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| 0454 |
Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan : vol.1 |
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' Namadis.' We may well recognise here the earliest mention of
the felt-rugs or ' Numdahs ' so familiar to Anglo-Indian use, which
to this day form a special product of Khotan home industry and of
which large consignments are annually exported to Ladak and
Kashmir. In another document we read that all the ' Shodhogas '
and ' Drangadharas,' evidently local officials, of the district are
complaining of the want of water ; and many of the tablets seem to
have reference to disputes about water used for irrigation.
The frequent references in the tablets to ' Khotāna ' and its
officials show us not only how ancient the name of Khotan is in its
present phonetic form, but also that the district containing this
settlement was part of the kingdom of Khotan. It is of interest
that, alternating with that old popular name, we also find the
duplicate form Kustana[ka] known to us from Hiuen-Tsiang's
records. It represents, in all probability, a learned adaptation of
the local name made for the sake of a Sanskrit etymology, which
the pilgrim duly relates to us together with its attendant pious
legend ('ku-stana' meaning in Sanskrit "the breast of the
Earth"). As if to remind us of the position which the ruined
settlement must have occupied on the outskirts of the cultivated
territory, we meet with frequent references of "frontier-watch
stations," designated by the Sanskrit term ' Dranga,' the true
significance of which I first demonstrated years ago in Kashmir.
That the faith of Buddha must have been widely spread among
the people can be proved by a number of passages. Thus the
Buddhas, Arhats and other sacred categories of the Buddhist
Pantheon are distinctly enumerated in one tablet, while in another
the addressee is with polite unction designated as a " Bodhisattva
incarnate."
Not the least curious among the facts revealed by the work of
decipherment is the discovery that there existed a recognised
official terminology for the various classes of stationery represented.
With unchanging regularity the wedge-shaped tablets are desig-
nated in their context as ' kila-mudra,' literally, " sealed wedges";
the ' Takhtas ' with handles, apparently used for files, as
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