敦煌古圖書蠡測

Glimpses of Some Tunhuang Manuscripts

左景權(Dzo Ching-chuan)

《中國文化研究所學報》 10卷上 (1979/01) Pp. 19-41

https://doi.org/10.29708/JCS.CUHK.197901_10(1).0002

並列摘要

1. Cheng Hsüan's Commentary on the Lun Yü and other texts found at Turfan and at Tunhuang A fragment of Cheng Hsüan's Commentary on the Lun Yü was displayed at the Trésor d'art chinois exhibition, Petit palais, Paris 1973. According to the official French catalogue, this exhibit, discovered at Turfan, Sinkiang is a part of an incomplete copy of the Lun Yii by a young pupil named Pu T'ien-shou. An examination of the fragment shows that it does not correspond to the description of Pu's copy given in Chinese publications. However, it is known that some years before the discovery of Pu's copy, another copy of the same work was also' unearthed at Turfan. It is obvious that this fragment exhibited in Paris is, in fact, part of the copy previously discovered which, apparently never published, received little notice at the time. This new fragment enables us now to look at Cheng Hsüan's Commentary as a whole. His original work was lost at an early date. Up to the very beginning of our century, scholars knew nothing of it except some quotations in later commentaries on the Lun Yü. However, the fragment are not only source of knowledge of Cheng Hsüan's work. There were, in fact fragments discovered at Tunhuang previously. The manuscripts found in these two areas can complement and correct each other: we have now nearly one half of the original work of this ancient scholar and are able to examine questions raised by one set of manuscript in the light of the other. Although they were from different hands, the copyists were practically contemporaries. Pelliot chinois 2510 has been dated 890 A.D. by some readers, because of a multilated column, in fact, formed the beginning of another text, and must have been added by some one at a later date. Further, on paleographical grounds we cannot accept such a late date for the principal text. The appearance of Cheng Hsüan's Commentary at Tunhuang and Turfan proves that within the boundaries of the T'ang empire, the Chinese received ,a similar kind of education and shared the same culture no matter how far apart they lived. The above is not the only fact which leads us to conclude that there was, and still is, a strong affinity between different parts of China. Examples are plentiful. It is not surprising that the poetical works of Po Chü-i were read at Turfan as well as at Tunhuang. But we cannot end this paper without mentioning an anoymous short poem full of humor. It was so attractive, that young pupil Pu T'ien-shou appended it to his copy of a serious text. And it was not the first of its kind to be found at Tunhuang (see Pelliot chinois 3189). Finally as these copies of one and same work and also the manuscripts of different nature were found in these two areas and elsewhere, we are justified in applying the same methods and same techniques to them. 2. About Pelliot chinois 2965 Pelliot Chinois 2965 presents three major points of interest. Firstly, this is an authentic document of Chinese handwriting of the year 576 A.D., under the Ch'en dynasty in the south, as its colophon affirms. It conserves many Chinese characters in peculiar forms which differ from present usage; thus it enriches our knowledge of the history of Chinese writing. Moreover, it deserves to be appreciated as a masterpiece of calligraphy. Secondly, this rather long fragment is a part of the Fo-shuo-sheng-ching, or or Jālākanidāna. Although the original sanskirt text is no longer extant, the Chinese version remains known in all the printed editions of the Chinese Tripitaka. Our manuscript, the earliest known, gives a great number of readings at variance with the text of the Japanese edition (Taisho), which is based on an ancient Korean edition. As the final title indicates, this manuscript was pIaced at the end of chüan 1 of the sutra, and yet it is a part of chüan 2 in the Japanese edition. Hence our double problem, which can soon be resolved with the aid of the critical notes printed below the text of the Taisho edition. The manuscript agrees often with the variants, most of them preferred readings, which we find in the ancient Chinese editions. It goes without saying that the Tunhuang manuscripts of other Buddhist sutra do not always agree with the Korean-Japanese tradition either. Thirdly, the content of this fragment may amuse all readers who are not necessarily specialists. In fact, the fragment cover whole chapter of Chiu-sheng-ching; only the first columns are missing, and the text can be completed by reference to the printed editions, It tells the story of a clever thief of the royal treasure and is similar to the Egyptian version of the same tale recorded by Herodotus. (II 121). This obvious resemblance has been ignored by Hellenists and Egyptologists, who have assembled 28 similar versions at the time of How and Wells (Commentary on Herodotus) and the number is by no means complete. Ed. Huber is perhaps the first Indianist to note the likeness between the Indian and Greco- Egyptian versions, and this was before he had any knowledge of the Tunhuang manuscript. It is natural that one should want to know whether it was the Egyptians or the Indians who invented it. We are, however, unable to come to any conclusion. The Chinese Buddhists could not claim the credit of inventing this tale, but, through the translation of it into their language, they helped to spread the story throughout the Far East (see Saeki Yoshiro). Thus the same story appears in three different civilizations Mediterranean, Indian and Chinese.