220 wilkens
jun 歸義軍) established diplomatic contacts between Dunhuang and the
West Uyghur Kingdom, which are mirrored in Chinese economic documents.117
From the 1020s until the Tanguts came to power in this region (around 1035),
Dunhuang was under direct control of the Western Uyghurs.118
It is common opinion in Turkic studies that at least some of the literary Old
Uyghur manuscripts from the library cave at Dunhuang119 are not local prod-
ucts of Dunhuang scriptoria but were rather imported.120 The unusual small
format of a Uyghur codex booklet containing the story of Kalyānaṃkara and
座敦煌 2 敦煌の歴史 [Lectures on Tun-huang, Volume 2: The History of Tun-huang], ed.
Kazuo Enoki 一雄榎 (Tokyo: Daito shuppansha, 1980), 297–338. Contacts in the tenth
century are summarised in Rong, Xinjiang, “The Relationship of Dunhuang with the
Uighur Kingdom in Turfan in the Tenth Century,” in De Dunhuang à Istanbul: Hommage
à James Russell Hamilton, ed. Louis Bazin and Peter Zieme (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001),
275–298. On the connection between Turfan and Dunhuang see as well Moriyasu, Takao,
“The West-Uighur Kingdom and Tun-huang around the 10th–11th Centuries,” Berlin-
Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Berichte und Abhandlungen 8 (2000):
337–368.
117 See Rong, “Relationship,” 276–280. In the first half of the 11th century the West Uyghurs
extended their political dominion as far as Dunhuang (pace Moriyasu, “Chronology,” 192).
Prior to this the Cao (曹) dynasty kept up marriage ties only with the Uyghur principality
at Ganzhou and with Khotan and not with the West Uyghur Kingdom. See Hamilton,
Manuscrits Ouïgours, vol. 1, XVIII; Russell-Smith, Uygur Patronage, 58–68. Dunhuang
was located between the West Uyghur Kingdom in the West and the Ganzhou Uyghur
principality in the East.
118 See Moriyasu, Takao, “The Sha-chou Uighurs and the West Uighur Kingdom,” Acta Asiatica
78 (2000): 29. The view of some Chinese scholars who put forward the hypothesis that
there was an independent Shazhou Uyghur Kingdom is refuted with sound arguments in
Moriyasu “Sha-chou Uighurs,” 40–45. One of the proponents of an independent Shazhou
Uyghur Kingdom is Yang who stated in article that the Kagans of Shazhou came to power
only after the Tanguts (Xixia) destroyed the Guiyi jun Regime (Yang, “Sha-chou Uighur
Kingdom”, 81). He assumes that the Uyghurs repopulated Shazhou in 1036 after the victory
of the Tanguts. He further expressed his opinion on p. 82 that the Old Uyghur documents
edited in Hamilton, Manuscrits Ouïgours, belong to this Kingdom. He consequently dates
them to the middle of the 11th century. Hansen (The Silk Road, 190), however, thinks that
the Ganzhou Uyghurs took control over Dunhuang after 1002.
119 Some late Uyghur Buddhist texts were moved to the library cave by the guardian Wang as
already Aurel Stein surmised. See Hamilton, Manuscrits Ouïgours, vol. 1, s.
120 The same is true for some Sogdian texts. Yoshida (“Die buddhistischen sogdischen Texte,”
337, n. 14) summarises the information given in the colophons to Buddhist Sogdian texts
found in Dunhuang. P. sogd. 2 was translated in Chang’an and Intox. (British Library)
was translated in Luoyang. Both texts were brought to Dunhuang whereas P. sogd. 8 was
translated in Dunhuang.