More on Establishing Authorship of Oirat Texts Included in the Parallel Corpus: Analyzing the Poetic Namtar of Je Tsongkhapa

Abstract

Introduction. The article examines current issues related to the compilation of a parallel Tibetan-Oirat corpus. These include identifying the full range of translated Oirat texts and authorship of translations by Zaya Pandita Namkhai Jamtso (17th century), representatives of his school, and their followers. Goals. The article aims to analyze the translated texts to uncover authorship, establish full titles of works translated by Zaya Pandita and his followers included in the Corpus, and resolve the issue of authorship using one sample text. Materials. The study focuses on texts from Zaya Pandita’s translations, contents of their colophons (afterwords), and the biographies of Je Tsongkhapa in Tibetan and Oirat. Conclusions. Colophons are an important source for establishing authorship of a translation, dating a work, its full title, and revealing names of its commissioners, copyists, and carvers. A text may have not one but two colophons. In the absence of an afterword, a textual analysis is required that would take into account data from all levels of language. This analysis makes it possible to establish the rules and principles of translation adhered to by the translator (or their absence), i.e. all the issues that the parallel Tibetan-Oirat corpus aims to address. Regarding the authorship of Je Tsongkhapa’s Oirat verse namtar, the study supports the view of L. Terbish and Kh. Byambazhav who consider it to be an original work of Erdeni Jachung Khambo Khutugtu, the 14th abbot of Jachung Monastery in Amdo. Comparison of this work to a sample of Tibetan namtars shall help determine which texts may have served as the source for the verse version.