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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books
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| 0412 |
Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan : vol.1 |
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sand. Where double tablets had remained together and thus pro-
tected each other, the black ink of the Kharoshthi lines written on
the inner surface looked as fresh as if penned yesterday. On
others it was necessary to apply the brush to clear away an
adherent crust of sand, but only on comparatively few had the
writing faded so far as to become illegible.
It was easy to recognise that the tablets, though written by
many different hands, showed throughout the characteristic pecu-
liarities of that type of Kharoshthi writing which in India is
invariably exhibited by the inscriptions of the so-called Kushana or
Indo-Scythian kings. The period during which these kings ruled
over the Punjab and the regions to the west of the Indus falls
within the first three centuries of our era. The earliest coins of
Khotan and the fragmentary birch-bark leaves of the Dutreuil de
Rhins Manuscript, which were the only relics of Kharoshthi writing
so far known in Central Asia, have with good reason been assigned
to the same period. Thus even while still engaged in gathering
the remarkable documents that were coming to light here in such
surprising numbers, and long before any careful examination
became possible, I felt absolutely assured as to their high antiquity
and exceptional value.
And yet during that day's animating labours and as I marched
back to camp in the failing light of the evening, there remained a
thought that prevented my archæological conscience from becoming
over-triumphant. It was true that the collected text of the
hundred odd tablets, which I was carrying away carefully packed
and labelled as the result of my first day's work, could not fall
much short of, if it did not exceed, the aggregate of all the
materials previously available for the study of Kharoshthi, whether
in or outside India. But was it not possible that these strange
records, with the striking similarity of their outward form and almost
all, as I had noticed, showing when complete an identical short
formula at their commencement, might prove to be mere replicas of
the same text, perhaps a prayer or an extract from sacred Buddhist
writings? The care taken about the sealing of most of the tablets
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563
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573
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