A Study Of Ancient Uygur Calendar And Divinatory Literature

Old Uyghur soothsaying texts and calendars are of great importance in Old Uyghur philology. Hitherto identified 90 pieces of Old Uyghur soothsaying and calendar fragments, among which 59 fragments are preserved in Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Germany, one fragment is preserved in the Museum of Asian Art (the former Museum of Indian Art) in Berlin, Germany, three of them are preserved in East Asian Library of Princeton University, USA, one fragment is preserved in the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia, two of them preserved in National Library of Beijing, China, and two of them being housed in Dunhuang Academy, China, however the original form of 22 fragments were lost.Old Uyghur soothsaying texts and calendars involve a wide range of contents, including divination, calendar, astronomy, astrology, and amulet, etc. Among them the longest text is composed of more than 50 lines, the shortest one contains only 2 to 3 lines. According to the binding form of the manuscripts, they are written on the booklet sheet and folding type forms. Most of the Old Uyghur soothsaying texts and calendars are written in the cursive and half-cursive type of the Old Uyghur script. In addition, there are also some woodblock printed Buddhist magic, divination, and calendar fragments.Generally speaking, these texts were formed under the influence of Manichaeism, Buddhism and Taoism, which are a mixture of the science and superstition.Turkische Turfantexte I, which was published by the German scholars Willi Bang and Annemarie von Gabain in 1929, and Turkische Turfantexte Ⅶ, which was published by the Turkish scholar Resid Rahmeti Arat in 1936 are considered to be the earliest comprehensive research results on the Old Uyghur soothsaying texts and calendars. During the past 80 years, many scholars such as Louis Bazin, Judith Ogden Bullitt, Sir Gerard Clauson, James Hamilton, Dai Matsui, Lilija Tugusheva, Yutaka Yoshida, Peter Zieme, and had all carried out research from a different perspective on the Old Uyghur soothsaying texts and calendars. Starting from the Willi Bang and Annemarie von Gabains’ research, the study on the Old Uyghur soothsaying texts and calendars had been going on for more than 80 years, during which Central Asian Philology made a great progress, and research methods also achieved clear improvement. Regarding Turkic philology, up until now, the huge literature texts such as Sutra of Golden Light, Abhidharma-kosa-bhasya-tikd Tattvartha-nama, Xuanzang Biography, Mairisimit Nom Bitig have been published. Moreover, the Old Turkic documents which are preserved in different countries have been published in the form of catalog, digital plate, monographs and papers, etc. Scholars in China, France, Germany, Japan, Russia and Turkey published a large number of works based on these research results, and discussed their linguistic, historical, religious, philological and cultural aspects. Their research includes dictionaries, grammars and philological research results. More importantly, the transcription, transliteration and translation methods of the Old Turkic philology made great progression during this period of time. A systematic research based on the published and unpublished Old Uyghur soothsaying texts and calendars has already placed on the Central Asian philological research agenda. Therefore, a comprehensive research on these fragments in contrast to their Chinese originals or parallel texts which is based on the new research results and methods of the Central Asian philology became desideratum. This is why I have selected the Old Uyghur soothsaying texts and calendars as my topic of the present dissertation.Under the frame of the philological study, the present dissertation presents the transcription.Meanwhile, it tries to transliteration, Chinese translation and philological and linguistic notes, trying to illustrate morphological and syntactic features descriptions of the language of the Old Uyghur soothsaying texts and calendars. In addition, it analyzes semantic meaning, structural features and etymology of soothsaying and calendar terms in the Old Uyghur soothsaying texts and calendars.The present dissertation consists of four parts:Besides the introduction, it includes chapters on the text edition, linguistic description and analysis of texts, conclusion and appendix.The introductory part introduces the aim and significance of this study, research background, research methods, the range of study, and also illustrations, symbols and abbreviations.The second part, the philological part includes the following two chapters:Chapter one:the Old Uyghur soothsaying texts and calendars, and their classification. In this chapter, firstly, an introduction is given to discovery, preservation and spelling features of the Old Uyghur soothsaying texts and calendars; secondly, the classification of the Old Uyghur soothsaying texts and calendars, based on its content and origin was provided.Chapter two:A philological study on the Old Uyghur soothsaying texts and calendars. In this chapter, the selected 90 fragments are first divided into 11 groups on the basis of their origin and content, and then presented the transcription, transliteration, Chinese translation and philological notes. The notes mainly focus on the lexical meaning, etymology, morphological and syntactical properties of the text.The text edition part also provides an analytical index of vocabulary of the Old Uyghur soothsaying texts and calendars.The third part, which is the linguistic description and analysis of texts, includes following two chapters:Chapter three:Structural features of the Old Uyghur soothsaying texts and calendars. This chapter includes detailed phonological descriptions of the sound system of the language of the Old Uyghur soothsaying texts and calendars, providing rather detailed descriptions and classification of the phonetic and morphological changes as seen in the language of the Old Uyghur soothsaying texts and calendars; it also provides analysis on the phrases and sentences. Aside from this, this chapter also discusses the word order, subject clause, non-subject clause, complex sentences etc.Chapter four:An analysis of soothsaying and calendar terms in the Old Uyghur soothsaying texts and calendars. This chapter mainly discusses soothsaying and calendar terms occurring in the Old Uyghur soothsaying texts and calendar, focusing on their semantics, structure, and etymology. Meanwhile, attentions are also paid to loanwords in the Old Uyghur soothsaying texts and calendars, closely analyzing the route of the terms that are being borrowed.The conclusion gives a brief summary of main points which were concluded through analysis in the main body of this dissertation.The appendix provides some facsimile of the Old Uyghur soothsaying texts and calendars. Indeed, the appendix will be one of the most important results of this study, and an indispensable part of this dissertation.