DOCSLIB.ORG

Download Article

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Download Article Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 205 The 2nd International Conference on Culture, Education and Economic Development of Modern Society (ICCESE 2018) A Preliminary Study on the Chinese Documents with the Reign Title Unearthed in Khara-Khoto Xiaoming Li Wuwei Museum Wuwei, China 733000 Abstract—Khara-Khoto is unearthed Chinese literatures, collection and publication situation of these documents are as which are accompanied by a large number of social documents follows: with the reign titles. And these reign titles are of great significance on determining the date of the document and The discovery of the Khara-Khoto literature began in 1908 researching the relevant historical background. This paper and 1909 with the cultural artifacts excavated by the Russian sketches the source, age, paintings origin and corresponding soldier Kirslov twice in Khara-Khoto. These cultural relics contents of these instruments in order to provide some were divided into non-literature and literature. Not only the convenience for researching and arranging the literature literatures were the firstly-discovered batch in the Khara- unearthed in Khara-Khoto. Khoto, but also the collections of more valuable than most of others and the batch of largest number in foreign countries. Keywords—Khara-Khoto; Chinese literatures; reign titles; Among them, the none-literature part is currently collected in hand-copied books the Russian National Hermitage Museum, and the literature part is currently in the St. Petersburg branch of the Institute of I. INTRODUCTION Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. From 1996 to 2007, St. Petersburg branch of the Institute of Oriental The discovery of the Khara-Khoto document is considered Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Chinese National to be the third largest archaeological discovery in China Academy of Social Sciences Research Institute and the following the Oracle Boon in Yin Ruins and the Dunhuang Shanghai ancient books publishing house have consecutively Posthumous Writings in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. published the "Russian Stored Khara-Khoto Literature " of In recent decades, with the massive publication of Khara- 1 total 13 volumes, which consist of a large number of Chinese Khoto literatures, the academic circles' research on relevant and Xixia documents reserved in Russia. In 2008, Russian subjects, such as Study of Xixia and Study of Khara-Khoto, National Hermitage Museum, Northwest Minzu University has been flourishing. and Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House jointly The literature relics unearthed in the site of Back Water published the "Russian Stored Khara-Khoto Artwork ", which City are mainly collected in relevant institutions of Russia, the consist of some relic artworks unearthed in Khara-Khoto. In United Kingdom, and China. In recent years, these unearthed addition, in the period from 1992 to 2001, the 17 volumes of relics have been managed and published. The excavation, “Russian Stored Dunhuang Literature " published by the St. Petersburg Office of the Oriental Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Oriental Literature Department of 1 the Russian Science Press, and the Shanghai Ancient Books Institute of Archaeology of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Publishing House were also mixed by some Khara-Khoto Xixia Research Center of Ningxia University, and Gansu Provincial Archives Compilation Center for Ancient Books. Chinese Archives of Khara-Khoto in documents. China[M]. Beijing: National Library Press, 2008; St. Petersburg Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies of Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of In 1914, the British explorer Stein also went to Khara- Nationalities of China Academy of Social Sciences, Shanghai Ancient Books Khoto to collect a large number of documentary relics, of Publishing House, Literatures of Khara-Khoto in Russia[M]. Shanghai: which the part of the Khara-Khoto literature now houses the Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 1996; British National Library, British National Library. In 2005, the Shanghai Dictionary Second Nationalities College of Northwest China, Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House published the Chinese literature of Stein Publishing House. [M]. Literatures of Khara-Khoto in Britain[M]. Shanghai: Third Central Asian Archaeology (part of the non Buddhist Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House 2005-2010; Sa Zhi, Wu Fangsi. Chinese literature (non-Buddhism) obtained by Stein in the third Central Scriptures) edited by Sha Zhi and Wu Fangsi, which contains Asian archaeology [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Lexicographical Publishing more than 200 documentary scraps collected by Stein in the House 2005; St. Petersburg Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies of Khara-Khoto area. From 2005 to 2010, the 1-5 volumes of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Oriental Literature Department of Russian “British Stored Water City Documentary” edited by the British Literature Press, Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, Dunhuang National Library, the Second Northwestern Minzu College, Literature Collection in Russian [M]. Shanghai: Hai Ancient Books Publishing House 1992-2001; Russian National Hermitage Museum, and the Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House were Northwest University for Nationalities, Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing successively published. In this work, the Xixia literature of House. Artwork Collection of Khara-Khoto in Russia [M]. Shanghai: Khara-Khoto and a small amount of Chinese literature Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House 2008. reversed in the British National Library are collected and it is Copyright © 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). 500 Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 205 another important work from Khara-Khoto about the study of On the basis of the rough statistics of relevant publications Xixia literature. and researches literature, the number of Chinese documents unearthed in Khara-Khoto is as follows: there are about 4213 In 1927, in the northwestern archaeological activity carried pieces of China stored Chinese documents unearthed in Khara- out by Northwest China Scientific Investigation Group Khoto while the number of Russia stored documents is 488 organized by China and Sweden, Mr. Huang Wenbi also pieces according to Lev Nikolaevich Menshikov’s data.4 In the collected hundreds of documents in the Khara-Khoto area, Chinese literature (non Buddhist Scriptures) obtained in the which is currently possessed by the Institute of Archaeology of 2 Stein’s third Central Asian Archaeology (non Buddhist the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Scriptures), there are 226 pieces of them that come from In China, in recent decades, archaeological excavations Khara-Khoto. The Dunhuang Manuscripts of Russian-Tibetan have also been carried out on the site of the Khara-Khoto and a Collection, after the study of the Fu Xianzhan, Jin Qiankun, large number of documents and cultural relics have been and Rong Xinjiang, there are at least 108 Khara-Khoto obtained. In 1962 and 1963, when the Inner Mongolia documents mixed in Russia stored Dunhuang literature and Autonomous Region cultural relic brigade investigated the these literatures have been published. 5In the British stored ancient Juyan area, they collected a small amount of literature of the Khara-Khoto, there are about 118 Chinese documents in the Khara-Khoto, and the documents are now documents that have been mixed into the Xixia literature for a stored in the Inner Mongolia Museum. In 1976 and 1979, the long time. After reviewing and researching a small number of Gansu Provincial Cultural Relics brigade visited Khara-Khoto literatures collected in Khara-Khoto in 1976 and 1979 by twice and collected a small number of documents, which are Gansu Province Cultural Relics brigade, Mr. Chen Bingying now stored in the Gansu Provincial Museum. Mr. Chen published 24 pieces of Chinese documents of Yuan Dynasty. Bingying once studied and interpreted the part of Chinese The number of these documents is relatively conservative. documents reserved in Gansu Province and unearthed in With the subsequent discovery and research of Chinese Khara-Khoto.3 documents unearthed in Khara-Khoto, the relevant literatures and documents are bond to increase. In 1983 and 1984, the Research Institute of Cultural Relics Archaeology of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and So many documents unearthed in Khara-Khoto are Alashan Cultural Relics workstations jointly conducted a attached by reign titles and time that are widely used in various large-scale archaeological excavation in Khara-Khoto site and kinds of documents, such as Xixia character, Chinese character. unearthed nearly more than 3000 documents. Based on these These reign titles of these documents are of great significance documents, in 2008, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on determining documents’ time and researching the relevant Archaeological Research Institute, Xixia research center of historical background. What we want to discuss here are some Ningxia University and Gansu Ancient Book Compilation of the features of the Khara-Khoto documents with reign titles, center collaboratively published the China Reserved Khara- which have been widely studied in the academic world. Khoto Literature compiled by Tara, Du Jianlu and Gao Guoxiang. This is an important work for the study of the A. The Research on the Number
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Sir Gerard Clauson and His Skeleton Tangut Dictionary Imre Galambos
    Sir Gerard Clauson and his Skeleton Tangut Dictionary Imre Galambos Sir Gerard Leslie Makins Clauson (1891–1974) worked most of his life as a civil servant and conducted academic research in his spare time.1 Only after retiring in 1951 at the age of 60 was he able to devote his full attention to scholarly endeavours, which were primarily focussed on Turkish languages. Thus as a scholar, today he is primarily remembered for his contribution to Turkish studies, and his Etymological Dictionary of Pre-Thirteenth-Century Turkish is still an essential reference tool in the field.2 Yet in addition to his study of Turkish and Mongolian linguistics, he also worked on a number of other Asian languages, including Tangut. Even though his extensive list of publications includes a small number of items related to Tangut studies,3 he devoted an incredible amount of time and effort to studying the language and to compiling a dictionary. He never finished the dictionary but deposited a draft version along with his notes in seven large volumes at the Library of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), so that they would be available to anyone who wished to study Tangut and perhaps continue his research. Eric Grinstead, who used the dictionary when working on the Tangut manuscripts at the British Museum, called it “a paragon of excellence” in comparison with high level of errors in dictionaries available at the time.4 Indeed, the erudition of Clauson’s dictionary is obvious even upon a cursory look at the manuscript version and had it ever been published, it would have undoubtedly made a major impact on scholarship.
    [Show full text]
  • I Buddhism in Central Asia I © Carmen Meinert and Henrik H. Sørensen
    _book_id: 0 _book_language: en _book_alttitle: 0 _dedication_title: 0 _publisher_id: 0 _collection_id_series: dhr i Buddhism in Central Asia I © carmen meinert and henrik h. sørensen, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004417731_001Carmen Meinert und Henrik Sørensen - 978-90-04-41773-1 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NCHeruntergeladen 4.0 License. von Brill.com03/27/2020 09:58:47AM via Ruhr Universitat Bochum ii Dynamics in the History of Religions Editors-in-Chief Volkhard Krech Licia Di Giacinto (Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany) Advisory Board Jan Assmann (Ruprecht-Karls Universität, Heidelberg) Christopher Beckwith (Indiana University, Bloomington) Rémi Brague (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München) José Casanova Mittman (Casanova) Angelos Chaniotis (Oxford University) Peter Skilling (University of Sydney) Guy Stroumsa (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Boudewijn Walraven (Leiden University) VOLUME 11 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/dhr Carmen Meinert und Henrik Sørensen - 978-90-04-41773-1 Heruntergeladen von Brill.com03/27/2020 09:58:47AM via Ruhr Universitat Bochum iii Buddhism in Central Asia I Patronage, Legitimation, Sacred Space, and Pilgrimage Edited by Carmen Meinert Henrik H. Sørensen LEIDEN | BOSTON Carmen Meinert und Henrik Sørensen - 978-90-04-41773-1 Heruntergeladen von Brill.com03/27/2020 09:58:47AM via Ruhr Universitat Bochum iv This is an open access title distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NC 4.0 License, which permits any non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. BuddhistRoad is a project of This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 725519).
    [Show full text]
  • Honours Thesis
    The Xixia Writing System Bachelor of Arts Honours Thesis Alan Downes 89253388 Supervisor: Professor Daniel Kane Macquarie University November 26, 2008 Abstract The Xixia were an independent state established during the Song dynasty within the borders of present-day China. They developed a script that rivals Chinese in its complexity. The methods that have been historically used to describe characters are presented. A new method called the recursive radical method is then developed to exactly describe the structure of a Xixia character based on its components. This is then further developed into a transliteration method for the characters. Dictionaries are built up based on this transliteration method. A categorical dictionary for the Xixia characters is also presented. The grammar of the Xixia language is briefly outlined before finishing with an overview of the Xixia research literature. Contents 1 Introduction 3 2 Character Description Methods7 2.1 Radical-Based Systems..................................7 2.2 Four Corners Method..................................8 2.3 Nishida Tatsuo's Structural Approach......................... 12 2.4 Recursive Index for Xixia................................ 13 2.5 Recursive Index for Chinese............................... 20 2.6 Transliteration Scheme.................................. 20 3 Xixia Dictionaries 26 3.1 Categorical Dictionary.................................. 26 3.2 Transliteration Dictionary................................ 26 3.3 Suffix Dictionary..................................... 27 3.4
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction
    Introduction This book [Zongmi’s Chan Prolegomenon] is not only a means for com- ing to know of matters related to Zen; it is also a book that is valuable for coming to know Buddhism in general. —Ui Hakuju, Zengen shosenshu tojo (1939) Modern Japa nese Zen has tended to foster a rather one- dimensional character- ization of the Chan/Zen school’s slogan “mind- to- mind transmission; no in- volvement with the written word [yi xin chuan xin bu li wenzi].” For Japa nese Zen it is common to imply that textual learning (gakumon) in Buddhism in general and personal experience (taiken) in Zen are separate realms. For in- stance, Yamamoto Genpo (1866– 1961), the most famous Rinzai Zen master of early Showa Japan and sometimes called the second coming of Hakuin Ekaku (1685– 1768), said that the crucial requirement for a Zen monk is the “mind of the Way” (doshin), and that adding learning (gakumon) to this is like making a ferocious demon hold a metal cudgel (oni ni kanabo). Supplying a cudgel is like adding superfl uous strength to a demon that is already strong.1 Even in Zen scholarship such a dichotomy between Zen mind and the word shows up. The Great Dictionary of Zen Studies (Zengaku daijiten), a multivolume Zen diction- ary published by the Soto Zen school in Japan in the 1970s, begins its entry for “no involvement with the written word” with the following: The slogan “no involvement with the written word; a separate transmission outside the canonical teachings” is spoken of as a special characteristic of the Zen school.
    [Show full text]
  • And the Xixia Tanguts in European Medieval and Early Modern Sources, Ca. 1250-1750
    Echoes in Eurasia: the name ‘Tangut’ and the Xixia Tanguts in European medieval and early modern sources, ca. 1250-1750 Fries 1522 (see Bibliography) (source: Bibliothèque nationale de France) Research MA Thesis (Asian Studies), 5474VTH14, spring semester 2016 By: R.J. de Jong, s1369075, ResMA Asian studies Thesis supervisor: Prof. dr. H.G.D.G. De Weerdt, Leiden University Institute for Area Studies Contents List of figures………………………………………………………………………………………............4 Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………………………...5 Conventions………………………………………………………………………………………..............6 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..............8 1. European-Mongolian perspectives on an in-between region: ‘Tangut’ and its toponymic ties…………………………………………………………………………………...14 1.1 Mongolian connotations and the adoption of ‘Tangut’ into European languages……………14 1.2 Polo’s province……………………………………………………………………………………….17 1.3 The rhubarb of Suzhou: ‘Tangut’ as part of China? ………………………………………...……22 1.4 Ties to Tartary and Tibet: a shift in the meanings of ‘Tangut’ ……………………………..…...27 1.5 Kingdom, province, region, or empire? Notes on administrative terminology……………….31 1.6 ‘Tangut’ as part of a greater whole: cartography and Christian worldview…………………..32 Conclusion…………………………..……………………………………………………………………40 2. A sense of the Xixia? ‘Tangut’ and the Tanguts in thirteenth-century texts………………….…42 2.1 Fusing horizons? The Tanguts as a concept and the Mongolized outlook of Rubruck 2 and Polo………………………………………………………………………………...…………………43 2.2 Ethnic markers of (the)
    [Show full text]
  • 2 Bounded Empires
    Bounded Empires: Ecological and Geographic Implications in Sino- Tangut Relations, 960-1127 By Rocco Bowman he Tangut Western Xia empire, a state built by semi-nomadic migrants, and the Northern Song (960-1127) shared a dynamic century upon the stage of northwest China.* Though T major war broke out in 1038 and 1069, organized military conflict was only one way in which either side jockeyed for power, economic advantage, and loyalty; empire building resulted from carefully planned statecraft. However, both empires found expansion upon or beyond the crumbling, eroding Loess Plateau and the harsh Ordos Desert to be extremely difficult. Winning territory and subjects in the region became a quagmire, forcing the empires not only to defensively adapt internal state institutions in significant ways but to realize the bounds of their respective imperiums.1 The politically savvy Tang Dynasty helped create the circumstances for the consolidation of nomadic power in the north, but one dynasty’s successful policies are another’s “nomad problem.” Tang emperors ameliorated mounted incursions from the Mongolian steppe by allying with peoples who could fight on equal terms, creating a military buffer; however, the rise of the centralized, Confucian Song state engendered antagonisms between these two previously cooperative regions. Here, Sino-Tangut history enters an era of frantic activity. This dynamic interaction was not so much the result of a shared border in which culturally distinct populations vied for supremacy but quite the opposite—an unsettled, ecologically vague borderland with equally diverse populations embracing competing loyalties. Imperial logic and prerogative were clear motivators in the conquest of cities and trade routes; however, the ecology and geography of the Loess Plateau within the Yellow River (hereafter referred to as the Ordos Loop, consisting of the land circumscribed by the Yellow and Wei Rivers) presented particularly unique advantages, disadvantages, and cultural perceptions which aided and fettered imperial projects.
    [Show full text]
  • Reassessing Printed Buddhist Frontispieces from Xi Xia
    《浙江大學藝術與考古研究（第一輯）》抽印本 浙江大學藝術與考古研究中心編 杭州：浙江大學出版社，2014.10 Reassessing Printed Buddhist Frontispieces from Xi Xia Shih-shan Susan Huang Rice University ㌔䑛ༀ਍ᰯ Editorial Board Robert Bagley Princeton University ⮩䁅ᙺ Boston University Lothar von Falkenhausen University of California, Los Angeles 䁉ᬺ㞛 㜦▏๓Ⴄ ᱺ 䰢 ࡃϘ๓Ⴄ ᱺ⢵⣵ Palace Museum (Taipei) ㍲ ਞ ⊅↋๓Ⴄ ⴟႴ䁅 Academia Sinica ᰪጯጉᄘ 叽ጉऐ᪳ࡂⵀ⾢ᝬ Peter C. Sturman University of California, Santa Barbara Alain Thote École Pratique des Hautes Études ͧ ㌔Editor㍲ਞ ޛͧ㌔Associate Editor Ҳష咹 ㌔ 䑛Assistant Editors 䁉ᡛ⮨ 䮟䯱万 Samuel R. Gilbert Ⱊ䡞 ܦ❴㿘ᬺ 䀂 ᪳ 付⢷ലȧ๖̬⺉ూȨ㔯 Ҳష咹1 Ąష䯇ࠁ➕ą喝͙ష㬉㵿͙⮰⡱㭺ᒎ䆍 ᱺ 䰢 28 The Poetic Ideas Scroll Attributed to Mi Youren and Sima Huai Peter C. Sturman 84 Reassessing Printed Buddhist Frontispieces from Xi Xia Shih-shan Susan Huang 129 䱾㟝䊣⎼ͷ᱘౜ఌ㉌㔯ᄋٯᮛᓣ䣚 ᫩䲅㤞 183 ᮆ⌱Ⴤ਍ᬑ፤⩋≧͙⮰ᰤ∁ ⮩䁅ᙺ 218 ᰤ 㾁 Li Feng, Bureaucracy and the State in Early China: Governing the Western Zhou Lothar von Falkenhausen 252 Color plate 12 Guanyin, Jin dynasty, New Orleans Museum of Art. Color plate 13 Frontispiece to Huayan Sutra, juan 71, 1298, Yuan dynasty, Kyoto National Museum. Reassessing Printed Buddhist Frontispieces from Xi Xia Shih-shan Susan Huang Rice University Abstract: This study uses printed Buddhist frontispieces to reevaluate Xi Xia visual culture and its connections to neighboring cultures—the Song, the Khitan Liao, and the Jurchen Jin. Many frontispieces, produced in large numbers with Chinese woodblock printing technology, have been excavated at Khara Khoto, Inner Mongolia, and sites in Gansu and Ningxia. Applying a visual approach, the author pays special attention to the uses of modular motifs across cultures.
    [Show full text]
  • Language, Script, and Art in East Asia and Beyond: Past and Present
    SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS Number 283 December, 2018 Language, Script, and Art in East Asia and Beyond: Past and Present edited by Victor H. Mair Victor H. Mair, Editor Sino-Platonic Papers Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305 USA [email protected] www.sino-platonic.org SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS FOUNDED 1986 Editor-in-Chief VICTOR H. MAIR Associate Editors PAULA ROBERTS MARK SWOFFORD ISSN 2157-9679 (print) 2157-9687 (online) SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS is an occasional series dedicated to making available to specialists and the interested public the results of research that, because of its unconventional or controversial nature, might otherwise go unpublished. The editor-in-chief actively encourages younger, not yet well established scholars and independent authors to submit manuscripts for consideration. Contributions in any of the major scholarly languages of the world, including romanized modern standard Mandarin and Japanese, are acceptable. In special circumstances, papers written in one of the Sinitic topolects (fangyan) may be considered for publication. Although the chief focus of Sino-Platonic Papers is on the intercultural relations of China with other peoples, challenging and creative studies on a wide variety of philological subjects will be entertained. This series is not the place for safe, sober, and stodgy presentations. Sino-Platonic Papers prefers lively work that, while taking reasonable risks to advance the field, capitalizes on brilliant new insights into the development of civilization. Submissions are regularly sent out for peer review, and extensive editorial suggestions for revision may be offered. Sino-Platonic Papers emphasizes substance over form.
    [Show full text]
  • Tangut (Xi Xia) Studies in the Soviet Union: Quinta Essentia of Russian Oriental Studies
    Tangut (Xi Xia) Studies in the Soviet Union: Quinta Essentia of Russian Oriental Studies Tangut (Xi Xia) Studies in the Soviet Union: Quinta Essentia of Russian Oriental Studies Sergey Dmitriev* (Russia) Abstract race to the famous discovery of Piotr Kozlov’s expedition, a very rich collection of various Tangut books in a mausoleum in the dead Gcity of Khara-Khoto was found in 1908, and almost all the texts in the Tangut language were then assembled in Saint-Petersburg. Because of this situation Russian Tangutology became one of the most important in the world very fast, and Russian specialists, especially Alexej Ivanov, did the fi rst steps to understanding the Tangut language and history, which had for a very long time been hidden from humanity. This tradition persisted in the Soviet Union. Nikolaj Nevskij in 1929 returned to Russia from Japan, where he had stayed after 1917, mainly to continue his Tangut researches. But in 1937, during Stalin’s Purge, he was arrested and executed, Ivanov too. The line of tradition was broken for almost twenty years, and only the 1960s saw the rebirth of Russian Tangutology. The post-War generation did a gigantic work, raising Tangut Studies to a new level. Unfortunately, they almost had no students or successors. The dramatic history of Tangut Studies in Russia could be viewed like a real quinta essentia of the fate of Oriental Studies in Russia – but all the changes and tendencies are much more demonstrative of this example. Keywords: Tangut Studies, Sinology, Russia, Nikolaj Nevskij, Oriental Studies 1. Introduction The history of Tangut Studies is not very well known even amongst Orientalists, and that is very much a pity – it seems that even now it is a domain which conserved pretty well many specifi c features of the so called Classical Orientalism, lost by other lines of Oriental Studies.
    [Show full text]
  • Downloaded from Brill.Com09/28/2021 05:03:40AM Via Free Access 556 Epilogue
    Epilogue One of the fundamental areas of historical inquiries is the study of the society and its economy. Revealing patterns of economic practices, regulations, poli- cies, and laws in the past offers both theoretical insights on human conduct and practical lessons on the underlying principles of our own socio-economic activities. This book is a study of the newly discovered, compiled, and published eco- nomic records of Western Xia. The archives that constitute the primary body of materials for this research project are 12th–13th century economic records pro- duced by the Tangut people, which have thus far never been the subject of any monographic study. These primary sources of great academic value proved a pleasant surprise, when first identified at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts (IOM) in St. Petersburg. And it gives me great joy and satisfaction to share my findings on this rich cultural heritage of Western Xia with my colleagues in Tangut studies and allied fields. This book is the first focused study on the Tangut economy by way of a sys- tematic analysis of the social documents. It tries to present a new and deeper understanding of the Tangut economy and society, in the following ways: (A) Household registration, which certifies a natural person’s legal status as a civil subject, is an instrumental source of material to any socio-economic research. The corpus of Tangut household registers shows that Western Xia enjoyed an excellent system of household registration, which fea- tures diverse types of registers and accounts. The contents recorded in the registers and the shoushi self-reports are rich and informative.
    [Show full text]
  • Buddhism in Central Asia
    Brill_DHR11.qxp_SPINE=25 23-12-19 13:20 Pagina 1 The ERC-funded research project BuddhistRoad aims to create a new framework to dhr 11 dynamics in the history of religions 11 enable understanding of the complexities in the dynamics of cultural encounter and religious transfer in pre-modern Eastern Central Asia. Buddhism was one major factor in this exchange: for the first time the multi-layered relationships Carmen Meinert and Henrik H. Sørensen ( Buddhism in Central Asia 1 between the trans-regional Buddhist traditions (Chinese, Indian, Tibetan) and those based on local Buddhist cultures (Khotanese, Uyghur, Tangut, Khitan) will be explored in a systematic way. The first volume Buddhism in Central Asia 1: Patronage, Legitimation, Sacred Space, and Pilgrimage is based on the start-up conference held on May 23rd–25th, 2018, at CERES, Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Germany) and focuses on the first two of altogether six thematic topics to be dealt with in the project, namely on “patronage and legitimation strategy” as well as “sacred space and pilgrimage.” Carmen Meinert is Professor for Central Asian Religions and Principal Investigator of the ERC project BuddhistRoad at CERES, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany. Her recent publications include: Buddhist Encounters and Identities across East Asia, ed. Ann Heirman, Carmen Meinert, and Christoph Anderl. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Eds. Buddhism in Central Asia I Henrik H. Sørensen is the Research Coordinator of the ERC project BuddhistRoad ) at CERES, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany. His recent publications include Patronage, Legitimation, Sacred Space, “Buddhist Pilgrimage and Spiritual Identity: Korean Sŏn Monks Journeying to Tang China in Search of the Dharma,” in Buddhist Encounters and Identities and Pilgrimage Across East Asia, ed.
    [Show full text]
  • The Historical Reception of the Yijing in the Tangut State
    china and asia 1 (2019) 137-157 brill.com/cahs The Historical Reception of the Yijing in the Tangut State Wai-Ming Ng Department of Japanese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong [email protected] Abstract The Yijing [Classic of Changes] was an influential Chinese text in the Sinosphere, but its reception in the non-Sinic neighboring nations of China remains largely unknown. This is a pioneering study of the popularization and uses of the Yijing in the Tangut state based primarily on Tangut documents unearthed in Khara-Khoto, highlighting the ways that the Yijing’s symbolism and divination were incorporated into Tangut traditions. Yijing-related ideas and practices played a considerable role in different as- pects of Tangut culture such as medicine, architecture, art, military strategy, political terminology, calendars, divination and the perception of the world. The Tangut recep- tion of the Yijing was selective and the preference for practical values was obvious. This pioneering study will shed new light on the popularization and localization of the Yijing in non-Sinic cultures in Asia and the making of a Yijing cultural sphere in Asia. Keywords Classic of Changes – Tangut empire – Khara-Khoto – historical reception – China- Tangut cultural relations 1 Introduction The Yijing 易經 [Classic of Changes] and its associated teachings, theories, im- ages, divinatory practices have been an integral part of Eastern wisdom and cul- ture. As one of the most influential Chinese texts in the Sinosphere,1 the Yijing 1 Richard J. Smith,
    [Show full text]