Dunhuang sutras on show for the first time at the National Museum of Korea — free until 24 Jan

Four Buddhist sutras from Dunhuang, copied out by hand, are leaving the National Museum of Korea's storerooms for the first time in more than 110 years. After years of conservation and a research report published at the end of 2025, the museum is giving them a three-month display in its Central Asia Gallery from 23 October. It is a rare chance to see, free of charge in Seoul, paper scrolls that lay sealed in a cave in the Silk Road oasis of Dunhuang for nearly a thousand years.

Which four Dunhuang sutras are on show?

All four are scrolls written in ink on paper, and they share a single accession number (Deoksu 4555). The display uses short titles, so the table gives the full sutra name and chapter identified in the museum's report.

So that researchers abroad can cite the same manuscripts, the museum has given each scroll a new identifier in the form “NMK DH 101”. This display is the first time the report's findings have been put in front of the public.

Where did the Dunhuang sutras come from? The Library Cave at Mogao

Dunhuang is an oasis city in Gansu Province, China, and was a gateway on the Silk Road. Cave 17 of the Mogao cave temples there was a chamber in which scriptures and documents were stacked and then walled up, which is why it is called the Library Cave. In 1900 the Taoist priest Wang Yuanlu, who looked after the caves, stumbled on the hidden room behind a wall, and tens of thousands of manuscripts and paintings came to light.

Aurel Stein of Britain in 1907 and Paul Pelliot of France in 1908 then carried off large quantities of documents, scattering the cave's contents to London, Paris, Beijing and beyond — and giving rise to a field of its own, Dunhuang studies.

How did the sutras reach a museum in Korea?

According to an old collection card the report traces, the Yi Royal Family Museum bought the four scrolls on 1 December 1913 for 200 yen from Uratani Seiji, a Japanese antiques dealer working between Dalian and Seoul. The card records their find-spot as “discovered in the Dunhuang stone chamber”.

• Its first inventory number was 9946; it became “Deoksu 4555” in 1938, when the collection moved from Changgyeonggung Palace to Deoksugung Palace.
• It did not come with the Otani collection of the Government-General Museum, which makes up most of the National Museum of Korea's Central Asian holdings.
• Kept among a collection devoted mainly to Korean art, it went largely unnoticed for decades.
• The report suggests it may be linked to documents siphoned off in 1910, when the remaining Dunhuang papers were being moved to Beijing. That is a hypothesis, not a settled finding.

Why are they only being shown now?

Because of their condition. An inspection in 2015 found the paper joins separating, stains and discoloration, and the paper itself weakened, so conservation began. As that work neared completion in the second half of 2024, the museum's World Arts Division began detailed research; after an expert review in March 2025 it published the report “Buddhist Manuscripts from Dunhuang in the National Museum of Korea” (not for sale, 189 pages) that December. Anyone can download it as a PDF from the museum website.

What is Meditating Monks, shown alongside?

Next to the sutras is a painted clay panel of monks. Each sits with hands together inside a niche-like frame. The museum's online collection database, e-museum, lists it under a different name (a fired-clay Buddhist figure) at 35.5 cm high and 67 cm wide; the accession number, Bon-gwan 4037, is the same, so it is the same object. e-museum does not give a find-spot or a date.

What else to see in the Central Asia Gallery

The Central Asia Gallery holds wall paintings removed from Silk Road cave temples at Turfan, Kucha and Miran. The murals below are not part of the sutra display; they are gallery holdings that show what kind of room it is, and whether each is hanging during the display is something to check on the day.

What to know before you go

• Late opening on Wednesdays and Saturdays: open until 9 pm (last entry 8:30 pm), so you can go after work. Other days close at 5:30 pm (last entry 5 pm).
• Avoid Monday 7 December: it is the permanent galleries' quarterly closure day, so the Central Asia Gallery is shut too.
• Booking is for groups only: individuals just walk in; only school groups of 30 or more must book.
• Skim the report first: it reproduces the colophons and the old collection card, which tells you what to look for in the gallery.
• Getting there: from exit 2 of Ichon Station (Line 4 and Gyeongui–Jungang Line), the underground walkway to the museum takes about five minutes.

Getting there, and what to expect if you do not read Korean

Take Seoul subway Line 4 or the Gyeongui–Jungang Line to Ichon Station (이촌역), leave by exit 2 and follow the underground walkway signed for the museum; it is about a five-minute walk. Inside, go up to the 3rd floor of the Permanent Exhibition Hall and look for World Culture, then the Central Asia Gallery. Admission is free and there is nothing to book, so you never deal with a Korean booking system or phone verification. The museum's English website lists the display as “Breaking the Seal of a Thousand Years”, and its permanent galleries are generally labelled in Korean and English, but the museum had not said whether these particular cases carry English text. The sutras themselves are in classical Chinese. Reading the English summary of the museum's report, or this page, before you go is the surest way to know what you are looking at.