Khotan

“ The walls were of the finest Kashmir shawls draped in panels between the parcel-gilt tent poles, and the floor was covered with strangely-glistening silken carpets from Khotan. A marvellous lustre of precious stones hung from the roof, and beside the divan stood the seven-light cresset stand, the golden and gemmed scent brazier, and the clepsydra with its lotus bowl, without which the King spent no night. ”

“ In the year 88 A.D., as we read in ch. 47 of the Hou Han Shu, "Pan Ch’ao took the field with 25,000 men from Khotan and other Central Asian states with the object of crushing Yarkand. The King of Kutcha replied by dispatching his chief commander to succour the place with an army drawn from the kingdoms of Wen-su, Ku-mo, and Wei-t’ou, totaling 50,000 men. Pan Ch’ao summoned his officers and also the King of Khotan to a council of war, and said: ‘Our forces are now outnumbered and unable to make head against the enemy. ”

“ Note 3.—800 li (160 miles) east of Chokiuka or Yarkand, Hiuen Tsang comes to Kiustanna (Kustána) or Khotan. “The country chiefly consists of plains covered with stones and sand. The remainder, however, is favourable to agriculture, and produces everything abundantly. From this country are got woollen carpets, fine felts, well woven taffetas, white and black jade.” Chinese authors of the 10th century speak of the abundant grapes and excellent wine of Khotan. ”

“ But, supposing this account to be correct, it is highly probable that the settlement of Sir-hind as a colony of Khotan did not take place till after the year 530, when the breeding of silk-worms was according to Procopius introduced into Europe from “Serinda.” Rather more than 120 years before this time India was visited by the Chinese traveller, Fa Hian, who on his way passed some months with great delight and admiration in Khotan; and the special object of whose journey was to see and describe all the cities of India where Buddhism was professed. ”

“ From the Lop Lake to Khotan via Cherchen the old-world route was much the same as now, but the width of fertility stretched farther north from the Kuen Lun foothills, and the temples of Buddhism were rich and frequent, and thus were pious pilgrims refreshed and elevated every step of the way through this Turkistan region. Khotan appears to have been the local centre of the faith. ”

“ My own servants and all Hajji Nazer Shah’s household believed therefore that it was my settled purpose to go to Khotan, and that I had given up all thoughts of Tibet. I even went so far as to send a telegram from Drugub to Reuter’s correspondent in India, my friend Mr. Buck, with the information that I was about to make a short journey to Khotan. The object was to mislead the mandarins. If no one else would help me, I must help myself, and, if necessary, with cunning and trickery. None of my Indian friends must 220 have any suspicion of my real plans, not even Colonel Dunlop Smith ”

“ Chinese political influence was effective until the last decade of the eighth century but after 790 the conquests of the Tibetans put an end to it and there is [Pg 210] no mention of Khotan in the Chinese Annals for about 150 years. Numerous Tibetan manuscripts and inscriptions found at Endere testify to these conquests. The rule of the Uigurs who replaced Tibet as the dominant power in Turfan and the northern Tarim basin does not appear to have extended to Khotan. ”

“ The Tibetan annals also mention several persecutions of Buddhism in Khotan as a result of which the monks fled to Tibet and Bruzha. Their chronology is confused but seems to make these troubles coincide with a persecution in Tibet, presumably that of Lang-dar-ma. If so, the persecution in Khotan must have been due to the early attacks of Mohammedans which preceded the final conquest in about 1000 A.D. [521]
Neither the statements of the Chinese annalists about Central Asia nor its own traditions prove that Buddhism flourished there before the Christian era. ”

“ In all, ten missions are recorded as passing between Northern China and Persia between 455 and 513; and reading between the lines we find clear indications that at this period there was considerable intercourse between China and Persia via Khotan.
In 509, envoys from Khotan presented themselves at the Chinese Court bearing tribute. In the annals they are described as follows: “The people are Buddhists, and their women are in society as amongst other nations. They braid the hair into long plaits, and wear pelisses and loose trousers. ”

“ In some remote places, indeed, these temple-pets become themselves almost objects of worship. For example, on the direct road between Yarkand and Khotan, Chinese Turkestan, stands the locally celebrated pigeon-shrine (Kaptar Mazzar) , where all good Moslems must dismount and reverently approach the sacred spot. “Legend has it that Imam Shakir Padshah, trying to convert the Buddhist inhabitants of the country to Islam by the drastic agency of the sword, fell here in battle against the army of Khotan, and was buried in the little cemetery. ”

“ Sultan Arslan Boghra, the hero-saint, surnamed the Tiger for his bravery, who is honoured here, fought with great valour against the Buddhist inhabitants of Khotan, who did not wish to change their religion for the tenets of Islam. He was one of the earliest Mohamedan conquerors of Kashgar, and it is recorded by Bellew that the pagan ruler of Khotan, who led his force against the Moslems, offered a large reward to the man who could compass the Sultan’s death. ”

“ To the east of Khotan, cities which were prosperous when visited by Song-yun had a century later fallen into ruins.
Little is known about these regions during the 7th, 8th and 9th centuries. In the 7th century the Tibetan king, Srong-btsan, with the help of the western Turks, subjugated the western part of the Tarim basin. During the following century the Mahommedans under Kotaiba ibn Moslim, after several excursions into West Turkestan, invaded (712-13) East Turkestan, penetrating as far as Turfan and even China. The Chinese supremacy was not shaken by these invasions. ”

“ Asia, page 391-392. Of the region sometimes called Chinese Turkestan, the name "Kashgaria," "lately current in Europe, has no raison d'être since the collapse of the independent state founded by Yakub of Kashgar. In the same way the expression 'Kingdom of Khotan' fell into disuse after the city of Khotan had ceased to be the capital. The term 'Little Bokhara,' still in use some thirty years ago, pointed at the former religious ascendancy of Bokhara, but is now all the less appropriate that Bokhara itself has yielded the supremacy to Tashkent. ”

“ Much elated by the news, the latter set off at once at the head of 10,000 horsemen to bar Pan Ch’ao’s retreat in the west, while the King of Wen-su rode eastward with 8000 horse in order to intercept the King of Khotan. As soon as Pan Ch’ao knew that the two chieftains had gone, he called his divisions together, got them well in hand, and at cock-crow hurled them against the army of Yarkand, as it lay encamped. The barbarians, panic-stricken, fled in confusion, and were closely pursued by Pan Ch’ao. ”

“ The railroad crosses it about a hundred kilometres from Khotan, where we arrived at eight o’clock in the morning.
Two hours to stop, and as the town may give me a foretaste of the cities of China, I resolve to take a run through it.
It seems to be a Turkoman town built by the Chinese, or perhaps a Chinese town built by Turkomans. Monuments and inhabitants betray their double origin. The mosques look like pagodas, the pagodas look like mosques. ”

“ The Uighurs, whose ancestors claimed descent from the Huns, originally lived in north-west Mongolia and, when they were expelled by the Hakas from their homeland, two of their sections founded states in the eastern Tian Shan. A third section, with which we are more especially concerned, broke the power of the Tibetans about 860 and became the masters of Kashgar, although Khotan remained independent for some years. ”

“ Thus by the beginning of our era the Tarim region had a mixed population of Aryans and Ural-Altaians, some being settled agriculturists and others nomads. There were also several inde- lendent cities, of which Khotan was the most important. One portion of the Aryans emigrated and settled in what is now Wakhan (on the Pamir plateau) , the present language of which seems very old, dating anterior to the separation of the Yedic and Zend languages. In the 1st century the Chinese extended their rule westwards over East Turkestan as far as Kashgar. ”

“ The second hypothesis may relate only to a sojourn of longer or shorter duration on the way from Akkadia to the ultimate settlement in China, especially since the Khotan civilization has been shown to have been imported from the Punjab in the third century B.C. The fact that serious mistakes have been made regarding the identifications of early Chinese rulers with Babylonian kings, and of the Chinese po-hsing (Cantonese bak-sing) ‘people’ with the Bak Sing or Bak tribes, does not exclude the possibility of an Akkadian origin. ”

“ Owing to the emigration of the men, the women, as at Kashgar and Yarkand, are in great preponderance, and here, as throughout Chinese Turkestan, the cheapness of marriage encourages frequent divorce and so lowers the status of the wives.
But, on the other hand, the women mix freely with the men, sell their wares in the bazars and practically dispense with the face-veil. It may be that the superior freedom enjoyed by the women of Khotan centuries ago has been handed down to their descendants. ”

“ The Yarkand- Daria has its origin in a high valley between the Kuen- Lun and Karakorum Mountains, at the base of Dapsang, from several streams, such as the auriferous Zerafshan, which is fed by the glaciers of the Karakorum pass ; after piercing the Kuen-Lun, it enters the plain, where its waters are soon diverted to the fields and gardens of the Yarkand oasis. The Khotan-Daria rises farther east in the same valley, and also pierces the Kuen-Lun, its two branches the Kara-kash and Urung-kash being renowned for their " black " and " white " jade. ”

“ Kúblái, whom by that time almost the whole of the Middle Kingdom acknowledged as emperor. While the neighbouring Yarkand owed allegiance to Kaidu, the ruler of the Chagatai dominion, Khotan had thus once more renewed its old historical connexion with China.”
XXXVI., p. 190.
“A note of Yule’s on p. 190 of vol. I. describes Johnson’s report on the people of Khoten (1865) as having ‘a slightly Tartar cast of countenance.’ The Toba History makes the same remark 1300 years earlier: ‘From Kao-ch’ang (Turfan) westwards the people of the various countries have deep eyes and high noses ”

“ About the year A.D. 400 it was a city of some magnificence, and the seat of a flourishing cult of Buddha, with temples rich in paintings and ornaments of the precious metals; but from the 5th century it seems to have declined. In the 8th century it was conquered, after a struggle of 25 years, by the Arab chieftain Kotaiba ibn Moslim, from West Turkestan, who imposed Islam upon the people. ”

“ Khoten is situated 150 miles south-east of Yarkand, [Pg 7] and about ninety miles due east of Sanju. It lies on the northern base of the Kuen Lun Mountains, and is the most southern city of any importance in Kashgaria. Under the Chinese, it was one of the most flourishing centres of industry, and as the entrepôt of all trade with Tibet it held a bustling active community. The Chinese called it Houtan, and even now it is locally called Ilchi. ”

“ KHOTIN, or Khoteen (variously written Khochim, Choczim, and Chocim) , a fortified town of South Russia, in the government of Bessarabia, in 48° 30′ N. and 26° 30′ E., on the right bank of the Dniester, near the Austrian (Galician) frontier, and opposite Podolian Kamenets. Pop. (1897) , 18,126. It possesses a few manufactures (leather, candles, beer, shoes, bricks) , and carries on a considerable trade, but has always been of importance mainly as a military post, defending one of the most frequented passages of the Dniester. In the middle ages it was the seat of a Genoese colony ”

“ The spinning of cotton affords them much in-door employment, as also the rearing of silk-worms and the winding of the thread; but the men gather and bring in the leaves of the mulberry for feeding the worms. Marco Polo says, that the people of Khoten are Mahometans; the translator of Abulghazi also observes, that "les habitans de la ville font pour la plupart profession du culte de Mahomet"—Marsden, vol. i. p. 153; and a preceding sentence in the same quotation leads the reader to believe that the Kalmuks formed the smaller part of the population ”

“ The Chinese, besides possessing a dual line of communication with their own country, one north and the other south of the Tian Shan, had also a caravan route from Khoten to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. There was also some intercourse with Cashmere by this way. The jade, for which Khoten was justly, and is still, famous, was exported in immense quantities, both to Tibet and to China, through Maralbashi. This mineral was held in high esteem by Chinese ladies, and alone sufficed to make the prosperity of Khoten assured. ”

“ I have often referred to the Khonds in the hills of Orissa, who, till the horrid practice was stopped by British interference, enticed children from the plains, fed them well, treated them kindly, and then on a fixed day murdered them, tore limb from limb, and scattered the bleeding fragments over the fields as an offering to the Land Goddess to secure an abundant harvest. I have asked, "Ought these people to walk in the ways of their fathers?" ”