This list of Tangut books comprises a list of manuscript and xylograph texts that are written in the extinct Tangut language and Tangut script. These texts were mostly produced within the Western Xia dynasty (1038–1227) during the 12th and 13th centuries, and include Buddhist sutras and explanatory texts, dictionaries and other philological texts, as well as translations of Chinese books and some original Tangut texts. Some Tangut texts, particularly Buddhist sutras, continued to be produced during the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), after the fall of the Western Xia dynasty, but the Tangut language became extinct sometime during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), and Tangut literature was only rediscovered in the early 20th century.
Most of the books listed here were discovered hidden in a stupa outside the city walls of the abandoned Western Xia fortress city of Khara-Khoto in Inner Mongolia by Pyotr Kuzmich Kozlov during his expedition of 1907–1909. A lesser number of texts (mostly fragments) were recovered from Khara-Khoto by Aurel Stein during his expedition of 1913–1916. A large number of complete and fragmentary Tangut texts have also been discovered at various sites in Inner Mongolia, Ningxia and Gansu in China during the 20th and 21st centuries.
A very large number of Buddhist texts have been preserved. Yevgeny Kychanov's 1999 catalogue of Buddhist texts from Khara-Khoto held at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg lists 768 entries which cover 370 separate titles.
| Image | Title | Copies | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auspicious Tantra of All-Reaching Union | Ningxia Institute of Archaeology, Ningxia N21:001–009 (9 vols. of a xylograph edition) | Translation of a Tibetan Tantric Buddhist text and commentary. Found at Baisigou Square Pagoda, Ningxia in 1991, and thought to be the earliest extant example of a book printed using wooden movable type. | |
| Compassionate Flower Sutra | National Library of China B11:049 (ch. 9 of a xylograph edition) | Translation of the Compassionate Flower Sutra (Karuṇā Puṇḍarīka) . | |
| The Dragon King of the Sea | British Library Or.12380/3621 (manuscript scroll) | Translation of the short Buddhist text, The Question asked by the Dragon King of the Sea (Sāgara Nāgarāja Paripṛcchā) . | |
| Flower Garland Sutra | National Library of China B11:061–127 (xylograph edition) | Translation of the Flower Garland Sutra (Mahāvaipulya Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra). | |
| Golden Light Sutra | National Library of China B11:024–041 (xylograph edition) | Translation of the Golden Light Sutra (Suvarṇaprabhāsa Sūtra). | |
| Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra | IOM Tang.334 (12 manuscript copies in various formats, including) | Translation of the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra (Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra). | |
| Nirvana Sutra | IOM Tang.335 (8 manuscript copies in various formats, including) | Translation of the Nirvana Sutra (Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra) . | |
| Wonderful Dharma Lotus Flower Sutra | IOM Tang.218 (1 manuscript copy and 2 xylograph editions) | Translation of the Lotus Sutra (Saddharma Puṇḍarīka) . | |
| Thousand Names of the Buddhas of the Past Kalpa | National Library of China B11:052 (xylograph edition) | Translation of the first part of the Three Thousand Names of the Buddhas (Past, Present, and Future) . | |
| Thousand Names of the Buddhas of the Present Kalpa | IOM Tang.194 (1 manuscript copy and 24 xylograph editions) National Library of China B11:047–48 (xylograph edition) | Translation of the middle part of the Three Thousand Names of the Buddhas (Past, Present, and Future) . | |
| Repentance Ritual of Great Compassion | IOM Tang.281 (1 manuscript copy and 9 xylograph editions) National Library of China B11:038–46 (xylograph edition of chs. 1 and 3–10) | Translation of the Repentance Ritual of Great Compassion . | |
| Twenty-Five Answers Concerning the Buddhist Principles | IOM (xylograph edition)[1] | 25 questions asked by Buddhist monks, and answered by the State Preceptor Tangchang. Various editions are extant, some with commentaries. One edition (#2822) was published in 1189. | |
| High King Avalokitesvara Sutra | Palace Museum, Beijing (xylograph edition) | Latest dated printed text in Tangut, with a colophon dated the 5th or 7th year of the Ming dynasty Xuande era (1430 or 1432). | |
| Image | Title | Copies | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pearl in the Palm | IOM Tang.13 (several printings of two xylograph editions) | Bilingual Chinese-Tangut glossary with pronunciations of Chinese words in Tangut characters and pronunciations of Tangut words in Chinese characters. | |
| Sea of Writing | IOM Tang.14 and Tang.15 (xylograph edition) | Monolingual Tangut rime dictionary, comprising one volume of level tone characters, one (now lost) volume of rising tone characters, and one volume of "mixed category" characters. | |
| Precious Rhymes of the Sea of Characters | IOM (manuscript copy) | Manuscript copy of an edition of the Sea of Characters rime dictionary (different from the printed edition). | |
| Homophones | IOM Tang.18 (several printings of 2 xylograph editions) | Phonological text that lists Tangut characters that are homophones of each other. | |
| Combined Edition of Homophones and Sea of Characters | IOM (manuscript copies) British Library,, (manuscript fragments) | Combined edition of the Homophones and the Sea of Characters. | |
| Synonyms | IOM Tang.24 (one nearly complete manuscript copy and one partial manuscript copy)[2] Ningxia Institute of Archaeology, Ningxia K2:157, K2:286 (two fragments of a woodblock printed edition) | List of Tangut words ordered according to synonym groups. | |
| Essential Selection of Often Transmitted Homonyms and Mixed Characters | Private ownership[3] | List of Tangut characters ordered according to homonym groups. | |
| Joined Rimes of the Five Sounds | IOM Tang.22 (5 manuscript copies) | Phonological text that gives tables of fanqie pronunciations for Tangut characters. | |
| Assorted Characters | IOM Tang.19 (xylograph edition) | Classified lists of Tangut words. | |
| Newly Collected Grains of Gold or Golden Guide | IOM Tang.30 (manuscript copy) British Library (manuscript fragment) | Poem comprising 200 five-character lines, in total 1,000 Tangut characters, each used a single time only; intended for use as a primer for teaching Tangut characters, in the same way that the Thousand Character Classic (千字文) was used to teach Chinese characters. | |
| Image | Title | Copies | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Sea of Meanings, Established by the Saints | IOM Tang.32 (xylograph edition) | A leishu encyclopaedic book in 15 vols., with topics arranged by category (1182 ed.). | |
| Revised and Newly Endorsed Law Code for the Celestial Prosperity Era | IOM Tang.55 (xylograph edition) | The Western Xia law codes as established during the Celestial Prosperity era (1149–1169), in 20 vols. | |
| Ode Great Ode Ode on Monthly Pleasures Ode on Reason Ode on Cleverness | IOM Tang.25 (xylograph edition) | A collection of five poems written in ritual Tangut language. Ode on Monthly Pleasures was printed in 1185. | |
| Newly Assembled Precious Dual Maxims | IOM Tang.35 (xylograph edition) | Collection of Tangut two-part proverbs, published in 1187. | |
| Image | Title | Copies | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| The General's Garden | British Library (manuscript scroll)[4] | Translation of a Chinese military text, The General's Garden ascribed to Zhuge Liang. | |
| The Art of War | IOM Tang.6 (xylograph edition) | Translation of a Chinese military text, The Art of War ascribed to Sun Tzu. | |
| Newly Collected Biographies of Affection and Filial Piety | IOM Tang.31 (xylograph edition) | By Cao Daole. Translation of biographies of virtuous people from history (44 in the extant 2nd volume), mostly derived from Family Models 家范 by Sima Guang (1019–1086). | |
| The Forest of Categories | IOM Tang.11 (xylograph edition) | An encyclopaedic collection of stories (1181 edition). | |
| Analects | IOM Tang.2 (chs. 5, 11, 15, 19 and 20 of a xylograph edition) | Translation of the Analects of Confucius, with commentary. | |
| Mencius | IOM Tang.3 (part of a manuscript copy) IOM Tang.4 (part of a manuscript copy) | Translation of the Mencius, one edition with commentary. | |
| Newly Translated Book of Filial Piety with Commentary | IOM Tang.1 (manuscript copy) | Translation of the Confucian text, Classic of Filial Piety, with commentary. | |
. Yevgeny Kychanov . Каталог тангутских буддийских памятников Института востоковедения Российской Академии Наук . Catalogue of Tangut Buddhist Monuments at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences . Kyoto . Kyoto University . 1999 .
. Tatsuo Nishida . 西夏文華嚴經 . The Hsi-Hsia Avataṁsaka sūtra . 西夏譯佛典目錄 [Catalogue of Tangut translations of Buddhist texts] . Kyoto . 1977 .