Study on the"A Note of Travelling to Pilgrimage"Excavated in Dunhuang
Previously,the document named"A Note of Travelling to Pilgrimage"(Shengdi Youji Shu,《圣地游记述》)excavated in Dunhuang and collected in Russia was referred to the document named"A Note of Travelling to Tianzhu State"(Zhong Tianzhuguo Xingji,《中天竺国行记》)written by Wang Xu-ance(王玄策)during the early Tang Dynasty.However,this paper proposes that"A Note of Travelling to Pilgrimage"was not same as"A Note of Travelling to Tianzhu State"after comparing the calligraphy,key terminology,and narrative style.The former document completed after the mid-5th century and it was possi-bly one of the earliest known transcriptions of the note travelling to the Western Region.Besides,the con-tents about this transcription were extremely concise,but it also had practicability in realizing the travel routes and the distribution of sacred sites.Therefore,the transcription was likely a kind of concise guide-book for individuals who travelled to pilgrimage to the Western Region.In the early Northern Song Dynasty,an official group travelling to pilgrimage also carried and read the guidebook named"Xitian Lujing Yiben"(《西天路竟一本》),which revealed that those concise guidebooks were consistently carried and read by pil-grims from the early periods of the Southern and Northern Dynasties to the early Northern Song Dynasty.
Dunhuang"A Note of Travelling to Pilgrimage""A Note of Travelling to Tianzhu State"Pilgrimage to the Western RegionRoutes'guidebook
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