The Mogao caves yielded not only the cultural relics of frescos and grottoes, but also some historical religious documents and books. The Dunhuang Manuscripts, which were found at the Mogao caves nearly a century ago, recently underwent some technical restoration with the financial support of generous public donations.
The series of 1,600-year-old Buddhist documents are now on display at the National Library of China.
The Dunhuang Manuscripts are a series of Buddhist documents dating back to the South and North Dynasty period 1,600 years ago. These documents include Buddhism teaching materials and some works by their practitioners. Until the early stage of 20th century, these documents had been preserved in the Mogao Caves. But during the turmoil of the civil war in the 1920s, some of the documents were stolen and lost. The remaining documents collected in the National Library of China are a donation from patriotic scholar Luo Zhenyu. Last year, the National Library asked for public donations to help restore the documents and the work was recently completed. Readers and scholars now have a chance to view these historical documents at the National Library of China.
(CCTV December 4, 2003)
