Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c15.s2.t14.2

v2.c15.s2.t14.2

In 1924, Xiang Da graduated from Nanjing Higher Normal School (now Southeast University) and worked as an editor of the editing and translation section of the Commercial Press of Shanghai. In 1930, he was appointed as a Board Member of Peiping (Beijing) Library Editorial Board, and mainly committed himself to studies in the manuscripts of Dunhuang Popular Literature and cultural communication between China and the West. Between 1935 and 1938, he lived in Europe and visited the Oxford University Library, British Museum, Prussian Academy of Sciences in Germany and French National Library to collect, copy and sort out Chinese and foreign traffic history, Dunhuang examination papers, Chinese classic works, manuscripts of popular literature, among other important materials. In 1938, he returned to China and taught at the Department of History and Geography of Zhejiang University. Before long, he was transferred to Southwest Associated University in Kunming and became a Professor of the Department of History, and held a concurrent post of Supervisor of Peking University Institute of Arts. Between 1942 and 1944, he joined and led the Historical Archaeology Team of Northwest History and Geography Exploration Mission of Academia Sinica, and went to Hexi and Dunhuang areas to study Mogao Grottoes and Ten-Thousand-Buddha Valley. In the meantime, he wrote many essays about archaeology in Dunhuang and the West Regions, and had them published successively. After 1949, he worked as a Professor of the Department of History of Peking University, Curator of Peking University Library, Deputy Director and concurrently Academic Member of the Second Division of the Institute of History Studies, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Editorial Board Member of *Historical Research* and *Acta Archaeologica Sinica*.