Dunhuang Research

Journal of Dunhuang Research and it is the authoritative journal for Dunhuang Study in China

Dunhuang study is a comprehensive subject and professionally for Dunhuang research, Dunhuang excavation, cultural relics protection  and management as well as operation of the historical records and relics. Duhuang Study is equally famous to Huizhou Study and Tibet Study. They are comprised to be three local cultural research subjects of China.

In 1900, a Taoist whose family name was Wang (historically he was called Taoist Wang), employed some staff to help him with cleaning the collected sand of the 16th aisle and accidentally found the Cangjingdong or Sutra-Collection Cave(today it is the 17th cave). But the local officials and rich men could not understand its unprecedented value, and the corrupted government of Qing Dynasty was unable to give the reasonable protection. As a result, a large batch of the rare sutras and cultural relics as well as many treasured records were stolen and robbed by so-called foreign expedition (currently, a large number of Dunhuang collection is still distributed overseas). The rest was taken to Beijing and collected in Imperial Library. During these foreigners’ plundering, the murals, statues and collection were largely destroyed. During the time from 1914 to 1915, a Russian expedition arrived in Dunhuang and collected numerous records of Dunhuang and robbed many murals of the 263rd grotto. In 1921, hundreds of Russian soldiers who failed in civil war flee to Mogao Grottoes, and they daubed and carved at will on the murals, even made fire to cook in grottoes, and it brought about a lot of murals were burnt and smoked seriously. In 1924, Langdon Warner (1881-1955) of the United States once shucked out of a large area of murals and robbed a lot of colored statues. The foreign destruction and man-made hurt cause the great harm to Chinese culture. Objectively, it indirectly promoted the further research and management of west and east learners in different angles. And in 1930s, a new subject appeared, and in China, it was called Dunhuangology

Dunhuangology arouse the attentions of the academic society of the world, and they paid more attention to Dunhuang and Maogao Grottoes. Since 1930s, more and more Chinese historians, archeologists and artists went to Dunhuang for researching and promotion. Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes gradually became famous in cultural society. In 1944, Dunhuang Art Research Institute was founded to take responsibility for grottoes protection and mural research. In 1984, it was upgraded to be Dunhuang Research Academy. In 1987, Dunhuang became a county-level city and listed in the List of World Cultural Heritage. By the way, about the Dunhuang research in mainland China, Zhejiang University in Hangzhou is the best one. Currently, Dunhuang Study has been an international study, and the researchers are distributed widely in many countries.