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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books
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| 0298 |
Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan : vol.1 |
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OCR Text
French travellers seem to have prevented them from a
personal inspection of the cave by alleging religious objec-
tions.
No difficulty whatever was raised in my case. I found
the Mullahs, jovial, well-fed fellows, curiously resembling in
their ways my old Purohita friends at Indian 'Tirthas,' ready
enough for a consideration to show me the cave, including its
mysterious recesses. The close examination I was thus able
to effect gave me strong reason to doubt the possibility of the
manuscript having been really found there. Though the visit
of the French explorers was well remembered by the Sheikhs,
nothing was known to them or the villagers of the alleged
discovery in the cave. Taking into account that other frag-
ments of the same manuscript had been sold separately into
Russian hands at Kashgar, it appears probable that the native
"treasure-seekers" concerned made the statement connecting
their find with the cave simply in order to disguise the true
place of discovery.
In the course of my inspection of this sacred cave I had
occasion to appreciate the easy-going ways of Khotan local
worship. Nobody, however good a Musulman he may be,
thinks of taking off his boots on approaching a sacred spot.
Those who wear a kind of over-shoes with their top-boots
leave them outside, it is true. But the common people not
possessed of such refined footgear freely retain their high
leather 'Charuks' (mocassins) or the sandals fastened with
long cloth bandages. The winter is cold in this region, and I
wonder how frequent the occasions are when the Khotamese
really do remove their footgear during the winter months. I
have always managed to make friends with the priestly atten-
dants of Indian shrines, be they Hindu or Muhammadan, and
have almost invariably escaped the necessity of taking off my
boots—a kind of déshabillé which for a European is incon-
gruous and inconvenient, without in reality marking in any
way religious conciliation. But in Khotan there seemed no
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563
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