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0219 Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2
中国砂漠地帯の遺跡 : vol.2
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 / 219 ページ(カラー画像)

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doi: 10.20676/00000213
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And, indeed, compared to these desert stations the most
forlorn outposts on our Indian North-West Frontier, which
have become by-words for discomfort, would present them-
selves in the light of a veritable paradise.

Under such conditions of life, we should scarcely be
justified in looking out for any literary remains. Yet there
is interesting evidence to show that study of some sort
was not altogether neglected. There are fragments of
texts dealing with divination. But more numerous and
interesting are fragments of lexicographical texts, among
them eight pieces, found at different stations, of a famous
treatise, the Chi-chiu-chang, composed between 48 and
33 B.C. and widely used in primary schools during Han
times. They are the oldest manuscripts so far known of
any Chinese literary work, and as they include a well-
preserved large tablet with the first chapter complete, and
showing some textual variation, their critical importance is
in M. Chavannes' opinion bound to attract attention among
scholars in China. The frequent recurrence of these frag-
ments at various stations is significant of the popularity
then enjoyed by that school-book, but it also proves that
there must have been plenty of men among the scattered
garrisons eager to 'improve their education.' Character-
istically enough, there is found also in one tablet a refer-
ence to the Biographies of Eminent Women, an ancient
work which has always enjoyed renown as a moral text-
book.

With these literary fragments, modest in themselves
yet of historical interest, must be classed the abundant
remains of elaborate calendars yielded by the main refuse
deposit of the Ling-hu company's station (T. VI. B).
Written on tablets of a special size, over fourteen inches
long, they indicate the cyclical designations of particular
days in the month for each of the twelve months of the year.
M. Chavannes, by a careful comparison of these data with
those recorded in Chinese chronological works, has been
able to prove that the calendars to which these tablets
belonged were issued for the years roughly corresponding
to 63, 59, and 57 B.C. They were indispensable for the
correct dating of official correspondence, accounts, etc.,