In 2018, Duan Qing visited Jinnah University in Pakistan. Photo/Courtesy of respondents
Duan Qing: Ji Xianlin's most proud disciple is gone
Reporter/Ni Wei
Published in China News Weekly on April 18, 2022, No. 1040
How do I introduce her? An internationally authoritative historical linguist, a decipherer of the Western Heavenly Book, a disciple of Ji Xianlin who had the highest hopes, a beautiful lady who also wore a skirt in the winter, an old lady in Beijing who loved to soak in the gym, and at the same time, a patient.
In the global historiography of the Western Regions, it is very simple to introduce her, you only need to say her name: Duan Qing. Just like her teacher Ji Xianlin.
In the early hours of March 26, after seven months of battling cancer, Duan Qing, a 68-year-old historical linguist at Peking University, died in Beijing. The brain filled with strange characters stopped thinking.
Rong Xinjiang, professor of the Department of History at Peking University and president of the Turpan Society in Dunhuang, China, is Duan Qing's peer and an old friend who has known each other for more than 40 years. After Duan Qing left, he lamented that in the interpretation of the ancient language of the Silk Road, China is afraid that there will be no second person in many years.
"No time to go around in circles"
Peers in the field of history recall Duan Qing and always say: I admire her, but I can't read her articles.
Many people are curious about how many languages Duan Qing knows. Her answer was: Don't ask me how many languages I know, ask me how many languages I know. Her student, Ye Shaoyong, an associate professor at Peking University's School of Foreign Chinese, counted for her: Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, and Altaic... Let's put it this way, on the road from Europe to Asia, in addition to the particularly ones, there are several language departments she has dabbled in. ”
Last year, she broke through another "dead language." Two photographs were found in the archives of Hu Shi of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, containing two ancient documents. The document was excavated in 1929 at the Buddhist site of Tumshuk in Xinjiang and written in an unfamiliar language, when photographs circulated in the hands of many famous figures and searched for interpreters in Europe and the United States, without success. More than 90 years later, Duan Qing cracked these two files. She found that the document came from the "Kingdom of According to Theode" recorded in the history books, and that according to the Historiography was a language that had been dead for a thousand years.
Zhu Yuqi, a professor at Peking University's School of History, said that Duan Qing's interpretation of the historical German documents was a small earthquake for the study of the Silk Road and for the international historical and linguistic community. The article was first published in the "History of Western Literature" edited by Zhu Yuqi, and some foreign scholars saw the English abstract and immediately sent an email to contact it, just to read Duan Qing's article.
And this seems to be just a small thing for Duan Qing.
In the eyes of friends, compared with her academic status and professional difficulty, her personality seems too grounded. Friends who went out to investigate together came back to look over the photos, and they could always see her photos with various passers-by. In Xinjiang, she used a few words of Uighur she had just learned to pull an old man to chat, and the old man was bored.
After Duan Qing left, the student Zhang Xing found that the students had done almost nothing for her compared to what the teacher had done for herself. Only when they study abroad, Duan Qing needs to find some information, and will rush to write an email to them: help me check it, I am writing now, complete it as soon as possible, the sooner the better!
Bluntness is inherited from her mentor Ji Xianlin. She once said, "Mr. Ji and Professor Emerick and others are very straightforward people, they know the preciousness of time, so there is nothing to say, there is no time to go around in circles." ”
Straightforward and straightforward, she is not rude, as long as she is with others, she will always take care of other people's feelings. One year she took her students to the Hotan archaeological site to investigate, camped in the desert for a night, the quilt was too thin, everyone froze enough, and for many years afterwards, she often blamed herself for mentioning the incident.
In the community, she is also the warm-hearted person. A stall owner who set up a vegetable stall once got Help from Duan Qing and sent some dishes to thank her. She said to the stall owner, I live better than you, don't think about me. Wang Bangwei, a master brother who has known him for more than 40 years, recalled, "Saying this is really a typical Tone of Duan Qing. ”
Disciple of Ji Men
During his hospitalization, student Zhang Xing bought Duan Qing a bowl of bean juice. She usually does not like to drink bean juice, but that time she was very happy, brought over to drink a lot, and then said: In the past, Mr. Ji liked to drink bean juice, and I also sent bean juice to Mr. Ji. Zhang Xing listened, and his nose was sour. Duan Qing rarely showed sentimentality, and the most moving moments were almost always when he missed his teacher.
After The death of Lady Ji Xianlin, the brothers Wang Bangwei and Duan Qing went to visit the teacher. Duan Qing suddenly said, Mr. Ji, you have to find another wife. Ji Xianlin said, forget it. After thinking about it, I added another sentence: He did not know this life, and he did not want to do this in this life! "Duan Qing dared to say this to Mr. Ji, but I didn't dare."
In 1978, she was admitted to the graduate school of the German Department of Peking University, and Ji Xianlin was present at the interview. At that time, Ji Xianlin was looking for a student who studied German, so he picked her. In 1980, after decades of cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries, Ji Xianlin returned to Germany for more than 30 years, bringing Duan Qing with him. He personally won her a scholarship and sent her to the University of Hamburg to study ancient Khotanese. Ji Xianlin was deliberately laid out, and successively sent several students abroad to receive "German-style" training.
In 1980, Duan Qing (first from the right) accompanied Ji Xianlin (second from right) to visit Germany, and Ji Xianlin returned to his hometown after more than 30 years. Photo/Courtesy of respondents
Her mentor at the University of Hamburg was Emerick, known as "one of the smartest people in the world", and he taught languages such as Osseid, Khotanese, Avista literature, Manichaean Persian, And Christian Sogdian. There was no warm-up in the class, directly from reading the raw materials, the first class was to read a story in Khotanese, Duan Qing only read one sentence. Emerick was very proud and dismissed someone who couldn't keep up with his thinking. It wasn't until Duan Qing solved a problem he couldn't solve that he truly admitted that Duan Qing was his student.
Duan Qing's later teaching style was also German-style. She would deliberately speed up the progress in the first few lessons, "shake and shake", and the inappropriate people would leave on their own, so as not to embarrass each other. There are twenty or thirty people in a class, and at the end of the semester there are often only four or five left. When Jiang Nan and Duan Qing, associate researchers at the Institute of Linguistics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, first learned Sanskrit, they did not know what the Sanskrit alphabet looked like, and she even taught four lessons in the first class. Duan Qing told them: "All the way forward, don't look back, don't have to tangle, you will understand it in the end." The mystery of her language learning lies in this. But Duan Qing is a little different from the German teacher, as long as the students behave well, she will praise in the most exaggerated language.
Duan Qing once proudly said that Ji Xianlin's layout of the ancient languages of the Western Regions before his death, except for Tocharian, can basically open majors in other languages. She also pioneered the teaching of more ancient Central Asian languages, including Baloo/Gandhara, Khotanese, and other ancient Iranian languages, expanding the territory of the Ji Xianlin era.
Ji Xianlin once sent a group of students abroad to learn the historical language of the Western Regions, but in the end, only Duan Qing walked this road to the end and achieved fruitful results. Duan Qing last met Ji Xianlin in June 2008, in order to ask the teacher to write a letter, prompting the National Library to collect a batch of documents unearthed in Xinjiang. That day, Ji Xianlin looked at her and said, Duan Qing, with you there, the spark of stars can burn the plains. A year later, Ji Xianlin died.
Lava eruption
According to legend, when Ji Xianlin's mentor Waldschmidt visited China, Ji Xianlin gave the chinese translation of the Ramayana to his teacher. This was the most important achievement of Ji Xianlin during the Cultural Revolution, and in that era when there was no learning to do, he tried every means to find an opportunity to translate the Sanskrit "Ramayana". But that day the teacher was very angry, and threw the Ramayana to the ground and said, "Is this what I taught you?"
Waldschmidt may not have known that during the Cultural Revolution, his high-ranking disciples could only act as concierges, transfer telephones, send and receive letters, and the translation of the Ramayana was the only thing that could maintain a connection with scholarship. It was not until after he was more than 70 years old that the Tocharian "Maitreya Meeting" unearthed in Xinjiang was sent to Ji Xianlin that he regained his housekeeping skills and transcribed, translated and annotated this "Book of Heaven". Ji Xianlin once sighed, "It is difficult for a smart woman to cook without rice." This was the sigh of his life, and it was also the summary of the first half of Duan Qing's life.
In the late 1980s, when Duan Qing first returned to China, there was no new material to study, and the discipline of history and language in the western region was at a low ebb. In order to subsidize her family, she once accompanied a German travel agency, worked as a tour guide for German tourists, and opened her own company. This bitter time lasted for more than ten years. It was not until after 2000 that the documents excavated from Xinjiang archaeology were successively put into research, and Duan Qing ushered in a period of academic explosion. "Like lava that has accumulated for many years, it erupts at once." Rong Xinjiang, professor of the Department of History at Peking University and president of the Turpan Society of Dunhuang, China, described it.
The spark that Ji Xianlin brought back began to burn in Duan Qing's time.
To study the Silk Roads and the Western Regions, it is necessary to understand the language of the Western Regions. In terms of discipline classification, western languages are divided into two branches: Indology and Iranian Studies. In China, Duan Qing studied Sanskrit with Ji Xianlin, which belongs to Indian studies; in Germany, she learned Khotanese, which belongs to Iranian studies. The two linguistic veins were brought together in Duan Qing alone, becoming her basic skill in opening up the Central Asian language. Rong Xinjiang commented that sanskrit, Ulu, Khotanese, According to The German, Sogdian, Syrian, and Syriac scripts found on the Silk Roads... She can interpret that she is the unique ancient language supporter of the archaeology of the Silk Road in China.
"If you want to give Teacher Duan an academic positioning, first of all, she learns India and Iran; secondly, what she does in both lines is the most core and the most difficult place, that is, interpretation." Rong Xinjiang told China News Weekly, "This kind of learning has no utilitarian significance, but after the national strength is strong, all countries will raise such a person." Being able to read these shows that the people in this country are the smartest, and our country has raised a Duan Qing. ”
What Duan Qing makes her peers look forward to is not only the talent of studying language, but also a temperament of indomitable progress.
After 2000, Duan Qing felt that she should resume, but Pali was not her specialty, she just taught herself for a while and started a Pali class. Pali is an Indian secular language that is close to Sanskrit. After reopening the Pali language major, Duan Qing once again made a bold leap forward and cooperated with Thailand to translate the Pali Sanzang of southern Buddhism from Pali into Chinese. She took the Students of Fanpa Major at Peking University, and without saying a word, embarked on this arduous journey of contemporary bible translation.
Ji Xianlin has the merit of pioneering, but because of the isolation of the academic environment, that generation of scholars can only follow behind foreign counterparts. Meng Xianshi, a professor at the School of History of Chinese Min University, said that with Duan Qing as the standard-bearer, the study of the historical language of China's western regions has become a veritable international first echelon. When a Japanese scholar came to China for a meeting, he flipped through the collection of papers compiled by Chinese scholars and said very disappointedly: You have done everything.
Duan Qing said that only those who have a deep understanding and study of Xinjiang's ancient language and writing can realize the true face of the development and evolution of Xinjiang's ancient language and culture, and build the study of Xinjiang's ancient civilization as an independent discipline. There is a huge academic ideal hidden in this sentence. Rong Xinjiang felt that she used her academic achievements to construct an independent discipline for the study of ancient Western civilizations.
She studies "dead language" and focuses on living people. Her passion for Xinjiang is not only invested in ancient documents and mysterious language, but also includes the people of Xinjiang. One year, in order to open a senior training course on folk culture in Xinjiang, she deliberately set aside 10 places for hotan teachers' colleges and Kashgar University in southern Xinjiang, and specially took a bus to lead the team to two schools to publicize.
Psychic
What is it like to decipher the Book of Heaven? These seemingly entangled threads, like children's graffiti characters, are like the codes written by the ancients. There are no ready-made answers, and no one can even communicate.
Gu Yu, a colleague who specializes in German, could not feel Duan Qing's work, and she asked curiously: When you cracked those heavenly books, did you feel that there was divine help? Duan Qing's eyes lit up, so right!
In 2008, the Xinjiang jade diggers dug up five blankets in the Khotanese region in ancient times, brightly colored and filled with bizarre pictures, and three mysterious characters were embroidered between the pictures. Duan Qing saw the photo and thought it was khotan's unique silk fabric "氍毹". After a long time of thinking, she recognized that the square carpet pattern was several Greek gods, and the last god was the Sumerian goddess Inanna. She then deciphered three characters, which are Khotanese words that are a mixture of Greek and Sanskrit words, meaning "Hellland", the declaration of the goddess Inanna.
The moment she suddenly figured it out, she felt like a divine helper, "very surprised, and very scared", afraid of misinterpreting it.
This is a shocking conclusion: 1500 years ago, on the silk fabrics of Xinjiang, the myth of Sumerian civilization in the two river basins of West Asia appeared. Many international experts have bluntly opposed it, and Rong Xinjiang, an old friend and president of the Turpan Society in Dunhuang, China, does not believe her. The Two Rivers civilization was interrupted, and gilgamesh carved on clay tablets was buried in the ground, how can it be proved that it spread to the East? She challenges the classic conclusions of human migration history.
Duan Qing read the story on the square carpet and was deeply moved, falling into an ancient civilization. She lectured frantically everywhere, telling myths about a few square carpets. She confidently said that because the Sumerian civilization appeared on the Kryptonite, one day, the history of human civilization will be rewritten because of the existence of the Kryptonite.
In this lonely imagination and verification, Duan Qing proved herself. This imaginary romanticism and heroism was initially tasted only by herself. Eventually, after constant revision, all the evidence was concatenated and pointed to her idea. Recently, Harvard University professor Shi Jie I put forward an argument in support of Duan Qing: In the Manichaean Book of Giants unearthed in Turpan, the names of famous figures in the Epic of Gilgamesh appear. This is another piece of evidence that Gilgamesh has spread to Xinjiang. The support from afar was reassuring, and it was the last thing that made her happy.
Without multiple civilizations and multiple languages in the same brain, it is difficult to crack. She once told Li Xiao, a professor at the National College of Chinese Min University, that this generation has made more breakthroughs than the previous generation because they have found some laws between different languages. In the face of laymen, the words can only be said here. Others can't personally understand what it's like to face these strange characters, stripping away the cocoon, meditating, and even finding the law after the whimsy.
Late last year, she wrote the foreword to her new book, Myths and Rituals, which details her experience of interpreting kryptonium. At the end of the article, she did not mention her own situation, but meaningfully wrote the last eight words in her life: life is limited, exploration is infinite.
Build a Tower of Babel
When Duan Qing was unconscious, several old friends from academia went to the hospital to see her. Seeing her lying on the hospital bed, Li Xiao, a northwestern man, could not suppress his sadness, "I suddenly have a feeling that she is like Prometheus, the person who stole the heavenly fire, and leaked the heavenly machine, so she has to bear a heavy price." Zhu Yuqi, a professor in the department of history at Peking University, also said that Duan Qing wanted to build a Tower of Babel in language, but heaven would not allow it.
Three days before her death, she suddenly woke up from her coma. The students hurried to visit, she couldn't open her eyes, they teased her, said sing a song to you, she shook her head; peeled an orange for her to smell, she wrinkled her nose; they joked, are we bothering you again, she nodded. "As if I could feel that she was still deliberately abandoning us as before, saying that you should hurry up." Student Zhang Xing said. Before leaving, they said, Teacher, you should open your eyes and look at us. With all her strength, she finally opened her eyes and looked at the students for a long time.
Duan Qing never talked much about death. Only once, when she talked about her penchant for wearing beautiful dresses for meetings or visits in recent years, she joked that it was because she knew that her limit was coming, so she dressed up beautifully. She also likes to wear long skirts in the winter and will look for clothes on the Internet. In the eyes of friends, Duan Qing is not trivial, but there is also the side of an ordinary old lady, and when she works a lot, she will be annoyed: I am going to take care of my little granddaughter, don't give me so much work! As a result, one article after another was published.
She was also reluctant to talk about regrets. Fan Jingjing, an associate professor at Peking University's School of Foreign Chinese, who has accompanied her the most over the years, feels that "regret" is not Duan Qing's way of thinking, she is always thinking about what else can be done. Young students have a rich and colorful life, eighteen or nineteen years old to sit on the cold bench to learn "cold doors", she is worried that they can not sit still, she will find an opportunity to take them out to investigate, broaden their horizons, but also cultivate interest. "You don't know how much trouble this is, what if there is a security problem?" Fan Jingjing said, but Duan Qing must go and personally choose the hotel.
Duan Qing tasted the taste of farewell alone. In October last year, students pushed her wheelchair back to Peking University, and when she was about to leave the west gate, she suddenly insisted on going from the East Gate. The students pushed her across the campus again, passing by the lake. That was the last time she visited campus. In fact, she was silently making a final farewell in her heart.
"The jianghu is suddenly lonely"
Half a month after Duan Qing's death, old friends gathered in a courtyard at Peking University to hold a small memorial service for her. The atmosphere is not sad, but mostly happy memories. Outside the window, the Begonia xifu opened, but the person who loved to take photos with flowers was gone.
Rong Xinjiang recalled going to Germany in 1985 and receiving him by his sister Duan Qing, who was studying at the University of Hamburg. He ran around the major libraries in Europe for more than a month, his hair was disheveled, and Duan Qing cut his hair with scissors before taking him to see his mentor Emerick. One year when I went to Suzhou for a meeting, the electronic announcer of the bus has been broadcasting in soft Suzhounese: "Pay attention to safety, get off at the back door." Duan Qing walked all the way and chanted: pay attention to safety, get off the bus from the back door... In particular, he is particularly obsessed with the pronunciation of the Wu word "get off". A long time later, when she met Chen Yongchao, a jiangsu native and professor of peking university's Chinese department, she also greeted her with a smile and a Suzhou accent: "Get off the bus from the back door!" "Friends feel that she has a natural sensitivity and love for language." Teacher Duan got out of the car through the back door. Be safe. At the end of a memorial article, Chen Yongchao wrote.
In the crowd, Duan Qing was always the most active one. On a business trip to Xinjiang, she saw someone singing and dancing in the square, and she immediately danced and asked her fellow professors to take their hats to collect money. She loves to drink, and once she drinks liquor, it is half a pound. "There is a teacher here, you never have to worry about the cold field." Meng Xianshi, a professor at the School of History at Chinese University, said.
Shen Weirong, director of the department of Chinese at Tsinghua University, said in a low voice that after Duan Qing left, the mountains and rivers of the small world of silk road and western region research lost their color, and the rivers and lakes were suddenly lonely.
Not only in life, but also in the academic world, it may also become lonely. In academia, her frankness terrified her peers, and when she heard a disapproving view at the conference, she immediately confronted it: I object! She has also tapped some academic institutions: too much to follow the direction of the actual wind, this should not be the essence of academic research. Peers sighed and ashamed of themselves - this kind of purity and style has become so rare in academia.
Last year, at a conference in Baicheng, Xinjiang, Liu Yi, dean of the School of History at Capital Normal University, presented one of his own studies and offered a conjecture about the origins of Khotan. The next day, a group of 20 or 30 scholars went on a field trip, and someone pointed to the Tianshan Pass and said: Liu Yi said that the Khotanese people came from here. Duan Qing blurted out: He said blindly! It embarrassed the dean, but later, he regretted not consulting with her.
Liu Yi remembered more of Duan Qing's generosity. He edited the academic journal "Dunhuang Turpan Studies" for nearly ten years, and often asked her for a manuscript, and she always replied cheerfully: "Wait! "Sometimes just a week later, her articles are lying in the mailbox, and it's always surprising to read. This journal is not a core journal, but Duan Qing has never been stingy. At the memorial service, Liu Yi recalled this harsh and kind predecessor, and suddenly could not cry.
"I think Teacher Duan is very interesting, she also says 'bad things' in front of people." Luo Xin, a professor in the Department of History at Peking University, said. Duan Qing is an outlier, but this should have been the true appearance of a scholar. "People with this characteristic, in today's era, are not easy to grow into the academic table, probably filtered out very early." But there are still many gaps in the past era, and thanks to the tolerant side of that era. Luo Xin said, "In this sense, I sometimes think that it is probably difficult to produce such a person in the future." ”
During Duan Qing's hospitalization, Duan Yinghong did not pluck up the courage to see her, and one day he missed her very much and called her. Duan Qing's voice was not as loud as before, but there was still a smile in his voice, giving people confidence. "She shouldn't want to let everyone see her sick, and I want to keep her best in my mind."
What is the most beautiful Duan Qing like? One winter, when the grass and trees were in the dark, Duan Yinghong rode a bicycle from the Peking University Jingyuan Garden and saw Duan Qing standing alone on the side of the road in the distance. "Hey, I'm watching the birds!" Duan Qing smiled and told her that he was fascinated and innocent. This picture makes Duan Yinghong unforgettable, "thinking about it makes people feel very happy."