WRITTEN MONUMENTS OF THE ORIENT

The Manchu text “The stories of one hundred and twenty old men” Emu tanggû orin sakda-i gisun sarkiyan compiled by Songyûn (Songyun 松筠) in 1790 was edited by Furentai, and then translated into Chinese by Fugiyûn (Fujun 富俊) in 1809. The text exists only in a manuscript form and was never published. Monolingual Manchu and bilingual Manchu-Chinese versions of this text are scattered all over the world. For nearly twenty years the text existed only in Manchu and had suffered edition and rearrangement of the stories’ order. That fact inspired the late Prof. Giovanni Stary to compare the available copies. The present article presents the content of 120 stories according to the ManchuChinese manuscript kept in the IOM, RAS. This list of subjects made it possible to compare the Manchu language copies from the University of Chicago, the Osaka university of Foreign Studies and the Beijing University of Nationalities, as well as the ManchuChinese versions from the IOM, RAS (St. Petersburg) and the Capital Library. It became obvious that there are no identical versions. Rather substantial differences are found between three Manchu language copies and the Manchu-Chinese bilingual versions from the IOM, RAS (St. Petersburg) and the Capital Library, but they are mostly limited to the 7th and 8th chapters. From the first analysis, which has to be deepened, we can conclude that these two last chapters of the bilingual manuscripts were entirely rewritten and reordered. Most probably it was done by Fugiyûn when he translated “The stories of one hundred and twenty old men” from Manchu into Chinese.

The article presents the Tibetan birchbark manuscripts kept in the Serindian collection of the IOM, RAS. The five birchbark manuscripts exhibit common codicological and paleographic characteristics, and the texts within them demonstrate a functional congruence, primarily associated with the rituals of consecration and empowerment. The objective of the conservation efforts was to flatten the birchbark fragments to both identify and preserve the inscribed texts. The fragments were sufficiently moistened in the birch sap as a plasticizer instead of regular water, given that it is a natural substance inherent to birch bark. The birch sap for conservation was hand-harvested from an ecologically pristine area. The soaking process in warm birch sap softened the fragments, and they were also cleansed of surface impurities. Damaged areas of the birchbark fragments were reinforced using Japanese conservation paper. For subsequent use and preservation, the fragments were stored in envelopes made of high-quality Melinex polyester film. Owing to the restoration work, five Tibetan birchbark manuscripts were described and transliterated.

The present paper introduces seven new manuscript fragments that have been identified with the Sanskrit Buddhist text — the Lotus Sūtra (Skt. Saddharmapuṇḍarīka). Until quite recently these fragments have had no pressmark and were revealed among the unregistered materials of the Serindia Collection (IOM, RAS). The fragments represent different parts of seven pothi-type leaves of paper containing Sanskrit text in South Turkestan Brāhmī script, which was used for recording Buddhist texts in the 8–9 cc. AD in Khotan — the largest center of Mahāyāna in Serindia (the Eastern part of Central Asia within the current borders of Xinjiang). Seven fragments bear clear similarities in terms of paleographic and codicological features (type of script, size and shape of graphemic symbols (akṣaras), number of lines and line-spacing, paper characteristics etc.). Given the express similarities, it is reasonable to assume that all the fragments could belong to one and the same manuscript. Furthermore, it was revealed that two new fragments almost join with those kept under the pressmarks SI 1934 and SI 6584 and represent altogether two relatively complete pothi leaves. After the identification and investigation these seven new fragments were assigned the inventory number and the pressmark SI 6781. This paper includes description of the fragments SI 6781, transliteration, comparison with the corresponding text of the Petrovsky manuscript (the most complete Central Asian copy of the Sanskrit Lotus Sūtra), English translation, and facsimile of two fragments.