A New Cakrasaṃvara Text in Uighur

Abstract

In this paper the text edition of the Uighur fragment (signature number: 北大附 T1) from Peking University Library was provided. It was originally published in facsimile in 北京大学図書館所蔵敦煌文献 Bei-jing Da-xue suo-cang Dun-huang wen-xian 'Dunhuang Documents Collected in the Peking University Library', the independent volume of the series 敦煌吐魯番文献集成 Dun-huang Tu-lu-fan wen-xian ji-cheng 'The Corpus of Dunhuang-Turfan Manuscripts' which have been published by Shanghai Classics Publishing House. This text is of Tantric content and it involves the Cakrasamvara cycle of teachings and reflects practice of yoga or mahāmūdra 'Great Seal' like some other Uighur Tantric texts. In the facsimile edition this text is considered as the manuscript of Tang period, dating between the middle of 8th century and the beginning of 9th century. The content of this text, the type of the script and the spelling peculiarities of this fragment tell us that this fragment is also of the 13th or 14th century like other Uighur Tantric texts. Most possibly it may dates back to the first half of 14th century, when Nāropa's teachings and many other Tantric texts were introduced to Uighurs.