Wang Yuanlu is an authentic Taoist priest, and Mogao Grottoes is a Buddhist holy site and has always been a place for Buddhist activities. However, this is how the world plays tricks on people, so they placed a Taoist priest in a Buddhist cave and asked Taishang Laojun's disciples to work hard for Sakyamuni. This arrangement was really weird and bizarre. What's even more puzzling is that I don't know whether it was Taoist priest Wang Yuanlu's behavior that moved the Buddha, or it was an unintentional arrangement, but the secrets in the Buddha's cave were discovered by a Taoist priest. Strange people encountered strange things, and dramatic results occurred. Wang Yuanlu (about 1850-1931) was originally from Macheng County, Hubei Province. He himself was born in Shaanxi. Due to years of famine in his hometown, he was forced to go out to make a living and lived in Jiuquan. During this period, he entered Taoism and practiced Taoism, and people called him Taoist King. Later, he traveled to Dunhuang and climbed Sanwei Mountain, where he discovered the holy land of Mogao. He was filled with emotion and exclaimed, "This is where the paradise of the West lies." So he stayed here for a long time and devoted the rest of his life. In order to facilitate better Qing Dynasty, Taoist Wang decided to transform Mogao Grottoes into a Taoist pure land. He ran around and collected money to clean up the sand in the cave. It took nearly two years to clean up the sand in Cave 16 alone. On May 26, the twenty-sixth year of the reign of Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty (June 22, 1900), Wang Yuanlu unveiled the secret of the Buddhist Scripture Cave. Taoist Wang's epitaph reads: "When the sand cracked a hole in the wall, there seemed to be light. When the wall was broken, there was a small hole, which suddenly opened up. It contained thousands of volumes of Tang scriptures and many ancient relics. It was a wonder for those who saw it. Those who heard about it said it was a sacred object. "After the discovery of the Sutra Cave, Taoist Wang first walked 50 miles to the county seat to find Yan Ze, the magistrate of Dunhuang, and presented two volumes of scriptures taken from the Sutra Cave. Taoist Wang's purpose was very clear, which was to attract the attention of this official. It is a pity that the county magistrate surnamed Yan is ignorant and has no skills. He just regards these two volumes of scripture as two pieces of yellowed waste paper. Taoist Wang had no choice but to run into a wall and return. In 1902, the third year after the discovery of the Buddhist Scripture Cave, another new magistrate of Dunhuang County, Wang Zonghan, came to Dunhuang. Wang Zhixian is a civil servant, and he is also very knowledgeable in epigraphy. Taoist Wang placed his hopes on this knowledgeable magistrate, hoping that he could solve the problem of protecting the Sutra Cave. Taoist Wang boarded the "Three Treasures Hall" again and reported the situation of the Sutra Cave to Magistrate Wang. Magistrate Wang immediately took a group of people to inspect the Mogao Grottoes in person and picked up a few volumes of scriptures to take away. What is regrettable is that the magistrate Wang only left a sentence, asking Taoist Wang to preserve it on the spot and keep an eye on the Buddhist scripture cave. Nothing more to say from then on. Two attempts to find the county magistrate yielded no results, but Wang Yuanlu was still unwilling to give in. So he picked two more boxes of scriptures from the scripture cave and drove his donkey to Suzhou (Jiuquan). He slept in the open air, worked alone, and braved the risk of being eaten by wolves and bandits. He traveled more than 800 miles before reaching his destination and found Daotai Tingdong, which was then the Ansu Army Preparatory Road. Lord Tingdong can be called a learned man. He looked at it carefully, but he neither estimated the value of these cultural relics nor considered how to protect the scripture cave. He just looked at it carefully. I browsed through it from the perspective of appreciating calligraphy, and finally came to the conclusion that the characters on the scriptures were not as good as his calligraphy, so I left it at that. A few years later, Ye Changchi, an epigrapher who was an academic and political scholar in Gansu Province at the time, learned about the Sutra Cave and was very interested in it. He also obtained some antiquities through Wang Zhi County, but the purpose was to enrich the "Yu Shi" he was writing. 》 book. Ye said in his book "Yu Shi": "He successively sent a portrait of Shuiyue Guanyin in the sixth year of Qiande in the Song Dynasty, two volumes of scriptures and two Sanskrit leaf editions. The brushwork is ancient and clumsy, and it is indeed the original style of the Tang Dynasty scriptures, which is no different from the Japanese maritime edition. "It can be seen that Ye Changchi's identification of the ancient artifacts in the Tibetan Scripture Cave is very correct. Unfortunately, he did not make up his mind to take effective protection measures for the Buddhist Scripture Cave. It was not until 1904 that the provincial government ordered the Dunhuang scriptures to be inspected and preserved on site. This decision was the same as Magistrate Wang's original statement, which was to shirk the responsibility. Wang Yuanlu was helpless and boldly wrote a secret letter to Lafayette in the Qing Palace. However, when the Qing Dynasty was in turmoil, it was impossible for the officials who lived deep in the Qing Palace to care about such "trivial matters". Wang Yuanlu's hope was like a cow falling into the sea, and there was no news. When Stein came to Mogao Caves for the first time in 1907, Taoist Wang had already spent seven more spring and autumn years with the Buddhist Scripture Cave.
During these seven years, except for officials who took away some scriptures, Taoist Wang guarded the scripture cave very closely, and very few scrolls were lost. In order to see the Buddhist scripture cave that he had been looking forward to day and night, Stein tried many ways to get close to Taoist Wang, but Taoist Wang avoided seeing him, leaving Stein helpless. Later, he learned that Wang admired Xuanzang of Tang Dynasty very much, so he disguised himself as a believer of Xuanzang of Tang Dynasty, and deceived Wang Yuanlu by saying that he came along the route of Xuanzang of Tang Dynasty to the West for Buddhist scriptures. The thoughts were communicated, but the difference was that Wang Yuanlu was a sincere believer, while Stein obviously only wanted to defraud the Buddhist scriptures. Stein once described: "The Taoist priests worshiped Xuanzang. The paintings on the newly built loggia opposite the Grotto Temple have obvious evidence. What they painted are some ridiculous legends... I used my very limited Chinese to explain to him. Taoist Wang told me about my own worship of Xuanzang and how I followed his footsteps across the high mountains and deserts from India to this point. He was obviously moved by me. ""That morning I will reach Tibet. A door of Baobao's stone chamber opened... The papers were piled tightly on top of each other, about ten feet high. "After the Taoist priest was enlightened by me, he enthusiastically took out the papers in bundles. "This time Stein exchanged 200 taels of silver for 24 boxes of suicide notes, paintings and 5 large boxes of other cultural relics. It took Stein more than a year to transport these treasures to the British Museum in London. When China's door is wide open, no one bothers. According to analysis, there were three reasons why Taoist Wang sold the scriptures to Stein. First, for seven years, he repeatedly asked the authorities for attention and reported the matter step by step, but no one took action, which made him discouraged. The second is to complete his ambition, clean the cave, build a three-story building, and erect a wooden bridge. Third, Tang Xuanzang communicated their thoughts, and Stein was moved by the explorer's pursuit of career. Therefore, although he was extremely conflicted in his thoughts and was extremely unwilling for foreigners to take these cultural relics away, he had no choice but to give in. The Qing government turned a blind eye to Stein's theft of the Dunhuang treasure scrolls. This attitude made Taoist Wang more confident in selling the cultural relics in the Buddhist Scripture Cave at will. In 1908, the French sinologist Pelliot came to the Mogao Grottoes and sold more than 6,000 manuscripts from Taoist Wang. Since Heber was proficient in Chinese, the papers he selected were more valuable. When Heberhe transported these relics to France, he framed some of the scrolls in Beijing and exhibited them at the Six Nations Hotel. In 1914, Stein came to Dunhuang again and sold more than 600 scripture scrolls from Taoist Wang, filling 5 large boxes. During this period, Japan's Kiku Ruichao and Yoshikawa Koichiro, Russia's Oldenburg, and the United States' Warner and others successively bought different quantities of scriptures from the Mogao Grottoes. These people have never been subject to any restrictions in doing so. At that time, groups of foreign scholars traveled thousands of miles to explore for treasures in Mogao Grottoes, but I don’t know where all the Chinese scholars had gone. In 1910, the Qing government made a decision to transport all remaining Dunhuang scrolls to Beijing for preservation. During the transportation, parts were stolen almost everywhere. Even during the "Ten Years of Disaster", bundles of scriptures were found in Dunhuang during a house raid, and its whereabouts can be imagined. The loss of a large number of scriptures once made Wang Yuanlu very sad, because he discovered the scripture cave, and there had never been a large number of scriptures lost for no reason during his custody over the years. The officials were so plundering and greedy that he Feeling extremely indignant. Therefore, when Stein visited the Mogao Grottoes for the second time in 1914, Wang Yuanlu said something thought-provoking to him. "Stein's Archeology of the Western Regions" records this: "When it comes to the government moving his beloved Chinese The paper was damaged, and he expressed regret that he had not had the courage and courage to listen to Master Jiang, accept the large sum of money from me, and give up the entire collection of books to me. After being harassed by the government, he was extremely afraid. , so he hid the Chinese manuscripts that he regarded as particularly valuable in a safe place.
"In Wang Yuanlu's view, he would rather sell all the papers to Stein and keep them intact, or keep them himself, rather than let the papers suffer such a disaster... In 1931, Wang Yuanlu died in Dunhuang. His tomb tower still stands in front of the gate of Mogao Grottoes. Tourists from all over the world pass by his tomb. Are they grateful or resentful?