Dunhuang Manuscripts Research Articles

The Tricks of Jing (Jing jue 荆決): The Beginnings of jue 決/訣 as an Epistemic Genre

Abstract The Chinese genre of text named jue 訣 dates back to the Han dynasty. It encompassed esoteric Daoist manuals and medical handbooks, translated as “tricks,” “methods,” “instructions,” “secret instructions,” and “rhymes.” This essay translates “tricks” and “secrets” for its early use, referring to “writings” (shu 書) linked to privately transmitted technical information, such as divination tricks, alchemical techniques, or medical recipes. Initially, these writings relied on oral instructions and implicit knowledge (“orally transmitted secrets,” koujue 口訣). By the medieval period, as seen in the Dunhuang manuscripts, the link to exclusive oral instruction had weakened, and the jue genre evolved into “how-to” (hezhi 何知) manuals for quick reference in a broader body of formally transmitted texts, like “canons, scriptures” (jing 經). The jue genre began as rhematic (rather than thematic), specifying techniques or “methods” (fa 法), whether Daoist, medical, or divinatory.

Study on the Historical Dynamics of the Medicine Buddha Sutra Illustrations based on Medicine Buddha Beliefs

A substantial portion of the murals and manuscripts housed in the Sutra Caves of Dunhuang is intimately tied to the cult of the Medicine Buddha. An examination of the Catalogue of Dunhuang Mogao Caves compiled by the Dunhuang Academy, alongside the New Catalogue of the Dunhuang Manuscripts edited by Huang Yongwu, reveals the presence of 295 texts pertaining to the Medicine Buddha, underscoring the prevalence of this belief system in Dunhuang. The popularity of the Medicine Buddha belief in the region emerged as a pivotal factor influencing the evolution of sutra illustrations’ content and form. The Medicine Buddha’s attributes of averting calamities, curing illnesses, and prolonging life—all catering to worldly aspirations—resonated deeply with people’s pursuit of immediate benefits in this life. This paper employs a multifaceted approach, encompassing documentary research, iconographic analysis, and comparative studies, to trace the historical trajectory and graphical transformations of the “Medicine Buddha Sutra Illustrations” (Yaoshijing Biantu), culminating in a comprehensive synthesis. Furthermore, by delving into the societal backdrop, the underlying economic underpinnings, and the evolving “compositional strategies” of these illustrations across various eras, we aim to present a holistic view of the dynamic development of the Medicine Buddha Sutra illustrations throughout time.

Textual Analysis of Dunhuang Manuscripts: the Five-Spice Taboo

<p>本文從佛教飲食規範角度切入，探索藏外文獻中有關五辛禁忌概念的意涵。不同於過去學者運用藏經文獻資料，指出禁食五辛的緣由環繞在潔淨與情意克制兩大面向。筆者注意到在敦煌遺書的五辛主題寫卷，提供了藏經前所未見的材料與視角，讓我們得以窺見五辛禁忌的不同闡釋與教化運用。本文利用現存敦煌寫卷，嘗試解讀五辛相關文本的內容，並釐清五辛禁忌不只是一種佛教飲食規範下的產物，而是隨著佛教的傳播，轉為一種教法譬喻，用以宣揚宗教修持的關鍵。因此推知，五辛禁忌的意涵發生了轉變，逐漸成為一種特殊的漢傳佛教文化符號。此外，本文嘗試廣蒐與五辛主題或內容與五辛相關的寫本，進行跨文本比對，並梳理出寫本間的互文交織情形。最後從禪修醫方、五辛警示兩個面向來綜合解析這些寫本的互文關係。這些敦煌材料提供了我們有別於藏經文獻的訊息，也豐富了我們對禪修醫方的寫作以及五辛寓意的理解與視野。</p> <p> </p><p>This article explores the meaning of the five-spice taboos from the perspective of Buddhist dietary norms in non-canonical literature. Unlike previous scholars who relied on the Chinese Buddhist Canon, it highlights that abstaining from the five spices is driven by concerns of cleanliness and emotional restraint. The Dunhuang manuscripts on this theme provide unprecedented materials and perspectives within the canonical works, shedding light on various interpretations and enlightening applications of these taboos. By utilizing the existing Dunhuang scrolls, the article interprets the related content, clarifying that these taboos extend beyond Buddhist dietary norms and have transformed into a metaphor for religious practice. Consequently, the evolving meaning of the five-spice taboos has gradually become a distinct symbol of Chinese Buddhist significance.<br />Furthermore, this article attempts to extensively search for manuscripts related to the theme or content of the five-spice taboos, conducting cross-text comparisons and sorting out the intertextual interweaving among manuscripts. Finally, through a comprehensive analysis from the perspectives of medical formula for meditation instructions, and warnings related to the five pungent spices, this study examines the intertextual relationships among these manuscripts. These Dunhuang materials provide us with information that is distinct from the canons, enriching our understanding and broadening our perspectives on medical formula for meditation instructions, and the symbolic meaning of the five-spice taboos.</p> <p> </p>

‘Bookish’ Borrowings and Novelty in a Chinese-Christian Manuscript from Dunhuang

The trade routes of late antique and early medieval Eurasia conducted far more than goods. Exchanges occurred between a number of prominent book cultures with origins or, at least, ties to the Indian, Iranian and Chinese worlds. A Christian scroll (Pelliot chinois 3847) discovered in the famed Library Cave near Dunhuang is the product of such interactions in both its materiality and its written content. This Chinese manuscript of East Syriac Christians bears three texts, at least some of which were composed during the late eighth century of the Tang period (618–907). This article focuses on three terms used in the postscript of P.3847. Although a relatively well-known Dunhuang manuscript, the ‘bookish’ terminology of the postscript deserves consideration in its own right; this includes the only known occurrence of the Chinese term bei pijia 貝皮夾. From this study, insight is gained into both the semantic depth of these Chinese terms and the Christian appropriation of them.

Reunion helper: an edge matcher for sibling fragment identification of the Dunhuang manuscript

The Dunhuang ancient manuscripts are an excellent and precious cultural heritage of humanity. However, due to their age, the vast majority of these treasures are damaged and fragmented. Faced with a wide range of sources and numerous fragments, the process of restoration generally involves two core elements: sibling fragments identification and fragment assembly. Currently, fragment restoration still heavily relies on manual labor. During the long practice, a consensus has been reached on the importance of edge features for not only assembly but also for identification. However, accurate extraction of edge features and their use for efficient identification requires extensive knowledge and strong memory. This is a challenge for the human brain. So that in previous studies, fragment edge features have been used for assembly validation but rarely for identification. Therefore, an edge matcher is proposed, working like a bloodhound, capable of “sniffing out” specific “flavors” in edge features and performing efficient sibling fragment identification accordingly, providing guidance when experts perform entity assembly subsequently. Firstly, the fragmented images are standardized. Secondly, traditional methods are used to compress the representation of fragment edges and obtain paired local edge images. Finally, these images are fed into the edge matcher for classification discrimination, which is a CNN-based pairwise similarity metric model proposed in this paper, introducing residual blocks and depthwise separable convolutions, and adding multi-scale convolutional layers. With the edge matcher, a complex matching problem is successfully transformed into a simple classification problem. In the absence of a standard public dataset, a Dunhuang manuscript fragment edge dataset is constructed. Experiments are conducted on that dataset, and the accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 scores of the edge matcher all exceeded 97%. The effectiveness of the edge matcher is demonstrated by comparative experiments, and the rationality of the method design is verified by ablation experiments. The method combines traditional methods and deep learning methods to creatively use the edge geometric features of fragments for sibling fragment identification in a natural rather than coded way, making full use of the computer’s computational and memory capabilities. The edge matcher can significantly reduce the time and scope of searching, matching, and inferring fragments, and assist in the reconstruction of Dunhuang ancient manuscript fragments.

The Parable of Wise and Foolish Builders in Yishen Lun and Rabbinic Literature

The paper undertakes a comparative analysis of the parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders as presented in three distinct sources: the seventh-century Dunhuang manuscript Yishen Lun (Discourse on God), the sixth-century rabbinic text Avot D’Rabbi Nathan, and the Gospels (Matthew and Luke) of the Christian Bible. It explores the imagery used, piety taught, and worldviews conveyed in these renditions, concluding that the version in Yishen Lun shares a closer resemblance with the one in rabbinic literature than with the Gospels. This discovery, in conjunction with previously published findings by the author, challenges the conventional classification of Yishen Lun as an “Aluoben document” (or a Jingjiao document, for that matter), underscoring the need for further research and inquiry.

The Quanzhou Qianfo xinzhu zhuzushi song (Or.8210/S.1635): Manuscript, Textual History, and Genealogy

Abstract This article explores the textual history and genealogical claims in the Quanzhou Qianfo xinzhu zhuzushi song 泉州千佛新著諸祖師頌 (Or.8210/S.1635), a collection of encomia composed by Wendeng 文僜 (d. 972) that documents the formation of the so-called “southern” Chan lineage and provides a crucial link between the Baolin zhuan 寶林傳 and the Zutang ji 祖堂集. The focus of this paper is on reexamining the potentially layered nature of Wendeng’s work based on the preface by Huiguan 慧觀 (d.u.), internal evidence from the Dunhuang manuscript, and related accounts in Chan records and local gazetteers. In addition, this study investigates the genealogical glosses in S.1635 and suggests that these were probably not authored by Wendeng and therefore cannot be taken as evidence of his understanding of the pedigree of the presumed successors to Huineng 慧能 (638–713).

The Spread and Acceptance of the Yuzhu Xiaojing as Seen in the Xiaojing huangdi gan

<p>唐玄宗（685-762, 712-756在位）曾兩次頒《御注孝經》，欲統一諸家舊注，敦煌本《孝經皇帝感》即《御注》的民間衍生文本，其通俗的表述、名實不符的文本來源，與官方正典截然有別。本文以《御注》兩種文本為例，考察其在民間的傳播與接受形式，探討皇帝權力的下行及邊界。從文本內容來看，《御注》以注疏闡發玄宗「君臣同體」的微言大義，具有君臣關係一元化的特質。《孝經皇帝感》卻是以《御注》讚歌與地方流行的鄭玄舊注拼接而成，皇帝意志受限庶民認知能力而被篩除。從文本產生、傳播的過程來看，五代敦煌仍然延用鄭注，《御注》寥寥無幾，民間歌場效仿《御注金剛經讚詞》創作的《孝經皇帝感》卻頗為流行，反哺了玄宗頒行《御注》於天下的意圖。這種文本雖然剝離御注經典的原生意義，但潛在地成為皇帝的象徵符號，成功傳達其權威。</p> <p> </p><p>During the reign of Tang Xuanzong (685-762, r. 712-756), the Yuzhu Xiaojing was issued twice to try to unify older annotations. The Xiaojing huangdi gan found in the Dunhuang manuscripts is a folk derivative text of the Yuzhu Xiaojing. Its popular style and the unorthodox source of the text are completely different from the canon promulgated by the imperial court. This article focuses on the two forms of the Yuzhu Xiaojing to discuss the spread and acceptance of the emperor’s authority among the people. On the one hand, judging from the content of the two texts, Yuzhu Xiaojing conveys Xuanzong’s interpretation of the “subtle meaning” of the classic: that “the monarch and his subjects are the same.” Its annotations serve to unify the ideological relationship between the monarch and his subjects. However, Xiaojing huangdi gan is a combination of the summary verses of the Yuzhu Xiaojing and the traditional annotations of Zheng Xuan, which had remained popular at the local level. On the other hand, from the point of view of the text generation and dissemination process, in Five Dynasties Dunhuang, Zheng’s annotations remained in use, and there were very few copies of the Yuzhu Xiaojing. Instead, the Xiaojing huangdi gan, which was spontaneously created in folk music venues in imitation of the Summary Verses of the Diamond Sutra, was quite popular. Thus, the emperor’s intentions were fulfilled in an indirect way. Although this text completely away stripped the original meaning of the Yuzhu Xiaojing, it successfully became an imperial symbol, conveying the emperor’s authority.</p> <p> </p>

Chan Texts in Practice

Abstract Research into early Chan has relied heavily on the manuscripts found in Cave 17 in Dunhuang, which generally date from before the eleventh century. However this research has often abstracted texts from their context as part of the varied and multilingual collection that was found in the cave. Furthermore, the date, form and original use of the manuscripts containing early Chan texts is often forgotten in the discussion. This brief paper looks at early Chan practice from a historical and local perspective, that is, as a kind of social history. Taking one text, The Record of the Masters and Students of the Lanka (Lengqie shizi ji 楞伽師資記) I discuss some of the meditation practices that it contains and compare these to manuscripts from the Dunhuang collection that fall outside the usual concept of ‘Chan Buddhism’. I conclude that first, early Chan texts should be understood as existing in specific social and ritual settings, such as group initiation rituals, educational settings with teachers and students, or indeed solitary meditation. Second, in the social setting that produced the Dunhuang manuscript cache, distinctions between what we tend to think of as ‘Chan meditation’ and other forms of meditation from tantric or pure land contexts, meant little in practice.

Discussing the Relationship between Father and Son, Ruler and Subjects in the Xiaojing: Based on the Dunhuang Manuscripts

It has long been accepted that the ancient Chinese ruler–subjects relationship was a metaphorical extension of the father–son relationship, where loyalty and family reverence were considered synonymous. The Confucian classic the Xiaojing is taken as a significant piece of evidence supporting this view. However, based on the annotated version of the Xiaojing discovered in Dunhuang, it is evident that during the Han Dynasty and the Six Dynasties period, Confucian scholars made clear distinctions between father–son relationships and ruler–subjects relationships. They also made a clear differentiation between the moral connotations of loyalty and family reverence. The father–son relationship is a bond of blood, while the ruler–subjects relationship is a bond of duty and appropriateness, meaning that the ethical requirements for the father–son relationship and ruler–subjects relationship are fundamentally different. Therefore, expressions such as “service to ruler with family reverence is loyalty” does not mean to unify loyalty and family reverence, but means that the governor should select people who have already cultivated the virtue of family reverence to become officials because they have learnt how to show respect in their family life.

A Tale of Two Texts–––A New Philological Investigation of Dunhuang Manuscript P.2526

Abstract: In 1911 a Dunhuang manuscript fragment, later known as P.2526, was made available to Chinese scholars via microfilm. Since then, generations of scholars have made forays into the study of the hypothetical original text of P.2526 and the context of its composition. This endeavor, however, seems to be a lost cause. As Albert Dien points out, when one identification is rejected, without any direct evidence, it would be equally problematic to assign another title to the fragment. In this paper, I study P.2526 as a Tang artifact in the form in which it has come down to us, without trying to recover an earlier form of the text. This New Philology-inspired perspective shifts the focus from the unknown and often hypothesized ancestral text of the manuscript to something concrete and approachable—the manuscript itself. Paleographical, codicological, and text-critical examinations of the manuscript uncover the life cycle of this one manuscript as a tale of two texts, each representing a distinct intellectual and socio-textual tradition, preserved in this single physical form for over a thousand years. P.2526 recto documents a portion of a leishu compilation, of value to the cultural elite of the center of the Tang empire in the late seventh and early eighth centuries. It is preserved only owing to the common practice in the Dunhuang area of reusing paper fragments due to the scarcity of paper since the second half of the eight century. P.2526 verso, entirely ignored in the previous studies of the manuscript, is a Buddhist liturgical text, produced and used locally in Dunhuang at the periphery of the Tang empire. It is the materiality of the manuscript P.2526, as a physical object, that ties together these two distinct and unrelated texts and presents itself as one tale.

Dunhuang Manuscript Culture: End of the First Millennium by Imre Galambos (review)

Dunhuang Manuscript Culture: End of the First Millennium by Imre Galambos (review)

DUNHUANG MANUSCRIPT CULTURE: END OF THE FIRST MILLENNIUM. By ImreGalambos. Studies in Manuscript Cultures, 22. Boston and Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2020. Pp. viii + 290. Hardback, €102.95; E‐Book, open access.

Religious Studies ReviewVolume 48, Issue 4 p. 594-595 Short Reviews of Recent Publications: East Asia DUNHUANG MANUSCRIPT CULTURE: END OF THE FIRST MILLENNIUM. By Imre Galambos. Studies in Manuscript Cultures, 22. Boston and Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2020. Pp. viii + 290. Hardback, €102.95; E-Book, open access. First published: 30 January 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.16138Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume48, Issue4December 2022Pages 594-595 RelatedInformation

Rossijskaya kollekciya dun'huanskih rukopisej: proshloe i nastoyashchee

The Russian collection of Dunhuang manuscripts is a priceless treasure of the Chinese people and even of all mankind. This article examines the history of the exportation of manuscripts from Dunhuang to Russia, explores the work carried out by Russian scholars in the aim of systematization of the manuscripts. Particular attention is paid to the problems of returning the Dunhuang manuscripts to China.

Dunhuang Manuscript Liturgies and Their Models: Classification and Naming

Dunhuang Manuscript Liturgies and Their Models: Classification and Naming

Imre Galambos, Dunhuang Manuscript Culture. End of the First Millennium. (Studies in Manuscript Cultures, Vol. 22.) Berlin/Boston, De Gruyter 2021

Article Imre Galambos, Dunhuang Manuscript Culture. End of the First Millennium. (Studies in Manuscript Cultures, Vol. 22.) Berlin/Boston, De Gruyter 2021 was published on August 1, 2022 in the journal Historische Zeitschrift (volume 315, issue 1).

학문의 사각지대: 한국 불교부적의 지구사적 연구 가능성 탐색

초록 · 키워드 목차 오류제보하기 This paper examines the historical background behind the recent surge in the scholarly interest in "Buddhist talismans," the talismans made and used in the Buddhist context. Although talismans formed an essential part of Buddhist practice in East Asia, the study of Buddhist talismans has remained an intellectual hiatus for a long time. As Buddhologists began to more actively study various Buddhist practices rather than doctrines and scriptures in the early 21st century, things and monuments used for Buddhist practices became new objects of study in the field of Buddhology. In the larger picture, this change is related to the "material turn" that has impacted the humanities and social science since the 1990s. The "material turn" is an academic movement that examines the ways in which things affect human action and society. Bruno Latour"s (1947-present) Actor-Network Theory and Graham Harman"s (1968-present) Object-Oriented Ontology and Speculative Realism have contributed significantly to promoting this movement. With these academic changes, Buddhologists and art historians are now paying more scholarly attention to diverse materials as well as texts used outside canonical Buddhism. With such changes, "Buddhist talismans" have become an excellent tool to illuminate the actual practices done by premodern Buddhists and to reveal the porous boundary between Buddhism, Daoism, and shamanism. The Buddhist talismans included in the medieval Dunhuang manuscripts have been discussed by some leading scholars abroad. On the other hand, Buddhist talismans excavated from Buddhist statues and tombs from Koryŏ and Chosŏn have little been known outside of Korea. Because some of the Buddhist talismans used in Koryŏ show connections with those included in the Dunhuang manuscripts, they will be an appropriate object to explore from the perspective of global history. By adopting the global historical approach, we will be able to avoid the pitfall of simply assuming the latter as the origins of the former. Instead, we should consider them as traces of the extensive network of Asian Buddhist talismans that once covered a large area from west China to the Korean peninsula. #불교부적 #지구사 #물질적 전회 #고려 #다라니 #Buddhist talisman #global history #material turn #Koryŏ #dhāraṇī 머리말1. 국제적 흐름에서 살펴본 불교부적 연구의 타당성2. 국내외 불교부적 연구 현황3. 한국 불교부적 출토 및 수집 현황4. 한국 불교부적의 융합적 연구방법 모색5. 한국 불교부적의 지구사적 연구방법 모색맺음말참고문헌Abstract

By no means doodles or scraps: reading manuscripts IOL Tib J 3 and 218 as bilingual Dunhuang Vinaya works

AbstractUnder the sway of the dominant “waste” theories on the nature of Dunhuang manuscripts, we tend to default to the conclusion that IOL Tib J 3 and 218 contain independent Chinese and Tibetan texts joined in the process of recycling discarded manuscripts. However, this paper demonstrates that the texts from these two manuscripts constitute coherent Vinaya compositions. The three layers of the handwriting of these two manuscripts were not written randomly, but exhibit clear-cut functions: while the larger Tibetan script, which was produced in a previous project, was used to write Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya commentaries, the smaller Tibetan script and the Chinese script were created as parts of the same bilingual project to provide different textual sources on the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya texts. The Chinese and the Tibetan text in the smaller script, proceeding from the high-level bilingualism of Dunhuang Buddhist communities, display a robust thematic affinity in many cases.

Mouvance in Medieval Chinese Textual Culture: Lunyu 論語 in a Dunhuang Florilegium

Abstract This essay applies the approaches of the “new medievalism,” mouvance or “mutability” in particular, to medieval textual materials purporting to contain parts of the classics, focusing on Lunyu 論語 (Analects), Shangshu 尚書 (Documents), and Xiaojing 孝經 (Classic of Filial Piety). Using Dunhuang manuscripts of the florilegium titled Xinji wenci jiujing chao 新集文詞九經抄 (New Compilation of Phrases Excerpted from the Nine Classics), the essay shows that the texts of these classics presented by such compilations differed substantially from the “official” texts of the time as represented by the versions carved in stone during the Kaicheng reign period (836–841). The essay further argues that such florilegia as Xinji wenci jiujing chao were likely widely used, implying that many readers in the period may have had a different conception of the contents of the classics from what we might assume they had. This has implications for our understanding of intertextuality in literary works from the period.

Dunhuang Manuscript Culture: End of the First Millennium, written by Imre Galambos

Dunhuang Manuscript Culture: End of the First Millennium, written by Imre Galambos