Description

The volume presents a collection of nine articles compiled by a group of scholars specialized in the field of Old Uyghur studies. They present the edition of 16 large scale folios of Old Uyghur Agama texts preserved in the Sven Hedin Collection, Stockholm. This material, which was never published before, contains the remains of the Old Uyghur translations of four different Agama Sutras, namely the Zhong ahanjing, the Za ahanjing, the Bieyi za ahanjing and the Zengyi ahanjing. They belong to the best-preserved written sources of Old Uyghur Buddhist literature. The introduction provides information concerning the provenance, the research history and the very special character of this material. The single articles contain an introduction to the material at hand, the transcription of the text (mostly side by side with the Chinese parallel text), a translation and commentary notes. Often an Old Uyghur-Chinese glossary is added. Colour plates of all folios complete the edition.