Dunhuang suicide note is an important research material for studying the history, archaeology, religion, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, literature history, art history, science and technology history and national history of China, Central Asia, East Asia and South Asia in the Middle Ages, which has important cultural relics value and literature research value.
Because Dunhuang suicide notes are kept in China, Britain, France, Russia, Japan and other places, there is still a lack of a complete joint catalogue, and it is still impossible to accurately count the number of suicide notes in the Tibetan Sutra Cave. Some people speculate that the total number is between 30 thousand and 40 thousand. Dunhuang suicide notes are distributed all over the world, and the National Library of China has more than 16000 pieces. The British Library has more than 13000 pieces; There are more than 5,700 pieces in the French National Library; There are more than 10800 pieces in St. Petersburg branch of Oriental Studies Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences. In addition, Dunhuang Research Institute, Chinese History Museum, Palace Museum, Gansu Provincial Museum, Dunhuang Museum, Peking University Library, Shanghai Library and other units have collections, totaling more than 50,000 pieces.
The batch of Dunhuang suicide notes transported from Dunhuang to Beijing in the late Qing Dynasty has become the main body of Dunhuang collection in the National Library. After the founding of New China, the Ministry of Culture successively transferred or purchased Dunhuang suicide notes scattered all over the country and among the people, and handed them over to the National Library for centralized custody. For example, the Dunhuang suicide note obtained by Otani expedition was collected by Lushun Museum for a long time, and the collection of Beitu was allocated by the Ministry of Culture 1954. Many people in society donate or transfer their personal collection of Dunhuang suicide notes to the national territory out of patriotism for the prosperity of the motherland culture. The National Library also searched around and bought some scattered Dunhuang suicide notes. All these have accumulated over time, further enriching the Dunhuang collections of the National Library, making the total number reach 16000, which is spectacular. The National Library of China has done a lot of sorting, cataloging and restoration work on Dunhuang suicide notes in batches and stages. At the beginning of cataloging, the initial numbers were arranged one by one according to the order of thousands of words, and the first catalogue of Dunhuang suicide notes in the National Library-the General Catalogue of Dunhuang Stone Classics was compiled. 1922, after Chen Yuan became the director of Beijing Library, he compiled the first part of Dunhuang academic catalogue-Dunhuang Tomb Raider Record. In the 1920s, the Beijing Library established the Scripture Writing Group, which was compiled into a more complete classified catalogue "Detailed Records of Scripture Writing in Dunhuang Stone Chambers" and its sequel 1935. As Japanese imperialism is about to launch a full-scale war of aggression against China, in order to avoid the war, Beijing Library packed Dunhuang suicide notes in its collection and shipped them to the south on 1935- 1936. In the early 1980s, the National Library compiled a sequel to Dunhuang Tomb Robbery Record. Starting from 1984, with the support of China Dunhuang Turpan Society and China Tripitaka Compilation Bureau, the compilation of the general catalogue covering all Dunhuang suicide notes in the National Library was started.
The National Library treasures Dunhuang suicide notes, but Dunhuang suicide notes are all ancient manuscripts and printed copies from the 5th century to 1 1 century, which have long been abandoned. They are as long as 1000 years, and most of them are fragmented, glued or fragile. If it is not carefully repaired, it will be impossible to catalogue and take pictures, let alone borrow and use it. Since the 1990s, after repeated research and practice, the book restoration team of Shanben Department of the National Library has strictly implemented the principle of "keeping the old as the old" in the restoration work, kept the original appearance of the suicide note as much as possible, and properly handled the contradiction between protection and utilization, achieving the effect of "saving as much as possible", enabling a large number of broken books that could not be used before to be reborn and rediscovered, which can be effectively used by Dunhuang scholars. Under the careful maintenance of the National Library, the newly restored Dunhuang suicide note, an invaluable cultural heritage, will be passed on to future generations intact.
There has been a misunderstanding in the society and even in the academic circles since the discovery of the Dunhuang Scripture Cave: the essence of Dunhuang suicide note has been found by foreign "explorers", and the people in the National Library of China are discarded worthless dross, which is called "the essence of its discovery does not flow into foreign countries, that is, it is kept privately". There are more than 8,000 shafts in our country, covering the rest that was spurned at that time. The essence is gone, and the dross is empty ... "This view is wrong. In the 1930s, Mr. Chen Yinque, a master of Chinese studies, cited a large number of examples in the Preface to Stealing Dunhuang, emphatically refuting this untrue statement, and pointed out: "If the quality and quantity are compared with each other and an average plan is made, then there will be fewer than 8,000 axes hidden in foreign countries and private places in China!" For decades, scattered Dunhuang suicide notes have returned to the National Library of China through various channels, including a large number of precious documents, such as Shangshu, Shi Mao, Chunqiu, Laozi, Zhuangzi and Selected Works. For example, The First Collection of Laws, published in 4 17 A.D. (the 12th year of Xi Liang Jian 'an), is the earliest collection of Dunhuang suicide notes, and it is still well preserved after nearly 1600 years. Dance music and Manichaean classics are the only materials left in China, and their preciousness and rarity are self-evident. The Records of Argumentation about Death, Records of Surnames, Beijing Daily and Guanyin Classic written by Shu people in the Five Dynasties are all rare masterpieces in Dunhuang's suicide note. Today, the collection of Dunhuang posthumous notes in the National Library of China ranks first in the world not only in terms of the absolute number of cultural relics or characters, but also in terms of content quality, which is comparable to any collection institution of Dunhuang posthumous notes in the world.