Shi Jinbo: Lifting the veil on the Xixia dynasty

Shi Jinbo works in his study. (Photo by Wan Quan/China Pictorial)

Shi Jinbo, a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) and a research fellow at its Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, is a central figure in the field of Xixia studies globally. He organized research teams that expanded the number of deciphered Tangut characters from just over 2,000 to more than 5,000 and systematized the structural principles of the Tangut script. Shi also led the translation of the most challenging Tangut secular document—the Tiansheng Code, which shined a broad and comprehensive light on the social landscape of the Xixia Dynasty (1038-1227). He also headed the compilation and publication of the Russian Collection of Khara-Khoto Documents. This monumental project enabled the first identification and deciphering of many social documents written in cursive Tangut script, providing abundant references for reconstructing the history of Xixia society, economics, and military affairs. These pioneering contributions heralded a new era for Xixia studies in China.

In 1908, the long-buried garrison site "Heishuizhen Yan Army Command" of the Xixia Dynasty—Khara-Khoto, located in today's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region—was discovered. During a period of national weakness in China, vast quantities of unearthed manuscripts and artifacts were lost overseas. For much of the 20th century, scholars from countries like Britain and Japan dominated Xixia studies, while Chinese researchers could only conduct indirect research based on overseas materials. This situation gave rise to the oft-cited lament that "while the Xixia Dynasty was rooted in China, Xixia studies flourished overseas."

China's Xixia studies began with the renowned scholar Wang Jingru (1903-1990). In 1936, his work Studies on the Xixia Dynasty won the prestigious Julien Prize, the highest international award in Sinology. Yet in the decades that followed, progress in the field within China remained slow, and new breakthroughs were urgently needed. After graduating from the Central Institute for Nationalities (now Minzu University of China) with a major in Yi language studies in 1962, Shi Jinbo enrolled in the Institute of Ethnology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) to study under Wang Jingru. He thus became the first postgraduate student of the Tangut language in the People's Republic of China, forging a lifelong bond with Xixia studies.

The Tangut writing system features roughly 6,000 characters. It was created by the Xixia Dynasty to record the Tangut language with inspiration from Chinese character formation methods. After the fall of the Xixia Dynasty, the script gradually fell into disuse, becoming a "dead language," unreadable to later generations. In his first semester at the Institute of Ethnology alone, Shi memorized more than 1,000 Tangut characters. Working with limited materials, he inferred Tangut grammar and began translating simple texts, steadily improving his ability to decipher the script.

In 1972, Shi came across the first volume of Wenhai, published by the former Soviet Union, at the library of the CAS. The book contained complete facsimiles of the Tangut Wenhai, a rhyming dictionary that includes nearly 3,000 entries and provides detailed explanations of the form, pronunciation, and meaning of each Tangut character. It was key to unlocking the Tangut script. Shi then embarked on the arduous task of translation. Three years later, Chinese palaeographer Huang Zhenhua and Tangutologist Bai Bin joined the project, accelerating its progress. The team manually made tens of thousands of index cards to build a comprehensive indexing system for the entire work. In 1983, Studies on Wenhai was published. By deciphering more than 5,000 Tangut characters, it provided essential materials for Tangut translation and interpretation and laid a solid foundation for subsequent Xixia research.

In the late 1980s, Shi received a Russian edition of the Tiansheng Code as a gift from Soviet Union Xixia scholar Evgeny Kychanov. He realized that the Tangut code should be translated directly from the original Tangut text into Chinese. Shi led a team that spent five years producing the first Chinese translation of the code, which was published in 1994. Since then, a steady stream of books and academic papers drawing on this work has emerged, greatly advancing the study of Xixia society and history.

Shi has also authored many influential works. Xixia Culture, published in 1986, employed Tangut materials in its discussions of writing, literature, and calligraphy, presenting a far richer picture of Xixia culture than before. A Brief History of Xixia Buddhism (1988) filled a major gap in research on Buddhism during the Xixia period.

Beginning in 1993, Shi and his team made four trips to Russia to photograph the Khara-Khoto manuscripts that had been lost overseas page by page. In 1997, the first four volumes of the Russian Collection of Khara-Khoto Documents were published, ending Chinese scholars' reliance on second-hand materials. The collation and editing work of this monumental series remains underway to this day.

During the research trips to Russia, Shi also discovered a body of materials that had never been studied by Russian experts. Starting in 1998, he undertook an eight-year effort to decipher these fragmentary, damaged, and illegible documents. Finally, he published Xixia Society (2007), The Research of Xixia Economic Documents (2017), and Studies of Xixia Military Documents (2021), shedding light on previously unknown aspects of Xixia society, economics, and military affairs. 

After devoting more than six decades to Xixia studies, Shi has been widely recognized as a preeminent figure in the field. "When I entered this field, Xixia studies in China were a niche discipline," Shi said with a smile. "Today, China not only boasts a complete system for training specialists, but also has become an international center for Xixia research. So, I think I have done something meaningful for my country.