Poetic “Namtar of Tsongkhapa” in “Clear Script”: Towards the Problem of Determining a Tibetan Primary Source for Inclusion into a Parallel Corpus

The article provides a brief overview of the biographies (namtars) of the renowned 14th century Buddhist scholar, educator, and reformer Tsongkhapa. Evidence of the great interest Tsongkhapa’s legacy held among Mongolian peoples is provided by the reformer’s biographies, which include both translations from Tibetan and original works written in Mongolian and Oirat. Among the translations of the 17th century Oirat educator Zaya Pandita Namkhai Jamtso, translated from Tibetan, in addition to biographies of famous Buddhist figures, is also noted: “The Life of Tsongkhapa”. The author of the most famous biographical work, which reflects the life and religious activities of Tsongkhapa, is the renowned Buddhist cleric and writer from Inner Mongolia, Chahar Geshe Lobsang Tsultima (1740–1810). This article focuses on Tsongkhapa’s biography, composed in Mongolian verse. Analysis of the text allows us to determine its date and the name of its author / compiler – Erdeni Jachun Khambo Khutugta Yeshe Jamtso, the 14th abbot of Jachun Monastery in Amdo, the oldest and most important educational institution of the Geluk tradition. The text also features thematic sections that reveal key moments in the biography of the Buddhist reformer, the names of his mentors and teachers, the range of textbooks he studied, and his major works. This will allow us to further identify the sources that served as the basis for Tsongkhapa’s biography in verse. Equally significant is a manuscript written in Oirat “todo bichig” (“Clear Script”), which contains Tsongkhapa’s life story. A preliminary comparative analysis of this manuscript and the Mongolian text of the Zhachun-khambo revealed that they are composed in verse form and their content is generally identical, although they are represented by different titles. The inclusion of the Oirat text of Tsongkhapa’s biography in the translation of Zaya Pandita, provided that it is found in book depositories in Russia and abroad, in the parallel corpus seems necessary, since it can become the initial reference source for subsequent comparison of texts, clarification of unclear places, details of Tsongkhapa’s biography in order to try to establish its original source(s), to determine which fragments could have been taken from numerous Tibetan namtars.