敦煌藏经洞之谜发覆

Exploring the Dunhuang Sutra Cave Riddle

敦煌莫高窟藏经洞文献是中国近代学术史上最重要的发现之一。但藏经洞封闭的原因和藏经洞文献的性质,一直是一个未解之谜。藏经洞文献以佛经残卷为主体,其入藏与莫高窟所在三界寺僧人道真修复佛经的活动密切相关。后唐长兴五年(934)前后,后来担任敦煌都僧录的道真开始大规模的佛经修复活动,藏经洞就是道真汇聚修复材料的"故经处",它和三界寺的藏经处其实是两回事。道真搜集敦煌各地寺庙的废旧经本,目的在于"修补头尾"。那些经过修复配补成套的经本,配入藏经处;剩下的残卷或复本,则仍作为修复材料放在"故经处"备用,并最终成为藏经洞文献的真正来源。至于藏经洞的封闭,则可能与道真主持的修复工作结束有关。

The Sutra Cave documents in the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes is one of the most important discoveries in the scholarly history of modern China.However,the reasons for the closure of the cave and the nature of those documents remain unsolved.The Buddhist scriptures in the cave are mainly composed of remnant scrolls,and the collection is closely related to the restoration activity of Buddhist scriptures managed by Daozhen(道真),a monk from Sanjie(三界)Temple located in the Mogao Grottoes.Around the fifth year(934)of Changxing in Late Tang dynasty,Daozhen,who later served as the Dusenglu(都僧录)of Dunhuang,began a large-scale restoration of the Buddhist scriptures.The Sutra Cave is simply the Gujing Chu(故经处),or the place where Daozhen gathered the restoration materials.The Gujing Chu is totally different from the Cangjing Chu(藏经处)of the Sanjie Temple,where the Tripitaka was collected.Daozhen gathered old and discarded Buddhist scriptures from the temples in Dunhuang,with the aim of"restoring the beginnings and ends."Those Buddhist scriptures that had been restored and supplemented in complete sets were put into the Tripitaka collection,while the remaining fragments or copies remained in the Gujing Chu as restoration materials and became the real source of the Sutra Cave documents.The closure of the Sutra Cave may relate to the termination of Daozhen’s restoration work.