The Special Status of Turfan
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SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS Number 186 March, 2009 The Special Status of Turfan by Doug Hitch Victor H. Mair, Editor Sino-Platonic Papers Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305 USA [email protected] www.sino-platonic.org SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS is an occasional series edited by Victor H. Mair. The purpose of the series is to make available to specialists and the interested public the results of research that, because of its unconventional or controversial nature, might otherwise go unpublished. The editor actively encourages younger, not yet well established, scholars and independent authors to submit manuscripts for consideration. Contributions in any of the major scholarly languages of the world, including Romanized Modern Standard Mandarin (MSM) and Japanese, are acceptable. In special circumstances, papers written in one of the Sinitic topolects (fangyan) may be considered for publication. 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Issues from no. 1 to no. 170, however, will continue to be sold as paper copies until our stock runs out, after which they too will be made available on the Web at www.sino-platonic.org. _______________________________________________ Doug Hitch, “The Special Status of Turfan,” Sino-Platonic Papers, 186 (March, 2009) Table of Contents PHILOLOGICAL BOUNTY...................................................................................................1 RELIGIOUS AND ARTISTIC DIVERSITY ...............................................................................2 OTHER TARIM SITES ........................................................................................................3 ORIGINAL MEDIEVAL TURFANIAN LANGUAGE? ................................................................3 Kucha and Kuchean.....................................................................................................3 Khotan and Khotanese.................................................................................................4 Tumshuq and Tumshuqese ..........................................................................................4 Kroraina/Loulan..........................................................................................................5 Kashgar and Yarkand ..................................................................................................5 Turfan, Qarashahr and Tocharian A.............................................................................7 KAREZ .............................................................................................................................8 THE HYPOTHESIS .............................................................................................................9 ADMINISTRATIVE EVIDENCE ..........................................................................................11 Tarim Legal Traditions..............................................................................................11 Kushan Tarim Control...............................................................................................12 Loanword Evidence for Kushan Tarim Control .........................................................16 Bactrian Administrative Terms in the Tarim Languages ........................................17 Prakrit Administrative Terms in the Tarim Languages...........................................19 Contract Structure Evidence for Kushan Tarim Control.............................................20 Prakrit Contracts....................................................................................................20 Khotanese Contracts..............................................................................................23 Tumshuqese Contracts...........................................................................................24 Uyghur Contracts from Yarkand............................................................................28 Uyghur Contracts from Turfan...............................................................................30 Bactrian Contracts ................................................................................................. 32 The Contract Evidence, Summary..........................................................................36 HISTORICAL EVIDENCE ..................................................................................................37 Names for the Turfan Region in the Chinese Annals..................................................37 SHIMAZAKI on the Nomadic Jushi..............................................................................37 Ancient and Modern Populations...............................................................................39 Han to Tang Turfan Population Growth.....................................................................40 Stein Summary..........................................................................................................41 Stein on Late Islamization .........................................................................................44 ENVIRONMENTAL EVIDENCE ..........................................................................................44 Climate Change.........................................................................................................44 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION .........................................................................................48 REFERENCES ..................................................................................................................52 i The Special Status of Turfan1 Doug Hitch Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada PHILOLOGICAL BOUNTY More than twenty languages are represented in the medieval documents found in Turfan, mostly in the early years of the twentieth century. Perhaps no other archeological area has offered up such linguistic bounty. Identified languages include Old Turkic, Chinese, Sanskrit, Sogdian, Middle Persian, New Persian, Parthian, Tibetan, Mongolian, Prakrit, Tumshuqese, Tocharian A and B, Bactrian, Khotanese, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Tangut, Greek and Khitan. In addition there are at least twenty scripts attested with most languages attested in more than one. For instance, Old Turkic is found in the Brāhmī, Manichean, Sogdian, Uyghur, Nestorian (Syriac), Tibetan, Runiform, Arabic and ‘Phags- pa scripts.2 For many of these languages, the documents are the oldest known samples on perishable materials. For some of these languages, the Turfan documents supply much of the information we have on them. The materials are highly valuable to several philological fields. 1 Based on a talk “More than Twenty Languages in the Medieval Turfan Silk Road Oasis. What Made It So Special?” given 20 August 2008, at the Munk Centre, University of Toronto, sponsored by Central Asian Studies and Linguistics. In the course of subsequent research, assistance was kindly lent through email by Dieter Maue, John E. Hill, Marcel Erdal, Stefan Baums, Richard Salomon, Rajeshwari Ghose, Grant Zazula, LIN Meicun, and Chris Beckwith, none of whom is responsible for my failings. The available Unicode composite characters have been used when writing special characters, with the effect that some diacritics may not conform to traditional practice, but in every case unambiguous and readily identifiable symbols are used. 2 Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Turfan Studies, p. 9. DougDoug Hitch, “TheHitch, Special Status“The of Turfan,” Special Status of Turfan,” SinoSino-Platonic-Platonic Papers Papers, , 186186 (March, (M 2009)arch, 2008) RELIGIOUS AND ARTISTIC DIVERSITY But Turfan is special in other ways as well.