Return to Dunhuang

China Newsweek reporter/Ni Wei

Published in the 2023th issue of China Newsweek magazine on April 4, 3

In early March, Dunhuang was still chilly, the frozen Dangquan River was covered in snow, and signs of a revival in tourism had yet to reach the desert-fringed tourist city. Hotels in the city are lined with doors, and some restaurants are closed until peak season.

The peak season will be a different story. Many taxi drivers remember that one year on National Day, tourists who could not book a house set up tents on the spot for the night by the Dang River flowing through the city.

Earlier, eighty percent of Dunhuang's tourists were foreigners, first Japanese and Korean, and later many more European and American tourists. Many foreigners who come to Dunhuang specially have a considerable interest in Chinese culture and will have some simple Chinese. Many foreigners only know about Dunhuang and not about Gansu, and Dunhuang's fame comes from the Mogao Grottoes, 25 kilometers southeast of the city.

Today, on the surface, Dunhuang's internationalization is only reflected in foreign tourists, and the whole city is no different from other fourth- and fifth-tier cities. But more than 2,000 years ago, Dunhuang became a truly cosmopolitan city, where business travelers from countries along the Silk Roads gathered to conduct international trade, and faces of all colors walked the streets.

In the past three years, very few foreign tourists have come to Dunhuang. Dunhuang is waiting for people to return.

But for the Mogao Grottoes, the three-year tourism slump is not entirely bad. The fragile murals and painted sculptures in the cave have rarely been recuperated. This is an opportunity that has not been available for at least two decades.

The meaning of honeysuckle patterns

In the 1600,<>-year-old history of Dunhuang and the more than <>,<>-year-old history of the Mogao Grottoes, many important moments can be singled out and the story of Dunhuang can be told.

For example, in the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, the 19-year-old young general Huo Qubing crossed the Qilian Mountains to defeat the Xiongnu and incorporated Dunhuang into the territory of the Han Dynasty for the first time; For example, when Wu Zetian ascended the throne and the largest giant Buddha statue in the Mogao Grottoes was excavated; For example, on June 1900, 6, when Wang Daoist cleaned the cave and stumbled upon the cave of the Tibetan scriptures; For example, one night in May 22, the Englishman Stein entered the cave to pick out documents; For example, in 1907, Chang Shuhong was shocked to see the "Dunhuang Grotto Catalogue" on the Seine River in Paris, and 5 years later, he rode a camel for the first time to look at the nine-story building and was thrilling...

These legendary moments connect the extraordinary life of the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes. Now, we can enter Dunhuang from another moment.

It was a summer rainy evening in 1995, when the Dangquan River in front of the Mogao Grottoes suddenly swelled, and Fan Jinshi, then vice president of the Dunhuang Academy, led the guards to build sandbags to fight the flood. She looked up sharply and suddenly saw a flash of golden light over the Three Perils Mountain, and the hill behind the golden light turned black. After the golden light disappeared, two intersecting rainbows appeared in the clear blue sky.

The shock that this moment brought to Fan Jinshi did not come only from the wonders of nature, but from the encounter with history. This golden light proves that a legend about the Mogao Caves may not be false.

According to legend, in 366 AD, a monk named Le Xu came to the eastern foothills of Mingsha Mountain in Dunhuang and suddenly saw golden light, as if a thousand Buddhas flashed. Inspired by the light of the Buddha, Le Shu stopped his cloud wandering and carved a cave for cultivation on the cliff. Soon, another Dharma Zen master also dug a cave next to it.

This story, recorded in Cave 332 of the Mogao Grottoes "Lijun Mogao Grottoes Buddha Shrine Stele", tells the origin of the first two caves of Mogao Grottoes circulated in the Tang Dynasty, the authenticity of which is no longer available, and archaeologists have not confirmed their location.

At that time, Dunhuang was under the rule of the Former Qin of the Sixteen Kingdoms, and the two earliest caves were used only for monks to meditate, with neither murals nor painted sculptures. By the time the Mogao Grottoes were excavated on a large scale and decorated with murals and statues, it was already Northern Liang decades later. The function of the grottoes has gradually expanded from Zen caves to family caves with clan ancestral hall functions, merit caves to commemorate meritorious deeds, etc., and the largest grottoes are basically built by local families, including the magistrates of the Central Dynasty and the leaders of the separatist regime.

The adjacent caves 268, 272 and 275 are currently recognized as the earliest three caves of the Mogao Grottoes, and many scholars believe that they were excavated during the Northern Liang Dynasty, and are known as the "Three Caves of Northern Liang". In the "Three Caves of Northern Liang", foreign elements have a significant sense of presence. On the south wall of Cave 275, there is a painting of Prince Siddhartha's journey to the four gates, and the characters have a distinctly Indian style: half-naked upper body and long skirt below. But the city gate in the painting is completely Chinese-style city. This shows that in the early Dunhuang caves, foreign elements such as India coexisted with Chinese elements.

The image of the fusion of Chinese and foreign elements is reflected in the Dunhuang Grottoes in a large way. Among them, the nudity with breasts and breasts is the most obvious example of the South Asian style, and people are used to bare their upper bodies in the high temperature of India. In the decorative pattern of the Northern Liang Grottoes, a honeysuckle pattern also frequently appears, and its ancestry is more distant than India. Honeysuckle patterns first originated in ancient Egypt and the Two Rivers Valley, possibly as an abstraction of palm leaves, and later introduced to ancient Greece, and then through Central Asia with Buddhist art to China.

The honeysuckle pattern is like a messenger, connecting the world's most important ancient civilizations such as Egypt, the Two Rivers, India, and Greece, all the way to the east, and finally connecting the Chinese civilization.

From Northern Liang through the Northern Wei, Western Wei and Northern Zhou dynasties, the foreign art style of Dunhuang gradually weakened, and the Central Plains style became stronger. However, as Zhao Shengliang, secretary of the Party Committee of the Dunhuang Academy and art historian, said, "The development and integration of different cultures is not one or the other as the west wind overwhelms the east wind, but in the history of long-term coexistence, continuous exchange and absorption with each other, so as to continue to merge." "Because of the impact of foreign Buddhist culture, countless fresh elements have been added to Chinese culture.

Cave 45 of the Mogao Caves displays a group of seven figures, two of which are statues of bodhisattvas leaning sideways and standing in an S-shaped graceful posture that exudes a sense of relaxation. The Bodhisattva has kind eyebrows, a slightly plump body, and a neck and abdomen deliberately depicting excess flesh. These two amiable bodhisattvas are known as the most beautiful statues in Dunhuang. Compared with its predecessors, Tang Dynasty statues inject human breath into clay sculptures with realism and personalization. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the bodhisattva was gentle and the king of heaven was just a portrayal of folk women, generals, soldiers and other characters at that time. Dunhuang art has completed the transformation of sinicization and humanization, "whether Buddhas, disciples, bodhisattvas and heavenly kings, they are all real and palpable, they are no longer gods far from the world." Zhao Shengliang said.

The murals that climbed to the pinnacle of Dunhuang are represented by Cave 220 "Amitayus Sutra". In 1943, when researchers from the National Institute of Dunhuang Art entered the cave, they were full of Song Dynasty or Western Xia Dynasty statues of Thousand Buddhas, but the style of Tang Dynasty painting was revealed in the lower layers of Thousand Buddhas. The researchers carefully stripped away the upper mural, and the early Tang masterpiece was restored.

Each of the murals in this cave is a masterpiece, especially the "Amitayus Sutra" on the south wall, which is magnificent and occupies the entire wall. Buddhist sutra paintings are originally meant to be paintings turned from Buddhist sutras so that illiterate people can read and interpret them. In the painting, Buddha Amitayus and more than 30 bodhisattvas are placed in the Seven Treasures Pool, paved with golden sand, blue waves, music and dance. The blue sky towers over the pavilion, the heavenly music does not drum, the heavenly goddess scatters flowers in the void, and the whole picture forms a vast sky, deep and lofty realm, depicting the bliss world inhabited by the gods in fantasy.

In the office building of the Institute for the Digitization of Cultural Relics of the Dunhuang Academy, digital high-fidelity reproductions of the Amitayus Sutra and the Medicine Master's Transformation in Cave 220 are displayed on both sides of the hall. Through digital collection, processing and restoration, Dunhuang's murals, painted sculptures and even entire caves have been replicated, allowing people everywhere to see the real face. Yu Shengji, deputy research librarian at the Dunhuang Academy's Institute of Digitization, said the Dunhuang Academy has completed digital photography of nearly 289 caves, more than half of the Mogao Grottoes have murals and painted sculptures. This has taken more than 30 years.

David sculpture and Dunhuang Buddha statue

Also in Gansu Province, the most convenient way to reach Dunhuang from the provincial capital Lanzhou is now by plane. On the narrow map of Gansu, Dunhuang is at the westernmost point, which is also the end of the Hexi Corridor, the gateway from the Central Plains to the Western Regions in ancient times.

In 1942, Chang Shuhong, the first director of the National Institute of Dunhuang Art, flew from Chongqing to Lanzhou Airport. At the end of that year, at the meeting of the preparatory committee of the Dunhuang Art Institute held in Lanzhou, someone proposed to locate the institute in Lanzhou, but Chang Shuhong objected: "Lanzhou is 1200,<> kilometers away from Dunhuang, how can we carry out protection and research so far?" ”

When it comes to the Gobi Desert outside Serbia, many people talk about the change of color of the tiger, and Chang Shuhong finally gathered a team of 6 people. They set off on February 1943, 2, and traveled by car for a month before passing through the Hexi Corridor to Anxi, hiring 20 camels and covering the last 10 kilometers. Twenty years later, Fan Jinshi, an archaeology student at Peking University, went to Dunhuang for an internship, and Gansu was already open by train, and she also took it for three days and three nights, and finally changed to a truck pulling coal.

This inaccessible desert city was a major transportation route in ancient times. Since Zhang Qian opened the Silk Road, Dunhuang has always been located on the Silk Road. From Chang'an or Luoyang through the Hexi Corridor, through Dunhuang, through Loulan, through the Western Regions, and finally to today's Afghanistan, Iran, Egypt and the Persian Gulf. For 1,560 years from the Western Han Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, Dunhuang guarded the throat of the communication between China and the West, and was extremely prosperous.

Dunhuang thus became a trade center and transit point for goods between East and West, and Dunhuang culture also emerged. In particular, during the great chaos in the Wei and Jin dynasties, many great clans and scholars moved to Hexi for refuge, which raised the cultural level of Dunhuang, and Buddhism began to spread widely.

In terms of politics, economy, religion, customs, etc., Dunhuang has formed a unique style in the fusion of East and West. And after a thousand years, the dust is removed, and only the art solidified by the grotto has survived alive.

Grottoes were pioneered in India, and from the 2nd to the 1st century AD, Buddhist caves such as Gontapari, Baya, and Nashik appeared in India. The first stop of the grottoes to China was Xinjiang, where Buddhism flourished in the ancient country of Guizi in the Western Regions, excavating the earliest Buddhist caves in present-day China. In the Kizil Caves in Baicheng County, Xinjiang today, the characters in the murals have a majestic and robust physique like a European, with a broad forehead, a towering nose, big eyes and thin lips, and a Greek look.

The origin of the Buddha statue is precisely related to Greece. At the beginning of Buddhism in India, there was no tradition of building Buddha statues. In the 4th century BC, Alexander the Great of Macedon's crusades extended his territory to South and Central Asia, and also spread the Greek culture of the Mediterranean to the hinterland of Eurasia. One of the most dazzling creations in Greek culture—the sculpture of the human figure—combined with Buddhism to give birth to figurative Buddha images. The most representative Gandhara Buddha statue in Central Asia has a European hairstyle, a Greek nose, a Persian beard, a Roman robe, and an Indian thin garment.

After the eastward spread of Buddhism, in the caves of China, not only the penetration of Greek art styles can be seen, but also some Greek images can be directly introduced. For example, in Greek mythology, the titan god Atlas, who carries the celestial sphere, in the grottoes of Yungang and Dunhuang, he incarnated as a strong Buddhist figure and carried a heavy Chinese stupa; In the architectural statues of Yungang and Dunhuang, you can also see the ancient Greek Ionic capital... From this perspective, the David sculpture and the Dunhuang Buddha statue are related by blood.

The statues and murals of the Dunhuang Grottoes have shown a vein of the integration and evolution of Chinese and foreign cultures for more than a thousand years.

In the Tang Dynasty, the style of painting in the Central Plains strongly influenced Dunhuang art. Among the paintings handed down to the world, there are only a few that have survived from the Tang Dynasty and before, such as Wu Daozi, the "painting saint" of the Tang Dynasty, and none of the authentic works that have been universally recognized have been handed down. Fortunately, the Dunhuang murals solidified his painting style, and a large number of figure paintings with fluttering clothes and arbitrary brushwork are believed to inherit the style of "Wu Dai Dangfeng". A famous Vimalaya statue in Cave 103, the main part is only outlined with lines and rarely colored, showing the mental state of Vimala with a very confident line stroke.

  赵声良解释说,吴道子的典型风格,是以线描造型在画面中造成气势和感染力。莫高窟可以见到不少线描艺术的成功之作,说明相当一批洞窟是由当时的高手完成的,虽然没有留下名字。

  敦煌壁画也保留了阎立本、周昉、张萱等唐代画家的画风。两晋隋唐佛教盛行,名画家在长安、洛阳寺院中作壁画,蔚为一时潮流,可惜,都城的寺院早已化为烟尘,而西北边疆的坚固洞窟里,却幸运地留下了他们的笔墨基因。这是中国美术史一份绝无仅有的档案。

  以乐僔和尚开窟为起点,一千多年中,莫高窟历代都有开凿。至今,莫高窟保存着735个洞窟,其中492个洞窟中有2000多身彩塑、45000多平方米壁画,相当于近1.5万幅《清明上河图》的面积。这些艺术品,记录了超过一千年的美术史。

  置身敦煌石窟,人们会有一种奇特的感受:很少能在一座古迹里见到历代古人留下的如此真实的痕迹。每一代开凿、扩建、改造都留下了印记,层层相累,叮叮当当凿击岩石的声音,依稀从岩缝散发出来,在空中回响。初建时的凿痕,重修时的增补,灭佛时代的暴力捣毁,村民占窟做饭熏黑的墙体,历代的题记……细节之处充满世俗之味,让敦煌洞窟同时成为一千多年人类痕迹的博物馆,也是一个不断变化的生命体。

  北宋之后,中原王朝中心南移,海上丝绸之路渐渐取代陆上丝路。1372年,明朝在西北设立嘉峪关,敦煌被弃置在关外。敦煌日益荒凉萧索,回归放牧之地,莫高窟也逐渐被世人遗忘。

  直到500多年后晚清,一个从大小而言可以被忽略不计的洞窟无意中被打开,莫高窟才重新被“发现”。这一次,它不仅被中国人看见,也被全世界瞩目。

藏经洞的百年涟漪

  在通往莫高窟的必经之路上,一座两层楼高的塔几乎立在道路正中央。这是一座墓塔,主人叫王圆箓,更为人所知的名字是王道士——就是那位发现了藏经洞,又让欧洲探险家将敦煌文献一箱一箱运走,令敦煌从此成为中国伤心之地的王道士。

  大约是1899年,戊戌变法失败第二年,八国联军将在一年后攻入北京,帝国风雨飘摇。一位云游道士来到莫高窟,在荒废的寺庙里住了下来。他打算在这里长住,把寺庙对面的洞窟清理清理,粉刷一遍,用道教塑像替换佛像,改成道教的灵宫。

  此时,洞窟开凿的声响早已沉寂,彩塑和壁画在风尘中褪色,当地百姓偶尔捐资重建一些佛像,或者给黯淡的塑像重涂上鲜艳的颜色。但随着敦煌的萧条,大多数洞窟冷寂下来,沉默地过了五六百年。

  废弃这么多年,多数洞窟都已积满沙尘和崩落的岩体,底层洞窟更是达到封门的程度,王道士请了几位伙计帮他清理。1900年6月22日那天,一个伙计打扫沙土时,发现甬道一侧壁画出现了裂缝,透过裂缝,似乎看见有暗室。半夜,王道士和伙计将壁画凿穿,烛光之下,眼前的暗室里码着密密麻麻、层层叠叠的白布包,一直堆到窟顶。拆开来看,每个白布包裹着十来卷文书。

  事情就是这么诡谲。莫高窟少则数十个中大型洞窟,偏偏这一个坐落在荒寺对面,被王道士选中,正好是藏经洞的所在。藏经洞开凿于晚唐,十分狭小,不过一张北方土炕大小。然而就是这么一个小小的洞,随后开启了一门全球显学——敦煌学,也激荡出中国百年学术憾恨、奋起和复兴的变奏。

  王道士流传下了一张照片中显示,他个头矮小,穿着肥大的道袍,站在石窟前的廊柱下咧开嘴笑,额头挤出沧桑的皱纹。小时候家乡连年旱灾,食不果腹,成年后四处云游,这些苦日子让他面露苦相。给他拍照的是英国探险家奥雷尔·斯坦因。王道士发现文书以后,不断挑出一些送给官僚士大夫以换取功德钱。敦煌发现古代文书的消息随即传播开来,在新疆和甘肃考察的西方探险家循着足迹来到此地。

  1907年,斯坦因第一个到来,将藏经洞翻了个底朝天,用四个马蹄银(相当于200两银子)换走了29箱材料,包括270个汉、藏文包裹,以及更多非汉文文献和美术品。不到一年后,法国人伯希和也赶到,以500两银子换走了6000多件文献。斯坦因和伯希和都是受过学术训练的学者,他们精挑细选,带走了藏经洞里最具有学术研究价值的精华。

  藏经洞里5万多件文献和艺术品的主体,是汉藏文佛经和佛画,另有一部分为梵文、于阗文、回鹘文、粟特文等语言的写本,以及绢纸绘画、丝织品等。文书中最晚的纪年是1002年,藏经洞应该在那之后不久被封闭,原因众说纷纭。斯坦因认为是废弃的佛典,伯希和认为是为了躲避西夏入侵,荣新江和殷晴等学者则认为,有可能与1006年黑韩王朝灭亡于阗国的战事有关。位于新疆和中亚的黑韩王朝信奉伊斯兰教,攻破西域于阗国后,对于阗佛教造成毁灭性打击。大批于阗人逃往与于阗有姻亲关系的敦煌,促使当地佛寺三界寺将佛典藏在洞中,以备黑韩王朝东进。而藏经洞中也发现了相当完整的于阗文佛典,或许就是东逃的于阗人携带而来。

  对于敦煌文书的流失,彼时的晚清学术界一无所知,也并不感兴趣。1908年8月,伯希和路过北京,在京师图书馆,他并不隐瞒地告诉馆长缪荃孙,敦煌千佛洞藏有大量唐人写经,他挑出了唐人《沙州志》、西夏文书、回纥文书、宋代及五代刊板。但或许清朝学者的眼里只有四部典籍,也可能因为没见到实物,当天的日记中,缪荃孙只淡淡地记了一笔:“奇闻也”。

  次年,伯希和再度来京时,随身带了五十几件藏经洞文书,请罗振玉等中国学者观看。直到此时,中国学者才第一次确知敦煌文书的存在,罗振玉感叹,这是“极可喜、可恨、可悲之事”。

  学者们提请清学部去敦煌收集剩余的文献,亡羊补牢。清学部拨款6000两,责成甘肃官府去办,可这些钱大多被敦煌官府截留下来,修孔庙和城墙,只给了王道士300两。王道士很不满意,偷留下一些文书,随后几年,日本和俄国赶来的探险家以及重返敦煌的斯坦因,都没有空手而归。

  “可以说,清末中国的学者是书斋中的士大夫,完全没有斯坦因、伯希和那样的学术敏感,也没有任何专业考古学的训练,所以敦煌宝藏的流失是那个时代的必然结果。”中国敦煌吐鲁番学会会长、北京大学历史学系暨中国古代史研究中心博雅讲席教授荣新江这样评价。

  斯坦因和伯希和带回欧洲的敦煌文书和洞窟照片,在欧洲学术界和艺术界激荡起涟漪。十多年后,伯希和在法国出版六册《敦煌石窟图录》,公布了300余张莫高窟的照片。他们带回去的西域古语言文书,则推动了欧洲西域古语言研究的极大进步,中国学者将用一个世纪来追赶。

  在欧洲发端的涟漪,就是敦煌学。20世纪20年代,学者陈寅恪在《〈敦煌劫余录〉序》中预见道:“敦煌学者,今日世界学术之新潮流。”这是“敦煌学”被首次提出,主要指对敦煌藏经洞文书的研究。后来,随着敦煌石窟的保护研究、敦煌汉简和吐鲁番文书、西域文书出土,很多学者认为,敦煌学范畴应当扩大到藏经洞文书之外。

  敦煌仅是唐朝的一座边境小州,但一直以来,关于敦煌的研究著作,却大大超过大唐都城长安,可见敦煌学的兴盛。

  “敦煌学从一开始就是一门国际性的学问。”荣新江认为,从罗振玉与伯希和的交往,到后来历届敦煌学研讨会,这种跨越国界的传统保持不变。

  敦煌学由此成为当代另一条联结东西方的纽带。

  上世纪70年代后期,由于数十年中外学术交往的中断,中国的敦煌学落后于海外,迫切需要与世界恢复交流。1981年,日本京都大学教授藤枝晃受南开大学之邀举办敦煌学讲习班,而就在此时传出一个不和谐音符,学界传言,藤枝晃在南开说了句:“敦煌在中国,敦煌学在日本”。这句话让一些中国学者十分不满,不过,后来据荣新江向几位在场听课者询问,藤枝晃并没有说过这句话,而是介绍他的一位中国东道主为了请大家重视这位异域敦煌学家而说的。

  但流言既出,为中日敦煌学界交流埋下芥蒂。1988年,听说藤枝晃要来北京参加学术研讨会,时任中国敦煌吐鲁番学会会长季羡林为那句话改了两个字,提出“敦煌在中国,敦煌学在世界”的说法,格局瞬间打开,打消了中日两国学者的隔阂。

  这句流言所折射的自尊情绪,在客观上也刺激了一代中国学者和学子。从改革开放起,中国学者奋起直追,已将中国敦煌学提升到一个世界重要的学术中心。

  但荣新江认为,敦煌学是一门世界性的学术,敦煌学需要一种世界主义的精神,中国的敦煌学需要具有一种胸怀宽广的国际视野,而不应抱有一种狭隘的情绪。

  现在,在西北清澈瓦蓝的天空下,王道士塔显示出“巍峨”的姿态。游人来来往往,极少有人停下来打量两眼。王道士牵引过人们复杂的思绪,他生前已受到当地民众的责难,1931年去世后,他的弟子得到当地士绅们的允许才为他立了碑。往后,讨论的视野逐渐开阔,敦煌文书的流散到底应该归咎于这个无知道士的愚昧和贪婪,还是外国探险家,抑或是那个动乱的年代,声音逐渐多元起来。如今,他的墓塔如此完好地保留着,就矗立在莫高窟一河相望的对岸,这是单纯的文物保护,还是对那段令人唏嘘的历史的警示?

超越时代,超越国境

  经过道士塔,穿过宕泉河,在莫高窟著名的九层楼对面有一组简陋的院落,院门上挂着一个牌子——敦煌研究院院史陈列馆。这里最早是两处寺庙,1943年,常书鸿来此建立国立敦煌艺术研究所时,将这里作为办公室和宿舍。

  常书鸿的宿舍如今依然保留着,里间有一个土炕和一张书桌,外间摆着桌椅,一侧墙角立着简易书架,另一侧立着一只木柜。柜顶摆着断臂维纳斯石膏雕塑,墙上挂着一小幅油画,他在敦煌简陋的角落里安放下自己的巴黎回忆。

  “当年条件可太艰苦了,他们那代人喝的都是咸水。”今年3月初的一天中午,敦煌研究院文物数字化研究所副研究馆员余生吉在院史馆转了一圈,感慨起来。他80年代末来敦煌工作时,倒不必喝咸水了,但也得从很远的地方运水过来。敦煌的工作和生活条件直到本世纪初也算不上舒适,敦煌研究院保护研究所所长于宗仁2000年刚进院时,全院最先进的设备只有一台显微镜。

  常书鸿初识敦煌是在上世纪30年代。他在法国巴黎高等美术专科学校留学时,一天,在塞纳河畔的旧书摊上,他无意中翻开一部名为《敦煌石窟图录》的画册,编者是伯希和。他被前所未见的景象震撼,从那一刻起,他主动将自己的命运与敦煌绑定在了一起。

The hardship of living conditions in Dunhuang is needless to say, and life in Paris is simply different from heaven and hell. Life in the desert is tantamount to the hard labor that Russians endure in Siberia, which Chang describes as "serving a prison sentence." He is willing, but others are not. He persuaded his wife, who did not want to come to Dunhuang, to come with her 12-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son. Daughter Chang Shana remembers that on the first day of arrival, Chang Shuhong entertained his family with a bowl of noodles per person, and two small bowls with salt and vinegar. Chang Shana asked her father, where is the dish? Chang Shuhong said embarrassedly, there is no dish, tomorrow slaughter sheep and eat mutton! Chang Shana later realized that her father was not easy, and he had to constantly comfort everyone in a difficult environment. And the national government often withheld their wages, making everything worse.

Fortunately, the remaining painted sculptures and murals have not been stolen in large numbers. This is undoubtedly thanks to the institutional protection of Chang Shuhong's generation from the 40s.

These mottled courtyards retain the scene of the founding period of the Dunhuang Academy. For more than half a century, Dunhuang researchers always relied on spiritual strength to persevere. The art of Dunhuang gave them strength at certain moments. When Chang Shuhong's wife reported the dissolution of his relationship, in addition to self-blame, despair and anger, he remembered the Mogao cave mural "Prince Satuna Satuna Sacrificed His Body to Feed the Tiger", which was left in Dunhuang by a spirit of sacrifice. During the 19 years of separation between Fan Jinshi and her husband, when she was most distressed and depressed, she often went to see the huge reclining Buddha in Cave 158, and found peace in the Buddha's sacred nirvana realm.

In the 20th century, the Dunhuang Academy served as three visionary presidents, Shuhong, Duan Wenjie, and Fan Jinshi. The most rare thing is that they foresaw the cultivation of a group of reserve talents for Dunhuang, and they are still the backbone of Dunhuang to this day, and even become world-class scholars. This is especially difficult in a remote, economically backward desert city.

Zhang Xiaogang, director of the Institute of Archaeology of the Dunhuang Academy, now has the most important task of continuing to promote the compilation and publication of the Dunhuang Grottoes archaeological report "The Complete Collection of Dunhuang Grottoes". In 2011, the first volume of the Complete Works of the Dunhuang Grottoes was published, and in 2023, the second volume has been completed and is being edited and will be published soon. Both volumes were compiled under the auspices of Fan Jinshi. Under the guidance of Fan Jinshi, the third volume has also been launched, and the fourth volume has begun preparation. According to the plan led by Fan Jinshi in the 90s of last century, the "Complete Works of Dunhuang Grottoes" has a total of 100 volumes.

The reason why the archaeological report is so slow, Fan Jinshi once explained, the archaeological report is to make a "twenty-four history" of the grotto, which requires science, systematic, comprehensive, difficulty and complexity, far beyond people's imagination. The archaeological report is the most detailed record of the cave, mainly using words, mapping and photos, to record every detail of the cave, down to the shape of the streamer of each mural figure and the gap of each colored sculpture. And the record must be accompanied by research, so to speak, a cave is not read thoroughly if it does not write an archaeological report. Archaeological reports can be the most accurate basic materials for research, conservation and other work.

Zhang Xiaogang graduated from Wuhan University in 2000 with a major in archaeology and entered the Dunhuang Academy. At the age of 27, he was given the opportunity to speak to the world's top scholars at an international academic conference, and when he ended his speech trembling, he did not notice that the audience applauded him twice. Geographically, Dunhuang is remote, barren and hard, but on the academic map, Dunhuang has always been a center of world attention. The work done in Dunhuang is easily visible to the world.

In contemporary times, Dunhuang can still play the role of people-to-people ties in cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries.

Dunhuang scholar Ji Xianlin once said: "There are only four cultural systems in the world with a long history, vast territory, self-contained system and far-reaching influence: China, India, Greece and Islam, and there is only one place where these four cultural systems converge, that is, Dunhuang and Xinjiang." ”

He not only looked at Dunhuang and Xinjiang from the perspective of ancient Sino-foreign cultural exchanges, but also looked forward to the future. He believes that from the perspective of human development, the study of cultural convergence has its special significance, "At present, the best and most qualified areas to study this convergence phenomenon and convergence law are probably Dunhuang and Xinjiang." ”

Zhang Xiaogang also spent two years visiting Tokyo University of the Arts in Japan, benefiting from Ikuo Hirayama, a scholar who was the president of Tokyo University of the Arts. Ikuo Hirayama is an international friend who is very passionate about Dunhuang art, and he urged the Nippon Foundation to donate funds so that Tokyo University of the Arts can train professionals in cultural preservation, archaeology, and fine arts for the Dunhuang Academy for a long time. Since 1985, fifty or sixty Dunhuang Academy personnel have benefited from this project. Hirayama's funding of Dunhuang also covered many aspects such as cave protection and improvement of living conditions, and the Dunhuang Grottoes Cultural Relics Protection Research and Exhibition Center opposite the Mogao Grottoes was also facilitated by the Japanese government to provide 10 billion yen in free assistance.

Ikuo Hirayama is a representative who embodies the appeal of Dunhuang culture and art across borders, as he praised Dunhuang art - "beyond the times, beyond national borders, beyond all values".

Open Dunhuang

Before visiting the Mogao Grottoes today, you must go through a warm-up session: first go to the digital exhibition center 13 kilometers away from the Mogao Grottoes. Here you'll see two 20-minute films, one recreating the excavation of the Mogao Caves and the other dome film, which shows the interior details of the eight caves in 8K HD resolution. After watching the movie, the shuttle bus will drop you off at the Mogao Grottoes.

This is a change made by Fan Jinshi when she was the director of the Dunhuang Academy in response to the increasing number of tourists every year. After scientific calculations with the American Getty Conservation Institute, the maximum daily carrying capacity of the Mogao Grottoes is 3000,75 people, and after adding the digital exhibition center to the visiting process, let the audience first understand some background information through the film, and then reduce the original two-hour cave visit time per person to about 6000 minutes, so that the capacity of the Mogao Grottoes is increased to <>,<> people per day.

However, 6000,6000 tickets soon became insufficient. During the peak season, tens of thousands of people flock to the Mogao Grottoes every day, and a considerable number of them do not make reservations in advance. The annoyance of being turned away easily warms up in the sweltering heat, and in order to meet the demand for visits, the Dunhuang Academy has opened 1,2 emergency tickets in addition to the 8,4 ordinary tickets. The regular ticket can visit 12 caves, and the emergency ticket can only visit <> large caves with the highest carrying capacity. Every day, the cave's dehumidifier drains a full tank of water. The off-season experience is much more comfortable, not only less crowded, but also more caves than in the high season, a total of <>.

Fan Jinshi once used an analogy that when the audience visits the museum, they go to the exhibition room to see the cultural relics, rather than directly entering the cultural relics warehouse. However, entering the grotto to see the murals and painted sculptures is equivalent to entering the cultural relics warehouse directly. In the 90s of last century, the Dunhuang Academy really built a museum, which is the Dunhuang Grottoes Cultural Relics Protection Research and Exhibition Center opposite the Mogao Grottoes, displaying several large replicas of the caves, some are special caves, some are caves that are not open to the public, and the murals are all fine works copied by senior artists of the Dunhuang Academy. The institute hoped that the museum would divert some of the audience, but the audience did not buy it.

The security and openness of cultural relics have always been a contradiction, especially for fragile and sensitive murals. In foreign countries, some caves with preserved murals are never open to the public, but replicate murals or entire caves for visitors to visit.

The Dunhuang Academy hopes to find a balance between openness and preservation. On the basis of long-term research, the Dunhuang Academy has established a risk monitoring and early warning system for the Mogao Grottoes. At present, most of the caves in Mogao Grottoes are equipped with various sensors to collect data such as temperature and humidity in real time, and when the monitoring data exceeds the threshold, the system will issue an early warning to the staff of the opening and management decision-making department.

One of the important indicators that affects the safe preservation of murals is humidity. The increase of humidity will stimulate the activity of salt in the cliff body and mural, and the continuous alternation of salt dissolution and crystallization will lead to the development of diseases such as herpes and alkali. The humidity in the Mogao caves is generally about 20% to 30%, and once a large number of people enter, if the humidity rises rapidly in rainy weather, reaching 63% will be alerted. The thresholds, including humidity and other related environments, are scientific conclusions calculated by the Dunhuang Academy and the Getty Conservation Institute after more than a decade of research, and are not based on human feelings.

Yu Zongren, director of the Institute of Conservation of the Dunhuang Academy, said that in recent years, extreme weather has increased, especially heavy rain and flooding. After at least four sustained rains in the past 20 years, precipitation from the upper mountains poured into the Dangquan River, overflowing the embankment in front of the Mogao Grottoes, causing danger, and the continuous high humidity environment also exacerbated the development of mural diseases.

The conservation of the murals is closely related to the entire Mogao cave ecosystem. "To protect the mural, we must not only protect the mural itself, but also ensure the stability of the cliff body, and ecological and environmental issues such as wind and sand prevention and control, biological control and control are all important contents of cultural relics protection." Yu Zongren said. The improvement of the ecology will also create new risks, such as the increase in the number of pheasants, hares and other small animals running back and forth on the cliff top in recent years, which will cause small stones to fall from the cliff top, threatening the safety of tourists. Cultural protection personnel have taken measures to repel small animals and are also studying more means to minimize the risk of rockfall at the top of the cliff.

In the past few years, the Dunhuang Academy has also built a multiple-field coupling laboratory for cultural relics protection, which is the first time in the field of cultural heritage in China. The laboratory's summer, winter and wind and rain warehouses can operate 24 hours a day, realistically simulating the impact of different natural environments on large-scale sites. Many questions about the earth site may be answered in this laboratory.

Regarding the Mogao Grottoes, Fan Jinshi once said a cruel truth: the disappearance of the Mogao Grottoes is unstoppable. Because the laws of nature are irreversible, all the grottoes will eventually disappear. The task of contemporary Dunhuang people is to try to delay the course of its aging, sick, and extinct life.

But this will be a long process of thousands of years, ten thousand years, in contrast, human life is like a meteor short, each generation is a passerby. Inside and outside the rows of caves at the eastern foot of Mingsha Mountain, sometimes prosperous, sometimes bleak, sometimes silent, the cycle continues, and now, after the epidemic, the bustle will return.

References: Rong Xinjiang "Eighteen Lectures on Dunhuang Studies", Fan Jinshi "My Heart Returns to Dunhuang", Zhao Shengliang "A Brief History of Dunhuang Grotto Art", Chang Shuhong "Ninety Spring and Autumn: Fifty Years of Dunhuang", Wu Hong "Dunhuang in Space - Approaching the Mogao Grottoes", Stein "Discovering the Cave of the Tibetan Scriptures"

China Newsweek, Issue 2023, 12

Disclaimer: The publication of China Newsweek manuscripts is authorized in writing