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

The finds made in the course of my renewed explorations, and particularly at N. xxiv, have supplied
such materials in plenty, and there was therefore ample justification for my learned collaborators in
postponing publication until the newly discovered tablets could also be dealt with. In January,
1913, Professor Rapson was kind enough to communicate to me some notes on certain tablets
from the new collection which he thought of special interest, and I feel all the more grateful for
being thus enabled to utilize his results as they have a close bearing on the questions which the
hidden archive in N. xxiv. viii has raised.

Prof. Rap-
son's deci-
pherment of
deed of sale. Professor Rapson's examination proves that a considerable number of the double rectangular
tablets are deeds of sale. 'As a good example of the regular formula conferring full rights of
possession, in spite of any merely verbal order of an official at some subsequent time to the
contrary,' he cites N. xxiv. viii. 74, the document already referred to on account of the clay
impression it bears from the seal of the Chinese chief official at Shan-shan.¹⁷ From the abstract
given of the opening portion of the text on the under-tablet it appears that 'this is a deed recording
the sale of miṣi-land. "Miṣi" is some crop. The seller is Koñaya and the purchaser is the writer
(āivira) Raṃṣotsa. It is dated in the 17th year of the king Jiṭugha Amguvaka, in the 12th
month and the 8th day. The price is 70 khî (a sum or measure, to be paid apparently in masu,
a term the meaning of which is not yet certain), and Raṃṣotsa seems to have deposited a two-year-
old camel as an earnest of the payment. The purchase has been completed, both the part-payment
10 khî (aṃgamuli) and the remainder of the sum total, 60 khî.'

Deed con-
cerning land,
and its
alteration. Then follows a definition of Raṃṣotsa's full rights which is thus translated: 'This writer
Raṃṣotsa has full proprietary rights over this miṣi-land. It shall be his for the enjoyment of all its
benefits in whatsoever way he desires, whether for ploughing or sowing, or for giving to another as
a gift or as a namanya [nāmanya, tenancy ?]. If at any subsequent time a vasu aġeta [vasu, a common
title; aġeta also apparently the title of some official] shall give any order concerning it, such a verbal
order shall be invalid at the king's court.' On the reverse of the covering-tablet next follow the
names of certain witnesses, and the deed ends thus: 'This deed is written by the writer Tama-
ṣpaputra at the order of the mahātman, the writer Mogata. This document is for the instruction of
Koñaya. [space] The string is cut by tomgha [well-known title] Yāmcā (?) by name.' It seems
very tempting to connect the broken condition of one or several string folds which, as mentioned
above,¹⁸ is noticeable in a number of unopened documents from the hidden deposit with the
legal ceremony referred to in the concluding words of the deed. Only further examination of these
documents and their legal technicalities can settle this little detail. But what is important is the
certainty that my assumption was right when at the very time of the find I thought 'myself the
de facto possessor of deeds probably referring to lands and other real property'.¹⁹

Sanskrit
verses on
Kharoṣṭhī
tablet N.
xxiv. viii. 9. This will be a convenient place to sum up briefly also the rest of the interesting information which
Professor Rapson's notes convey. The tablets to which reference is made are not from the hidden
deposit but were found in the same ruined residence. Particularly important from the philological
point of view is the discovery he has made of four Sanskrit ślokas written on the obverse of the
wedge under-tablet N. xxiv. viii. 9 (see Plate XXIV) which on its reverse had served for a record of
receipts, apparently sums or supplies given to servants on a farm. The verses for which a more
learned scribe has utilized the obverse, are the very first specimens of Sanskrit literature so far found
in Kharoṣṭhī script and clear up a number of important palaeographic questions connected with the
latter. Scarcely less interesting is the Takhti-shaped tablet N. xxiv. v. 1 containing at least eight
lines of verses in Prākrit on obverse and reverse. The first of these is taken from the Dhammapada