Object description

The Tangut dharani pillars are two stone dharani pillars, with the text of a dhāraṇī-sutra inscribed on them in the Tangut script, which were found in Baoding, Hebei, China in 1962. The dharani pillars were erected during the middle of the Ming Dynasty , in 1502, and they are the latest known examples of the use of the Tangut script. They are also very rare examples of Tangut monumental inscriptions outside of the area ruled by the Western Xia empire . The only other known example of an inscription in the Tangut script that has been found in north China is on the 14th-century Cloud Platform at Juyongguan in Beijing. These pillars indicate that there was a vibrant Tangut community living in Baoding, far from the Tangut homeland in modern Ningxia and Gansu, during the early 16th century, nearly 300 years after the Western Xia was destroyed by the Mongols.