The recent special exhibition of Dunhuang in the Forbidden City, did you not finish it? A few days ago, a new Dunhuang exhibition opened at the Shenzhen Museum!
"Exchange and Mutual Learning- The Silk Road Art of dunhuang grottoes and hexi corridor" exhibition site Source: Shenzhen Museum
Replicas of caves, Buddhist statues, silk fabrics, Dunhuang scriptures... The exhibition begins with the grottoes and takes us on a journey through the diverse artistic charms of the Dunhuang and Hexi corridors.
Dunhuang is not only a "treasure house of oriental art", but also a "treasure house of ancient documents and cultural relics". In the 26th year of Guangxu (1900), Wang Yuanlu, a Taoist monk of the Mogao Caves, stumbled upon the Tibetan Scripture Cave (Cave No. 17), which contains about 60,000 volumes of various documents from the Sixteen Kingdoms to the Northern Song Dynasty.
1907 Mogao Caves Tibetan Scripture Cave Source: Network
Precious cultural relics reappear in the day, but they usher in endless disasters, and they are scattered all over the world.
Among the cultural relics lost in the Cave, it is the French sinologist Bo Xihe who robbed the most valuable part. In 1908, Bo Xihe came to the Mogao Caves and spent three full weeks in the Tibetan Scripture Cave, going through every manuscript, and finally stealing more than 6,000 manuscripts and more than 200 ancient Buddhist paintings and silk fabrics.
Bo Xi and the Dunhuang Grottoes Catalogue Volume I Source: Nanshan Offering
Bo Xihe was the first scholar to make a comprehensive record of the Dunhuang Grottoes, and created Dunhuang Studies, which led the trend of scholarship in an era. But it is undeniable that he once stole a large number of Buddhist paintings from the Dunhuang Tibetan Scripture Cave to France, and was also a shameless predator of cultural relics.
01
Language genius Boch and
Every "foreign scholar" who comes to China has different gains, tendencies, and achievements because of his personality and academic background.
There are three of the most shining qualities in Berch and in him:
One is to be able to speak fluent Beijing dialect, which makes him particularly affinity in China;
The second is the profound accumulation of orientalism, which enables him to show far more insight than his predecessors when selecting cultural relics;
The third is to actively communicate with the Chinese academic circles, which has contributed to the birth of Dunhuang Studies and promoted academic exchanges between China and the West.
These three qualities complement each other and have achieved his unparalleled achievements and prestige in the international sinology community.
Paul Pelliot (1878-1945) Image source: Imagist, Republic of America
Bohe and he showed amazing language learning skills since childhood, and is said to be fluent in more than a dozen languages, including some of the languages of Central Asia that have disappeared. Legend has it that he took a Russian train on a long-distance trip for several days and was fluent in Russian when he got off the train. During his university years, Bo Shi became a famous sinologist of the French Modern Oriental Language Institute, Specializing in the History of oriental Chinese.
In 1900 and 1904, Bo Xihe twice came to China to acquire antiquities for the Académie française for the Far East. During the Boxer Rebellion, Bo Xihe even fought Zhou Xuan in the French legation with his fluent Chinese and "chivalry" spirit, which earned him a Knight of the Legion of Honor.
Bo xi and the expedition led
Thus, when France was desperate to attain a level commensurate with its international standing in western studies, Berthi and he became the leader of the expedition.[1] Although Bo Xihe came to China many times, the main ones who took away a large number of cultural relics were the Tumshuk-Kucha expedition in southern Xinjiang from 1906 to 1907 and the second robbery of Dunhuang in 1908.
02
Bo Xihe's Expedition to the Western Regions
During his two years in the Western Regions, Bo xihe discovered the ruins of Tokuzsaray (translated as "nine rooms" in Chinese) in Tumshuk and the Durr-Rahur Buddhist Monastery and subash Buddhist Monastery in the Kucha Oasis.
Ruins of Subash Buddhist Temple Source: The Voice of Aksu Cultural Tourism
During the excavations, Bo xihe found a large number of artifacts, sculptures, and frescoes, which are currently in the collection of the Guimet Museum in France. He was particularly pleased that he had found a batch of coveted "dead script" documents that he called "Brahmi", which were later designated as B Tocharian (i.e., Guizi and A Tocharian).
Nine rooms in Tumshuk Village, Xinjiang unearthed the heads of the offerings, collected by the Jimei Museum in France Source: 旃檀精舍
In 1908, when Bo Xihe returned to Dihua with a full load, the goddess of destiny suddenly showed her intriguing face.
Bo Xihe (back row, second from left) and Chinese exile officials in Urumqi Source: The ideal state of imagist
At that time, a group of foreigners, including Bo Xihe, were trapped in Dongjiaomin Lane, and the Duke Zailan of Zhenguo was stripped of his knighthood and exiled to Xinjiang. Time passed, and when the two met again under the wrong yin and yang, Zailan became Bo Xihe's "Fortuna" (the goddess of fate in Roman mythology).
Zailan gave Bo Xi and a fragment of a manuscript that is said to have come from Dunhuang, which confirmed the legend that Bo Xihe had heard about the Dunhuang Scripture Cave. So Bo Xihe and his expedition immediately rushed from Dihua to Dunhuang.
03
Twenty-one days and nights in the Cave of the Scriptures
Bo Xihe scavenged more than 6,000 scrolls and hundreds of Buddhist paintings in the cave, an underground library that had previously been patronized by Stein, which brought Bo Shi a huge shock.
Bo Xihe hid the scriptures in Dunhuang
Although we don't know how he won the trust of Wang Daoshi, it is conceivable that the authentic Beijing dialect must have added points. Bo Xihe received much better treatment than Stein, who could personally enter the cave and hand-pick the documents inside the cave. In his notes, he wrote:
"We finally got the keys. 'Confession Tuesday' on March 3, the day I entered the holy place, I was stunned! Eight years ago, when the volumes of the Tibetan Scripture Cave began to flow out, I thought that the number of books in the collection had been greatly reduced. Can you imagine that when I entered the hole that was 2.5 meters square, I found that three walls inside were piled with scrolls that were more than one person's height, and each wall had two or three layers of scrolls. A large number of Tibetan manuscripts were sandwiched between two wooden planks, tied with rope, and stacked in a corner. ”
He Yan Analects Analects Volume I (Part) P.3193 Collection of the National Library of France
Stein's words are not without a mockery of his forerunners, and because Stein does not know Chinese, he can only focus on completeness when selecting documents, so most of the Buddhist scriptures brought back to England are a series of Buddhist scriptures. But as a sinologist, Bo Xihe's selection criteria were much more advanced: scrolls with chronology, documents other than the Great Tibetan Classics, and documents in small languages other than Chinese.
The international sinology community has always praised its vision of selecting the scrolls, but it has to be said that according to Bo's method of picking, many whole volumes were taken away in a few pages, and the complete documents became "residual scriptures", which was undoubtedly a disaster for later researchers.
Bo Xihe and the looted cultural relics of "The Statue of the Heavenly King of the Kingdom" and the "Statue of Guanyin Bodhisattva" Source: "Searching for Roots", No. 9, 2015
Dunhuang Cave 94 Source: National Humanities and History, No. 3, 2017
In three weeks, Birch and a thousand volumes a day went through all the volumes that could be seen and packed up the "fine" of them. It is said that the price of this batch of scrolls was only five hundred taels of silver.
After bibliographic collation, the Chinese manuscript taken away by Bo Xihe was compiled to No. 4040, the Tibetan manuscript was compiled to No. 2216, the Uighur Manuscript was compiled to No. 25, the Sogdian Script was compiled to No. 30, and the Sanskrit Manuscript was compiled to No. 13.
04
Friendship with Chinese academic circles
As a scholar, Bo Xihe was extremely ashamed of this theft, and he vowed never to set foot in northwest China again. Looting the treasure in the Tibetan Scripture Cave made him lose the bottom line, but after returning from the robbery, he did have some remedial actions, including disclosing the existence of the Tibetan Scripture Cave to the Chinese academic community, promoting the development of Dunhuang Studies, and exchanging ideas with Chinese scholars.
Tang Taizong Book Hot Spring Inscription P.4508 Collection of the National Library of France
After the dunhuang journey, Bo Xi and Jean's assistants transported the antiquities they had obtained back to Paris, and he took some of the Dunhuang Tibetan scriptures to Beijing to meet with the academic celebrities there.
According to Duan Fang's introduction, Wang Guowei and Luo Zhenyu, the most famous epigraphers in China at that time, were able to visit Bo Xihe and see the true appearance of the documents. Luo Zhenyu was greatly shocked when he saw the Tibetan scriptures, and later even issued a sigh of "extremely gratifying, hateful, and sad" .
"The Juriologist Bo Xihe to Ping: The Situation of the BoShi At the Institute of History and Linguistics" (Source: Beiping World Journal, January 15, 1933)
On September 4, 1909, Beijing academic celebrities hosted a banquet for Bo Xihe. In the midst of the staggering, the attendant Yun Yuding raised a glass and said, "If Xu Lost Wen lost and regained!" Those who are pleased with the same depth in the academic circles have asked Yu to choose the essence of the essence after returning, and send it back to China. Whether out of good intentions or hypocrisy, Bo xihe said indignantly: "Although this volume is obtained by the French government!" However, learning should be a public instrument of heaven and earth! It wants photographic transcription! Do as you please. ”
After returning to China, Bo Xi and fulfilled his promises, and for a considerable period of time, he continued to send out Tibetan photos. Later, due to various changes, this matter could not be insisted on for a long time. However, Bo Xihe still maintained long-term correspondence with Wang Guowei and Luo Zhenyu and exchanged academics.
The title page of Chen Yuan's "Records of the Dunhuang Robbery" and the preface by Chen Yinke Image source: Network
At the same time, after receiving the clue of the Dunhuang Tibetan Scripture Cave, the Qing Court Academy also went to Dunhuang to bring back the remaining nearly 10,000 volumes of the Dunhuang Remnants, and It was on this batch of documents that Mr. Chen Yuan compiled the "Dunhuang Aftermath of the Robbery".
Unlike Stein's vain remark that "there is no scholarship in China", Bo Xihe greatly admired the academic standards of Chinese scholars, which is one of the reasons why he is willing to disclose the secret treasure of the Tibetan Scripture Cave to China. In a sense, Bo Xihe should be regarded as an indiscriminate pursuit of international Dunhuang studies.
05
epilogue
During the Western Han Dynasty, Ji Di said to Emperor Wu: "Your Majesty employs people, such as Ji Salary, and the latecomers are on top." Throughout the first half of the 20th century, France was able to come to the fore and become the "undisputed capital of sinology."
Most of this credit should go to Bo Xihe. Some people say, "He is not only the first-class Sinologist in France, but also the grandfather of all Western experts in Sinology." "Without him, Sinology would be like an orphan who has lost his parents."
Bo Xi and record the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes a hundred years ago
Bo Xihe died in 1945 at the age of 67. On the one hand, he was indeed a cultural relics snatcher, transporting a large number of precious Chinese cultural relics to France; on the other hand, he was also a sinologist with outstanding academic achievements, who not only created Dunhuang Studies, but also built a bridge between Chinese and Western scholars.
bibliography:
1. [Fa] Bo Xihe, translated by Geng Sheng, "Bo Xi and the Expedition to the Western Regions", People's Publishing House, 2011.
2. Sang Bing, "Bo Xihe and Modern Chinese Academia", Historical Research, No. 10, 1997.
3. Geng Sheng, "Bo Xi and the Expedition to the Western Regions and the Outflow of Chinese Cultural Relics", World Sinology, No. 5, 2005.
4. Zhou Zhenhe, "Notes on Reading Bo Xi and the Tibetan Scripture Cave", Book City, No. 5, 2009.
5. Geng Sheng, "The Results of Bo Xihe's Investigation of the Kucha Area", Proceedings of the Symposium on "Silk Road and Guizi Cultural Exchanges between China and Foreign Countries", 2010
6. Zhang Qing, "Criticism of the Boxer Rebellion in the Eyes of the Besieged", Western Academic Journal, No. 2, 2020.
7. Xiao Yixuan, "The Beginning and End of Bo Xi and the Second Coming to China", Searching for Roots, No. 9, 2015.
8. Jin Jinsheng, "Let Chinese Scholars Feel "Gratifying", "Pathetic" and "Hateful" Bo Xihe: Sinologists Who Took Away the Essence of Dunhuang's Testament", National Humanities And History, No. 3, 2017.
[1] Since Britain, Russia, Germany, and Japan all had bases around Xinjiang, the journey of exploration of the Western Regions began very early. France's base in Asia was as far away as Vietnam in Southeast Asia, and it was not until 1902 that the Congress of Orientalists established the International Expedition Committee for the Western Regions, and France was able to intervene in the expeditions of the Western Regions and even Central Asia.
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