Uyghur Buddhism and the Impact of Manichaeism and Native Religion: The Case of Religious Terminology

Type:

Book Chapter

Author:

Jens Wilkens

Published:

2024

Uyghur Buddhism owes its emergence to a specific cultural milieu. Not only is it strongly influenced by Tocharian, Chinese, Sogdian, and—in later times (13th–14th centuries)—also Tibetan Buddhism, but because of the royal patronage granted to Manichaeism, the latter helped shape the religious landscape in the West Uyghur Kingdom (second half of the 9th c.–13th c.). Even though Buddhism has exerted a much stronger influence on Manichaeism than vice versa, the latter has played a certain role in the formation of Buddhist literature among the Uyghurs. Faint traces of the indigenous religion of the Uyghurs can also be found in Buddhist and Manichaean texts from the Turfan oasis and from Dunhuang (敦煌). This chapter attempts to pinpoint these aspects, while discussing methodological problems and limitations to the applicability of certain comparative approaches that might help to determine how we should imagine the native religion of Uyghurs. However minor the impact of Manichaeism and native religion may have been, the development of a particular local form of Buddhism in the West Uyghur Kingdom was helped by this contribution.

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