Imre Galambos | Zhejiang University (original) (raw)
Books by Imre Galambos
Dunhuang Manuscript Culture explores the world of Chinese manuscripts from ninth-tenth century Du... more Dunhuang Manuscript Culture explores the world of Chinese manuscripts from ninth-tenth century Dunhuang, an oasis city along the network of medieval routes known today collectively as the Silk Roads. The manuscripts have been discovered in 1900 in a sealed-off side-chamber of a Buddhist cave temple, where they had lain undisturbed for almost nine hundred years. Their number is in the tens of thousands, and they are written in over twenty different languages and scripts, including Chinese, Tibetan, Old Uighur, Khotanese, Sogdian and Sanskrit. This study centres around four groups of manuscripts from the mid-ninth to the late tenth centuries, when the region existed as an independent kingdom ruled by local families. The central argument is that the manuscripts attest to the unique cultural meakeup of the region during this period, exhibiting—alongside obvious Chinese elements—a heavy influence of Central Asian cultures. As a result, it was much less ‘Chinese’ than commonly imagined in modern scholarship. The book makes contributions to the study of cultural and linguistic interaction along the Silk Roads.
A study of Tangut translations of Chinese secular texts excavated from Khara-khoto (Heishuicheng).
This is an edited volume with twelve studies on Chinese manuscripts. For a list of studies, pleas... more This is an edited volume with twelve studies on Chinese manuscripts. For a list of studies, please consult the Table of Contents attached here.
This study is based on a manuscript which was carried by a Chinese monk through the monasteries o... more This study is based on a manuscript which was carried by a Chinese monk through the monasteries of the Hexi corridor, as part of his pilgrimage from Wutaishan to India. The manuscript has been created as a composite object from three separate documents, with Chinese and Tibetan texts on them. Included is a series of Tibetan letters of introduction addressed to the heads of monasteries along the route, functioning as a passport when passing through the region. The manuscript dates to the late 960s, coinciding with the large pilgrimage movement during the reign of Emperor Taizu of the Northern Song recorded in transmitted sources. Therefore, it is very likely that this is a unique contemporarytestimony of the movement, of which our pilgrim was also part. Complementing extant historical sources, the manuscript provides evidence for the high degree of ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity in Western China during this period.
This study examines the variability of the Chinese script during the Warring States period. I tak... more This study examines the variability of the Chinese script during the Warring States period. I take issue with the traditional linear model of the evolution of writing in China. According to this model, characters developed along a single line from the Shang oracle-bone inscriptions to Zhou bronze inscriptions, all the way to the Qin small seal and Han clerical scripts. My contention is that this view is not only an oversimplification but in many cases incorrect. This model mirrors the ideologically motivated unilateral genealogy of traditional historiography which traced the mandate of Heaven from mythical emperors to the ruling house.
A full copy of the book can also be found at my website at http://shahon.org
A concise Hungarian-Chinese dictionary with 11,000 main entries.
Papers by Imre Galambos
Tied and Bound: A Comparative View on Manuscript Binding, 2023
Among the group of Dunhuang manuscripts in the codex form is S.5531 from the Stein collection at ... more Among the group of Dunhuang manuscripts in the codex form is S.5531 from the Stein collection at the British Library (London). This is a small multiple-text manuscript booklet from the tenth century, probably produced by several family members in collaboration with each other as part of the series of rituals commemorating the dead. In its current form, the manuscript consists of four quires tied together, although it is also clear that at least one quire is missing from the beginning. This paper is able, for the first time, to reconstruct most of the original manuscript by identifying two pieces of this missing first quire in other collections of Dunhuang manuscripts. More importantly, however, the separate pieces allow us to gain an insight into the different stages of the manuscript's life between its initial production and its internment in the Dunhuang library cave. This reveals that the manuscript continued to be used for different ends long after the texts were copied by members of a family for the sake of commemorating their deceased kin.
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2022
This article examines a collection of manuscripts of travel writings kept in the National Library... more This article examines a collection of manuscripts of travel writings kept in the National Library of China. Many of the texts are copies of articles and travel accounts published in magazines, papers, or books during the first decade of the Republican period. Although the majority of texts are by Chinese authors, nine of them can be verified as translations from other languages, even though almost no information is available regarding their source texts and original authors. Identifying the sources of the translations permits a better understanding of how this group of writings ended up as a collection. More importantly, we can consider how their content and function changed when they became adopted into an entirely different environment.
Exploring Written Artefacts: Objects, Methods, and Concepts, 2021
This paper compares variant characters in large-scale dictionaries from the pre-modern period wit... more This paper compares variant characters in large-scale dictionaries from the pre-modern period with actual writing habits using a special subset of variants known as 'semantic compounds' (huiyi 會意) as a case study. The results show that despite their prominent presence in traditional dictionaries, only a fraction of such variants were in everyday use. Most of the forms recorded in dictionaries were preserved and handed down as part of the lexicographic tradition, to some extent irrespective of genuine writing habits. Going one step beyond recognising that only some of the documented forms were at any given time in common use, the analysis presented here measures the discrepancy between dictionaries and manuscripts as a percentage.
International Journal of Buddhist Thought & Culture, 2020
The Dunhuang manuscripts include over twenty copies of a text called Foshuo jie baisheng yuanjia ... more The Dunhuang manuscripts include over twenty copies of a text called Foshuo jie baisheng yuanjia tuoluoni jing 佛說解百生怨家陁羅尼經 (Dhāraṇī Scripture Spoken by the Buddha on Dissolving [Ties with] Grudge-Holders of a Hundred Lifetimes). The text is also known from other sites along the historical Silk Road, attesting to its popularity across a vast geographical area. This paper focuses on extant manuscripts of this scripture from the Dunhuang library cave and groups them according to physical typology. The basic premise is that the manuscripts’ physical characteristics are of significance because they show how the dhāraṇī was reproduced as material text. Some of them were produced collectively, in ways that included the active participation of donors from the same extended family, possibly in connection with the commemoration of the dead. Other types of manuscripts suggest having been copied as part of larger projects. Finally, some of the manuscripts may have functioned as devotional objects in themselves.
Acta Orientalia (Hung.), 2020
This paper identifies three manuscript fragments from Turfan as an Old Uyghur version of the stor... more This paper identifies three manuscript fragments from Turfan as an Old Uyghur version of the story of Shunzi 舜子, a medieval Chinese narrative about Emperor Shun acting as a filial son. In China, the story was part of the lore of filial sons (xiaozi 孝子), popular throughout most of the dynastic period. Early versions of the Chinese story survive in Japan and Dunhuang, and these display obvious parallels with the Uyghur text. While this allows a positive identifi cation of the content of the three Turfan fragments, the diff erences reveal that none of the known Chinese versions could have served as the source text for the translation. Th e Old Uyghur version, therefore, represents an otherwise unattested version of the story, which may have developed among the Uyghurs.
The Oxford Handbook of Classical Chinese Literature (1000 BCE - 900 CE), edited by Wiebke Denecke, Wai-Yee Li, and Xiaofei Tian, 2017
A brief overview of the Chinese writing system, including native views on the origin and early hi... more A brief overview of the Chinese writing system, including native views on the origin and early history of the script; comparison with archaeological evidence; orthographic structure of Chinese characters; literacy; and the spread of the script beyond the Chinese state(s).
The Emergence of Multiple-Text Manuscripts, ed. by Bausi, Alessandro / Friedrich, Michael / Maniaci, Marilena, 2019
One of the striking features of Chinese manuscripts from Dunhuang is that often texts from origin... more One of the striking features of Chinese manuscripts from Dunhuang is that often texts from originally distinct sources are gathered together into one manuscript. Some of the components are assembled from pieces of older manuscripts written by different persons at different times, producing a composite item with an amalgam of codicological features. But there are also physically homogeneous manuscripts with distinct texts copied together into a new collection. This paper examines such physically homogeneous multiple-text manuscripts (MTMs) and attempts to shed light on the circumstances of their production. As a case study, I analyse the codicological characteristics and the textual composition of manuscripts S.5531 and P.3932, both of which are codices with a series of shorter Buddhist texts written in succession.
Távol-Keleti Tanulmányok, 2018
Interview with the late Prof. Barnabás Csongor (1923-2018), the eminent Hungarian sinologist and ... more Interview with the late Prof. Barnabás Csongor (1923-2018), the eminent Hungarian sinologist and linguist. A student of Louis Ligeti, he initially worked on the phonetic reconstruction of Chinese based on Chinese texts written in the Tibetan, Uighur and Brahmi scripts but later on gradually shifted the focus of his research to Chinese literature, and translated some of the most well-known novels (e.g. Shuihuzhuan, Xiyouji) into Hungarian. His encyclopedic knowledge of Chinese history and textual tradition was an inspiration for his students.
Studies in Chinese Religions, 2019
In addition to religious scriptures that survive from the Ming-Qing period, the Qing archives rel... more In addition to religious scriptures that survive from the Ming-Qing period, the Qing archives related to the prosecution of secret societies contain references to texts and images found in the possession of members of such societies at the time of their arrest. Texts may also be mentioned or at times quoted in full by the 10 accused in the course of their interrogation. Some of these texts are unknown from other sources and thus the archival material offers precious insights into religious literature used by sectarian groups. This paper examines a text that appears in the archives under the title Laojun du fuzi 老君度夫子 (The Elderly Lord Saves the Master), tracing the history of its transmission from the Song dynasty until modern days. In the course of the centuries, the text changed its title and part of its content, to the extent that it may be argued that its versions no longer constitute the same text but rather several interrelated ones, each with its own agenda and socio-cultural background.
The Other Greek: An Introduction to Chinese and Japanese Characters, Their History and Influence, 2018
Arthur Cooper (1916-1988) is primarily known to students of Chinese for his translations of Tang ... more Arthur Cooper (1916-1988) is primarily known to students of Chinese for his translations of Tang poetry. By profession, he was a cryptanalyst who worked at Bletchley Park during and after WWII, decoding Japanese military and diplomatic messages. He had a deep interest in language and poetry, as a result of which he devoted the later half of his life to studying the structure of the Chinese script. In The Other Greek, Arthur Cooper offers an unorthodox introduction to the Chinese script through the medium of poetry, explaining the structure, meaning and cultural significance of each character. The book is an entry-level induction into learning written Chinese.
A study of an early manuscript fragment of the Wenshushili Puchao sanmei jing 文殊師利普超三昧經 last seen... more A study of an early manuscript fragment of the Wenshushili Puchao sanmei jing 文殊師利普超三昧經 last seen in a private collection in Kalamazoo. The paper provides a transcription of the manuscript, a discussion of its palaeographic features and photographs of the original.
Although most of the surviving collections of medieval manuscripts and imprints are of Buddhist n... more Although most of the surviving collections of medieval manuscripts and imprints are of Buddhist nature, they normally include a smaller number of other types of material, such as primers and didactic texts used for educational purposes. The Mengqiu 蒙求, a primer attributed to Li Han 李瀚 (d. u.) of the Tang dynasty, is one of these. Following the Song period the text fell into disuse, but early copies survived in Japan where it remained in continuous use all the way through modern times. In addition, during the twentieth century several copies of the text were discovered in regions which were at the margins of Chinese civilization: among the texts excavated from the sealed off library cave near Dunhuang; the ruins of Khara-khoto in Inner Mongolia; and the Liao period wooden pagoda in Ying county (Shanxi province). All of these sites belonged to border regimes that at the time were not part of China proper, and thus the finds attest to the popularity of this text among the inhabitants of these states. This paper examines the handwritten and printed versions of the Mengqiu discovered at these sites in order to draw attention to the spread of Confucian education beyond the borders of the Chinese states, and to assess the role of Buddhist monasteries in secular education.
Reading Warring States manuscripts we are confronted with a number of graphs that are not only st... more Reading Warring States manuscripts we are confronted with a number of graphs that are not only structurally different from modern characters and the small seal forms of the Shuowen jiezi but show variation even among themselves. While some of these graphs may be characters that have since disappeared, the majority of them are variants of known ones and represent words in much the same way as seen in transmitted sources. In early manuscripts we often see character structure varying within the same corpus or, at times, even within the same document. In most cases, the context provides enough information for deciphering the meaning of graphs, yet it is always a question whether we can link structural discrepancies with grammatical differences or shades of meaning. In other words, do graphic differences have any relevance to how the word is to be interpreted? Or are they inconsequential errors committed by scribes working in a hurry or perhaps possessing lower literacy skills?
In the Russian collection of Tangut material there is a manuscript which describes a meeting betw... more In the Russian collection of Tangut material there is a manuscript which describes a meeting between Confucius and an old sage. It is generally assumed that it is a translation of a Chinese work but attempts at identifying the source text have not been successful. The Tangut title survives on the last page and it has been translated as the Altar Record of Confucius’s Conciliation. This paper identifies a closely related Chinese text among Ming-Qing religious scriptures of secret societies and suggests a new interpretation for the Tangut title. Connecting the title and the text with Chinese religious and intellectual traditions of the Song period also enables us to date the Chinese source text to the late eleventh or early twelfth century.
Dunhuang Manuscript Culture explores the world of Chinese manuscripts from ninth-tenth century Du... more Dunhuang Manuscript Culture explores the world of Chinese manuscripts from ninth-tenth century Dunhuang, an oasis city along the network of medieval routes known today collectively as the Silk Roads. The manuscripts have been discovered in 1900 in a sealed-off side-chamber of a Buddhist cave temple, where they had lain undisturbed for almost nine hundred years. Their number is in the tens of thousands, and they are written in over twenty different languages and scripts, including Chinese, Tibetan, Old Uighur, Khotanese, Sogdian and Sanskrit. This study centres around four groups of manuscripts from the mid-ninth to the late tenth centuries, when the region existed as an independent kingdom ruled by local families. The central argument is that the manuscripts attest to the unique cultural meakeup of the region during this period, exhibiting—alongside obvious Chinese elements—a heavy influence of Central Asian cultures. As a result, it was much less ‘Chinese’ than commonly imagined in modern scholarship. The book makes contributions to the study of cultural and linguistic interaction along the Silk Roads.
A study of Tangut translations of Chinese secular texts excavated from Khara-khoto (Heishuicheng).
This is an edited volume with twelve studies on Chinese manuscripts. For a list of studies, pleas... more This is an edited volume with twelve studies on Chinese manuscripts. For a list of studies, please consult the Table of Contents attached here.
This study is based on a manuscript which was carried by a Chinese monk through the monasteries o... more This study is based on a manuscript which was carried by a Chinese monk through the monasteries of the Hexi corridor, as part of his pilgrimage from Wutaishan to India. The manuscript has been created as a composite object from three separate documents, with Chinese and Tibetan texts on them. Included is a series of Tibetan letters of introduction addressed to the heads of monasteries along the route, functioning as a passport when passing through the region. The manuscript dates to the late 960s, coinciding with the large pilgrimage movement during the reign of Emperor Taizu of the Northern Song recorded in transmitted sources. Therefore, it is very likely that this is a unique contemporarytestimony of the movement, of which our pilgrim was also part. Complementing extant historical sources, the manuscript provides evidence for the high degree of ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity in Western China during this period.
This study examines the variability of the Chinese script during the Warring States period. I tak... more This study examines the variability of the Chinese script during the Warring States period. I take issue with the traditional linear model of the evolution of writing in China. According to this model, characters developed along a single line from the Shang oracle-bone inscriptions to Zhou bronze inscriptions, all the way to the Qin small seal and Han clerical scripts. My contention is that this view is not only an oversimplification but in many cases incorrect. This model mirrors the ideologically motivated unilateral genealogy of traditional historiography which traced the mandate of Heaven from mythical emperors to the ruling house.
A full copy of the book can also be found at my website at http://shahon.org
A concise Hungarian-Chinese dictionary with 11,000 main entries.
Tied and Bound: A Comparative View on Manuscript Binding, 2023
Among the group of Dunhuang manuscripts in the codex form is S.5531 from the Stein collection at ... more Among the group of Dunhuang manuscripts in the codex form is S.5531 from the Stein collection at the British Library (London). This is a small multiple-text manuscript booklet from the tenth century, probably produced by several family members in collaboration with each other as part of the series of rituals commemorating the dead. In its current form, the manuscript consists of four quires tied together, although it is also clear that at least one quire is missing from the beginning. This paper is able, for the first time, to reconstruct most of the original manuscript by identifying two pieces of this missing first quire in other collections of Dunhuang manuscripts. More importantly, however, the separate pieces allow us to gain an insight into the different stages of the manuscript's life between its initial production and its internment in the Dunhuang library cave. This reveals that the manuscript continued to be used for different ends long after the texts were copied by members of a family for the sake of commemorating their deceased kin.
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2022
This article examines a collection of manuscripts of travel writings kept in the National Library... more This article examines a collection of manuscripts of travel writings kept in the National Library of China. Many of the texts are copies of articles and travel accounts published in magazines, papers, or books during the first decade of the Republican period. Although the majority of texts are by Chinese authors, nine of them can be verified as translations from other languages, even though almost no information is available regarding their source texts and original authors. Identifying the sources of the translations permits a better understanding of how this group of writings ended up as a collection. More importantly, we can consider how their content and function changed when they became adopted into an entirely different environment.
Exploring Written Artefacts: Objects, Methods, and Concepts, 2021
This paper compares variant characters in large-scale dictionaries from the pre-modern period wit... more This paper compares variant characters in large-scale dictionaries from the pre-modern period with actual writing habits using a special subset of variants known as 'semantic compounds' (huiyi 會意) as a case study. The results show that despite their prominent presence in traditional dictionaries, only a fraction of such variants were in everyday use. Most of the forms recorded in dictionaries were preserved and handed down as part of the lexicographic tradition, to some extent irrespective of genuine writing habits. Going one step beyond recognising that only some of the documented forms were at any given time in common use, the analysis presented here measures the discrepancy between dictionaries and manuscripts as a percentage.
International Journal of Buddhist Thought & Culture, 2020
The Dunhuang manuscripts include over twenty copies of a text called Foshuo jie baisheng yuanjia ... more The Dunhuang manuscripts include over twenty copies of a text called Foshuo jie baisheng yuanjia tuoluoni jing 佛說解百生怨家陁羅尼經 (Dhāraṇī Scripture Spoken by the Buddha on Dissolving [Ties with] Grudge-Holders of a Hundred Lifetimes). The text is also known from other sites along the historical Silk Road, attesting to its popularity across a vast geographical area. This paper focuses on extant manuscripts of this scripture from the Dunhuang library cave and groups them according to physical typology. The basic premise is that the manuscripts’ physical characteristics are of significance because they show how the dhāraṇī was reproduced as material text. Some of them were produced collectively, in ways that included the active participation of donors from the same extended family, possibly in connection with the commemoration of the dead. Other types of manuscripts suggest having been copied as part of larger projects. Finally, some of the manuscripts may have functioned as devotional objects in themselves.
Acta Orientalia (Hung.), 2020
This paper identifies three manuscript fragments from Turfan as an Old Uyghur version of the stor... more This paper identifies three manuscript fragments from Turfan as an Old Uyghur version of the story of Shunzi 舜子, a medieval Chinese narrative about Emperor Shun acting as a filial son. In China, the story was part of the lore of filial sons (xiaozi 孝子), popular throughout most of the dynastic period. Early versions of the Chinese story survive in Japan and Dunhuang, and these display obvious parallels with the Uyghur text. While this allows a positive identifi cation of the content of the three Turfan fragments, the diff erences reveal that none of the known Chinese versions could have served as the source text for the translation. Th e Old Uyghur version, therefore, represents an otherwise unattested version of the story, which may have developed among the Uyghurs.
The Oxford Handbook of Classical Chinese Literature (1000 BCE - 900 CE), edited by Wiebke Denecke, Wai-Yee Li, and Xiaofei Tian, 2017
A brief overview of the Chinese writing system, including native views on the origin and early hi... more A brief overview of the Chinese writing system, including native views on the origin and early history of the script; comparison with archaeological evidence; orthographic structure of Chinese characters; literacy; and the spread of the script beyond the Chinese state(s).
The Emergence of Multiple-Text Manuscripts, ed. by Bausi, Alessandro / Friedrich, Michael / Maniaci, Marilena, 2019
One of the striking features of Chinese manuscripts from Dunhuang is that often texts from origin... more One of the striking features of Chinese manuscripts from Dunhuang is that often texts from originally distinct sources are gathered together into one manuscript. Some of the components are assembled from pieces of older manuscripts written by different persons at different times, producing a composite item with an amalgam of codicological features. But there are also physically homogeneous manuscripts with distinct texts copied together into a new collection. This paper examines such physically homogeneous multiple-text manuscripts (MTMs) and attempts to shed light on the circumstances of their production. As a case study, I analyse the codicological characteristics and the textual composition of manuscripts S.5531 and P.3932, both of which are codices with a series of shorter Buddhist texts written in succession.
Távol-Keleti Tanulmányok, 2018
Interview with the late Prof. Barnabás Csongor (1923-2018), the eminent Hungarian sinologist and ... more Interview with the late Prof. Barnabás Csongor (1923-2018), the eminent Hungarian sinologist and linguist. A student of Louis Ligeti, he initially worked on the phonetic reconstruction of Chinese based on Chinese texts written in the Tibetan, Uighur and Brahmi scripts but later on gradually shifted the focus of his research to Chinese literature, and translated some of the most well-known novels (e.g. Shuihuzhuan, Xiyouji) into Hungarian. His encyclopedic knowledge of Chinese history and textual tradition was an inspiration for his students.
Studies in Chinese Religions, 2019
In addition to religious scriptures that survive from the Ming-Qing period, the Qing archives rel... more In addition to religious scriptures that survive from the Ming-Qing period, the Qing archives related to the prosecution of secret societies contain references to texts and images found in the possession of members of such societies at the time of their arrest. Texts may also be mentioned or at times quoted in full by the 10 accused in the course of their interrogation. Some of these texts are unknown from other sources and thus the archival material offers precious insights into religious literature used by sectarian groups. This paper examines a text that appears in the archives under the title Laojun du fuzi 老君度夫子 (The Elderly Lord Saves the Master), tracing the history of its transmission from the Song dynasty until modern days. In the course of the centuries, the text changed its title and part of its content, to the extent that it may be argued that its versions no longer constitute the same text but rather several interrelated ones, each with its own agenda and socio-cultural background.
The Other Greek: An Introduction to Chinese and Japanese Characters, Their History and Influence, 2018
Arthur Cooper (1916-1988) is primarily known to students of Chinese for his translations of Tang ... more Arthur Cooper (1916-1988) is primarily known to students of Chinese for his translations of Tang poetry. By profession, he was a cryptanalyst who worked at Bletchley Park during and after WWII, decoding Japanese military and diplomatic messages. He had a deep interest in language and poetry, as a result of which he devoted the later half of his life to studying the structure of the Chinese script. In The Other Greek, Arthur Cooper offers an unorthodox introduction to the Chinese script through the medium of poetry, explaining the structure, meaning and cultural significance of each character. The book is an entry-level induction into learning written Chinese.
A study of an early manuscript fragment of the Wenshushili Puchao sanmei jing 文殊師利普超三昧經 last seen... more A study of an early manuscript fragment of the Wenshushili Puchao sanmei jing 文殊師利普超三昧經 last seen in a private collection in Kalamazoo. The paper provides a transcription of the manuscript, a discussion of its palaeographic features and photographs of the original.
Although most of the surviving collections of medieval manuscripts and imprints are of Buddhist n... more Although most of the surviving collections of medieval manuscripts and imprints are of Buddhist nature, they normally include a smaller number of other types of material, such as primers and didactic texts used for educational purposes. The Mengqiu 蒙求, a primer attributed to Li Han 李瀚 (d. u.) of the Tang dynasty, is one of these. Following the Song period the text fell into disuse, but early copies survived in Japan where it remained in continuous use all the way through modern times. In addition, during the twentieth century several copies of the text were discovered in regions which were at the margins of Chinese civilization: among the texts excavated from the sealed off library cave near Dunhuang; the ruins of Khara-khoto in Inner Mongolia; and the Liao period wooden pagoda in Ying county (Shanxi province). All of these sites belonged to border regimes that at the time were not part of China proper, and thus the finds attest to the popularity of this text among the inhabitants of these states. This paper examines the handwritten and printed versions of the Mengqiu discovered at these sites in order to draw attention to the spread of Confucian education beyond the borders of the Chinese states, and to assess the role of Buddhist monasteries in secular education.
Reading Warring States manuscripts we are confronted with a number of graphs that are not only st... more Reading Warring States manuscripts we are confronted with a number of graphs that are not only structurally different from modern characters and the small seal forms of the Shuowen jiezi but show variation even among themselves. While some of these graphs may be characters that have since disappeared, the majority of them are variants of known ones and represent words in much the same way as seen in transmitted sources. In early manuscripts we often see character structure varying within the same corpus or, at times, even within the same document. In most cases, the context provides enough information for deciphering the meaning of graphs, yet it is always a question whether we can link structural discrepancies with grammatical differences or shades of meaning. In other words, do graphic differences have any relevance to how the word is to be interpreted? Or are they inconsequential errors committed by scribes working in a hurry or perhaps possessing lower literacy skills?
In the Russian collection of Tangut material there is a manuscript which describes a meeting betw... more In the Russian collection of Tangut material there is a manuscript which describes a meeting between Confucius and an old sage. It is generally assumed that it is a translation of a Chinese work but attempts at identifying the source text have not been successful. The Tangut title survives on the last page and it has been translated as the Altar Record of Confucius’s Conciliation. This paper identifies a closely related Chinese text among Ming-Qing religious scriptures of secret societies and suggests a new interpretation for the Tangut title. Connecting the title and the text with Chinese religious and intellectual traditions of the Song period also enables us to date the Chinese source text to the late eleventh or early twelfth century.
Sir Gerard Clauson (1891–1974) worked most of his life as a civil servant and conducted academic ... more Sir Gerard Clauson (1891–1974) worked most of his life as a civil servant and conducted academic research in his spare time. Only after retiring in 1951 at the age of 60 was he able to devote his full attention to scholarly endeavours, which were primarily focussed on Turkic languages. Thus as a scholar, today he is primarily remembered for his contribution to Turkic studies, and his Etymological Dictionary of Pre-Thirteenth-Century Turkish is still an essential reference tool in the field. Yet in addition to his study of Turkic and Mongolian linguistics, he also worked on a number of other Asian languages, including Tangut. Even though his extensive list of publications includes only a small number of items related to Tangut studies, he devoted an incredible amount of time and effort to studying the language and to compiling a dictionary. He never finished the dictionary but deposited a draft version along with his notes in seven large volumes at the Library of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), so that they would be available to anyone who wished to study Tangut and perhaps continue his research. Eric Grinstead, who used the dictionary when working on the Tangut manuscripts at the British Museum, called it “a paragon of excellence” in comparison with high level of errors in dictionaries available at the time.4 Indeed, the erudition of Clauson’s dictionary is obvious even upon a cursory look at the manuscript version and had it ever been published, it would have undoubtedly made a major impact on scholarship. This introduction presents the available material in an attempt to shed some light on an unknown episode in the history of Tangut studies, a promising start that due to a variety of reasons never reached its potential.
"Variant characters" entry in Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics.
Manuscript P.3720 from Dunhuang is a collation of different texts, including appointment decrees,... more Manuscript P.3720 from Dunhuang is a collation of different texts, including appointment decrees, religious poetry, a funerary inscription, a short record of the history of the Mogao caves. The texts come from distinct sources, and some had been written at different times by different persons as separate manuscripts, before they were all joined together into a single scroll. Thus the manuscript is also a composite object physically, consisting of separate pieces of paper glued together sometime during the 10th century. While the individual texts have been successfully used by scholars as primary sources for information about the history of Dunhuang and the cave complex at Mogao, it is clear that in order to fully understand the motivation behind the creation of the scroll, the arrangement of the individual components (i.e. sheets of paper) and texts must also be examined. A remarkable aspect of the arrangement is that some of the texts are dated and the dates range from 851 to 938, with an 87-year gap between the earliest and latest ones. The present study is an attempt to enhance our understanding of the date, authorship and composition of this manuscript, and at the same time also shed light on the practice of creating such composite scrolls in medieval China.
Manuscripts written by students during the 9th and 10th centuries have been studied by several sc... more Manuscripts written by students during the 9th and 10th centuries have been studied by several scholars in the past. This paper builds on their contributions and looks at the scribbles on the verso of such manuscripts and attempts to demonstrate that while individually they seem to be haphazard, when analyzed together they exhibit certain patterns. These patterns in turn have the potential to tell us more about the way these manuscripts were produced and used.
A brief overview of Dunhuang studies in recent years.
East Asian Publishing and Society, 2014
is one of the leading authorities on the origin and spread of printing in China and he has writte... more is one of the leading authorities on the origin and spread of printing in China and he has written a succession of studies dealing with how printing arose in East Asia. The book under review is the author's third monograph devoted to this important subject, the second that came out as part of the Minnow Press series 'Working Papers in the Study of Religions' . From the point of view of an outside observer, Barrett's research in this field is characterised by an ongoing flow of studies that are interconnected and build upon each other, rather than milestone volumes that provide a comprehensive examination of distinct topics. Indeed, this book is also a continuation of Barrett's former research and is closely linked with his previous research. Rather than trying to establish the monograph as a self-contained entity, every opportunity is taken to embed it within the author's existing research. As former studies are often referenced without reiterating earlier findings, the reader is expected to be familiar with these, or at least have immediate access to them. Among the most commonly cited works is The Woman Who Discovered Printing (New Haven, Conn.: 2008), and it is clear that the new monograph is in effect a continuation of the same ideas and that the two books complement each other. Barrett's aim is not to do a comprehensive survey but to open up new topics and integrate hitherto unnoticed pieces of information into research, a task which he accomplishes with great mastery. While the bits and pieces he uncovers cannot be taken as direct evidence by themselves, he expertly reconstructs their religious and political context, and thereby makes the otherwise fragmentary information meaningful and relevant.
East Asian Publishing and Society 4, 2014
A brief review of Matthias L. Richter's new book entitled The Embodied Text: Establishing Textual... more A brief review of Matthias L. Richter's new book entitled The Embodied Text: Establishing Textual Identity in Early Chinese Manuscripts (Leiden: Brill, 2013).
A review of the new book on Dunhuang manuscripts by Jean-Pierre Drège and Costantino Moretti.
We are happy to announce the following Doctoral School at Ghent University: “Chinese Writing a... more We are happy to announce the following Doctoral School at Ghent University:
“Chinese Writing and Lexicography in Medieval China”
October 8th – 12th, 2018
Venue: Het Pand (Ghent University)
This Doctoral School (DS) will focus on several key questions concerning medieval Chinese writing practices and manuscript culture, in addition to providing an introduction to important historical lexicographical material.
Part 1 (three days) will be taught by the main instructor of the DS, Imre Galambos (Cambridge University). Several aspects of medieval Chinese writing and manuscript production will receive special attention, with a focus on Dunhuang manuscript.
Part 2 (two days) will be taught by Christoph Anderl (Ghent University), dealing with historical lexicographical material.
For the tentative schedule of the DS, please see the attachment.
There will be five scholarships (for travel and accommodation) awarded to international PhD students (up to 800 EUR per person).
For more information and applications for the scholarships, please contact christoph.anderl@ugent.be.
Study day held at the British Museum Asia study room on 1 April 2019. A day of presentations focu... more Study day held at the British Museum Asia study room on 1 April 2019. A day of presentations focusing on objects brought back by Sir Aurel Stein from the Silk Roads, many of which were officially accessioned at the Museum in 1919, one hundred years ago.
See more at sinologymethods.com
A major Dunhuang Studies conference held on 17-18 April 2019 at St. John's College, Cambridge.