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Tang Studies 8-9 (1990-91) A New Publication of British-Held Tun-huang Texts SARAH ALLAN SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES, LONDON UNIVERSITY Dunhuang Manuscripts in British Collections: Chinese Texts other than Buddhist Scriptures. 15 volumes. Sarah Allan et al., ed., Sichuan People 's Publishing House (4volumes now in print, completion expected in 1993). The fifteen volumes planned for this project will reproduce in photographic facsimile the entire corpus of Chinese manuscripts from Dunhuang in British collections, other than the Buddhist scriptures . It is a collaborative effort of four institutions: the British Library , the Institute of History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Dunhuang-Turfan Academic Society of China, and the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University. The editorial committee consists of eleven scholars: Sarah Allan, Cai Jisheng, Zhang Gong, Beth McKillop, Ning Ke, Sha Zhi, Song Jiayu, Wang Tao, Francis Wood, Zhang Gong, and Zhou Shaolian. The main features of this project are: (1) The reproductions are of extremely high quality. New photography has been used throughout. Over 7,000 plates, carefully photographed on 120mm film, are printed two to a page. Printing is also of the highest standard. Where necessary, indistinct or particularly small text is double-enlarged—i.e., 20 x 31 cm. to a page. Over 400 color plates are also included, to convey an accurate sense of the original, primarily texts where color is particularly important or which are otherwise indistinct. (2) Books are printed on high-quality paper (Cartography paper 106, made in China), chosen after consultation with the Preservation Service of the British Library. This is a long-life paper: acid-free, non-reflective, and insect-resistant. (3) The manuscripts are shot with a scale to give readers an impression of the dimensions of the original. The plates are to scale and binding forms are noted. The physical formats of Dunhuang texts include scrolls, butterfly-bound, thread-bound, and backbound books. Examples of the various formats are included, provid127 Allan: British-Held Jun-huang Texts ing invaluable material for scholars interested in the history of book formats in China. (4) The project is comprehensive. The Dunhuang texts collected in the British Library number over fifteen thousand. Of these, only those up to Stein 8149 have been photographed on microfilm. The British Library Conservation Department, in collaboration with conservators from China, has specially restored the remaining manuscripts so that they could be photographed and included in this publication. Many of the MSS are small fragments, but others are of substantial length. All of this material was previously unpublished and uncatalogued. When the British Library separated from the British Museum in 1973, the paintings were kept by the Museum. Many of these have donors' inscriptions and explanatory cartouches which have never been separately photographed or reprinted and are now systematically presented for the first time. The non-Chinese collection held by the India Office Library and Records also includes some non-Buddhist Chinese texts, and these are also included. Although an early, tentative sub-title was "non-Buddhist texts/' the collection does include non-canonical Buddhist texts. Daoist and Manichaean scriptures are also included as well as a wide variety of other texts: Confucian classics, historical records, geographical treatises , biographies, literary collections, encyclopedias, lexical works, rhyming dictionaries, ritual manuals, children's textbooks, medical texts, pharmacopoeia, mathematical books, calendrical works, and works on fortune-telling, divination, and esoteric techniques. Literary forms include poetry, bianwen, huaben, fiction, song texts, popular fu, ci poetry, and Buddhist karmic morality tales. There are also official documents, including edicts, items from the criminal code, statutes, regulations, official credentials, identification documents, memorials, communications, letters, depositions, judgments, household registers, land registers, tax and corvee registers, conscription registers, financial accounts, irrigation and postal-system records, etc.; personal documents, such as letters, contracts, wills, division-ofproperty documents, inventories of sundry items, accounts, manumission certificates, marriage separation agreements, documents of condolence, religious paeans, inscriptions, and local association documents ; and over two thousand Buddhist temple documents. 128 Tang Studies 8-9 (1990-91) Many scholars will already be acquainted with much of this material from the microfilms produced by the British Library in the 1950s or the Taiwanese pirated edition—Dunhuang...

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