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0296 Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan : vol.1
Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan : vol.1 / Page 296 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000234
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ANTIQUARIAN PREPARATIONS AT KHOTAN

On the 11th of November the short march to the village of
Ujat, some eight miles lower down on the left bank of the
Kara-kash, was made in an atmosphere so thick and grey that
I had the sensation of a foggy autumn day somewhere near
London. All view of the mountains, near as they were, was
effaced as if with a brush, and from where my tent was pitched
even the bluff spur just across the river at scarcely a mile's
distance loomed only in faint lines through the dust-laden air.
It was this spur, known as Kohmari, the last offshoot of the
Ulughat range towards the plains, which made me place my
camp at Ujat.

Topographical indications that need not be detailed here had
convinced me that M. Grenard, the companion of M. Dutreuil
de Rhins, was right in identifying Kohmari with the holy
Mount Gosringa which Hinen-Tsiang describes as a famous
pilgrimage place of Buddhist Khotan. A Vihara, or monastery,
raised on it marked the spot where Sakyamuni was believed
to have preached a "digest of the Law" to the Devas. A
cave in its side was venerated as the approach to "a great
rock dwelling" where popular legend supposed an Arhat to
reside "plunged in ecstasy and awaiting the coming of
Maitreya Buddha." The Muhammadan Mazar, worshipped
as the resting-place of the saintly "Maheb Khwoja," which
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