Harvard Uni’s Naxi manuscript collection

Harvard University has a rather excellent digitised collection of Naxi manuscripts online here.

The collection contains 598 manuscripts and three funereal scrolls originally collected by Joseph Rock and Quentin Roosevelt, although only 21 manuscripts are dated (traditionally the Dongba scriptures are not dated), with the earliest being from 1826 and the latest from 1910.

The manuscripts all have their titles recorded in Naxi script and Naxi pinyin, presumably work done by Li Lincan and Zhu Baotian at the Institute.  The collection is worth a browse, but nothing is actually translated; they do however have a great collection of divination scriptures that I’m sure I will return to in the future.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>