Posts

Shaping the Stein collection’s Dunhuang corpus (2): the items from Cave 17’s ‘miscellaneous’ bundles

In a previous blog post , we looked at the instrumental role played by Wang Yuanlu during the selection of the items from the Cave 17. Wang, who directly chose from the small repository what to hand over to Stein for inspection, was very keen to divert his attention from the so-called ‘regular’ bundles, which were composed for the most part of Buddhist sutras in Chinese and Tibetan. During their first ever transaction, which took place between 21 May and 6 June 1907, Wang Yuanlu therefore began by handing over the ‘miscellaneous’ bundles, which he seemed to hold in low estimation. To Stein’s delight, these contained mixed and diverse materials, such as manuscripts in non-Chinese languages, illustrated scrolls, paintings, drawings, ex-votos, textiles, etc. Stein picked out any of the items that jumped at him as being particularly interesting and made sure to put them aside for ‘further examination’, the phrase that he used to refer to their removal in his transaction with Wang. This

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IDP Field Trip 2011

New manuscripts from the Royal Library of Copenhagen on IDP

IDP UK Offline

Niya: 'The Pompeii of the East'

Early Tibet: Dzogchen and Chan

IDP Report: July–September 2011

Partners' Meeting in Dunhuang

IDP News Issue No. 36–37 now online

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Two frogs, a thousand years apart

IDP France offline

New online resource for Tibetan and Chinese manuscripts

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Dunhuang conference in Paris

Previously Unpublished Silk Road Manuscripts Now Available Online

New book on the history of Tibet

New Studies of the Old Tibetan Documents

China under Tibetan Rule

Seminar day on the Christian library from Turfan and the ‘mother church’ in Mesopotamia

IDP France

New catalogues of Sanskrit manuscripts

Secrets of the Cave II: the "Library Cave"

IDP France

Meeting of the OTDO editorial board in Kobe, Japan

IDP News 35

Secrets of the Cave I: "Sacred Waste"

IDP Report: June – November 2010