A Study Of Nestorian Literature In Uighur

This study investigates the Old Uighur Nestorianism (also called Jingjiao, the Church of the East, or Eastern Christianity) during the Middle Ages (5th-15th century) through the collection and translation of the first-hand documents.For a long time, many people are unaware that the Old Uighur Nestorianism has a significant presence in China and even in the whole world during the Middle Ages. Reasons behind this are the following: Firstly, the religious belief of the Old Uighur mainly experienced in Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Buddhism and Islam, while Nestorianism belief was relatively short. Therefore, it has not been paid attention to by people. Secondly, from the unearthed documents we can see that the range of the materials are quite extensive. They appeared in Central Asia, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Jiangsu, Fujian and so on. Quite a lot manuscripts are kept in Germany, which is so inconvenient to reference the originals. Thirdly, because of the trans-regional dialects, word transformation and many other changes happened in the Old Uighur scripts, which make it especially difficult to understand. This project is to solve the above problems so that readers can not only reference the most important materials both on manuscripts and inscriptions unearthed worldwide, but also understand the outlook of the Old Uighur Nestorianism.In this paper, we focus on the Old Uighur Nestorianism literature and its translation. The materials used in this paper are inscriptions, manuscripts and a few colophons. Our predecessors have already made a massive progress for us. A. von Gabain and many other scholars published Die altturkische Literatur bringing an overall investigation on Turk literature. In the 1980s, Research on Uighur Documents since 1975 by Peter Zieme focuses on the Old Uighur religious and makes an overview for scholars. Then, Christentum and Buddhismus in der innerasiatischen Religionsbewegung by H.J.Klimkeit is specifically on Nestorianism. The translation of the single monument was started by D.Chwolson and Pavel Kokovzoff, and the manuscript translation unearthed in Turfan was started by Muller. As for the number of the translation of single pieces, Peter Zieme and Niu Ruji have covered a significant proportion. For all the above scholars, they provide a foundation for the area. Sadly, the documents are too scattered for readers to understand its origin, evolution and the correlation.The purpose of this paper is to provide an platform for the OldUighur Nestorianism texts supported by certain researching methods. For the analysis of the generalized texts, the methods in the study are related to literature, linguistics, history, comparison, synchronic description and quantitative statistics. As for the special single text, the method of vocabulary semantics analysis and exegetical study are used.This paper consists of introduction, main text, epilogue and appendix.The introduction includes the questions, the study significance, and the review of the predecessor of the Old Uighur Nestorianism. Also, the research methods, objects, the symbols and abbreviations are included.The main text consists of three different levels of contents, which is divided into three chapters.Chapter One is the document overview on the Old Uighur Nestorianism. In this part, the history of the Old Uighur Nestorianism is introduced in the first section. In Section Two, this paper presents the text findings and collections. The last section is to classify the different literature pieces. It is "the classification method based on the excavating areas" that is adopted in Chapter Two.Chapter Two is the literature translation and analysis. First of all, the Old Uighur Nestorianism texts unearthed in domestic are provided, then, followed by foreign ones. The transcription and translation of the texts are also necessarily provided in this chapter.Chapter Three studies special terms and fixed collocation of the Old Uighur Nestorianism texts. In the first part, the special terms, the turk/tabyac saqis, alaqsantoroz saqis, u- and iizd, are discussed. In the second part this paper presents the two fixed sentence structures frequently used in the inscriptions. One is bu qabra... ning ol and the other is tangri yarliy.The epilogue gives a brief summary on the phonetic system, grammatical analysis and the structure. The history and culture of the Old Uighur Nestorianism are also brought to light.As an integral part of the main research, facsimiles and glossary are included in the appendix.