Glossary

In Buddhism, upadesha refers to instructions and commentary given from a teacher to a student about the understanding of a particular text. In the Vajrayana tradition, upadesha means secret, oral instructions, often given following an abhisheka ritual when a practitioner is initiated into the practice of a certain tantra.

In Mahayana Buddhism, Ushnishavijaya was the name of a particular dharani incantation popular across the Buddhist world. In the Vajrayana tradition, Ushnishavijaya became personified as a deity, usually depicted as a serene white six-armed female. Ushnishavijaya rituals are often performed as wishes for long-life, and the deity is one of the three deities of long-life, along with Amitayus and White Tara.

Turkic languages. The Old Uyghur Empire was a semi-nomadic Buddhist and Manichaean state that ruled in modern-day Mongolia between roughly the 740s and 840s CE. After the destruction of the Uyghur Empire by the Kyrgyz, many Uyghurs fled to the oasis city-states of eastern Central Asia, including Dunhuang. These Uyghurs played an important role in the rise of the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century, when they provided scribes for the imperial administration. Much later, the word “Uyghur” came to refer to the Turkic-speaking Muslims who live in what is now Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the far northwest of China.