An Old Uyghur fragment of the Lotus Sūtra from the Krotkov collection in St. Petersburg

Abstract

This paper presents an edition of a newly identified Old Uyghur fragment of the Lotus Sūtra from the Krotkov collection in the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The text mainly explains the merit of preaching, reciting and hearing the Lotus Sūtra through three parables, claiming that the text is from the nom cacaki sudur ‘Law-Flower-Sūtra’, the Old Uyghur title of the Lotus Sūtra. However, there is no identical passage in the known Chinese translations of the Lotus Sūtra. Presumably, the Old Uyghur text is a unique composition by Uyghurs, though one cannot exclude the possibility that the Old Uyghur text might also be a translation of an unknown Chinese text of similar content.