Dating of Dunhuang Manuscripts

Only if we are familiar with when the materials were written and transcribed can we determine their historical value and collation value. Dunhuang manuscripts are mostly incomplete, and only a fraction of them have chronology of emperors that could designate years in specific. A few manuscripts are noted with the Heavenly Stems or Earthly Branches, which need to be further researched to infer the actual years. Hence, dating the manuscripts is one of the prerequisites for collating and studying Dunhuang documents. Jiang Liangfu took the “dating” of Dunhuang manuscripts as the premise before formal researches. He said, “If we could date accurately, all the preliminary works are basically well-prepared.”