6th International Symposium Oriental Studies

99 The 6 th International Symposium on Oriental Ancient Documents Studies Natalia Yakhontova Mistakes in Manuscripts: Useless and Useful for Mongolian Textology When manuscripts are copied and xylographs are carved new errors inevitably occur. There are two main reasons for mistakes. First is a human- factor: these jobs were done by humans. The second is a bad quality of the text copied. The most frequently occurring mistakes in manuscript copies are missing of letters or diacritic signs. Such mistakes only testify the copyist’s level of accuracy. Producing a xylograph was a more complicated job than just copying a manuscript. Boards for printing were carved following mirror print of the text made on wooden boards. Carving was often done by illiterate craftsmen and if the pattern text was not distinctive enough, mistakes appeared. Comparing different prints with different mistakes of one and the same piece can be useful in tracing the sequence of texts origination. Such comparison of the titles of different editions of “Nere-yin dalai” dictionary added evidence in favor of the first/later origination of prints. Not a few mistakes happen in Mongolian translations from Tibetan. Not accurate translationmay be caused by the same reason as that inmanuscripts— not satisfactory quality of the original printing. One letter could be taken for another and a different word was translated, which changed the meaning in translation. Another type of mistakes appears in translating a limited group of lexis – Tibetan proper names and the like. Many of them are of Sanskrit origin and their not clear original meaning as well as the absence of the context caused their free interpretation based on the meaning which seemed more appropriate for the translator. Epithets that are of Sanskrit origin demonstrate a good number of such translations – mistakes if compared to the Sanskrit meaning of the original. Key words: Mongolian textology, Mongolian translations from Tibetan, Sanscrit, xylograph.