Ancient Khotan : vol.1 / 442 ページ（白黒高解像度画像）

0442	Ancient Khotan : vol.1
古代コータン : vol.1

Discovery of
precise date,
269 A.D., in
Chinese
document.

But with all these indications to guide me, there was reason to feel particularly gratified when the approximate dating thus arrived at received confirmation and precision by incontro-vertible chronological evidence. It came, as I had always hoped, from the Chinese records on wood found in our ancient rubbish-heap. Their first cursory examination at Kāshgar, effected with Mr. Macartney's help through Sun Ssŭ-yeh, showed that their contents were mainly of an official nature, and that their characters bore distinct resemblance to the type of writing which Chinese palaeographers associate with the Han epoch. Their subsequent scrutiny in the British Museum by Sir R. Douglas enabled me to form a more exact idea of the nature of the brief police orders, requisitions, &c., recorded on some of these slips of wood. But it was only when in December, 1902, Dr. S. W. Bushell had occasion to examine the documents that one of them, N. xv. 326 (see Plate CXII) was discovered to be fully and precisely dated. The initial characters, as since verified by M. Chavannes, who subsequently was kind enough to undertake the systematic decipherment and translation of all Chinese records brought to light by me, unmistakably indicate the fifth year of the T'ai-shih period of the Emperor Wu ti, the founder of the Western Chin dynasty, corresponding to 269 A.D. The accuracy of this reading is established against any possible doubt, as M. Chavannes has proved, by the specification of a chronological detail in the rest of the dating: 'the twentieth day ting-ch'ou of the tenth month, of which the first day is the day wu-wu³⁰.' Thus a precise date has been found which fixes the period when this remark-able collection of documents accumulated. N. xv. 326 itself was discovered in a layer of refuse about one foot above the original floor.

Historical
data in
Chinese
documents.

The highly instructive notes with which M. Chavannes has accompanied his full transcripts and translations of the Chinese documents on wood, reproduced in Appendix A, make it possible for me to attempt here a brief delineation of the general character of these records, as well as of the main historical data they furnish³¹. Among the latter, to which we may well turn first, the precise date of N. xv. 326 is undoubtedly of exceptional value, in connexion with a number of antiquarian questions. But wider historical importance may be claimed for what the whole collection proves as to the re-assertion of Chinese authority in Eastern Turkestān under the Emperor Wu ti (265–289 A.D.). The Chin Annals, as noted by Chavannes in his remarks on N. xv. 93, record of Wu ti that he caused his supremacy to be recognized in the 'Western Countries'; they also record embassies with tribute in 270 A.D., from Farghāna and Kara-shahr,

国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

引用情報

OCR読み取り結果

国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト 『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

引用情報

OCR読み取り結果

国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ