Paul Pelliot (May 28, 1878–October 26, 1945) was a
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
sinologist and explorer of
Central AsiaAsia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east, and from southern Russia in the north to northern India in the south. It is also sometimes known as Middle Asia or Inner Asia, and is within the scope of the wider Eurasian continent.Various definitions of its...
. Initially intending to enter the foreign service, Pelliot took up the study of Chinese and became a pupil of
Sylvain LéviSylvain Lévi was an orientalist and indologist.Born in Paris, his book Théâtre Indien is an important work on the subject...
and
Édouard ChavannesÉdouard Chavannes was a French sinologist.He is best known for his translations from Sima Qian's Shiji , sections of the Hou Hanshu relating to the 'Western Regions', the Weilüe, his studies of Han dynasty stone carvings Édouard Chavannes (Chinese: ) (1865 - 1918) was a French sinologist.He is...
.
Pelliot worked at École française d'Extrême Orient in
HanoiHanoi , estimated population 6.232.940 , is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. From 1010 until 1802, with a few brief interruptions, it was the political centre of an independent Vietnam. It was eclipsed by Huế during the Nguyen Dynasty as the capital of Vietnam, but Hanoi served as...
, from where he was dispatched in 1900 to
BeijingBeijing is a metropolis in northern China and the capital of the People's Republic of China...
to search for Chinese books for the École's library.
Paul Pelliot (May 28, 1878–October 26, 1945) was a
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
sinologist and explorer of
Central AsiaAsia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east, and from southern Russia in the north to northern India in the south. It is also sometimes known as Middle Asia or Inner Asia, and is within the scope of the wider Eurasian continent.Various definitions of its...
. Initially intending to enter the foreign service, Pelliot took up the study of Chinese and became a pupil of
Sylvain LéviSylvain Lévi was an orientalist and indologist.Born in Paris, his book Théâtre Indien is an important work on the subject...
and
Édouard ChavannesÉdouard Chavannes was a French sinologist.He is best known for his translations from Sima Qian's Shiji , sections of the Hou Hanshu relating to the 'Western Regions', the Weilüe, his studies of Han dynasty stone carvings Édouard Chavannes (Chinese: ) (1865 - 1918) was a French sinologist.He is...
.
Pelliot worked at École française d'Extrême Orient in
HanoiHanoi , estimated population 6.232.940 , is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. From 1010 until 1802, with a few brief interruptions, it was the political centre of an independent Vietnam. It was eclipsed by Huế during the Nguyen Dynasty as the capital of Vietnam, but Hanoi served as...
, from where he was dispatched in 1900 to
BeijingBeijing is a metropolis in northern China and the capital of the People's Republic of China...
to search for Chinese books for the École's library. While there, he was caught up in the
Boxer RebellionThe Boxer Rebellion, more properly called the Boxer Uprising, or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement in Chinese, was a violent anti-imperialism, anti-Christian movement by the "Righteous Fists of Harmony,” Yihe tuan义和团 or Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists in China , between 1898 and 1901...
and trapped in the siege of foreign legations. Pelliot made two forays into enemy territory during the siege - one to capture an enemy
standardA flag is a piece of fabric, often flown from a pole or mast, generally used symbolically for signaling or identification. It is most commonly used to symbolize a country...
and another to obtain fresh fruit for those under siege. For his bravery, he received the
Légion d'honneurThe Légion d'honneur or Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
. At age 22, Paul Pelliot returned to Hanoi, where he was made a Professor of
ChineseChinese or the Sinitic language is a language family consisting of languages mutually unintelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the two branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
at the École. He was later elected professor at the
Collège de FranceThe Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Ecoles...
.
The Expedition
Pelliot's expedition left
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
on June 17, 1906. His 3-man team included Dr. Louis Vaillant, an Army medical officer, and Charles Nouette, a photographer. The three traveled to
Chinese TurkestanXinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China and also claimed by the territory of the Republic of China.-Names:Older English-language reference works often refer to the area as Chinese Turkestan, Sinkiang, East...
by rail through
MoscowMoscow is the capital and the largest city of Russia. It is also the largest metropolitan area in Europe, and ranks among the largest urban areas in the world. Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the world, a...
and
TashkentTashkent is the capital of Uzbekistan and also of the Tashkent Province. The officially registered population of the city in 2008 was 2.18 million. According to unofficial data, the population is more than 3 million.- History :...
. The team arrived in
KashgarKashgar or Kashi is an oasis city with approximately 350,000 residents in the western part of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China...
at the end of August, staying with the Russian consul-general (the successor to
Nikolai PetrovskyNikolay Fyodorovich Petrovsky was the Russian consul-general in Kashgar from 1882 until 1902.Petrovsky's main adversary during his time in Central Asia was George McCartney, his English counterpart. The competition between their two countries for influence in Central Asia is known as the Great Game...
). Pelliot amazed the local Chinese officials with his fluent Chinese (only one of the 13 languages he spoke). His efforts were to pay off shortly, when his team began obtaining supplies (like a
yurtA yurt is a portable, felt-covered, wood lattice-framed dwelling structure traditionally used by nomads in the steppes of Central Asia.-Etymology and synonyms:...
) that were previously considered unobtainable.
His first stop after leaving Kashgar was Tumchuq. From there, he proceeded to
KuchaKucha or Kuche Uyghur , Chinese Simplified: 库车; Traditional: 庫車; pinyin Kùchē; also romanized as Qiuzi, Qiuci, Chiu-tzu, Kiu-che, Kuei-tzu...
, where he found documents in the lost language of Kuchean. These documents were later translated by Sylvain Lévi, Pelliot's former teacher. After Kucha, Pelliot went to Urumchi, where they encountered Duke Lan, whose brother had been a leader of the
Boxer RebellionThe Boxer Rebellion, more properly called the Boxer Uprising, or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement in Chinese, was a violent anti-imperialism, anti-Christian movement by the "Righteous Fists of Harmony,” Yihe tuan义和团 or Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists in China , between 1898 and 1901...
. Duke Lan was in permanent exile in Urumchi. Pelliot's final stop on his expedition was the famed
DunhuangDunhuang is a city in Jiuquan, Gansu province, China. It is sited in an oasis.- History :...
in February 12, 1908.
At Dunhuang, Pelliot managed to gain access to Abbot Wang's secret chamber, which contained
a massive hoard of ancient manuscriptsThe manuscripts discovered in Mogao Caves , Dunhuang are of great historical, philological and literary interest. Works thought to be long lost turned up . Ancient editions of the classics were found . Unknown ancient Central Asia languages came to light...
already observed by Sir Aurel Stein. Like the yurt in Kashgar, it is believed that Pelliot's abilities with the Chinese language played an important role here. After 3 weeks of analyzing the manuscripts, often at a rate of one thousand a day, Pelliot convinced Wang to sell him a selection of the most important ones. Wang, who was interested in continuing the refurbishment of his monastery, agreed to the price of 500
taelTael can refer to any one of several weight measures of the Far East. Most commonly, it refers to the Chinese tael , a part of the Chinese system of weights and currency . There were many different weighting standards of tael depending on the region or type of trade. In general the silver tael...
s (
£The pound sterling , often simply called the pound, is the currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands and British Antarctic Territory...
90).
The Return and Later Years
Pelliot returned to Paris on October 24, 1909, to a vicious smear campaign mounted against himself,
Édouard ChavannesÉdouard Chavannes was a French sinologist.He is best known for his translations from Sima Qian's Shiji , sections of the Hou Hanshu relating to the 'Western Regions', the Weilüe, his studies of Han dynasty stone carvings Édouard Chavannes (Chinese: ) (1865 - 1918) was a French sinologist.He is...
(a fellow sinologist) and the staff of the École. Pelliot was accused of wasting public money and returning with forged manuscripts. This campaign came to a head with a December 1910 article in
La Revue Indigène by M. Fernand Farjenel. These charges were not proved false until Sir Aurel Stein's book,
Ruins of Desert Cathay, appeared in 1912. In his book, Stein made it clear that he had left manuscripts behind in Tun-huang. Stein's book vindicated Pelliot and silenced Pelliot's critics.
For many years he was a contributor to
T'oung Pao journal and became its editor in 1920.
Pelliot later served as French military attaché in Beijing during
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
. He died of
cancerCancer is a class of diseases in which a group of cells display uncontrolled growth , invasion , and sometimes metastasis...
in 1945. Upon his death, it was said that "Without him, sinology is left like an orphan."
The
Guimet MuseumThe Guimet Museum is a museum of Asian art located at 6, place d'Iéna in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, France...
in Paris has a gallery named after him.
Works and Publications
- Pelliot (with E. Chavannes), "Un traité manichéen retrouvé en Chine", Journal asiatique 1911, pp. 499-617; 1913, pp. 99-199, 261-392.
- " Les influences iraniennes en Asie Centrale et en Extrême-Orient," Revue d'histoire et de littérature religieuses, N.S. 3, 1912, pp. 97-119.
- "Mo-ni et manichéens," Journal asiatique 1914, pp. 461-70.
- "Le 'Cha-tcheou-tou-fou-t'ou-king' et la colonie sogdienne de la region du Lob Nor", Journal asiatique 1916, pp. 111-23.
- "Le sûtra des causes et des effets du bien et du mal". Edité‚ et traduit d'après les textes sogdien, chinois et tibétain par Robert Gauthiot et Paul Pelliot, 2 vols (avec la collaboration de E. Benveniste
Émile Benveniste was a French structural linguist, an apprentice of Antoine Meilletand his successor, who, in his later years, became enlightened by the structural view of language through the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, although he was unwilling to grasp it at first, being a convinced follower...
), Paris, 1920.
- "Les Mongols et la Papauté. Documents nouveaux édités, traduits et commentés par M. Paul Pelliot" avec la collaboration de MM. Borghezio, Masse‚ and Tisserant, Revue de l'Orient chrétien, 3e sér. 3 (23), 1922/23, pp. 3-30; 4(24), 1924, pp. 225-335; 8(28),1931, pp. 3-84.
- "Les traditions manichéennes au Foukien," T'oung Pao, 22, 1923, pp. 193-208.
- "Neuf notes sur des questions d'Asie Centrale," T'oung Pao, 24, 1929, pp. 201-265.
- Notes sur Marco Polo, ed. L. Hambis, 3 vols., Paris 1959-63.
- Notes on Marco Polo, (English version), Imprimerie nationale, librairie Adrien-Maisonneuve, Paris. 1959-63
- "Recherches sur les chrétiens d'Asie centrale et d'Extrême-Orient I, Paris, 1973.
- "L'inscription nestorienne de Si-ngan-fou", ed. avec supléments par Antonino Forte, Kyoto et Paris, 1996.
- P. Pelliot et L. Ηambis, "Histoire des compagnes de Gengizkhan", vol. 1, Leiden, 1951.