It was a great pleasure to be back in London, among scholars both from around the world and from my alma mater of SOAS, to attend the British Library’s (BL) “A Silk Road Oasis Symposium: Exploring Dunhuang’s Multifaceted Legacy.” This conference, which ran from 21–22 February, capped off an exhibit at the BL called “A Silk Road Oasis: Life in Ancient Dunhuang,” showcasing some of the most exquisite and rare texts concerning everyday life at the medieval town of Dunhuang. The conference delved deeper into multifaceted subjects like the musicology of Dunhuang, reconstructing the religious rituals at the Mogao Caves, and the languages spoken in the region (more specific coverage to come in later posts).
The exhibit itself was informative, immersive, and has brought the stories of Dunhuang’s denizens to the public in a unique way here in the UK. I have written extensively about it, including interviewing curator Mélodie Doumy about it last year. There was also a concert on the 21st, performed by the Hong Kong Gaudeamus Dunhuang Ensemble and titled “Resonance of the Silk Road: Past, Present & Future.”
Dr. Luisa Elena Mengoni, head of Asia and Africa Collections at the BL, has helped to steer the International Dunhuange Programme (IDP) into a new paradigm focused on collaboration with institutions around the world and in China, particularly with the Dunhuang Academy. The presence of the head of the Dunhuang Academy, Dr. Su Bomin, and his delegation at the opening of the conference, was statement enough that this symposium marked a milestone in the evolution of the IDP, as well as a new orientation in the very spirit of the IDP’s philosophy: the sharing of Mogao Cave 17’s riches and legacy to the world.
In recent years, Dunhuang, and specifically the so-called Library Cave of Cave 17 at Mogao, has become a focal point for historians, archaeologists, Buddhist Studies scholars, philologists, and many other specialists. It was Aurel Stein, the British-Hungarian explorer and scholar, and Frenchman Paul Pelliot, who purchased from Wang Yuanlu a vast collection of scrolls from a walled up chapel of a cave commemorating a deceased monk called Hong Bian. Many of these scrolls, from the religious to the administrative to the familial to the astrological, provide the inspiration for the now-concluded exhibit.
The way in which the BL (and other institutions around the world) acquired so many of the manuscripts remains controversial, but as shown by Chinese artist Xiaoze Xie, whose contemporary re-imaginings of Cave 17 form part of the exhibit, the physical dispersion of Cave 17’s material legacy has led to Dunhuang becoming, quite literally in a physical and geographical sense, truly global. And the IDP, through connecting with the Dunhuang Academy and other institutions, is embracing its complex heritage through leveraging the British Library’s peerless tradition of research while acknowledging that, ultimately, the Dunhuang inheritance has China at its core, with the main stewards being the Academy.
Having followed the story of the BL’s and the IDP’s contribution to Dunhuangology for years, I could not be happier for Luisa, Mélodie, and Kitty Liu, as well as the whole team at the BL and the colleagues of the IDP for this milestone in Dunhuang studies.
I sense that this is only the beginning for a new era of British and international access to China’s Dunhuang legacy: the fulfilment of Cave 17’s promise, once ambiguous and troubled, now glorious and universal.
Related features from BDG
Buddhistdoor View: Telling a History We Can All Resonate with through Dunhuang
Related blog posts from BDG
Mélodie Doumy’s “A Silk Road Oasis” at the British Library
