Oriental Studies (Aug 2018)
Towards the Characteristics of the Tibetan Written Sources from the Collection of Khovd State University (Mongolia)
Abstract
The authors present to the readers’ attention their attempt to observe the collection of old written manuscripts in the Tibetan language stored in Khovd State University (Khovd, Mongolia), as well as the specimen of scientific descriptions of some of these manuscripts. The Manuscripts with Written texts in the Tibetan language were in use and they are in use till nowadays among Buddhist clerics and secular adherents of the Buddhism in Kalmykia as well in some other regions where the peoples of Mongolian group related to Oirats and Kalmyks live now - in the Western aimaks (provinces) of Mongolia, Sinxiang Uigur Autonomous territory in the Peoples’ Republic of China. These handwritten books and the collections of such books which have remained to the beginning of the 21st century, give us the opportunity to note and describe some common features and to reveal the differences, penetrations concerning features and distribution of northern Buddhism, its schools and directions, features of cult systems of Buddhist faiths of the specified regions, as well as the literary activity and the practices of translations in various territories of Mongolian and Oirat peoples. Among these works which were in use among Western Mongols are “The Hymn-praise to a line of reincarnations of the Dalai-lama XIII Ngag dbang Blo bzang rGya mtsho” (tib. khyab bdag ’khor lo’i mgon po ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtshos ’khrungs rab gsol ’debs bzhugs so); “Prayer about a birth in Shambhala” (tib. grub pa’i gnas mchog dpal ldan shambha lar skye ba’i smon tshig ka lā bar ’jug pa zhes bya ba bzhugs so); one of the major Tantric texts - the Tibetan original of the well-known Buddhist composition “Mañjuśri-nāma-saṃgīti” or “The true pronunciation of names of Mañjuśri” (tib. bcos pa’i chos brgyad kyas bsdus pa zhugs so); copies of the sample of the literature of Prajñāpāramitā whom is “The Diamond sūtra” (tib. ’phags pa shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa rdo rje gcod pa zhes bya ba bzhugs so); the prayer turned to Nāgārjuna, the Indian founder of a Mahāyāna, the author of texts of its first school - Mādhyamika (тиб. dpal dkon ’phags pa klu sgrub gyi smon lam zhes bya ba bzhugs so), etc.
