Tun-Huang Popular Narratives

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.