Ancient Khotan : vol.1 / 346 ページ（白黒高解像度画像）

0346	Ancient Khotan : vol.1
古代コータン : vol.1

clearness. But here, too, it may be safely asserted that there is no object that would suggest
for its origin a date later than the eighth century. Nor is there, with the possible exception
of some fragmentary Pōthīs, any among them which is likely to prove of an appreciably earlier
period than the last decades preceding the abandonment. In the case of the wall paintings,
the stucco images, and other objects of worship found in the small shrines, the perishable nature
of the materials precludes the idea that they were already of considerable age previous to their
burial under the drift-sand, while for the documents in Brāhmī script everything, as we have seen,
suggests an origin contemporary with the Chinese records.

Last relics
of T'ang
dominion. The value of the latter, however, is not limited to supplying us with a firm chronological
basis. They also establish the interesting fact that Chinese administrative control and a Chinese
garrison within the Khotan region was a reality down to the end of the eighth century.
M. Chavannes, in his concluding remarks on the Chinese records from Dandān-Uiliq, has called
attention to the remarkable agreement which the dates of these documents present with what
the historians of the T'ang period tell us of the end of Chinese sovereignty over the 'Four
Garrisons'. The historical synopsis given in a previous chapter has already acquainted us
with the fact that it was the year 791 which saw the final abandonment of the whole of
Eastern Turkestān to Tibetan invasion, after a long period of isolation and struggle⁶. Thus
our Dandān-Uiliq records, closing with the year 790, represent, as M. Chavannes has justly pointed
out, the last trace of Chinese political influence under the T'angs in that great region⁷.

Historical
cause of
abandon-
ment. But may we not, apart from this general historical interest, attribute to these relics of Chinese
occupation a further specific significance for the history of the site? The letter which the
Chinese commandant of Li-hsieh addressed to the king of Khotan in 768 A. D. (Document A)
has shown us in most authentic form that already at that time the settlement to which Dandān-
Uiliq belonged had lost a part of its population, which had retired to the main oasis owing to
depredations of bandits⁸. Seeing how seriously local insecurity had affected the settlement
in the immediately preceding period, it seems difficult not to connect its final abandonment
after 790 A. D. with the great political upheaval of the years next following. The collapse of
Chinese authority and the successful Tibetan invasion must have meant for Khotan a period
of exceptional trouble; for Tibetan power is, from all that we know, likely to have asserted
itself mainly in unchecked raids of large marauding bands, such as had already devastated
extensive parts of Western China. In a previous chapter I have endeavoured to show that
the constant struggle with the drift-sand of the desert, which the outlying parts of every oasis
on the edge of the Taklamakān have to carry on, cannot be maintained successfully except
with an effectively supervised system of irrigation and an adequate population. Both conditions
are likely to fail during prolonged periods of political trouble, and in no part of the cultivated
area are the effects of such failure bound to appear so surely and rapidly as in isolated colonies
like Dandān-Uiliq.

Effect of
political
troubles on
irrigation. For those who are familiar with tracts like the greatest part of the Western Punjab,
where cultivation is wholly dependent upon an elaborate system of canal irrigation, it needs
no great effort of imagination to realize the effects of prolonged political troubles and insecurity
on the cultivated area. As soon as the want of a firm central authority or a diminution in the
available supply of labour stopped the effective working of the canals the reduced water-supply
would force the cultivators to retire from all outlying lands however fertile by nature. Then

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