Ancient Khotan : vol.1 / 165 ページ（カラー画像）

0165	Ancient Khotan : vol.1
古代コータン : vol.1

the route, irrespective of any stages observed by the ordinary traveller. But in the absence
of direct evidence all this must remain mere conjecture.

A long march on the 10th of October brought me from Piälma to the confines of the Mazār of
great oasis of Khotan. Up to Ak-Langar, the regular stage some sixteen miles from Piälma, Kum-rabāt-
the route lies over an absolutely barren plain, first of hard loess then of gravel. From Pādshāhim.
Ak-Langar onwards, where water is obtained only from a very deep well, the route passes for
a distance of some ten miles through a belt of drifting dunes. Forming regular semi-lunes of
the usual shape and direction, these dunes rise to quite respectable heights, up to twenty feet
and more, and extend far away to the south of the route. In the midst of this belt of drift-
sand, a southern inlet as it were of the great sand ocean, the traveller reaches a remarkable
shrine known as the Mazār of Kum-rabāt-Pādshāhim, 'My Lord of the Sands Station'.
Several wooden houses and sheds serve as shelter for thousands of pigeons, which give to the
shrine its popular name of Kaptar-Mazār, 'the Pigeons' Sanctuary'. The fluttering hosts,
which are perfectly tame, are maintained by the offerings of travellers and the proceeds of
pious endowments consisting of 'Waqf' lands in the Khotan oasis¹⁰.

According to the legend, as told to me by the son of one of the seven 'Shaikhs' who Legend
have hereditary charge of the shrine, the sacred pigeons are the offspring of a pair which of the
miraculously appeared from the heart of Imām Shākir Pādshāh when this champion of Islām 'Pigeons'
met death here in battle with the infidels, i. e. the Buddhists of Khotan. Many thousands had shrine¹.
fallen on both sides, and it was impossible to separate the bodies of the 'Shahids' who had
died for the Faith from those of the 'Kāfirs'. Then at the prayer of one of the surviving
Musalmans the bodies of those who had found martyrdom were by a miracle collected on one
side, and two doves came forth to mark the remains of the fallen leader. One settled on his
head, the other at his feet. From gratitude, all travellers who pass by this road offer food to
the holy birds, either bringing corn for the purpose or else buying it from the store of the
shrine, as I myself did in compliance with the pious custom. I was assured that birds of prey
never succeed in killing a pigeon, but die in the attempt. The legend was repeated to me in
the same form by Ahmad Shāh, one of the old Shaikhs whom I subsequently met near Zawa,
and is said to be recorded in a Tadhkirah or legendary, of which, however, I could not obtain
a copy.

The absolute desolation of the surroundings made the pretty spectacle of the fluttering
swarms doubly impressive; and face to face with the time-honoured practice to which they
owe their maintenance, I could not fail to be reminded of what Hsüan-tsang tells us of a local
cult curiously similar on the road leading to Khotan from the west. Some 150 or 160 li before
reaching the capital, 'in the midst of the straight road across a great sandy desert,' the pilgrim
describes 'a succession of small hills' which were supposed to have been formed by the burrowings
of rats¹¹.

Of these rats popular legend related that they were 'as big as hedgehogs, their hair of Hsüan-
a gold and silver colour', and that they were seen following a rat chief who daily emerged tsang's
from his hole. In old days a general of the Hiung-nu, who had come to ravage the border legend of
the sacred
rats.

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