Two Mongolian translations of the "Sutra of eight luminous of heaven and earth” revisited

The article deals with two Mongolian translations of the “Sütra of Eight Luminous of Heaven and Earth”, widely known in the Buddhism of Mongolian peoples as the “Naiman Gegeen” prayer. Despite the fact that the sutra belongs to apocryphal literature, Tibetans and Mongolian peoples regarding it as the true word of Buddha (buddhavacana) included this sutra in one of two main Buddhist canonical collections -Kagyur (Kanjur). W. Heissig and L. Ligeti speak about two main versions of the shtra, the first one (version A) being included in the canon. Two texts that the article deals with are identified as old and new translations of the “Shtra of Eight Luminous” related to version A. The old translation, dating back to early 14th century, was included in the xylographic edition of Kanjur of the 18th century. The new translation was printed as a xylograph in the Aninsky datsan (Buryatia) in the period from 1882 (1894) to 1924. Translations were made from different original texts: early translation was made by Rinchen Tashi on the base of the Chinese text and new anonymous translation was made from Tibetan. A comparative analysis of the old translation with the Uighur versions of the shtra shows that they could have been referred to during the translation process. The colophon’s data demonstrate the active role that Uighurs played in preparing the Mongolian xylographic edition of the shtra dating back to the 14th century. As for the second text, the colophon includes information only about the person who prepared the printing desks for the xylograph, but it can be ascertained that the new translation was made on the base of the Tibetan text of the “Shtra of eight luminous” from one of the xylographic editions of Kagyur.