one
According to Xie, a famous painter and connoisseur, during the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty, Taoist Wang hired someone to copy scriptures for him in the Seven Buddha Hall in Mogao Grottoes. Scholars put Achnatherum splendens, which lit some dry tobacco, in the cracks of the wall like reeds and found that the wall was deep and deep. They knocked on the wall with a dry tobacco rod, which seemed to be empty. The Taoist king dug up the wall with a shovel and found a small door. He also dug open the mud-sealed door. It was a duplex room, about ten feet square, with a lot of white cloth packages piled inside. Each package is neatly wrapped with scrolls, and the white cloth package is covered with prayer flags and Xiu Xiang. This is the later world-famous Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes.
Wang Daochang is ignorant and doesn't know the value of these cultural relics. He brought some scrolls and portraits to the king of Dunhuang county magistrate. Wang knows the goods, but he only appreciates these things as antiques and gifts made by officialdom. 1902, Gansu scholar Ye saw several volumes of ancient books and banners of Wang. After knowing the value of these cultural relics, Ye suggested that the then Fantai government transport them to the provincial capital for safekeeping. The numerous Thai government calculated that it would cost at least several thousand taels of silver to transport these cultural relics from Dunhuang to the provincial capital, which was too worthless to adopt this suggestion. However, the official business had to be perfunctory, so Fantai Yamen sent an official document to Dunhuang County Yamen, "The Buddha statue was rolled up and properly sealed." After receiving the official document, the county government sent another official document to Wang Daoshi, instructing him to "properly seal it up". History has played a cruel joke. The fate of a large number of rare treasures is in the hands of the Taoist king, but officials at all levels in the Qing Dynasty are indifferent to it.
Of course, Wang Daochang will not be "properly sealed". He took a box of scriptures to Jiuquan and presented it to the Manchu Pavilion on An Su Road. However, Tingdong didn't know the goods and thought that the calligraphy of these versions and scrolls was not as good as his, so he just took them away and gave them away. There happened to be a Belgian from Jiayuguan tax department who returned home after his term of office and said goodbye to Tingdong. Tingdong gave him some books and told him that they were ancient books found in Dunhuang Grottoes. When the Belgians passed through Xinjiang, they gave these ancient books to General Chang Kang and Mrs. Dao in Xinjiang. The discovery of the suicide note in Dunhuang Tibetan Sutra Cave is circulated like this.
two
Since the Opium War of 1840, when British imperialism opened the door to China with heavy artillery bombardment, the so-called scholars, missionaries, archaeologists and explorers in the west went deep into the hinterland of China and plundered a large number of precious cultural relics in China under the guise of preaching, mapping maps, surveying geology, investigating folk customs and studying dialects. Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes are doomed.
When Zheng Zhenduo, a famous scholar in China, visited the Soviet Union in 1956, he visited the Tashi Museum in Elmy in Leningrad and went to the Oriental Institute to see the Dunhuang documents he found. He was very excited.
In these tens of thousands of volumes of ancient manuscripts of China, there are bound to be amazing discoveries. He "discovered two volumes of Bianwen, and also saw Liu Zhiyuan's music ... which he had long wanted to see, and now he is going to realize his wish ..." Zheng said in a letter to a friend: "This morning, I continued to read Dunhuang manuscripts. * * * Read two or three hundred volumes. Are selected in advance; Those who are not selected, I don't know what' treasure' there is. There are many magical things in these hundreds of volumes ... "The Leningrad Institute of Orientalism has about 65,438+02,000 Dunhuang suicide notes, which were stolen from Dunhuang by Russian Obruchev in 65,438+0905+00 and 65,438+0965,438+04 respectively. It is not known how Obruchev stole the scriptures in Dunhuang. As a matter of fact, he was the first western treasure thief to arrive at the Tibetan Sutra Cave, two years earlier than Stan in England. Later, when another Russian, Odenburg, arrived in Dunhuang, there were few suicide notes left in the Tibetan Sutra Cave. While buying from Wang Daochang, Odenburg also went to nearby residents' homes to search and buy, and got many fine products. The specific situation, Odenberg made a record in his travel notes. This record is now kept in the archives of the former Soviet Academy of Sciences. If it can be made public, it may tell people how he and his compatriots stole the suicide note in Dunhuang.
three
From 65438 to 0879, the directors of the Hungarian Geological Survey, Lokzi and Sini, visited Gansu in northwest China. When Luo Keji arrived in Dunhuang, he was amazed by the unparalleled exquisite murals and statues in Mogao Grottoes. He left a deep impression on the Mogao Grottoes. Even at the International Conference of Oriental Scholars held in Hamburg, Germany more than 20 years later, he gave a report on the Buddhist art in Dunhuang, and highly praised the exquisite value of the murals and sculptures in the Mogao Grottoes. His "passionate narration" made everyone present drool and fascinated. This man's name is Stan, and he is also Hungarian, but he worked as the chief inspector in the northwest of the British colonial Indian government, and later transferred to the Indian Archaeological Investigation Institute. After making full preparations, he went to Xinjiang twice. When he learned from the Belgian that a suicide note was found in Dunhuang, he couldn't wait to get to Dunhuang in May 1907.
Stan is a famous Sanskrit scholar. Although he couldn't read Chinese, he invited Jiang Zisheng, a native of Xiangyin, to be a translator. Stein said in "Archaeology of the Western Regions": "From the dim oil lamp in the hands of Wang Daoren, my eyes suddenly opened up. The scrolls are stacked tightly on the ground, up to about 10 feet. According to later measurements, it was nearly 500 cubic feet. This small room is about 9 feet square ... "In addition to the handwritten paper, there is a big package wrapped in colorless and tough canvas. After opening it, it's all ancient paintings, and the colors are harmonious and bright as new. He quietly observed the Taoist king. He saw that Taoist Wang paid no attention to these precious scrolls and works of art, and he was "surprised and relaxed". He believes that "at this point, it is best not to show too much enthusiasm", and sure enough, "this restraint will take effect immediately" and "the Taoist's indifference to the relic seems to be more firm".
Stein stole more than 10,000 copies of the suicide note, and also stole many paintings, embroideries and silk paintings, including the Guanyin statue embroidered in the Tang Dynasty, the Diamond Sutra printed in block printing, and the exquisite Buddha statues on scrolls. This is the earliest printed matter in the world and the earliest masterpiece of printmaking art. Stan paid Taoist King 14 horseshoe silver. How much is this 14 horseshoe? According to the foreign devils on the Silk Road, it is probably 720 binary and hexadecimal. 16 months later, these national treasures of the Chinese nation were exhibited at the British Museum in London.
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Followed by French sinologist pelliot. At that time, he led an expedition to carry out archaeological excavations in Xinjiang, China. When he saw that a roll of Buddhist scriptures given to him by General Chang Gung was written in the Tang Dynasty, he couldn't wait to ask the source and arrived in Dunhuang in March 1908. Pelliot is a knowledgeable sinologist. With his profound knowledge of Chinese studies and rich archaeological knowledge, he searched all the suicide notes in the Tibetan Sutra Cave. He himself said, "I dare say that nothing in the cave was thrown away without the rest of the book." There is a selfie of Pelliot stealing a suicide note from the Tibetan Sutra Cave: he squatted in the cave, facing a mountain of scriptures, and looked through the pages under the candle ... He stayed in the Tibetan Sutra Cave for three weeks, "not only touched every manuscript, but also looked through every piece of paper". He is proficient in Chinese and the history of China, which enables him to choose all the essence of the Tibetan Sutra Cave. So the scriptures he stole are the most valuable. For example, almost all papers about Taoist classics were stolen by pelliot, and about sixty or seventy papers were collected in Paris. The greatest value of Dunhuang suicide note is the preservation of many ancient theories and notes. For example, the Analects of Confucius, there is only one kind of book to read now, that is, the book of words and annotations. Huang Kan's annotated book was found in the cave of Tibetan Scripture, which contained the main points of The Analects of Confucius that were spoken by everyone from Han Dynasty to Wei and Jin Dynasties, and all of them were stolen by pelliot. Pelliot himself once boasted that he took almost all the most valuable papers in Dunhuang. He filled 65,438+00 wheelbarrows with more precious scriptures, more than 6,000 manuscripts and some scrolls of great value in linguistics and archaeology, which Stein ignored by relying on translation. He transported them to Paris.
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Following Obruchev, Stein and Buriot, an expedition led by Japanese Tanya Guangrui also visited Dunhuang in June 19 1 10. Among them are Ju Ruichao and Nomura Rongsaburo, who cheated the Taoist king of more than 500 scrolls and two exquisite statues.
1909 In May, Pelliot came to China again. In order to show off his brilliant achievements to China scholars, he exhibited his Dunhuang suicide note in Six Kingdoms Hotel. China scholars Luo Zhenyu, Dong Kang, Fu Jiang and others came to visit pelliot when they heard the news. Pelliot informed them about the situation of the Dunhuang Sutra Cave. According to Luo Zhenyu's record: "The doctor said that pelliot still has 8,000 volumes in the stone room, but there are many Buddhist scriptures. I am afraid that others will take it away in the future, and I will buy it from Beijing as soon as possible. " China scholars who have just seen several volumes of Dunhuang suicide notes, which are "full of admiration and lament". At that time, Shuntian Times and Tianjin Ta Kung Pao also reported on the topic of "The emergence of the stone chamber book", and the news of the discovery of the "Tibetan Sutra Cave" in Dunhuang spread all over the capital. The Qing government just woke up from a dream.
1On August 22nd, 909, nine years after the discovery of the Dunhuang Sutra Cave, the Ministry of Education of the Qing government sent a telegram to allocate 6,000 taels of silver to search for the Dunhuang suicide note. No.47 "Wen Yi" in Dunhuang County records: "The Ministry of Education searched it, and our county cooperated with the school hall to spread it to the gentry and people, and tried its best to search it in the cave to protect the provincial wall. 19 10 In March and April, Dunhuang County loaded the first batch of 6004 Dunhuang suicide notes to be shipped. On the way from Dunhuang to Beijing, these suicide notes were lost because of theft. When the cart carrying the suicide note arrived in Beijing, the son of the governor of Xinjiang pulled the cart to his home and asked his father-in-law, Li Sheng's sons, Ben Zhai, Liu and Fang Erqian, to choose the suicide note, hide the best one and split the long scroll into two or three volumes. According to the catalogue of papers sold by Li and his family later, it can be seen that Li Shengduo robbed four or five hundred papers at that time, and he hid more. Because he died early and gave most books as gifts to relatives and friends, how much he took away is still unknown. At present, some documents in Tokyo and more than 50 volumes of/kloc-0 in the Central Library of Taiwan Province Province are hidden by He and Li privately. Bao, the dean of the school, participated in the open fire theft. Because the Wuchang Uprising broke out and the Qing government collapsed, the matter went away.
In a word, when 19 10 entered the Shi Jing library, the number of these Dunhuang suicide notes was more than that when they arrived in Dunhuang, and it became 8697 volumes. 1929, Shi Jing Library handed over this volume to Beiping Library, and it became 987 1 volume. Judging from the number of volumes, Beijing Library now has nearly 10,000 volumes of Dunhuang suicide notes, making it one of the three famous libraries in the world.
six
In 1900, after the scriptures were discovered in the Dunhuang Sutra Cave, in 1944, Mr. Chang Shuhong discovered the fragments of the scriptures outside the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang. 1On August 30th, 944, when they moved three statues of the late Qing Dynasty in a small temple behind the central hall of the Mogao Grottoes, the wooden sticks in the statues were buried deep under the pedestal of the earthen platform and could not be moved. Therefore, the statue had to be destroyed. After the demolition, it was found that the stick wrapped in the statue was neither grass nor reeds, but fragments with scrolls written on them. Chang Shuhong, Xia Nai, an archaeologist, and Xiang Da, an expert in Dunhuang studies, made an appraisal together, and found 66 scriptures and 32 fragments. This is another major discovery since the discovery of the Sutra Cave. The three demolished Buddha statues existed before the discovery of the 1900 Sutra Cave, which shows that these scriptures are not the scriptures of the Sutra Cave. Judging from the paper and font, it is a relic of the Six Dynasties. This shows that besides the scriptures in the Mogao Grottoes, there is also the possibility of finding them. There is no doubt that the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes will find new Tibetan scriptures caves in the future.