This book is about Tangut translations of Chinese literary texts. Although most of the extant
Tangut material comprises Buddhist texts there are also many non-religious texts which are
mostly translations from Chinese. The central concern is how the Tanguts appropriated Chinese
written culture through translation and what their reasons for this were. Of the seven chapters
the first three provide background information on the discovery of Tangut material the
emergence of the field of Tangut studies and the history of the Tangut state. The following
four chapters are devoted to different aspects of Tangut written culture and its connection
with the Chinese tradition. The themes discussed here are the use of Chinese primers in Tangut
education the co-existence of manuscript and print the question how faithful Tangut
translators remained to the original texts or whether they at times adapted those to the needs
of Tangut readership the degree of translation consistency andthe preservation of the
intertextual elements of the original works. The book also intends to draw attention to the
significant body of Chinese literature that exists in Tangut translation especially since the
originals of some of these texts are now lost.
