(Silpakorn University)
Plurality and prophecy: The plural uses of Buddha appellations in Altaic and Indo-Iranian languages
68th Annual Meeting of the PIAC, Bangkok 2026
The transmission of Buddhism along the Silk Road networks motivated the adaptation of complex religious terminologies across diverse ethnolinguistic communities, particularly those in the Altaic world. Among these lexical neologisms in Altaic languages, this paper examines a reflex of the Pāli appellation Buddha in Old Uyghur and Classical Mongolian, Burhan.
An intriguing aspect of this term is the use of plural forms, Burhanlar and Burxad. In many contexts observed in Buddhist and Manichean texts, this is not necessarily a case of reference to multiple lives of the Buddha (the jātis). Rather, the plural appellations can refer solely to the last Buddha incarnation where he achieved Nirvāna. Using several representative Buddhist and Manichean texts written in Old Uyghur and Middle Mongolian, as available in online corpora (e.g. Vorislamische Alttürkische Texte: Elektronisches Corpus), this study describes typical contexts in which the plural forms occur, while also considering their grammatical properties, such as case markers and syntactic functions in sentences. Where relevant, comparison with parallel examples in Middle Indo-Iranian languages, such as Southeast Asian Sanskrit, Pāli, Prākrit, and Bactrian, is made.
From a cultural perspective, the discussion assesses how indigenous pre-Buddhist animistic and shamanistic practices of these Altaic communities could have influenced the perception of such a concept related to a prophet. For instance, the Manichean tradition uses Burhan and Burxan to refer not only to Buddha(s) but also to any religious prophet in general. As a result, this study seeks to provide interpretations and implications of the plural forms, which potentially indicate a conceptual shift in Central Asian Buddhist cosmologies—accommodating a multiplicity of enlightened beings or localized deities. Ultimately, the findings shed light on the broader translation strategies utilized by early Buddhist missionaries and highlight the profound philological synthesis that facilitated the integration of Buddhist philosophy into the Altaic-speaking world through literature.