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FOREIGN DEMONS IN MONGOLIAN AND CENTRAL
ASIAN BUDDHISM THROUGHOUT THE TIME
(WITH FOCUS ON INITIAL L-)
Michal Schwarz
Masaryk University, Brno
Mongolian is specific by high number of Chinese, Tibetan and Indo-European loan¬
words beginning with /-. As a result of language contacts, they are not frequent in
older stages of Mongolian and appear as an innovation in Buddhist manuscripts
and in the context of international relations also in other Altaic languages. This
paper 1) summarizes selected cases of these loanwords with context or attestations,
2) analyzes the stages of lexical influences, and 3) uses the results of typological
similarities for related Old Turkic and unrelated Tocharian in an attempt to solve un¬
clear etymology of Tocharian word /u/luwo for “animal; beast”. Although Old Turkic
loanwords belong to older borrowings in Mongolian, it is worth noting that besides
Old Turks also Tocharians survived and produced their last Buddhist manuscripts un¬
der the rule of Kitans and in Yuan times. For the newest stage the two terminological
connections can be attested in Mongolian cultural world: proper names Lenin with
Langdarma and an ethnonym “Russian” with räksasa “demon”, when the second
pair has undergone a change of initial r- — /- as in Khamnigan Ewenki Luuca/ Luuta
“Russian; monster”. (Note: this paper is an output of the project Mongolian Ritual
Manuscripts in a Czech Collection: Their Edition, History, and Central Asian Roots,
funded by the Czech Science Foundation, Project No. GA19-07619S. Special thanks
go to Krisztina Teleki for her kind information from her interview with an old monk
Tsendiin Tserenpuntsag, 1914-2012).
For introduction I would like to mention, that in this article I use the term “de¬
mon” in free and metaphorical meaning and not as an exact class of beings. Thus
this paper includes even words for “dragon” and people designated as demonic or
possessed by the demon as in case of Tibetan King Langdarma (ca. 790-842).' Due
to methodological and space reasons this paper mainly focuses on words and names
beginning with /-. Simple structure of this paper is as follows: 1) linguistic part from
synchronic point of view comparing loanwords in modern Mongolian, Old Turkic
with parallels in Indo-European; 2) comments to the chronology of different layers
of words in Mongolian tradition; 3) synthesis and conclusion.
' Shakabpa, Tsepon Wangchuk Deden: One Hundred Thousand Moons: An Advanced Political History
of Tibet. Vol. I. Transl. Maher, Derek F. Brill: Leiden—Boston 2010, 164.
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