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

eyebrows bore traces of black paint. The carving, though too rude for any safe dating, was
manifestly old, the stone showing a great deal of weathering.

That the image, whatever it may have been intended to represent, had been an object of Stone taken
pre-Muhammadan cult seemed likely *a priori*. This was made still more probable by the discovery for minia-
at its side of what manifestly was to be taken for a miniature representation of a Stūpa (Fig. 341 ture Stūpa.
on right). The block of stone, 14 inches in height, showed on two faces what looked like a double
base of approximately square shape and, above a receding moulding, a roughly rounded top,
suggesting a rudimentary dome. The material of the stone seemed to me granite. The back of
the stone was flat. At the time I took it for a rough carving meant to show a Stūpa as it were
in relievo. But a subsequent observation, made seven years later and far away near the Pāmirs,
has suggested to me that the peculiar shape of this stone was natural and due to erosive action.
At a much-frequented Mazār near Namadgut in Russian Wakhān, and facing the ancient fortress
of Kala-i-Ka'ka on the Oxus, I found collected a series of exactly corresponding stone blocks,
differing in sizes but all showing the same curious resemblance to miniature Stūpas. They were
clearly of natural origin, but had obviously been placed at the shrine out of lingering respect for
their shape. This, while Buddhism still prevailed along the uppermost Oxus, would certainly have
made them objects of worship at *svayambhū* Stūpas.⁴

The most curious feature to me, however, at this strange 'Ziārat' of Chalkoide was the Local wor-
enclosure around filled with the usual votive offerings of orthodox Muhammadan shrines in these ship of
parts, horns of *Ovis Poli* or *Ovis Ammon* and wild goats, horse-skulls, rags fastened on staffs, etc. image.
There could be no doubt that worship at this shrine was very much a thing of the present, in spite
of the Uch-Turfān Mullahs' protest against it, of which Mangush Bēg told me. Until recent years
the cult of this queer 'Ziārat', he declared, was general among the Kirghiz of the neighbouring
grazing-grounds. Numbers of men used to come to it also from distant valleys, good Muhammadans
as all these Kirghiz herdsmen have been for long generations. It was said that at the present day
only the older men clung to the custom of praying at the shrine; but even thus nobody dares to
enter the enclosure. Curiously enough the carved figure was stated by Mangush Bēg to represent
a female, Kuwaghiz by name, the wife of that ancient hero Kaz-atā, whose image is supposed to be
represented by the conspicuous rock pinnacle already referred to. A confused tradition, the details
of which I could not unravel, connects the two images. The nexus, however obscure, suffices to
show that the curious shrine here surviving must have owed its origin to that worship of a striking
natural feature, i.e. a *svayambhū tīrtha*, to use the Sanskrit terminology, which is so well known
from the folk-lore of India, ancient and modern, and for which Buddhist local cult has always been
ready to find room.

This interesting excursion from Shait-kāk and the next two days' marches to Kelpin served to Advance of
acquaint me with the very arid conditions prevailing in these outer T'ien-shan ranges notwithstanding aridity in
their relatively great height. In the absence of records or datable remains of any antiquity, it is mountains.
impossible to trace here the changes which the climate may have undergone during the historical
period, though Kirghiz tradition seems distinctly to point towards progress of 'desiccation' in recent
times. But, even without any definite data on this point, the study of the present conditions in
these hills, where springs are now extremely rare and all travel depends on an exact knowledge of
the water-supply obtainable from natural cisterns (*kāk*) and varying in different seasons, was to me
of historical interest; for they make it easier to realize conditions such as are likely to have prevailed
in the now absolutely waterless desert ranges of the westernmost Pei-shan during the period when