保定出土明代西夏文石幢

THE MING DYNASTY STONE PILLARS WITH HSI HSIA BUDDHIST INSCRIPTIONS UNEARTHED AT PAOTING, HOPEI PROVINCE

保定韩庄出土的明代西夏文经幢石刻两座,是1962年9月原河北省文化局文物工作队根据原河北省民族事务委员会提供的线索,派人前往出土地点进行调查发掘的。韩庄在保定市北郊,距市区约二公里。庄的西口路南有一方形台地。台地每边长约150米,台南高出现地面约2米。台地附近散布不少明清时代的残砖碎瓦。采访当地老年社员,

The two Ming dynasty stone pillars with Buddist inscriptions in the Hsi Hsia script discussed in the present paper were discovered in 1962 near the ruins of an ancient monastery at the village of Han-chuang on the northern outskirts of the city of Paoting, Hopei Province. The two pillars, which are identitical in structure and consisting of three parts, i.e. the crown, body and base, measure respectively 260 em and 265 cm in height. The sides of their octagonal bodies are engraved with the text of the Dharani Sutra, followed by the names of over eighty donors. The Ming dynasty reign year and the names of masons of Han nationality are written in the Han script and inserted in the beginning of the Hsi Hsia text. Both pillars were erected in the fifteenth year of the reign of Hung Chih of the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1502). Except for Pi Ching-eh'ang and two other masons who were of Han nationality, the two dead for whom the pillars were built, the builder of the pillars and the scribe were all of the Hsi Hsia nationality. The signigicance of the discovey of these two pillars may be summed up as follows: 1.It has long been held that the Hsi Hsia script was in use only during the HsiHsia and Yuan dynasty (11th—14th centuries). The present discovery shows that as late as the middle of the Ming dynasty (early 16th century) it was still in use. 2.In the middle of the Ming dynasty, although more than two and a half centuries had gone by since the disappearence of the Hsi Hsia kingdom, paoting and its vicinity were still inhabited by a large number of the descendants of the Hsi Hsia people. This discovery has shed much new light on the activities of this people during this period and raised some new problems. 3.The fact that both pillars were erected on the site of a monastery with a Tibetan Lamaist style stupa and that its builder adopted a Tibetan title shows that in the Ming dynasty the Hsi Hsia people were closely connected with the Tibetan Lamaist religion just as their progenitors were in the Yuan dynasty. 4.The texts of the Dharani Sutra engraved on the pillars were the same as the well-known Yuan dynasty text engraved on the wall of the Chit Yung Kuan Pass. As both texts are already partially destroyed, a careful comparison and study of them are of much help to the restoration of the original. The differences found in these two texts also show that they are derived from different sources. Moreover, as the texts engraved on these two pillars were written in the k'ai shu script, checking its Hsi Hsia pronounclarion against the Sanskrit original will be of much value to the pbonetical study of the Hsi Hsia language.