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Vol. 16, No. 3 (38)
Autumn 2019

Journal based in 2004
Issued quarterly

The entire issue as a *.PDF file

PUBLICATIONS

The Biography of Master Jinpyo in the Song Biographies of Eminent Monks (Song gao seng zhuan, the 10th century). Preface, publication and commentaries by Julia V. Boltach — 5
The paper contains a Russian translation of the biography of Korean Buddhist master Jinpyo (the 8th century) from the Song Biographies of Eminent Monks (the 10th century). Jinpyo was a follower of the Buddhist tradition known as “discernment by divination”. This practice, popular among early Korean Buddhists, included divination about practitioner’s karmic obstacles and their subsequent “cleaning” by severe asceticism, which was hopefully expected to result in getting miraculous ordination. This biography is a valuable source on early Buddhist practices in Korea. Its comparison with the legends about Jinpyo from the Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms (the 13th century) and the Sutra for the Discernment by Divination of Good and Bad Karmic Retribution (transl. into Chinese in the 6th–7th centuries) suggests that this practice originally was more variable than prescribed in the sutra, and that the legends about the followers of this tradition were later legitimated by the authority of the sutra and partially “edited” according to it. This biography can also be used for further research of Korean and Chinese culture, literature, history and ethnography.
Key words: early Korean Buddhism, Master Jinpyo, “discernment by divination”, Song Biographies of Eminent Monks (Song gao seng zhuan)

A Purchase Deed for a Slave from the Collection of the Manuscript Department of the National Library of Russia. Preface, translation from Arabic and commentaries by Ekaterina V. Gusarova — 16
The slave trade was widespread in the Horn of Africa and the surrounding territories, at least until the end of the 19th century. The sale of slaves from this region has been witnessed already in deep antiquity, beginning with the New Kingdom in Egypt in the middle of the 2nd millennium B.C. For centuries, it represented the main source of income for the treasury of several states, primarily in what is now Sudan and Ethiopia. The extent of the slave trade was directly dependent on military conflicts that flared up in these lands, but the slaves were also hunted for in peacetime. Many testimonies of human trafficking in Northeast Africa have come down to us. These are mainly travel diaries of travelers, royal chronicles. Less common are documents of an economic nature. One of these documents of the mid-19th century was found in the Department of Manuscripts of the Russian National Library. This is a double purchase deed for a slave, compiled in Arabic in Khartoum. The buyer is the famous Russian diplomat and mining engineer E. P. Kovalevsky.
Key words: Sudan, Egypt, E. P. Kovalevskiy, slave purchase deed, the Nile, slave trade, gold, mining engineers

RESEARCH WORKS

Alexander L. Khosroyev. On Docetic Christology in Early Christianity. Part 1 — 27
According to the doctrine of the so-called docetic Christology, the earthly Jesus and the heavenly Christ were two different persons; it was Jesus who suffered on the cross, Christ just entered Jesus’ body for a while and abandoned it before his death on the cross; consequently, Christ’s suffering was mere appearance. On the basis of some passages from Gnostic texts containing examples of docetic Christology, the author attempts here to trace the origin of that concept, starting with the New Testament (Pt. 1).
Key words: docetism, early Christianity, New Testament, Christian authors, Gnostic texts

Youli A. Ioannesyan. The Bab Admonishing the “Unruly” Mirza Yahya in the Book of Panj Sha’n — 54
The article reveals some new circumstances concerning the relationship between the Bab, the founder of the Babi Faith, and Mirza Yahya, the future nominal head of the Babi community, obtained in the course of the author’s study of the Bab’s writing The Panj Sha’n (“The five modes/grades of the revelation”). These circumstances concern the Bab’s admonishment of Mirza Yahya not to resist, but to accept the new prophet, greater than the Bab himself, referred to as “the One whom God will make manifest”, who was expected to arise after the Bab. The new data make the picture of the relationship between the Bab and Mirza Yahya more complete as they highlight the fact of the Bab’s mistrust of Mirza Yahya: the former envisaged the possibility of the latter’s causing harm to the prophet who was yet to come. This disproves the portrait of Mirza Yahya as the Bab’s “favorite disciple” drawn by some authors.
Key words: religion, the Babi Faith, the Bab, the Baha’i Faith

Helena P. Ostrovskaia. The Basic Traits of the Buddhist Personality — 59
The subject of the article is the Buddhist theory of mental phenomena (caitasika). Attention is focused on the definitions of universal skillful dharmas (kuśala-mahābhūmika-dharma) given in later exegetic treatises. The list of these mental phenomena, including faith, diligence, calm, modesty, propriety, nongreed, non-hatred, harmlessness, vigour is treated as a complex of basic traits of Buddhist personality.
Key words: Buddhism, later Abhidharma texts, Vasubandhu, Asanga, Sthiramati, Yasomitra, definitions of universal skillful dharmas

Sergey L. Burmistrov. The Category of Suffering in Buddhism and Brahmanist Philosophy — 70
The first noble truth proclaimed by the Buddha declares every being to be suffering. Buddhist dogmatics in this respect does not disagree with the postulates of Brāhmaṇic religious and philosophical systems that pronounce saṃsāric being essentially sorrowful. The overcoming of suffering is associated with the knowledge of the true reality, unchangeable by definition, for suffering both in Buddhism and in Brāhmaṇic systems is based on the universal mutability of the empirical world. Buddhist anthropological pessimism is based on the presupposition that a “natural” person as it is in everyday life cannot surmount suffering and achieve enlightenment. For this aim, he must radically transform his empirical ego, revealing the pure and essentially enlightened consciousness containing both afflictions as the cause of saṃsāra and the roots of nirvāṇa.
Key words: religious and philosophical thought of ancient and medieval India, anthropological pessimism, suffering, affliction, Madhyamaka, Yogācāra, Nāgārjuna, Asanga

HISTORY AND HISTORIOGRAPHY

Karine G. Marandjian. On a Household Encyclopedia from the IOM RAS Collection (“Hyakunin Usshu. Onna Manryo Bako” — “Hundred Poems by Hundred Poets. Jewelry Box for Women”) — 85
The article is centered around the problem of genre attribution of one xylograph from the IOM RAS collection that was included in the Descriptive Catalogue written by a group of Institute Japanologists in 1963–1971. The recent achievements in Japanese Studies allow to conclude that block-printed Anthology “Hyakunin isshu”. The Jewelry Box for Women belongs to the popular genre of “feminine encyclopedia for everyday use”.
Key words: household encyclopedia for everyday use, manual for women, “Anthology of Hundred Poets”, “Ise monogatari”

COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES

The Back Story of I. P. Minayeff’s Oriental Manuscript Collection Cataloguing (According to Documents Housed at the Archives Department of the Russian National Library and the Archives of Orientalists, IOM RAS). Preface, publication and commentaries by Tatiana V. Ermakova — 95
The founder of the Russian Indological School I.P. Minayeff (1840–1890) is known as a collector of the handwritten heritage of the religions of India. From the three trips to the countries of South and Southeast Asia, made between 1874 and 1886, he brought in a total of more than 300 multilingual manuscripts containing Brahminic, Buddhist and Jain works. In 1891, the niece of the scientist, V.P. Schneider, fulfilling his will, donated this valuable collection to the Imperial Public Library (now the Russian National Library), hoping for the immediate compilation of its catalog and the opening of wide access to the manuscripts for Russian and foreign researchers. Archival materials offered to the reader, stored at the Archive Collection of the Russian National Library, provide data for a long-term search for an Indologist ready to engage in the scientific description of I. P. Minayeff’s collection. In the Preface to the publication on the basis of the materials found in the Archive of Orientalists of the IOM RAS, the primary stage of the study of the collection associated with the name of S.F. Oldenburg, and the contribution of N. D. Mironov in the cataloging of its Sanskrit part is explained. All archival materials are published for the first time.
Key words: history of indology, I.P. Minayeff, the collection of Indian manuscripts of I. P. Minayeff, Imperial Public Library, Archive Collection of the Russian National Library, Archive of Orientalists of the IOM RAS, S. F. Oldenburg, N. D. Mironov

ACADEMIC LIFE

Ivan V. Bogdanov. Conference “State and Law in the East: Past and Present”. On the 200th Anniversary of the IOM RAS (St. Petersburg, November 12–13, 2018) — 109

Stanislav M. Prozorov. A Session of the “Islam in the Territories of the Former Russian Empire: An Encyclopaedic Lexicon” Round Table (St. Petersburg, November 28, 2018) — 115

Ivan V. Bogdanov. Conference “History and Culture of the Ancient Orient” on the Occasion of M. A. Dandamaevʼs 90th Anniversary (1928–2017)” (St. Petersburg, December 10, 2018) — 137

Olga M. Chunakova. Seminar in Memory of A. A. Freiman (St. Petersburg, May 29, 2019) — 141

REVIEWS

Kozyreva N. V. Studies in the History of Southern Mesopotamia in Early Antiquity (from the 7th to the Mid-2nd Millennium B. C.). St. Petersburg: Contrast 2016, 552 pp. (Inna N. Medvedskaya) — 145