China News Service, Beijing, March 21st, title:
(East and West Questions) The Western Regions are buried in the long history, how can you find a wonderful city?
Author Liu Wensuo (Professor of Department of Anthropology and Director of Archaeology Teaching and Research Office, Sun Yat-Sen University)
Editor's note: Since ancient times, Xinjiang has been an area inhabited by many ethnic groups, with multiple religions coexisting.
In 60 BC, the Western Han Dynasty established the Western Regions Protectorate, and Xinjiang officially became a part of China's territory.
Many discoveries in Xinjiang’s archaeology, such as the Chinese bamboo slips from the Han and Western Jin dynasties unearthed in the Niya site where the Jingjue ancient city is located in the "Ghost Blowing Lantern", the Mongolian script "Cangjie Pian" and Buddhist literature circulated in the Han dynasty. Research by Liu Wensuo, a professor at Sun Yat-sen University who pays attention to Niya archaeology, shows that these findings confirm the central government's jurisdiction over the Western Regions during this period, the spread of Han culture in the Western Regions, the prevalence of Buddhism in the Western Regions and the prosperity of the Silk Road.
Throughout the long history, the people of all ethnic groups living in Xinjiang have blended and learned from each other, forming a structure of pluralism and unity in Xinjiang.
Author Liu Wensuo poses in front of the Tubo Castle ruins in Milan, Xinjiang
"Ghost Blowing Lantern" started from "Jing Jue City".
Why did the author of this novel think of "Jing Juecheng"?
I thought, maybe it was the inspiration from "Hanshu·Biography of Western Regions"?
"Jing Jue" is a cool name, like an ancient code with a profound meaning.
What is "Jing Jue"?
The story starts from the Han Dynasty.
China's ownership of the Western Regions (including Xinjiang) began in the Han Dynasty, and the Han Dynasty's ownership of the Western Regions began with the management of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (reigned 140-87 BC). At that time, the area west of Yangguan and Yumenguan was called "Western Regions". ".
In addition to military campaigns in strategic locations such as Loulan, Zhang Qian (164 BC-114 BC) and other envoys were also sent to the oasis city-states in Central Asia such as Dayuezhi, Daxia, Wusun, and Dawan.
In the second year of Emperor Xuanzang of the Han Dynasty (the first 60 years), the Han Dynasty formally established the Western Regions Duhufu to manage the north and south of Tianshan Mountains.
Mogao Grottoes "Zhang Qian's Envoy Picture" ("Chinese Grottoes·Mogao Grottoes")
The knowledge of the Western Regions acquired by the envoys of the Han Dynasty, especially the Duhufu of the Western Regions, far exceeded that of the pre-Qin period. This was the source of information when the Han Dynasty historian Ban Gu compiled the "Hanshu · Biography of the Western Regions".
These Western Regions city-states canonized by the Han Dynasty are tribes of various sizes that have continued from the early Iron Age. Some tribes speak ancient Indo-European languages.
Jingjue is such a small state on the southern road of the Tarim Basin.
Its name first appeared in the "Hanshu · Biography of the Western Regions".
In the records of "The Biography of the Western Regions", Jingjue King resided in Jingjue City, with a population of 480 households and 3,360 people.
About the annexation in the early Eastern Han Dynasty, Jingjue was merged into Shanshan, a great state in the southeast of the Tarim Basin.
This situation generally maintained until the death of the 4th century AD, and the large number of Lulu documents discovered from the Niya site also ended at this time.
Why does "Biography of the Western Regions" translate this small country as "Jing Jue"?
These two characters look like Chinese.
However, according to the rules and Chinese pronunciation of the Chinese translation of "Huyu" (non-Chinese language) in the Western Regions at that time, it is now known that "Jing Jue" is the opposite of Cad'ota in the Lu's document unearthed at the Niya site.
In the Lulu documents, this place name clearly refers to the locality of the Niya site.
This involves the location of the "precision" and the Niya site.
Sand-buried ruins
Go to the Niya ruins to find the "exquisite"
The Niya site is located in the hinterland of the Taklimakan Desert, north of Minfeng County, Xinjiang, on the ancient tail oasis of the Niya River.
In 1900, the British explorer Stein (MA Stein, 1862-1943) found the Niya site under the guidance of a local guide.
The sand-buried ancient civilization presented at the site is amazing.
During the expeditions in 1906 and 1930, he entered the site again.
A large number of cultural relics have been excavated from the site.
Some people after Stein visited the Niya site.
However, scientific archaeological investigations and excavations were not realized until the 1990s.
At that time, the Sino-Japanese Joint Niya Site Academic Investigation Team, jointly organized by the Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and Ryukoku University in Japan, conducted a total of nine annual archaeological investigations and excavations (1988-1997) on the site.
Stein was the first to compare the Niya ruins to the Han Dynasty.
This view was affirmed by Wang Guowei.
In 1931, Stein obtained a wooden slip written "Han Jingjue Wang Chengshu Engaged" at the Niya site.
This evidence strengthened the inferences of Wang Guowei and others.
Wooden Slips of "Han Jing Jue King" (International Dunhuang Project Website)
The site presents a miraculous landscape: fixed sand dunes connected to the ruins of the building, scattered on the ancient delta that has been deserted.
A total of 215 relics including city sites, houses, workshops, pagodas, Buddhist temples, livestock pens, orchards, cemeteries, ancient bridges, etc., as well as thousands of various relics, record the exquisite past prosperous scene of the desert city state on the Silk Road .
Niya Ruins Houses Excavated by Stein
In the history of world archaeology, this is a very rare discovery: in addition to a large number of relics and a dazzling variety of relics, there are also unearthed documents including Chinese, Luwen, and Sogdian, which come from the exquisite records recorded in historical books.
The most eye-catching is the large number of Chinese and Luwen documents from the Han and Western Jin Dynasties, as well as the large amount of silk unearthed from the cemetery, including the famous "Five Stars Out of the East and China" Brocade Guard.
Among the architectural relics, Buddhist architecture is very eye-catching, including the "Dang Du Po"-type pagoda and the ruins of the Buddhist temple in the mansion number N5, from which wood-carved pagodas and fine murals have been unearthed.
Niya Ruins Houses Excavated by Stein
The main part of the Lulu document has been interpreted and translated.
This script originated from the ancient Gandhara area, the Buddhist center of the Indus Valley, and was used to copy Buddhist scriptures and so on.
This script, along with Brahmi and Sogdian, was also used in Silk Road commerce during the Han-Jin period.
For example, the "Ancient Sogdian Slips" found at the famous Dunhuang Han Fengsui site are the business reports and family letters of Sogdian merchants who were engaged in the silk trade in China at that time.
The "Suite Ancient Books" found at the Han Fengsui site in Dunhuang (International Dunhuang Project Website)
Political and cultural strength of the Han Dynasty
Several batches of Chinese bamboo slips from the Han and Western Jin dynasties discovered from the Niya site include the "Han Jingjuewang" Jianhe Jingjue, the table of gifts given by the royal family at the end of the period, and the edicts of the Emperor Wu Taishi of the Jin Dynasty to copy the Western Regions in five years.
The wooden slips "Han Jingjue Wang Chengshu Engaged in" are the edicts of the emperor who copied the Western Regions from the border counties of the Han Dynasty. From this we can get a glimpse of the Han Dynasty's administration in the Western Regions. These documents can be linked to the official documents unearthed from the Dunhuang Han Fengsui site.
Han Slips Unearthed from N14 at Niya Site (International Dunhuang Project Website)
Another group of Chinese bamboo slips has attracted Wang Guowei's attention. They came from a large house in the northern part of the Niya site.
The content of the brief text is to present Langgan and roses (ancient jade jewelry). The gifts are the queen mother, the big (tai) son, and people named Chengde, Junhua, Suqi, and Xiuwu Songye. The recipient is the king, The king, his wife, Chunjun, and Mrs. Qiemo.
"Chun Jun" is like a title.
A simple essay is full of warmth: "Feng Jin asked Chunjun with Langgan unanimously. Fortunately, we will not forget each other." It seems to express love.
The Han Li fonts written in these bamboo slips are relatively authentic, and they are also very elegant in style, such as "rebirth" and "knocking one's head". It makes people guess who the writer is?
However, a discovery in 1993 answered the question. The wooden slip "Cangjiepian" found from the ruins was a Mongolian script of Chinese characters handed down in the Han Dynasty.
The discovery of "Cangjiepian, Jijiuzhang" and calendars at the Dunhuang Han Fengsui site confirms that the Han Dynasty's cultural promotion in the northwestern frontier county and the Western Regions has penetrated into the upper echelons of the "Hu" in the Western Regions.
"Cangjie Pian" and "Jijiu Zhang" unearthed at the Han Fengsui site in Dunhuang (Luo Zhenyu and Wang Guowei "Drifting Sand Slips")
In addition to bamboo slips, some high-quality items from the Han Dynasty inland unearthed from the site, such as silk, five baht coins, lacquerware, and bronze mirrors, show a deep integration.
Large amounts of silk are sewn into different styles and styles of clothing, both in the right gusset style and the left gusset style.
These silks are of fine quality and are woven with intricate and graceful patterns, and some are woven with inscriptions such as "Five stars out of the East and benefit China" and "The princes are in harmony for the future and the future is good for future generations".
Some of them came from the rewards of the Han and Jin imperial courts. These beautifully dressed people should be elite royal families or upper strata.
Recent research on the tombs at the Niya site has also revealed some etiquette and customs originating from the Han Dynasty inland.
For example, the trees that hang the deceased's burial objects placed in the tombs are different for men and women.
The ceremonial burial bows and arrows used by some men seem to be related to archery since ancient times.
A rooster was placed next to the head of a tomb owner.
In the mainland, these ceremonial activities are usually only found in documentary records, and there are no actual archaeological discoveries.
Chicken Ming Pillow Unearthed at Niya Site
Exquisite on the Silk Road
Through the archaeological discoveries of the Niya site, we can prove that Jingjue is a post on the Silk Road, and its economic and cultural prosperity also benefited from this.
Silk is the most striking discovery.
In addition to high-end silk, there are also ordinary silk cloth trafficked from the mainland.
An interesting discovery is the silk cloth wrapped around the bow and bowstring, on which Chinese characters and Lu characters are written in ink.
One was written "Yang Ping in Xiuruo Dong Township, Hanoi", that is, the birthplace, name, and number of the silks of the person who paid the silk. It was taken by Yang Ping, a native of Dongxiang, Xiuruo County, Hanoi County.
"Princes are in harmony for generations to be the descendants of all generations" unearthed at the Niya site
How did this silk cloth come to Jingjue?
Coincidentally, Stein also found one silk inscription each in Chinese and one in Brahma at the Han Fengsui site in Dunhuang.
The Chinese ink book "Ren Chengguo Kang's father is a horse, the width is two feet two inches, the length is four feet, the weight is 25 taels, and the straight money is 618." Some kind of cloth.
The former was guessed by Wang Guowei as military supplies transferred to the border in the Western Han Dynasty.
The latter indicates that it is a commodity exported to a certain place in India.
Indeed, we read a lot of documents about silk trading in the Chinese and Lulan documents of Niya and Loulan. As the "Ancient Sogdian Slips" shows, in the Han-Jin period from Dunhuang and other border counties to Loulan, There is an active silk trade in Jingjue, Samarkand.
It was dominated by Dayueshi and Sogdian merchants, but the Han and Jin governments in Dunhuang and the Western Regions also participated.
It was at the Niya site that a group of "passports" issued by the Western Jin government to a businessman from the Guishuang Kingdom named Pillars was discovered. This may be the most ancient "passport" in the world.
Unearthed documents of Lulu at the Niya site (International Dunhuang website, etc.)
Silk trade is only one side of the Silk Road, and the extensive and in-depth cultural exchanges promoted by this have brought great benefits.
Its glorious side is multiculturalism, which also creates harmonious development.
In this small oasis society, in addition to the mainstream of Buddhism, other religious beliefs, such as witchcraft and some forms that are not yet known, are also reflected in the archaeological remains and Lulu documents.
Several Buddhist documents are preserved in Niya's Lulu documents, including the "Dharma Collection to Ode to Sutra", the vows, and a document on the prayer of the Buddha on the Bathing Festival.
Even a "Sangha Statute" has been preserved, stipulating that the monks who violated the law shall be punished with silk.
It should be noted that these documents belong to one of the earliest Buddhist documents discovered at present.
The discovery of Chinese bamboo slips such as "Cangjie Pian" indicates the use of Chinese and Chinese characters in the upper echelon.
In addition, the Loulan-Jingjue dialect, which is spelled in Kalu, is a mixture of Chinese, Greek, Iranian, Tocharian, Khotanese, Sogdian, etc.
This has fully explained the exquisite cultural phenomenon: communication and integration.
It is also worth noting that Jingjue was influenced by the Greek culture: some of the seals of the Luwen bamboo slips used images of Greek gods, such as Athena and Hercules.
Two seals were stamped with both the Chinese seal and the Western seal.
The richness of unearthed cultural relics vividly shows how Jingjue on the Silk Road forged itself.
The Chinese and Western seals on the wooden slips of Lu Wen, detail
The disappearance of Jingjue is full of drama.
After the Three Kingdoms, Jing will no longer be seen in the record.
In 644 AD, Xuanzang passed through a place called "Neyang" on his way back from India, which was already a swamp at that time.
It is always interesting to speculate on the cause of the demise of this oasis civilization.
There is a lack of sufficient evidence for theories about river diversion, migration, plague, and war.
Back to the beginning of the topic, Jingjue Ancient City is a real existence, and its buried history is more colorful than people imagine.
(Finish)