Verse Inscriptions Written in Archaic Tocharian B

本稿では、これまでトカラ語研究者に知られていなかった、古代期トカラ語 B による韻文題記を扱う。ここで扱われる題記は、新疆亀茲研究院・北京大学中国古代史研究中心・中国人民大学国学院西域歴史語言研究所による研究プロジェクトの一環として、筆者がクチャのキジル石窟第211 窟・第 213 窟で解読を試みたものである。ただし、損傷が激しく、十分な解読を行うことができなかったため、主にドイツ探検隊が撮影した当該題記の写真に基づいた上で、現地調査での解読結果を併せて解釈を行うとともに、古代期トカラ語 B による韻文のコーパスを提供する。This paper presents interpretations of some verse inscriptions that exhibit linguistic features of the Archaic Tocharian B language. Thus far unknown to the scholarly world, these inscriptions have been studied by the author as one of the most critical tasks in the research project directed by Xinjiang Kucha Research Academy, Center for Research on Ancient Chinese History, Peking University and Institute for Historical and Philological Studies of China’s Western Regions, School of Chinese Classics, Renmin University of China. Although they are more or less damaged, the inscriptions are located in Caves No. 211 and No. 213 in the Kizil Grottoes, and they were interpreted based on the author’s own in situ decipherment and old photographs taken by the German and French Expeditions. Although all of these inscriptions clearly exhibit linguistic features of Archaic Tocharian B, the Brāhmī script in which they were written cannot be classified to the most archaic form used for writing Tocharian B. This leads us to reconsider the correlation between the historical status of Archaic Tocharian B and the classification of the Brāhmī script used for Tocharian B.論文 Article