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XI. Khotan Studies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Sten Konow
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Extract

About twelve years ago Dr. Hoernle published a series of ancient documents written in Brāhmī characters and an Iranian language. There was and is some uncertainty about the exact spot or spots where they were found. Some of them had been bought “from a Khotan trader Badruddīn, who could or would give no information”. Others were said to have been dug out from a buried town near Kuchar. The interpretation of these documents has not advanced much since they were edited, though we now know that they are written in the same tongue which is used in numerous fragments and MSS. found in Eastern Turkistan, and which has been variously designated North Aryan, East Iranian, Tokharī, and Khotanese. The alphabet in which these documents are written, on the other hand, is much better known now than twelve years ago. Dr. Hoernle has published tables found in Central Asia and containing complete alphabets, so that we are now relatively well informed about the value of the different signs. Moreover, a comparison with other manuscript finds from Turkistan has shown that some signs were not from the beginning correctly transliterated. In the present connexion it is of importance that we now know that two different signs were originally confounded and invariably transliterated ñ. One of them, however, denotes an r-sound, and is now usually transcribed rr.

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Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , April 1914 , pp. 339 - 353
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1914

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References

page 339 note 1 A Report of the British Collection of Antiquities from Central Asia, pt. ii, pp. 30 ff., Calcutta, 1902.Google Scholar

page 339 note 2 JRAS. 1911, pp. 447 ff.Google Scholar

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page 350 note 2 Dr. Hoernle has been good enough to give me revised readings of the dates occurring in the documents. No. 15, which was originally said to be dated in the 6th year, has the date ṣṣauṣacū salya paḍauyse, i.e. in the first year ṣṣauṣacū; No. 3, which was said to mention the third year, gives month and day and then goes on Hvaṃ[n]ä rrāṃdä (i.e. rruṃdä) Vä vāhaṃ ṣṣauṣanīrä salya, in the ṣṣauṣanīrä year of the Khotan king Vivāhaṃ, where ṣṣauṣanīrä must be connected with ṣṣauṣacū in No. 15.

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