Document of the Month 08/28: Reading and Writing in Multilingual Dunhuang
01 September 2026
What to Speak and How to Write it on the Silk Road:
Evidence from 13 Texts Found in Dunhuang, Western China
by Tasha Vorderstrasse
Summary
This Document of the Month examines 13 items found in Dunhuang whose writing and reuse in Chinese and other languages over several centuries reveal their complex multilingual histories. The items are now available in the Invisible East Digital Corpus [i] and on the International Dunhuang Programme repository. [ii] These fragments constitute only a fraction of the thousands of texts recovered from Dunhuang. The close-up view of this small sub-corpus reveals a fascinating social history of how texts were used and reused in the multilingual and cosmopolitan pre-modern world that connected Dunhuang and the Kingdom of Khotan. More broadly, this preliminary study shows how different but interconnected cultural groups managed to negotiate a linguistically complex landscape. The reuse of the manuscripts reveals their long life-cycle, with changing purposes and uses sometimes dictated by pragmatic needs.
The Political Context: Dunhuang and the Kingdom of Khotan
A considerable range of languages was spoken in early medieval Central Asia, resulting in a dizzying array of written sources. This diversity of languages is matched by the rich history of the region where empires and smaller states saw borders, governments, and rulers changed frequently. The Invisible East Digital Corpus (IEDC) helps demonstrate this breadth and scope. In this Document of the Month, I focus on the Chinese-language texts in the IEDC and what they can tell us about how people were speaking and using Chinese and other languages on the eastern end of the so-called Silk Roads.
The Kingdom of Khotan, located in the southwestern part of the Tarim Basin (see map in Figs 1 and 2), was a border-kingdom that, like Dunhuang, fell under the control of a succession of various empires including the Tang Dynasty and the Tibetan Empire. The primary local language, Khotanese, is now an extinct Eastern Iranian language written in a Brāhmic script. Although Khotan was located some 1,345 km from Dunhuang, a considerable number of 9th-10th century Khotanese-language documents have survived in Dunhuang on account of the close ties between the two kingdoms, a bond further cemented by royal intermarriages. Khotanese ambassadors also passed through Dunhuang on their way to China. One of them, Ḍyau Tceyi-śīṅä/Liu Zaisheng, travelled from Khotan to Kaifeng in 943 and is recorded in the Xin Wudai shi (New History of the Five Dynasties) as bringing tribute from the king of Khotan. As we shall see, his activities can also be traced in several of the manuscripts discussed below.
The Chinese-language texts in the Invisible East corpus come from the site of Dunhuang, which is located in northwestern China in Gansu province at the eastern end of the Taklamakan Desert (see Fig. 2). The site of Dunhuang was an important settlement that, according to Chinese historians, dates back to the time of the earliest dynasties, and served as an important merchant and pilgrimage stopping point. While it came under Chinese control in 121 BCE during the time of the Western Han Dynasty’s expansion westwards, the control of Dunhuang changed over time, shifting between powers based in central China. The Tibetan Empire was a powerful state that contested control of Central Asia with both the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE) in China and the Abbasid caliphate based in Baghdad. Dunhuang passed from Tang to Tibetan control in the late eighth century and remained under Tibetan rule until 848, when Zhang Yichao expelled the Tibetan forces. Zhang took over Dunhuang, and his successors essentially ruled it independently during the Guiyijun period (848–1036 CE).
The Dunhuang fragments were found outside the medieval city itself, in the Mogao Caves (see Fig. 4): a conglomeration of hundreds of caves carved into the rock and used for Buddhist meditation. Some of the caves – founded in the 4th century CE, according to legend – were decorated with elaborate Buddhist paintings and sculptures. Buddhist monks from Dunhuang, such as Dharmarakṣa (c. 233–310 CE) and Kumārajīva (344–413 CE), were active in the translation of Sanskrit Buddhist manuscripts into Chinese in both Dunhuang and in key cities such as Luoyang and Chang’an (see maps in Figs. 1-3). The translation of these texts was an important vehicle for Buddhists to ensure that the new doctrine was followed correctly. There was an awareness that not all Chinese translations were accurate, and there was a desire to seek out Sanskrit texts and retranslate them. The so-called Library Cave contained a huge number of documents, mostly Buddhist, and was sealed around 1000 CE.
Introducing the 13 items
The 13 items featured in this article are listed in the table below.
| Or. 8210/S. 5212 | P. 2855 |
| Or. 8210/S. 2529 | P. 2782 |
| Or. 8210/S. 6701 | P. 5597 |
| Or. 8212/162 | P. 2927 |
| IOL Khot. S. 7 | P. 5535 |
| Khot. S. 20 | P. 3861 |
| Khot. S. 21 |
These are multilingual and multiscript manuscripts containing Chinese and Tibetan (both Sino-Tibetan languages), Khotanese (an Eastern Iranian language), and Sanskrit (an Indo-Aryan language). Chinese was normally written in Chinese characters, while Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Khotanese employed Brāhmī or Brāhmī-derived scripts; [iii] some of the examples discussed below also transcribe Chinese in Brāhmī script.
Documents from Dunhuang in the IEDC: Transmission and Content
The documents were found in the Library Cave of the Mogao complex in 1900 by Wang Yuanlu (1849–1931), a Daoist monk who was conducting restoration there. Of the approximately 100,000 documents found in the cave, over 70,000 were written in Chinese,[iv] with the vast majority being Buddhist. After their discovery, they were dispersed and scattered in libraries throughout the world, particularly in London (British Library, BL), Paris (Bibliothèque nationale de France, BnF), Beijing (National Library of China), and St. Petersburg (Institute of Oriental Studies).
The 13 items discussed in this article are held in London and Paris (in one case, IOL Khot. S. 7 and P. 5597 are parts of the same manuscript). Almost all the texts are scrolls, which were written between the 7th and 9th centuries, dating to the Sui and Tang periods or during Tibetan rule. BnF manuscript P. 2927 features a number of the so-called 'Empress Wu characters', which were new iterations of already existing Chinese characters instituted by the Empress Wu (r. 690–705 CE), and only used during her reign. The manuscripts were then recycled and used again for documents in the late 9th/10th century CE during the Guiyijun period.
Despite the preponderance of Chinese writing on these fragments, modern scholars have tended to focus on a single language or script when studying these multilingual and multiscript manuscripts, partly because their linguistic and graphic complexity complicates the editorial task. [v]
The Chinese writing on these fragments records Mahāyāna Buddhist scripture, [vi] including Buddhist sūtras [vii] translated from Sanskrit into Chinese. One of the translators was Xuanzang (602–664 CE), the pilgrim who journeyed from China through Central Asia to India between ca. 627 and 645 CE, collecting Sanskrit texts and visiting important Buddhist sites. Xuanzang recorded his travels in the famous Da Tang Xiyu Ji, and translated Sanskrit texts into Chinese. One example of his Chinese translation (titled, Da bore boluomi duo jing) is of the Buddhist Mahāprajñāpāramitā-sūtra written on several manuscripts (BnF manuscripts P. 2855, P. 2782, P. 2927, and BL manuscript Or. 8210/S. 6701, Fig. 6).
Recycling of Multilingual Manuscripts from Dunhuang
Two examples of this are:
BL manuscript Or.8210/S.2529 is a Chinese-language copy of one of the most popular Buddhist texts from Dunhuang: the Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra (Lotus Sutra, Chinese: Fahua jing) translated by Kumārajīva. The sheet was then turned over and written on in Sanskrit and Khotanese. The Lotus Sutra is also written on Or. 8210/S. 5212 (Fig. 12) and Or. 8212/162 which were then later reused to write Chinese phrases written in Brāhmī script for Khotanese speakers (see more on this below).
BnF manuscript P. 2782 (Fig. 5) is a Chinese text (Da bore boluomi duo jing) translated by Xuanzang from the Sanskrit Mahāprajñāpāramitā-sūtra. It features a two-line dedication written in Sogdian (an East Iranian language that uses an Aramaic-derived script) in a different hand. A scribe turned the sheet 90 degrees to add the following in Sogdian (which reads right-to-left): “In the name of God. Monkey year, sixth month, (day) 20”. [viii] Subsequent scribes reused these fragments, including for a summary in Khotanese of the Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra (Lotus Sutra) with an introduction, a Sanskrit dhāraṇī [ix] commissioned by the Khotanese ambassador Ḍyau Tceyi-śīṅä/Liu Zaisheng, and a letter in the Tibetan language using Khotanese script. The same ambassador also commissioned a Khotanese metrical summary of the Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra (Lotus Sutra) recorded in fragment P. 2782 (see Fig. 5 above). A partial copy of this metrical summary is also preserved in BL Or. 8212/162.
These scrolls are very long. Although most are under five metres, exceptional examples extend to more than ten metres. If the intention had simply been to reuse them as scrap paper, one might expect later scribes to have cut the scrolls into smaller, more manageable sheets. Instead, entire scrolls were sometimes preserved intact even when the later writing occupied only part of their available surface.
Khotanese in Multilingual Manuscripts: Reuse, Reading, and Communication
The Khotanese material reveals several forms of reuse and multilingual textual practice. Chinese Buddhist manuscripts could be reused for Khotanese or Sanskrit texts, while individual sheets and booklets might accommodate Chinese, Khotanese, Tibetan, Sanskrit, and Brāhmī-script transcriptions in different combinations. Such reuse was not purely material: the layout of scripts could be adapted to facilitate reading, and phrasebooks show that manuscripts also served practical communication between speakers of different languages. The examples below range from the reuse of Chinese sūtras for Khotanese Buddhist writing to multilingual booklets, adaptations of reading direction, and phrasebooks designed to make spoken Chinese accessible to Khotanese speakers.
Or. 8210/S. 6701 (Fig. 6) preserves Xuanzang's Chinese translation of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-sūtra on the verso (Fig. 6b); the recto was subsequently reused for a Buddhist text in Khotanese and Sanskrit (Fig. 6a).
P. 5535 (Fig. 7) contains a Khotanese rendering of the Buddhist Amṛtakuṇḍalī mantra [x] alongside a Chinese note mentioning the ambassador Liu Zaisheng. The Chinese is written at a ninety-degree angle to the Khotanese and appears to have been added later as a preface to the Buddhist text.
P. 2855 (Fig. 8) combines a Tibetan Buddhist text with interlinear transcriptions of prayers in Chinese addressed to Buddhist and Chinese divinities; a Khotanese Buddhist text was subsequently added. Or. 8210/S. 2529 provides a related example: its Sanskrit Sitātapatrā-dhāraṇī [xi] was copied by a Khotanese-speaking scribe, as indicated by the concluding Khotanese statement, “The Sitātapatrā-dhāraṇī is completely finished.”
P. 3861 (Fig. 9) is a ninth-century booklet of 34 folios containing Khotanese, Tibetan, and Chinese Buddhist texts. These include a short Khotanese dedication on fol. 1v (Fig. 9a) and Tibetan dhāraṇī passages, one followed by the names of Buddhas and bodhisattvas in Chinese, on fol. 31v (Fig. 9b). See further Sørensen 2019.
P. 5597 (Fig. 10), an eighth- or ninth-century fragment, preserves different Buddhist texts in different scripts on its two sides. The verso (Fig. 10a), in Brāhmī script, transcribes Kumārajīva's Chinese translation of the Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra (Diamond Sutra), while the recto (Fig. 10b), in calligraphic Chinese kai script, contains part of Dharmakṣema's Chinese translation of the Suvarṇaprabhāsa Sūtra (Golden Light Sutra). A comparable example of multiscript textual practice occurs in IOL Khot. S. 7.
Khot. S. 20 / Khot. S. 21 [xii] (Fig. 11), the recto and verso of a single sheet, shows how multiscript writing could shape reading practices. The manuscript contains Khotanese and Chinese texts connecting Khotan and Dunhuang, including a panegyric to the Khotanese king Viśa’ Dharma dated to 982. Although its Chinese text is written in vertical columns, these proceed from left to right rather than the usual right to left, following the direction of the Khotanese text.
Or. 8210/S. 5212 (Fig. 12) provides particularly direct evidence for practical communication. A scroll previously containing a Chinese sūtra was reused on its other side for a Khotanese-Chinese phrasebook in which Chinese expressions were rendered in Brāhmī script, allowing Khotanese speakers to use them without reading Chinese characters. Expressions such as “bring water” and “make food for me” suggest practical use in everyday encounters. A Khotanese note and an apparently draft Tibetan letter add a third language to the manuscript.
Comparable Khotanese-Chinese phrasebooks survive in Or. 8212/162 and P. 2927. The former includes everyday and commercial expressions such as “bring me cucumbers,” “bring me gourd,” and “I sell you one cloth.”
Conclusion
The sheer number of Dunhuang texts and their linguistic diversity can be overwhelming. Focusing instead on the 13 items highlighted in this article allows us to recover the complexity of individual objects and, through them, something of the people who lived in Dunhuang or passed through it. Each manuscript offers a micro-history, sometimes extending over centuries, as texts were written, reused, added to, and read in new ways. Dunhuang has often been imagined as a stop on a route to somewhere else, an image perpetuated by the language of the Silk Roads and its emphasis on the movement of luxury goods. Reading these 13 items closely shifts the perspective from routes passing through Dunhuang to the practices of the people who inhabited it. Their multilingualism, changing uses, and material histories reveal a cosmopolitan city not simply as a node of exchange, but as a place in which exchange was lived, negotiated, and inscribed on the manuscripts themselves.
Notes
[i] The 13 items discussed here were identified through the IEDC and selected on the basis of their Dunhuang provenance and multilingual or multiscript contents involving Chinese. GXW0284, now held by the Museum of Renmin University, is excluded because it lacks a secure findspot.
[ii] The International Dunhuang Programme (IDP; formerly the International Dunhuang Project) is an international collaboration of libraries, museums, and research institutions that provides information and digital images relating to the Eastern Silk Roads. The Invisible East Digital Corpus (IEDC) contains descriptions of the documents discussed here but not their images; most have been digitised and can be consulted through the IDP.
[iii] “Brāhmīc scripts” refers to writing systems derived from Brāhmī, including those used for Tibetan and Khotanese. Brāhmī itself is generally thought to have developed under the influence of the Aramaic script, which spread into Central Asia during the Achaemenid period (ca. 550–330 BCE).
[iv] The language of these documents is Middle Chinese rather than standard modern Chinese.
[v] Bailey (1945–67) transliterated the Khotanese texts but did not provide translations in those volumes, although he translated some of the material elsewhere. The British Library texts have since been translated by Skjærvø.
[vi] Mahāyāna is a major Buddhist tradition that developed in India and spread through Central Asia into China. Its precise definition remains contested (Silk 2002), but particularly important is the bodhisattva ideal, according to which beings seeking or attaining enlightenment postpone final nirvāṇa in order to assist others towards enlightenment.
[vii] Sūtras are teachings or discourses traditionally attributed to the Buddha or his disciples.
[viii] The Sogdian text is written in an Aramaic-derived script. Its editors suggest that the writer was probably Christian rather than Buddhist, while not excluding the possibility that he was Muslim. Determining the writer's religious affiliation lies beyond the scope of this discussion.
[ix] A dhāraṇī is a formula or incantation intended for recitation.
[x] A Buddhist mantra is a sound, syllable, word, or sequence of words recited repetitively, often as part of meditative or ritual practice.
[xi] The Sitātapatrā-dhāraṇī is a protective incantation associated with the bodhisattva Sitātapatrā.
[xii] These two shelfmarks represent parts of the same manuscript, which were originally sewn together but have since been separated.
Fig. 6 a. Close-up of BL manuscript Or. 8210/S. 6701 (recto): a Buddhist text in Khotanese and Sanskrit. © British Library
Fig. 6 b. close-up BL manuscript Or. 8210/S. 6701 (verso): a copy of Xuanzang’s translation of Mahāprajñāpāramitā-sūtra. © British Library
Fig. 7 a. BnF P. 5535: « Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France » Annotations on the reading direction are mine.
Fig. 7 b. BnF P. 5535: « Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France » Annotations on the reading direction are mine.
Fig. 8. BnF P. 2855 « Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France» Annotations on the reading direction are mine.
Fig. 8. BnF P. 2855 recto with Tibetan in black and Chinese interlinear transcriptions in black and red. « Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France» Annotations on the reading direction are mine.
Fig. 9a. BnF P. 3861. A short Khotanese dedication on folio 1v. « Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France » Annotations are mine.
Fig. 9b. BnF P. 3861. Tibetan dhāraṇī passages, written in Chinese on fol. 31v. « Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France » I have drawn red boxes around the Chinese annotations.
Fig. 10a. BnF P. 5597 verso: Kumārajīva’s Chinese translation of the Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra (Diamond Sutra) written in Brāhmī script. « Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France »
Fig. 10b. BnF P. 5597 recto: Suvarṇaprabhāsa Sūtra (Golden Light Sutra), in Chinese translation of Dharmakṣema, written in a calligraphic kai script. « Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France »
Fig. 11. BL Khot. S. 21. with Chinese kai writing arranged vertically, but read from left to right © British Library. With Chinese writing in the top half arranged vertically, but read left-to-right. The bottom half is written in Khotanese. Annotations on the Chinese writing are mine.
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Cite this article
Vorderstrasse, T. 2026. "Reading and Writing in Multilingual Dunhuang". Eds. M. Arghandehpour and A. Azad. Document of the Month. Invisible East. doi: XX
About the author
Tasha Vorderstrasse is the University and Continuing Education Program Coordinator and Research Associate at the University of Chicago. Her research focuses on the material culture of the Near East, south Caucasus, and Central Asia and the relationship between these areas and China.
The online series, Document of the Month, presents some of the most interesting and revealing medieval documents from the desks of Invisible East researchers and their colleagues worldwide. Each piece in the series is dedicated to a single document or a closely related group of documents from the Islamicate East and tells their story in an engaging and accessible way. You will also find images, editions and translations of the documents. If you would like to contribute to the Document of the Month series, please, get in touch with the team.
