Mogao caves

Who holds it

Title

The Buddhist community of the Mogao cliff (abbot or caretaker not known); the Uyghur and Tangut donors of the oasis are the patrons

Since

not known

Born

not known

Family

not known

Confidence

low

No head or abbot is named for 1200 in the sources we could read.

Overlord

The emperor Huanzong, as patron and protector (the state protects all religious sites, English Wikipedia).

What it holds

• The cave temples of the cliff

How it was acquired

Under Xia since the conquest of 1036.

Allies and rivals

The oasis community of Shazhou; the Uyghurs of Qocho to the west visit it as a pilgrimage place (not documented).

How things stand that morning

A working shrine of the far-west oases, with many caves made or repainted under Xia (82 on English Wikipedia's count for 1036 to 1226).

Wealth

Not recorded in the sources we could read: no estate, toll or revenue is given for this house in 1200.

Military

None. A house of prayer; the state's garrisons protect it.

Patron

The Xiping district officers, the Uyghur and Tangut lay donors; the Xia court's own patronage is claimed by the campaign board and not verified.

Places of note

• Mogao Caves: Cliff site south-east of Dunhuang.
• Cave 409 (Xia): Uyghur king with attendants, listed as Western Xia.

Where the sources disagree

• Board (dunhuang-mogao): coordinates 40.036, 94.664. English Wikipedia gives 40.03722, 94.80417 (40 02 14 N, 94 48 15 E). We use Wikipedia's; the campaign board's point is the town of Shazhou.
• Board: 'Tangut inscriptions and the esoteric painting of the Xia court'. The Wikipedia page mentions no Tangut inscription at Mogao and names no Xia donor; the esoteric Xia painting we recall is at Yulin and the Eastern Thousand Buddha caves.

Evidence: The caves and the Xia attribution of many of them are documented; the people of 1200 are not.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: A point or a small disc at the site; no estate is drawn because none is documented.

Primary sources for Great Xia

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Annals of the Western Xia, Wu Guangcheng (吳廣成) (1825 to 1827, compiled from Song, Liao, Jin and Yuan sources). A Qing scholar's year-by-year reconstruction of Tangut history from the Chinese histories, since the Xia left no surviving annals of their own in Chinese. Read online
• Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government, Bi Yuan (畢沅), completed by Feng Jiwu after his death (late eighteenth century, finished after 1801, from Song and Yuan sources). A Qing scholar's continuous month-by-month chronicle of the Song and Yuan centuries, compiled from the Song shi, the Liao, Jin and Yuan histories, Li Tao, Li Xinchuan and other Song sources. Read online
• Record of the Personal Campaigns of the Holy Warrior (Chinggis Khan) (presented to Khubilai in 1288, finished in Mongolian in 1290; the surviving Chinese version dates from 1369). A year-by-year Chinese account of Temujin's wars, drawn from the lost Altan Debter (the same source behind the Yuan shi's first chapter and Rashid al-Din). Read online
• The Secret History of the Mongols (1228 or 1240 (the colophon's Year of the Rat is disputed), with later additions; the surviving Chinese transcription and gloss were made under the Ming in the 1380s). The only Mongol account of Temujin's rise, written within living memory. Read online
• History of the Song, the chapters on Xia and on foreign states, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345). The Song court's accounts of its neighbours, each arranged as an annal of embassies and wars. Read online
• Compendium of Chronicles: the Turkic and Mongol tribes and the life of Chinggis Khan, Rashid al-Din Hamadani (about 1300 to 1311, in the Ilkhanate). The fullest description of who held what on the steppe around 1200, written a century later from Mongol court records (the Altan Debter) and from informants such as Bolad Chingsang. Read online
• History of the Jin, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office, with Ouyang Xuan among the chief compilers (1343 to 1344, from the Jin veritable records and the Jin national history). The official history of the Jurchen empire that ruled north China and Manchuria in 1200. Read online
• History of the Song, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345, from the Song veritable records, state histories and the Huiyao). The official history of the Southern Song, which ruled from Lin'an (Hangzhou) in 1200. Read online

5 more in the sources library for The Tarim, the Uyghurs and Xia.