introduce
Dunhuang was an important town of the Silk Road in China during the Han and Tang Dynasties. On May 26th, 26th year of Guangxu reign (1June 22nd, 900), Taoist King hired Yang Guo, a poor man from Dunhuang, to clean Cave 16, and found a secret room behind the wall, which was filled with various Buddhist scriptures and other cultural relics, totaling about 50,000 pieces. Buddhist books account for about 90% of Dunhuang Chinese literature. 1907, Stein came to Dunhuang for the first time, and took away more than 600 volumes from the Tibetan Sutra Cave, filled with five boxes. 19 10, the Qing court ordered the remaining Dunhuang documents to be transported to Beijing for preservation. 19 14, Stein came to Dunhuang again and bought more than 570 manuscripts and paintings from the Taoist king's collection.
The Tibetan Sutra Cave was discovered by Taoist Wang, the head of Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, on May 26th, Guangxu, Qing Dynasty. There are more than 50,000 pieces of historical characters, silk paintings, embroidery and other cultural relics from the 4th century to the 65438+4th century. These precious documents record many languages, including Chinese, Tibetan, Sanskrit, Kucha, Sogdian, Turkic, Uygur, Kangju and so on. It is simply an ancient museum with rich contents. When Stan first came to the Mogao Grottoes in 1907, the Taoist King had already spent another seven spring and autumn periods in the Tibetan Sutra Cave. During these seven years, except for some books taken away by officials, Taoist Wang kept a close watch on the Tibetan Sutra Cave, and almost no paper was lost. Stein tried many ways to get close to Taoist Wang in order to see the Tibetan Sutra Cave he had been looking forward to day and night, but Taoist Wang avoided it, leaving Stein helpless. Later, when he learned that Taoist Wang admired Tang Xuanzang very much, he dressed himself as a disciple of Tang Xuanzang and deceived Wang (Taoist Wang), saying that he came along the road of Tang Xuanzang's learning from the West. This move is very clever, because religious beliefs convey their thoughts. The difference is that the Taoist King is a sincere believer, while Stan is obviously just trying to deceive the Tibetan scriptures.
cause
According to the analysis, the Taoist King sold the scriptures to Stan for three reasons. First, in the past seven years, he turned to the government for help many times and reported it step by step, but no one asked, which made him disheartened. Second, in order to realize his ambition, he cleaned the cave, built three floors and set up a wooden bridge. Thirdly, Tang Xuanzang communicated their thoughts, and Stein's spirit of pursuing career moved him. Therefore, although his thoughts are extremely contradictory and he is extremely unwilling for foreigners to take these cultural relics away, he has to give in under helpless circumstances. It stands to reason that Stein's departure should attract the attention of Chinese people, especially the official attention. However, China officials don't care. The official attitude made Wang Daochang feel more at ease about selling the cultural relics in the Tibetan Sutra Cave at will. Pelliot, a French sinologist, came to Mogao Grottoes in 1908 and sold more than 6,400 manuscripts of Taoist Wang. Because pelliot is proficient in Chinese, the papers he chose are more valuable. When Peliot transported these cultural relics to France, he framed some of his papers in Beijing and exhibited them in the Six Kingdoms Hotel. 19 14, Stein came to Dunhuang again and bought more than 620 volumes from Taoist Wang, filled with five boxes. During this period, Japan's Lihua Drunken, Yoshikawa Koichiro, Russia's Odenburg, and the United States' Warner bought different quantities of scriptures from the Mogao Grottoes. These people have never been restricted from doing so.
steal
Since then, cultural spies from big countries have come to Dunhuang to steal historical relics under the guise of exploring archaeology. In the past few years, batches of priceless silk paintings, linen paintings, woodcuts, scriptures and manuscripts in various languages have been lost overseas. Under the repeated urging of people with lofty ideals in China, the Qing government sent the rest of the cultural relics to Beijing for safekeeping. The cultural spies of the great powers saw that the cultural relics that Dunhuang Mogao grottoes could take away at will were gone, so they turned to the lifelike murals in the grottoes for help.
announciator
But when Warner came to the Mogao Grottoes, the Taoist King's mood and practice were completely different. Peking University's Mr. Chen Wanli has related records in the Diary of a Journey to the West, from which we can get a glimpse. In his diary of May 1925 10, he wrote: "Zhai renewed his employment in Suzhou and hired a carpenter named Zhou, who was called Lao Zhou by his colleagues. The year before last, Lao Zhou, Warner and Zhai Yin went to Beiheichengzi and Dunhuang in Suzhou for a few months. Today, you told me that Mr. Warner stayed in the Thousand Buddha Cave in Dunhuang for seven days and gave the Taoist 720 taels of silver as charity. More than 20 murals were removed by sticking Huajing yangbu and trees together and transported to Beijing, which was very helpful to Zhou. I attach it here. " At that time, the Tibetan scriptures cave was empty, and the inventory in the hands of Taoist Wang had already been sold out. Warner shifted his target and focused on the murals and colored sculptures in the Mogao Grottoes. He gave Taoist Wang a small gift and gave him some money. Taoist Wang turned a blind eye to Warner's pasting and destroying murals and dismantling colored sculptures, and he was not distressed at all. With the idea of repairing Buddha caves and pushing sand to sweep caves, he constantly turned to the people to protect the Thousand Buddha caves. In the second inspection plan, Werner planned to relocate the whole grottoes, and even wanted to make the Mogao Grottoes empty and worthless. His ambition is obvious, and the robber's face is terrible. Taoist priests in Wang Can still turn a blind eye to this.
Zhang Daqian
I want to mention Zhang Daqian here. There are still a lot of murals in the Tibetan Sutra Cave after foreign robbers plundered it. During his copying in Dunhuang, Zhang Daqian stripped off the upper murals privately and observed the murals covering a longer history, which caused great losses. The works he copied are only third-rate works, with weak brushwork and blurred colors. In order to satisfy his curiosity, Zhang Daqian destroyed cultural relics and was spurned by later generations.