Ancient Khotan : vol.1 / 438 ページ（白黒高解像度画像）

0438	Ancient Khotan : vol.1
古代コータン : vol.1

no detailed analysis is yet available. But there are indications that accounts, lists of labourers
or materials, &c., are frequent among their contents. Considering the administrative duties of
the officials whose residences were the main find-places of such documents, it is very likely
that some at least of these lists and accounts may have reference to taxation.

Designation
of ruler in
Kharoṣṭhi
documents.
The ruler, in whose name the official orders, &c., are issued, is given in the initial formula
of the wedge-shaped tablets only the brief title *mahanuava maharaya*, corresponding to Skr.
*mahānubhāva mahārāja* 'His Excellency the Great King.' But in the introductory dating of
many of the rectangular tablets, where the year is indicated with reference to the reign of a
particular ruler, we find his name besides the above title coupled with the designation of *deva-
putra* ⁹, which recalls the official style of the Kuṣana or Indo-Scythian kings as observed in
their inscriptions in their Indian territories. The royal names, of which two at least can be
distinguished in the documents, are to be found neither on the Sino-Kharoṣṭhi coins of Khotan
nor in the dynastic lists of the Tibetan texts. Yet the constant references in the tablets to
Khotan (called *Khotamna, Khodana, Kustanaka*) show that the district containing this ancient
settlement must have formed part of the kingdom of Khotan, and it seems difficult to believe
that by the above titles any other ruler but that of Khotan could be meant.

Personal
names in
Kharoṣṭhi
documents.
Many of the persons to or by whom documents are dispatched bear names which are either
purely Indian, such as Bhima, Baṅgusena, Nandasena, Ṣamasena, Śitaka, Upajiva, &c.¹⁰, or else
look like Indian adaptations, e.g. Aṅgaca, Cuvayalina Phummaseva, Piteya, Śili, Samghila,
Samjaka, Somjaka, Sucama, Sughiya¹¹. But others are distinctly un-Indian, e.g. Lipeya, Opgeya,
Limira, Mamṅgaya, Tsmaya¹². A few, like Paśaspa and Cinaphara, suggest Irānian influence
in their origin or formation¹³. It is interesting to see that among the correspondents in N. xvi. 2
there appears a *Kuṣanasena*, as if to emphasize some connexion with Indo-Scythian dominion
far away to the south-west.

Official
titles.
In strange contrast to the names, some of the most frequently-occurring titles borne by
these officials are wholly non-Indian, such as *Cojho, Soṭhamgha, Kala*¹⁴. But the official designa-
tions familiar from ancient Indian usage are also met with, e.g. *divira* 'clerk', *cara* (or *caraka*)
'secret agent', *rayadvara-purasthita* 'president of the royal court'¹⁵. Letter-carriers (*lekhaharaka*)
are often referred to by their Sanskrit designation, while the duty of the official messengers, for whose
requirements *en route* many of the wedge-shaped tablets were intended to provide, is always spoken
of by the term *dutiya*, derived from their correct Indian appellation of *dūta*¹⁶. The often-recurring
introductory formulas, with their stereotyped greetings, elaborately constructed honorific addresses,
and polite inquiries after the health and spiritual welfare of the addressees—the whole corre-
sponding to the verbiage which Anglo-Indian custom in the reproduction of vernacular documents
curtly disposes of as 'after compliments'—possess a distinct flavour of that quaint phraseology
which Sanskrit epistolary style has always affected, and to which the correspondence of my
Kashmīrian Paṇḍit friends has accustomed me¹⁷. That official custom, however, knew also

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