Indian Antiquary Vol 28

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 67

FEBRUARY, 1899.]
INDO-CHINESE COINS IN THE BRITISH COLLECTION.
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language shows that both those languages must have occupied a recognised position in Khotan at the time when the coins passed current. In the case of the bilingual Indo-Greek coins, Indian was the language of the population of the country, while Greek was the language of the administration or the ruling power. Khotan, so far as known to us, never had a Chinese population; but it fell under the power of China at a very early date. In the sixth year of the Emperor Ming-ti of the Later Han dynasty, in 73 A. D., Kuang-te, the king of Khotan. submitted to the Chinese General Pantchao. Thenceforward the kingdom of Khotan became a regular dependency of China, which formed that kingdom, together with Kashghar and other Central Asian principalities, into an administrative unit under the name of the "Western Countries" and under a Chinese Governor-General, and placed Chinese Governors in Khotan and the other chief towns. Shortly afterwards, King Kanishka of India (about 78-106 A. D.) is said to have held hostages from the Chinese "tributary Princes to the west of the Yellow River," that is, from the princes included in the Chinese "Governor-Generalship" of the Western Countries." It is true that there had been some political intercourse between China and Khotan since the days of the Emperor Wati (140-87 B. C.) of the Earlier Han dynasty, but Khotan only lost its independence in 73 A. D., when it was included in the Chinese "Governor-Generalship" of the Western Countries. The Chinese currency of Khotan cannot be placed earlier than that year. The native kings continued to reign, under the Chinese supremacy, and this fact explains, why the coins bear bilingual legends. It is distinctly a Chinese currency, because the standard of the coins is Chinese, inscribed in Chinese language and characters, and this fact clearly indicates Chinese supremacy. On the other hand, the reverse of the coins bears the symbols and names of the native kings, in native (Indian) characters, a fact which indicates both that native kings still continued to reign, and that the language and characters, used by the native administration, were Indian.
The first connection of India with Khotan dates back to the time of King Aśoka (254-233 B. C.). Ancient Khotanese Chronicles, quoted by Chinese writers, relate that the eldest son of that king, when dwelling in Taksaśilà in the Panjab, having had his eyes put out, the tribal chief who had been guilty of the outrage was banished, together with his tribe, across the Himalayas. There the tribe settled and later on chose a king from among themselves. Soon afterwards they came into collision with another tribe settled to the east of them, whose king had been expelled from his own country. In the result, the western or Indian tribe was conquered, and the eastern king, now uniting both tribes under his rule, established his capital in the middle of the country, at Khotan. This must have been about 240 B. C. The eastern. tribe would seem to have been the Uighurs, of the Turki race. They gradually occupied the whole of Eastern Turkestan before 200 B. C., being pushed forward from the north-east by the Hiungnu or Huns, another Turki tribe. The latter, in their westward movement, displaced two Turki tribes, the Yuechi (or Yueti) and the Uighur; the former migrated to the north, the latter to the south of the Tian Shan mountains, displacing in their turn the Saka tribe which had formerly dwelt there. The Yuechi were gradually driven across the Ili, and the Yaxartes. From 163 to 126 B. C., they occupied the country between the latter river and the Oxus, and by 26 B. C. they had extended their settlements beyond the Hindukush into Afghanistan. Here they formed a great kingdom under the two Kadphises and under Kanerkes and Hverkes from about 25 B. C. to 180 A. D. Their rule gradually comprised the whole of North-Western India in addition to Eastern Afghanistan. On their coins they used both the Greek and Indian-Kharosthi characters: the former they retained from their Greek predecessors whose official script it had been; the latter was the script of secular commerce of their
• See Abel Remusat's Histoire de la Ville de Khotan, p. 8 and passim.
7 See Beal's Buddhist Records of the Western World, Vol. I, pp. 57 and 173; also Numismatic Chronicle, Vol. IX (1889), p. 272.
See Abel Bemusat's Histoire de la Ville de Khotan, pp. 37, 38, and Beal's Buddhist Records of the Western World, Vol. II, p. 310.