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『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

occupied the cella wall facing the entrance. This passage at the back was vaulted, and might be
decorated with frescoes or relievo statuary. The same disposition of the ground-plan prevails also
in the cave-temples of the site.⁶

Cellas with
enclosing
passages. A third type, represented mainly among the larger shrines, corresponds closely to the one which
is most common among the Buddhist sanctuaries of the Khotan sites (Dandān-oilik, Khādalik, etc.).
Here we find a cella, usually square, approached through an antechapel and enclosed on the remain-
ing three sides by a passage which communicates with the latter and served for the 'Pradakṣiṇā'.
In the larger shrines of this type, e. g. x–xii, xxv, xxvi (Plates 52, 53), the passage widens somewhat
•at the back of the cella and forms a chamber adorned with relievo statuary. Elsewhere the passages
appear to have been decorated only with wall-paintings. The fourth and fifth types are confined to
monuments for which a funerary character may be assumed with the greatest probability.

Sepulchral
monuments. The fourth type in its external appearance presents itself as a Stūpa, with a cylindrical dome
rising either direct from a low platform or from a base of varying shape which may be circular,
polygonal, or square. Usually there is a square walled enclosure. The sketch-plans in Plates 52,
53 and Figs. 287, 288 will help to illustrate this type. The peculiarity of these 'Stūpas' is that
their interior is invariably hollow, and that those in fair preservation still have an entrance by which
the vaulted interior could be reached. In none of the vaulted circular chambers examined or cleared
did I find either cult objects or human remains. And yet it is certain, both from their association
with the monuments of the fifth type and from the exact analogy of the 'Stūpas' found at the
cemetery of 'Kosh-gumbaz', outside the ruined town of Kara-khōja, which Professor Grünwedel has
examined and described in some detail,⁷ that they served a sepulchral purpose. This was definitely
proved by finds of cinerary urns and boxes at the foot of the pillar-like structures (Figs. 280, 288)
which belong to the fifth type. Whether square or polygonal in shape, they have each a small
walled enclosure, and taper in their superstructure. Their appearance is curiously reminiscent of
Roman funeral monuments.⁸

Atmo-
spheric con-
ditions
affecting
ruins. Before I proceed to describe the results of the excavations carried on at different ruins I may
conveniently record certain observations concerning the conditions in which I found them and which
affect all remains of the site. At the first glance it was easy to notice that all the exposed portions
of the ruins had suffered much from the destructive effects of rain and snow. I have already had
occasion to refer to the climatic conditions of the Kara-shahr valley as being distinctly less arid
than those prevailing in the central portions of the Tārim Basin or in its much reduced counterpart,
the Turfān depression. Of the heavy rain-storms reported to visit the valley on not infrequent
occasions during the summer⁹ there was clear archaeological evidence in the almost complete
effacement of the relievo decoration in plaster which the outside walls of some of the funeral struc-
tures appear to have borne at one time. The plain plaster coating of temple walls, etc., has
similarly been washed down almost everywhere.

Mists rising
from Bagh-
rash lake. The position of the ruins on sandstone terraces, which, though low, are well above the level
affected by the subsoil moisture of the surrounding plain, had fortunately saved them from the
disintegrating effects of shōr, so strikingly illustrated by the remains of other Kara-shahr sites.
Yet, situated as they are within six miles of Baghdād-shahrī and even less of the nearest shore of
Lake Baghrash, the ruins could not escape the slow but constant deletory action of the atmospheric