Interview with Zhang Yuanlin: What is the exemplary of Chinese culture compatible with compatibility and coexistence?

Dunhuang is a hub city and business and culture of the ancient Silk Road. It is known as "a large metropolis in Hua Rong" in history. Local is also a model of compatibility of Chinese culture.

How does the Dunhuang culture of Haina Baichuan form? What is the role of mutual learning of Chinese and Western exchanges? Zhang Yuanlin, deputy dean of the Dunhuang Research Institute and research librarian, recently accepted an exclusive interview with China News Agency's "East and West Questions" to conduct in -depth interpretation of this.

Abstracts are currently recorded as follows:

Reporter of China News Agency: Since the opening of the Western Han Dynasty, the merchants have brought Dunhuang for more than a thousand years. How can different ethnic groups and religions from the East and the West continue to communicate here?

Zhang Yuanlin: Whether it is from the Dunhuang murals and literature, or the cultural relics unearthed from Dunhuang, we can see that this area has lived in many ethnic groups for a long time and has a variety of texts. Between abound. This reflects the historical facts of different ethnic groups and religions in Dunhuang, and it is also an important material for studying a variety of civilized exchanges today.

In the 2nd century BC, with Emperor Hanwu's "four counties and two levels", business and cultural activities between East and West were increasingly frequent. Since the 4th century AD, the Western Regions Hu Shang, represented by the Sogdians who are good at business, have gradually entered the Central Plains. While promoting the economic and trade exchanges of the East and the West, it also brought about the interaction of religion, culture, language, and art. In the Dunhuang culture born on the fertile soil of Chinese traditional culture since Han and Jin, the elements of Hu Feng have been integrated.

Hu Shang encounters the thief -Cave 45 (Sheng Tang), Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang. Photo Conferring in Dunhuang Research Institute

East and Western monks, envoys, and businessmen on the Silk Road on the Silk Road for many years, facing the unpredictable long journey, all eager to get the blessing of religious gods. As a result, Dunhuang's religion and folk beliefs also showed a diversified tendency, such as the main religions that have been popular along the Silk Road on the Silk Road, such as Lingism, Buddhism, Taoism, Scenicism, Islam, and Hinduism.

In the Dunhuang Grottoes, in addition to the image of the Han people, there are ethnic minorities such as the Tubo, the Xixia, and the Hui people, and the nationality of the nation of Central Asia and West Asia. A six -character mantra of the Yuan Dynasty preserved by the Dunhuang Research Institute is engraved with a variety of texts such as Chinese, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Xixia text, Hui Xunwen, and Mongolian text.

It can be seen that the Dunhuang culture is a diversified open culture led by the Central Plains culture, and has incorporated the national culture of many regions along the Silk Road, presenting the characteristics of openness, diversification and tolerance.

The six -character monument of the Dunhuang Research Institute -Xining Wang Suuki Lai Yuanzheng to the eight years (1348). There are many texts such as Chinese, Sanskrit, and Tibetan on the monument.

China News Agency reporter: Dunhuang has long been the window and portal of ancient China to the outside world. In many civilized exchanges and exchanges, how can different cultures and religions achieve harmonious relationships? How can this process enrich the Chinese culture?

Zhang Yuanlin: Dunhuang is an important node to connect Chinese and foreign politics, economy, and culture during the 1,5600 years of the smoothness of the Silk Road on land. The formation of the Dunhuang Grottoes is also the result of the cultural exchanges of the East and the West: Based on Central Plains culture, boldly absorbing India, Central Asia, and the Western Regions Buddhist artistic ideas, which formed a distinctive Dunhuang culture and the art of Dunhuang Grottoes. The nourishment of the traditional culture of the Central Plains and the new achievements of Buddhism gradually flourished, and its influence was spread along the Silk Road to the surrounding area.

Zhang Jian's envoy of the Western Regions -Cave 323 of Mogao Grottoes (Early Tang Dynasty). Photo Conferring in Dunhuang Research Institute

Why did there have no disputes and conflicts such as ethnic religion in diversified civilization and belief? This is exactly the password of Chinese culture for thousands of years of inheritance and endlessness -Dunhuang is the throat of stifling ancient Chinese and Western transportation, but it is not a closed and conservative pass, but to ensure the smooth flow of the Eastern and Western human business trade. Portal.

Since the establishment of Dunhuang County in the Western Han Dynasty, local residents have always been a multi -ethnic composition of the Han nationality. In the meantime, it has also been managed by many ethnic regimes such as Tubo, Xixia, and Ganzhou Hui. People with different nations and different religious beliefs that have been produced and living together for a long time not only "mutual harm" due to cultural differences, but also "long -term and short -term" and harmonious symbiosis, and even the rare phenomenon of "the same cave ritual Buddha". This is also a microcosm of the "diverse" history of the Chinese nation.

The Chinese civilization is endless, and to this day, it is the result of firmly inheriting its own cultural traditions while compatible and accommodating. The formation and prosperity of Dunhuang culture is also the manifestation of this culture. Chinese culture has never been so conservative and exclusive to foreign civilization. Each migrant ethnic minority will also understand and tolerate different cultures and beliefs, which further enriches the connotation of Chinese culture.

Bounce Pipa Dance -Cave 112 (Central Tang). Photo Conferring in Dunhuang Research Institute

Reporter of China News Agency: Since the discovery of the Dunhuang Tibetan Scriptures in the early 20th century, Dunhuang studies has become international explanation. However, in the development of Dunhuang academics, why did the study of Chinese and foreign relations not attract enough attention? How to solve this dilemma and deficiencies?

Zhang Yuanlin: The Dunhuang Tibetan Cave preserved about more than 60,000 cultural relics such as embroidery, silk paintings, and magazines in the 4th to 10th century, including religious classics, historical collections, official and private documents, ethnic minority language, etc. History, geography, politics, economy, literature, language, folklore, music, science and technology and many other fields can be described as "encyclopedia in the Middle Ages" and "Ocean of Ancient Academic". For more than 120 years, the Dunhuang Tibetan Sutra has been discovered that in the past 120 years, under the painstaking and in -depth research of scholars in Dunhuang all over the world, the Tibetan Cave Cultural Relics, which has been lost, has been gradually sorted, published, and published. The precious value has gradually formed a research situation of "Dunhuang in China, Dunhuang Studies in the World". In Dunhuang's more than a hundred years of research results, it also reflects Chinese and foreign relations.

The Dunhuang Museum hidden the six ancestral altars -unearthed from the Dunhuang Tibetan Sutra (Tang). Photo Conferring in Dunhuang Research Institute

Based on Dunhuang's data research on the history of Sino -foreign relations, there is still room for expansion and improvement in this area. For a long time, the domestic academic community has attached more attention to the use of traditional Chinese historical books, and it is relatively weak in the use of Dunhuang literature. This is also because the materials that can be provided by scholars are not sufficient. At the same time, at the level of discipline construction, the use of Dunhuang materials to study Sino -foreign relations should be mentioned high.

At present, the Dunhuang Research Institute is conducting major national projects that are conducting the "Research on Historical Materials of Dunhuang and Sino -Foreign Relations", which will guide and strengthen the systematic arrangement of Dunhuang materials from the disciplinary settings to promote the depth and breadth of the study of the history of Sino -foreign relations.

In May 2014, Zhang Yuanlin checked the French Tibetan Dunhuang literature in the French National Library. Interviewee confidence

Reporter of China News Agency: What is the significance of reference and revelation today in the exchanges and mutual learning experience accumulated by Dunhuang for more than two thousand years? What role will the construction of the "Belt and Road" play?

Zhang Yuanlin: Dunhuang culture contains the brilliant and rich cultural connotation of the Chinese nation, and concentrated the value orientation of Chinese traditional culture such as "people -oriented", "equality" and "tolerance", and the "mutual benefit and win -win" and "diversified blending" on the Silk Road " History and culture. This contains the historical inevitability of Chinese multi -ethnic integration and unified countries.

Many of the cultural miracles in the world have been destroyed, and most of the causes are religious conflicts and racial contradictions. However, Mogao Grottoes, who continued to build a thousand years, basically did not suffer serious human damage. This shows that the historical process of Dunhuang is generally tolerant and harmonious. Different languages, culture, text, etc. have received due respect. This multi -integrated cultural formation process will also have the effect of "moisturizing and silent".

Cave 285 in Mogao Grottoes (Western Wei). Photo Conferring in Dunhuang Research Institute

Today, in the face of a century -old change in a century, Dunhuang cultural connotation such as diversified coexistence, compatibility, mutual benefit, mutual benefit, differences, and understanding of tolerance still has a guiding reference significance for the development of Sino -foreign relations. The "historical resonance" of its unblocked trade and the common people's hearts is also a language that can be understood in the "Belt and Road" construction.

Introduction to the interviewee:

Zhang Yuanlin inspected the Mogao cave area of ​​Dunhuang. Interviewee confidence

Zhang Yuanlin, a doctor of history, research librarian. He is currently the vice president of the Dunhuang Research Institute, the vice president of the Turpan Society of Dunhuang in China, the vice chairman of the Gansu Provincial Committee of the Democratic Progressive Program, and a doctoral supervisor in Lanzhou University. Mainly engaged in the study of Dunhuang image science, Dunhuang art and the Silk Road art.

Source: China News Network reporter Feng Zhijun

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