A Study on the Uighur Text Abitaki (4)

Abstract

Recently, we found 25 folios of the so-called Abitaki Uighur text in the Beijing National Library. The word “Abitaki” (Chinese “Amituojing/Amitaking=Sanskrit Amitabha-sutra) is used only as a code name written in small letters on the left side of some folios of the manuscript; but it has no thing to do with the famous scripture “Amitabha-sutra” (one chapter, translated into Chinese by the famous Uighur scholar Kumarajiva in the 4th century AD). I hold that it belongs to a lost Buddhist Chinese book called “Da Bai Lian She Jing” (The Great Lotus Society Sutra) consisting of 4 chapters of the Pure Land School and it was copied in Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368 AD). Here I study and publish another folio (belonging to 3rd chapter) of the text1.

Özet

Yakın zamanlarda, Pekin Ulusal Kütüphanesi’nde bir Abitaki Uygur metni olduğu söylenen 25 yapraklı metin bulduk. Bu metinde “Abitaki” sözcüğü (