42 Taenzer
the spring and autumn banquets (45) as well as to Buddhist rituals (19) and
funeral services (10). Prayer books for different festivities are also extant. Two
concern the Buddha-Sand-Impression Festivity (Chin. yinsha fo 印沙佛)
celebrated on Chinese New Year’s day. This fact is interesting as the texts in
these books, which were recited in front of the Buddha, follow a certain struc-
ture: first of all the Buddha is praised, then the purpose of the ceremony is
explained, the atmosphere and ritual are stated and finally the content of the
prayer is explained. The other prayer texts are similar in structure.100 The exist-
ence of these books shows that the members of these worship clubs conducted
the ceremonies together without the assistance of a monk or nun.
Worship clubs were also formed to perform other tasks than organising
religious festivities. A set of manuscripts copied on a scroll101 shows that
people formed a worship club because they lived in the same area and may
have had the same profession. Two texts refer to the Xiuwen Fangxiang
worship club (Chin. Xiuwen fangxiang she 修文坊巷社). The name of the wor-
ship club implies that its members lived in a quarter in which workshops for
scribes existed. They offered donations for the restoration of a private stūpa.
Generally, the founding of worship clubs was not restricted to Dunhuang as
some manuscripts from Turfan and Kučā attest to similar activities.102
This form of organising tasks seems to have been so successful that it was
also used for work usually arranged by the administration. Thus there are cir-
culars calling for watchmen and for carrying out irrigation work. The punish-
ment for not attending such activities was in these cases pronounced by the
teamleader (Chin. duitou 對頭) and consisted of lashes. This information is
found in seven Chinese and one fragmentary Tibetan manuscript.103 Two can
100 Yamamoto, She Associations, 31.
101 P. 4044 is a scroll containing five texts; it is published in transliteration in Tang Gengou
唐耕耦 and Lu Longji 陸龍基, ed. Dunhuang shehui jingji wenxian zhenji shilu
敦煌社会经济文献真跻释录 [Original Reproduction of the Documents of Society and
Economy of Dunhuang], vol. 1 (Beijing: Quanguo tushuguan wenxian suowei zhongxin,
1990), 384, but mistakenly designated as P. 4040. These five texts were copied during the
reign of the Cao family, but the originals were written earlier. Two texts are dated to 887
and 899.
102 Yamamoto, She Associations, includes three texts, one from Turfan and two from Kučā,
texts 304–306: Otani 2355, 1529 and 1535.
103 The Tibetan manuscript IOL Tib J 793 is published in Thomas, Tibetan Literary Texts, 404;
Takeuchi, Tsuguhito, “Sociolinguistic Implications of the Use of Tibetan in East Turkestan
from the End of Tibetan Domination through the Tangut Period (9th–12th c.),” in Turfan
Revisited—The First Century of Research into the Arts and Cultures of the Silk Road, ed.