Two Rhyming Mongolic Words in Kitan Assembled Script

This note discusses the reading, the meaning and the history of two Mongolic words, šawa ‘bird of prey’ and čala ‘stone’ of the Kitan language written in the second of the two writing systems of the Kitan Liao Empire, the assembled, or composite, or as commonly called, ‘small’ script.

VARIETY OF SCIENTIFIC CONCLUSIONS ON THE ETHNOGENESIS OF THE КHITAN PEOPLE

The article scientifically examines the origins of the Khitan tribes in the early Middle Ages and various views on this issue in historical sources. It also discusses the early history of the Khitan people and the factors of socio-political events that took place in the Far East at that time. The article also provides a scientific analysis of the scientific considerations put forward by various scientists. This article also contains anthropological, linguistic and other evidence of the origin of the Khitan tribes.Index Terms: migration of peoples, Far East, China, ethnogenesis, Chinese, Liao Empire, Karahitai, eight tribes, three kingdoms of Korea, ethnonym “Tsidan”, chronicles, Sunnu tribal union, Xianbin tribal union, Yuwen, Kumosi, mujun, struggle, Sun dynasty, historian Wuyang Xu, Siberian Mongoloid race, Muslim historians

GENESIS AND MAIN TRENDS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF BUDDHISM IN THE BOHAI STATE

The genesis and initial development of Bohai Buddhism is due to several factors. Firstly, the beginning of Buddhism in the Bohai State was laid by the penetration and influence of the Buddhist culture of the Sui and Tang dynasties; the carriers of this trend could be the Mohe from Yingzhou, who were part of the conglomerate of the creators of the state. Secondly, the integration of Goguryeo Buddhism and its followers who inhabited the Tumen River basin played a significant role. Later, the Buddhist culture of the Tang Dynasty exerted an ever-increasing influence on the development of Bohai Buddhism. With the development of the political system, cities and transport links in the Bohai State, Buddhism gradually became the dominant religious ideology in worldview and culture. Bohai Buddhism received its vivid expression in the construction of temples and pagodas. The architecture and decoration of Bohai's Buddhist temples and pagodas reflected their strong resemblance to the Buddhist culture of the Tang Dynasty. After the defeat of the Bohai State by the Khitan and the creation of the Liao Empire, Bohai Buddhism did not quickly disappear, its remains can be traced in the culture of the Bohai people that survived after the fall of the state, especially in the beliefs of the Bohai aristocracy.

What Was in the “Precious Casket Seal”?: Material Culture of the Karaṇḍamudrā Dhāraṇī throughout Medieval Maritime Asia

Material evidence from late medieval China attests that Buddhist of the Wuyue kingdom and Liao empire participated in the pan-Buddhist practice of dhāraṇīs and, more specifically, the cult of textual relics. What formed the basis of the cult is the Sūtra of theDhāraṇī of the Precious Casket Seal of the Concealed Complete-body Relics of the Essence of All Tathāgatas. I argue that the rhetoric of completeness, which is brought to the fore in the sutra’s title and reiterated throughout the text, lay at the heart of the success that it achieved. I trace the transfer of the text from South Asia to East Asia along the maritime routes, while closely examining designs and material forms, and various structuring contexts of the text. By doing so, I contribute to the scholarship on the cult of dhāraṇīs as relics of the dharma across Buddhist Asia.

A BUDDHIST NARRATIVE SCENE FROM THE HELSINKI MUSEUM: A MEDIEVAL BELT MOUNT (MINUSINSK DEPRESSION)

Вводится в научный оборот ременная концевая накладка, изготовленная из бронзы, с позолотой, хранящаяся в Музейном ведомстве Финляндии (Хельсинки) в составе коллекции древностей из Минусинской котловины И. П. Товостина. Предмет уникален декором – сюжетным изображением буддийского мифологического содержания. Аналогии сюжету неизвестны. Рассмотрены аналогии иконографическим деталям изображения, приведены интерпретации смыслового наполнения символических образов. Сюжет носит благопожелательный характер, изначально, возможно, имел и более глубокий религиозный смысл. На основе особенностей технологии изготовления предмет отнесен к изделиям киданьского круга (империя Ляо) и условно датирован X – началом XI в. A bronze-gilt belt mount kept in the Finland’s National Board of Antiquities (Helsinki) from I. P. Tovostin’s collection of antiquities from the Minusinsk Depression is introduced into scientific discourse. It is a unique item because of its decoration featuring a narrative scene related to a Buddhist myth (Fig. 1). No analogies to this narrative scene are known. The paper examines analogies to the iconographic elements of the scene (Fig. 2; 3), and provides interpretation of the meaning of symbolic images. The narrative scene is benevolent in its character and initially might have had a more religious significance. Based on the distinctive features of the production technology, the item has been attributed to the artifacts of the Khitan circle (Liao Empire) and tentatively dated to the 10th – early 11th centuries.

The Khitan Names of the Five Capitals

This paper surveys the Khitan names of the so-called “Five Capitals” of the Liao empire (907–1125). In this connection, the lexemes denoting the compass points (north, south, east, west) and related expressions of orientation (right, left, centre) are examined in the light of the information supplied by the relevant historical context and the extant corpus of Khitan Small Script texts. In addition, the dynastic name of the Liao empire is also discussed. The discussion reveals several previously unobserved details of linguistic, philological, historical, and cultural interest, and allows the Khitan system of orientation to be placed in the general context of comparative Mongolic studies.