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Abstract
Information regarding the provenance of papyrological material that was acquired in the Egyptian antiquities market in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is scarce and often unreliable. This article investigates the provenance of Hamburg’s Papyrus Bilinguis 1, famed for containing the apocryphal Acta Pauli. By researching archival files documenting the acquisition and the context of the find, the papyrus is shown to have been acquired in breach of the Egyptian antiquities law of 1912. The article reveals how Carl Schmidt (1868–1938), the collector who acquired the manuscript for the Hamburg library, by concealing information, tried to cover up his own criminal involvement in the smuggling of the manuscript. Through the investigation of a manuscript that was acquired by a public German institution in awareness of its illegality, the article hopes to contribute to current debates on the translocation of cultural heritage artefacts to Europe and the US in the age of European colonialism and imperialism.
Abstract
In the early phases of the modern study of Buddhism, it was widely assumed that the Buddhist canon preserved in the Pali language by the Theravāda tradition of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia represented the only original record of the “words of the Buddha” (buddha-vacana). But the notion of Pali primacy has been steadily eroded by discoveries of vast numbers of early Buddhist manuscripts in the formerly Buddhist regions of northwestern India and adjoining countries and in Central Asia. These discoveries have provided ample evidence of the existence in antiquity of voluminous bodies of Buddhist literature in Sanskrit and Gandhari that are parallel to and as historically valid as the Pali versions. They have shifted the perception of Buddhism away from a linear model and toward a wider understanding of the many Buddhisms that coexisted in antiquity. This article surveys some of the major discoveries of Buddhist manuscripts and summarizes the new perspectives that they have engendered.
Abstract
Having both similarities with and differences from dao
Abstract
The “Wuji” section of the Tsinghua Bamboo Slips offers great insight into the pre- modern Chinese philosophical landscape. At the heart of this section lies the concept of zhong (mean), which is intricately woven into the fabric of the tiandao (the way of Heaven) and the rendao (the way of man). This concept is reflected in the “wuji” and the “wude,” embodying the pinnacle of political principles and the ideal outcome of governance. The notion of the mean transcends traditional Confucian values such as zhong (loyalty) and xin (trustworthiness), encompassing qualities of centrality, equality, justice, impartiality, and abundance. It is revered as an absolute and sacred principle, serving as both a coveted goal and the most effective means to achieve it. To fully grasp the implications of “the mean” in the “Wuji” section of the Tsinghua Bamboo Slips, a fresh examination of received texts such as the Yizhoushu, Analects, Guanzi, and Heguanzi, as well as excavated texts like the “Baoxun” and “Xinshi weizhong” of the Tsinghua Bamboo Slips, and the Huangdi sijing of the Mawangdui Silk Texts, is warranted.
Abstract
Several studies have addressed the question of whether the people of early China wrote with thin bamboo strips held in their hands or whether they wrote with the support of flat desks. However, scholars have not addressed the distinction between jian (bamboo strips) and larger du (wooden tablets) in everyday writing. In early China, tablets would be held in the hand to write, while strips would be laid flat on a writing desk. Tablets were the main medium of everyday writing during the period spanning the pre-Qin and Western and Eastern Han dynasties. In the drafting of various literary texts, taking court records, and taking classroom notes, tablets were the primary writing medium. Among written materials from before the Western Han dynasty, duan zhang (short passages) were the most common style of writing, and most texts were composed of short passages. Among the early Chinese manuscripts that have been unearthed, short passages are also very common. However, almost no one has raised the question of why a documentary system dominated by short passages was formed in the pre-Qin and Western and Eastern Han dynasties period. The number of characters that a writing tablet can accommodate essentially coincides with the number of characters in short passages in early Chinese manuscripts. In view of its wide use, I propose that the formation of the short passage form was potentially influenced by the material writing medium of the tablet.