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Archæological Notes form the Hindukush Region

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Aurel Stein
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Extract

This is a preliminary account of some finds of archæological interest which have recently come to my notice in the tracts comprised within the Gilgit Agency south of the Hindukush. Separated by high ranges from the northern extremity of the Indian North-West Frontier, these tracts are too remote for their population of Dardic speech to have directly shared in the development of Indo-Aryan civilization in the great plains along the Indus and Ganges. Nor have they been immediately exposed to the invasions and cultural influences from the west which have affected that civilization within historical times. Apart from reliable but very scant notices in the Chinese Annals, such written records of the past of these tracts as exist do not reach back much further than the advent of Islām. Hence any relics attesting the conditions prevailing there in earlier periods may claim special interest.

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Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 76 , Issue 1-2 , April 1944 , pp. 5 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1944

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References

page 5 note 1 See Ancient Khotan, i, pp. 17 sq.

page 5 note 2 See JRAS, 1931, pp. 863 ff.

page 5 note 3 See Journal Asiatique, tome ccxx, pp. 13 ff.

page 5 note 4 See Dutt, , Gilgit Manuscripts, i, pp. 42 ff.Google Scholar

page 7 note 1 See my paper “Zoroastrian Deities on Indo-Soythian Coins”, Oriental and Babylonian Record, Augest, 1887, reprinted in Indian Antiquary, xvii, pp. 89 ff.

page 7 note 2 See Bērūnī, , India, ii, pp. sqq.Google Scholar; Stein, , Rājataraṅgiṇī translation, notes on iv, 140–143, v, 152–155Google Scholar; Stein, , “Zur Geschichte der Śātis von Kābul,” in Festgruss an Rudolf von Roth, 1893Google Scholar.

page 7 note 3 See Stein, , Rājataraṅgiṇī translation, note on vii, 47–69Google Scholar.

page 8 note 1 See Kaul, M. S. in Journal of the Mythic Society, xxx (1939), pl. 1443, quoted by DrChakravarti, Google Scholar.

page 8 note 2 I take the reference to Dutt, , Gilgit Manuscripts, i, p. 32, as quoted by DrChakravarti, Google Scholar.

page 8 note 3 See e.g. Marquart, , Erānṣahr, p. 209Google Scholar.

page 9 note 1 See, e.g., Grierson, , The Piśāca Languages, pp. 96, 11O, 116Google Scholar.

page 9 note 2 As regards the importance of the latter route to Gilgit up the Kāgān valley and across the Bābutar Pass into Chilās, see Ancient Khotan, i, pp. 17 sq.; also my paper, “A Chinese expedition across the Hindukush and Pamirs,” Geographical Journal, 1922, pp. 112 sqq.Google Scholar, where the short occupation of Gilgit or “Little P'o-lü” by the Chinese after a.d. 747 is also discussed.

page 12 note 1 See Stein, , Rājataraṅgiṇi translation, note H.—iv, 495, vol. ii, pp. 308–328Google Scholar; reproduced in “Notes on the monetary system of ancient Kaśmīr”, Numismatic Chronicle, vol. xix (1899), pp. 125–174Google Scholar.

page 13 note 1 For references to the prices of the khāri of rice quoted here, see Rājataraṅgiṇīi translation, ii, p. 325, § 30.

page 15 note 1 See Marshall, , Guide to Taxila, p. 92Google Scholar.

page 16 note 1 See Serindia, iv, pl. iii, Yo. 009, c. 3.

page 16 note 2 See Stein, , Ancient Khotan, ii, pl. xlvGoogle Scholar, Serindia, iv, pl. i, and Innermost Asia, iii, pi. iii,

page 16 note 3 See Serindia, iv, pl. i, Yo. 0042, b., and Innermost Asia, iii, pl. i, Yo. 08, and i, pp. 98 and 101.

page 20 note 1 [The photograph shows (a) on the right of the stūpa, firstly a seated Bodhisattva, with a kneeling figure holding a censer in front of him, (b) to the right of this Bodhisattva, an inscription, (c) still further to the right of this, a standing Bodhisattva, (d) to the left of the stūpa, a seated Bodhisattva, and still further to the left a third seated Bodhisattva, and again to the left of the latter another inscription.—F. H. A., L. D. B.]

page 20 note 2 See for Yün, Sung, Chavannes, , Voyage de Song Yün, BEFEO., 1903, pp. 33 sqq.Google Scholar; for Hsüan-tsang, , Julien, , Mémoires de Hiouen Thsang, i, pp. 164 sqq.Google Scholar; also Waiters, , On Yuan Chwang's Travels, i, pp. 253 sqq.Google Scholar

page 21 note 1 See Stein, , Report on Archæological Survey Work in the N.W. Frontier Province, Peshawar, 1905, pp. 38 sqq.Google Scholar

page 21 note 2 Thus in Watters' rendering of Hsüan-tsang's text, loc. cit. Julien's translation also refers to the herbs and shrubs of the spot as recalling the sacred event.

page 22 note 1 See Stein, , Serindia, i, pp. 37 sqq.Google Scholar; Fig. 5, 6.

page 23 note 1 For a striking instance of such diverse location in the case of Buddha's almsbowl, worshipped at different places as widely apart as Kashgar, Peshawar, and Adam's Peak in Ceylon, see e.g. my note in Ancient Khotan, i, pp. 47 sq.

page 23 note 2 See e.g. Foucher, , Notes sur la géographie ancienne de Gandhāra, BEFEO., tome 1 (1901), pp. 322 ff.Google Scholar

page 23 note 3 I may note here that the track leading from the mouth of the Buto-gāh valley to the ferry passes cultivation-terraces abandoned in recent times within less than half a mile of the ferry. Even nearer there is seen the ruin of an oblong walled enclosure which seems to have served at no very distant period as a defensible serai. Close to it issues a small spring at the foot of a low spur descending from the hill range to the south.

page 23 note 4 See Legge, , Fa-hien, pp. 24 sqq.Google Scholar; Watters, , Yuan Chwang, i, p. 239Google Scholar.

page 24 note 1 For the location of the miraculous image of Maitreya at Foguch, see Innermost Asia, i, pp. 30, 31; regarding instances of continuity of local worship, see my note on “Buddhist local worship in Muhammadan Central Asia”, JRAS., 1910, pp. 839 sqq.

page 24 note 2 See Innermost Asia, i, pp. 3 sq. A look at a small-scale map might suggest that the nearest route to Darēl from the open fertile portions of the north-western extremity of India, including Gandhāra and adjacent ground eastwards, which formed a chief seat of Buddhist cult, would hare led up the Indus. But the exceptional physical difficulties presented by the forbidding gorges through which the Indus has cut its course below Darēl for a total distance of close on a hundred miles, could at no time have allowed this route to serve for regular intercourse, trade, or pilgrim traffic. The survey of these gorges carried out in the course of my explorations of 1941—2 in the Indus Kohistān has fully confirmed the graphic description which Fa-hsien and Hsüan-tsang have given of the exceptional difficulties of this route described in early Chinese records as the “route of the hanging chains”; see e.g. Travels of Fa-hsien (Legge, ), pp. 26 sq.Google Scholar; Watters, , On Yuan Chwang's Travels, i, p. 239Google Scholar; Stein, , Innermost Asia, i, pp. 20 sq.Google Scholar; Stein, , From Swat to the Indus Gorges,” Geographical Journal, 1942, 08, pp. 49–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.