明代西夏文经卷和石幢初探

NOTES ON A MING DYNASTY PRINTED-SUTRA SCROLL IN THE HSI HSIA SCRIPT AND TWO STONE PILLARS WITH HSI HSIA BUDDHIST INSCRIPTIONS

故宫博物院收藏的明代西夏文刻经和保定城北韩庄出土的西夏文石幢,是目前有确切年代可考的、最晚的两种西夏文物。这些重要的西夏文物,对于科学地阐述曾与其它民族一起建立过西夏地方割据政权的我国古代党项族后期的历史,对于正确地说明党项族和我国其他各兄弟民族之间的关系,以及探讨民族和语言融合的问题,都有十分重要的价值。

The scroll of printed-sutra in the Hsi Hsia script under discussion is in the collection of the Palace Museum in Peking. It is 260 cm long and 17 cm wide, with a net blockframe width of 12 cm. At the head of the scroll are woodcut scenes illustrating the tales related in the sutra, followed by a preface in twenty-nine lines and the text of the Abhuydagata-raja (August King) Sutra. At the end of the scroll is a thirty-four line text of the donors' vow to print and distribute the sutra with the date of its printing and the names of donors, which constitutes the most important part of the scroll. Its date of 'jen tzu, fifth year of tbe Great Ming Dynasty' has been found to represent the fifth year of the reign of Hung Wu (A. D. 1372) while the twenty odd donors mentioned in the text were all Hsi Hsia people (cf. the checklist of corresponding Hsi Hsia and Han characters appended at the end of the present article). Erected in the fifteenth year of the reign of Hung Chih of the Ming Dynasty (A. D.1502), the two stone pillars with Hsi Hsia Buddhist inscriptions were discovered at the village of Han-chuang near paoting, Hopei Province. A diseription of the shapes of these pillars as well as of the inscriptions and their significance have already appeared in another paper in this issue (cf. Chang Shao-tsung and Wang Ching-ju, 'The Ming Dynasty Stone Pillars with Hsi Hsia Buddhist Inscriptions Unearthed at Han-chuang in Paoting, Hopei Province,'). The present paper gives a Hart language translation of all the Hsi Hsia inscriptions found on them except the texts of the Dharani Sutra, and a checklist of corresponding characters in both languages. The translation and the interpretation thus obtained serve to complement the contents of the above-mentioned paper, and vice versa. The Hsi Hsia people originated from the Tang Hsiang tribes, one of the many minority nationalities of ancient China. Since the Mongol conquest of the Hsi Hsia Kingdom in the early thirteenth century, very little systematic study of the history of this peoPle has been made, particularly regarding their activities after the founding of the Ming Dynasty. The discovery of these Hsi Hsia relics and their study in the light of Hart language literary sources will throw much new light on the history, language and culture of the Hsi Hsia people during this period. By the middle of the Ming Dynasty, some of the Hsi Hsia people who had moved into the Chinese interior had mingled with other nationalities but others had settled in small enclaves by themselves, indicating that the policy of forced assimilation adopted at the beginning of the dynasty didn't attain its expected results. But lingnisitically, Han language loan words became increasingly popular in the Hsi Hsia inscriptions of this period, while influences from the Tibetan and Mongolian languages were also noticeable. This fact suggests that the process of Hsi Hsia assimilation with the Han and other nationalities must have been going on for a very long time. It also stands to reason that for sometime after the middle of the Ming Dynasty the Hsi Hsia language was still in use among the Hsi Hsia people. The discovery of these relics further bears an eloquent testimony to the peace and friendship in which the Hsi Hsia people lived with other nationalities of China in the Ming Dynasty.