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Uspensky V. [Review:] Tatiana A. Pang and Giovanni Stary. New Light on Manchu Historiography and Literature: tile Discovery of Three Documents in Old Manchu Script. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998, III, 340 pp.; Dan Martin (in collaboration with Yael Bentor). Tibetan Histories: a Bibliography of Tibetan-Language Historical Works. London: Serindia Publications, 1997, 296 pp. // Manuscripta Orientalia. Vol. 5. No. 2. June 1999. P. 72.


Tatiana A. Pang and Giovanni Stary. New Light on Manchu Historiography and Literature: tile Discovery of Three Documents in Old Manchu Script. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998, III, 340 pp.

This publication presents to scholarly view three hitherto unknown Manchu texts dating to the first half of the seventeenth century and containing valuable information about Manchu rulers of the conquest period. These texts — one block-print and two manuscripts - are kept in the Musée Guimet (Paris) under call numbers 61624, 61625 and 61626.

The book consists of the description of the manuscripts and the block-print, study of the texts (pp. 1–52) and their facsimile (pp. 53–340). Manuscripts 61625 and 61624 present variants of the same text containing essays and historical episodes from the Chinese and early Manchu history. The texts were carefully collated by the authors to indicate textual divergences. The transliteration is given in the introduction (pp. 21–46). In the authors' view, these texts were not intended to serve bureaucratic- administrative purposes only and can be qualified as literary works too. Some translations of the prophetic passages are also provided to prove this assertion (pp. 18–19). As to the block-print 6 I 626, it contains episodes from the Chinese and early Manchu history, which are for the most part conveyed through the speech of Nurhaci who tries to prove to the Chinese Emperor that the mandate of Heaven has shifted to him. The authors make assumption that this text represents “the earliest specimen of a Manchu block-print” (p. 50). All the three texts reflect the formative period of the Manchu writing when its differentiating from its original Mongolian base began, which makes the texts even more valuable for linguistic and palaeographic research.

As is convincingly shown in the introduction, the historical value of the texts is determined by the fact that some events relating to the lives of Manchu rulers are narrated here in much more detail. Besides, the narration is more vivid than in later official historical compilations made for the Manchu court. Especially interesting are descriptions of attempts upon the life of Nurhaci undertaken by his relatives; the authors conclude that there were six such attempts in all. Some military campaigns’ descriptions differ from those by later historiographers. The authors made translation of a large portion of text to prove that “Hong Taiji” was a personal name and not a title of Nurhaci’s eighth son (pp. 11–3). The facsimiles are fine, making the texts easily legible.

The scholars in Manchu, Chinese and Central Asian studies would welcome this publication which is a valuable contribution to the corpus of available texts on the emerging of the Manchu state.

Dan Martin (in collaboration with Yael Bentor). Tibetan Histories: a Bibliography of Tibetan-Language Historical Works. London: Serindia Publications, 1997, 296 pp.

This exceptionally informative work aims to collect all information about existing or known h1stoncal literary sources in the Tibetan language available by the end of the millennium. Prof. Dan Martin dedicates his book to the Tibetan people and to the memory of A. I. Vostrikov (1902–37). When comparing Vostrikov’s Tibetan Historical Literature, published in Moscow only m 1962, with the work by Dan Martin it becomes obvious that great progress has been made in the field of Tibetan studies since the scholar’s death. In the last few decades thousand of volumes of Tibetan texts have been published in various forms in different countries, and Tibetological journals (some even in the Tibetan language) and computer databases of Tibetan texts have appeared. To search through all these materials, which are sometimes difficult to have access to, much effort must be made by a modern researcher. Therefore, Dan Martin’s book is an invaluable research tool in searching materials needed.

The historical works described in the book number altogether 702 entries arranged in chronological order, the latest work dated 1996. Among the entries are found not only Tibetan works seen by the author as well as those about which information is available only from the old Tibetan sources or modern publications. All kinds of literary texts, traditionally regarded as historical writings, are included in the bibliography with a few exceptions: biographies and autobiographies, descriptions of monasteries as well as such specialized works as thob yig and gsan yig are excluded. Basic information on the author and contents of a specific work are given followed by a list of scholarly publications devoted to its study and reference to catalogues of Tibetan works if possible. In case of a controversy concerning authorship, chronology, etc. of certain Tibetan historical writing, the author provides his own approach to the problem or valuable hint.

For scholars who have devoted themselves to the study of a limited number of Tibetan written texts, especially those relating to a specific period, it would be not a difficult task to criticize Dan Martin’s book for possible lack of exactitude or incompleteness of information in a certain entry. In my opinion, this is not a drawback for such kind of edition: had it been otherwise, it would mean that no further research in this field of Tibetology is needed. For everyone familiar with the ocean of Tibetan writings, this admirable book by Dan Martin will serve a kind of compass.

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литература историческая
литература тибетская
письменность маньчжурская

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