A Study of the He Hong Dongba Scripture Manuscripts Held in the Harvard-Yenching Library
This study identifies and analyzes 50 Dongba scripture manuscripts held at the Harvard-Yenching Library that were copied by the 19th-century Baisha Dongba priest He Hong, grandfather of the well-known Republican-era Dongba He Cheng. Using colophon translations that encode the scribe's name, birthplace, and age in Dongba and Geba script, the authors date He Hong's copying activity to 1870-1886 and, cross-referencing a dated colophon (Guangxu year 3 = 1877) against He Cheng's known 1879 birth year, establish He Hong's own birth year as 1819 rather than 1879. The article also documents the manuscripts' cover design, opening and punctuation symbols, Rock's cataloguing labels, He Hong's fine calligraphic style, and his mixed use of Dongba script, Geba script, Sanskrit mantras, and Chinese-character colophons and couplets, including an apparently self-composed poem reworking lines from the Song poet Xiang Ziyin.
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