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Sogdians in Khotan

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Sogdians in Khotan Sogdians in Khotan Zhang Zhan 张湛 ogdians, famous for their mercantile activities A few Sogdian documents from the seventh to the along the Silk Road, left traces in Khotan and ninth centuries were discovered in the Khotan iSts neighboring sites along the southern rim of the area. David N. MacKenzie (19 76: ix) mentioned a Tarim Basin as early as the fourth century CE. Due Sogdian wooden slip from Khotan. 9 Nicholas Sims- to the scarcity of the sources, we know little about Williams (1976) published seven Sogdian frag - them apart from their existence. A close reading of ments from Mazar Tagh, a ruined fort roughly 1 80 the Khotanese documents from Khotan, however, km north of Khotan. Yutaka Yoshida (1997: 568- can illuminate in greater detail the Sogdians’ roles 69) listed four more Sogdian documents from in Khotan, especially in finance, taxation, and ad - Khotan: Fragment 36 in Sims-Williams and Hamil - ministration. In this paper, I first give an overview ton 1990 (catalogued somewhat misleadingly as of the sources concerning Sogdians in Khotan, in - IOL Khot 158/5), 10 one fragment from the Trinkler cluding those in Kharoshti, Sogdian, Chinese, and Collection, one fragment from the Francke Collec - Khotanese, then examine two previously misun - tion, and a seal with Sogdian writings found by derstood key terms in Khotanese: * jäd -/ jista - “to Stein. Additionally, Or.11344/12r contains a few borrow,” and jirma /järma “borrowed, owed.” In Sogdian words in its right bottom corner overlap - light of this new understanding, I proceed to dis - ping the Khotanese text. To my knowledge, no at - cuss the Sogdians’ roles as money lenders, tax-col - tempt has been made to read them. lectors, and administrators in Khotan and the In the past two decades, more Sogdian documents entire Tarim Basin in the eighth century CE. from Khotan have come to light. Bi Bo and Sims- In November 1906, the British archaeologist Aurel Williams (2010 and 2015) published 13 Sogdian Stein discovered a wooden tablet (E. VI. ii. 1, now fragments in the Museum of Renmin University of commonly designated as KI 661) at Endere, a ru - China, including four economic documents, one ined site roughly 350 km east of Khotan. 1 This letter, five letter fragments, and three small scraps. tablet contains a camel purchase contract in Among the collection of documents from the Kharo ṣṭ hī dated to the tenth regnal year of Vijida Khotan area recently acquired by the National Li - Si ṃha, 2 king of Khotan, whom Zhu Lishuang brary of China is BH4-136, a slip of paper with a (2017: 205-6) identified with Vijaya Si ṃha (16) in clay seal in the middle and one line of Sogdian. the Prophecy of the Li Country ,3 whose reign Éti - Duan Qing (2016: 97 and 115) published its picture enne De la Vaissière (2014: 86) dated to ca. 320 CE. and Yoshida’s preliminary reading from an earlier Sten Konow (1932: 74) realized that suliga , the epi - picture. Based on the new picture, Yoshida (2017: thet of the camel’s buyer, means “Sogdian.” John 285) was able to improve the reading. 11 I (2013) also Brough (1965: 594) discerned that Nani-vadhag ȧ, published a tiny Sogdian fragment from Khotan, one of the witnesses to this contract, is but a ren - which only contains four words from four lines. dering of Nny βntk , a popular Sogdian name also 4 Some Chinese documents from Khotan contain borne by the writer of the Ancient Letter II. In thinly veiled Sogdian names. Rong Xinjiang (1994: other words, two Sogdians were involved in this 161) collected five such examples. Yoshida (1997: transaction. In addition, Stein discovered at 569) also collected these names and reconstructed Loulan six Sogdian fragments during his second 12 5 the underlying Sogdian spellings. He later ( apud and third expeditions. In 1994, Chinese and Duan 2009: 67) spotted another one in a recently Japanese archaeologists excavated another Sogdian 6 discovered Chinese-Khotanese bilingual docu - fragment at Niya. These seven documents share ment. 13 All of these materials attest to the presence the same script with the Ancient Letters, which of Sogdians in Khotan. Due to the small number were written around 313, 7 and should date from 8 and the fragmentary nature of these documents, roughly the same period. however, they do no t reveal much about the Sogdi - The Silk Road 16 (2018): 30–43 Copyright © 2018 Zhan Zhang 30 Copyright © 2018 The Silkroad Foundation ans’ activities in Khotan. For more details, we need On *jäd -/ jista - “To Borrow” to turn to Khotanese documents from Khotan. One such word is * jäd- (past participle jista -), usu - In Khotanese , Sogdians were called sūlī , which ally rendered as “to ask for, demand” (Emmerick later became a synonym of “merchants.” Bailey 1968: 34; Bailey 1979: 108), and not differentiated (1985: 76-77) and Kumamoto (198 4: 16, n.19) re - from pajäd -, (past participle pajista -) “to beg, ask spectively collected 14 and 20 examples of sūlī in for, demand” ( Emmerick 1968 : 64-65; Bailey 1979: Khotanese documents, both from Khotan and 198). Based on my analysis, it should instead mean Dunhuang. From these examples, Rong ( 1994 : 159- “to borrow, to take a loan.” Let’s take a look at the 61) selected those from Khotan, 14 twelve in total, most convincing examples: and noted that the Sogdians in Khotan were in - volved in the local taxation system in some capac - SI P 103.22 (Emmerick and Vorob ’ë va-Desja - ity. Yoshida (1997: 568) noticed another example of tovskaja 1995: 140) 15 sūlī in the Russian Collection and corrected the This document in the Russian Collection is the translation from “merchants” to “Sogdians”. These lower part of a loan contract, in which three m en examples are not very informative by themselves. and a woman borrowed thaunaka (small cloth), 19 We can, however, gain more insight into the role promised to pay back twice their debts in the au - that Sogdians played in the society of Khotan via a tumn, and left their fingermarks to validate the better understanding of the Khotanese documents contract. Three out of the four fingermark clauses as a whole. were later crossed out after the repayment of the From the late nineteenth century till the early debts. In this document, jistä (past, 3 sg. m.) and 1930s, governmental officials and explorers from jistā (past, 3 sg. f.) are used in explicit rhetorical various countries acquired numerous ancient contrast to he ḍä (pres., 3 sg.), which means “s/he manuscripts in a variety of languages and scripts gives, delivers.” In this context, therefore, jäd - from the Khotan area. 16 Among them are secular /jista - can be rendered as “to borrow”. Khotanese documents, most of which are now in three major collections, namely, the Hedin Collec - Text :20 tion (Bailey 1961), the Russian Collection (Emmer - §1 1[pā]tc[i] īrasa ṃgä thaunakä jistä 2 paśä he ḍä 4 ick and Vorob ’ë va-Desjatovskaja 1993 and 1995), {īra | sa ṃä | ha ṃgu ṣṭ ä |} and the British Collection (Skj ærv ø 2002). In his §2 2pātci karūsai thaunakä jistä śau paśä he ḍä 2 karū | groundbreaking work, Yoshida (2006) studied sai ha ṃ | gu | ṣṭi these documents as a whole across the boundary of §3 3pātci upadattä thaunakä jistä 1 paśä he ḍä 2 {u | collections. He regrouped all the documents into pada | ttä ha ṃ || gu[ ṣṭi |]} five archives (Archive 0-4) according to their dates 4 and provenance, 17 thus establishing a convenient §4 pātci khattīnai nāri thaunakä jistā śau paśi’ heḍä 2 {khattīną ̄ | ña haṃ | gu | ṣṭi} framework for further work. Following Yoshida’s steps, I modified his grouping, Translation : and worked intensively on Archive 3, a group of §1 Next, Īrasa ṃga borrowed two (pieces of) small documents consisting of 84 manuscripts from sites cloth. In the autumn, he will give (= pay back) four in present-day Domoko, some 100 km east of the (pieces). {Īrasa ṃga’s fingermark.} city of Khotan. I divided the documents in Archive §2 Next, Karūsai borrowed one (piece of) small cloth. 3 into subgroups of different genres, and re-edited In the autumn, he will give (= pay back) two (pieces). them. 18 I am now applying the same method to Karūsai’s fingermark. Archive 2, the group of documents from Dandan- §3 Next, Upadatta borrowed one (piece of) small Uiliq, a site in the desert approximately 120 km cloth. In the autumn, he will give (= pay back) 2 northeast of Khotan. In the process, some previ - (pieces). Upadatta’s fingermark. ously misunderstood words revealed their true §4 Next, Khatt īnai ’s wife borrowed one (piece of) meanings, sometimes providing key information small cloth. In the autumn, she will give (= pay back) in an unexpected way. two (pieces). Fingermark of Khattī nai ’s wife. 31 Or.6397/2 (Skj ærv ø 2002: 9-10, with improved res - §4 The following borrowed [ jistādä ] … mūrā s. toration ) §5 Hatkaṃ owes [ pudä ] 125 mūrā s. This document in the British Collection is also a §6 Spāta Sīḍaka owes 125 mūrā s. loan contract, in which seven men each take a loan §7 P he ṃdūka owes 125 mūrā s. of 125 mūrā s at an interest rate of 10%. Its left part §8 Alttā ṃ(owes) 125 ( mūrā s). is slightly damaged and the first several ak ṣara s of each line are missing. Fortunately, the lacuna can §9 Budarśaṃ’ ( owes) 125 ( mūrā s). be restored with confidence thanks to the repeti - §10 Mayadatta ( owes) 125 ( mūrā s). tive wording of the contract itself and parallels in §11 Rruhadatta ( owes 125 mūrā s).
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