A Catalogue Of The Tibetan Manuscripts And Block Prints In The Library Of The Hungarian Academy Of Sciences

The Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences ‒ established in 1826 ‒ houses many small and still hidden collections. One of these, the most comprehensive Hungarian collection of Arabic manuscripts, is brought to light by the present catalogue. These codices are described for the first time in a detailed and systematic way. A substantial part of the manuscripts is either dated to or preserved from the 150 year period of Ottoman occupation in Hungary. The highlights of the collection are from the Mamluk era, and the manuscripts as a whole present a clear picture of the curriculum of Islamic education. The descriptions also give an overview of the many additional Turkish and Persian texts thereby adding to our knowledge about the history of these volumes.

The library in Budapest possesses some 320 Mongol and some 30 Manchu manuscripts and blockprints. Kara was one of three Hungarian orientalists sent to Mongolia in 1957 for three months to acquire additional Mongol and Tibetan articles for the collections. He has worked on the catalogue for over 12 years, carrying the manuscript around the world as he changed positions. He takes about a page to describe each piece. A dozen monochrome plates illustrate some pages and covers. Indices are by theme; Mongol, Manchu, Sanskrit/Pali and Tibetan, and Chinese titles; names; Chinese marginal marks, and titles in general. Distributed in the US by ISBS. c. Book News Inc.

Despite Mongolia's centrality to East Asian history and culture, Mongols themselves have often been seen as passive subjects on the edge of the Qing formation or as obedient followers of so-called "Tibetan Buddhism," peripheral to major literary, religious, and political developments. But in fact Mongolian Buddhists produced multi-lingual and genre-bending scholastic and ritual works that profoundly shaped historical consciousness, community identification, religious knowledge, and practices in Mongolian lands and beyond. In Sources of Mongolian Buddhism, a team of leading Mongolian scholars and authors have compiled a collection of original Mongolian Buddhist works--including ritual texts, poetic prayers and eulogies, legends, inscriptions, and poems--for the first time in any European language.