Ancient Khotan : vol.1 / 432 ページ（白黒高解像度画像）

0432	Ancient Khotan : vol.1
古代コータン : vol.1

found by me before in what was undoubtedly the office-room of the ancient dwelling N. IV⁷;
these specimens are not split at their points.

Early
Chinese
writing with
wooden
styles.
Whether these wooden pens had actually served for the writing of Chinese or of Kharoṣṭhī
documents, it is impossible to decide. But as M. Chavannes has observed, the peculiar form
assumed by the Chinese characters on our wooden slips distinctly points to their having been
written with such styles of wood. Hence there can be little doubt that the latter in their form
and material correspond closely to the *pi* 筆, which, as demonstrated by M. Chavannes, consisted
of a small stem of wood, usually bamboo, used for writing in ancient China, before the general
adoption of the brush, invented about the third century B. C., caused the term to be appropriated
for the designation of the latter writing implement ⁸. The use in Khotan of wooden pens instead
of the brush for writing purposes is specifically recorded by the Chinese Annals as late as the
Liang and T'ang periods ⁹. The quasi-archaic survival here attested is of special interest, as
it furnishes an exact parallel to the long-continued use of wood as a writing material in the same
region. As we shall presently see, paper had been known in China for fully one and a half
centuries previous to the time when the documents of the Niya Site were still recorded on wood,
and the wooden documents from Dandān-Uiliq and Rawak prove that the use of the latter
had not completely ceased even as late as the eighth century ¹⁰.

Arrange-
ment of
texts on
Bamboo
slips.
Seeing how closely the Chinese documents of the Niya River Site conform in their appearance
and material to what we know from literary sources of the form of written records in ancient
China, it seems justifiable to inquire whether the antiquarian materials brought to light there
may not throw light on other points connected with early writing arrangements in China. From
a great number of passages discussed in M. Chavannes' treatise, it results that, as a single bamboo
slip (*chien*) could afford space only for from twenty to thirty characters, a series of these slips were
used for all writings of any length ¹¹. The number of slips being necessarily great in the case of
books, they used to be arranged into *pien* or packets, ordinarily corresponding to chapter divisions.
In order to keep together the number of bamboo slips forming such a packet, it was manifestly
necessary to give them a fastening of some kind. Several texts quoted by M. Chavannes mention
the silk cords or thin leather thongs which were used in antiquity for this purpose ¹². But they
do not furnish any indication as to the particular method of fastening by which the retention of
the slips in their correct order was secured. Yet it is evident that without some such method
the greatest inconvenience was bound to arise, since, owing to their narrowness and probably curved
surface, the slips could not by themselves lie flat one above the other and thus retain their
position, as e. g. a bundle of loose leaves of paper would.

Wooden
slip with
string-holes.
In Indian palm-leaf MSS., where a similar need was felt, a string passed through either one
or two string-holes in each leaf secured the desired order ¹³. The observation of two unmis-
takable string-holes in a blank slip of wood (N. x. 9. c) found in the office-room of N. IV, hence
suggested to me whether it might not be a specimen of the kind of slip used for Chinese records
where fastening in a fixed order was intended. The fact of this slip, reproduced in Plate CV,
being only half an inch broad, seems a distinct indication of its having been meant to receive
Chinese writing. Its length between the holes placed near the two ends is 9⅛ in., thus agreeing
exactly with the average size of the Chinese slips from N. XV. The holes are in each case

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