© Mélodie Doumy and Sam van Schaik, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004687288_013 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license. Chapter 11 The Funerary Context of Mogao Cave 17 Mélodie Doumy and Sam van Schaik Abstract The sealed Cave 17 in the Mogao cave complex (Chin. Mogao ku 莫高窟) has given us many of the most important primary sources for understanding Buddhist, and to some extent non-Buddhist, doctrines and practices in Eastern Central Asia, China and Tibet. The best-known theories about the original function of the cave have paid little atten- tion to the details of Buddhist ritual practice. In this paper we reorient the approach to Cave 17 at Dunhuang towards the funerary function of the cave and its contents. We argue that we need to look at the role of the Cave 17 as a Buddhist funerary shrine for a better understanding of its contents, and put this in the context of Buddhist funer- ary practices involving the interment of books and other religious objects as relics in stūpas and shrines. 1 Introduction1 The manuscripts, printed documents, paintings, and other ritual objects dis- covered by Wang Yuanlu (ca. 1849–1931, 王圆籙) in 1900 in a hidden cave at the Mogao cave complex, near Dunhuang (敦煌), constitute the biggest find of medieval material anywhere in Central and East Asia. Since the early 20th cen- tury, the contents of the cave, now known as Cave 17, have had a huge impact on the study of Asian religions, history, art history, linguistics, and other fields. Despite their overwhelming connection to Buddhism, they also include texts from the Daoist tradition, as well as Manichaeism, Christianity, and other reli- gions; also found there were letters, contracts, and diverse secular documents ranging from poetry to medical charts. Much of the material placed in the cave, manuscripts and otherwise, was in a well-used, damaged or fragmentary state. In English-language scholarship, Cave 17 is often referred to as the Library 1 The authors would like to thank Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim, Neil Schmid, Carmen Meinert, Lewis Doney, and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful suggestions and contributions to this paper. Mélodie Doumy and Sam van Schaik - 9789004687288 Downloaded from Brill.com 07/25/2024 08:04:36AM via Open Access. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/