Dears
Is the any scientific books or articles describing from Buddhism point of view and in comprehensive and honest manner findings in Tun-huang caves at the turn of last century ? Especially I'm interested in Chan history.
The Dunhuang manuscripts are a wide variety of religious and secular documents (mostly manuscripts) in Chinese and other languages that were discovered at the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang, China, during the 20th century. The Library Cave was discovered by a Daoist monk called Wang Yuanlu in 1900. The Dunhuang documents include works ranging from history and mathematics to folk songs and dance. There are many religious documents, most of which are Buddhist taexts (which include the Buddhist sutras, commentaries and treatises, always copied for the purpose of generating religious merits), but other religions including Daoism and Christianity are also represented. Most of the manuscripts are written in the Chinese language. The manuscripts serve as a major resource for academic studies in a wide variety of fields including history, religious studies, linguistics, and manuscript studies.
#2Submitted by Gregory Hamilto... on Tue, 08/16/2016 - 23:02.
There is a book available from the Harvard University Press entitled T'ang Transformation Texts.
Text may be ordered directly here.
Price is $45 USD.
Quotation from the website describing the text:
"This is the most comprehensive study of pien-wen (“transformation texts” i.e., tales of metamorphosis) in any language since the manuscripts were discovered at the beginning of this century in a remote cave complex in northwest China. They are the earliest written vernacular narratives in China and are thus extremely important in the history of Chinese language and literature.
Numerous scholarly controversies have surrounded the study of the texts in the last three quarters of a century; this volume seeks to resolve some of them—the extent, origins, and formal characteristics of the texts, the meaning of pien wen, the identity of the authors who composed these popular narratives and the scribes who copied them, the relationship of the texts to oral performance, and the reasons for the apparently sudden demise of the genre around the beginning of the Sung dynasty.
This is a multi-disciplinary study that integrates findings from religious, literary, linguistic, sociological, and historical materials, carried out with intellectual rigor. It includes an extensive bibliography of relevant sources in many languages."
The Dun Huang Manuscripts
The Dunhuang manuscripts are a wide variety of religious and secular documents (mostly manuscripts) in Chinese and other languages that were discovered at the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang, China, during the 20th century. The Library Cave was discovered by a Daoist monk called Wang Yuanlu in 1900. The Dunhuang documents include works ranging from history and mathematics to folk songs and dance. There are many religious documents, most of which are Buddhist taexts (which include the Buddhist sutras, commentaries and treatises, always copied for the purpose of generating religious merits), but other religions including Daoism and Christianity are also represented. Most of the manuscripts are written in the Chinese language. The manuscripts serve as a major resource for academic studies in a wide variety of fields including history, religious studies, linguistics, and manuscript studies.
Transformation Texts
There is a book available from the Harvard University Press entitled T'ang Transformation Texts.
Text may be ordered directly here.
Price is $45 USD.
Quotation from the website describing the text:
"This is the most comprehensive study of pien-wen (“transformation texts” i.e., tales of metamorphosis) in any language since the manuscripts were discovered at the beginning of this century in a remote cave complex in northwest China. They are the earliest written vernacular narratives in China and are thus extremely important in the history of Chinese language and literature.
Numerous scholarly controversies have surrounded the study of the texts in the last three quarters of a century; this volume seeks to resolve some of them—the extent, origins, and formal characteristics of the texts, the meaning of pien wen, the identity of the authors who composed these popular narratives and the scribes who copied them, the relationship of the texts to oral performance, and the reasons for the apparently sudden demise of the genre around the beginning of the Sung dynasty.
This is a multi-disciplinary study that integrates findings from religious, literary, linguistic, sociological, and historical materials, carried out with intellectual rigor. It includes an extensive bibliography of relevant sources in many languages."