Die in Fachkreisen lang erwartete deutsche Ubersetzung der wichtigsten neueren japanischen Studie zur Geschichte des uigurischen Manichaismus liefert anhand der genauen Analyse manichaischer Wandmalereien aus den Hohlentempeln von Bazaklik sowie eines Erlasses zur Verwaltung manichaischer Kloster neue Erkenntnisse zur Geschichte der Uiguren und des Manichaismus. Der Band enthalt im ersten Kapitel ausfuhrliche Bildanalysen sowie die Transkription und die philologisch und historisch eingehend kommentierte Ubersetzung des genannten Erlasses im zweiten Kapitel. Das letzte Kapitel fasst die Einzelergebnisse hinsichtlich ihrer Bedeutung fur das Bild der uigurischen Geschichte zusammen. Im Anhang finden sich eine erlauterte Chronologie der uigurischen Khane, die Transkription und kommentierten Ubersetzungen zweier geistlicher uigurischer Textfragmente.

This volume consists of two sections, written by the two authors. The first section contains a study by Manfred Heuser on The Manichaean Myth According to Coptic Sources. This is the first systematic presentation of the basic myth as reflected in Coptic material. The second part is a collection of essays on Manichaeism by Hans-Joachim Klimkeit. The essays are concerned, inter alia, with Manichaean art and symbolism, including newly found examples of Manichaean art from Central Asia.

The ERC-funded research project BuddhistRoad aims to create a new framework to enable understanding of the complexities in the dynamics of cultural encounter and religious transfer in pre-modern Eastern Central Asia. Buddhism was one major factor in this exchange: for the first time the multi-layered relationships between the trans-regional Buddhist traditions (Chinese, Indian, Tibetan) and those based on local Buddhist cultures (Khotanese, Uyghur, Tangut, Khitan) will be explored in a systematic way. The first volume Buddhism in Central Asia (Part I): Patronage, Legitimation, Sacred Space, and Pilgrimage is based on the start-up conference held on May 23rd–25th, 2018, at CERES, Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Germany) and focuses on the first two of altogether six thematic topics to be dealt with in the project, namely on “patronage and legitimation strategy” as well as "sacred space and pilgrimage."

Today, most Uyghurs are Muslims. For centuries, however, Uyghurs were Buddhists. By around 1000 CE, they, like many of their neighbors, had decisively turned toward the Dharma, and a golden age of Uyghur Buddhism flourished under the Mongol empire. Dwelling along the Silk Road in what is now northwestern China, they stood at the center of Buddhist Eurasia, linking far-flung regions and traditions. But as Muslim power grew, Uyghur Buddhists converted to Islam, rewriting their past and erasing their Buddhist history. This book presents the first comprehensive history of Buddhism among the Uyghurs from the ninth to the seventeenth century. Johan Elverskog traces how the Uyghurs forged their distinctive tradition, considering a variety of social, political, cultural, and religious contexts. He argues that the religious history of the Uyghurs challenges conventional narratives of the meeting of Buddhism and Islam, showing that conversion took place gradually and was driven by factors such as geopolitics, climate change, and technological innovation. Elverskog also provides a nuanced understanding of lived Buddhism, focusing on ritual practices and materiality as well as the religion’s entanglements with economics, politics, and violence. A groundbreaking history of Uyghur Buddhism, this book makes a compelling case for the importance of the Uyghurs in shaping the course of both Buddhist and Asian history.

The book is a bio-bibliography of the Turkologist, Tungusologist, Altaist, historian of science and ethnologist Michael Knüppel (*1967) for the years 1996-2022.