国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

Watchtower above ruin.

Magazine remembered in Tunhuang tradition.

Ruined town

O-Is'ang

mentioned in Sha chou chih.

716   THE JADE GATE BARRIER   [Chap. XIX

the foundations of a room about i 5 feet square, partly dug out of the solid clay, partly walled. Besides a few miscellaneous objects, including two woven string shoes, a Wu-chu coin, and a wooden

die, T. xvIII. iii. 003 (Plate LIII), there was found here a fragmentary wooden record, Doc. No. 414,

also dated 52 B. c.' In addition, I need only mention a ruined watch-tower built on the edge of the gravel plateau which overlooks the site from the south. It rises only to about i 2 feet in

height and seemed of inferior construction, being built of layers of coarse clay separated by reeds at intervals of 3 or 4 inches. Owing to its position it is visible from a considerable distance, and may have been erected as a signal station or road-mark. The ruined magazine itself, in spite of its great size, cannot be sighted from afar because it is placed low down in the marshy basin.

We have no direct archaeological or documentary evidence for settling the approximate date at which the magazine ceased to be occupied. It is, however, obvious that its use could not well have continued beyond the period when the garrisoning of the Limes stations ceased, about the middle of the second century A. D. Fortunately the very size of the ruined structure seems to have assured it attention in the local tradition of Tun-huang, and to this circumstance we owe brief references made to it in two treatises of Tang times that deal with the mirabilia and other local topics of Tun-huang. Both are preserved in manuscripts recovered from the walled-up temple library of the ' Thousand Buddhas '. One of these is the Tun-huang lu, which Dr. Giles has translated from a booklet in my collection, and to which reference has already been made. There we read : ` The town of Ho-ts`ang is 23o li north-west of the city. In ancient times a military magazine stood there.' 8 There cannot, I think, be any doubt that the ruined magazine of T. xviii is meant here.° The bearing to the north-west of Tun-huang town is correct, and the distance of 23o li indicates as close an approximation to the actual distance along the route shown by Map No. 78, viz. 5o miles, as we can possibly expect. I have already given abundant evidence to prove that the li, as used by the Chinese of Tang times for road measurement in Central Asia, corresponds to about one-fifth of a mile.lo

The other text containing a mention of our ruin is the Sha chou chih, which Professor Pelliot brought away from the ' Thousand Buddhas ', and which Mr. Lo Chên-yü subsequently published in his Tun huant shih shih i shu. According to Dr. Giles's note, the Sha chou chill states of the ` ancient town of O-ts ang 14 A- (as the name is there written) ' the following : ' It is 242 li northwest of Tun-huang, and is usually called the town of O-ts`ang. Its date is unknown. The place is in ruins, but the foundations still remain.' A further statement of the text is quoted by Dr. Giles to the effect ' that its walls were only i 8o paces in circumference '. It is easy to see that the description given by the Sha chou chili, a text dating also from Tang times but apparently somewhat older than the Tun-huang lu (Mr. Lo Chên-yü, as Dr. Giles informs me, assigns to it the approximate date of A.D. 713-42), is perfectly correct if taken to refer to the ruined magazine of T. xviii. The bearing and distance agree, as well as the dimensions given for the walls. The block of three big halls which must be meant measures about i,000 feet in circumference, and to this the estimate of 18o double paces—for such are obviously intended—corresponds accurately enough. It is of interest to note that the term ts`ang A. found in the name, as recorded by both texts,

' The site-marks of Doc. Nos. 426, 427 have been misread, and ought to be T. xvIII. i. 10, 12 ; not T. xvnl. iii. 10, 12.

8 Cf. Giles, Tun Huang Lu, j.R.A.S., 1914, p. 722. I am informed by Mr. A. D. Waley that the name as written in the T'en-huang lu (see p. 14, as reproduced loc. cil., p. 728) is

O-ls'ang 1 t, and therefore identical with the form found

in the Sha chou chih. [But see Dr. Giles's remark in Add. g. Corr.]

I) Dr. Giles himself was ' much tempted to identify the military magazine with the huge ruined structure ' T. xvIII, of which I had already given a fairly detailed account in Desert Cathay, ii. pp. 127 sqq. But, owing apparently to a misapprehension as to the distance indicated in the texts, he inclined in the end to the conclusion that our author has made a mistake in locating the magazine at O-ts'ang'.

10 See above, pp. 320, 559 ; 649, note 12.