The Dunhuang Unearthed Wills Analysis

Wills are people who will dying establish the compact about allocation of the property, his own or the family's, in front of the heirs and the witnesses. The content of the wills unearthed from Dunhuang and Turpan is very rich in, contains nine parts what are the date of the establishment of the wills, the reasons of making the testator, the people who established the will, the heirs, the witnesses, the Heritage, the people's demand, the punitive measures and the signature. These elements relate to the division of property, the inheritance relations, the family relations and the social relations and so on. Though the wills of different time, different regions and different ethnic have their own characteristics, wills both in format and content have a lot of similarities. This article attempts to analyze the format and content of the collected wills through the table, study the evolution of the wills' contents and the forms, to find some hidden custom regulations of the local through comparative study, and learn the contact of the Mainland and the Border areas of China.This article contains five parts:The first part is the preface; this part contains the definition and content of the will, the age and the provenance of the Materials used by this article, the research status of the wills, the problem of previous studies, and this study significance.The second part is the study of wills' formats, it include three levels of content. First of all, the author introduces the materials used by this article through a list, and then, makes a list on the basis of a complete format of the probate, next makes the 18 wills into the list, we could find one probate has already been forming in Hang Dynasty, but the location of the date and some provision are not fixed until Sui and Tang Dynasties, the format of the wills has completely fixed until after the Five Dynasties. Last, the author analyzes the reason of the evolution of the wills' format.The third part is the study of contents of the wills; the author will divide these nine parts of a prefect probate into seven levels, to research these 18 wills. The first tier is the research of the probate date; the way of record the date contains record by the king's Reign title, by the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, by the Zodiac in the probate written by Uighur and by the mixed; The second layer is the research of the reason to make the probate, the reasons for most of which cover the two aspects: One, the testator is a sick elderly who fear of sudden death, so he establish a will for allotting his property; Another, the testator afraid appear the family disputes after he died, so he want to guarantee his will's implementation through the legal means; The third tier is the study of the people in the wills, this tier includes of there parts ,first is the people who make the testator. generally, they are male, and also are the head of the family; Others are Buddhist monks and nuns; The second is the heirs study, most heirs in ordinary families are relatives of the people who make the probate, for example: their children, brother, nephew, wife and so on; The heirs of Buddhist monks and nuns are more, not only include their relatives, but also include the temples and the people in the same temples, but most of them are still their relatives; Here, the author also analyzed the question of succession woman; The last is the witnesses, most witnesses are relatives of the testator and the person who have an official identity, there are some monks and God as witnesses be found in probate written by Uighur; The fourth tier is the question of property, here, the author shows the types of heritage and the heritage of Buddhist monks and nuns; The fifth floor is the research of the demand of the people who make the will, it often contains two aspects: not to dispute property and not to remarry; The sixth layer is the punitive measures, people who breach the agreement will be punished, the measures contain the spirit of punishment, property on penalties and official fined punishment; The seventh layer is the research of the signature, for example: Monogram, knuckle line, Palmprint, signature and seal.The fourth part is based on the research of part two and part three, its content is explore the local custom regulation by analyzing the format and content of the collected wills, and find the contact of the Mainland and the Border areas of China. This part consist two levels, first tier, the author explores the local custom regulation and the contact by analyzing the location of date, the format of the customary language to prove the legitimacy of the wills, and the format of "instruments have copies, point to different heirs". Second layer, the author analyzes the content of wills unearthed from the Mainland, Dunhuang, and Turpan, and finds their distinction and contact; explore the local custom regulation and the contact through studying the content of above mentioned nine parts.The last part is conclusion which is to summarize the main ideas of the whole article.