National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books
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Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan : vol.1 |
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OCR Text
During the few days of my stay at Khotan much of my time
was taken up with the inspection of the coins, terra-cotta
figures, and other antiquities that were brought for sale
by villagers and "treasure-seekers." Most of the bagfuls
contained only the broken pottery and copper coins found so
plentifully at Yotkan, and already fairly well known from
previously formed collections. But their inspection was a
useful training to me, and I thought it advisable to make at
first ample purchases so as to stimulate the zest of professional
searchers.
I was naturally on the look-out too for those "old books"
written or "block-printed" in a variety of unknown characters
which, as already mentioned, had during the last five or six
years been sold from Khotan in increasing numbers to
European collectors at Kashgar. In regard to these acqui-
sitions the suspicion of forgery had before presented itself to
competent scholars, but evidence was wanting to substantiate
it, and in the meantime these strange texts continued to be
edited and analysed in learned publications. Offers in this
article were surprisingly scanty at Khotan itself, and curiously
enough the very first "old book" that was shown to me
supplied unmistakable proof of forgery. Hearing of my
presence at the place, a Russian Armenian from Kokand
brought me for inspection a manuscript on birch-bark, con-
sisting of some ten ragged leaves covered with an "unknown"
script. He had bought it for forty roubles, undoubtedly as a
commercial speculation, and now wished to have his treasure
properly appraised.
I saw at once that the birch-bark leaves had never received
the treatment which ancient Bhurja manuscripts, well known
to me from Kashmir, invariably show. Nor had the forger
attempted to reproduce the special ink which is needed for
writing on birch-bark. So when I applied the "water test"
the touch of a wet finger sufficed to take away the queer "un-
known characters" both written and block-printed. It was
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563
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573
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