The Research Of The Cover Format And Character Usage About Naxi Dongba Manuscripts

An Annotated Collection of Naxi Dongba Manuscripts(hereinafter referred to as the Quanji) is the only big book published about Naxi Dongba scriptures nowadays, it provides a wealth of information for our research about Naxi Dongba scripture, and it is also a very valuable cultural heritage. The scripture cover is not only very typical but also very individual difference about the creation region and creators in Dongba Manuscripts. So, we take the scripture cover of Quanji as research material, which has a stronger maneuverability and a larger research space.Generally speaking, the scripture cover includes two aspects: form and content. The form includes: scripture version features, ornamentation, ribbon, overall layout and characters category. The content includes: the title of scriptures, the classification of the scriptures title.In this paper, our research will be carried out from two aspects of form and content. It is divided into five chapters as follow.Chapter one: Introduction. It firstly describes the scripture cover, which includes materials, writing tools, sizes, bindings, collections. Then, we mainly introduce the significance, the domestic and international research related.The last part introduces the significance of this research, the research routes and research methods.Chapter two: A study on the form of scripture cover. This chapter is divided into two parts. The first part, we summarize the characteristics of the overall layout of the scripture cover by introduce the scripture features of horizontal and vertical version. The second part, we summarize the ornamentation types, which include two kinds: autochthonous ornamentations and borrowing the Tibetan ornamentations. And Tibetan ornamentations mainly from Tibetan Babao. Then, we research the relationships between ornamentation and Dongba.Chapter three: The research and application on the form of scripture cover in different regions. Firstly, we will be geographical to summarize the characteristics of the scripture cover. Then, combining with scripture version features, ornamentation, ribbon, Dongba portraits, segment symbol, seals, characters, we will be linked to a part of scriptures which we don’t know its regions.Chapter four: the research of character usage in scripture cover. In this part, we will analyze the various kinds of character usage in basis of the feature of character used in some fixed combinations, the corresponding relation of language and character and character’s category, and on this basis, summarize the regional difference of character usage. There are two kinds of situations about the corresponding relation of language and character, which is from whether it is corresponding or not between language and character. Finally, we will specially study the situation and feature of characters used in fixed combinations, such as Dongba, Scripture, mood particle, according to the used characters, the presentation of characters and the characteristics of characters.Chapter five: The study on the cotent of the scripture cover and the scriptures category. The content is embodied in the form of the cover’s naming. The form of the cover’s naming has two kinds: ceremonial name+ the name of the scripture, the name of the scripture. The scripture covers intuitively display the scripture categories, in this part, according to the domestic and international research related about the scripture categories, we summarize the characteristics of scripture categories about Quanji.In this paper, we summarize the characteristics of the overall layout, the ornamentation types, geographic features,the cover’s naming features and the scriptures category of the scripture cover, and we are linked to a part of scriptures which we don’t know its regions, all of these will provide us with basic information for the cover research.