Newly Discovered Old Uyghur Manuscripts: Practice and Rituals of the Uyghur Buddhists

17 May 2023 - Ma Fu (Beijing)
Newly Discovered Old Uyghur Manuscripts: Practice and Rituals of the Uyghur Buddhists
online guest lecture at the BuddhistRoad project, CERES, Ruhr University Bochum

Due to the lack of literary records, both the private religious practices and the public rituals of the Uighur Buddhist communities can mainly be traced in unearthed manuscripts. Recent excavations in important Buddhist sites in Turfan such as Tuyuq have brought about significant new material on the everyday life of Buddhist monks and practitioners of the Old Uighur time. Practice and ritual texts in Old Uighur have also been re-discovered in public and private collections in China these days, revealing various aspects of the religious life of the Old Uighur Buddhists in their homeland and in China proper.

Ma Fu is an Historian. He is Assistant Professor of Chinese History at Beijing University and specialises in the History of Pre-Islamic Eastern Central Asia and the Silk Road. His recent publications include Fu Ma 付馬, Sichou zhilu shang de Xizhou Huihu wangchao: 9~13 shiji Zhongya dongbu lishi yanjiu 絲綢之路上的西州回鶻王朝: 9–13 世紀中亞東部歷史研究. [The West Uighur Kingdom on the Silk Road: Study on the History of Eastern Central Asia during 9th–13th Centuries] (Beijing: Social Science Academic Press, 2019) and Ma Fu, “Buddhist and Christian Relay Posts on the Silk Road (9th–12th c.)”, Central Asiatic Journal 63.1–2 (2021): 239–255.

Report of guest lecture