The Legends of the Life of the Buddha in Tocharian Texts: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of the Central Asian Transmission

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The project intends to provide for the first time a linguistic and philological-comparative analysis of all Tocharian texts on the Buddha-legend by a systematic comparing comparison of the Tocharian texts on the life of the Buddha with the Central Asian (and especially Indian) parallel texts, and to contribute to the linguistic exploration of the Tocharian grammar and lexicon. The project will thus provide the basis for the further study of Tocharian Buddhism and the development of the Buddha-legend along the northern Silk Road.The knowledge of the grammar and lexicon of both Tocharian languages are still far from being complete. The investigation into old Indo-European languages that are still less known naturally requires an intimate collaboration of various disciplines. In the case of Tocharian, this collaboration involves in particular Indo-European linguistics (whose method is essential to investigate grammar and lexicon), Indology, Central Asian studies, and Buddhist studies. In the course of the project, the skills of all the aforementioned disciplines will be cross-fertilized in an exemplary fashion.