Die Lehre des Buddha und das Königshaus des Westuigurischen Reichs: Die vier Begegnungen

Abstract

In 2019 Abdurishid Yakup edited a significant Old Uighur text from the National Library in Beijing in the journal “Turkic Languages”, which is of importance for research into the Central Asian religious history of the Middle Ages beyond its turkological interest. Since in the meantime further copies have appeared, through which some difficult passages of the text can be interpreted in a new light, it is appropriate to dare to revise it, even if new problems come into the limelight again. This is a kind of religious memorandum, which was intended to encourage the royal house to turn to Buddhism. Uighur Buddhists bear witness to the colourful expressions of the classical literature of the Old Uighur period, although the manuscripts themselves probably date more from the Mongolian period of the 13th and 14th centuries.