Jao Tsung-i was China’s last great traditional man of letters, polymath, and pioneer of comparative humanistic inquiry during Hong Kong’s global heyday. Dunhuang is China’s traditional northwest frontier and overland conduit of exchange with the Old World. In this volume, Jao proposes an entirely new school of Chinese landscape painting, reconsiders Dunhuang’s oldest manuscripts as its newest research field, and explores topics ranging from comparative religion to medieval multimedia.

From prehistoric bone flutes to Confucian bell-sets, from ancient divination to his beloved qin, this book presents translations of thirteen seminal essays on musical subjects by Jao Tsung-i. In language as elegant and refined as the ancient texts he so admired, his journey takes readers through Buddhist incantation, the philosophy of musical instruments, acoustical numerology, lyric poetry, historical and sociological contexts, manuscript studies, dance choreography, repertoire formulation, and opera texts. His voice is authoritative and intimate, the expert crafting his arguments, both...