A 100 year Dunhuang flood

More here at the NUAMPS blog.

Dunhuang conference in Paris

On 14-16 June 2011 a conference was held in Paris on recent achievements in Dunhuang studies, with the title "Rencontres franco-chinoises sur les Etudes de Dunhuang: Actualité de la recherche et publications récentes." The conference was organized by the UMR and EFEO and was held at Collège de France (first day) and EFEO (second day). Participants principally included French researchers and Chinese guests from the Dunhuang Academy, although Helen Wang of the British Museum and IDP's Imre Galambos also gave papers.

The full programme of the conference can be accessed here in PDF format.

In the afternoon of the second day participants visited the Musée Guimet and were shown paintings on textile from the Pelliot collection. On the third day they visited the Bibliothèque nationale de France where they had a chance to see some of the rare manuscript treasures from Dunhuang.

Previously Unpublished Silk Road Manuscripts Now Available Online

Completion of Digitisation of Dunhuang Chinese Manuscript Fragments in the British Library (Or.8210/S.8401-13891)

In 1987 the British Library hosted scholars from the Institute of History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. They came with a proposal to produce a facsimile edition of non-Buddhist Chinese manuscripts from Dunhuang, to include previously unpublished fragments. The resulting joint Sino-British project conserved all the remaining fragments, including the Buddhist material. This resulted in 6136 more manuscripts becoming available for study.

Thanks to the grant from the Research Institute of Korean Studies, IDP has now completed the digitisation of these fragments, resulting in the publication, for the first time, of most of this material with over 13,000 more images online.

Further information will be available in the next issue of IDP News.

New book on the history of Tibet

Tibet: A History, by Sam van Schaik (of IDP UK) is a history of Tibet from the glory days of the Tibetan empire in the seventh century through to the present day. The early chapters draw upon the author's research in the Dunhuang collections. The book also explores the emergence of Tibetan Buddhism and the rise of the Dalai Lamas, Tibet's entanglement in the 'Great Game' in the early twentieth century, its submission to Chinese Communist rule in the 1950s, and the troubled times of recent decades.

New Studies of the Old Tibetan Documents

One of IDP's partners is the Japan-based OTDO (Old Tibetan Documents Online). They have just published the third volume of their monograph series: New Studies of the Old Tibetan Documents: Philology, History and Religion. The volume contains 11 articles by some of the leading scholars in the study of early Tibetan linguistics, history and religions. Sam van Schaik's article, "A New Look at the Invention of the Tibetan Script," is the result of IDP's recently completed project on the paleography of the Dunhuang manuscripts. For details of the publication, click on the link above or email otdo.office@gmail.com.

China under Tibetan Rule

We’ve become accustomed to thinking Tibet in terms of its present status, subsumed by China, so it’s interesting to consider the time when Tibet was an occupying force in parts of China. It’s fairly well-known that the Tibetan army was once a very effective war machine that even got as far as occupying the Chinese capital in 763. But what was it like to be a person of Chinese background living under Tibetan occupation?

Read the rest of this post on earlytibet.com.

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

Between 1902-1914 the German Turfan Expedition unearthed a library at the monastery site of Bulayïq in Turfan (north-west China) that yielded over 1000 Syriac, Christian Sogdian and Christian Uighur manuscript fragments written in the Syriac script. This wealth of material was brought to Berlin where it was preserved in various locations. Since April 2008, this remarkable collection has been catalogued by an AHRC-funded project, The Christian Library from Turfan.

SATURDAY 28th MAY 2011 at The Khalili Lecture Theatre
SCHOOL of ORIENTAL and AFRICAN STUDIES Thornhaugh St., Russell Square London WC1H 0XG

PROGRAMME

Morning Session. [10.30 A.M. –1.00 P.M.]
Dr. Erica C D Hunter (SOAS) Syriac prayer-amulets from Turfan.
Prof. Peter Zieme (Berlin) Old Uighur Christian texts between Turfan and Kharakhoto.
Dr. Mark Dickens (SOAS) Biblical texts from Turfan: Psalters and lectionaries.
Prof. Nicholas Sims-Williams FBA (SOAS) The contribution of Christian Sogdian texts to Syriac literature.

Afternoon Session. [2.00 – 4.30 P.M.]
His Grace, Mar Awa, bishop of the Assyrian Church of the East, California, USA will deliver the keynote address:
The importance and impact of the liturgical texts from Turfan on liturgy today.

This address will be followed by discussions and presentations from the various Christian communities in London.

Download full details and a registration form from: http://www.indiran.org/Christianity2011.pdf

You can also register and pay on-line at www.easternchristianity.com

For further details e-mail: eh9@soas.ac.uk