The Silk Road: A New History

by Valerie Hansen

  26. Victor H. Mair, “India and China: Observations on Cultural Borrowing,” Journal of the Asiatic Society (Calcutta) 31, nos. 3–4 (1989): 61–94.

  27. Victor H. Mair and Tsu-Lin Mei, “The Sanskrit Origins of Recent Style Prosody,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 51, no. 2 (1991): 375–470, especially 392; Victor Mair, personal communication, September 7, 2011.

  28. Douglas Q. Adams, Tocharian Historical Phonology and Morphology (New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 1988), 1.

  29. Denis Sinor, “The Uighur Empire of Mongolia,” in Studies in Medieval Inner Asia (Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1997), 1–5.

  30. I have used /gh/ in “Twghry” where other scholars have used the Greek letter gamma (γ). Adams, Tocharian, 2, quotes the entire passage; Le Coq, Buried Treasures, 84, mentions the find. In 1974 forty-four additional leafs from this text were found in Yanqi: Ji Xianlin, trans., Fragments of the Tocharian A Maitreyasamiti-Nataka of the Xinjiang Museum, China (New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1998).

  31. Adams, Tocharian, 3.

  32. Recently, François Thierry has reexamined and retranslated (into French) all the passages about the Yuezhi. After offering several variant readings of the characters for Dunhuang and Qilian, he raises the possibility that prior to 175 BCE, when the Xiongnu allegedly drove them out, the Yuezhi populated the entire region between the Qilian Mountains and the Tianshan Mountain range (much of Gansu and all of Xinjiang) and not just the Qilian region near Dunhuang as the histories claim. Thierry, “Yuezhi et Kouchans,” in Afghanistan: Ancien carrefour, 421–539.

  33. Christopher I. Beckwith, Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), 380–83.

  34. Found at Karabalgasun, the Uighur capital in the Orhkon River valley, the trilingual text was carved on a stele in Sogdian, Chinese, and Uighur.

  35. W. B. Henning, “Argi and the ‘Tokharians,’” Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies 9, no. 3 (1938): 545–71. Larry Clark discusses several occurrences of the phrase “Four Twghry” and argues that, contrary to Henning’s view, the four regions included Kucha. “The Conversion of Bügü Khan to Manichaeism,” in Studia Manichaica: IV. Internationaler Kongress zum Manichäismus, Berlin, 14.–18. Juli, 1997, ed. Ronald E. Emmerick, Werner Sundermann, and Peter Zieme (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2000), 83–84n1.

  36. Nicholas Sims-Williams, New Light on Ancient Afghanistan: The Decipherment of Bactrian; An Inaugural Lecture Delivered on 1 February 1996 (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1997), 1–25.

  37. George Sherman Lane, “On the Interrelationship of the Tocharian Dialects,” in Studies in Historical Linguistics in Honor of George Sherman Lane, ed. Walter W. Arndt et al. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1967), 129.

  38. Stanley Insler, personal communication, April 22, 1999; Lane, “Tocharian Dialects,” 129.

  39. Douglas Q. Adams, “The Position of Tocharian among the Other Indo-European Languages,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 104 (July–September 1984): 400.

  40. The different people who spoke languages in the Turkic language family did not refer to themselves as Turks; the label came into wider use following contact with Muslim peoples. See P. B. Golden, Ethnicity and State Formation in Pre-Čingisid Turkic Eurasia (Bloomington: Department of Central Eurasian Studies, Indiana University, 2001); Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples: Ethnogenesis and State-Formation in Medieval and Early Modern Eurasia and the Middle East (Wiesbaden, Germany: O. Harrassowitz, 1992).

  41. Melanie Malzahn, “Tocharian Texts and Where to Find Them,” in Instrumenta Tocharica, ed. Melanie Malzahn (Heidelberg, Germany: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2007), 79.

  42. Georges-Jean Pinault, personal communication, April 3, 2010.

  43. Georges-Jean Pinault, “Introduction au tokharien,” LALIES 7 (1989): 11. See also Pinault’s recent publication, Chrestomathie tokharienne: Textes et grammaire (Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 2008).

  44. Adams, Tocharian, 7n8.

  45. Georges-Jean Pinault both analyzes the story and provides a word-by-word and freer translation of excerpts of it. See his “Introduction au tokharien,” 163–94. A transcription and translation of the text appears in Pinault’s Chrestomathie tokharienne, 251–68, with the cited passage on 262.

  46. Lane, “Tocharian Dialects,” 125, discusses the text, no. 394 in Sieg and Siegling’s original inventory of Tocharian A texts.

  47. Michaël Peyrot, Variation and Change in Tocharian B (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2008).

  48. Pinault, “Introduction au tokharien,” 11; Emil Sieg, “Geschäftliche Aufzeichnungen in Tocharisch B aus der Berliner Sammlung,” Miscellanea Academica Berolinensia 2, no. 2 (1950): 208–23.

  49. “The total is now 6,060 numbers, resulting from the addition of the following rough numbers by places where they are kept: 3,480 in Berlin, 1,500 in London, 1,000 in Paris (not counting around 1,000 tiny fragments), 180 in St. Petersburg, 30 in Japan, 50 in China (not counting graffiti and inscriptions).” Pinault, personal communication, April 3, 2010.

  50. The name of the site today is Yuqi tu’er, and the French spelling is Douldourâqour. For a thorough description of the site, see Madeleine Hallade et al., Douldour-âqour et Soubachi, Mission Paul Pelliot IV (Paris: Centre de recherché sur l’Asie centrale et la Haute-Asie, Instituts d’Asie, Collège de France, 1982), 31–38.

  51. The word kuśiññe means “Kuchean.” Pinault, “Introduction au tokharien,” 20.

  52. Éric Trombert, Les manuscrits chinois de Koutcha, 25–27. The Chinese and Kuchean documents Pelliot collected are now held in the collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale. The Ōtani mission from Japan, active in Central Asia in the years before World War I, also purchased documents at Kucha, most likely from the same site. See also Georges-Jean Pinault, “Economic and Administrative Documents in Tocharian B from the Berezovsky and Petrovsky Collections,” Manuscripta Orientalia 4, no. 4 (1998): 3–20.

  53. Édouard Chavannes, Documents sur les Tou-kiue (Turcs) occidenteaux (Paris: Adrien-Masonneuve, 1941); Christopher I. Beckwith, The Tibetan Empire in Central Asia: A History of the Struggle for Great Power among Tibetans, Turks, Arabs, and Chinese during the Early Middle Ages (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987).

  54. Wei Shou, Wei shu [History of the Wei dynasty] (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1974), 102:2266; Yu Taishan, Xiyu zhuan, 448, 449n136.

  55. Li Yanshou, Beishi [History of the Northern dynasties] (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1974), 97:3217–18; Yu Taishan, Xiyu zhuan, 636.

  56. François Thierry, “Entre Iran et Chine: La circulation monétaire en Sérinde de 1er au IXe siècle,” in Drège, La Serinde, terre d’échanges, 121–47, esp. 126. The original passage is: Xuanzang, Da Tang Xiyu ji jiaozhu, 54. Variant versions of this passage say gold coins, or simply gold, and do not mention silver and copper coins.

  57. Thierry, “La circulation monétaire en Sérinde,” 129–35.

  58. The Kuchean word for coin, cāne, is a loanword derived from the Chinese word for “coin,” qian. These accounts are translated and discussed in Georges-Jean Pinault, “Aspects de bouddhisme pratiqué au nord de désert du Taklamakan, d’après les documents tokhariens,” in Bouddhisme et cultures locales: Quelques cas de réciproques adaptations; Actes du colloque franco-japonais de septembre 1991, ed. Fukui Fumimasa and Gérard Fussman (Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1994), 85–113; Pinault, “Economic and Administrative Documents.” The original documents are held by the Bibliothèque Nationale of France in a collection named Pelliot Kouchéen Bois, série C, 1.

  59. Pinault, “Economic and Administrative Documents,” 12.

  60. Georges-Jean Pinault, “Narration dramatisée et narration en peinture dans la region de Kucha,” in Drège, La Serinde, terre d’échanges, 149–67; Werner Winter, “Some Aspects of ‘Tocharian’ Drama: Form and Techniques,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 75 (
1955): 26–35.

  61. Klaus T. Schmidt, “Interdisciplinary Research on Central Asia: The Decipherment of the West Tocharian Captions of a Cycle of Mural Paintings of the Life of the Buddha in Cave 110 in Qizil,” Die Sprache 40, no. 1 (1998): 72–81.

  62. Peyrot, Variation and Change, 206.

  63. Pelliot referred to the pass as Tchalderang; the modern spelling is Shaldïrang. For the most detailed study of these passes, see Georges-Jean Pinault, “Épigraphie koutchéenne: I. Laisser-passer de caravanes; II. Graffites et inscriptions,” in Chao Huashan et al., Sites divers de la région de Koutcha (Paris: Collège de France, 1987), 59–196, esp. 67n4, citing Pelliot’s January 1907 letter to Émile Senart. Ching Chao-jung is currently finishing her dissertation on the secular documents found at Kucha under the direction of Professor Pinault. My discussion is based entirely on Pinault’s account: passes buried in snow (67); description of the documents (69–71); formula used in the passes (72–74); use of formal numerals (79); closing formula and date (84–85); table of information (78).

  64. No complete examples of the outer case and inner pass survive; see the photos of the extant documents in Pinault, “Laisser-passer de caravans,” plates 40–52.

  65. Pinault, “Aspects de bouddhisme,” 100–101.

  66. Linghu Defen, Zhou shu [History of the Zhou dynasty] (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1971), 50:9123.

  67. Chen Guocan, “Tang Anxi sizhen zhong ‘zhen’ de bianhua” [Changes of “zhen” garrison command in the four garrison commands of Anxi during the Tang dynasty], Xiyu Yanjiu 2008, no. 4: 16–22.

  68. Beckwith, Tibetan Empire in Central Asia, 197–202.

  69. For a very good summary of the complicated political events, see François Thierry, “On the Tang Coins Collected by Pelliot in Chinese Turkestan (1906–09),” in Studies in Silk Road Coins and Culture: Papers in Honour of Professor Ikuo Hirayama on His 65th Birthday, ed. Joe Cribb, Katsumi Tanabe, and Helen Wang (Kamakura, Japan: Institute of Silk Road Studies, 1997), 149–79, esp. 158–59.

  70. Moriyasu Takao, “Qui des Ouighours ou des Tibétains ont gagné en 789–92 à Beš-Balïq,” Journal Asiatique 269 (1981): 193–205; Beckwith, Tibetan Empire in Central Asia, 166–68.

  71. Éric Trombert, with the assistance of Ikeda On, a Japanese scholar specializing in Chinese documents, and Zhang Guangda, a Chinese historian of the Tang dynasty, has published the definitive edition of these documents. For a list of all dated documents, see Trombert, Les manuscrits chinois de Koutcha, 141.

  72. Trombert, Les manuscrits chinois de Koutcha, nos. 28–30, no. 5.

  73. Trombert, Les manuscrits chinois de Koutcha, no. 21 (reciting sutras), no. 6 (woman writing letters), no. 19 (size of plots in an agricultural colony), no. 125 (Daoist banners), no. 117 (evaluation of an official’s performance).

  74. Trombert, Les manuscrits chinois de Koutcha, 35.

  75. Trombert, Les manuscrits chinois de Koutcha, no. 121, no. 131.

  76. Trombert, Les manuscrits chinois de Koutcha, no. 114 (steel), no. 129 (cloth; the reading of “1,000 feet” is tentative); no. 108 (payments to officials).

  77. Trombert, Les manuscrits chinois de Koutcha, no. 41. Trombert explains (p. 35) that xingke appears to denote those attached to a mobile military unit (xingke ying), not the long-distance merchants indicated by the term yuanxing shangke in Dunhuang and Turfan documents.

  78. Trombert, Les manuscrits chinois de Koutcha, no. 121, no. 220, no. 77 (possibly), no. 112.

  79. Trombert, Les manuscrits chinois de Koutcha, no. 20, no. 93 (exemptions from labor obligations), no. 24 (list of debtors).

  80. Helen Wang, Money on the Silk Road, 85–87, analyzes these; p. 87 presents a helpful table giving the dates and the amount of coins in each translation. Yamamoto Tatsuro and Ikeda On, Tun-huang and Turfan Documents Concerning Social and Economic History, vol. 3, Contracts (Tokyo: Toyo Bunko, 1987), 74–76, transcribes the contracts.

  81. See Hansen, “Place of Coins and their Alternatives,” for a discussion of the scholarly literature on this topic.

  82. Thierry, “Tang Coins Collected by Pelliot,” 151.

  83. Trombert, Les manuscrits chinois de Koutcha, 35.

  CHAPTER 3

  My thanks to all the members of “The Silk Road Project: Reuniting Turfan’s Scattered Treasures,” which ran from 1995 to 1998, for providing much information and research guidance since then. The findings of that project appeared in Asia Major 11, no. 2 (1998), Orientations 30, no. 4 (1999), and Dunhuang Tulufan Yanjiu 4 (1999). My paper, “The Place of Coins and Their Alternatives in the Silk Road Trade,” also discusses Turfan.

  1. Yoshida Yutaka, “Appendix: Translation of the Contract for the Purchase of a Slave Girl Found at Turfan and Dated 639,” T’oung Pao 89 (2003): 159–61.

  2. Although historians disagree about the date of Xuanzang’s departure—627? 629?—Etienne de la Vaissière makes a convincing case for 629: “Note sur la chronologie du voyage de Xuanzang,” Journal Asiatique 298, no. 1 (2010): 157–68. See also the most detailed modern biography of Xuanzang by Kuwayama Shōshin and Hakamaya Noriaki, Genjō [Xuanzang] (Tokyo: Daizō, 1981), 58–82.

  3. Huili composed the first five chapters of the book, which covered the years until 649, when Xuanzang returned to China and was welcomed by the same emperor, Tang Taizong, who had issued the original edict banning foreign travel. Yancong wrote the subsequent five chapters covering the time until Xuanzang’s death in 664. See Huili and Yancong, Da Tang Da Ci’en si Sanzang fashi zhuan (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2000), 11. There are two English translations: Beal’s, with some archaic phrasings and extensive annotation, and Li’s more modern one with no notes. Samuel Beal, trans., Life of Hiuen-Tsiang, by the Shaman Hwui Li (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1911); Li Rongxi, trans., A Biography of the Tripiṭaka Master of the Great Ci’en Monastery of the Great Tang Dynasty (Berkeley, CA: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 1995).

  Scholars are not certain when either Xuanzang or Huili lived. Alexander Leonhard Mayer has considered the many conflicting sources and, following the account given by Daoxuan in Xu Gaoseng zhuan [The lives of eminent monks, continued], concluded that Xuanzang was most likely born in 600 (other possible dates range from 596 to 602). See Alexander Leonhard Mayer and Klaus Röhrborn, eds., Xuanzangs Leben und Werk, vol. 1 (Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 1991), 34 (about Huili), 61 (about Xuanzang). Thanks to Friederike Assandri for providing this reference.

  4. Only one brief biography of Xuanzang, in the book Fodao lunheng [Balanced discourses on the Buddhist way], specifically says that Xuanzang studied Sanskrit (Kuwayama and Hakamaya, Genjō, 43–44).

  5. My account of and subsequent quotations from Xuanzang’s journey are based on Huili and Yancong, Sanzang fashi zhuan, 11–29.

  6. Stein calculated the distances as given by Xuanzang using a ratio of 5 li to the modern mile, a figure that Stein found Xuanzang used throughout his writings. Xuanzang covered the 218 miles (351 km) from Guazhou to Hami in eleven days of walking (“marches”). Using Xuanzang’s account, he drew a map of the route he covered (p. 268). Aurel Stein, “The Desert Crossing of Hsüan-Tsang, 630 A.D.,” Geographical Journal 54 (1919): 265–77.

  7. See the chart by Yoshida Yutaka and Kageyama Etsuko, “Sogdian Names in Chinese Characters,” in Les Sogdiens en Chine, ed. Étienne de la Vaissière and Éric Trombert (Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 2005), 305–6.

  8. Aurel Stein found the length of the journey credible because Xuanzang’s four nights and five days corresponded to the five “marches” travelers took in the early twentieth century. He estimated that Xuanzang had walked 106 miles (171 km) before reaching water. Stein noted, too, that his horses were able to go without water for four days, and he thought it quite possible that they could have gone for longer with no water. (“The Desert Crossing,” 276–77.)

  9. Kuwayama and Hakamaya, Genjō, 48–49.

  10. The Gaochang kings and the Western Turk kaghans were related by marriage. During a
coup from 614–19, the Gaochang king Qu Boya most likely stayed with the Western Turks. Wu Zhen, “Qushi Gaochang guoshi suoyin” [A gap in the history of the Qu-family Gaochang kingdom], Wenwu 1981, no. 1: 38–46.

  11. Arakawa Masaharu has recently linked the name of Xuanzang’s escort given by Huili with a similar name in an excavated document listing assignments for cart drivers. He suggests that Xuanzang left Turfan in one of these carts in the twelfth month. “Sogdians and the Royal House of Ch’ü in the Kao-ch’ang Kingdom,” Acta Asiatica 94 (2008): 67–93.

  12. Ten kings ruled between 502 and the Chinese invasion of 640. See the chart of Gaochang kings in Valerie Hansen, “Introduction: Turfan as a Silk Road Community,” Asia Major, 3rd ser., 11, no. 2 (1998): 1–12, chart on 8. For a detailed explanation of the multiple dynasties in power before 502, see Wang Su, Gaochang shigao, tongzhi bian [A draft history of the Gaochang kingdom, political section] (Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe, 1998), 265–307.

  13. Hou Han shu, 88:2928–29, as translated in Zhang Guangda and Rong Xinjiang, “A Concise History of the Turfan Oasis and Its Exploration,” Asia Major, 3rd ser., 11, no. 2 (1998): 14. Zhang and Rong’s article is the most reliable history of Turfan available in English. In Chinese, see the timelines in Wang Su, Gaochang.

  14. Wang Binghua, “New Finds in Turfan Archaeology,” Orientations 30, no. 4 (April 1999): 58–64.

  15. Zhang and Rong, “Concise History of the Turfan Oasis,” 14–17.

  16. Yamamoto and Ikeda, Tun-huang and Turfan Documents, 3A:3.

  17. Linghu, Zhou shu, 50:915; Yu Taishan, Xiyu zhuan, 510–11.

  18. Zhang Guangda, “An Outline of the Local Administration in Turfan,” available online at http://eastasianstudies.research.yale.edu/turfan/government.html.

  19. Valerie Hansen, Negotiating Daily Life in Traditional China: How Ordinary People Used Contracts, 600–1400 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995), 29–31.