THE TENTATIVE IDEAS ON ESTABLISHING THE NEW SPECIAL PHILOLOGY OF STUDYING THE DOCUMENTS OF DONGBA SCRIPTS OF THE NAHSI NATIONALITY
YU Suisheng
The documents of Dongba scripts of the Nahsi nationality have great quantity, various forms, rich contents and long research history, but the research on them is rather weak, although the science about the Nahsi nationality which is based on the core of the culture of the Dongba scripts is becoming the hottest discipline on the world.
It’s necessary to establish the new special philology of studying the documents of the Dongba scripts to make clear their conditions, disclosing the law of their emerging and developing, summing up the predecessors’ experiences and achievements, and benefiting the researchers who are studying the science of the Nahsi nationality.
This paper issued the tentative ideas for this new special discipline, and it ould be constituted of the following essentials: the research scope of the Dongba scripts, their categories, handwriting carriers, formats, characters, contents and length; their emerging, transcribing, handing down and spreading; the creation of the Dongba scripts and Dongba who have handed down the documents; the research on the documents’ versions, timing, region, store, compilation, catalogue and issuance; the evaluation and introduction of the works on the Dongba scripts; the research methods and prospects of this new discipline of studying the documents of the Dongba scripts.