PIS'MENNYE
PAMYATNIKI
VOSTOKA

Vol. 18, No. 4 (47)
Winter 2021

Journal based in 2004
Issued quarterly

Full text as a *.PDF file

PUBLICATIONS
HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, PHILOLOGY

Svyatoslav A. Polkhov. Araki Murashige’s Rebellion in the Shinchō-kō ki (Part I). Introduction, Translation from Late Medieval Japanese and Commentaries — 5
This publication presents the first academic translation into Russian of books XI and XII of the Shinchō-kō ki chronicle, which is a continuation of the series of translations of this chronicle previously published by the author. One of the key sources on Japanese history of the Sengoku period, the Shinchō-kō ki (late 16th — early 17th centuries), contains a biography of Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582) written by his vassal Ōta Gyūichi (1527–1613). The translated fragments of the chronicle narrate the events connected with the rebellion of Araki Murashige, the powerful ruler of the province of Settsu, against Oda Nobunaga (1578–1579). The translation is supplied with a detailed commentary, in which the information of the chronicle is compared with other sources. The preface gives a brief description of main features of the Shinchō-kō ki as a historical source.
Keywords: Shinchō-kō ki, Ōta Gyūichi, Oda Nobunaga, Araki Murashige, Settsu

RESEARCH WORKS
HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, PHILOLOGY

Alexandr L. Khosroyev. On Docetic Christology in Early Christianity. Pt. 2.3 — 31
According to the doctrine of the so-called docetic Christology, the earthly Jesus and the heavenly Christ were two different persons; it was Jesus who suffered on the cross, Christ just entered Jesus’ body for a while and abandoned it before his death on the cross; consequently, the suffering of Christ was mere appearance. On the basis of some passages from Gnostic texts containing examples of docetic Chrstology, the author attempts here to trace the origin of that concept, starting with the New Testament (Pt. 1: Synoptic Gospels); in the previous parts of the article (Pt. 2.1; 2.2) he analyzed such Paul’s passages as Rom. 1.3–4, Gal. 4.4–7 and 1Cor 8.4–6; in this part he deals with Phlp. 2.5– 11. To be continued.
Keywords: New Testament, pre-existence, docetism, apostle Paul

Youli A. Ioannesyan. Two Obscure Verses in Nizari Quhistani’s Divan — 53
The article deals with two unclear verses in Nizari Quhistani’s Divan on the basis of a manuscript in the Russian National Library. These verses are composed in an unknown dialect (unknown dialects?) and are usually omitted by editors and publishers of Nizari’s poetry in Iran, because they are missing in many transcripts or considered “corrupt” by editors who do not comprehend their meaning. The author, based on dialectological data (both Persian and Iranian) and a comparative analysis of Nizari’s verses in a broader context, puts forward hypotheses and makes suggestions that may cast light on possible ways to interpret the obscure verses.
Keywords: Nizari Quhistani, Persian mystical poetry, Iranian dialectology

HISTORY AND HISTORIOGRAPHY
TEXTOLOGY, CODICOLOGY, PALEOGRAPHY, ARCHEOGRAPHY

Viacheslav P. Zaytsev, Olga M. Chunakova. Sogdian Manuscript Fragments from the Collection of S.F. Oldenburg (The Serindia Collection of the IOM, RAS). Part 1 — 76
This paper, published in two parts, presents the results of joint work on several Sogdian fragments recently discovered in the Serindia Collection of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IOM, RAS), written on scrolls with Chinese texts on the back, as is the case with most similar texts. Study of the Chinese texts on the other side has made it possible to identify them as belonging to the commonly-occurring Buddhist text of the Lotus Sutra (Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-sūtra), and to determine the order of all the fragments. This enabled us to join the new Sogdian fragments with some previously published ones, to determine their order and thus get a better understanding of the Sogdian texts of these fragments. It is also possible to note some features of the use of Chinese scrolls by the Sogdian Manichaeans (the cutting of the scrolls into separate sheets, the possible gluing of the sheets in a different order, etc.).
Keywords: Sogdian manuscripts, Sogdian fragments, Buddhist works, Serindia Collection of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts

Borjigidai Oyunbilig. Historical Events of 1705 in Tibet. Part 1. Translated by Irina R. Garri — 91
Based on a large corpus of sources in Mongolian, Manchu and Chinese languages from the Chinese archives, the article reconstructs the history of one of the most significant events in the history of Tibet — the assassination in 1705 of the Fifth Dalai Lama’s regent, Sangye Gyatso, by Lhavsan Khan of the Khoshot court. The author thoroughly reproduces a cruel confrontation between the khan and the regent which ended by the latter’s execution and shows why the events of 1705 were of great importance for the history of the Mongols and the Tibetans. A series of events that followed, such as the death of the Sixth Dalai Lama, the enthronement of the “true” Seventh Dalai Lama in Kokonor, the invasion of the Dzungars in Tibet in 1717 and, ultimately, the entry of the Qing army into Tibet eventually led to the establishment of the Qing control over Tibet through the Khoshot Mongols. The author concludes that the events of 1705 became an important historical milestone that had a long-term impact on the formation of a unified multinational state under the Qing rule.
Keywords: Tibet, Qing dynasty, Tibeto-Mongolian relations, Lhavsan Khan, regent Sangye Gyatso

Magomed A. Gizbulaev. Zakariya al-Qazwini’s Aja’ib al-Makhluqat wa al-Gharaib al-Mawjudat and Athar al-Bilad wa Akhbar al-‘Ibad on the Eastern Caucasus: Source Studies — 103
This paper provides new information on Dagestan’s history in the 6th–13th centuries through translation, commentary and comparative analysis of excerpts from the Arabic geographical works Aja’ib al-Makhluqat wa al-Gharaib al-Mawjudat (“Marvels of Creatures and Strange Things Existing”) and Athar al-Bilad wa Akhbar al-‘Ibad (“Monuments of Places and History of God’s Bondsmen”) by Zakariya al-Qazwini (d. 1283), which concern the history of the Caucasus’ peoples. The early Arabic accounts in question are not strictly geographical works supplied with astronomical, descriptive data, but a type of book which provides valuable information on historical geography as well as on religion, culture, ethnology, flora and fauna of the Muslim world. As for the reports on religious, cultural and economic life of the region, Qazwini often refers to al-Garnati and repeats data provided by geographers of the 9th–13th centuries about the Caspian Sea, Derbent and the Caucasus in general, with the exception of the original information which is not found by other authors on such Dagestan polities as Tsakhur and Shinaz. Moreover, I used a critical approach to A.R. Shikhsaidov’s translation of excerpts from the given works by Zakariya al-Qazwini, which not only contains stylistic and interpretational flaws, but also omits some fragments present in the original Arabic texts.
Keywords: Zakariya al-Qazwini, Aja’ib al-Makhluqat wa al-Gharaib al-Mawjudat, Athar al-Bilad wa Akhbar al-‘Ibad, comparative analysis, Arabic geography, source study, Caucasus history, Dagestan

COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES

Zare A. Yusupova. In Memory of the Eminent Kurdish Scholar Muhammad Mukri — 115
The article is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the prominent Kurdish scholar, researcher of Kurdish and Iranian culture, M. Mukri (1921–2007). It contains an overview of his major works, the most prominent of which are studies of the Kurdish religious movement known as the Ahl-i haqq, regarded by some scholars as an Islamic sect and considered by some others to be a non-Moslem ethno-confessional community with a rich religious and spiritual literature of its own, written in the South-Kurdish dialect Gorani. In addition, M. Mukri wrote a number of serious works on Kurdish folklore, ethnography and the history of development of Kurdish studies.
Keywords: researcher of Kurdish and Iranian culture M. Mukri, scholarly heritage, the Ahl-i haqq teaching, Kurdish folklore, ethnography, Kurdish studies

ACADEMIC LIFE

Olga M. Chunakova. Seminar in Memory of A.A. Freiman (St. Petersburg, May 19, 2021) — 119

Alexander V. Zorin. The Tenth St. Petersburg Seminar of Tibetan Studies (St. Petersburg, October 18, 2021) — 122

REVIEWS

Zorin A.V., Sabrukova S.S., Sizova A.A. The Catalogue of Texts of the Tibetan Buddhist Canon Kept at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, RAS. Vol. 3: Separate Texts and Collections (I). Ed. by A.V. Zorin. St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg Centre for Oriental Studies Publishers, 2020, 660 pp. (Andrei A. Bazarov) — 127

Sokthan Yeng. Buddhist Feminism: Transforming Anger against Patriarchy. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, xii + 152 pp. (Sergey L. Burmistrov) — 130