Some notes on an Uigur poem concerning an encounter of a monk and a laywoman

Some notes on an Uigur poem concerning an encounter of a monk and a laywoman

Peter Zieme

(53rd Annual Meeting of the PIAC, St. Petersburg 2010)

In the Krotkov Collection of the Institute of Manuscripts of Petersburg there is a text (SI 2Kr. 87) written on the backside of a Chinese scroll which deserves special attention. Despite its fragmentary state one can establish a poetical text about an encounter of a monk begging for food and a woman. This woman expresses her unwillingness to offer food because she claims that the monk has broken some monastic rules. This unusual text from the Yuan period was studied by Abdurishid Yakup in his unpublished dissertation. In my paper I would like to discuss the contents and the structure as well as several problems of this very unusual text.