Buddhist Indian Loanwords in Sogdian and the Development of Sogdian Buddhism

Pavel B Lurje

doi:10.46586/er.11.2020.9279

Abstract

 Buddhist Sogdian texts contain about 300 loanwords of Indian origin excluding the ones that are known also in Manichaean, secular, or Christian Sogdian texts. About sixty percent of these can easily be seen to be borrowed from Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit. A further twenty percent or so are not so easily recognized as from that source because they also reflect linguistic developments within Sogdian. Another twenty percent are from a Prakrit or show the intermediation of another language, such as Parthian (probably including pwty ‘Buddha’), Tocharian, or Chinese. About one percent has unclear sources. The Indian loanwords in Manichean, Christian and secular Sogdian texts, in contrast, are in the majority from a Middle Indian source. In Buddhist Sogdian, the narrative texts like the Vessantara Jātaka feature more of the less regular loan shapes, which suggests a different path of transmission and probably an earlier date. An appendix discusses the role of Buddism in Sogdiana from finds there: personal names reflect the divinity of the Buddha; a wooden plaque with a devotional scene was recently discovered in Panjakent; a seal from Kafir-kala depicts a Turkish noblewoman rather than a Boddhisatva. A study of place names indicates the presence of Vihāras (Nawbahār, Farxār) at the gates of several main cities in and around Sogdiana.

Highlights

Status QuaestionisThe problem of Sogdian Buddhism has long been a focus of research of both philologists [1] and archaeologists studying this ancient East Iranian people of Central Asia.1 The discovery LURJEEntangled Religions 11.6 (2020)of Sogdian Buddhist texts in the early twentieth century in Dunhuang and Turfan was initially perceived as an indication of Iranian transmission of Mahāyāna Buddhism from the Indian subcontinent into China
That the majority of the Sogdian Buddhist compositions were translations from Chinese and that these texts could not be a source of the Chinese Tripiṭaka
The historical records often confirm the absence of Buddhism in Sogdiana but sometimes [2] they do not

Summary

Introduction

The problem of Sogdian Buddhism has long been a focus of research of both philologists [1] and archaeologists studying this ancient East Iranian people of Central Asia. The discovery. Of Sogdian Buddhist texts in the early twentieth century in Dunhuang and Turfan (along with Buddhist texts in another middle Iranian vernacular, Khotanese, as well as Tocharian languages, Gāndhārī Prakrit, Uyghur, Chinese and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit) was initially perceived as an indication of Iranian transmission of Mahāyāna Buddhism from the Indian subcontinent into China. It was soon realized, that the majority of the Sogdian Buddhist compositions were translations from Chinese and that these texts could not be a source of the Chinese Tripiṭaka. It includes a discussion on the anthroponymy of the Sogdian Buddhists and on the Buddhist toponymy of Sogdiana and her neighbours, trying to illuminate some features of the modus vivendi of Sogdian Buddhism

Conventions of Borrowings from Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit into Sogdian

Additional Remarks

Findings

Some Conclusions