Category Archives: Chinese writing

Graphic variation in early Chinese writing

Posted on 04/30/2017 by imre

Imre Galambos, “Graphic variation in early Chinese writing.” In Gábor Kósa, ed., China Across the Centuries: Papers from a Lecture Series in Budapest. Budapest: Department of East Asian Studies, Eötvös Loránd University, 2017, 33–59. Reading Warring States manuscripts we are … Continue reading →

Posted in archaeology, Character variants, Chinese manuscript, Chinese writing, Corrections, Mistakes, Orthography, Scribal habits | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Correction marks in the Dunhuang manuscripts

Posted on 08/22/2013 by imre

With their span of six hundred some years, the Dunhuang manuscripts are a valuable witness of the process of textual transmission in medieval China. Beside looking at this process from the perspective of texts and their many versions or editions, … Continue reading →

Posted in Chinese writing, Corrections, Dunhuang, Mistakes, Palaeography, published papers, Scribal habits | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Taboo characters in Buddhist manuscripts from Dunhuang

Posted on 06/18/2013 by imre

This is an article that came out in China so the font is a bit–but it is still readable. In the article, I examine how consistently imperial name taboos were observed in Buddhist texts from Dunhuang. Many scholars in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Character variants, Chinese writing, Dating, Dunhuang, Orthography, Palaeography, published papers, Scribal habits | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Odd variants in a Buddhist manuscript

Posted on 08/20/2012 by imre

There is a Dunhuang copy of the Da fangbian Fo baoenjing 大方便佛報恩經 (The sutra of requiting kindness) at the National Library of China (shelfmark BD01534) which has a number of interesting character variants. One of them is the character 爾 … Continue reading →

Posted in Character variants, Chinese writing, Dating, Dunhuang, Orthography, Palaeography, Scribal habits | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Grid lines in medieval Chinese scrolls: Functionality or design?

Posted on 02/09/2012 by imre

Medieval manuscript scrolls are often ruled with grid lines to guide the hand of the calligrapher. These lines are a basic feature of most standard Buddhist and Taoist scrolls, which typically have 17 characters per line and 27-28 (or 31) … Continue reading →

Posted in archaeology, Chinese writing, Dunhuang, epigraphy, Palaeography, Scribal habits | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

The earliest Chinese manuscript corrections

Posted on 08/08/2011 by imre

The Houma covenant texts (Houma mengshu 侯馬盟書) are a large group of jade and stone tablets from the early 5th century BC. Accordingly, they are 2,500 years old and were written approximately during the last years of the life of Confucius. … Continue reading →

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Graphic variability in a Ming printed book

Posted on 07/19/2011 by imre

Lately, I have been working with Ming editions of Zhuge Kongming Xinshu 諸葛孔明心書, a military text attributed to Zhuge Liang but which is most likely an early Song forgery. The earliest edition I was able to inspect was a moveably type … Continue reading →

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Reversed inscriptions: Chinese writing going from left to right

Posted on 06/21/2011 by imre

I have come across an inscription which is read in reversed order, that is, from left to right. This is a famous inscription called Mogaoku ji (Record of the Mogao Caves) on the wall of the antechamber of Cave 156 … Continue reading →

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Manuscript copies of stone inscriptions

Posted on 06/21/2011 by imre

Putting some of my older publications online: Manuscript copies of stone inscriptions in the Dunhuang corpus: Issues of dating and provenance (Imre Galambos) Asiatische Studien/Études Asiatiques LXIII, 4, 2009: 809-826. Abstract Modern observers tend to simplify the complex process of … Continue reading →

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Scribal Notation in Medieval Chinese Manuscripts

Posted on 06/21/2011 by imre

Putting some of my older publications online: Scribal Notation in Medieval Chinese Manuscripts: The hewen (Ligature) and the chongwen (Duplication) Marks (by Imre Galambos) Manuscript Cultures (2010), No. 2. Early Chinese manuscripts and inscriptions often make use of two devices … Continue reading →

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