Indian Antiquary Vol 58

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 118

108
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[JUNE, 1929
NOTES ON KHOTAN AND LADAKH. (From a Tibetan point of view.) BY PROF. A. H. FRANCKE, PH.D.
In the year 1914 I had the pleasure of passing through Chinese Turkestan and Ladakh. The collections then made on the road remained in the hands of the missionaries at Kashgar and Leh until they could be sent to Europe (Munich Museum) in 1927. When working at these collections, which are somewhat similar to those made by Sir Aurel Stein on his first and second journeys, I was struck by the idea that the Tibetans also have something to say about things in Turkestan. Sir Aurel Stein, who has so much to tell us of Turkestan, draws most of his information from Chinese sources, and he is right to do so. He also drew on such Tibetan sources as were available, but as I think I can add a little I venture to make the following remarks:
Sir Aurel Stein knew of abstracts of the four following works on Turkestan (Khotan) in Tibetan :
(1) Li-yul-lo-rgyus-pa, History of Li-yul (Khotan), bstan-'agyur, vol. 94, pp. 426-444. (2) Li-yul lun-batan-pa (Kamsadeśa-vyakarana), Prophecy of Li-yul, betan-'agyur, vol. 94, pp. 420-425.
(3) dgra-bcom-pa-dge-'adun-'aphel-gyi lun-bstan-pa (Samghavardhana-vyakaraṇa), Prophecies of the Arhat Samghavardhana, bat. vol. 94, p. 412-420.
(4) Ri-glan-ru-lun-bstan (Gośṛinga-vydkarana), Prophecies of Gośringa, bka-'agyur, vol. 30 (32), pp. 336-354.
Only the last of these works has a colophon, which tells us that the book was written in Rajagriha, where it was translated out of the language of Li (Khotan). No. 3 of the above list contains an important name, viz., that of a man, on whose authority rests the whole of its contents, Arhat Samghavardhana, who apparently told of things he had heard in his lifetime. This Arhat is mentioned in Târanâtha's History of Buddhism, where it is said that he lived in the days when Islam made its first appearance in India. Up to the present time a proper translation has not been made of either of these works. Rockhill says, on p. 231 of his Life of the Buddha, that translations are not wanted, as the three first books mentioned above cover the same ground. Instead of a translation, therefore, he gives us an abstract of the history of Khotan, drawn from all four books: see his Life of the Buddha (1884), pp. 230-248. Without knowing of the existence of this work, S. Ch. Das, in 1886, wrote an article, "Buddhist and other Legends about Khotan", in which he also gave an abstract of the contents of those books, although he does not mention his sources. (JASB., 1886, pp. 193-201.) These two abstracts Sir Aurel Stein had at his disposal when he wrote his Ancient Khotan.
Prof. F. W. Thomas, who was not satisfied with the spelling of the Khotanese names in the abstracts, furnished Appendix E for Ancient Khotan, entitled "Extracts from Tibetan accounts of Khotan", in which he gave a list of royal names from Khotan, together with a list of donations and holy buildings erected by the kings, in the spelling of the Tibetans works (Nos. 1-3). Thomas' abstract is followed by an abstract of No. 4, the Gosringa-vyakarana by Sylvain Lévi, quoted from the Bulletin de l'École Française d'Extrême Orient.
Now, with regard to these works, it would certainly be very valuable if we should get a translation of all three of them. As these books claim to be translations of native Khotanese works, they are of the greatest importance to Khotanese archæology, and have been resorted to in many difficult questions. Of course, in the time of Rockhill, nobody would have hoped that such a rich archæological harvest would ever hail from Turkestan.
Although these are the principal works, there are a few others, which are also useful for the student of history:
(1) The Tibetan chronicles (La-dvags-rgyal-rabs, and others).
(2) The Tibetan documents and letters brought from Turkestan by Stein as well as by Grünwedel and Le Coq.