6th International Symposium Oriental Studies

The 6 th International Symposium on Oriental Ancient Documents Studies 110 Peter Zieme The Buddhist Hrdayasūtra in Old Uyghur and an Unknown Commentary One of the well-known and widespread Buddhist sutras of small form is the so-called Heart sutra, which might be the shortest one at all. There is a long debate about its affiliation in the chain of translations. Jan Nattier has shown that with high probability the sutra was composed in China proper, of course based on the essentials of the Prajñāpāramitā literature. In Old Uyghur a translation of the sutra is known and was edited by A. Yakup. But in this paper I want to discuss another fragment belonging to the German Collection of Turfan fragments in which I see a commentary to the sutra. This statement is based on contextual analysis, but also on the ground that in the text several times the words temäk or temiši appear. These are typical elements known from the commentarial literature in Old Uyghur. The text of the fragment will be discussed and presented in its Buddhist context. Key words: Buddhism, sutra, Old Uighur, Turfan. .