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『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

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0317 Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2
中国砂漠地帯の遺跡 : vol.2
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 / 317 ページ(カラー画像)

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doi: 10.20676/00000213
引用形式選択: Chicago | APA | Harvard | IEEE

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passages in the Fathers of the Church show, was long
a serious rival to Christianity on the shores of the
Mediterranean.

But apart from this quasi-historical interest, the Mani-
chaean relic from the 'Thousand Buddhas' has proved also
of philological value. Dr. A. von Lecoq, the distinguished
Turkologist savant of the Royal Ethnographical Museum
at Berlin and the successful leader of the second German
expedition to Turfan, who was kind enough to undertake
its publication, has shown in an annotated edition recently
brought out in the Royal Asiatic Society's Journal that the
Tun-huang manuscript contains the most complete text so
far known of the 'Khuastanift' or Confession Prayer of
the Manichaean auditores or laymen, in its early Turkish
version. Only about one-tenth of the text at the commence-
ment has been lost, and this could fortunately be supple-
mented from fragments now at Berlin. Without going
into details it will suffice to mention, in Dr. von Lecoq's
words, that "its excellent state of preservation and the
fact of its being written in the clear unequivocal letters of
the Manichaean alphabet render this manuscript a most
valuable help to all interested in the study of the ancient
Turkish speech."

For the same reason another unique 'find' from the
walled-up library claims mention in this place. It is a
small manuscript book of over a hundred pages in that
earliest Turkish writing designated Runic Turki, known
until recently only from the famous Orkhon inscriptions.
Some fragmentary leaves in the same script resembling
in appearance the runes of the North had turned up at
Turfan, and I myself had come upon a sheet of it in the
ruined fort of Miran, as already related, as well as some
fragments among the contents of the Tun-huang cave.
But the little book just referred to is complete from
beginning to end (Fig. 192, 3), and by far the largest literary
text in that script.

Its value is much increased by the fact that, accord-
ing to a communication of Professor V. Thomsen, who has
honoured me by accepting the task of publishing it, the
book is probably an original composition in Turkish and