A Buddhist technical term in Christian Sogdian. This article surveys the Indian (Sanskrit
and Prakrit) loanwords used in the Christian literature in Sogdian, including some which have not
been noticed previously. In particular, it discusses a possible borrowing of the Buddhist Sanskrit
technical term citta-saṃtāna-, used in a Christian Sogdian text in the sense “train of thought”. Finally,
it raises the question whether snks’r, the Buddhist Sogdian equivalent of Sanskrit saṃsāra- “cycle of
existence”, may result from a confusion between this term and saṃskāra- “conditioned state”.
Third Kowalewski Readings (dedicated to the 190th anniversary of the Department of Mongolian philology, Kazan University) will be held in Kazan on October 11–13, 2023.
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