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CHAPTER I]
BOWER MANUSCRIPT
That there was, however, a large stâpa among them, the fourth of the list, appears from a letter of Dr. A. von Le Coq, dated the 24th October 1909 :
“Stopas are there .... Bower's statements are likely to be correct; all the stů pas are more or less ruined. Qum Turâ, or the (old) building in the sand' is a modern small settlement which takes its name from an old (Buddhist) temple which stands on a gravelly alluvial flat (apparently Sarai Tam) on the bank of the river where it debouches from the valley. On the height of the eastern (left) bank there stands, unless I am much mistaken, the principal stūpa. In order to get to the Ming-op one has to ride in the bed of the river (or on the ice). I should say the distance is about half a kilometer."
In a later communication from Dr. von Le Coq, on the 16th November 1909, the following distances are given :
"The distance from Qum Turá to the Tura (or the ruined building on the ridge is about five kilometer (or about three miles). We rode at the time over the ice: in the summer the distance may be a little greater. From the Turk to the beginning of the caves I should say the distance is about 500 meters (or about 500 yards, see No. ii)."
On the basis of the above-given extracts from letters as illustrated by the Sketch Map the Topographical Plan, and the View of Qum Turâ, an attempt may now be made to determine what, in all probability, would seem to have been the true find-place of the Bower Manuscript. In the first place, two misapprehensions must be removed which hitherto have prevented its recognition. It will be seen from the extracts Nos. x, xi and xii, that according to an admittedly, well established native tradition, current in Kuchar, a large find of manuscripts was made in the Qutluq Urdâ stûpa; and it is there suggested that the Bower Manuscript may have formed part of that find. Again, in Nos. x and xi, a rival version of the tradition is referred to, according to which the Bower Manuscript was found in one of the caves of the Ming-oï of Qum Turâ. Now this rival version is not a native Kuchari tradition at all, but merely a mistaken vïew originally started by Bühler in his contributions to the Vienna Oriental Journal, Vol. V (1891), pp. 103 and 302, in which after having read Lieutenant Bower's note (quoted in No. i), Bühler announced the discovery of the Bower manuscript to the learned world of Europe, as having been "obtained by Lieutenant Bower froun the ruins of the ancient underground city of Ming-oï ncar Kuchar in Kashgaria." On referring to that note, it will be seen that Lieutenant Bower made no such statement. He says explititly that the manuscript was "dug out of the foot of one of the curious old erections " which stood " just outside (or “close to " as in No, iii) the subterranean city." Bühler's misrepresentation is, in the circumstances, easily enough explainable, but it suggested what Lieutenant Bower explicitly states in his letter (see No. ii) to be "a total misconception of the facts"; and unfortunately it has had the effect of obscuring the real facts to all subsequent investigators.
The correction of Bühler's misconception practically disposes also of the other misapprehension regarding the Qutluq Urdâ stúpa. As may be seen from Nos. ix, xi, and xii, that 'stôpa is situated close to the town of Kuchar itself, that is to say, only about one mile” (No. xi), or " about 5 li” (No. ix) to the west of that town, and north of the road to Qum Turâ ; while the stúpa, from which the Bower manuscript was extracted, stands close to, that is to say " about 500 yards” (No. ii), or "about half a kilometer" (No. xiii) from the Ming-os of Qum Turâ, and that Ming-oï itself is situated, according to Lieutenant Bower," about 16 miles from Kuchar" (No. i), or according to M. Pelliot, "about 12 miles further west" (No. xi) from the Qutlug Urda stûpe, that is to say, about 13 miles from the town of Kuchar. Clearly the stûpa of the Bower manuscript, and the stûpa of Qutluq Urdá from which the Weber, Macartney and Petrovski manuscripts were obtained, are two entirely distinct structures,
