An Attempt of Analysis of Two Mongolian Manuscripts about Prince Norsan

Abstract

The article considers two Mongolian manuscripts under the same heading “Urida bolson üges-ün tuuli / čikin-ü čimeg neretü bodisadu qaγan Norsan kiged / ökin tngri Yidbrogma-yin qarilčan ögülegsen-e anu sayin bolumui” (“The story is about what had happened before - a good talk of Norsan, the King Bodhisattva with the name “Decoration of the hearing” and Idprogma, the Heavenly Maiden”) taken from the storage of one of the libraries in Ulaanbaatar. These manucsripts are a translation of the Tibetan “The Jataka tale about the Prince Norsan”. This Jataka is of Indian origin (in the Indian tradition - “Jataka or avadana about the Sudkhan Prince”) and it is well known in the literary traditions of Tibet and Mongolia. In Mongolia, “The Jataka tale about the Prince Norsan” became well-known after its translation by Kangyur (“translated words”, consists of works supposed to have been said by the Buddha himself) but originally it existed in the form of separate manuscripts and was popular in the oral tradition of the Mongols. However, despite its popularity in Mongolian literature, “The Jataka tale about the Prince Norsan” has not been studied yet. The article gives a brief summary of the text of both manuscripts. After studying the manuscripts and revealing small differences in spelling and lexis, we came to the conclusion that they are the copies of the same translation of a Tibetan version of “The Jataka tale about the Prince Norsan”, still unknown to the contemporaries. Besides, the author analyzed some peculiarities concerning orthography, lexis and syntax of the given texts. Among the peculiarities found within the spelling of the manuscripts there were phonetic transliteration used by the unknown author for the translation of Tibetan proper and geographical names, and the Tibetan glosses which were written between the lines of the text. Some of the described peculiarities, in particular, postpositive attribute in relation to the attributive word, which is not typical for the Mongolian language, as well as the use of the verb üiledkü (‘do’) used in an unusual function, the function of an auxiliary verb, more typical for a Tibetan verb byed pa of the same meaning, refer this version to the literal translation, which is characterized by a strict adherence to the original Tibetan text. Thus, on the basis of the textual analysis we can conclude that there were different translation techniques used by the Mongols in their translation from Tibetan.