Research On The Woodcut Version Of "Mulian Salvation" By Gushi Queerji

Guusi Chorji was an Eastern Mongol Tibetan Buddhist lama living from the end of the sixteenth century to the beginning of the seventeenth century.Up to now,five different xylographic versions of his translation of Sutra of Maudgalyayana Rescuing his Mother(mo.mulun toin-u sudur,ch.mulian jiumu jing)have been found.This thesis,by scrutinizing the five xylographic versions of Sutra of Maudgalyayana Rescuing his Mother,explores the relationships among the different texts and sorts out the history of its circulation.Besides,this thesis consults the established scholarships and catalog of Buddhist scriptures in Mongolian to supplement the study of the translator Guusi Chorji and the publisher Fu Dalai.This thesis contains three parts--Introduction,the xylographical study of Guusi Chorji’s translation of Sutra of Maudgalyayana Rescuing his Mother,and the philological study of Guusi Chorji’s translation of Sutra of Maudgalyayana Rescuing his Mother.The Introduction first explains the topic,the current scholarship,and the methodology,and then introduces the handwritten copy of the five Mongolian translations of Sutra of Maudgalyayana Rescuing his Mother respectively,the current situation of the woodblock print versions,the involved primary sources,and a summary of the content of Sutra of Maudgalyayana Rescuing his Mother.The xylographical study of Guusi Chorji’s translation of Sutra of Maudgalyayana Rescuing his Mother contains three chapters.The First chapter utilizes the methodologies of historical study and philological study to conduct the supplementary study of the translator Guusi Chorji and the publisher Fu Dalai.The first section summarizes the study of Guusi Chorji for a general understanding.This section collects Guusi Chorji’s twenty-seven Mongolian Buddhist scripture translations and displays it with a table.This collection includes several undiscovered or unnoticed scriptures thus is the latest catalog of Guusi Chorji’s translations of Mongolian Buddhist scriptures.The second section studies the religious activities of the publisher Fu Dalai.The previous scholarship shows that the woodblock workshop of Fu Dalai prints Buddhist scriptures in Mongolian from 1707-1733 CE outside the Anding Gate,Beijing.Through scrutinizing related scholarship,Mongolian primary source catalog,and Mongolian Buddhist scripture,the author pined down the more specific location and the name of Fu Dalai’s woodblock workshop.Meanwhile,the author compiles a table with the information concerning the woodblock print published by Fu Dalai’s woodblock workshop and proposes that his woodblock workshop operated between 1707 and 1736 CE.The second and third chapters explore the origins of the five versions of Guusi Chorji’s translation of Sutra of Maudgalyayana Rescuing his Mother and divide them into two systems.Chapter two determines the woodblock print of year "Bing Shen" as 1686 CE and clarifies the point that this version is different from the other four versions which form another system.Chapter three proposes that the version of Khambu Dachang,the version of Agu Dachang,and the reproduction of the version of 1708 CE came directly from the version of 1708 CE.Specifically,first,while it is known among the scholars that the 1708 version was reproduced in the nineteenth century,it has not been determined which one was the first production and which was the reproduction.Secondly,the author concludes that the woodblock print version produced in the Buryat Agu monastery at the end of the nineteenth century was a critical edition of the reproduction of the 1708 woodblock print version.The philological study of Guusi Chorji’s translation of Sutra of Maudgalyayana Rescuing his Mother contains three sections.First,the author makes Latin letter transliteration based on the 1708 woodblock print version and critically edited it according to the other four versions.Second,the author produced an annotation of 105 words of Sutra of Maudgalyayana Rescuing his Mother for a better understanding of the text.Finally,the author makes a word index of the 1708 version.