EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 91 Dmitriev Sergey (Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences) Tangut Orchestra in a Tangut-Chinese Glossary Key words: Xi Xia, Tangut music, history, glossary Tangut-Chinese glossary “The Timely Pearl of Tangut and Chinese Languages” (Mi źạ ngwu ndzi̯ e mbu pi̯ ạ ngu ni̯ e; 番漢合時掌中珠 Fan han he-shi zhang-zhong zhu) compiled in 1190 by a Tangut scholar Kwәlde-ri̯ ephu (Gule-maocai 骨勒茂才 ) (now conserved in Sankt-Petersburg) is a book of absolutely excep- tional importance for studying of Tangut language and culture; in the same time this very known glossary is sadly bad studied. Firstly, this book is the only known complete bilingual Tangut glossary that gives us a unique possibility of exact translations. Secondly, book was made as an attempt to compose an essential list of the most important concepts of Tangut culture in its different manifestations, so all the words chosen by the author was selected not randomly but for represent different parts of Tangut civilization in the best way: it’s a sort of quinta essentia of Tangut life made by Tanguts themselves. In the Glossary we can find a list of 17 musical instruments which makes a very strange impression: at first sight they looks like mostly typical Chinese, but even a superficial analysis of Tangut terms shows clearly that in the most cases it’s not Tangut translations of Chinese words but on the contrary — Chinese variants was chosen to explain to Chinese reader Tangut instruments using Chinese instruments which he was familiar with. In archive of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of Russian Academy of Sciences between papers of Nikolay Nevskiy (1892–1937) we founded his draft on this problem — it seems that he tried to find paral- lels for Tangut orchestra not in China, but in Tibet and India, and in its core it’s not a secular, but temple orchestra. That’s why this list in its Chines version looks so strange. Study of this small, but very interesting topic one more time shows how original and independ- ent — despite of many strong foreign influences (especially Chinese) — was in reality Tangut culture. Lefebvre Romain (Bibliothèque Nationale de France) The Tangut Secular Manuscripts: Learning Tangut History through Their Own Genuine Documents Key words: Tangut, law, military, Dunhuang, Khara Khoto The Xi Xia (1038–1227) did not have their own official historical records, no text or archives have been recovered about it. The only main and antique source available is from Yuan Tuotuo (1314–1356), a Yuan official historian. Tuotuo made a huge contribution to the knowledge of Xi Xia within the Song, Liao, Jin official historical records. Until now, his work has been made very accountable to each historian. At the beginning of the 20th century, Dunhuang became the place to go for Western explorers, such as Paul Pel- liot. At first they were coming to explore the Turkestan, but they were undoubtedly aware that this region was filled with high valued both archeological and historical treasures. Khara Khoto became also a place for who wanted to find highly valuable historical items, such as Pyotr Kuzmich Kozlov and Sir Aurel Stein. These two cities were once strategic places for the ruling emperors and kings, such as Tangut emperors. Many documents from both places were brought back to the different countries, among them were Tangut Buddhist texts and also a few, but very important, secular manuscripts, such as Law codes and military documents, e.g. Tiansheng gaijiu xinding lüling 天盛改舊新定律令 and Zhenguan yu jing tong 貞觀玉鏡 統 . This communication is to show, through the documents, how Tangut, originally a non-Han population, helped to shape the history and culture of China.