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

该项目旨在通过系统地比较吐火罗语关于佛陀生平的文本与中亚（尤其是印度）的平行文本，首次对所有吐火罗语关于佛陀传说的文本进行语言学和语言学上的比较分析，并为吐火罗语语法和词汇的语言学探索做出贡献。该项目将为进一步研究吐火罗佛教和发展北方丝绸之路沿线的佛教传说提供基础。关于这两种吐火罗语的语法和词汇的知识还远远没有完成。对仍然鲜为人知的古印欧语的研究自然需要各个学科的密切合作。就吐火罗语而言，这种合作涉及到特别的印欧语言学（其方法对研究语法和词汇至关重要）、印度语、中亚研究和佛教研究。在项目过程中，上述所有学科的技能将以示范性的方式相互促进。

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.