Indian Antiquary Vol 33

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

Page 86

82
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(MARCE, 1904.
Sūtra, the Ta-fang ... shr-yen-yi-ch'ao (Nanjio, No. 1590; Jap. ed. XXVII. fasc. 9, p., chap. 77) he again speaks of Shu-le and K'ia-la-su-tan-le as being equivalent. The same gloss on the name Shu-le, à propos of the same passage, is found in the excellent Yi-trio-king yin-yi (chap. 22) of Huei-lin, & contemporary of Ch'eng-kuan, who also died in the Yuan-ho period (806-820) aged eighty-foar years ; this colossal compilation, which was not included in the Chinese canon, forms part of the Corean collection, and it is again to the editors of the Japanese Tripitaks that Western science owes this precions document. Huei-lin was a native of Kashgar; it was there, [249] without doubt, that he acquired the knowledge of Sanskrit, which he has utilised in his Yin-yi; in identifying Sku-le and Kia-lu-shu-tan-le, and in tracing the traditional interpretation of the name, he seems to recognize and prove the value of it (Jap. ed. XXXIX. fasc. 8, p. 144*).
Hi-lin, author of the Six-yi-tsi-king yinyi, who continued Hue-lin's work, repeata exactly the notice of his predecessor, with regard to Shu-le, in the itinerary of Wu-k'ong (Jap. ed. XXXIX. fasc. 8, p. 114). I do not know the precise date of Hi-lin, but it can easily be inferred Hi-lin represents his work as a supplement to the Yin-ys of Huei-lin, and the last of the texts which he glosses is the Ta-t'ang cheng-yuan siu k'ai-yuan she-kiao lu or Supplementary Catalogue edited by Yoan-chao who flourished in 778. The Siu ..... yin-yi of Hi-lin therefore belongs to the first half of the 9th century, and is immediately posterior to the Yin-yi of Huei-lin.
Thus the identity of Shu-le and K'ia-lu-thu-tan-le was accepted and taught in the Buddhist schools of China, during the 9th century. The transcription K'ia-la-shu-tan-le leads directly back to an original Kharöshtra. The use of shu in this case exactly corresponds to the only example which Stan. Julien gives in his Méthode (No. 1622). In the transcription "Pushpa: Pu-shu-pa," as in thet of " Kharöshtra, Kia-Iu-shu-tan-le," shu serves to represent the cerebral sibilant immediately followed by a consonant, and placed after a syllable with a labial vowel : v in the one case, ö( = a + *) in the other.
The value of Shu-le itself is well known. It is the name which has been regularly employed since the time of the first Han Dynasty to denote the town of Kashgar. The Kharðshtra is therefore the country of Kashgar, and the Kharöshtri is very probably the writing of this country.
A few years ago this hypothesis would have seemed a very rash one. In his Indische Palaeographie, 1896, p. 19, Bühler wrote: "The Kharoshtri, as at present known, is an ephemeral " alphabet, almost purely epigraphic, of the North-West of India. Its proper domain lies between "699 and 73o 30 E. long. and 33o-35° N. lat." The Kharöshtri manuscript of the Dhammapada, discovered in the environs of Khotan, and acquired partly by the mission of Dutreuil de Rhins, partly by M. Petrovski, at once confuted these two assertions; the Kharðshtri was a writing of scribes and copyists, and was employed, exactly as the Brāhmi was, to reproduce literary or religious texts; and the limits of its domain extended at one leap to 77° E. long. and 37° N. lat. The districts of Khotan and Kashgar have continued ever since then to supply new documente. In a recent communication, M. Stein, who has explored the region of Takla Makan, announced that, on the old banks of the Niya River, 37° N. lat. and 82° 20 E. long., he had found five hundred inscriptions on tablets of wood in Kharoshtri characters. It appears more and more evident that the Kharöshtri was the writing of Central Asia, [250] of the country of Kharðshtra. Henceforth it would be wise to abandon the incorrect form Kharoshthi and to retam to the authentic form Kharõshtri, set aside by mistake.
Can this name Kharõshtra be explained? The Chinese interpretation, which renders it "evilnature," recalls the interpretation of the name Ki-pin, also supplied by Chinese tradition. Ki-pin would signify “miserable race." On all sides there is the same tendency to give a contemptuous etymology to names of barbarian countries. The name Kapiba naturally evoked the Sanskrit kapisa, " monkey colour," and kapi "monkey": the temptation to apply such an etymology to barbarians was too grateful to be resisted. Kharöshtra could also be analysed in Sanskrit: khara, "286," + ushira, "camel.” The facetious monks, who came from India, would spread this false etymology, and the