A Peculiar Alliance——Dunhuang Script S.2199 Ni Ling-hui's Promises Warrant
Dunhuang Script,S.2199 Ni Ling-hui's Promises Warrant,after having been checked and annotated by Liu Ming-shu and Shi Ping-ting,has drawn more attention from scholars.The Promises Warrant was a peculiar alliance among the civilians in ancient China.It showed its definite time,the law transaction,the testator's consciousness in the last stages and the feature of being quasi-official.The old people without children and heirs often used it when distributing their property.With the implementation of the new intestacy law in Song dynasty,the Promises Warrant in Tang and Five Dynasties died out.And the writer Ni Ling-hui was not a Buddhist nun,and also her surname was not bhiksuni,but an ordinary woman surnamed Ni.