Shirō (undecipherable Japanese text), "Oron Sumu shutsudo no Mōkogo bunsho ni tsuite " (undecipherable Japanese text) ("The Mongolian Documents Found at Olon Sume, Inner Mongolia"), The Tōhō Gakuhō (undecipherable Japanese text) (Journal of Oriental Studies), Tōkyō, No. 11, Part 2 (July 1940), pp. 257-278.
- Prof. HATTORI uses the term kyōten (undecipherable Japanese characters) which means "scriptures, sūtras, sacred books," op. cit., p. 261. I am indebted to Miss Mary SUZUKI, Far Eastern Library of the University of Washington, for help in translating the Japanese text.
