The Jingjiao Documents are a collection of Chinese language texts connected with the 7th-century mission of Alopen, a Church of the East bishop from Sassanian Mesopotamia. The manuscripts date from between 635, the year of Alopen's arrival in China, and around 1000, when the cave at Mogao near Dunhuang in which the documents were discovered was sealed. By 2011, four of the manuscripts were known to be in a private collection in Japan, while one was in Paris. Their language and content reflect varying levels of interaction with Chinese culture, including use of Buddhist and Taoist terminology.
Terminology
There is no agreed upon name for the collection of texts as a whole. The Japanese scholar P. Y. Saeki described them as the "Nestorian Documents," which has continued to be used by more recent studies have continued to use this term. More recent scholars have moved away from the language of "Nestorian" and simply use the Chinese term, describing them as "Jingjiao Documents." Martin Palmer has attempted to describe these collectively as sutras to connect the documents to Buddhism, given their tendency to use Buddhist terminology, but this is also partly related to the names of individual texts which often bear the character jing in its name. However, this is a character that is also used by the Confucian Four Books and Five Classics and in the modern Chinese rendering of the word for the Bible, Shengjing. Other texts use the character lun, which carries a different meaning of "discourse" or "treatise."
The following list gives some approximate English titles for the various writings and an indication of the present location of the manuscript where known. Scholars are still debating the best translation for many of the terms.
Doctrinal texts
Discourse on Almsgiving of the World-Honored One, Part Three.
Discourse on the Oneness of Heaven.
Parable, Part Two. The first three texts in this list appear together in a single manuscript entitled Discourse on the One God, Part Three ; once known as the Tomioka manuscript; now held in Osaka, Japan, by Kyōu Shooku library, Tonkō-Hikyū Collection, manuscript no. 460.
Sutra on the Origin of Origins ; now held in Osaka, Japan, by Kyōu Shooku library, Tonkō-Hikyū Collection, manuscript no. 431. An inscribed pillar discovered in Luoyang in 2006 supplements the incomplete version from Dunhuang. Kojima manuscript B was at one time thought to be the conclusion of this work; see below ref. to Kazuo Enoki, p. 68.
Sutra of Hearing the Messiah ; once known as the Takakusu manuscript; now held in Osaka, Japan, by Kyōu Shooku library, Tonkō-Hikyū Collection, manuscript no. 459.
Liturgical texts
Da Qin Hymn of Perfection of the Three Majesties ; now held in Paris, Bib. Nat., Collection Pelliot chinois, no. 3847.
Let Us Praise or Venerable Books, a list of sacred books followed by a short note; contained in the above manuscript in Paris, Bib. Nat., Collection Pelliot, chinois no. 3847.
The Sutra of Ultimate and Mysterious Happiness ; now held in Osaka, Japan, by Kyōu Shooku library, Tonkō-Hikyū Collection, manuscript no. 13.
Da Qin Hymn to the Transfiguration of the Great Holy One. Kojima manuscript A. This manuscript was stolen in Tianjin, China, in 1945 and its whereabouts are now unknown. This manuscript and Kojima manuscript B are suspected of being modern forgeries; see below ref. to Lin & Rong.
The Xi'anStele was erected in 781 to commemorate the propagation of the Da Qin Luminous Religion, and covers the preceding 150 years of Christianity in China. Martin Palmer recently claimed, on the basis of research conducted by scholars in the 1930s, that the Daqin Pagoda near Lou Guan Tai was part of a Da Qin monastery. Lou Guan Tai was the traditional site of Lao Tze's composition of the Tao Te Ching. Buried during a time of religious persecution in the 9th century, the stele was re-discovered in 1625 and is now on display in nearby Xi'an, the ancient capital of the Tang Dynasty.
