Oldal 79 [79]
A MONGOLIAN PRINTED FRAGMENT OF
BODHICARYAVATÁRA FROM DUNHUANG"
Otgon Borjigin
Northwest University for Nationalities, Lanzhou
Thorough and systematic archaeological excavation conducted between 1988 and
1995 at the grottoes in the northern area of Dunhuang’s Mogao Caves unearthed
a large number of fragments of manuscripts and block prints in different languages
and scripts, among which, according to Professor Gardi, who first described the Mon¬
golian documents from Dunhuang, there are 10 fragmentary pages of Buddhist texts
in Uyghur-Mongolian script, including 1) a fragment of a xylograph edition of the
Mongolian Bodhicaryävatara, different from, and probably earlier than, the famous
Daidu print of 1312; 2) a similar fragment of a Mongolian script manuscript of the
Mongolian translation of the canonical Heart Sutra (Prajna-paramita-hrdaya-sutra),
3) a fragment of a printed Mongolian translation of another Buddhist canonical text,
the Nyayapravesa; and 4) a fragment of a printed Mongolian translation of a Buddhist
text, presumably the Sarva-durgati-parisodhana-usnisa-vijaya-dharani.
In this paper, I would like to present a very short remark on the aforementioned
Mongolian printed fragment of the Bodhicaryavatara from Dunhuang.
Document B121: 40, a xylograph fragment, came from Cave 121 in the northern
area of Mogao Caves and is the only Mongolian document unearthed in this cave.'
It measures 14.1cmx24.5cm, bears an extant text of 4 lines, which was from the end
of a printed page. The fourth line of the text is in Chinese characters in a relatively
reduced size and appears along the inner side of the right-hand vertical line of the
text frame, which reads: “fL/A A (hal) HEA JL...]-+[...]”, clearly the Chinese
transcription of the short title, i.e., caryavatara, and pagination of the text. From
this line, it is clear that B121: 40 is a remainder of an Uyghur-Mongolian xylograph
edition of the Bodhicaryavatara, or Bodistw-nar-un yabudal-dur oroqui Sastir in
Mongolian.
As we know, the Bodhicaryavatara, “A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life" is
a Buddhist treatise written in the 7" century by Santideva, an ancient Indian sage. In
* This article was supported by the major project of China’s National Social Science Fund: Translation
and Comparative Study of Catalogues of the Mongolian Documents in Russian Collections (Project
No. 18ZDA323).
This was found together with texts in Uyghur, Chinese and Tangut languages in the same cave.
Rybazki, Volker: New Buddhist Mongolica from Dunhuang. In: The Early Mongols: Language,
Culture and History. Studies in Honor of Igor de Rachewiltz on the Occasion of His 80" Birthday.
Ed. Rybazki, Volker — Pozzi, Alessandra — Geier, Peter W. — Krueger, John R. (Uralic and Altaic Series
173) Indiana University, Bloomington 2009, 139-148.
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