敦煌节日风俗所见多民族文化交融

Multi-Ethnic Cultural Blending Seen in Dunhuang Festival Customs

晚唐五代宋时期,敦煌民族成分复杂、文明元素多元。敦煌的节日风俗集中展现了各族人民的宗教、文化、信仰,为我们了解这些多元民族文化的融合提供了途径。各族人民共同参与到寒食节、二月八日、赛神、燃灯等节日风俗活动之中,他们求同存异、相互交流、互相融合,形成了多元一体、交融共生的民族和文化格局。可以说,节日风俗是敦煌各族人民的文化符号,承载了各民族的历史记忆、共同情感和文化,促进并见证了敦煌地区多民族文化的交融,展现了中华主流文化影响之下多民族文化交融的历史场景。

During the special period between the late Tang Dynasty and the early Song Dynasty, Dunhuang was characterized by its complicated ethnic composition, diversified civilization and rich religious belief, no less important than a metropolis in the communication between East and West. Therefore, Dunhuang manuscripts have become an important basis for the academic circles to understand and study the historical facts of ethnic cultural blending of the ancient Chinese, and fruitful research achievements have been made. Fortunately, Dunhuang manuscripts represent the religions, cultures, beliefs, and even dining habits, ethnic products, festival rituals and other festival customs of Dunhuang people, providing the possibility for the in-depth study of this topic.From the specific content, between the late Tang Dynasty and the early Song Dynasty, the traditional Chinese festivals related to the Spring Festival, the Buddhist festival customs from India and other festival customs have constituted the festival culture shared by all the people of Dunhuang in spite of their classes, ethnic groups and religions. At this time, festivals and customs of Dunhuang such as Cold Food Festival, Buddha’s Birthday, God Worship, lantern lighting and other activities not only provide a stage for the communication of different ethnic groups, the exchange of diverse products and the integration of diverse cultures, but also become the witness and carrier of the integration of diverse ethnic cultures in Dunhuang;it has also manifested the harmonious coexistence of multi-ethnic groups and the common development of multi-civilization in Dunhuang in the Tang and Song dynasties, representing the Dunhuang culture which is dominated by the Chinese culture and co-existence with multi-cultures and depicting the historic scene of the integration of multi-ethnic cultures in Dunhuang. Moreover, it is also of great significance to the strengthening of political order and social stability in Dunhuang at that time.From the perspective of research paradigm, the academic studies on Dunhuang festival customs focus on folklore and cultural history while the integration of Dunhuang multi-ethnic cultures mainly uses the theories and paradigms of political history, linguistics, religion, philology and other disciplines, which is relatively macroscopic. This paper is expected to enrich the dimensions of related studies, which can not only expand the scope of the studies on Dunhuang festivals, but also broaden the horizon of Dunhuang ethnic studies.