Visiting Dunhuang: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Library Cave

In the remote western landscape of China, on the edge of the Gobi Desert, sits Dunhuang, a lonely city of about 200,000 that was once one of the region's most vital hubs. Established as a garrison outpost in 111 BCE, from 400 AD it grew into a thriving crossroads of art, culture, trade, and ideas stemming from a wide range of influences from the Middle East, Persia, China, India, Greece, and Rome. Evidence of its illustrious past can be found in the nearby UNESCO certified Mogao Caves, a lonely stone cliff pocked with over 700 man-made recesses. Around 500 of these have painted interiors equivalent to a wall of art 15 feet high and six miles long. 

At the end of the 19th century, a Taoist priest called Abbot Wang Yuanlu, who appointed himself caretaker, discovered a chamber that became known as the Library Cave, sealed since the 11th century. In it were 40,000 objects– documents, scrolls, business contracts, drawings, and ephemera, as well as priceless works of art. In 1908, a 30-year-old French monk by the name of Paul Pelliot, a polyglot speaking 25 languages and already a tenured professor at the French University of Hanoi, pored through 10,000 documents in just three weeks, unlocking the mysteries of the caves.

Beginning September 27th through February 23, 2025, a new exhibition at the British Library showcases over 50 manuscripts, printed documents, and pictorial works from the sealed cave. Mainly pulled from the Library's own collection, with three loans from the British Museum and one a contemporary artwork, the new show brings together numerous items that haven’t been displayed together in twenty years.

“We focused on a cast of characters, their intimate world, to give a window into various facets of Dunhuang civic, religious, and creative life,” is how British Library curator Mélodie Doumy characterizes the show.

Civic life is represented by some of the earliest documents in the collection, shedding light on the lives of merchants who traveled from the region of Sogdiana (straddling modern-day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan). These items come not from the Mogao Caves, but from another site near Dunhuang, corresponding to the westernmost part of the Great Wall that was built during the Han Dynasty. Included are letters dating to the early 4th century, correspondence from Sogdian merchants and their families who established a series of communities stretching from their homeland to central China.

Another set of documents touch on the diplomatic exchanges between Dunhuang and the Kingdom of Khotan about 1,800 kilometers to the west (near what is now Xinjiang). From them we learn of intermarriage alliances that strengthened diplomatic relationships between the two silk road oases.

The star of the show is the Diamond Sutra, a Mahayana Buddhist text, the oldest, complete printed book with a date, dating to May 11, 868. “It comes with a beautifully illustrated frontispiece and it’s a complete document,” says Doumy, noting that it was printed from carved woodblock and contains a discussion between the Buddha and his elderly disciple. The frontispiece depicts the sermon, with Buddha addressing an assembly under a canopy of trees.

Towards the end of the sermon, a disciple named Subhūti asked how the sutra should be known. He was told to call it “The Diamond of Transcendent Wisdom,” because its teaching “will cut like a diamond blade through worldly illusion to illuminate what is real and everlasting.”

The other star of the show is the earliest known map of the night sky, dating to the 7th century. “It shows you the whole of the sky, which would have been seen from the Chinese capital at the time, now Xi’an,” explains Doumy. “They've got over 1,300 stars depicted, grouped together in Chinese tradition, which is completely different to how we would put our constellations together. Considering it was done based on observation with the naked eye before even the telescope was invented– the astronomers used mathematical projections which were not found in the west until the Renaissance– it’s astonishing how scientifically accurate it is.”

The Old Tibetan Annals chronicle the Tibetan Empire from 641-764, constituting a year-by-year account of the period. It begins with a brief overview of the early reign of the first Tibetan Emperor, Songtsen Gampo. From the time the Chinese Princess Wencheng arrived in 643 until Songtsen Gampo's death in 650, it proceeds with a list of dated events through 764, like the 15-day occupation of the Chinese capital of Chang'an by Tibetan soldiers in 763.

“Before, there was very little known of the Tibetan empire, and it was mainly known through Chinese sources,” says Doumy. “The fact that it’s some of the first documentary evidence in the Tibetan language is what makes it so unique.”

A scroll roughly 4.5 meters long and written in old Turkish, the “Xuastwanift” is a confessional book of Manichean Uyghurs, followers of the 3rd Century BC Persian prophet Mani whose teachings drew from a brew of Platonism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Marcionism, Christianity, Hellenistic and Rabbinic Judaism, Ancient Greek, Gnostic movements, Babylonian, and other Mesopotamian religions.

Mani is sometimes called the final prophet after Zoroaster, Gautama Buddha, and Jesus Christ. The name “Xuastvanift” comes from the Uyghur word for “confession” or “repentance.” Its text offers insight into the lives of Manichaean communities in the East. “It’s representative of a religion that was practiced quite widely, including in the Uyghur kingdom, which was really closely connected to Dunhuang,” offers Doumy.

Predating Mani was the prophet Zoroaster, the inspiration behind a manuscript fragment dating to the 9th century, nearly 400 years older than any other surviving Zoroastrian scripture. “It's between 1500 BC and 500 BC, one of the oldest religions in the world. After the text about the prophet, there’s a transcription of the prayers taken in ancient Iranian language. The calligraphy is beautiful.”

After the year 1400, as trade turned to maritime routes, the silk road fell out of use. Flash floods from the nearby Dachuan River destroyed portions of some of the cave murals, while salt in the rock ate away at areas beyond the water’s reach.

A site that received only 25,000 visitors in 1979, the Mogao Caves now number over a million a year, most of them Chinese. In 2014, a visitor center was opened to accommodate the surge that makes it one of the most visited destinations in China.

“We want to show it was once a very bustling center along the silk road,” offers Doumy. “But more than that, it was a vital meeting point between East and West, but it was also an important  buddhist pilgrimage center. So, you have a melting pot where you have people, languages, ideas, and religions all converging. We wanted to tell the story of the people who lived, traveled through, worshiped or worked in Dunhuang.”