The total volume is about 60,000 volumes, of which Buddhist scriptures account for about 90%. At present, it is scattered all over the world, such as the British Museum, the National Library of Paris, and the Institute of Oriental Studies in St. Petersburg, Russian Academy of Sciences.
When 19 10 entered Shi Jing Library in Tibet, there were only over 8,000 pieces. At present, the National Library of China has more than 16000 pieces, which is one of the treasures of the library (the other three are Yongle Grand Ceremony, Si Quan Shu and Zhao Cang).
Stein, an Englishman, came to Dunhuang in 1907 and defrauded 24 boxes of suicide notes, paintings and 5 boxes of other cultural relics with 14 horseshoe silver. 1908, the French sinologist Buriott came to the Mogao Grottoes and defrauded more than 6,000 manuscripts and more than 200 ancient Buddhist paintings and silk books. Pelliot also found a number of Yuan Dynasty Uighur suicide notes in Cave 464.
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's a selfie of pelliot stealing a suicide note from a Tibetan scripture cave: he is crouching in the cave, facing a mountain of scriptures, looking for them one by one under a 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.
The scriptures he stole are the most valuable and important. 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, in the Analects of Confucius, there is only one kind of notebook, that is, words and notes. 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 neglected Stein's more precious classic works, more than 6,000 valuable manuscripts and some scrolls in linguistics and archaeology.
Fill the 10 cart and transport it to Paris. In 1905, Obruchev, Russia, Zuicho Tachibana, Yoshikawa Koichiro, 19 14, Odenburg, Russia, Werner, USA, etc. Stole a lot of scriptures from the Mogao grottoes. Up to now, 35,000 pieces of these cultural relics have been scattered overseas, accounting for about two-thirds of all cultural relics.
The significance of Dunhuang suicide note to society is as follows:
Everyone who has been to Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes will be impressed by this magnificent and shocking scenery. But after the shock, I can't help thinking, what are these empty caves, the so-called magnificent Dunhuang culture, and the Dunhuang Cultural Research Institute set up here for?
Mention a concept: Dunhuang suicide note. Dunhuang suicide note refers to a batch of books found in the Tibetan Sutra Cave in Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes. This batch of books is huge, with more than 60 thousand volumes. When it was discovered, it filled the whole Tibetan sutra cave. In addition to writing scrolls, it also includes various cultural relics such as silk paintings and embroidery. However, due to various reasons, these Dunhuang suicide notes have spread all over the world, and there are currently more than 16,000 copies in China.
Chen Yinque once lamented: "Dunhuang people are also the sad history of Chinese academics!" Dunhuang culture in a general sense refers to these books, in addition to the Mogao Grottoes and surrounding grottoes and murals.