Buddhist Sutra of Golden Light in clear writing: language analysis

Abstract

The Golden Light Sutra is one of the most revered scriptures in Mahayana Buddhism. The Golden Light Sutra was translated from the Tibetan language into the Oirat language by Zaya pandit. From the middle of the seventeenth century onwards, for a hundred years after the text was translated into Oirat, the scriptures were only in manuscript form. It was published in the middle of the 18th century by xylography in the Dzungarian Empire, and later in the Kingdom of Kalmykia by the Volga Kalmyks during the Donduk-Dashi period (1741–1761). A copy of this Kalmyk xylograph is kept in a private collection of Sh. Uvelzen (Tekes, Xinjiang, China). The recent translation of the “Golden Light Sutra” has not escaped the notice of Russian scholars. A 1655 translation document explains whether Altangerel used strange dialectal words in the text of the Mahayana sutras, how they were related to the correct spelling of the Mongolian written language, and how he copied the words correctly. In bold script, like the Mongolian script, pay attention to the end of the word, depending on whether the root of the word ends in open or closed, the suffix has two variants, beginning with a vowel and beginning with a consonant. Thus, the bold letters and the suffixes of the Mongolian script can be said to be the same, but the quality seems to be different.

Keywords

• altan gerel
• oirat translation
• buddhism
• case
• number
• condition
• background letter
• open syllable
• text
• sound