Dongba Script — Overview
Combining the dual characteristics of pictographs and drawings, Dongba script vividly captures the Naxi people’s understanding of nature and the world through expressive strokes. It is the only pictographic writing system in the world that is still in active use today, drawing widespread attention from cultural organizations both in China and internationally.
In 2003, ancient manuscripts written in Dongba script were inscribed in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, recognizing their status as a significant cultural heritage. However, with the number of inheritors gradually declining, the preservation and transmission of Dongba script has become an increasingly urgent and important issue.
In the southwest of China, near the equator and the towering snow-capped mountains, the Naxi people created the uniquely distinctive Dongba script—a writing system that has endured for centuries and carries a rich, long-standing heritage.
The Xinzhong Naxi community migrated during the early Qing Dynasty from regions such as Muli, Yongning, Weixi, Ta’an, Lashi, Qi He, Tacheng, and Ludian. They have lived in Xinzhong for over 200 years. Originally known simply as Naxi, the Xinzhong Naxi people, like the broader Naxi ethnic group, are divided into four branches: Shu, You, Mei, and He. Among them, the Shu branch makes up 90% of the population, the You branch 8.2%, and the Mei and He branches together account for 1.8%.
Dongba script, known in the Naxi language as “Ser Jel Lv Jel”, meaning “marks on wood and stone” or “records on wood and stone,” vividly reflects its origins as primitive symbols carved onto wood and stone surfaces.
Believed to have originated over a thousand years ago—widely thought to date back to the Tang Dynasty—Dongba script is honored as “the world’s only living pictographic script” and regarded as a “living fossil” in the history of human writing systems. As an integral part of traditional Naxi culture, the script has been primarily used by Naxi religious priests known as Dongba, who employed it to write religious scriptures, document history, and record aspects of daily life—hence the name Dongba script.
Dongba script is a pictographic writing system that combines both ideographic and phonetic elements. It represents an early stage in the evolution of writing—positioned between primitive pictographs and fully developed pictographic scripts.
Dongba script is primarily used in Lijiang, Yunnan, and surrounding areas inhabited by the Naxi people, including Zhongdian (Shangri-La), Weixi, and other regions along the upper reaches of the Jinsha River, where the western dialect of the Naxi language is spoken.
According to various sources, Dongba script contains approximately 1,400 to 2,000 individual characters, though exact numbers vary depending on the method of classification. When including its derived phonetic script, Geba script, the total number of symbols can exceed 2,000.
The development of Naxi pictographic script has been extremely slow, and its forms still carry the radiant brilliance of ancient human artistic expression. Each page of the Dongba manuscripts is filled with lively and exquisite traces of birds and fierce beasts, exuding the rich fragrance of primitive art.
Although these manuscripts were not created with the purpose of artistic appreciation, they naturally embody an aesthetic awareness. The simple and charming figures follow certain stylistic rules yet transform endlessly, appearing both spontaneous and meticulously crafted. The combination of lines and shapes is rhythmic, delivering a powerful visual impact.
Whether in terms of individual characters or overall composition, Dongba manuscripts demonstrate their unique aesthetic value, making them exemplary works of traditional Naxi pictographic calligraphy art.
In the Qing Dynasty, Yu Qingyuan made one of the earliest records of the characteristics of Dongba script in Wei Xi Jian Wen Lu (“Records of Observations in Weixi”): “It is purely pictographic—people are depicted as people, things are depicted as things, regarded as written signs.”
As the most important element of Dongba culture, Naxi pictographic script and Dongba manuscripts have become one of the main subjects of “International Naxi Studies.” At the same time, they have also attracted the admiration of calligraphers, painters, and visual artists both domestically and internationally.
Over the past 20-plus years, a group of modern Dongba calligraphy and painting artists has emerged. Cultivating their art deeply in the fertile soil of Dongba culture, they have created a vast body of calligraphy, paintings, and seal carvings inspired by Naxi pictographs and Dongba manuscripts using contemporary artistic techniques. Their work has expanded the aesthetic horizons of Chinese calligraphy and painting while accelerating the international dissemination of Naxi pictographic script, thereby significantly influencing trends in mainstream global culture.
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