Until 1990’s Many Dunhuang Manuscripts in Japanese collection had not been shown by owners in fear of receiving attention around the topic of forgeries, which was popular at the time. In the early 1990’s, Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese scholars surveyed ancient western Chinese manuscripts owned by Japanese people and organizations. This forms the basis of studies of ancient Chinese manuscripts today. However in the 21st century, uninvestigated Dunhuang Manuscripts in China, Taiwan and Japan were published as photo books. That helps me to research not only uninvestigated but also investigated manuscripts. Especially, being able to trace the provenance of the Dunhuang manuscripts since their discovery in 1900 is a crucial factor in determining legitimacy. Due to this new information, this new study analyzes former owners focusing on the seals of Tonkō Hikyū collection 敦煌秘笈 which belongs to the Kyō-U Library 杏雨書屋 and Daitōkyū Memorial Library ‘s collections 大東急紀念文庫 held at the Gotoh Museum 五島美術館. It is known that many manuscripts owned by these two Japanese organizations which were excavated from western China were formerly owned by Li Shenduo 李盛鐸、 He Yansheng 何彦昇、Luo Zhenyu 羅振玉、Wang Shunan 王樹枏、Liang Suwen 梁素文、 ZhangGuangjian 張廣建、Xu Chengyao 許承堯、Kong Xianting 孔憲廷、LianQuan 廉泉、 Wu Zhiying 呉芝瑛、Xiang Shen 向燊、WeiRencha 魏忍差、in the Chinese Republic era , these names are also found on manuscripts in Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese collections.Other former-owners, HataniRyotai 羽溪了諦、Kiyono Kenji 清野謙次、Wada Tsunashiro 和田維四郎、Kurihara Sadakazu 栗原貞一 and Frank Hawley、were modern Japanese scholars and book collectors. The analysis ofthe TonkōHikyū collection made it clear that people using the seals related to 李盛鐸 had questionable intentions, and that the legitimacy of the seals has been in question for a long time. Needless to say, scientific analysis of paper and ink is a recent procedure, and however useful,these methods are not able to tell us everything about ancient documents. As of now, the legitimacy of the former owner’s seals cannot guarantee the genuineness of these ancient documents, but I believe the confirmation of ownership is a definite clue.
