Innermost Asia : vol.2 / 57 ページ（カラー画像）

0057	Innermost Asia : vol.2
極奥アジア : vol.2

his family in the retention of his possessions.¹⁷ On the division of Chinghiz Khān's huge empire
between his sons, Bēsh-balik with Turfān passed under the suzerainty of Chagatai's branch. It
was then that information about the Uigurs first reached Europe. To Friar John de Rubruck,
who in 1253–5 visited the Great Khān Mangu near Kara-korum on a mission, we owe a clear
indication of the mixture of creeds prevailing among the Uigurs. Though he mentions them as the
first among the idolaters, i. e. Buddhists, eastwards in Asia, he also notes Nestorians and Muham-
madans as being mixed with them.¹⁸ He likewise justly recognizes the important part played by
them in the literary use of Turkish speech, a part abundantly demonstrated by the manuscript
remains in Uigur yielded by the ruins of Turfān.¹⁹

Whether Mongol supremacy, with its religious tolerance and the easy and constant intercourse
it assured between China and Central Asia, had something to do with retarding the spread of
Muhammadanism in Uigur territories cannot be stated definitely. But certain it is that Buddhism,
and Taoism also, survived longer there than elsewhere in Eastern Turkestān among populations
of Turkish speech. The narrative of Ch'ang Ch'un, the Taoist sage sent for by Chingiz, mentions
visits that he received from Buddhist and Taoist priests on his passage in 1221 through Bēsh-balik
and at some town towards Manas. But he significantly adds that west of that town there were
'neither Buddhists nor Taoists'. 'The Hui-ho (Uigurs) only worship the west (i.e. turn towards
Mecca).'²⁰

The chiefs of Turfān and Bēsh-balik and their emissaries whom the Ming Annals mention
from the last quarter of the fourteenth century onwards all bear Muhammadan names.²¹ Yet in
1408 we are told of a Buddhist from Turfān, with his disciples, reaching the Chinese capital.²²
A notice in the Ming Annals, dating from the first half of the fifteenth century, particularly
mentions, concerning Huo-chou 火州, by which name Kao-ch'ang (Kara-khōja) was known
since Mongol times, that 'there are more Buddhist temples than dwelling-houses of the people'.
We can scarcely be wrong in assuming that in this statement are included 'the ruins of an ancient
city, the remains of the capital of ancient Kao-ch'ang', i. e. the ruins of the site now known
as Idikut-shahri or Dākiānūs-shahri, which the same notice, immediately after the passage quoted,
describes as situated to the east.²³ That Buddhism in 1420 was still the prevalent cult in the Turfān
tract is conclusively shown by the record of Shāh Rukh's embassy, which states: 'They found that
in that country most of the inhabitants were polytheists (i. e. Buddhists), and had large idol-houses,
in the halls whereof they kept a tall idol.'²⁴ At Kumul (Hāmi), too, the same record notes a fine
Buddhist temple rising by the side of a mosque.

The fact thus established that complete conversion to Islām took place in the Turfān area so
much later than in the Tārīm basin calls for special notice here, because, from an archaeological
standpoint, it has had a very important influence upon the survival in the former of remains of
antiquity and upon the condition in which they are found. It allowed relics of pre-Muhammadan
civilization, including objects of cult, literature and art, to exist in this territory, comparatively
well cared for, to within four or five centuries of our own time and that on ground which has been
continuously occupied. The same fact explains why a large proportion of those remains belongs

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