第23回 遼金西夏史研究会大会 報告要旨
Tanguts in East Asia: 11-13 centuries
Kirill Solonin（中国人民大学）
The dangxiang (党項) tribes known in later sources as Tanguts established The Tangut Empire (西夏, 百高大国) in 1038. Even after its demise in 1227 the Tangut language and culture continued to be influential in Central Asia. This time we will discuss some problems pertaining to the emerging field of Tangut studies. Our topics will include:
- Ethnic make-up of the Tangut population. The problem of ethnic composition of the Tangut population is related to the problem of the Tangut “multi-lingualism”, discovered in the native Tangut compositions.
- Interpretation of the Tangut historical compositions (epic poetry) and its corroboration against Chinese historical records on the dangxiang and on Xixia in general.
- Sub-grouping of Tangut language. Currently there are two major tendencies to consider Tangut language either as a member of the Qiang group, or of Western Rgyalrongic.
- Structure of the Tangut literary heritage: “sacred books” and “secular compositions.” This is traditional Tangut division of textual heritage, based on the Tangut native view, presented in several native sources. The dynamics of the Tangut ideological developments generally indicate towards the domination of Buddhism over Confucianism, and importance of Buddhist interpretations of Confucian concepts.
- Transmission of Confucian texts in the Xixia remains a complicated issue, which is currently under investigation. The Current state of research about transmission of Buddhist compositions indicates towards Northern China as the possible sources of the Tangut Buddhist of Sinitic origin. The timeline is provisionally set as the late 11th-12th centuries. Similarly, the texts of Tibetan subject matter are generally associated with the areas of Mdo smad.
- The texts of both Confucian and Buddhist subject matter can be arranged into textual clusters according to their subject matter. However, the study of the texts within clusters indicates towards their different origins. This is representative of the complex textual transmission in the Northern China during 11-13th centuries.
- 7. Close study of the Tangut Buddhist texts allows reconstructing aspects of internal dynamics in Tangut culture: i.e. there originally had been two lineages of Tibetan Mahāmudrā in Xixia, out of which one lineage died out, whereas the other one remained dominant during the last years of Xixia and continued during the Yuan.
