Indian Antiquary Vol 34

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

Page 51

ALARCH, 1905.]
KASHGAR AND THE KHAROSATHI.
45
From these statements it may be presumed that the Skythian-Turkish people, which inhabited Shu-le as well as most other countries of the Tarim basin, received the knowledge of Sanskrit or of the dialects spoken in North India, at any rate of the Indian writing, together with the Buddhist Sūtras. Perhaps also some elements of culture were introdaced through trade from Baktria, since already at the time of Chang k'ien the highway to Baktria and Ferghana20 led through Shu-le. The Sanskritising of the name Shu-le to Srikirifadhi, of which the Si yü ki, and that alone, informs us, was probably done by native Buddhists, learned in Sanskrit. Others have, as a counterpart, then created Kalushāntara or Kalushadhara. Bat these etymologies, appearing suddenly almost a thousand years after our first information about Shu-lé, cannot of course claim any value. With reference to the name Shu-lé, which will have to be read Sulek or Surak, I have already pointed out31 similar names of peoples in Central Asia, as Körek, Sorak, Chirek, Terek. I might also add, that, as the biography of Pan ch'ao informs us, the Chinese General drove out a king enthroned in Shu-lê by the State Kuei-tsze (Kucha) and put a native called Chung in his place. Bat & gloss from The Continuation of the Han Aonals (Sü Han shu) says he was called Yülek (Yü-le), a name which was replaced by the Chinese Chung (the loyal).22 [749] Hirth also, in his treatise “ Über Wolga-Hannen und Hiang-na," calls attention to the Alanish Dames Addac and Candac, and compares them with the Hiung-nu names Sugdak, Ellac and Hernao.35
We must give up the idea, as irreconcilable with all the information at our disposal, that the Kharoshthi (or Kharoshtri) writing originated in Central Asia and took its name from a country Kharoshtra there. So far as the Chinese sources are concerned, there is no trace of a Kharoshtra country in Central Asia, and I attach no more value to the name Ko-lo-to, = Kharolfha, for a district, in the present Sarik-kol (I. c. p. 190) than I do to the etymologies of Shu-16. That name is first found in the historico-political Encyclopædia Tfung tien, compiled at the end of the 8th century by Tu yen, and, as J. Halévy (1. c. p. 11) believes, with regard to. Kashgar, may have been introduced by Indian Buddhists. Whether it was given to the country on account of the Kharoshthi writing, as that French savant believes, I do not venture to decide. As long as we have nothing better to pat in place of the Indian and Chinese tradition as to the naming of the Kharoshthi writing from the old sage Kharoghtha, the matter must rest as it is. It is to be regretted that Wassiljew could not remember the source in which the Buddhist legend of the first astronomer Kbaroshtha is told. Wassiljew regards Kharoshtha ns the Indian form of Xarustr mentioned in the chronographical history of Mekbitar of Airiwank.
2.
The Indian sources.
By B. Pischel.
From Franke's statements it seems clear to me that Kharoshiru was never the name of a country. I believe that Franke is correct in seeing the Sanskrit kalusha in the first component of K'ia-in-shu-tan-lé, and that there is much probability that the Sanskrit antara is correct for the second part. We might also perhaps saggest uttara, as a word kalushottara, "full of badness," [744] comes nearer to the older pronunciation K'a-lu-shou-la-l& than kalushäntara, though the translation of the Chinese certainly points to antara.
* T'aien Han shu, chap. 98, fol. 20 . 11 L. o. p. 187.
Hou Han shu, chap. 77, fol. 4.. # Strungsberichte der Königl. Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1899, Vol. II. fasc. II. p. 257, noto 1. * See Sabiefner's Taranātha, p. 30 599. of the additions,