In the novel “Caves of a Thousand Buddhas,” the famous Japanese writer Yasushi Inoue (1907–1991) tries to uncover the mystery of the origin of Buddhist scrolls, many centuries ago buried in grottoes at the foot of Mingsha near the city of Dunhuang in western China and discovered by archaeologists only at the beginning of the 20th century .Zhao Xingde, a loyal subject of the Song Empire, by chance saved a young Tangut woman from death and received from her a letter with unfamiliar symbols as a gift. This is how the enlightened Khan first saw the writing of Western Xia - the Tangut state, which was at enmity with the Celestial Empire - and the desire to read the mysterious signs threw him into the whirlpool of wars and political passions that raged in Central Asia in the 11th century.