No.204 Seminar ： “Deciphering Divination Documents”
- Associate Professor Ai NISHIDA (Hakubi 11th batch,Institute for Research in Humanities)
- 2021/10/05 4:30pm
- Zoom (Closed)
- Japanese
Summary
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Old Tibetan documents were brought from the Dunhuang cave and other sites in Central Asia along with the documents written in other languages. These Tibetan documents involve various secular documents: letters, contracts, court documents, medical documents, and divination documents etc. While most of the Buddhist literature were the translations from other languages, these secular documents are thought to be the original Tibetan writings and have extremely high value as historical and linguistic materials. Among them, my research interests have been focused, for many years, on the divination documents including the divination using bones, dice, crow calls, and copper coins and so on. These divination documents which are diverse in media, form, and content are important materials for understanding not only Dunhuang society but also cultural exchange in Central Asia at that time. In this seminar, I would first like to give an overview of the research history on the Old Tibetan documents. Then, in order to answer the question, “What is the point of studying divination texts?” I will show the methods and significance of research on divination documents and the findings obtained from this research. I will also discuss the function of these divinations among current Tibetan society, based on the results of my field research.