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Hinayana
system at
Kâshgar.

56   HISTORICAL NOTICES OF KASHGAR   [Chap. III

MM. Specht and Marquart have rightly pointed out how well this notice of the Annals agrees with the story which Hsüan-tsang, in his description of Chia-pi-shih (Kapiga), records of Kaniska, the founder of the Yüeh-chih dominion in Gandhâra, having extended his power to the east of the Ts`ung-ling mountains, and received hostages at his court from the western dependencies of China 20. It appears, in fact, probable that, as ingeniously suggested by Dr. Marquart, the monastery at Chia-pi-shih, which an old local tradition reproduced by Hsüantsang asserts to have served as the summer residence of these hostages from the confines of

China, received its name Sha-lo-chia 21   Al from that princely hostage of Kâshgar. For
the form *Shdlaka or *Shizraka, which the Chinese transcription may be assumed to represent, would explain itself easily as a derivative from Sha-M, the alternative old name of Kashgar already noticed, which is likely to have sounded *Shalek according to the earlier pronunciation of the Chinese characters 22.

According to a statement of Klaproth, gathered apparently from Chinese sources, the interference of the Yüeh-chih in the affairs of Kashgar, towards 120 A. D., resulted in the introduction of Buddhism into that territory 23. The Chinese authority for this statement has not yet been traced ; but Buddhism undoubtedly flourished in the Yüeh-chih dominions on both sides of the Hindukush, and the prolonged sojourn in them which the Kashgar prince, subsequently elevated to the throne, had made as a hostage may well, after his elevation to the throne, have facilitated the spread of Buddhist propaganda in that part of the Tarim Basin. This assumption would agree with the tradition recorded by Hsüan-tsang, which makes the princely hostages from the states east of the Tstung-ling, including Sha-1ê or Kâshgar, reside in a Buddhist convent, and connects their stay with the reign of Kaniska, the renowned patron of Buddhism.

To whatever period the first establishment of the Buddhist Church in Kâshgar may prove to belong, it is far more probable that it was brought from the side of Baktria than from that of Khotan. In the latter territory, which would have been the only possible alternative channel, we know for certain that the prevailing if not the sole form of doctrine and worship was the Mahayana or ' Great Vehicle ' 24. In Kashgar, on the other hand, we find the predominance of the Hinayana School or the ' Little Vehicle ' equally strongly marked since the time of Fa-hsien 25. Now it • deserves to be noticed that, wherever the evidence of Hsüan-tsang's

Chinese hostages at Kapi§a.

Introduction of Buddhism.

Y0 See Mémoires, i. p. 42 ; Si yu-ki, transl. Beal, i. p. 56.

2` See Vie de Hiouen-Thsang, p. 71. Dr. Marquart has discussed the name at length in ÈrQniahr, pp. 283 sq., where a possible reference to the same Buddhist convent by the Muhammadan geographer Ya`qubi is also noticed.

22 Compare, regarding the pronunciation lek for g (now

sounded le), Franke, Sb.P.A.W., x903, p. 187.

" Compare Klaproth, Tableaux histor., p. i66 ; also Dr. Franke's instructive summary of Chinese notices concerning the spread of Buddhist teaching eastwards from the Yüeh-chih empire, in Sb.P.A.W., x903 pp. 74o sqq. Dr. Franke calls attention to a Tibetan text translated by Dr. Rockhill embodying traditions of Khotan or Li-yul, which mentions that a princess of Ga-hyag, who became the wife of King Vijayasimha of Khotan, helped to spread Buddhism in Shu-lik. The date of this king cannot be determined; compare Rockhill, Life of the Buddha, p. 24o; also below, Appendix E.

H Hsüan-tsang tells us that, of the 5,000 monks residing in the convents of Khotan, all (according to Julien and Beal's

translations; most' according to Dr. Franke's interpretation, Sb.P.A.W., 1903, p. 742, note) studied the Little Vehicle'; see Mlmoires, ii. p. 223. Fa-hien, transl. Legge, p. 16, also speaks of ' several myriads of monks, most of whom are students of the Mahäyana.'

25 Mémoires, ii. p. 2 20 ; Si yu-ki, ii. p. 307 ; Fa-hien, transl. Legge, p. 23. For the identification of Fa-hsien's Chieh-ch`a (K'eeh-ch`d, Legge) with Kashgar see below, p. 67.

The close agreement between Fa-hsien's and Hsüantsang's data as regards the two great schools extends also to Tztir-ho : Cho-chil-chia which, as we shall see below chap. Iv. sec. iv., must be identified with Karghalik. There the prevalence and flourishing condition of the Mahayana is accounted for by the vicinity of, and old connexion with, Khotan ; see Fd-hien, transl. Legge, p. 21, and Mémoires, ii. p. a 2 I. On the other hand, the Hinayana or ' Little Vehicle ' predominated in the regions along the great route leading eastwards of Kashgar, according to the uniform testimony of both Fa-hsien and Hsüan-tsang ;