Page 431 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

392. THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TAOISM A-L

Dunhuang manuscripts

The Dunhuang ~t ~ manuscripts are a major source for the study of Chinese
and Central Asian history and religion during the first millennium. Sealed not
long after 1000 CE in a chamber adjoining one of the Caves of the Thousand
Buddhas (Qianfo dong f"11!lwPJ) at the border of the Gobi desert, the manu-
scripts were discovered at the beginning of the twentieth century by Western
explorers, notably Sir Aurel Stein and Paul Pelliot. They are now preserved in
various collections of European and Asian libraries, including the Stein col-
lection of the British Library (Giles L. 1957) and the Pelliot collection of the
Bibliotheque Nationale de France (Gernet et a!. 1970-).
The Taoist manuscripts from Dunhuang do not form a homogeneous
scriptural corpus. Given the predominantly Buddhist environment of the
Dunhuang region, they were, in most cases, discarded documents; moreover,
many of them did not originate in Dunhuang itself but were brought there
from different locations. Thus they constitute a relatively small proportion of
the huge mass of about 30,000 documents in these collections.
The few hundred Taoist manuscripts from Dunhuang are nevertheless
invaluable for the historian of Chinese religions. First, they are the main col-
lection of authentically ancient Taoist writings, originating before the eighth
century when the Chinese district of Dunhuang was invaded by the Tibetans.
They are, therefore, of incomparable value for the dating and exegesis of
Taoist scriptures. In addition, some Taoist manuscripts contain materials not
extant elsewhere, without which crucial aspects of medieval Taoism would
remain largely unknown.
Dunhuang Taoist studies have borne fruit in many fields: there are few
major Taoist philosophical works, and not a single medieval scriptural Taoist
tradition, that are not represented among the Dunhuang documents. Two
Japanese works are, to date, the major reference books on these texts: Ofuchi
Ninji's monumental Tonko dokyo (Taoist Scriptures from Dunhuang; 1978-79)
with its photographic reproductions of all the manuscripts indexed there;
and the collection of essays entitled Tonko to Chugoku Dokyo (Dunhuang and
Chinese Taoism; Kanaoka Sh6k6, Ikeda On, and Fukui Fumimasa 1983), which
also provides an extensive bibliography on the subject. The few examples that
follow illustrate some of the main findings of Dunhuang Taoist studies in
recent decades.
Major Taoist sources from Dunhuang. Our knowledge of Taoism during the
first centuries of the Common Era has significantly improved owing to the