British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences
A HUNDRED YEARS OF DUNHUANG, 1907-2007
Abstracts
The Altun Yaruk Sudur – reconstructed
Dr. Simone-Christiane Raschmann, Berlin, KOHD Turfanforschung
The St. Petersburg manuscripts of the Old Turkish version of the S?tra of Golden Light are well-known and form the main source for the study of this text. An annotated bibliography of recent articles of Chinese and Uigur scholars in this field is in print. In 2005 the cataloguing of the more than 1000 fragments of the Altun Yaruk Sudur in the Berlin Turfan collection was completed. The high number of fragments of this text clearly shows its enormous popularity among the Uigurs in the Turfan oasis. The Berlin fragments are of particular importance because they belong to manuscripts which are much older than those preserved in St. Petersburg and which make it possible to fill the gaps in the Petersburg manuscripts, for instance at the end of book IX and at the beginning of book X. The fragments had been identified on the basis of the Chinese version of the text, from which the Old Turkish version was translated around the beginning of 10th century AD by the famous translator Ši?ko Šäli Tutu?. In the meantime, new fragments of the Altun Yaruk Sudur have recently been excavated in China, and others have been identified in the manuscript collections in St. Petersburg or London.