Concepts representing goodness and evil in the Old Uyghur Maitrisimit

Maitrisimit is a translated work that recounts the legendary life of Maitreya Buddha, which holds significant importance in terms of Buddhist belief. Originally translated from Sanskrit to Tocharian during the era of Old Uyghur Turkic, and subsequently from Tocharian to Turkic, the text is notable for its inclusion of Buddhist concepts and detailed information about this belief system. It also holds great importance within the corpus of Old Uyghur Literature, often categorized as a "theater, something to be exhibited". Consequently, numerous studies have been conducted on it over the years. Researchers typically classify the words in the text according to their types, affixes, or thematic features, and compile these findings into an index appended to their studies. The aim of the study is to identify the concepts related to the Buddhist belief found in one of the important works of the Old Uighur Turkish Period, Maitrisimit, and to categorize them within the framework of "goodness" and "evil" based on the meanings they hold within the Buddhist belief. In this context, the concepts identified in our study have been classified according to whether they are of Turkish origin or foreign origin and have been interpreted from the perspective of Buddhist belief. At the end of the study, an index of the identified concepts has been created.