6th International Symposium Oriental Studies

The 6 th International Symposium on Oriental Ancient Documents Studies 92 Vladimir Uspenskiy The Mongolian Translation of the Fifth Dalai Lama’s Secret Visionary Autobiography The most distinguished among esoteric works of the Fifth Dalai Lama, Ngag-dbang blo-bzang rgya-mtsho (1617–1682) is the Secret (lit. “Sealed”) VisionaryAutobiography. The text consists of three divisions: 1) the “Mother” ( ma ), 2) the “Son” ( bu ), 3) colour illustrations. The relationship between these three divisions is obvious. The twenty-five “sealed” chapters of the “Mother” division are the Dalai Lama’s Secret Autobiography, in which he wrote in detail about his visions and mystical experiences. In order to make his personal spiritual achievements an established religious practice he had to write detailed instructions for those disciples on whom he transmitted his teachings. These texts formed the “Son” division. The illustrations were meant to serve as a sort of visual supplement to these written instructions. The Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the RAS possesses a complete illustrated text of the Secret Visionary Autobiography. A complete Mongolian translation of the first twenty-five chapters of the Secret Visionary Autobiography (i.e., the “Mother” division) is kept in the Library of the St. Petersburg State University. It was brought to Russia in the 1840es within a big collection of Mongolian manuscripts which belonged to Prince Yunli. This collection was purchased in Beijing by the brilliant Russian scholar V.P. Vassiliev (1818–1900). Prince Yunli (1697–1738), the seventeenth son of the Emperor Kangxi (reigned 1662–1722) of the Manchu Qing dynasty, was one of the highest governmental officials in the empire. Alongside with his political activities, he was an ardent devotee of Tibetan Buddhism, especially of the rNying-ma- pa School esoteric teachings. For many years Yunli headed the Department of Tributary Territories (Chin. Lifanyuan) which handled relations with Mongolia and Tibet. Yunli encouraged the translation of various Buddhist texts into Mongolian and sponsored their xylographic editions. Two teams of translators seem to have been working on this Mongolian translation project as can be deduced from the fact that two different