Ancient Khotan : vol.1 / 372 ページ（白黒高解像度画像）

0372	Ancient Khotan : vol.1
古代コータン : vol.1

assumed formidable proportions, rising to heights between 150 and 200 feet. By the evening
of January 8 the hard-frozen river was at last safely reached near the grazing-ground of
Kochkar-Öghil.

Mazār of
Burhānud-
din. I had decided first to visit Keriya, the head quarters of the District east of Khotan, before
commencing other explorations, in order to secure personally the assistance of the local Amban
as the indispensable condition for successful work. Kara-dong, the old site higher up the Keriya
river, seemed temptingly near, but in the lonely jungle tracts along the river, uninhabited except
by nomadic shepherds, it would have been impossible to raise either labourers or the badly-
needed supplies. For a description of the four long marches which brought us to Keriya through
the belt of Toghrak jungle and scrub accompanying the river's course in the desert I may
refer to my Personal Narrative¹. The only place of quasi-antiquarian interest was the Mazār
of Sayyid Burhānuddīn Pādshāhim, reached after the first march, where I was surprised to find
a small but flourishing settlement of Shaikhs (see Fig. 36), attesting the widespread popularity
which the saint's tomb enjoys as a pilgrimage place for the people of the oases southwards.
Nothing seemed to be known of the holy man's story except that he was connected in some
way with the still holier Imām Ja'far Sādiq worshipped at a famous desert shrine beyond Niya,
and that like him he had fallen as a 'Shahīd'. Considering the distance, fully 50 miles, at
which the Burhānuddīn Mazār is situated from the oasis of Keriya, and the wholly deserted
condition of the intervening ground, I wondered whether the worship of this far-outlying shrine
may not in some way represent a survival of the attraction which the Buddhist establishments
of Li-hsieh or Dandān-Uiliq had once possessed for the pious. Some cultivation is carried on
near the shrine, and this could be greatly extended, as there is plenty of fertile level ground
as well as abundance of water.

Stay at
Keriya. At Keriya, which I reached on January 12, I found Huang Daloi, the Amban, duly advised
of my visit and its object by Pan Dārin, my Khotan friend, and full of eagerness to facilitate
my explorations in every possible manner. The necessity of giving my men and camels a much-
needed short rest, as well as of awaiting the arrival of the ponies which were to rejoin us
from Khotan, obliged me to make a stay of five days at Keriya. Apart from numerous tasks
which had accumulated during my stay in the desert, and which could only now be attended to,
I used it for careful inquiries about ancient remains in the district. Of antiques none were
forthcoming; for Keriya town is not itself an old place—it has acquired size and importance
only since the creation of the new District of which it forms the head quarters²—and the
'treasure-seeking' profession does not flourish as at Khotan. But besides learning of a number
of sites manifestly of the Tati type, I received information about a köne-shahr or 'old town'
in the desert north of Niya, which decided me to extend my explorations first in that direction.
Abdullah, a respectable old cultivator of Keriya, told me of having seen about ten years earlier
houses, evidently of a type similar to the structures of Dandān-Uiliq, half-buried in the sand
some marches beyond the famous Mazār of Imām Ja'far Sādiq. Others, too, had heard stories
of this 'old town', and the existence of the Muhammadan shrine itself seemed, in the light of
former experience, to point to some earlier site of interest being found in the vicinity. So I did
not hesitate to set out for it on the 18th of January.

During the four days' march which brought me to Niya there was little to be seen but

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