The tales deal with both religious (mostly Buddhist) and secular themes, and make exciting and vivid reading.Tun-huang Popular Narratives presents the only surviving primary evidence of a widespread and flourishing world of popular entertainment during these centuries. The tales deal with both religious (mostly Buddhist) and secular themes, and make exciting and vivid reading.Tun-huang Popular Narratives presents the only surviving primary evidence of a widespread and flourishing world of popular entertainment during these centuries. The tales deal with both religious (mostly Buddhist) and secular themes, and make exciting and vivid reading.Tun-huang Popular Narratives presents authoritative translations of four vernacular Chinese stories, taken from fragmentary texts usually referred to as pien-wen or 'transformation texts'. Dating from the late T'ang (618907) and Five Dynasties (907959) periods, the texts were discovered early last century in a cave at Tun-huang, in Chinese Central Asia. However, written down in an early colloquial language by semi-literate individuals and posing formidable philological problems, the texts have not been studied critically before. Nevertheless they represent the only surviving primary evidence of a widespread and flourishing world of popular entertainment during these centuries. The tales deal with both religious (mostly Buddhist) and secular themes, and make exciting and vivid reading.List of illustrations; Preface; Introduction; 1. Zriputra; 2. Maudgalyyana; 3. Wu Tzu-hs?; 4. Chang I-ch'ao; Usages and symbols; Notes on the texts; References; Index.
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