国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

820   EXPLORATION OF A WALLED-UP HOARD   [Chap. XXII

Latest date records of Chinese manuscripts.

details of monastic organization and worship prevailing here during the centuries which preceded the closing of the deposit, but also on various aspects of local conditions and private life.

What, however, attracted my attention to them most was the chronological assurance that I could derive from them at the time. A considerable proportion of those which passed through my hands in the course of our eager search proved to be accurately dated. Before long the number of such records, many quasi-official, was large enough to allow a definite conclusion to be drawn as to the time limits within which the contents of this great cache were likely to have been brought together and finally walled up. The large majority belonged to the tenth century of our era, and, while those from its second and third quarter were frequent, none of the dated documents came down later than the second reign of the Sung dynasty, the last recorded nien-hao corresponding to A.D. 990-4. So I was led to assume that the walling-up of the chamber was likely to have taken place in the early years of the eleventh century. Here I may at once mention the fact that the examination of the pictures and woodcuts has fully confirmed this conclusion, the latest dates recorded on them being of the years 98o and 983.

There was a negative fact, too, observed at the time which lent distinct support to this approximate dating. Among all the masses of manuscripts then and afterwards examined, not a single trace has been found of the peculiar script introduced by the founder of the Hsi-hsia, or Tangut, dynasty which, as we know, conquered Tun-huang between the years A.D. 1034 and îo37,1 and ruled it for close on two centuries. Yet among the sgraffiti to be seen on the painted walls of the caves, apart from the hundreds in Chinese, I had noticed some in Hsi-hsia characters besides those in Tibetan, Mongol, and Uigur.

The thought naturally suggested itself that it was some destructive invasion, such as that of the Tanguts might have been, which led to the walling-up of the little chapel and the subsequent complete oblivion of the cache. But there were indications also prompting the surmise that the small well-sheltered recess may have served previously as a place of deposit for all kinds of objects held of sacred use, but no longer needed in the various shrines and monastic quarters. Among such I may specially mention numerous small bags carefully packed and sewn up in cloth which contained nothing but tiny scraps of paper bearing Chinese characters, apparently fragments of religious texts. They had evidently been picked up and collected for the same supé?stitious reason which now causes Chinese people to rescue from floors and streets all bits of inscribed paper for ceremonial burning. In other and much larger bundles, such as e.g. Ch. xxxv, xxxvii, the contents consisted mainly of torn ends of Sutra rolls stiffened with thin sticks of wood ; of wooden rollers once used in manuscript rolls ; silk tapes ; cloth wrappers and similar library ` waste'. Elsewhere ex-voto rags of fabrics, small broken pieces of silk-paintings, painted wooden ` strainers' once belonging to banners, and the like were found tightly wrapped up in covers, along with block-printed pictures of sacred figures, silk streamers, etc.

It was impossible to doubt that these were relics of worship swept up from different shrines and put aside on account of religious scruples. It seemed very improbable that such insignificant remains could have been collected and sewn up systematically in the commotion of a sudden emergency. In view of the evidence thus provided and of the experience gained by the clearing of the ruined temple cellas of Dandân-oilik, Endere, Khâdalik, and Mirân, the question may well be considered whether the detached Pbthi leaves and other manuscript remains which were found in the ` mixed ' bundles did not originally find their way there as votive deposits from image bases, etc., in different temples. But I need scarcely point out that the archaeological guarantee which

Absence of Hsi-hsia script.

Deposit of sacred waste '.

Votive deposits collected in mixed ' bundles.

' Cf. Chavannes, Dix inscriptions, p. 14. The Hsi-hsia rule was brought to an end in A. D 1227 by the Mongol conquest.