| A universal guide for China studiesChinese History - Liao Dynasty 遼 (907-1125) |
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Liao Dynasty |  period before (Five Dynasties)-- Song Dynasty -- Xixia Empire -- Jin Dynasty next period (Yuan)  | ||
 | Map and Geography | ||
 Like many other peoples in East Asia, like the Koreans and the Japanese, the Khitan adopted the Chinese script as their writing system, and naturally wrote a large part of the literature in Chinese, especially political decretes, memorials within the Chinese-styles administration system, but also an important literature genre of the Confucian-educated elite, the poesy. Poems of famous Chinese writers like Bai Juyi 白居易, or Su Dongpo 蘇東坡, were admired, imitated or translated into Khitan. Liao poetry can be admired in the poems of Empress Yide 懿德皇后 (Xiao Guanyin 蕭觀音), Lady Xiao Sese 蕭色色, or Princess Yelü Changge 耶律常哥. Emperors are reported to study the Tang administrative book Zhenguan zhengyao 貞觀政要 and the Five Confucian Classics (Wujing 五經). Only very few relics of Khitan poems and literature are preserved, and much less texts or fragments in Khitan language. The use of the Khitan script (see below) was limited, and only few people mastered this script. In recent years, more Khitan literature was unearthed tombs in the old Liao region, but because the Khitan language is still not fully reconstructable, there are many problems in reading and interpreting Khitan language documents. In the sphere of historical documents like annals, decretes, and memorials in Chinese language, not much is preserved but we know that the official dynastic history of the Liao empire, the Liaoshi 遼史, compiled under the Mongol Toqtohan (Chinese: Tuo Tuo 脫脫), is based on several earlier "veritable records" (shilu 實錄) compiled during the Liao period. The only preserved private writing of the Liao time is Wang Ding's 王鼎 Fenjiaolu 焚椒錄 "Burning Peppers", an account of the case of witchcraft around Empress Xuanyi 宣懿皇后. Others like the "Collections of the Western Pavillion" (Xitingji 西亭集) by Yelü Zizhong 耶律資忠 are lost. In the sphere of religious literature a Buddhist canon was compiled, commented, and printed by woodblocks, Dazangjing 大藏經, later a second edition called Khitan Canon (Danzang 丹藏). The most important book compiled by a Buddhist monk of the Liao period is the Longkan shoujing 龍龕手鏡 (later shoujian 手鑒) "Hand mirror for the dragon niche", written by Xingjun 行均, a dictionary that reflects the popular characters, writing style, and pronunciation of more than 26,000 Chinese charactersThe Khitan script was created around 920 AD under the guidance of Yelü Tulübu 耶律突呂不 and imitated the shape of Chinese characters. This first script is called the Large Khitan Script and borrows many Chinese characters without changing their original appearance, while also other characters are derived a Chinese character and are changed slightly, and a third group of characters has no Chinese origin or counterpart but was invented independently. Like the Chinese script, the Large Khitan Script is logographic, that means every character expresses a word. But because the Khitan language is not related to the monosyllabic Chinese (one word - one syllable - one character) but belongs to the Altaic languages that are highly agglutinating (one word - many syllables) the Chinese logographic script does not provide an ideal | |||