It was once a frontier town blown by the majestic winds of the Han and Tang Dynasties. Here, the fierce west wind has blown sand and rocks as before for thousands of years; here, the vast Gobi remains silent forever; the sky is boundless and the sea of ??sand is boundless. Several times the sea has changed the mulberry fields, and several times the spring breeze has moved away the autumn moon. "The setting sun shines on the banner, and the horses roar in the wind." How many cold iron coats were buried in the sand, the fierceness of the Hu cavalry, and the bravery of the Han army have all remained in people's legends.
It was once an international city derived from the prosperous Silk Road. Here, the solitary smoke of the desert straightened the line of sight of the caravans; here, the sunset over the long river circled the thoughts of travelers; the sound of quicksand and the sound of camel bells Sound, how many times have the beauty aged, how many times have black hair turned into white hair. "The wind blows thousands of miles across Yumen Pass." Many camel bells and merchant flags were silenced by the wind. The traveling scribes and wise businessmen all stopped in the silhouette of history.
It was once a Buddhist holy land shrouded in the holy light of the Buddha. Here, the solemn Buddhist niches and grottoes contained three thousand worlds; here, the colorful flying murals tell the holiness of the Buddhist kingdom. As the sun and the moon pass, the stars move, countless bright colors are eroded by summer rain, and countless clear paintings are mottled by winter snow. "Thousands of miles along the Dunhuang road, the snow has not cleared in three springs." The Sanskrit sounds of many scriptures are hidden by the setting sun. The devout monks and unknown painters have all disappeared on the title page of the scrolls.
Dunhuang, this seemingly inconspicuous small city, has once brought people so much wonder. Although, no one knew how prosperous and radiant it was in history. One hundred years ago, the clouds broke through and the moon rose, making a shocking appearance. The Dunhuang Scripture Cave suddenly appeared in front of the world, and together with the Mogao Grottoes, it was rediscovered by the world. From the caves and mural mountains of Mogao Grottoes, we admired the graceful flying sky with fluttering clothes, gazed at the calm smile of the Buddha in Zen enlightenment, and listened to the thunderous sound of Dharma in the thousand-year-old caves. However, the stories of Dunhuang City and the true teachings of the Buddhist world are not only shown in these grottoes and murals, but also in the batch of scriptures and documents that have been scattered around and landed in foreign countries.
How long is a thousand years? For history, it is just a moment. In an instant, spring goes and autumn comes, and a thousand years pass. However, a thousand years is already a long time for humans. For a thousand years, luxuriant grass covered the mausoleums of the Han family and the palaces of the Tang Dynasty. Emperors, generals, ministers, talents and beauties were all turned into soil. How many historical legends and classics can be dissipated in a thousand years. The stories and secrets of Dunhuang have also been sealed in the long history. It was not until the appearance of this batch of scriptures that the barriers of time were broken, and the once glorious city of Dunhuang once again became active in people's imagination.
It is no exaggeration at all to regard this batch of scriptures as one of the four greatest discoveries in China in the 20th century. "More than 60,000 ancient documents and more than 30,000 ancient manuscripts contain rich political, economic, military, religious, folklore, language, literature, music, dance, science and technology, and Chinese and Western transportation information, which are very important for the study of my country's medieval period. The overall picture of society is a rare first-hand information," Dunhuang experts once lamented. In this small cave, historical legends such as Lezun, Fa Liang, Kumarajiva, and Xuanzang have been here; in modern times, Stein, Pelliot, and Edenberg have been here. , Warner have been here; a large number of Dunhuang scholars such as Chang Shuhong, Duan Wenjie, Fan Jinshi have taken root in Dunhuang, worked hard, and devoted their lives to the protection and research of Dunhuang cultural relics. For scholars in the 21st century, when studying China's past history and culture, they often suffer from the lack of documentary materials. Those huge historical questions puzzled them. This batch of scriptures and documents from the medieval world are like a key to the door of history, opening the door to the medieval world for them.
He treasured the classic books Jing, Shi, Zi and Ji handed down from generation to generation: "The Book of Songs", "Shangshu", "Book of Rites", "The Analects", "Book of Changes", "The Book of Filial Piety", "Er" Ancient classics such as "Ya" perfectly present the basic appearance of these Confucian classics in medieval times. The life goals of Confucian scholars to cultivate themselves, govern the country and bring peace to the world are all reflected in these neat hand-written fonts. The myth of Pangu's founding of heaven, the legends of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, the legends of famous generals, the rise and fall of aristocratic families, and the reputation of high-profile celebrities are all in the history part of the remains. The legacy of various schools of thought contending vertically and horizontally, the lively scene of a hundred schools of thought contending, the academic works of "letting a hundred flowers bloom", and the wisdom of various schools of thought "competing for wonder and beauty" are all revealed in Zibu. Poems that were once lost and poems that were once unknown can be found in Jibu.
He collected various religious classics: a large number of Buddhist scriptures, Buddhist classics and various Bianwen stories were once treasured in the Sutra Cave. Through these Buddhist classics, the prevalence of Buddhism, the level of development of Buddhism, the pious attitude of believers, and the profound wisdom of monks are all revealed to the eyes of later generations. Picking up the scroll, it seems that we have also entered the solemn Buddhist world, leaving a holy and pure world in our hearts. From these writings, we can infer that people's belief in Buddhism at that time reached an unprecedented level, and was as majestic as the style of the Tang Dynasty. The Buddhist scriptures copied by our ancestors are exactly the devout believers' expectations for a better future life. He also has a large collection of Taoist classics. The strokes on talismans, the ideas of Taoist altars, the development of Taoism, and the eloquence of Taoist priests can all be appreciated one by one. In addition, you can also find classics from other religions such as Nestorianism, Yijiao, Manichaeism, etc.
Dunhuang is connected in all directions, Dunhuang respects freedom, and is open and inclusive. As these religious writings slowly unfold, it gradually becomes clear to the world.
He preserved various legal documents: laws, orders, patterns, styles and other legal documents show us a complete legal system with rigorous legislation and fair enforcement. We can see that in Gaotai Yamen, officials are showing their majesty, people are telling the whole story of their grievances, and documents are writing down the process of case rulings. The legislative status, administrative organization status, official document exchange methods, and case handling methods of medieval society have all been clearly recorded and written down.
He left behind a large number of secular documents: the operation methods and economic conditions of monasteries, the prices of various commodities in the market, economic disputes between merchants and tourists, the loan transactions of Lixu in the market, and the affairs of urban women. Making social friends, trivial matters of family life, etiquette among people in the world, etc. are all preserved in secular documents. Through extensive research on secular documents, the secular life of Dunhuang people becomes vivid before our eyes. The land of the widow of the Suo family has been usurped, the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law of the Zhang family are quarreling again today, the women's society has a gathering next month, the Wang family's daughter has reached the age of marriage, the Cao family's wife has just gone to worship Buddha, and the Fan family's A child is reciting "Tai Gong's Tutors", a young novice is copying Buddhist scriptures outside the Three Realms Temple, a Sogdian named Kang is being accused in the market, an out-of-control carriage is hurting someone outside the city gate...these secular documents show The Dunhuang people's living world of daily necessities, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea is a rare academic wealth for today's researchers.
He also left behind a large number of practical classics: medicine, magic, geography and local chronicles. The medical documents show Dunhuang's long history of traditional Chinese medicine and the folk tradition of maintaining health through diet; the arithmetic documents show the magical skills of Dunhuang folk in predicting destiny from the rise and fall of the stars and deducing mathematics in calculations; and the geographical chronicle documents show Learn about Dunhuang’s wonderful mountains, beautiful waters and outstanding people.
He also buried a large number of silk paintings and silk paintings: the majestic Buddha, the gentle and compassionate Guanyin, the mighty and solemn King of Heaven, and the angry and scolding King Kong were all carved one by one by the painters. On these precious silks. Concave and convex brushwork and smudged brushwork roam on the pure white scroll. Here, you can see the clothing civilization of the Central Plains and the celebrities of the Southern Dynasties, as well as the open fashion of foreign lands and the majesty of the Tang Dynasty. In the radiant paintings, the figure of the master appears everywhere. It has Wu Daozi's brushwork style of "Wu Dao is in the Wind". Between the changing thickness of the brush and ink, the characters' heavenly clothes are flying, and the full scroll is moving in the wind. Li Sixun, who is famous for his green landscape paintings, paints the world of Buddhism as the atmosphere of the Tang Dynasty reflected in gold coins. From these silk paintings, we can also see the grand worship of Amitabha and Avalokitesvara in every household in Dunhuang at that time. Whether it is a businessman who is being robbed in the mountains and forests, a prisoner who is about to die before his execution, or a merchant ship moving forward in the waves, the one who calls out in times of crisis is "Namo Guanyin Bodhisattva". In the era of prosperous Silk Road trade, constant business travelers and traveling monks came and went from Dunhuang, an important hub city. Art and civilization from the Central Plains, India, Greece, and Persia have been gathered and integrated here for thousands of years. Blended together, today these remaining silk paintings and the murals in the Mogao Grottoes are like a magnificent Buddhist scripture, an art treasure house with gorgeous and varied styles, which will shock those who come after.
In addition, the Sutra Cave also contains a large number of handicrafts. There are Buddhist flags with various shapes and styles and rich painting themes; there are sutras with bamboo strips as the weft, silk as the warp, and scrolls as clothes; there are ancient embroidery with all-encompassing scenes and lifelike characters; there are also exquisitely crafted template carvings and Wooden sculptures... these exquisite works of art are the lifelong efforts of skilled craftsmen in the Middle Ages, and they are also the precious wealth they left to future generations.
Today, whether it is the rich variety of scrolls in the Buddhist Scripture Cave or the exquisite works of art in the Buddhist Scripture Cave. For us, it is a precious heritage that cannot be measured by price. This batch of cultural relics is priceless to us. Decades have passed, and our ancestors are spending their entire lives collecting and searching for these national treasures that have been lost overseas. "If you can't return, it would be better to even know where they are," one scholar said. Therefore, in recent years, the country has used a lot of manpower and inability to find the whereabouts of these lost national treasures. Chinese scholars have also cooperated with sinologists in other countries in various aspects to compile a large number of catalogs of Dunhuang posthumous documents lost overseas. At the same time, many codes left over from history were also unlocked. Today, Dunhuang studies in China are booming, and Chinese scholars are trying every possible means to explore the historical and cultural information left by the cultural relics in the Tibetan Scripture Cave. These treasures left behind have helped us explore many unknown areas in history, and also helped us discover the splendid civilization code of ancient China.
Paper has lasted for thousands of years. For us, the Dunhuang suicide notes are not just a pile of yellowed scraps of old paper, but also a wonderful time and space tunnel, in which we can see the lives of people more than a thousand years ago. , faith, entertainment, come rushing in, as if it were a world away. People at that time had a sincere belief in life, a boiling enthusiasm for life, and extraordinary craftsmanship. The documents left behind in the Sutra Cave have become a real symbol of our memory of that era, a real basis for us to feel the pulse of that era, and a guide for us to continue to carry forward the civilization of that era.
For many years, I have always had the same dream. Deep in the desert, a woman slowly walked towards me. She was like a dancer from thousands of years ago, an elf in time and space, coming from the depths of the desert. In the grotto here, from the lonely murals of thousands of years, I fell into the world, dancing leisurely, blooming like a flower, blooming in the silent desert, taking me gradually through the sand of time, getting closer to the distant dance dream, pushing away the heavy door Through the historical gate, enter Dunhuang a thousand years ago...