Sutra of Atonement for All Sins: Introducing the Text from One Kalmyk Astrological Collection

Abstract

Introduction. The written heritage of Kalmyk Buddhist lamas has not been sufficiently discussed in scientific literature. Most of written documents from their personal libraries have not been published, hence they remain unavailable to researchers. Importantly, the scholarly publication of such texts contributes to the source database of Buddhist studies. The present article aims to describe, transliterate and translate “The Sutra of Atonement for All Sins” (Oir. Xamuq kilince namančilaxu sudur), which was part of the astrological collection that belonged to a Kalmyk zurkhachi, i. e. to introduce the document for the attention of scholars in the field. Materials. To clarify the translation of some difficult passages in the text of the Oirat Sutra written in “todo bichig” (“Clear Script”), Tibetan texts of similar content were used. One of them, created in the framework of the “terma” tradition, was published in French by E. Schlagintweit. The other text was taken from the collection “Sundui”. Results. The translation of the Oirat Sutra clearly indicates the character of Buddhist astrological collections in terms of their composition: in addition to specific tables, diagrams, and figures, they included the texts of prayers. Also, the textual analysis of the source shows the importance of such issues as the selection of equivalents of Buddhist terms and of the names of the deities of the Buddhist pantheon in translating Buddhist texts, which is directly related to the approaches and principles of translation of Oirat and Kalmyk translators of Tibetan texts.

Keywords

• buddhism
• written sources
• the oirat language
• “todo bichig”