ウイグル文字音写された漢語仏典断片について : ウイグル漢字音の研究

Abstract

It has so far been acknowledged that among old texts from Central Asia there exist some which were transcribed from Chinese characters into alphabetic scripts. For example, texts transcribed into Tibetan script and Brāhmī script are well-known and such texts provide crucial information for the phonological study of the north-west dialect of Middle Chinese. Dr. G. Kara has briefly mentioned that a Chinese Buddhist text transcribed in Uighur script is included in the Turfan Collection of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften. When the auther of this paper visited the St.Petersberg Branch for Oriental Studies of Russian Academy of Sciences in the summer of 1994, he found ten fragments of Chinese texts in Uighur script. All of them have turned out to be Buddhist texts, eight of which the author identified as based on 『聖妙吉祥眞實名経』 (sheng miao ji xiang zhen shi ming jing) and 『四分律比丘戒本』(si fen lü bi qiu jie ben). In the present paper, the author discusses these newly identified fragments from the linguistic point of view. First, they are transliterated into Roman alphabet with their corresponding Chinese characters attached alongside. Second, the pronunciation of the Chinese used there is discussed and reconstruction of the phonological system involved is attempted. The system has been recognized as similar to that which is utilized in the Chinese loan words appearing in the Uighur version of 『大慈恩寺三蔵法師伝』 (Xuan-Zang-Biography). The Chinese phonological system of 『大慈恩寺三蔵法師伝』 can be inferred to be that of north-west dialect of the late Tang Dynasty or the early Song Dynasty. The fragments here dealt with are found to have been written during the Yuan Dynasty and it is argued that the Chinese pronunciation used in them is an inherited pronunciation of Chinese characters. It is also argued that this inherited pronunciation of Chinese characters accords with the phonological system which is used in the Chinese Buddhist text in the Turfan Collection. It can be surmised that, at the time of the Yuan Dynasty, Chinese Buddhist texts were generally recited with the pronunciation of Chinese characters. Furthermore, it is maintained that one of these fragments conforms to the author's view (cf.Shōgaito 1982, pp.105-119) that Chinese Buddhist texts were read in the Uighur reading of Chinese characters, a practice similar to the Japanese reading of Chinese characters.