ИСТИНА

The Russian Collection of Dunhuang manuscripts is one of the major and most unique Dunhuang collections in the world. Nowadays this collection dating from 6th-11th centuries is kept in the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, St. Petersburg and counts more than 20,000 items. As in ancient times and the Middle Ages Dunhuang was a stronghold of the Chinese Empire on its western borders and was then transformed into an important transit point on the Silk Road, it is necessary to study its manuscripts to discover new hidden sides of cultural code of Chinese civilization and its contacts with foreign countries. The author decided to explore “transformation texts” (bianwen, 變文), a scientifically important and unique part of the Russian Dunhuang Collection. Bianwen is a narrative genre of Chinese vernacular literature, that is introduced in the form of retellings of the complex texts of the Buddhist sutras in readily available language. The article deals with the most vivid examples of bianwen. The author offers his own translation and interpretation of these manuscripts. The detailed translation of bianwen and interpretation of its particular part help to establish the link between bianwen and the subjects of the murals in the Dunhuang caves “bianxiang”. As the result, it gives us answers on many questions concerning the interpretation of the wall-paintings in caves of Dunhuang. A major Russian sinologist, Lev Men’shikov, made a great contribution to the detailed study of these manuscripts and the author took into account his major works, as “Chinese Manuscripts from Dunhuang. Works of Buddhist suwenxue Literature”.