Chinese manuscript of the 10th century “Dispute of tea and wine” discovered in “Dunhuang's library”

The Chinese manuscript of the 10th century “Dispute of Tea and Wine” (“Cha jiu lun”) of scribe scholar Wang Fu, was discovered in the early 20th century in the Mogao cave complex near Dunhuang city of the Gansu province. It has long attracted the attention of many specialists, since the study of this manuscript fits into the context of complex studies of historical monuments along the routes of the Silk Road. The Mogao complex also known as the Dunhuang caves dunhuang shiku (or The Caves of the Thousand Buddhas qian fo dong ) has gained international fame not only because of its 4-14th centuries wall paintings and statues preserved in 492 caves, but also for its unique, in magnitude and value, collection of ancient manuscripts and xylographs in different languages, which has been named “Dunhuang’s Library” ( dunhuang zangjingdong ). The discovered monuments carrying secular and religious character provide important information which open up the opportunity to identify specifics of trade, political and cultural ties during the 4-14th centuries in Central Asia, as well as their influence on the ideology of the Middle Ages. The documents contain large amounts of information about history, geography, religion, economics, ethnography, linguistics, literature, art, science and technology of China and Central Asia’s “western states” from the time of the Northern Dynasties (386-581) to the Northern Song Dynasty (10-12 centuries). These documents also contain work of Taoist, Buddhist and Confucian philosophical thought. In the first decades of the 20th century after “Dunhuang’s Library” was discovered, thousands of manuscripts and Buddhist relics were taken away by researchers, which are now dispersed throughout museums and libraries of 14 countries and regions. The «Dispute of Tea and Wine» manuscript written in Chinese was among the manuscripts taken by famous French sinologist Paul Pelliot (1878-1945). “Dispute of Tea and Wine” is a small and quite witty text comprising of about one thousand hieroglyphs, built in the form of a dispute between the two sides about the role, functions and merits of each drink. The text contains a brief summary of this dispute, by a graceful third participant - water, which brings the disputants together. This work is written in a popular genre of Buddhist parables bianwen. Such educational stories served not only as a means of teaching and entertainment, but also reflected the everyday mass culture of the Tang era (618-907) and the period of the Five Dynasties (907-960). The text full of literary allusions and references to historical precedents is written using rhyme and elements of the elegant pairing style of rhythmic prose, which testifies to the erudition and artistic taste of the author. Currently, the manuscript of the work is known in six lists; four of which are stored in the Paul Pelliot Foundation in Bibliothèque National de France in Paris, and the other two in British Museum in London. The authors of this article translated the original list of works from Bibliothèque National de France (“Pelliot fonds chinois 2718”) with the help of the reconstructed text of the original, and is accompanied by the necessary historical and philological commentary.