The Study Of The Spread And Acceptance For Dunhuang Poetry Manuscript During Tang And Five Dynasties

There are nearly two thousand Tang poems in Dunhuang anuscripts,Xu Jun collected 63 kinds of poetry manuscripts in An archaeological study of Dunhuang Poetry.These manuscripts reveal the general situation of poetry creation and spread in Dunhuang During the Tang and Five Dynasties and they are the direct evidence that the Central Plain's culture had influence on the daily life in Dunhuang.Previous scholars put much emphasis on the value of these poetry manuscripts.They have done a lot of work on collation,explanation and compiling scattered writings,but less scholars have paid attention to the circulation situation behind those Tang poetry manuscripts.This dissertation focus on the Dunhuang poetic manuscripts.From the view of codicology,I d-id a close examination of the way poetry culture spread before printing became popular.The dissertation deals separately with the feature and form of these manuscripts,and the people who made the-m.To analyze the different ways of compiling between poems and collected works of certain Tang poets,we could learn the feature of Dunhuang poetry manuscripts.To analyze the carriers,sites and disseminators of these manuscripts,we can tell the specific ways and means of the spread of manus-cripts.The manuscripts of poetry reference function such as the Li Qiao zayong shizhu circulated in Dunhuang and various rhyming dictionaries show the influence of poetic culture on daily life in Dunhuang,which is a reflection that the Tang culture was recognized and accepted by the Dunhuang populace.The Dunhuang poetry manuscripts usually appear in two styles: scrolls and foldouts.Although most manuscripts were copied as transcribers' wishes,we can also find that some transcribers began to follow certain rules.In these manuscripts,the title of the following poem was always copied behind the previous poetic content,and the content of the following one would be copied in a new line,which was a general rule in the Tang manuscripts.The compilation styles of the various poems in these manuscripts were within the styles of works handed down.Poems with five characters were copied separately with poems with seven characters in general.The collections of poems which were compiled by literati were easy to get spread.PT.1208 and PT.1221 are the only two manuscripts with the Tang poems copied in Tibetan.On the back of the manuscripts,there are poems of Cen Sen and poets during the Dali Period.The manuscripts are of high quality.The original edition was introduced to Dunhuang before Tibet took the rule there and the manuscripts were copied during Tibet's occupation.The manuscripts show us that during the Tibet's rule in Dunhuang,the poems introduced from the Cental Plain in early times were still remembered,copied and passed on by the populace.Poems by the literati and by monks are two main manuscripts of anthology.To be strictly speaking,there are few anthologies of Tang people's works in Dunhuang manuscripts.The Wang Bo Ji,Chen Ziang Ji(anthologies of Wang Bo and Chen Ziang)and poems written by Gao Shi,Bai Juyi,Zhang Hu,Yun Bian in the manuscripts show us the circulation of individual anthologies of the Tang people in Dunhuang.The early poems by Cen Sen and his poems on travel notes of Hexi were wrtten in the same volume,which was to meet the need of the people in west desert to find the right way.That is the reason why Cen Sen's poems on travel notes of Hexi spread back to Dunhuang.There are also similarities in different Dunhuang manuscripts: some of the copies came from different original writings,showing us that there were different copies circulated in Dunhuang;some others came from the same original writings,and the multiple copies transcribed contributed to the popularity of some poems and the lasting spread of poetry.Being limited by the tools for copying,the amount of circulated manuscripts could not be compared with that of carving copies.However,the way manuscripts spread was of special characteristic.The sites where lots of people passed by such as courier stations and temples were the sites manuscripts spread.The carriers such as writings on the wall,copy books,stone inscriptions and porcelain bottles were the mediums for effective spread of manuscripts.Through the analysis on manuscripts P.2492+??.3865,I find the manuscripts are likely to come from poems left at Shangyiting in Lanwu Pass,and someone collected the poems there and spread it to the populace.Temples were the main site for the spread of the Tang culture.From the manuscripts,we know that there were monks and envoys from Dunhuang who had cultural interactions with people in the Central Plain.The eminent monk Wuzhen in Dunhuang and Li Wan,the envoy of Guiyi Jun,transcribed reciprocating and farewell poems by eminent monks in the Central Plain,and these poems were circulated in Dunhuang,being copied in P.3720?P.3886?S.4654 and P.3676.This is an evidence that monks and envoys helped spread poems.S.5648 is a miscellaneous manuscript,and one of its authors is the top monk Wu.In this manuscript,Daoqing Shi was a show lyric with which the actors held big clappers in hands to perform.Then it was written down by the audience.The rap verse performances in the Tang temples had promoted transcribing and circulating poetry.In Dunhuang's commanding office,officials at all level were the main people to spread and to keep manuscripts.Collators and editors in the secretariat of the central government were most likely to get folk writings in collecting books,and some officials also brought personal collections to local populace when they took up staff posts in Hexi.These staffs copied each other's collections,making the manuscripts of high quality circulated to the populace.Through an examination of Gao Shi's poems in manuscripts P.3862,P.2567 and P.2552,we could find that those poems might be copied by Gao Shi's colleagues in Hexi.As the key city of Hexi,Dunhuang was important in population migration.The flow of population promoted the circulation of poetry.The Tang poetry were spread to Dunhuang by a variety of ways,and the recognition and acceptance of those poetry by the populace was the soil for poetic development and cultural spread.After Tibet occupied Dunhuang,local poems were forced to develop by themselves.Fewer and fewer poems were spread to Dunhuang from the Central Plain,and there were more and more local poems appearing in manuscripts.Most poems composed by local poets were regulated verses,which is an evidence that local poets had a good knowledge of composing regulated verses.The annotation of Li Qiao shi zayong,various rhythmic dictionaries and prefaces by learners copied on the back of Confucian classics,book instruments and poetry revealed that learning poetry was one of the most important thing in Dunhuang's education.Learners were the main transcribers of poetic manuscripts.Poetry permeated everywhere in social life such as banquets and entertainments.In Dunhuang manuscripts,there are also many seven-character poems like Liu Xiyi's Luoyang Pian and Liu Changqing's Jiu Fu.The popularity of this kind of poetry due to the Tang cultural life of banquets and easy to remember and to sing feature of rhythmized seven-character poems.This shows us the aesthetic values and the selection and acceptance of poems from the Central Plain in Dunhuang.