Imre Galambos Dunhuang Manuscript Culture Studies in Manuscript Cultures
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Imre Galambos Dunhuang Manuscript Culture Studies in Manuscript Cultures Edited by Michael Friedrich Harunaga Isaacson Jörg B. Quenzer Volume 22 Imre Galambos Dunhuang Manuscript Culture End of the First Millennium ISBN 978-3-11-072349-6 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-072657-2 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-072710-4 ISSN 2365-9696 DOI https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110726572 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Library of Congress Control Number: 2020947881 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de © 2020 Imre Galambos, published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com Contents Acknowlegements | VII Conventions | VIII Introduction | 1 (i) The Dunhuang manuscripts | 3 (ii) The Guiyijun period | 7 (iii) A cross-cultural perspective | 11 (iv) Manuscripts as physical artefacts | 17 (v) Structure of the book | 19 1 Multiple-text Manuscripts | 23 1.1 New book forms in Dunhuang | 24 1.2 Multiple-text manuscripts with short scriptures | 37 1.3 Manuscript S.5531 | 45 1.4 Manuscripts P.3932 and P.3136 | 56 1.5 Other examples: S.5618 and beyond | 66 1.6 Scrolls | 79 1.7 Conclusions | 84 2 Manuscripts Written by Students | 85 2.1 Former scholarship | 85 2.2 The colophons | 91 2.3 The main text | 100 2.4 The poems | 104 2.5 Palaeographic peculiarities | 112 2.6 Scribbles on the verso | 115 2.7 Conclusions | 137 3 Writing from Left to Right | 139 3.1 Horizontal lines on pothi leaves | 143 3.2 Vertical columns written from left to right | 153 3.3 Conclusions | 191 4 Circulars and Names | 195 4.1 Former scholarship | 196 4.2 Documents related to associations | 198 VI | Contents 4.3 Circulars | 208 4.4 Layout and format | 215 4.5 Lists of names | 220 4.6 Naming practices in Guiyijun Dunhuang | 233 4.7 Conclusions | 247 Concluding Remarks | 248 References | 255 Index | 285 Acknowledgements Although writing itself is a solitary exercise, almost any other aspect of publishing a book relies heavily on others who contribute in a variety of ways. This book was very much a collaborative project and I have received assistance from many colleagues, friends and professionals. Above all, I would like to thank my editor Michael Friedrich for his constant encouragement, support and advice at every step of writing the book. He has gone through several drafts and worked with me to shape the whole manu- script into a book. Other key persons involved in the production process at the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) at the University of Hamburg were Caro- line Macé, James Rumball, and especially Cosima Schwarke, who patiently imple- mented countless corrections and changes. The entire staff of CSMC has gone out of their way to support the project and I am thrilled that this is my third book with them. Special thanks to my former colleague Sam van Schaik who has kindly read the entire book manuscript and gave valuable suggestions, pointing out important parallels with Tibetan manuscript culture and the pitfalls of a Sino-centric perspective. Henrik Sørensen, Gábor Kósa and Jing Feng also read draft versions and offered criticism at different stages of the project. Nadine Bregler, Flavia Fang and Junfu Wong read early versions of individual chapters–I thank them all. An important part of the research was examining Dunhuang manuscripts and paintings in major collections around the world. I am grateful to curators who helped me access original items and offered their expertise. Thus I thank Mélodie Doumy, Luisa Mengoni, Luk Yu-ping, Nathalie Monnet, Valerie Zaleski and Simone-Christi- ane Raschmann. Librarians helped to track down sources relevant to my research, and so I want to express my gratitude to Charles Aylmer, Francoise Simmons, Kristin Williams, Alison Zammer, Ágnes Kelecsényi, Judit Bagi and Gergely Orosz. I have received valuable help and advice from colleagues working in Dunhuang studies and Buddhist studies, including—but not limited to—Chai Jianhong, Buzzy Teiser, Martin Kern, Christine Mollier, Stefano Zacchetti, Costantino Moretti, Chris- topher Nugent, Christoph Anderl, Lin Peiying, Zhanru and Irina Popova. Scholars working on other cultures and in other disciplines have also offered their help self- lessly, including Teresa Webber, Máire Ni Mhaonaigh, Edward Cheese, Marilena Ma- niaci, Arianna D’Ottone, Kasai Yukiyo, Márton Vér, Lilla Russell-Smith, Nicholas Sims-Williams, Yoshida Yutaka, Peter Kornicki, Brandon Dotson and Jiri Jakl. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Glorisun Global Network for Buddhist Studies and the Dhammachai International Research Institute, whose generosity was essential at all stages of research. Open Access. © 2020 Imre Galambos, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110726572-202 VIII | Conventions Conventions Chinese characters throughout the book are given in traditional (i.e. unsimplified) form. No attempt is made to reconstruct the original structure of non-standard va- riants (suzi 俗字), unless this is relevant to the discussion or the variants are easily recognisable (e.g. 与/與, 无/無, 丑/醜, 万/萬). The full pressmark of Chinese manuscripts from the Dunhuang library cave at the British Library consists of the prefix ‘Or.8210’, followed by a forward slash, the capital letter S and a unique serial number (e.g. Or.8210/S.5531). For the sake of brevity, I omit the part before the S and write, for example, S.5531 instead of Or.8210/S.5531. Similarly, the capital letter P in pressmarks in this book indicates the Chinese manuscripts from the Pelliot collection at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the full pressmark of which begins with ‘Pelliot chinois’. Thus, I write P.3932 instead of Pelliot chinois 3932. Both of these abbreviations are already in common use in Dunhuang studies. The pronunciation of Chinese words is given according to the official Pinyin system. Phonetic reconstructions are given only when relevant, using Pulley- blank’s system (Pulleyblank 1991). Introduction This book is about manuscript culture in Dunhuang 敦煌 at the end of the first millennium CE. Politically, this period overlaps with the Guiyijun 歸義軍 (Return to Allegiance Circuit, 851–ca. mid-eleventh century), a military governorship with an allegiance to the Chinese court. The fundamental argument at the core of the book is that Guiyijun Dunhuang had a unique culture quite different from the previous period when the region was under Tibetan dominance (786–848), and the Tang 唐 period (ca. 622–786) that preceded it.1 When, as part of an ambitious expansion in the second half of the eighth century, the Tibetan Empire extended its control over modern Qinghai 青海 and Gansu 甘肅, including the so-called Gansu or Hexi 河西 Corridor, Dunhuang was no longer part of the Tang realm. The prolonged Tibetan presence in Hexi inevitably brought about significant changes in the cultural and ethnic makeup of local society, and the manuscripts provide evidence of these changes. The end of Tibetan imperial control six decades later, however, did not result in a restoration of the pre-existing conditions. The book examines several groups of manuscripts from the Guiyijun period. The groups themselves function as typological categories chosen for their textual and non-textual characteristics. My aim was to identify clusters with shared pat- terns, which then could be analysed for clues to help explain why certain groups of individuals produced these manuscripts, and how they were used. The criteria for grouping involved palaeographic and codicological features, such as book forms, handwriting, layout, colophons and marginalia. Just as importantly, the types of texts and their combinations, including the scribble-like notes seen on the verso of some scrolls have been taken into consideration. My contention is that the shared patterns within the groups are indicative of a similar social and cultural background. Accordingly, one of this study’s objectives is to gain as im- proved an understanding as possible of this background and shed light on the circumstances that led to the production of these manuscripts. Although there are undeniably dozens of such groups that could be assem- bled based on different sets of criteria, the four groups in this book are, in effect, case studies meant to explore the social, religious and cultural dimensions of the Guiyijun period. The objective is not to identify all possible groups of manuscripts but to analyse several of them in more detail. Similarly, within each group the purpose is not to be comprehensive and list all relevant examples but to collect || 1 The dates of the Tang period here refer to the dynasty’s control over Dunhuang and the Hexi region, which naturally differ to the dates of the dynasty itself (i.e. 618–907). Open Access. © 2020 Imre Galambos, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110726572-203 2 | Introduction enough of them to identify additional patterns which in turn may tell us more about the people and the social and religious practices connected with the pro- duction of the manuscripts. In addition to social and religious practices, some of the features in the groups also evidence the mixed cultural background of local society. As an oasis city at the westernmost end of the Hexi Corridor, Dunhuang lay at the intersection of Chinese and Central Asian civilisations, and its population was both multicul- tural and multilingual.