Introduction

The studies presented in this collective work are the fruit of a project that began in the year 2000, about a century after the Dunhuang manuscripts brought to London by Aurel Stein were unpacked. In that year, four eminent scholars from the history departments at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Academy of Research into Chinese Medicine spent three months in London examining the Dunhuang manuscripts related to medicine. At the end of their stay an international workshop was convened, attended by scholars from China, Japan, Europe and the United States. Over the next two years, participants in that workshop joined with other invited scholars in compiling the chapters that make up the present book.