Journeys on the Silk Road (17 page)

Stein at first believed the cave had been filled in great confusion, and from this he formed a theory about why it was concealed. “There can be little doubt that the fear of some destructive invasion had prompted the act,” he wrote. But he also found evidence for a conflicting theory: that the cave was no more than a storehouse for sacred material. He noted bags carefully packed with fragments of sacred writings and paintings. “Such insignificant relics would certainly not have been collected and sewn up systematically in the commotion of a sudden emergency.”

Scholars agree the cave was plastered shut around the beginning of the eleventh century, but the reasons why remain unclear. The cave’s guardians may have feared Islamic invaders from the west. The sword of Islam had already conquered Dunhuang’s ally, Khotan, in 1006. Invaders did come from the north, but these were Tanguts who, as Buddhists themselves, seem an unlikely threat to Buddhist scriptures.

But there is also support for Stein’s other thesis, that the cave was a storeroom or tomb for material no longer needed by local monasteries. The printed Diamond Sutra, for example, showed signs of damage and repeated repair and may simply have been judged to have reached the end of its useful life. Buddhists did not simply throw away sacred material. They buried it reverentially. Even today Buddhism has rites surrounding the disposal of spiritual writings.

The cave does not appear to have been sealed ahead of an unrecorded exodus from the sacred complex. Nearby Dunhuang was still a bustling oasis when the cave was hidden. The area had a population of about 20,000, including about 1,000 monks and nuns in more than a dozen monasteries. The caves too were thriving, with some of their most beautiful chapels still to be created. Indeed the caves continued to thrive after the arrival of Genghis Khan in the thirteenth century. Although the Mongol chief ransacked Dunhuang, he not only left the caves undamaged, his rule saw new ones commissioned. The caves were still flourishing 300 years after the Library Cave was sealed. The last cave is believed to have been painted in 1357, just before the start of the Ming dynasty. Soon after, the Silk Road was abandoned, and the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas sank into a long decline.

Whatever the reason for its sealing, the Library Cave—or Cave 17 as it is prosaically known today—wasn’t always used to house manuscripts. It was initially a memorial chapel for the monk whose name was on the marble slab, Hong Bian, who died around the time the Diamond Sutra was being printed. He was an important monk—so important he had the right to wear the highly prestigious color purple. A statue of him, seated in meditation posture, was initially installed in the cave. It was placed against a wall behind which was painted a decorative scene including two attendants—one holding a staff, the other holding a fan—and a pair of trees from which hang his pilgrim’s bag and water bottle. The statue was removed when the cave was filled with scrolls and has since been found to contain traces of purple silk. When and why the cave changed from being a memorial chapel to housing the scrolls remains a mystery.

As Wang brought the first of the bundles to Stein’s “reading room,” the explorer’s excitement mounted. They were Chinese sutras, neatly rolled, about a foot high and some more than thirty feet long. The thick paper rolls, enclosed in protective cotton wrappers, even retained their yellow dye despite signs of having been much handled. The strong paper was astonishingly well preserved. Other scrolls had lost their wrappers and were fastened with rough cords, but even these were undamaged. The dry desert air, the darkness within the cave and even the insulating sand had all combined to provide a perfect tomb in which they had lain undisturbed for centuries.

“No place could have been better adapted for preserving such relics than a chamber carved in the live rock of these absolutely barren hills and completely shut off from any moisture that the atmosphere of this desert valley ever contained,” Stein wrote. “Enclosed by thick rock everywhere, except for the narrow walled-up entrance, and that, too, covered up by drift-sand for centuries, the air within the small chapel could have undergone but slight changes of temperature. Not in the driest soil could the relics of a ruined site have been so completely protected from injury as they had been here.”

With the documents finally in their hands, exactly what they were looking at was hard to say. Chiang had no understanding of Buddhist literature and Stein, to his immense frustration and regret, could not read Chinese. Not that they had time for more than a cursory look. Chiang’s attempt to make a rough list of the findings was soon abandoned as Wang, having overcome his initial reluctance, began dragging out bundle after bundle from the cave. “It would have required a whole staff of learned scribes to deal properly with such a deluge,” Stein wrote. As Wang clambered across the cave’s mountain of documents to remove bundles, Stein feared the priest would be buried under an avalanche of tumbling manuscripts.

Each bundle contained about ten rolls, mostly Chinese scrolls. But there were also documents in Tibetan, Sanskrit, Uyghur, and Sogdian. Soon Wang began hauling not just paper scrolls but delicate paintings on silk and linen. He brought huge silk banners of graceful Buddhas and bodhisattvas that appeared to have once hung from temple entrances. To Stein’s surprise, Wang apparently attached little value to the exquisite silks. The abbot had even used some of them as padding to level the floor of the cave. Wang kept bringing more and more bundles of the painted silks and other written material. Stein suspected they were a smokescreen to divert his attention from the sacred Chinese sutras.

By the end of the first day, Stein set aside the most promising manuscripts and paintings for what he euphemistically called “further study.” These were the rolls he desperately wanted to acquire. Wang had already given away some manuscripts to curry favor with local officials. Stein feared the rest of the precious hoard would similarly dribble away and be lost to scholarship forever.

It was almost dark when Stein and Chiang emerged from the makeshift reading room with Wang. The three tired men stood on the loggia with its image of Xuanzang bringing sacred manuscripts from India. This was not the time to raise directly the question of selling the hoard, but there could be no more ideal backdrop for Stein to drop hints that would subtly reinforce the omens. He again invoked Xuanzang, whose guidance had surely led him to this magnificent hidden store of sacred relics—some of which may even have been the result of the ancient pilgrim’s journey—within a temple tended by so devoted an admirer.

Chiang remained behind with Wang to press the point. Surely continued confinement in a sealed cave was not the reason the great Xuanzang had led the abbot—and Stein—to this precious Buddhist lore, Chiang argued. And given that Wang could not study the works himself, it would be an act of great religious merit to allow Stein, Xuanzang’s great devotee, to make them available for the benefit of Buddhist scholars in that great “temple of learning in Ta-Ying-kuo”—England. And, Chiang hinted, it would be an act of merit that would be supported by a generous donation of silver to assist his restorations.

Chiang’s powers of persuasion worked more quickly than he or Stein had dared hope. Around midnight, when Stein was about to retire to bed, he again heard footsteps outside his tent. Again it was Chiang, who had come to ensure the coast was clear. He returned a short time later carrying all the bundles Stein had set aside earlier in the day. Wang had agreed to allow the removal of the material—provided no one other than the three men knew. While Stein was on Chinese soil, he must not breathe a word about their dealings. This was hardly an onerous condition for a man such as Stein, who by nature kept his own counsel. And it was in his own interest; he might want to acquire more manuscripts.

The abbot could not risk being seen outside his quarters at night, so Chiang offered to fetch the material. For the next seven nights, Chiang’s slight figure crept along the river bank to Stein’s camp. He struggled under the weight of increasingly heavy loads made up of the most promising bundles set aside each day in the reading room. The days were spent hastily examining scrolls and silks. Stein was elated and oppressed by the volume of material that kept emerging from what he termed the “black hole,” constantly anxious that Wang might change his mind.

Should we have time to eat our way through this mountain of ancient paper with any thoroughness? Would not the timorous priest, swayed by his worldly fears and possible spiritual scruples, be moved to close down his shell before I had been able to extract any of the pearls? There were reasons urging us to work with all possible energy and speed, and others rendering it advisable to display studied insouciance and calm assurance.

He could rarely do more than glimpse at what he called this “embarras des richesses.” But somewhere among the cave’s vast contents was a well-preserved scroll, fully intact with an elaborate image of a disciple kneeling before the Buddha. Unlike most of the other documents, this wasn’t handwritten but had been printed with a block of wood. Unfurled, it spanned nearly sixteen and a half feet and contained a Chinese date equating to 868. It was the Diamond Sutra, the world’s earliest dated printed book.

Strolls at dusk up the valley with Dash trotting alongside were Stein’s only relief from full days in the reading room that segued into long evenings writing up notes, letters, reports—and awaiting the late-night arrival of Chiang and the manuscripts. On his return from one such evening walk Stein was overjoyed to discover Turdi, the
dak
runner, had arrived with two huge bags of mail, having made another epic journey: 1,400 miles from Khotan in thirty-nine days. It was the first mail Stein had received since February. Although some of the letters from Europe were already five months old, he sat up until after midnight poring over 170 letters. He was quick to write back to Allen to tell him of his “harvest, rich beyond expectations,” but urged him to keep the news to Stein’s inner circle. Even amid what would be the greatest success of his life, he had pragmatic worries and was mindful that he lacked the money to ensure his continued explorations. Like Wang, he would have to continue to rattle the begging bowl. “Independence, the only protection against needless struggles & bureaucratic wisdom, is still far off; for I cannot claim a pension until 8 years hence (even allowing for furlough) and not until about the same date can I hope for my savings to increase sufficiently to assure to me that freedom for travel etc, which I am eager to enjoy still while life lasts.”

Thrilling as the days were, the work was exhausting. The long hours, his anxieties about Abbot Wang and a recurrent bout of malaria were taking their toll. He confided to his diary: “Very tired with low fever.”