Debates about the authenticity of the Dunhuang manuscripts began in the 1950s. The Moriya collection, a major collection of ancient sutra manuscripts, was donated to the Kyoto National Museum in 1954. The late Mr. Fujieda Akira (Professor Emeritus, Kyoto University) questioned the Dunhuang manuscripts in that collection. Mr. Fujieda passionately pursued his belief that there were forged manuscripts in the collection from the time of his involvement in the production of the explanatory notes for images of the manuscripts published in 1964 in the Moriya Kozo-shi shushu kokyo zuroku collection catalogue. This issue became more generally known in January 1986 when the Asahi Shimbun published a report based on Mr. Fujieda's writings that the Kyoto National Museum had fakes amongst its Dunhuang manuscripts.
  It is hard to actively debate the veracity of the Dunhuang manuscripts in Japan. However, there are two figures who were actively engaged in this issue - Mr. Fujieda Akira and Dr. Ikeda On. Greatly summarized, Mr. Fujieda took the stance that authentic manuscripts must be originals, while Dr. Ikeda accepted some merit in the copies that correctly copy the originals instead of refusing all copies simply as forgeries. Thus their stances may raise important issues regarding the nature of an original.
  There are several research methods to clarify the veracity of the Dunhuang manuscripts. Mr. Fujieda employed his own codicology method, while Dr. Jean-Pierre Drege developed a morphological method, and Mr. Akao Eikei incorporated the two previous methods for his bibliographic method. In all these methods the Dunhuang manuscripts are treated as objects, and there is a collection of detailed data regarding the material aspect of the manuscripts. This data is then compared and analyzed typologically. However, because these methods basically use visual data collection, quantitative researchers consider that there are many cases where the standards differ and data is scattered, or that the analysis of data can be influenced by the researcher's experience and abilities. In order to lessen such damage, some scholars give the most credence to data obtained by scientific research and analytical methods.
  Outside Japan, the International Dunhuang Project (IDP) directly confronts this issue. The IDP, directed by Dr. Susan Whitfield, focuses on the Dunhuang manuscripts archive at the British Library. This project held a workshop on June 30 - July 2, 1997 entitled "Forgeries of Dunhuang Manuscripts in the Early Twentieth Century". During this workshop, the British Library acknowledged that there are some forgeries in the Stein collection of Dunhuang manuscripts, and the proceedings of that workshop have already been published.
  This forum will discuss the history and future of the research on the Dunhuang manuscripts in terms of their veracity, preservation and restoration, scientific surveys and the formation of archives as resources for such research.