CENSUS, a general catalogue and index of Dongba manuscripts

You have selected to browse the collection of Dongba manuscript actually preserved in the Chinese - Japanese Library of Harvard-Yenching Institute - Boston, Massachusetts

The Harward Yenqing collection is the most numerous of the Western world, and it preserves 598 manuscripts which originally belonged to Joseph Francis Charles Rock (1884-1962) and Quentin Roosevelt (1919-1948).

The Harvard-Yenching Library's holdings (510 from Joseph Rock and 88 from Quentin Roosevelt together with three long funereal scrolls) were then acquired by Harvard-Yenching Institute in 1945.

Part of the collection is available as web resource, organized by Harward Yenqing into the following series:

  1. Worship to Dongba Shiluo
  2. Worship of the Dragon King
  3. Worship to the Wind
  4. Prayers for Long Life
  5. Worship for the Worthy
  6. God of Victory
  7. Worship to the House Gods
  8. For the Living
  9. Remove Filthiness
  10. Closing the Door to Death
  11. Venerating the Dead
  12. Divination
  13. Lingza Scripture
  14. Scrolls

Sets represent a criterius for ordering and gathering manuscripts which isn't adopted in CENSUS, thus for browse such manuscripts according to Harward-Yenching Collection criteria please, follow this link to access to Harward-Yenching Collection of Naxi Manuscripts: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:hyl00002

In Harvard-Yenching Library each manuscript has its own identification number, then also an identificator related to the set of appartenence: for instance manuscript number 10374737 is the 1st manuscript of set A - Worship to Dongba Shiluo, thus is also tagged by the id. A-1.

Being these Dongba manuscripts mostly belonged to Joseph Rock private collection, and being Joseph Rock studies and translations referred to his personal numeration system, CENSUS is also developing as a system of equivalence plates for crossing references among Rock's and Harward Yenching's collections by correlation of different identificators: for instance manuscript numbered 10374737 in H.Y. Collection correspond to Rcok's number 1991.

Being the collection of some hundreds of items, it seemed useful to give to the user some instruments to select and browse a sub-groups of manusctipts: the author thought again as the ceremony to which manuscripts belong as the best system to sub-group them; all manuscripts of the collection, however, could be browsed at once.