The wise Book of Life “Erdeniyin San”: the famous dictionary of the early Mongolian version by Sonom Gara and its author György Kara

The name of the prominent Hungarian Mongolist György Kara (1935–2022) is well known to Orientalists both in this country and abroad. Professor G. Kara is a leading authority of Oriental studies. He contributed some four hundred publications including the famous book Книги монгольских кочевников «Books of the Mongolian Nomads» (Moscow, 1972; its Chinese translation was printed in Huhhot, 2004). This article focusing on the personality and scientific activity of prof. György Kara is dedicated to one of his remarkable works: the lexicographical edition of the «Erdeniin Sang» (“Precious Treasury of Elegant Sayings”). It examines one of the earliest Mongolian versions of the Tibetan text «Sa skya legs bshad», originally written in the 13th century by the renowned Tibetan scholar and high-ranking lama Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyaltsen. The translator was Sonom Gara. G. Kara’s work on “Sonom Gara’s «Erdeniin Sang» Dictionary” marked a turning point in the study of the textual tradition of Mongolian Buddhism. Kara did not merely compile a dictionary; he laid the foundation for an entire field of future Buddhist studies.

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