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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

Sec. x] THE LOU-LAN SITE IN CHINESE HISTORICAL RECORDS   417

north he will overawe the Hsiung-nu (Huns). On the east he will be a neighbour to Tun-huang.' The purpose of the proposed military colony was, it is clear, to safeguard the direct route from Tun-huang to Kara-shahr leading north of the Lop marshes, to protect it from the raids of the Huns who were then holding Turfân in the north, and at the saine time to exercise the necessary control over the ruler of Shan-shan or the Lop region. A glance at the map will suffice to show how accurately the position indicated by the passage coincides with that occupied by the Lou-lan Site.

Two points mentioned in connexion with the proposed colony deserve special notice here. On the one hand, we see that the locality intended for the colony lay in the north of Shan-shan but within its territory, as a subsequent passage specially refers to the protection and encouragement which the king of Shan-shan would derive from the presence of a Chinese garrison.8 On the other hand, it is interesting and significant to find the naine Lou-Ian reappearing in Chinese records as the designation of a locality nearly two centuries after it had been replaced by Shan-shalt as the appellation of the Lop territory. The documents found at the Lou-lan Site, and particularly those in Kharosthi, supply a full explanation. Lou-tan: Kroraina was the original indigenous name of the easternmost inhabited tract in the ancient Kuruk-darya delta, where Pan Yung's military colony was to be established, and had continued in local use long after the Chinese had replaced it by Shan-shan as a designation of the whole Lop territory. Considering that Lou-lan : Kroraina was that extreme eastern portion of the inhabited Lop territory which ` approached nearest to China ',8 and consequently had a primary importance for the great route westwards, it is easy to understand why in the earliest Chinese usage the name was applied to the whole of the territory.

Pan Yung's proposal was not carried out at once. But when, four years later, he was appointed Chant/ slailz of the Western Countries, it was at Lou-lan that he received, in A.D. 124, the submission of the king of Shan-shan and subsequently also of the kings of Kucha and other western territories.? It was from the convenient base which Lou-lan furnished that he subsequently conquered Turfân and established a military colony at Lukchun. We are not told whether such a colony was also placed at Lou-lan. But considering its important position on the shortest and safest line of communication, it is difficult to believe that the Chinese hold upon Lou-lan could have been relaxed as long as the Later Hans maintained some political influence in the Tdrim Basin.

The ` Epoch of the Three Kingdoms ' (A. D. 221-65), which followed the downfall of the Later Han dynasty, brings us to the period from which our extant documents and other remains of the Lou-lan Site date. The references to Lou-lan to be found in the historical records of the epoch intervening between Han and Chin times may, therefore, claim special interest. They are contained in an extant portion, dealing with the ` Western Countries ', of the Wei lio, a work which was composed by Yu Huan between A.D. 239-65, and which treats of events belonging to the first two reigns of the Wei dynasty (A. D. 220-39).8 We have already had repeated occasion to utilize the valuable topographical data furnished by this text, which M. Chavannes' critical annotated translation has rendered conveniently accessible.

The Wei lio's notice presents this special interest for our inquiry, that it endeavours to give definite topographical indications as to the three routes which were then distinguished as leading from Tun-huang to the ' Western Countries'. As we shall have further on repeatedly to refer to this important passage, it will be convenient to reproduce the whole of it from . M. Chavannes' rendering,2 though I must confine my comments here to those points which have a direct bearing

Reappearance of local naine Lou-/an.

Pan Yung at Lou-lan. •

The Wei lio's notice.

6 See T'oung pao, 1906, p. 249; above, P. 332.

6 See Wylie, Notes on the Western Regions, J. Anlhrop. Inst., x. p. 26.

7 See Toungpao, 1906, p. 252.

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a See Chavannes, Les pays d'occidi,at d'après le Wei h o, T'oung pao, 1905, pp. 519 sqq.

9 See Chavannes, ibid., Toungpao, 1905, pp. 528 sqq.

3 H