Ancient Khotan : vol.1 / 107 ページ（白黒高解像度画像）

0107	Ancient Khotan : vol.1
古代コータン : vol.1

But we have seen that even as late as 786 A.D. Wu-k'ung, returning from India, found a Chinese
deputy-governor at Su-lê by the side of a king, P'ei Léng-lêng, who, as his family name shows,
still belonged to the old local dynasty ¹⁴.

Authentic and precise as these data are, they are at the same time scanty. It is, therefore, Fa-hsien's
fortunate that we are able to supplement them from the notices left to us by those Buddhist notice of
pilgrims who visited Kāshgar on their way to or from China. The information derived from Kāshgar.
the oldest of these has but recently become available to us through M. Chavannes' researches,
and in particular his ingenious identification of Fa-hsien's Chieh-ch'a ¹⁵. The biography of
Kumārajīva records a visit of this Indian pilgrim to Sha-lê or Kāshgar about 400 A.D., and
specially mentions that he placed there on his head the alms-bowl (pātra) of Buddha which
was believed to possess the miraculous quality of changing its weight. Now the Chinese monk
Chih-mêng, who proceeded to India via Lop-Nor and Khotan in the year 404 A.D., and whose
biography M. Chavannes first brought to light from the Japanese Tripitaka, witnessed the
identical miracle when handling Buddha's alms-bowl, which was shown to him in the kingdom
of Ch'i-sha 奇沙. The identity of the miraculous experiences recorded by these two
pilgrims, and the close approach of the form Ch'i-sha to the name Ch'ia-sha 佉沙, given to
Kāshgar by Hsüan-tsang and the T'ang Annals ¹⁶, leave no doubt that Chih-mêng's notice
refers to Kāshgar.

Now Chih-mêng saw at Ch'i-sha, besides Buddha's alms-bowl, also his spittoon, which he Fa-hsien's
describes as being made of a stone of variegated colour; and it is the mention of this relic route to
in Fa-hsien's account of Chieh-ch'a 竭叉 which supplies the most convincing argument for Kāshgar.
M. Chavannes' identification of the latter territory with Kāshgar. We have already, in the
chapter dealing with Sarīkol, traced the route which Fa-hsien and his fellow-pilgrims followed
from Yü-t'ien or Khotan to Tāsh-kurghān ¹⁷. In the latter locality, which Fa-hsien mentions
by the name Yü-mo, abbreviated from Ch'üan-yü-mo ¹⁸, they halted to keep the season of
'retreat', probably during the summer of 402 A.D. 'When this was over, they went on among the
hills for twenty-five days, and got to Chieh-ch'a.' ¹⁹ The direct route of travellers bound for
India from Tāsh-kurghān would, no doubt, have lain to the south-west, across the Pamīrs,
and not northward to Kāshgar. But the necessity of rejoining the companions who had pre-
ceded him to Chieh-ch'a direct from Khotan ²⁰, and the desire to visit an important religious
centre, suffice, as M. Chavannes justly observes, to account for Fa-hsien's détour to Kāshgar.
Yet the pilgrim's narrative allows us to discern a further and, perhaps, even more cogent cause

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