Wang Yuanlu (; c. 1849 – 1931) was a

Taoist priest A daoshi (道士 "master of the Tao"), translated as Taoist priest, Taoist monk, Taoist master or Professional Taoist, is a priest in Taoism. Along with Han Chinese priests, there are also many practicing ethnic minority priests in China. Some o ...

and

abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. The fem ...

of the

Mogao Caves The Mogao Caves, also known as the Thousand Buddha Grottoes or Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, form a system of 500 temples southeast of the center of Dunhuang, an oasis located at a religious and cultural crossroads on the Silk Road, in Gansu p ...

Dunhuang Dunhuang () is a county-level city in Northwestern Gansu Province, Western China. According to the 2010 Chinese census, the city has a population of 186,027, though 2019 estimates put the city's population at about 191,800. Dunhuang was a major ...

during the early 20th century. He is credited with the discovery of the

Dunhuang manuscripts Dunhuang manuscripts refer to a wide variety of religious and secular documents (mostly manuscripts, but also including some woodblock-printed texts) in Chinese and other languages that were discovered at the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang, China, durin ...

and was engaged in the restoration of the site, which he funded with the sale of numerous manuscripts to Western and Japanese explorers.

Biography

Wang Yuanlu was an itinerant monk, originally from

Shanxi Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-lev ...

Province. He was active from the late 19th to the early 20th centuries. He was a self-appointed caretaker of the Dunhuang cave complex and a self-styled Taoist priest.Paragraph 1 in

Neil Schmid Neil is a masculine name of Gaelic and Irish origin. The name is an anglicisation of the Irish ''Niall'' which is of disputed derivation. The Irish name may be derived from words meaning "cloud", "passionate", "victory", "honour" or "champion".. ...

"Tun-huang Literature", chapter 48 in Mair 2001. The cave complex contained 50,000 manuscripts detailing of medieval China, the Silk Roads, and Buddhism. He died in 1931 at the Mogao Grottoes.

Involvement with Dunhuang manuscripts

When engaging in an amateur restoration of statues and paintings in what is now known as Cave 16, Wang noticed a hidden door which opened into another cave, later named Cave 17 or the " Library Cave". There, he found the yet-undiscovered

cache Cache, caching, or caché may refer to: Places United States * Cache, Idaho, an unincorporated community * Cache, Illinois, an unincorporated community * Cache, Oklahoma, a city in Comanche County * Cache, Utah, Cache County, Utah * Cache County ...

of thousands of ancient manuscripts, many of which relate to early

Chinese Buddhism Chinese Buddhism or Han Buddhism ( zh, s=汉传佛教, t=漢傳佛教, p=Hànchuán Fójiào) is a Chinese form of Mahayana Buddhism which has shaped Chinese culture in a wide variety of areas including art, politics, literature, philosophy, ...

. He first spoke of the manuscripts to the local officials in an attempt to gain funding for their conservation. The officials ordered the reseal the cave, in preparation of the transportation, preservation and study. He would also later sell numerous manuscripts to archaeologist

Aurel Stein Sir Marc Aurel Stein, ( hu, Stein Márk Aurél; 26 November 1862 – 26 October 1943) was a Hungarian-born British archaeologist, primarily known for his explorations and archaeological discoveries in Central Asia. He was also a professor at ...

, who took a largely random selection of the works. Later,

Paul Pelliot Paul Eugène Pelliot (28 May 187826 October 1945) was a French Sinologist and Orientalist best known for his explorations of Central Asia and his discovery of many important Chinese texts such as the Dunhuang manuscripts. Early life and caree ...

would come to purchase what may be considered the most valuable among them. Because of his involvement in the discovery and sale of the Dunhuang manuscripts to Westerners for a fraction of their value ( £220 in 1907), Wang is both "revered and reviled."

References

Sources

* Heimovics, Dick (1999).
Connecting and Disconnections on the Silk Road
' *

Hopkirk, Peter Peter Stuart Hopkirk (15 December 1930 – 22 August 2014) was a British journalist, author and historian who wrote six books about the British Empire, Russia and Central Asia. Biography Peter Hopkirk was born in Nottingham, the son of Frank St ...

(1980). ''Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Cities and Treasures of Chinese Central Asia''. Amherst: The

University of Massachusetts Press The University of Massachusetts Press is a university press that is part of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The press was founded in 1963, publishing scholarly books and non-fiction. The press imprint is overseen by an interdisciplinar ...

. . * Mair, Victor H. (ed.) 2001. ''

The Columbia History of Chinese Literature ''The Columbia History of Chinese Literature'' is a reference book edited by Victor H. Mair and published by the Columbia University Press in 2002. The topics include all genres and periods of poetry, prose, fiction, and drama but also areas not tr ...

''. New York: Columbia University Press. . (

Amazon Kindle Amazon Kindle is a series of e-readers designed and marketed by Amazon. Amazon Kindle devices enable users to browse, buy, download, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines and other digital media via wireless networking to the Kindle Store. ...

edition.)

External links

The Oldest Printed Text in the World - The Diamond Sutra

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wang, Yuanlu Qing dynasty Taoists Republic of China Taoists Archaeology of China 1931 deaths People from Shanxi Dunhuang Year of birth uncertain

Biography

Involvement with Dunhuang manuscripts

See also

References

Sources

External links