A Proofreading, Interpretation And Exploration Of The Dunhuang Manuscript Of A Survey Of The Buddhist Relics In Some Famous Mountains

The manuscript of A Survey of the Buddhist Relics in Some Famous Mountains preserved in Dunhuang, is based on a well-known Dunhuang monk Fan Haiyin's visit to the famous temples and mountains in different places during the Five Dynasties, or exactly, from the end of the Later Liang Dynasty to the period of Tongguang of the Later Tang. It not only gives a detailed account of the origin of Manjusri Buddhist rites and of the Center, East, West, South and North of the Mount Wutai, but also keeps an accurate record of the visited temples and the number of monks and nuns in these areas. Besides, it also provides abundant valuable materials for studying the politics, economy, customs and Buddhism of this period, and thus becomes a complement to both the new and old editions of A History of Five Dynasties: Geography.This dissertation is made up of two parts. Based on Mr. Zheng Binlin's The Proofreading of The Compilation of Dunhuang Geographic Documents, and guided by the photo-offset copy of Dunhuang Documents Preserved in Britain with Chinese Buddhist Scriptures Excluded (Vol. II) and Mr. Hao Chunwen's An Interpretation of Dunhuang Documents of Social History Preserved in Britain (Vol. III), Part One re-proofreads and re-interprets A Survey of Authentic Works of Mountains by Fan Haiyin. According to some historical records and the Buddhist documents, Part Two expounds and proves that the author of A Survey of the Buddhist Relics in Some Famous Mountains is the famous monk Fan Haiyin, studies the development of Buddhism in places like Taiyuan, Hebei and the Southern areas in the Five Dynasties, makes a textual criticism on Yangzhou City in Five Dynasties by analyzing the related documents and archaeological materials, and probes into the economic development in Jinzhou and Xiangzhou.