Members
6th
● Hirotoshi OGIHARA Associate Professor
Research Interests: Philological studies of the manuscripts written in Central Asian languages of pre-Islamic era (mainly in Tocharian language)
Research Topic: Propagation of the Maitreya-cult in Central Asia
Short Introduction
My research concerns the philological studies of the manuscripts written in Central Asian languages of the pre-Islamic era, mainly in Tocharian language. Tocharian, as belonging to the Indo-European languages, was used in the vast area between Turfan in the east and Tumshuq in the west in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of PRC during the 5-11 centuries (mainly in Kucha and Shorchuk). Most of Tocharian manuscripts belong to the Buddhist literature owing to the fact that the Buddhism had been accepted in this area in the Pre-Islamic era. Thus the decipherment of this language requires not only the knowledge of the Indo-European comparative linguistics but also the comparative studies with the Buddhist literatures in Sanskrit, Pāli, Chinese, Tibetan, Old Uyghur and so on. The aim of my research is to elucidate the Buddhism flourished in Central Asia through manuscript remains and archaeological evidences unearthed in this area.
