Reviews Of Diffeent Books

Author(s): J W De Jong
Publisher: J W De Jong

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REVIEWS
Turkish manuscripts from Turfan in West Berlin will be catalogued in four volumes. By far the greatest collection of manuscripts is found in the socalled "Mainzer Sammlung” of the Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz. The second collection belongs to the Museum für Indische Kunst and comprises some very interesting items. The first volume, which is yet to be published, describes Sanskrit - Old-Turkish bilingual and other manuscripts written in Brāhmi and Tibetan script. The third volume will be devoted to manuscripts of the Maitrisimit.
The second volume describes 269 fragments in the Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Of those 183 fragments belong to the Altun Yarok, the Turkish translation of I-tsing's Chinese version of the Suvarnaprabhāsa. 166 fragments have been identified and the remaining numbers (167-183) are still to be identified. Fragments 184–269 belong to the Daśakarmapathāvadānamālā. Most of these fragments were published by F. W. K. Müller and A. v. Gabain in Uigurica III and IV (Berlin, 19221931). In his introduction Gerhard Ehlers indicates the origin of the manuscripts and describes the arrangement of the catalogue. The fragments of the Altun Yarok are arranged according to the Petersburg edition of the text. Gerhard Ehlers points out that the Berlin manuscripts are in general closer to I-tsing's translation than the Petersburg manuscript. As to the fragments of the Daśakarmapathāvadānamālā Gerhard Ehlers distinguishes five different manuscripts (N, D, S, C and Z). The text is divided into ten chapters dealing with the ten karmapathas. Gerhard Ehlers indicates which fragments belong to each of the ten karmapathas.
Klaus Röhrborn remarks in his preface that of all the collections of OldTurkish manuscripts from Turfan until now only one collection has been described in “eine Art von Katalog", i.e. that in the Ryukoku Library in Kyoto. For the collections in London, Stockholm and Paris there are only unpublished lists available and nothing is known about the collections in Leningrad and in Berlin (DDR).' It is to be hoped that the publication of this very carefully compiled catalogue may act as a stimulus and example for catalogues of the collections in other places.
NOTE
There must also be a collection in Peking.
Australian National University
J. W. DE JONG