Dunhuang studies refers to a subject with Dunhuang suicide note, Dunhuang grottoes art and Dunhuang studies theory as its main contents, and also taking Dunhuang historical geography as its research object. It is a comprehensive subject that studies, excavates, arranges and protects cultural relics and documents in Dunhuang area of China. It is also known as one of the three major regional cultures in China, along with Hui studies and Tibetan studies. In the 26th year of Guangxu reign (1900, a twenty-five-year term), on May 26th of the lunar calendar, Taoist Wang came across the Tibetan Sutra Cave (now numbered as 17 Cave) while cleaning up the sand accumulated in the sixth cave of Dunhuang studies. However, the local rich gentry in Dunhuang did not know the value of these cultural relics in the cave, and the corrupt Qing government failed to properly protect them. As a result, a large number of Dunhuang suicide notes and cultural relics in the Tibetan Sutra Cave were bound by foreign "expeditions" and scattered around the world. The rest of the robbery was transported to Beijing by the Qing government and entered the library of the Tibetan capital. Murals and statues in the Mogao Grottoes were also looted and destroyed. From 19 14 to 19 15, Odenburg of Russia led a team to inspect Dunhuang and Mogao grottoes, which not only collected a large number of Dunhuang manuscripts, but also plundered many murals in 263 grottoes. 192 1 year, hundreds of white bandit troops who lost in the Soviet-Russian civil war fled to the Mogao grottoes. They painted murals at will and cooked them in caves, causing a large number of murals to be smoked. 1924, Warner Company of the United States went to the Mogao Grottoes to steal and peel off a large area of murals, taking away colored sculptures. The loss of Dunhuang's suicide note and cultural relics has caused immeasurable losses to China culture, but objectively it has promoted scholars in the East and the West to sort out and study it from different angles, and in the 1930s, a new discipline, Dunhuang Studies, was formed. The rise of Dunhuang studies has attracted academic attention to Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes. Since 1930s and 1940s, the number of China historians, archaeologists and artists visiting Dunhuang has gradually increased. Through their research and publicity, Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes have gradually increased their popularity in the cultural circles. 1944, Dunhuang art research institute was established, which undertook the responsibility of protecting grottoes and copying Dunhuang murals. 195 1 year, Dunhuang art research institute was renamed Dunhuang Yi Wu research institute. 1In August, 984, Dunhuang Research Institute was expanded and established on the basis of Dunhuang Cultural Relics Research Institute. 1986 65438+February, Dunhuang was listed as a famous historical and cultural city by the state. 1August, 987, Dunhuang County was changed to a county-level city. In the same year, in 65438+February, Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes was listed in the World Cultural Heritage List by UNESCO. In recent 20 years, the development of Dunhuang studies in China is reflected in several aspects: First, the collation and publication of documents. 1981-1986, The Dunhuang Treasure edited by Huang was published by Taiwan Province Xinfengwen Company, with a huge volume of *** 140, which influenced Dunhuang studies and printed Dunhuang Chinese documents in Britain, France and China. From 65438 to 0990, Taiwan Province Province and the mainland jointly published 63 volumes of Dunhuang suicide notes, mainly collected by Beijing Library, and some Dunhuang suicide notes collected by Britain and France. Since 1990, Sichuan People's Publishing House has successively published 15 volumes of British-Tibetan Dunhuang documents (non-Buddhist scriptures in Chinese) jointly edited by Dunhuang and Turpan Society of China, Institute of History of China Academy of Social Sciences, School of Asian and African Studies of London University and British Library. This atlas adopts the latest photographic printing technology, and the plates are clear. Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, in cooperation with Russian and domestic departments, has published Dunhuang and Turpan documents since 1992. The published catalogues are Dunhuang documents collected in Russia and Dunhuang and Turpan documents collected in Shanghai Museum. Second, it is a systematic series of research works. For example, Zhou Shaoliang's "Dunhuang Literature Classification Series" (1996) is the first high-level work to systematically sort out and study Dunhuang literature according to disciplines and topics. The author has worked for more than ten years. Taiwan Province New Style Publishing Company's Introduction to Dunhuang Studies Series and Dunhuang Series were jointly compiled by Chinese mainland, Taiwan Province Province and foreigners, with mainland scholars as the main authors. The third is the series of "Buddhist documents outside Tibet" published by Religious Culture Publishing House. Four: The Dictionary of Dunhuang Studies published by Shanghai Dictionary Publishing House, edited by Mr. Ji Xianlin, was written by more than 0/00 experts in 13 years, which is a summary of Dunhuang Studies in the past century. Fifth, the protection and artistic research of Dunhuang Grottoes are in the forefront of the world. Dunhuang Research Institute cooperated with its predecessor, Dunhuang Art Research Institute, and other relevant domestic scientific research units to complete the reinforcement project of the southern section, so that the caves in the south of Nanda Statue are protected, and the passages are interconnected, forming a unified whole with the central area. The clean-up of smoked murals has also made progress, making the murals of the early Tang Dynasty blackened by Japanese and Russian bandits show beautiful charm. Dunhuang Research Institute also cooperated with Paint Research Institute to scientifically detect and analyze the reasons for the fading of murals, and also to study and prevent the causes of mural armor. Cooperate with American Getty Foundation and Lanzhou University to study the problem of sand fixation at the top of grottoes. Sixth, there has been a new breakthrough in the utilization of Dunhuang documents. The research on the military history of Shazhou Guiyi has always attracted many Dunhuang scholars. Chinese scholars have basically found out the pedigree years of the envoys of the Guiyi Army since Zhang Yichao and the political and historical context of Zhang Charle's rule, and have also conducted in-depth research on the intermarriage between the Guiyi Army regime and Khotan and Ganzhou Uighur and their relations. A number of high-level achievements have been made in the classification and comprehensive research of Tang Dynasty documents unearthed in Dunhuang, such as documents related to political, legal, military, economic and social life, such as land equalization system, taxation, household registration, handicrafts and commerce. People pay more and more attention to the study of temple economy, such as Jiang Bole's Dunhuang Temple Household System in Tang and Five Dynasties. Seventh, the research results of Dunhuang language and literature are remarkable. A large number of monographs and papers with rich contents have appeared in Dunhuang literature research, such as songs, poems, essays, popular fu and so on. With the deepening of research, the concept and scope of Dunhuang documents are discussed theoretically. In addition, the research on the historical language, music and dance, science and technology, religion and other aspects of ethnic minorities has also achieved fruitful results.