Indian Antiquary Vol 34

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

Page 27

FEBRUARY, 1905.)
KASHGAR AND THE KHAROSHTHI.
21
KASHGAR AND THE KHAROSHTHI. BY O. FRANKE AND R. PISCHEL
PART I. Translated, with the permission of the authors and under revision by them, from the “Proceedings of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Prussia," 5th February, 1903, pp. 184 to 196,
by CHRISTIAN A. CAMERON. 1. - The Chinese sources.
By o. Franke. YLVAIN LÉVI lately stated, in an essay on the Indian writing running from right to left, that
Kbaroshtri, not Kharoshțhi, is its name, and that it means the writing of Kashgar. The commentary (Yin yi) to the new translation of the Avatamsaka-Sätra (Sin yi Ta fang kuang Fo hua yen king)," composed by Hui yuan during the Tang Dynasty (not earlier than the 8th century A. D.), contains an explanation of the name Shu- or Su-le to the following effect: "The correct form of the name Su-lé is K'ia-lu-shu-tan-ls. For long this country has been called by the abbreviated form Shu-lá, and it has become customary to substitute another character for the sound shu. Shu-le is the name of a mountain of this kingdom, whence it is derived. It is said also to mean evil nature and to refer to the disposition of the natives." K'ia (K'a)-lu-thu-ta(n)-le answers exactly to the Sanskrit word Kharoahtra, and as Shu-ld, the contraction for it (such contractions are very frequent in Chinese), is an old name for Kashgar, Lévi concludes that "Kharoshtra means the country of Kashgar, and that the Kharoshțri is most probably the writing of Kashgar," The gloss from which he draws this conclusion is repeated word for word in Chan kuan's commentary to the Sūtra mentioned (Bunyiu Nanjio, No. 1589), and also in a compilation by Hui lin, a native of Kashgar, and in the continuation of this work by Hi lin. All these writings belong to the Tang Dynasty. Bühler's theory that the Kbaroshthi was confined to the small district of the older Gandhāra in the north-west of India was confuted already by the discovery of the Kharoshthi manuscripts of the Dhammapada at Khotan, and by Stein's discovery of numerous documents [185] in similar writing, on wood and leather, in places of Worship on the Niya River. Now Lévi's discovery would prove not only that the Kharoshthi was the writing of Central Asia, as he says, but that it even originated in Kashgar, and took its name from that town.
Let us now consider what other Chinese sources have to say about the Kharoshthi. In accordance with the Lalitavistara, the Buddhist Encyclopaedia Fs yuan chu lin, an original work completed in 668, mentions, as Terrien de Lacouperie already has shown, 64 systems of writing, of which the first is the Brāhmi, the second the K (i) a-lu-88-to; on the latter name a gloss remarks that it means in Chinese ass-lip,"5 that is, Kharoshtha in Sanskrit. The same work, in describing the different systems of writing, remarks, “The art of writing was discovered by three divino masters: the most famous is Brahman, whose writing reads from left to right; the next is K (i) a-la (abbreviated from K (0)a-lu-a-t'o = Kharoshtha), whose writing reads from right to left; the least important is T sang-kie, whose writing reads downwards. Brahman and Kharoshtha lived in India, T'sang-kie in China : Brahman and Kharoshtha got their systems from heaven ; T'sang-kie constructed bis from the footprints of birds, etc." Similarly the Buddhist glossary, Fan yi ming yi toi, compiled in the 12th century, says, under K' (i)a-lu-8-to: "This means in Chinese Ass-lip,' it is the name of a great Rishi (Kharosht ha)." In another work on Buddhist technology, Fa kie ngan li t'u, compiled in 1607, the article on Sanskrit contains the remark that “There are 64 systems of writing in the world, the first is the Brāhmi, the second the Kharoshthi " (K'ia-lou-shre).
1 Bulletin de l'Ecole Française d'Extrême Orient, Vol. II. PP. 246 899.- [For a translation of this article of M. Sylvain Lévi, see Vol. XXXIII. above, 1904, p. 79 ff. - EDITOR. ) ? Bunyiu Nanjio, Catalogue, Nrs. 87 and 88.
Indiache Palaeographie, $7. 4 Babylonian and Oriental Record, Vol. I. p. 59.
• Fa yuan chu lin, chap. 9, fol. 29 ro. • L. o. fol. 30 yo.
Fa kie ngan li t'u, chap. I. 1, 7, fol. 12 r.