Ritual Funeral Text inv. 4084 from the Tangut Collection of IOM RAS. — A Brief Textual Study

This article is a short textual study of a previously unidentified Tangut text from the IOM RAS collection, a small manuscript fragment not contained in existing catalogues. Because of its type of binding and legible handwriting it became an eye-catching source to focus on during the recent cataloguing work. Following analysis, it became clear that this was a funerary text fragment, and probably a translation from the Tibetan from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries. Though it is only a small fragment, the text contains the specific traits of the ancient Tibetan funeral ritual, which enables us to compare it with similar religious and cultural traditions in Central Asia. As a comprehensible text in Tangut language, it provides valuable aspects and data from everyday life in the Xixia period.