裕固族初世史乃解开晚期敦煌石窟密码之要钥

The Early History of the Yugur People as the Key to Understanding the Late Periods of the Dunhuang Caves

敦煌晚期石窟向称难治,关键在于民族更迭频繁,艺术风格继承性不明显,汉文文献记载稀少,需要重视出土文献、题记和少数民族历史文化活动的研究。这一时期裕固族逐步形成,从9世纪中叶开始,其先民回鹘即活动于敦煌一带,13世纪下半叶,来自中亚的蒙古先民入居河西,与回鹘水乳交融,至明初发展成新的民族共同体“黄番”。裕固族先民在敦煌活动频繁,许多所谓的“西夏窟”都是裕固族先民营建的。敦煌晚期石窟的分期断代,不能像早期石窟研究那样倚重艺术风格,而是需要更多地瞩目于民族历史活动,加强对裕固族初世史之研究,进而将结论建立在扎实可靠的基础之上。

The later periods of the Dunhuang caves have always been a difficult subject to research mainly because of the frequent changes of nationalities, ambiguity of artistic inheritance, and lack of records in Chinese historical documents. To carry out this research, attention should be paid to studies of the unearthed documents, inscriptions, and cultural and historical artifacts of the ethnic minorities of Northwest China. The ancestors of the Yugur people had been active around Dunhuang since the middle of the 9th century and continued to live in relative isolation for nearly four centuries. In the latter half of the 13th century, the ancestors of the Mongolian people entered the Hexi region where they mixed with the Uighur people, creating an ethnic group called the “Yellow Fan,” a community that later became the Yugur people. Following the gradual establishment of a distinct ethnic identity, the Yugur became very active in Dunhuang and constructed a large number of caves, including most of the so-called “Western Xia caves.” The dating of the late periods of Dunhuang caves should not be over reliant on analyses of cave art, the styles of which remained fundamentally unchanged from the time of the early caves. Such research should instead be based on a firm foundation of the historical activities of the ethnic minorities native to the region and seek to strengthen the research on the early history of the Yugur people.