Ancient Khotan : vol.1 / 236 ページ（白黒高解像度画像）

0236	Ancient Khotan : vol.1
古代コータン : vol.1

'In the scarp of the "Cow's Horn" (Gośṛṅga) hill there is a dwelling carved in the rock⁵,
where there is an Arhat plunged in the ecstasy which destroys thought; he awaits the coming
of Maitreya Buddha. During several centuries constant homage had been paid to him. In
recent times the rocks⁶ have fallen in and obstructed the entrance. The king of the country
sent soldiers to remove the fallen rocks, but swarms of black wasps attacked the men with
poisonous stings. Hence to the present day the rock entrance has remained closed'.

Gośīrṣa
mountain
of Tibetan
texts. Hsüan-tsang's reference to the prophecy which Buddha was believed to have made on
Mount Gośṛṅga about the future foundation of Khotan and its attachment to the Law has
enabled Mr. Rockhill to recognize in this sacred site the Gośīrṣa mountain, where the legend
recorded by the Tibetan 'Annals of Li-yul' makes Buddha stay for seven days on his visit
to the lake of Li-yul and predict its future conversion into the land of Khotan⁷. The designation
of Goś̄irṣa (cow's head) mountain, which this Tibetan legend gives to the site, is close enough
to the Gośṛṅga of Hsüan-tsang's text, and we find distinct mention in the 'Annals of Li-yul'
of a temple and monastery at the site. In the passage relating the prediction, the Blessed One
is said to have 'remained for seven days for the weal of mankind in the temple to the left-
hand side of the great figure on the Goçircha mountain, where there is now a little tchaitya'⁸.
We read subsequently, in the account of Vijayavirya's reign, that 'this king built on the Oxhead
mountain (Goçircha), the Hgen-to-shan vihāra'⁹.

Identity of
Mounts
Gośṛṅga
and
Goś̄irṣa. The identity of the sacred hill thus variously designated as Mount Gośṛṅga and Goś̄irṣa
is now fortunately established with certainty through some interesting passages which M. Sylvain
Lévi has recently brought to light from Chinese and Tibetan sources, and at the same time
interpreted with critical accuracy. The Chinese translation of the Sūryagarbha-sūtra made by
Narendrayaśas between the years 589 and 619 A.D., in a list of holy spots (pīṭha) sanctified
by the presence of a Bodhisattva, mentions the residence and Caitya of the saint Chü-mo-so-lo
hsiang 瞿摩娑羅香, or Gomasālagandha, near Mount Niu-t'ou (Oxhead: Goś̄irṣa), on the
steeply-scarped bank of the river in Yü-t'ien¹⁰. In the Tibetan version of this text the same
passage is reproduced thus: 'In the Kha-śa country, at the place of "the Earth's breast"
(Sa'i-nu-ma, i.e. Kustana), on the mountainous bank of the Gomati, close to Mount "Cow's
Horn" (Glaṅ-ru, i.e. Gośṛṅga), there resides Go-ma-sā-la Gandha'¹¹. A comparison of the
two versions leaves no doubt as to the application of the names Gośṛṅga and 'Cow's Head'
to the same sacred hill, and further supplies a valuable indication by placing the saint's residence
on the steep bank of the river called Gomati.

We find another reference to this river, which clearly corresponds to the Kara-kāsh,
coupled with Mount Goś̄irṣa in a passage of the Yin-i, a Buddhist exegetical work composed
during the eighth to ninth century¹². In a brief notice on Yü-t'ien, to which we shall have again to

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