HisTochText - History of the Tocharian texts of the Pelliot Collection
This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 788205)
Activity
Title
Georges-Jean Pinault, "New findings in Tocharian literature and language"
Date
September 15,2022
Place
34. Deutscher Orientalistentag 12.-17.09.2022 Freie Universität Berlin 100 Jahre DOT
Description
Since the Vienna conference (Juin 2013, edited in 2015), the Tocharology has enjoyed advances based on the study of Tocharian texts in their religious, i.e., Buddhist, cultural and historical contexts. The HisTochText (History of the Tocharian texts of the Pelliot collection) project ( supported by the European Research Council. Advanced Grant. Action number 778205, 2018-2023), aims to investigate the manuscript culture of Buddhism in the Kucha region, through crossing of several relevant parameters: materiality of the manuscripts, formatting of Buddhist books, paleography, genres of Tocharian (A and B) literature, Buddhist phraseology, etc. This multidisciplinary approach leads to significant results in the identification of Tocharian manuscripts. A case in point is the series of leaves PK NS 1-6, belonging to a manuscript found in Subashi, but in Tocharian A, not in Tocharian B, as expected in the Kucha region. A new edition is in preparation by A.Huard, K.Laclavetine and G-J Pinault. The interpretation has much benefited from new images and their treatment through several filters, in the frame of the HisTochText project. This rare manuscript provides a Tocharian parallel to the Bower manuscript (Bodleian Library, Oxford), 5th/6th century CE, written in Sanskrit, which has been found in Buddhist ruins, also near Kucha, edited and translated by A.F. Rudolf Hoernle (Calcutta, 1912). The content of the TA manuscript is heterogeneous as well: first, a magical text (mixed with Sanskrit formulas), and second, part of a book of omens through wooden sticks, which has further parallels in Central Asia.
