This paper addresses the questions that were left unanswered in my previously published
works on the Mongolian translations of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā. It shows that
the five earliest Mongolian translations of the sutra were based on the Tibetan version
known as gzo sbyangs, suggesting that in the first half of the 17th century the gzo sbyangs
version, which is a rarity today, dominated the transmission of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā in
Mongolia and was later replaced by the widely spread phreng ba can version. Two of
the early Mongolian translations have preserved a rare Tibetan colophon. Currently this
colophon is known to have survived in a unique Tibetan manuscript kept at the Otani
University, Japan. The colophon declares that the sutra was edited by several figures of
the snga dar period, whose identities are under question.
The documentary on Islamic calligraphy “The Dot” (2020) will be shown as part of Public Lectures at the IOM RAS (with support from the Ibn Sina Foundation) at 17:30 on Wednesday, December 7, 2022.
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