Let Dunhuang documents "Orphans go home" and "Family reunion"
——The story behind the integration of the Dunhuang fragment system
Zhu Ruoxi from Xuzhou Institute of Technology noticed the Dunhuang fragment with the words "Fu already" written on it.
That was a few years ago, she was still a PhD student at Zhejiang University.
While reading the Dunhuang Posthumous Manuscripts in the National Library of China, she found a fragment of Dunhuang manuscript numbered "Bei Dun 2301", with a small piece of paper pasted on the front of the manuscript, with only the words "Fu Ji" on it, and no village in front. No shop behind.
This Dunhuang manuscript was copied from the second volume of the "Golden Guangming Jing". Compared with the handed down texts, it can be known that there is no case where the word "fu has" appeared one after another.
She thought that this small piece of paper should have come off from other places, perhaps from the waste paper that was mounted on the back of the roll. Ancients often used discarded old paper as a material for mounting.
When her mentor Zhang Yongquan saw this piece of paper, a paragraph from the "Golden Guangming Most Victorious King Sutra" popped out of her mind: "Buddha tells Ananda:'You can put your seat under this tree. "When Ananda was taught, she has already..." Here, "lay" means "lay", and "has" means complete. The latter sentence means that Ananda laid the seat according to the instructions of the Buddha.
Try to figure out this fragment carefully, there are still a few strokes left before the word "Zhu", much like the lower part of the word "Jiao".
Will this fragment come from "Jin Guangming's Most Victorious King Jing"?
Following this train of thought, Zhu Ruoxi began to investigate.
When the Dunhuang manuscript "Bei Dun No. 3894" was found, there were clues.
One of the parts of the "Golden Guangming Sutra of Kings" is damaged, and only the upper part of the word "Jiao" is left. Fill in the fragment with the words "Shuji", and it can be connected to "Shi Ananda". It has been taught."
Not only can the characters "Jiao" above be put together, but even the remaining ink marks on the right side of the paper also have their belongings-the two characters "噁" and "Ru" from the previous scriptures.
This kind of assembly is used by scholars as "conjugation".
The systematic and comprehensive conjugation of the Dunhuang manuscripts, even a piece of paper, is not easy to let go, let "orphans go home" and "relatives reunite", this has been the main work of the Zhang Yongquan team at Zhejiang University in the past 10 years.
Their research shows that more than 25% of Dunhuang manuscripts can be conjugated.
Collecting the fragments of Dunhuang, splicing ancient civilizations
The vast majority of Dunhuang documents are incomplete. According to scholars' statistics, the proportion exceeds 90%.
"This kind of conjugation is the first thing we do before we formally do research work." Regarding conjugation, Jiang Liangfu, a professor of Dunhuang scholars and a professor at Hangzhou University, once made such a conclusion in the early 1980s.
Conjugation is the basis of Dunhuang literature research.
Systematic and comprehensive conjugation requires the collection of Dunhuang documents scattered around the world. For a long period of time, scholars will not have such conditions.
In the 1930s, Jiang Liangfu, Wang Chongmin, Xiang Da and other Chinese scholars went to Europe to copy and photograph Dunhuang manuscripts, but after all they were unable to "transport" all overseas Dunhuang documents back to China.
At that time, the Dunhuang manuscripts collected in China had not yet been fully published.
Today, most of the Dunhuang documents in the four major collections of Britain, France, China, and Russia have been published, and the basic conditions for systematic and comprehensive integration are available.
When Zhang Xinpeng, a professor at Zhejiang Gongshang University, was studying with Zhang Yongquan for his Ph.D., he combed through the latest Dunhuang manuscripts published in Russia. An unnamed fragment aroused his interest.
On the front of this fragment, there are 9 lines left; the back is a very incomplete picture, the left side is like a winding river, and the lower right is like a corner of a city.
This reminded him of the Fazang "Bo 5019" and the Guotuzang "Bei Dun 11731" discussed by many well-known Dunhuang scholars. Those two fragments are also written on one side and pictures on the other. Some scholars put them together. Together, it was named "Meng Jiangnu Bianwen".
This fragment, numbered "Edun 11018", can be read from the front, such as "the wife should be separated" and "the husband must be generous", which may be related to the story of Meng Jiangnv crying on the Great Wall.
The result of the conjugation confirmed Zhang Xinpeng’s judgment: Putting "Odun 11018" on the left side of "Beidun 11731", not only can the characters separated on the front of the fragment be merged into one, but also the broken mountain peaks and rivers on the back. Have been able to continue.
"After concatenating these three fragments, which were hidden in Russia, China, and France, we suddenly realized: The front part is not read from right to left like most ancient books, but should be read from left to right. , Husband serving, visiting and dying in another country; the back depicts the scene of building the Great Wall. The combination of pictures and text preserves the typical paradigm of'Bianwen' and other speaking and singing literature." Zhang Yongquan recalled, "Study Bo No. 5019 more than 20 years ago Because of the severely incomplete text, the film roll surface was dark and difficult to read. The successful combination of these three fragments not only restored a preliminary readable Bianwen text, but also allowed us to get closer to the ancient Bianwen The author, reconstruct the scene of Bianwen speaking and singing, to splice the ancient civilization that has long since disappeared."
First gather the Dunhuang fragments related to the content, and then compare the directly connected or adjacent fragments, whether the ballast mouths are the same, the fonts are the same, and the bindings are the same... In practice, Zhang Yongquan’s team systematically concluded The procedures and methods for the conjugation of Dunhuang fragments have greatly improved the efficiency of conjugation, and new conjugation results have continued to emerge.
"The current conjugation results show that at least a quarter of the Dunhuang manuscripts can be conjugated." After systematically conjugating more than 30,000 Dunhuang documents, Zhang Yongquan's team came to this conclusion.
The academic circle estimates that the total number of Dunhuang documents is 70,000. According to this calculation, the number of conjugable fragments will be more than 17,500.
“Professor Zhang Yongquan’s team has assembled a large number of Dunhuang documents, which should be said to be the largest in history. This is a real academic advancement.” Wu Zhenwu, chairman of the Institute of Ancient Chinese Characters and Professor of the School of Archaeology of Jilin University, believes that Zhang Yongquan’s team The summed up methods and experience of Dunhuang document conjugation have a guiding and demonstrative effect, and will also be of great help to the future use of artificial intelligence technology to conjure Dunhuang documents.
Return to the historical scene and explore the mystery of the Tibetan scripture cave
"At least a quarter of the Dunhuang manuscripts can be conjugated." This conclusion means that, apart from about 6% of the basically complete Dunhuang manuscripts, there are about two-thirds of the Dunhuang manuscripts that cannot be combined.
While Zhang Yongquan is doing the conjugation, he is thinking about why so many fragments cannot be conjugated. This may be a key to solving the "mystery of the Tibetan scripture hole".
Why is Dunhuang Mogao Caves closed?
When was it closed?
Why is there such a wealth of literature stored in such a small stone room?
People have been asking these questions since the accidental discovery of the Buddhist scripture cave in 1900.
120 years later, Zhang Yongquan gave a new answer.
“During the dispersal of the Tibetan scriptures documents, there are indeed man-made tears, but the proportion should not be too large.” With the deepening of conjugation research, Zhang Yongquan believes that many of the scrolls preserved in the Tibetan scriptures are originally Incomplete, "In the tenth century AD, a monk named Daozhen collected a large number of fragments from various monasteries, Taoist temples, schools, and government offices in Dunhuang, and deposited them in the Tibetan scripture cave in preparation for restoration. After some scriptures were restored, they were transferred. Go to the temple to make offerings and recitations. The remaining copies and fragments of scrolls will remain in the Buddhist scriptures cave as supplements or repair materials, and eventually become the Buddhist scriptures we have seen. The closure of the Buddhist scriptures is likely to be the same The death of Daozhen is related to the end of the restoration work he presided over."
The Dunhuang manuscript left a passage of Daozhen: "I would like to search for the ancient bad scriptures in the Hanzang of Zhujia, and collect them in the temple, repair the heads and tails, and spread them to the world. During the closing process, Zhang Yongquan's team found many clues that the ancients "mended the head and tail" of these fragments.
The "Bei Dun No.5679" in the collection of the National Library, the content of the copy is the sixteenth volume of "Buddha Saying Buddhist Names Sutra", which is quite complete. Traces of stitching.
"This volume of "Buddha Saying Buddhist Names Sutra" originally lacked the'head'. Someone found the same content from other places and filled it up in this place to make it a complete paper. This is what Daozhen said is'mending the head and tail'." Zhang Yongquan believes that the reason why Daozhen emphasizes "repairing the head and tail" is because the heads and tails of the scriptures that are frequently read are more likely to be damaged and are the focus of restoration.
Coincidentally, Liu Xi, a master's student under the guidance of Zhang Yongquan, found the "head" of the "original" book.
That is "Bei Dun 11567" in the National Library of China. Although there are only 3 lines left, it cannot be directly combined with "Bei Dun 579", but its font is similar, the height of the core is the same, and the first line says "Buddha Says Buddhist Name Sutra" Volume Sixteen".
"It may be because the original'head' of this paper was too badly damaged. It was cut off during repair and replaced it with a piece of paper with the same content." Zhang Yongquan's team's research has restored it to a certain extent. The scene when the classics were restored thousands of years ago.
It is through one such instance after another that Zhang Yongquan has a new answer to the "Mystery of the Tibetan Scripture Cave".
"Zhang Yongquan's new views on the nature of Tibetan scripture holes have a solid foundation for a comprehensive investigation and combing of Dunhuang documents, as well as comprehensive investigation data as evidence, which are more convincing than previous statements." Honorary President of China Dunhuang Turfan Society Hao Chunwen, a professor at Capital Normal University, commented.
Although affirmed by many experts, Zhang Yongquan still has some regrets: For many Dunhuang documents, they can only see black and white photos, but cannot obtain high-definition and color plates. This has brought great difficulties to the conjugation research. The fidelity is also lacking.
He believes that as more high-definition, color Dunhuang documents are released, his team will have more new discoveries.
(Our reporter Du Yu)