A Fragment of the Uṣṇīṣavijayā Dhāraṇī from Turfan Housed in the Museum für Asiatische Kunst in Berlin

This paper deals with an edition of a newly identified fragment of the Uṣṇīṣavijayā Dhāraṇī in Old Uyghur from Turfan, which is preserved in the collection of Museum für Asiatische Kunst (Museum of Asian Art) in Berlin. The fragment basically represents the dhāraṇī part of the Uṣṇīṣavijayā Dhāraṇī in Old Uyghur script. The fragment is compared with the parallel Old Uyghur fragments that also include the dhāraṇī section and are preserved in the Berlin Turfan collection. The transcription and transliteration of the work is given. Its versions in other languages are compared to explore differences between the texts. Finally, a reconstructed text is presented.

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.

From Phrase to Clause: The Active Participle in Ugaritic

This paper suggests a morphological, syntactic, and semantic analysis of the active participle in Ugaritic. The formally ambiguous cases are interpreted by taking into account the syntactic and semantic properties of explicit cases. The syntactic usages of the participle are the attributive phrase, the substantivized attributive phrase, the agent-noun, and the circumstantial participial phrase. The semantic analysis points at explicit verbal properties of some participial phrases in Ugaritic: they can denote a stage-level predicative core acquiring episodic interpretations and attaching temporal arguments. I hypothesize that the prototypical context for the development of the predicative participle (sporadically attested in the language of Ugaritic prose and consistently in later Northwest Semitic languages) is a participial phrase that suggests stage-level episodic interpretation and assigns subject that is co-referential with the main-clause subject.

The Etymology of Vedic bravi ‘to say, to speak, to tell’

This paper argues that the standard etymology of Vedic bravi ‘to say, to speak, to tell’ from Proto-Indo-European *mleu̯h2- ‘to speak’ (and its connection with Avestan mrao- ‘to say, to speak’) cannot be upheld, since it is based on an irregular consonant change that cannot be independently motivated and explained. As an alternative, two different PIE verbal roots will be proposed, *melH-u- → mleu̯H- ‘to say, to speak’ and *bleu̯h2/3-‘to speak or to call’, that provide phonologically and semantically regular bases for the words involved.

Body Exposure and Embalming in the Tibetan Empire and Beyond: A Study of the btol Rite

The paper puts forward a new interpretation of the problematic word btol that is sparsely attested in Old Tibetan sources. The philological analysis is supported by a lexicological survey of potential cognates; taken together these allow us to sketch the word family of btol, and thus to better understand the underlying semantics of the word. It is argued that the term denoted a rite within a funeral ceremony; to be specific, the rite of exposure of the deceased’s body before it was interred. In order to contextualise the rite and to assess its cultural significance, this paper also discusses certain funeral customs of later periods.

Syro-Uigurica III: Enochic Material in a Christian Text from Turfan

This article examines a fragmentary Christian text from Turfan written in Uyghur which contains an embedded Syriac magical text intended to be used for corralling a horse. Aft er giving a transcription and translation of the Syriac passage and setting it in its literary context, including the role of amulets and other magical texts in the history of Syriac Christianity, the article discusses the angelic name Saraqael found in the Syriac extract, in an effort to trace the origins of the text. Excurses are given on the book of I Enoch and the Book of Giants, the first because the angelic name is found in it, the second because of its connections with the Aramaic and Central Asian cultural zones. The article then examines another text where the angelic name occurs, the Pishra de-Rabbi Ḥanina ben Dosa, before discussing possible links to other Syriac amulets and incantation bowls.

Turko-Tatar Roots of Modern Odessa: Hocabey and Karakermen

Located on the northern shore of the Black Sea, Odessa is one of Eastern Europe’s great cities. Much has been written about its history. Most of these studies were written from the Russian imperial perspective, and so the city’s Turko-Tatar period has been neglected. The present article attempts to shed light on this period of Odessa’s history, drawing mainly on Ottoman chronicles and archival documents. The predecessor and nucleus of the city was the Karakermen redoubt (palanka), which was built by Mengli Giray Khan I in 1495. Karakermen was destroyed as a result of recurrent Cossack raids in the mid-16th century. Although the Ottomans had intended to revitalise the city by rebuilding the redoubt during the last quarter of the 16th century, this project would be realized only in 1764 with the emergence of the town of Hocabey.

Frame Narratives Concerning the Chinese Origin of Divination and Geomancy in Mongolian Manuscript Texts

This paper introduces three Mongolian texts of various genres linked together by their frame narratives which all refer to Mongolian notions regarding the Chinese origin of divination, geomancy and related rituals. The frame narratives represent a rare component of Mongolian texts of these genres. The texts are published in transcription, with a translation, and compared to the corresponding textual tradition as well as to wider cultural context illustrated by instances from oral tradition.