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| 0574 |
Ancient Khotan : vol.1 |
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in most cases found intact. I may here note that, among all the sculptural decoration of the
Vihāra court as far as excavated, I failed to trace any evidence of wilful destruction by human
agency, as distinguished from such casual damage as the spasmodic burrowings of 'treasure-
seekers' may have caused at some points of the more exposed portions of the enclosing wall ⁴.
This observation lends support to the belief, justified, as we shall see, by other abundant
evidence, that this great shrine had already been deserted for centuries and the ruins of the
quadrangle completely covered up by the time when Islām annexed Khotan.
Original
shelter for
sculptures. It appears to me very probable that originally a wooden gallery, or some similar shelter
projecting from the roof of the enclosing wall, offered shelter to the sculptures on both of its
faces. But this must have been systematically removed, even before the sand had completely
invaded the Vihāra court; for only in one place, near the inner south-east face and not far
from the gate (see plan), did my excavations bring to light some small pieces of much-perished
timber, about 4 in. in thickness, that may have served for such a structure ⁵. Considering how
comparatively expensive an article building timber is to this day in the immediate vicinity of a
large Turkestān town, we can scarcely be surprised at the early removal of this, the most
useful material the shrine could offer after its abandonment. It seems impossible to assume
that the sculptures along the walls and the fresco decoration of the latter should have been
originally exposed to all the influences of the weather. A single heavy downpour of rain, such
as is by no means unknown even in this dry region—I experienced one on April 19 soon
after I had left Rawak camp—would have sufficed to do great damage to the friable clay of
the statuary and the equally soft wall plaster. The existence of some enclosing passage or
gallery is indicated also by the foundations of a thin plaster wall, with stucco reliefs facing it,
which were brought to light outside the south corner and which will be described at the end
of the next section.
SECTION IV.—THE SCULPTURES OF THE RAWAK VIHĀRA
Number of
sculptures
excavated. The excavations which incessant work from early morning till nightfall enabled me to get
effected between the 12th and 17th of April, cleared the greatest part of the south-east and
a portion of the south-west walls of the Vihāra court, both inside and outside, for an aggregate
length of about 155 ft. Though this distance represents only about one-fourth of the perimeter
of the Vihāra court, yet the total number of individual reliefs, most of them over life-size, which
were brought to light on the cleared wall faces amounted in the end to ninety-one. In addition
to these the finds included numerous small reliefs forming parts of sculptured aureoles, &c., or
deposited as ex-votos before the main images.
Record of
sculptures
cleared. The position of all statues was carefully shown by me in the ground-plan, together with
the greatest width of the wall space occupied by them, and a description recorded of every
piece of sculpture, as detailed as the available time and the trying conditions prevailing would
permit. In addition I used the rare hours, usually in the early morning, when there was less
wind and no thick haze or driving dust, for obtaining a complete series of photographs of
whatever sculptural work appeared on the excavated wall faces. It was no easy task to collect
all these records with the needful accuracy while directing the successive stages of excavation
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724
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