Journeys on the Silk Road (26 page)

The cave also surrendered a series of model letters designed to resolve matters of etiquette. Some letters suggest a choice of words for offering condolences, others provide suggestions on inoffensive topics such as the weather. Among the trickier situations addressed is a pro forma apology for drunken behavior. Giles translates: “Yesterday, having drunk too much, I was so intoxicated as to pass all bounds; but none of the rude and coarse language I used was uttered in a conscious state.” The letter continues, explaining that the writer did not learn of his lack of decorum until others told him, at which point he wished “to sink into the earth for shame.” The writer then promises to apologize in person, signing the letter: “Leaving much unsaid, I am yours respectfully.”

If such letters are evidence of a pressing need, it must have been considerable, for another form letter offers the recommended reply: “Yesterday, Sir, while in your cups, you so far overstepped the observances of polite society as to forfeit the name of gentleman, and made me wish to have nothing more to do with you. But since you now express your shame and regret for what has occurred, I would suggest that we meet again for a friendly talk.” Presumably
not
over a bottle of wine.

When sifting through the Library Cave manuscripts, a moment of time, seemingly lost among the centuries, can return to life. Sometimes all that survives is a fragment. One such scrap mentions Ming Sha—the Singing Sands—and confirms that the rumbling dunes were as entertaining for men and women in the tenth century as they were for Chiang and Stein in the twentieth century. Another telling fragment is a pledge signed by sixteen men who swear to care for the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas. “Even if Heaven and Earth collapse, this vow shall remain unshaken,” the document says. Given the date of their promise—March 25, 970—it is unlikely any of the men lived to see the Library Cave sealed early in the next century, but they may have helped amass the documents placed inside.

Other material about Dunhuang includes ancient topographical records with details that Stein verified from his own travels. One manuscript tells how a general drew his sword and stabbed a mountain to create a waterfall and quench the thirst of his men. Based on the precisely recorded distances in the ancient manuscript, Stein was convinced he knew the waterfall referred to. The same document also tells of a Dunhuang dragon that required regular sacrifices of local livestock. The dragon—Giles likened it to a local Loch Ness monster—was said to live in a spot known as the Spring of the Jade Maiden. Again, Stein matched the topographic details in the manuscript with his own surveys of the region and concluded he once camped beside the spring-fed lagoon considered to be the dragon’s lair.

Most of the manuscripts in the Library Cave were written in Chinese, but some were in Sanskrit and others in Tibetan, including what is believed to be the world’s oldest known collection of Tibetan sutras. Others contained the angular characters of Runic Turki (an early Turkish script), Syriac (a branch of Aramaic) and the vertical writing of Uyghur. The cave even held a fragment in Hebrew acquired by Paul Pelliot—all evidence of Dunhuang’s rich monastic libraries and the cosmopolitan nature of the oasis.

For Stein and Pelliot, the presence of each language exposed an aspect of the region’s past. The abundance of Tibetan Buddhist documents attested to Tibet’s dominance two centuries before the cave was sealed. Others scrolls raised questions about the spread of religious beliefs, including Manichaeism. Once among the world’s most widespread religions, Manichaeism became a rival to Buddhism and Christianity. “What had this neat, almost calligraphic manuscript to do in the Buddhist chapel?” Stein mused. The Library Cave held several Manichean documents, including two hymns titled “In Praise of Jesus.” A translation, published in 1943, includes numerous references to “Jesus the Buddha”—evidence of the Manichean belief that Jesus and Buddha were different incarnations of the same person.

The Library Cave also yielded a painted portrait on silk, rendered at half life-size but with some unexpected features. In Stein’s five-volume
Serindia,
the male figure with a halo around his head was listed as a bodhisattva, but this face was like no other in the cave. The nose was decidedly Western, as were the mouth and lips. And there were other strange features: the saintly figure, with a cross on his headdress, had a red moustache and beard, and the painting’s only surviving eye was blue. After
Serindia
was published in 1921, Stein wrote to his one-time rival Albert von Le Coq to say he thought the figure was a Buddhist image that “Nestorian Christians could safely address their prayers to.” How the Christian image found its way into the cave remains as unanswered as Stein’s musings about the Manichean documents.

Overwhelmingly the material in the Library Cave was religious, and some dealt with life beyond the grave. An illustrated copy of
The Sutra of the Ten Kings,
sixteen feet long, depicts the Chinese Buddhist version of Judgment Day, when the deceased pass through ten courts, and the kings of the underworld decide whether the dead will be reborn into a higher or lower realm. Colored paintings on the scroll depict a hell where sinners carry wooden stocks fastened around their necks, whippings are commonplace and limbs are gouged with spears.

Another Library Cave manuscript offers even more graphic descriptions through the story of one of literature’s most devoted sons, Maudgalyayana. After her death, Maudgalyayana’s greedy, deceitful mother is sent to the underworld. The son approaches the Buddha for help and learns his mother is suffering in the Avici realm—the worst of hell’s eight levels. The young monk attempts a rescue. He arrives in a world as terrifying as anything Hieronymus Bosch imagined. A translation of the tale, by American professor Victor H. Mair, describes the horrific scene:

Iron snakes belched fire, their scales bristling on all sides. Copper dogs breathed smoke, barking impetuously in every direction. Metal thorns descended chaotically from mid-air, piercing the chests of men. Awls and augers flew by every which way, gouging the backs of the women. Iron rakes flailed at their eyes, causing red blood to flow to the west. Copper pitchforks jabbed at their loins until white fat oozed to the east . . . There were more than several ten thousands of jailers and all were ox-headed and horse-faced.

When Maudgalyayana locates his mother, her agonies are abundant. “At every step, metal thorns out of space entered her body; she clanked and clattered like the sound of five hundred broken-down chariots.”

Through the Buddha’s intervention she is released, only to be sent to the realm of the Hungry Ghosts where wants cannot be satiated. When she spots a stream of cool water, it transforms into pus. Her throat constricts until she is incapable of swallowing even a drop of moisture. Once more the Buddha tells Maudgalyayana how his mother can be saved, but her greed ensures she is reincarnated as a black dog that eats excrement from latrines before the diligent son finally helps her attain a human rebirth.

One of the richest themes to emerge from Abbot Wang’s cave is science, although the scrolls that fall within this broad heading range from the practical to the perplexing. A first-aid manual, “Single Ingredient Empirical Remedies to Prepare for Emergencies,” offered prescriptions for cholera, vomiting, gastric reflux, sores, ulcers, and more. In a preface, the unknown author wrote of his intention to have the medical manual’s advice carved into rock so that its wisdom would be available for all.

It is possible that goal was achieved about 1,000 miles southeast of Dunhuang. In the Longmen Grottoes in Henan province is a cave with a stone stele engraved with 140 treatments known as the Longmen prescriptions. Wang Shumin, a Beijing scholar of traditional Chinese medicines, has pointed out that many similarities exist between the early first-aid manual written in ink on the Dunhuang scroll and the advice set in stone at the Longmen Grottoes.

Mere snippets remain of what was once part of a fifty-volume encyclopedia of medical knowledge. The Dunhuang copy survives as five scraps that discuss herbal uses for garlic, calabash (an edible gourd), various grains and fruits. The full text, compiled in 649, was so revered that the Tang dynasty’s rulers distributed copies of the encyclopedia across the country, and it remained the definitive source of medical knowledge for 400 years. As China’s first official medical handbook, it predates the earliest European counterpart, the Nuremberg Pharmacopoeia, by 800 years.

What constitutes medicine among the Dunhuang texts sometimes extends to what would now be considered cosmetics and domestic products. One torn scrap includes formulas for skin creams, a breath freshener, a fabric deodorizer, and even a hair tonic made from the leaves of a watermelon vine. Another medical manuscript attempts to divine the future based on where moles appear on the body. In auspicious locations, they predict that a woman will respect her husband and bear good sons. Elsewhere, they bode ill, such as one mole said to foretell that a wife will kill each of three husbands.

In the Dunhuang scrolls, medical science sometimes merges with the metaphysical. An intact text titled “Wondrous Instructions on the Skill of Quiescent Breathing” includes Daoist spells. Among these are an invocation to the crane spirit and “secret instructions conferring invisibility.” A separate text promises to enable a person to fly. The levitation recipe is simple enough, but the ingredients could be hard to procure: the potion requires the seeds and root of a lotus plant that has been stored for a thousand years.

The dating of the Dunhuang manuscripts is a mix of science and art. Some documents contain elaborate colophons that pinpoint their creation. In other instances, scholars look for changes in how Chinese characters are written. One trusted method of determining a document’s age involves checking whether certain characters appear at all. As each new dynasty came to power, some characters became taboo and were banned from use. This was done out of respect for an important person, typically the emperor, but the effect was to leave a means of dating documents as leaders rose to power and fell from grace. Even the absence of a single stroke on a character can help date a manuscript.