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

03. a (Pl. LXXXII), block-printed with a floral pattern of good naturalistic design, deserves to be
specially mentioned.

Frs. of wall-
paintings
from cave-
shrine
Toy. v. Brief reference still remains to be made to a small cave-shrine on the right bank of the stream,
v (see plan, Pl. 25). It is approached from above over a very steep rock slope at a point about 300
yards below Toy. iv and, owing to the difficulty of access, I was unable to reach it with my injured
leg. Attention was called to it by some fresco pieces (Toy. 067–8) brought for sale by a local man.
On examination by my assistants, the walls of the passage around the central rock-carved pillar,
which still retained an image base in its front recess, were found completely stripped of their paint-
ings. But numerous small broken pieces of painted plaster littered the sand-covered floor, sad
evidence of the vandal destruction which had been wrought here, probably for the sake of selling
a few carelessly extracted panels.

Cave-shrine
Toy. vi. The same fate had been suffered by the paintings that once decorated the walls of a rock-cut
shrine, Toyuk vi, situated above the left bank of the Toyuk stream at a distance of about six
hundred yards above the Mazār of Yetti-kalandar and close to where the road leading up the gorge
makes its steep drop down to the stream. This shrine, as the sketch-plan in Pl. 28 shows, consisted
of an antechapel, a little over 20 feet wide and probably about as long, and a cella, measuring
10 feet by 11 feet 4 inches, approached from the former by a passage 6 feet wide and about 5½ feet
deep. The antechapel had its sides faced with brick walls which once carried a vaulted roof; it
was found completely ruined and contained but little debris. But the floor of the cella retained
a layer of sand about 3 feet deep, which had preserved, not only the lowest portion of a stuccoed
image base, but also a considerable number of fine fresco fragments as well as a few remains of
stucco relievos. According to statements made by the villagers the plastered surfaces of the walls
bearing paintings were torn down a long time ago by men searching the cave for timber. Some
support for this came to light in the shape of a rough splinter of wood, about two feet long, evidently
reduced from a larger piece of timber and retaining on its smooth surface remains of Uigur writing
in two columns. There were also visible in the side walls of the cella shallow groove-like recesses
cut into the rock, which evidently had served for the insertion of a wooden framework probably
meant to strengthen the plastering ; such support may have been all the more needed as the cella
walls were not cut vertically from the rock but, as the section in Pl. 28 shows, sloped slightly inwards
as they rose.

Frs. of wall-
paintings
from
Toy. vi. Among the fresco pieces recovered, only the smaller fragments have so far been set up and
examined, and these, though in many instances showing interesting details, do not furnish adequate
clues to the general character of the decorative scheme. Referring for details to the Descriptive
List, I may confine myself here to mentioning Toy. vi. 03, 051 from a representation of the goddess
Hārītī with her babes ; 02, 015, 032, 035, 068 as showing robes figured with lions, birds, &c. ;
06, 066, 073 with figures of suppliants. Besides fragmentary inscriptions in Uigur (029, 033, 071),
we have others in Brāhmī script (031, 039, 049, 091). Of special interest is the treatment of 'high
lights' observable in 052, 065, where an originally white or other light colour appears to have
oxidized to black. A number of the fragments show signs of having suffered from smoke, no doubt
at some time when the cave-shrine, conveniently near to the road, was used as a habitation. Within
the cella was found also a well-carved stone block, 16 inches square and 7 inches high, bearing on
its top the roughly carved representation of an open lotus in high relief. The original purpose
served by it is not clear. Small fragments of Chinese manuscript rolls, some with Uigur or Brāhmī
writing on the reverse, were also discovered when the cella was cleared.

But the chief object of interest that had survived in this shrine is the painted ceiling of the
flat-shaped dome over the cella (Fig. 313). This showed, as far as preserved, two rows of carefully