Abstract
Rasiyan-u qumq-a (Vase of Nectar) is a previously unknown didactic poem composed by an anonymous Mongolian author. Regarding the length of the poem, 317 preserved quatrains out of 340 original stanzas, it is the largest known didactic poem written originally in Mongolian by the 17th century.
The author frequently refers to Čoyiji Odser, traditionally considered the founder of the Mongolian written religious literature and composer of Mongolian poetic rules. Further references to Bodhisattvacharyāvatāra and Subhāṣitaratnanidhi are also to be addressed.
The only manuscript preserved in an almost complete version (written presumably in the first half of 18th century) was published in a Czech edition and translation (2016) and a Mongolian edition is under preparation. This paper brings a first general presentation in Mongolian of Rasiyan-u qumq-a.
Further it deals with questions of textological relations to the older Mongolian didactic texts, the process of taking over and handling older literary motives and poetic expressions. Within the formal analysis, alliterations, parallelism and syntactical inversions are analysed.
On account of the language specifics (converbum praeparativum r-un, passive forms, separate writing of some verbal suffixes, multiple nominal suffixes; preclassical words: čola, qalγar, qaγarqay-a etc. and Uyghur loanwords, e.g., tetürü, turqaru, jonturuγ, edgü etc.) and literary comparison (formal comparison with the Jewell Translucent Sutra, Story of Endegürel Khan, poetical passages in the Erdeni-yin tobči, etc.), I suggest that the text can be attributed to the turn of the seventeenth century.