Abstract
The ‘eye disease incantation’ is a special category of manuscript recorded by the Naxi Dongba for the purpose of healing through the power of incantation and meditation. Up to now, very few Dongba texts with incantations have been discovered or published, and Dongba texts which record incantations as well as depict scenes of meditation are even more rare. There are three ways to record Dongba script found in these texts: record the language completely; express the meaning via pictures; and create an expression that combines meaning and sound. The structure of the glyphs is characteristic of an early writing system which was mainly composed of pictographs and associative compounds. However, the high rate of phonetic loan glyphs and the appearance of pictophonetic glyphs show the characteristics of a mature writing system. This type of manuscript has value for studying the evolution of the relationship between Dongba language and script, and shamanic healing culture.
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