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0226 Ancient Khotan : vol.1
Ancient Khotan : vol.1 / Page 226 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000182
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Reign of Wei-ch`ih Fu-tu Hsiung (cire. 674690 A. D.).

Tibetan inroads (circ. 714719 A. D.).

A-mo-chih, title of Khotan ruler.

Khotan rulers from cire. 736 to 760 A.D.

176   HISTORICAL NOTICES OF KHOTAN   [Chap. VII

a Chinese commandant of Yü-t`ien shows that the territory had already received an imperial garrison 25.

About the year 674-675 A.D. Fu-tu Hsiung, king of Khotan, is recorded to have personally paid homage at the Chinese court, accompanied by his sons, younger brothers, and high dignitaries. In return for services against the Tibetans, the emperor paid him the compliment of constituting his territory into the Government of Pi-sha ;;1' `, called after the god Vaigravana (131-sha-mên in Chinese transcription), and appointing him its governor. The Annals mention the division of the territory into ten districts, but unfortunately fail to give us their names 26. On the death of Wei-ch`ih Fu-tu Hsiung, his son Ching was placed on the throne by the Empress Wu in the year 691 27. An embassy from this ruler in the year 717, according to the Ts`ê fu yuan kuei, brought as presents two horses trained for the game of polo, a wild camel of remarkable fleetness, and a leopard 28.

it must have been under his reign that the garrison town of Kan *tit, belonging to Khotan, and three hundred li to the east of the capital, was, cire. 705-706 A. D., raided with rich reward in plunder by the Turkish chief Ch`üeh-cho, as recorded in the biography of Kuo Yüan-chên, then ` Great Protector of An-hsi ' 29. Far more serious, however, during the latter part of his reign must have been the danger to Khotan from the Tibetans. The latter are known from the Annals to have annually harassed the Chinese borders from 714 A. D. onwards ; and in the interesting Chinese sgraffito of the Endere shrine, dated in the year 7r9, we have definite evidence that the inroads of these formidable adversaries extended also to the confines of the protected state of Khotan 30. In the same year an imperial decree bestowed upon Yü-t`ien, as on the other three states then counted among the four garrisons (Kâshgar, Kuchâ, Kara-shahr), the right of levying duties from the merchants of the ` Western Regions ' and of utilizing the proceeds for their own purposes 31.

A notice of the Tzû chih t`ung chien acquaints us with a Khotan king whose name does not appear in the Tang Annals. It relates that Wei-ch`ih Tiao, who in secret alliance with the Tu-chüeh and other Hu tribes was preparing a revolt, was in 725 seized and executed by the Deputy Protector of An-hsi 32. The successor, whom the latter is said to have nominated, was in all probability Wei-chtih Fu-shih-chan, whose brevet of investiture as king of Khotan, dated in the first month of the sixteenth year of the K`ai-yüan period (728 A. D.), is actually among the documents translated by M. Chavannes from the Ts`ê fu yuan kuel 33. The brevet mentions

at the head of the king's official titles that of ` a-mo-chih isK   X of Yü-t`ien'.

This title of a-mo-chih is of interest, as by it we find the ruler of Khotan designated in a

Chinese document from Dandan-Uiliq dated 768 A. D.   It It appears also in a decree of the
same year which bestowed the throne of Kâshgar on An-chih, a-mo-chih of Su-1635.

Fu-shih-chan was succeeded by Fu-tu Ta, apparently about 736 A. D., as an imperial decree of that year records the grant of the title of princess to his consort, the dame Chih-shih 36. Wei-chtih Kuei, whom the Annals name as the next ruler of Khotan, must have succeeded

~

28 See Ville de Khotan, p. 69.

26 See Chavannes, Turcs occid., p.127; Notes addit., p. 23.

27 For the date, see Notes addit., p. 24.

28 Compare Turcs occid., p. 127; Notes addit., p. 34.

29 See Turcs occid., p. 185. This garrison town of Kan might possibly be identical with the .Kan chou which the notice of Kao Chü-hui s mission (938-942 A. D.) mentions as a town east of Yü-rien ; see Rémusat, Ville de Khotan, p. 79. For a probable identification see below, chap. mil. sec. ii.

so Compare below, chap. XII. sec. ii. ; Bushell, The early history of Tibet, p. 26.

Si Turcs occid., p. 114.

82 Turcs occid., pp. 82 note, 3r 1.

33 See Turcs occid., pp. 127, 207.

34 See below, chap. Ix. sec. v.; Hoernle, Report on C.-A. antiquities, ii., p. 24.

S3 See Turcs occid., p. 208.

38 See Turcs occid., p. 127; Notes addit., p. 56.