to read dhuå, but I have never come across any such coupling in Kharosthi, and it is safer to read dhå. Then comes ca with the length-stroke, i. e. cä, and further riyasa.
The first word is consequently Simdhåcariyasa, the genitive of Sin.dhacåriya, which can safely be considered as equivalent to Sanskrit Sindhvacårya `the Sindhu teacher'. It is clearly the name of a man, and evidently denotes the person to whom the roll belonged.
The name is of some interest, because we know from Professor LÜDERs5 that traditional tales connected with Western India and especially with Sindh were localized in Eastern Turkistan. Thus the Sindh town Roruka seems to have been identified with Lou-lan. It seems as if colonists from Western India, including Sindh, had settled down in Eastern Turkistan at an early date. Our legend may be taken to indicate that this settlement was not later than the second century A. D.
After the name comes an absolutely unmistakable pa. With the ensuing ta, which I have already mentioned, we accordingly get pata `silk roll'.
Then follow two signs, which are clearly identical, though the last one is a little indistinct, and which must be the numeral symbol for twenty. As usual in Kharosthi records a repeated 20, 20 20, means forty. We thus have the same number, clearly indicating the length of the roll, as in the Chinese and the Brå.hmi legends. And we must translate : `Sindhuå.cårya's roll, forty (feet long)'. There was evidently a standard length, and also a standard width, o f these ancient silk rolls.
5 Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1930, pp. 7 ff ; cf. my remarks Acta Orientalia xii, pp. 136 ff.
IIIFカラー高解像度
