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| 0023 |
Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan : vol.1 |
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That such influences had been at work there for long centuries,
and sometimes penetrated even much further to the East, occasional
references in the Chinese Annals and elsewhere had led us to sus-
pect. But of those indigenous records and remains which might
enable us to reconstruct that bygone phase of civilisation in its main
aspects, all trace seemed to have vanished with the Muhammadan
conquest (tenth–eleventh century).
Chance finds of ancient manuscripts, in Sanskrit and mostly
Buddhistic, which commenced in 1890 with Captain (now Colonel)
Bower's famous birch-bark leaves from Kucha, were the first tangible
proof that precious materials of this kind might still be preserved
under the arid soil of Chinese Turkestan. The importance of these
literary relics was great, apart from their philological value ; for they
plainly showed that, together with Buddhism, the study of the
classical language of India also found a home in that distant land
beyond the Himalaya. But on the cultural entourage in which this
far transplanted Indian learning had flourished, such chance acqui-
sitions, of uncertain origin and unaccompanied by archæological
evidence, could throw little light.
For systematic excavations, which alone could supply this evidence,
the region of Khotan appeared from the first a field of particular
promise. In scattered notices of Chinese records there was much to
suggest that this little kingdom, situated on the important route
that led from China to the Oxus Valley and hence to India as well
as to the West, had played a prominent part in developing the
impulses received from India and transmitting them eastwards.
The close connection with ancient Indian art seemed particularly
marked in whatever of small antiques, such as pottery fragments,
coins and seals, native agency had supplied from Khotan. And
fortunately for our researches, archæology could here rely on the
help of a very effective ally—the moving sand of the desert which
preserves what it buries. Ever since human activity first created
the oases of Khotan territory, their outskirts must have witnessed
a continuous struggle with that most formidable of deserts,
the Taklamakan ; while local traditions, attested from an early
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482
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492
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512
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532
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542
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552
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563
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573
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582
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