(Ehime University)
Forms of Sanskrit Origin in the Mongolian Buddhist Literature
68th Annual Meeting of the PIAC, Bangkok 2026
In the fourteenth century, Uighur Buddhism, together with the writing system, was transmitted to the Mongols, and in conjunction with this development, translations of Buddhist scriptures into Mongolian began to be produced. Thereafter, numerous forms of Sanskrit origin came to be employed in the Mongolian language as well. The internal composition of these forms is highly intricate, reflecting the diversity of their channels of transmission into Uighur.
Whereas certain forms were adopted directly from Sanskrit, others were transmitted through the intermediary of Sino-Buddhist lexicon, and yet others by way of Sogdian or Tocharian, revealing an exceptionally rich plurality of routes of transmission. This very diversity is, in turn, directly mirrored in the Buddhist terminology of Mongolian.
With the rise of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia from the sixteenth century onward, a considerable number of forms of Sanskrit origin mediated through Tibetan likewise came to be widely employed. As a result, Mongolian Buddhist terminology exhibits a wide array of Sanskrit-derived loanwords that reflect both the chronological layers and the diverse channels of their transmission into the language. In some instances, even doublets and triplets are attested.
Furthermore, Sanskrit came to be so deeply venerated as the sacred language of the Buddhist canon that, at times, even fictitious Sanskrit forms—without any basis in actual usage—were deliberately fabricated. Thus, Mongolian Buddhist terminology may be said to reflect with remarkable clarity the geographical and historical position of Mongolia at the northeastern extremity of the Silk Roads.