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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books
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On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1 |
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examination of these dates and that of the materials gathered
by Professor Pelliot, it results that the walling up of the great
deposit must have taken place about the beginning of the
eleventh century, probably at the time when the conquest
of this border region by the Tanguts caused danger to the
religious establishments of the site.
This great store of Chinese literary remains will yet claim
painstaking researches for many years to come. I can refer
here only to one or two of the interesting discoveries already
made by European and Japanese scholars. In the large
block-printed roll dated A.D. 868 is found the oldest
specimen of a printed book so far known. The perfect
technique displayed by the text and the frontispiece indi-
cates a long preceding development of the printer's craft.
Even more important from another point of view is
the discovery of Manichaean texts in Chinese garb. Their
study has furnished the safest basis so far available for the
study of that strange syncretistic religion of Mani which
embodies so many Christian elements. It was hitherto known
almost solely from the writings of its Christian adversaries and
from text fragments discovered at Turfan. Firmly established
first in the Persian Empire of the Sasanides, Manichaeism had
for centuries been widely spread throughout Central Asia.
Westwards it penetrated even into Mediterranean countries,
and in certain heretical sects of Eastern Europe its influence
survived to the late Middle Ages.
The Tibetan manuscript rolls and documents (Fig. 92)
approach the Chinese materials nearest in character and ex-
tent. They also, for the most part, contain Buddhist canonical
texts. But the learned labours of Professor F. W. Thomas, of
Oxford, have shown that among these Tibetan remains, too,
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571
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578
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