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Tiansheng nian gaiding xinlü 天盛年改定新律, the Western Xia Code

Aug 22, 2010 © Ulrich Theobald

Tiansheng nian gaiding xinlü 天盛年改定新律 "New penal law revised during the Tiansheng reign (1149-1169)" is the surviving law code of the Western Xia dynasty 西夏 (1038-1227).

The 20 chapters (zhang 章, one is lost) contain 1,460 law articles.

In 1909 Pyotr K. Kozlov (1863-1935), leader of a Russian expedion to the western part of China explored the ruins of Kara-Khoto (Chinese: Heicheng 黑城) where he found a lot of documents which he took with him back to Russia. The law code of the Western Xia is stored today in St Petersburg and has not been published to date. It is a very important source for the administrative and social history of the Western Xia empire which still awaits further research.

Sources:
Na Xiaobo 那曉波 (1994). "Tiansheng nian gaixin ding lüling 《天盛年改新定律令》", Heilongjiang minzu congkan 黑龍江民族叢刊, 1994 (6).
Shi Jinbo 史金波 (1992). "Tiansheng nian gaiding xinlü 天盛年改定新律", in Zhongguo da baike quanshu 中國大百科全書, Zhongguo lishi 中國歷史 (Beijing/Shanghai: Zhongguo da baike quanshu chubanshe), Vol. 2, 1140.