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xiv
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[CHAPTER I
briefly the course of events connected with the discoveries and vicissitudes of the manuscripts called after the names of Bower, Weber, Macartney and Petrovski, so far as they may be deduced by means of a careful comparison and co-ordination of the statements quoted in the preceding extracts. There are some minor discrepancies in them; but they do not affect the main lines of the story.
In February 1890, two Turkis of Kuchar, searching for treasure, dug into the stâpas which stand near the Ming-oï, or system of rock-cut grottos, of Qum Turâ. In one of the stūpas, they discovered the birch-bark manuscript, which one of the two men on the 2nd or 3rd of March 1890, sold to Lieutenant Bower, and which is now known as the Bower Manuscript (Nos, i-iii). The partial success of this enterprise apparently suggested to a number of men of Kuchar the attempt to break into the neighbouring great stúpa of Qutluq Urdâ, which by its much larger size gave promise of the yield of much more valuable booty (No, vii). This enterprise, it appears, was executed some time in the early part of 1891, The story of the men as to what they found in the interior chamber of the stûpa seems never to have varied in its main lines from that year down to 1907, when it was repeated to M. Pelliot (No. iv of 1892, Nos, vii and viii of 1898. No, x of 1907). Nor is there any good reason to discredit it, Interior relic chambers do not uncommonly occur in stậpas of Eastern Turkestan, as has been observed by Sir Aurel Stein in his Ancient Khotan, Vol. I, pp. 82 ff. Such an interior chamber may be clearly seen, e.g., in the subjoined view of the stúpa at Subashi (Fig. 5) to the east of Kuchar (see Sketch Map) from a photograph taken by Sir Aurel Stein. A similar interior relic chamber in the Mauri Tim Stúpa, near Khânui, is shown in Sir Aurel Stein's Ancient Khotan, p. 74, fig. 13. However, the only point of interest in the men's story is that they found a large number of manuscripts, enough to fill a "big basket" (No. viii). These manuscripts are said to have consisted of twenty-five "bundles," that is, Indian pôthis (see Fig. 6. p. xvii), each tied between two wooden boards, and written in a script unknown to the finders (No. x), that is, in a Sanskritic, or Brałmi, script. They were taken to the house of the Qazi, or headman, of Kuchar (Nos, vii, x), a Turki, called Granizat, Khân, the uncle of a man called Timur Beg38 (Nos, ix, x). In his house they lay about, uncared for, and suffering much injury at the hands of the children. In the meantime, 'Lieutenant Bower, on his return journey to India, having shown his acquisition to Messrs. Macartney and Petrovski in Kashgar, and to Mr. Weber in Leh, these gentlemen had instructed their native acquaintances, or Agsaqâls, to keep an outlook for similar discoveries with a view to securing them (Nos, iv, v, x). The presence of the "bundles" of manuscripts in the house of the Qazi soon became known generally in Kuchar. Among others the British and Russian Aqsaqals
38 In No. viii the owner is called Yaqib Beg. If this is not a mere error, Yaqub Beg may have been a son of Głanizat Khân, who may have been dead by that time
