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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books
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| 0417 |
Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan : vol.1 |
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memoranda, tabular statements, accounts and other casual
records.
Two series of oblong tablets largely represented among the finds
of N. iv. (as this particular room was designated by me) showed far
greater regularity and care in writing as well as workmanship,
without being the less puzzling at the time of their discovery.
These were tablets of rectangular shape, varying in length from
4 to 16 inches, which soon attracted my attention by the raised rim
resembling a margin they invariably exhibited at the narrower sides
of their single inscribed surface. The writing extending between
these rims in five to thirteen lines always parallel to the longer
side, ordinarily bore at the commencement a Kharoshthi numerical
figure preceded by a word which I read before long as samvatsare,
meaning in Sanskrit or Prakrit "in the year." In the text im-
mediately following there appeared with equal regularity figures
preceded by the words mase and divase, "in the . . . month"
and "on the . . . day." There could be no doubt that I held in
my hands dated documents or records of some kind. Yet there was
nothing in this to enlighten me as to the peculiar form of these
tablets or the manner in which they might have been used.
Busily occupied as I was in directing the excavation and clearing
and numbering each find, I failed to realise at the time the close
relation that existed between these tablets and another class of
which the same ruined apartment furnished numerous specimens.
They consisted of rectangular pieces of wood not exceeding 8 inches
in length and 5 in width, and often much smaller, which on their
flat reverse rarely had any writing, while the obverse in its raised
centre invariably showed a square or oblong socket, manifestly
intended for the insertion of a seal, together with a transversely
written line or two of Kharoshthi characters. It was only later,
when the remarkable rubbish-heap to be described below had
yielded up its antiquarian treasures, that an explanation, as definite
as it was simple, revealed itself of these curious seal-bearing tablets,
and of the rims appearing on the wooden documents to which they had
once been fitted as envelopes (for illustrations see pp. 366, 394, 395).
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342
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382
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392
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452
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462
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472
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482
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502
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512
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522
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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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