A Study On The Names And Descriptions Of Things Of Dunhuang Manuscripts

The names and descriptions of things of mediaeval Dunhuang remain in Dunhuang Manuscripts, Dunhuang drawings such as the murals or silk paintings, and the architectures and sculptures themselves. Many scholars focus their minds on the research of the latter two and their researches are fruitful. However, sufficient attention hasn't been paid to the study on the names and descriptions of things of Dunhuang Manuscripts as they should till now. As a matter of fact, a good many kinds of the names and descriptions of things are there in Dunhuang Manuscripts. The majority of them are economic materials such as the registers of temples' properties, the lists of objects donated by the believers, and the records of expenditure. These materials, written by the users of those days, can reflect the real lives of those years vividly. So the Dunhuang Manuscripts are priceless to the study of names and descriptions of things.We, for the first time, in this paper classify and study the names and descriptions of things of Dunhuang Manuscripts comprehensively. The paper consists of two volumes, one is a general introduction, the other is a study of words on the names and descriptions of things of Dunhuang Manuscripts. In Chapter I, Volume I, we discuss and give the definition, generally survey the study, and introduce the basic and subsidiary materials. Then we particularly discuss the operating ways of different scholars before we determine our object, scope and methods. In Chapter II, based on the concrete usages from the manuscripts, we point out the value of the study to the Dunhuang study, to the study of a special historical subject, to the study of Chinese characters, to the collation of ancient books, and to the compilation of dictionaries. Based on the characteristics of the names and descriptions of things of Dunhuang Manuscripts, in Chapter III, we put forward our textual research methods on the subject. The characteristics of the names and descriptions of things of Dunhuang Manuscripts, such as the writing characteristics, the classifying characteristics, and the cultural characteristics, are thoroughly stated in Chapter IV. The causes of these characteristics are mainly these: firstly, most of the copyists were not well educated, so many non-classical or wrongly written characters exist in Dunhuang Manuscripts; secondly, the Dunhuang economic materials mainly recorded the common people' lives, so the names and descriptions of things in them are scripted with the characteristics of the times, region and lower-class; thirdly, under the influence of the culture of China and the West, Dunhuang, the communications center of Silk Road, forms its own cultural characteristics. Dunhuang...