Sam van Schaik and Imre Galambos not only shed light on a dark age of Sino-Tibetan history after the falls of the Tang dynasty and Tibetan empire left voids in official records, but they also take the reader on an enjoyable philological and cultural journey through their careful analysis and interpretation of a tenth-century manuscript once in the hands of a Buddhist pilgrim. This document, now housed at the British Library, has been digitized as part of the International Dunhuang Project. Although van Schaik and Galambos are expert philologists drawing attention to details of orthography, historical linguistics, and handwriting styles, their prose remains accessible, rendering Manuscripts and Travellers a pleasurable read for anyone interested in the dynamic historical-cultural aspects of Buddhist pilgrimage—including advanced undergraduates.
Manuscripts and Travellers consists of ten chapters and is divided into two parts: the first concerns the cultural setting and historical contexts for the “Daozhao manuscript,”...
