Dunhuang suicide note
Refers to the ancient manuscripts and printed copies published in Dunhuang from the 5th to 1 1 century. In the 26th year of Guangxu reign in Qing Dynasty (1900), Wang accidentally discovered the Tibetan Sutra Cave, namely Cave 17, in the tunnel of Cave 16 of Mogao Grottoes. Later, western explorers Stein, Peliott, Otani Expedition and Odenburg followed closely, and a large number of documents and treasures were bundled away. 1909, the Qing government sent the looted documents to Beijing and deposited them in the Shi Jing Library in front of the National Library of China. At present, the National Library of China has 16000 pieces; The British Library has 13677 pieces; There are more than 7,000 pieces in the French National Library; There are more than 18000 pieces in St. Petersburg branch of Institute of Oriental Studies of Russian Academy of Sciences. In addition, Dunhuang Research Institute, Chinese History Museum, Palace Museum, Gansu Provincial Museum, Dunhuang Museum, Peking University Library, Shanghai Museum, Shanghai Library, Tianjin Art Museum, Tianjin History Museum, Chongqing Museum, Northwest Normal University, Taipei Central Library, Hong Kong Art Museum, Gulong University, Otani University, tenri university, Tokyo National Museum, Copenhagen Royal Library and other units have collections, totaling more than 50,000 pieces. At present, the Book of Ten Buddhist Monks (S.797) was first copied in Xiliang in the second year of its establishment (406), and at the latest, it was compiled into Hongzhi by Dunhuang King Cao Zongshou in the fifth year of Xianping in the Great Song Dynasty (1002) (32a). The age of Dunhuang suicide note can be determined from the aspects of paper, scale, calligraphy, inscription and content. Calligraphy in the Northern Dynasty was regular script, while that in the Southern Dynasty and Sui and Tang Dynasties was cursive script. From the end of the eighth century to the ninth century, paper written with wooden pens appeared, and folded clothes and brochures appeared in the late ninth century. Dunhuang suicide note can be divided into religious classics, official and folk documents, China's Four Books and non-Chinese documents. Dunhuang suicide note is an important research material for studying history, archaeology, religion, anthropology, linguistics, literature history, art history, science and technology history and historical geography related to medieval China, Central Asia, East Asia and South Asia.
National Library of China and International Dunhuang Project
( 1)
As one of the four collections of the National Library of China, Dunhuang suicide note has always been highly valued. On the basis of proper collection, it is open to researchers after long-term sorting, restoration and cataloging. These have played a positive and important role in promoting the development of Dunhuang studies.
At the beginning of the collection of Dunhuang suicide notes, the National Library of China assigned a special person to take charge of sorting out and cataloging, and compiled the Catalogue of Dunhuang Stone Classics around 19 12, recording Dunhuang document No.8679. Mr. Chen Yuan presided over the Catalogue of Dunhuang Stone Classics on the basis of 193 1 year. By 1935, the detailed explanation of Dunhuang stone chamber scripture writing and its sequel with high academic value were completed. Unfortunately, due to untimely birth and wartime, it was not published in time. 198 1 In July, Shan Group compiled and catalogued the new font size, and completed the continuation of the Dunhuang Tomb Raider Record, with the record number 1065. 1990. Under the personal leadership of Mr. Ren, the curator, the compilation of Dunhuang suicide notes in the National Library was officially started, which will be published by Beijing Library Press one or two years later.
Dunhuang suicide note has a history of 1000 years, and many papers become brittle after being buried in mud, oil and water. The restoration of Dunhuang suicide note in the National Library of China began at 199 1. Scholars and restorers have carefully summarized the experience and lessons of predecessors and relevant units at home and abroad in repairing Dunhuang suicide notes, and determined the restoration policy of this museum after research and demonstration by experts at home and abroad. Since 1990, the restoration center of rare books and special collections of the National Library has restored more than 5,000 meters of Dunhuang suicide notes, which has solved various technical problems. The restored Dunhuang suicide note is beautiful and generous, and retains the research data, which is well received by all walks of life.
19 10, the Dunhuang suicide note entered the library of Shi Jing, Tibet. 1936, in order to prevent these treasures from being plundered by Japanese imperialism or destroyed by war, Dunhuang suicide note was transferred to Shanghai and kept in a foreign bank. It was not shipped back to Beijing until after the national liberation. After 1987, all the Dunhuang suicide notes were moved to the new museum. The warehouse has a constant temperature and humidity, and the conditions are very good. Only the number of suicide notes is huge, and the special library for storing Dunhuang suicide notes is small; The boxes used to store Dunhuang suicide notes were not enough, so they had to be put in various iron cabinets, wooden cases and even homemade cartons. In 2004, with the strong support of the state finance, a spacious special collection of Dunhuang posthumous books was opened, and special wooden boxes and bookcases were customized. Larger writing scrolls, one in a box, are placed on a specific shelf of the bookcase, which completely changes the situation that dozens of Dunhuang suicide notes were placed in the same drawer and squeezed each other. Make the collection environment of Dunhuang suicide notes in the National Library of China a world-class one.
(2)
Dunhuang is in China and Dunhuang studies are in the world. The works of art in Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes and the ancient documents in the Tibetan Sutra Cave are the precious cultural heritage of all mankind. In the past century, libraries, museums and research institutions that collect Dunhuang cultural relics have made unremitting efforts to protect this heritage, and experts and scholars from all over the world have also made positive contributions to the development of Dunhuang studies. Especially since the 1980s, with the continuous improvement of communication, increasing cooperation and smooth data, people's access to Dunhuang materials has been greatly improved, and the study of Dunhuang studies in the world has shown a thriving situation. However, it cannot be ignored that with the publication of Dunhuang documents at home and abroad and the in-depth development of Dunhuang studies, scholars all want to make full use of Dunhuang documents, but there are still three problems in Dunhuang studies at present.
First, collecting and sorting out information is the basis and starting point of any research work, and Dunhuang research is no exception. Because Dunhuang documents are collected all over the world, it is difficult for ordinary scholars to take a quick look at them, which greatly limits the research work and inevitably leaves regrets. This was everywhere in the previous Dunhuang studies. Dunhuang academic circles vividly compare it to "treasure-digging" research, that is, when you see a volume of text, you study it instead of systematically studying it. So its research is limited by the publication of materials, and materials are the basis of all research.
Secondly, the microfilm used in the study was limited by the shooting technical conditions at that time, and many characters and images were not clear. Moreover, without the guidance of Dunhuang experts, many important materials were omitted from the film. The information contained in Dunhuang treasures printed on film is not as good as that of film, which can not meet the needs of scholars' research. This is particularly prominent in France and Tibet. In recent years, Sichuan People's Publishing House, Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, Beijing Library Publishing House, etc. He has published British-collected Dunhuang documents (non-Buddhist scriptures), Russian-collected Dunhuang documents, French-collected Dunhuang western region documents and Dunhuang Postscript collected by the National Library, with excellent printing and clear sections, but the price is too high for ordinary scholars to care about.
Third, these books that record human civilization are the heritage of world culture and need to be preserved and protected forever. In order to avoid the destruction of the original, circulation should be reduced as much as possible, which leads to the contradiction between research and preservation. In order to solve these problems and better serve the academic community, the National Library of China has been considering how to preserve and protect Dunhuang documents by more advanced means without affecting the service for readers. Of course, as far as we know, these three problems are also common in the collection units of Dunhuang documents.
With the development of the times, academic circles at home and abroad have realized more and more that integrating scattered Dunhuang documents will be a great event in the academic history of the world and also in the history of human civilization. As a result, the international cooperation of Dunhuang studies came out. 1993, National Library of China, National Library of Britain, National Museum of New Delhi, National Library of France, St. Petersburg Branch of Institute of Oriental Studies of Russian Academy of Sciences, proposed to establish the International Dunhuang Project of Berlin National Library. Dr. Wei Hong of the British National Library is far-sighted and original. The following year, he set up a special institution-International Dunhuang Project (IDP) in the library of the British National Library, and now it has become an important department of the British National Library.
The establishment of the international Dunhuang project has set up a platform for cooperation and exchange among the world Dunhuang literature collection institutions, and solved the problems of protection and cataloging. The collection organization also suggests that a complete online database should be established, and the catalogue materials should be linked with high-quality digital images and other related materials, so that scholars all over the world can make full use of the collection. 1994 documents were entered into the specially designed international Dunhuang project database, and 1997 began digital writing. 1998 10 database is online.
(3)
From 65438 to 0997, the National Library of China began to negotiate and cooperate with the British National Library to carry out the international Dunhuang project. After repeated discussions, with the approval of the Ministry of Culture, China and Britain signed a memorandum of understanding on March 7, 20001,which initiated the five-year cooperation between the National Library of China and the British National Library in IDP project. The project expired in 2005, and an agreement has been reached to extend it to 20 10. The purpose of this project is to integrate the cataloging data and text images of Dunhuang documents into a database according to unified standards and formats through digitalization and network technology, and put them on the Internet for free use by researchers. It is worth noting that the memorandum clearly stipulates the copyright of cooperative databases: the copyright of images and materials produced by each database belongs to the producer; Either party shall not modify or delete the information of the other party; Chinese and British parties and third parties may access these images, but they shall not be copied or used for other purposes.
In order to make the images seen by scholars as realistic as the original volumes, the project uses a specially designed 4D database and uses complex digital scanning equipment to make Dunhuang volumes into high-definition images. The image will show all the contents of the written volume-the front, the back and even the places where there is no text. Larger than the actual size, the clarity of the image is no different from that of the original volume. Scholars can retrieve high-quality color images anytime and anywhere through the Internet. After enlarging the image, we can also observe details such as words, ink levels and paper fibers, which were not easy to observe with ordinary magnifying glasses in the past. Scholars don't have to work hard to consult Dunhuang documents or touch precious and fragile original volumes, which solves the contradiction between protection and research to some extent.
With the joint efforts of the two libraries, the Chinese website of the International Dunhuang Project was officially opened in the National Library of China on June 165438+ 10/day, 2002 (with photos). At present, the online bibliography 10773 has more than 500 volumes and more than 6,000 photos.
The ultimate goal of the International Dunhuang Project of the National Library of China is to digitize all the text volumes collected by the National Library of China and put them on the Internet for free reading by scholars from all over the world, so as to promote the development of academic research. Since the cooperation, China and Britain have fully exerted their respective advantages, supported each other and cooperated with each other on the principle of seeking common ground while reserving differences, and achieved remarkable results, which has aroused widespread concern in the international community.
Dunhuang literature is a precious cultural heritage of mankind. How to protect this heritage is the focus of academic circles and the arduous responsibility of librarians. It is very challenging and creative to reveal the oldest paper documents in the history of human civilization without loss with advanced technology. We will sincerely cooperate with British library experts to meet the challenge.