Vesna A. Wallace

Authenticating the Tradition Through Linguistic Arguments

Copious examples in the writings of Mongolian Buddhist authors demonstrate the significance of the Kāvyadarśa in the development of the Mongolian poetic tradition. Numerous versified eulogies, prayers, verses recited at the time of ritual offerings, benedictions in colophons, and other poetic works written by Mongolian scholars of the late seventeenth through the early twentieth centuries evidence their authors’ attempts to follow Daṇḍin’s principle of alaṃkāras and the influence of other theoretical principles of the Kāvyadarśaon their writings. Although the Kāvyadarśawas translated into the Mongolian language in the first half of the eighteenth century, at the time of the formation of the Mongolian Danjur by Khalkha translator Gelegjaltsan (Dge legs Rgyal mtshan), Mongolian Buddhist scholars had become well acquainted with the Kāvyadarśa through the Tibetan translations of this text and through indigenous Tibetan commentaries on it. However, it is plausible that already in the Yuan court of the thirteenth century, and slightly later in the fourteenth century, some Mongolian scholars had access to the Kāvyadarśain its first, complete Tibetan version, which was produced in the latter part of the thirteenth century.

Buddhism and Legislative Measures on Theft in Mongolia (The 18th Century–the Early 20th Century)

This article examines the issue of theft as addressed in two legal texts—the Khalkha Regulations and the Laws and Regulations to Actually Follow—which functioned as the customary and statutory laws for Khalkha Mongolia at different periods, and which governed the life of lay and monastic Buddhists. The article approaches the concept of theft as a broader category that encompasses both the direct and indirect modes of theft that involve various types of deception and fraud, whereby a person can defraud the another of his rightful belongings. The analysis of the given topic in this paper is based on the two texts from that administered the conduct of monks and laity who belonged to the personal estate, or Great Shavi, to Jebtsundamba Khutukhtus of Mongolia, the record of actual course cases dealt by the Ministry of Great Shavi, and the Mongol Code of Law instituted by the Qing administration for its Mongolian colony. Although a comparative analysis of these laws with the minor banner laws or those instituted among Oirats may reveal some important differences, it is beyond the scope of the article and deserves a through study.