Studies on the vocabulary of the Buddhist Sogdian text fragments from the Turfan oasis

• Applicant: Dr. Christiane Reck
• Subject Area: Asian Studies
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 510626449

The aim of the project is to analyse the vocabulary of a particular group of Buddhist texts in the Sogdian language. The texts in question are limited in time (7th-11th cent. CE) and loca-tion (Turfan region, nowadays Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China). This literature is the primary evidence for the existence of Sogdian-speaking Buddhist communities in this area and at this time. The study will clarify the peculiarities of this corpus of Buddhist Sogdian literature. At the same time it will make possible a comparison with the better-known vocabu-lary of the Buddhist Sogdian texts found at another Silk Road site, Dunhuang in western Chi-na, a body of source material of widely different character. Thus the sectarian character of the Buddhism of the Sogdians in the Turfan region will be clarified. Such a systematic study is a desideratum in the field of both Iranian and Buddhist studies, contributing to research into the Sogdian language and into Buddhism in Central Asia and closing a major gap in the re-search landscape.As a basis for the study we will compile a multilingual database of the lexicon of all published and unpublished manuscripts, thus allowing a philological analysis. Since this literature is largely translated from Chinese, it will be essential to present the Chinese equivalents of the Sogdian words systematically throughout. In parallel the reception of the relevant Indian terms and loanwords via other languages such as Tocharian will also be included.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: United Kingdom
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Nicholas Sims-Williams, Ph.D.