210 PAINTINGS & OTHER ART RELICS CH. LXVIII
Is it not possible that damasks with carefully copied ' Western ' patterns were manufactured in China itself for regular export, just as Chinese porcelain factories produced ' China ' with European designs for export to the West all through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? Or have we, perhaps, to look upon Khotan, an early home of transplanted sericulture, as the industrial centre which, being in close touch with the Oxus regions and Iran, was able to turn out fine silk fabrics in a style closely approaching the ` Sassanian ' patterns ? No definite answer can safely be attempted as yet. But all advance in research is bound up with problems, and so I feel glad that the ' finds ' in that hidden temple cave have raised them in more than one direction.
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