| Monograph 1: Lijiang Old City | |
 Monograph 2: Naxi Dongba Culture |
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Naxi nationality, named as "Yao Xie" in ancient times, belongs to the south branch of Qiang nationality group with population of 250,000. It is divided into two dialects groups as eastern one and western one, and also into four branches, mainly spread in the crossing areas of Yunnan, Sichuan and Xizang provinces, the southwestern border provinces of China. And Yunnan Province Naxi Nationality Autonomous Prefecture is one of their main residences. Dongba culture named after Dongba Church, refers to Naxi ancient culture with a long history of nearly a thousand years. Dongba Church is a primitive religion of Naxi nationality, believing mutigods and deeply influenced by Benism, Buddhism and Taoism. Its believer "Dongba" (means "the intelligent") is a combination of witch, doctor, scholar, artisan and craftsman and an important successor of the traditional culture. In the branch of "Nashi", he is called "Daba" or "Dabo". |
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Dongba Sutra consists of a large number of volumes and there are still over 1,500 kinds and over 20,000 volumes till now, which are collected in the libraries and museums of Lijiang, Kunming, Nanjing, Beijing and Taiwan in China as well as other foreign countries such as, the United States, Britain, Germany and France. The sutra containing from philosophy, history, religion, medicine to astronomy, folklore, literature, and art, is a real encyclopedia of Naxi ancient society. Among this, "Dongba" dancing staff is the earliest one in the world and "Dongba scrolling pictures" and "Dongba painting art" are also rare artistic treasure ...... . |
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| The main recording mark "Dongba character" including 1,400 single characters, is admired as the unique "living pictograph" which is completely preserved in the world. It is not only the history treasure to explore how the human beings' characters comes of but also an ideal style of calligraphy to enrich and improve Chinese traditional calligraphy and art of seal cutting. |
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Since the beginning of this century, the scholars from both China and other more than ten countries have been systematically translating, introducing, studying even creating and sublimating Naxi culture from philology, deify, religion, history and art of calligraphy and painting and have obtained the conspicuous achievements. After the 80's, Yunnan Social Science Institute set up the special research organization---Dongba Culture Research Bureau in the hometown of Naxi nationality. At present, electric computer has been introduced into the research field and the international cooperation and exchanging are increasingly developed. One research group characterized of centering around the national scholars is growing and expanding. Therefore, we believe in, the international Naxi culture research around the Dongba culture will be coming into being. |
