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0390 The Pulse of Asia : vol.1
アジアの鼓動 : vol.1
The Pulse of Asia : vol.1 / 390 ページ(カラー画像)

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doi: 10.20676/00000233
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renowned for its library, its art, and its craft, as well as its
might in war. Lecoq, in the course of archæological investi-
gations of which the results have not yet been published,
found manuscripts on paper, leather, and wood, in ten dif-
ferent languages. Most of the manuscripts date from
the early days of Kara-Khoja. An examination of the
languages shows how, when favorable climatic conditions
caused Turfan to become capable of supporting a dense
population, people poured in from every quarter. Speakers
of Nagari and of two dialects of Brahmi came from India
on the southwest; Tibetans and Tanguts brought their
language from the southeast; Chinese from the east; Uigurs
and Turks from the northeast, north, and northwest; while
from the west came people who were probably Nestorian
Christians, and who brought the Syriac and Manicharean
tongues and an unknown language allied to Syriac. The
presence of Tibetan manuscripts in Turfan is especially
interesting because at the end of the eighth century there
was a great incursion of Tibetans into Chinese Turkestan.
The underlying cause of this is not known with certainty;
but apparently, during the preceding dry, warm epoch,
Tibet had become relatively habitable, while now, when the
climate became colder, the Tibetans found difficulty in rais-
ing crops or in maintaining flocks upon their high plateau,
and so sought new homes.
The mediæval period of dense population and great pros-
perity in Turfan was followed by a time of almost complete
depopulation two centuries, more or less, ago. This too ap-
pears to have been closely related to a change of climate,
for at this time Central Asia was apparently growing more