Ancient Khotan : vol.1 / 188 ページ（白黒高解像度画像）

0188	Ancient Khotan : vol.1
古代コータン : vol.1

have vineyards and gardens and estates. They live by commerce and manufactures, and are
no soldiers ¹⁵.' Nor did the peculiar laxity of morals, which seems always to have distinguished
the people of the Khotan region, escape Marco Polo's attention. For of the 'Province of Pein',
which, as we shall see, represents the oases of the adjoining modern district of Keriya, he
relates the custom that 'if the husband of any woman go away upon a journey and remain
away for more than twenty days, as soon as that term is past the woman may marry another
man, and the husband also may then marry whom he pleases' ¹⁶.

No one who has visited Khotan or who is familiar with the modern accounts of the territory,
can read the early notices above extracted without being struck at once by the fidelity with
which they reflect characteristic features of the people at the present day. Nor is it necessary
to emphasize the industrial pre-eminence which Khotan still enjoys in a variety of manufactures
through the technical skill and inherited training of the bulk of its population.

Religious
devotion of
Khotanese. Devotion to religious cult is another feature which has survived with undiminished intensity,
though its objects have been transformed on the surface. We know that Buddhist Khotan
resisted the introduction of Islām longer than any other part of Eastern Turkestān. Yet
Khotan now proudly claims the first place in this whole region as the land of 'Shahids'. The
supposed resting-places of these holy martyrs, Ziārats and Mazārs of all sorts, stud the oasis
and its vicinity more thickly than anywhere else. Pious imagination of a remarkably luxuriant
growth has transplanted into the region of Khotan the tombs of the twelve Imāms of orthodox
Shiite creed, together with a host of other propagators of the faith whose names are known to
local legend only ¹⁷. We have already had occasion to note that many of these Ziārats mark
the position of earlier Buddhist shrines, and thus afford proof of the tenacity of local worship.
Among the shrines of Khotan territory there are several, like the 'Tombs of the Four Imāms'
(at Tört-Imām), the Ziārats of Imām-Mūsā-Qāsim and Imām-Ja'far-Sādiq, which annually attract
crowds of pilgrims from all parts of Turkestān. But I doubt whether this widespread fame
of certain pilgrimage places is more than the direct result of the pious zeal with which the
Khotanese themselves worship and frequent their local shrines, large and small.

Islām in
Khotan. The people of Khotan in this respect may truly be called a gens religiosissima. But just
as in Kashmīr, which in matters of local worship might have served as the prototype, Islām
otherwise sits lightly on the popular mind. The lax observance of many tenets of religious
law does not disturb the consciences of a population easy-going by nature and wholly absorbed
in the things of this life. Since Sunnism now reigns supreme, and the peace of souls and
clerical influence is undisturbed by any rival creed, religious fanaticism finds no scope and
consequently is wholly dormant. In all these points I much doubt whether the Buddhism of
old Khotan, rich in shrines and religious pomp, showed aspects essentially different.

Character of
modern
Khotanese. A peculiar softness of temperament, good-natured ease in language and manners, and a dis-
position even more pronounced than in other parts of Eastern Turkestān to make the most of
what pleasures the humblest life can offer, still distinguish the Khotanese as in the days when

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