An Old Uighur Poetry Collection of Buddhist Principles and Admonitions

Abstract

Some Old Uighur fragments, blockprints of one or more edition(s) and two different manuscripts, from the Turfan Collection of Berlin (Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities) as well as from the Serindia Collection of the Institute for Oriental Manuscripts in St. Petersburg are here presented as parts of a poem based on principles of Buddhist teaching and admonitions. By using Buddhist tenets and phrases the unknown author has created an original work that consists almost entirely of stanzas with strophic alliteration. Despite some interludes directed at monastic people, it is possible that even laypeople listened to or read the text.