3

The Tarim basin, though sometimes united under foreign rule, had no indigenous national unity.  Cities, or groups of towns, divided by deserts lived their own civic life and enjoyed considerable independence under native sovereigns, although the Chinese, Turks or Tibetans quartered troops in them and appointed residents to supervise the collection of tribute.  The chief of these cities or oases were Kashgar in the west:  Kucha, Karashahr, Turfan (Idiqutshahri, Chotscho) and Hami lying successively to the north-east:  Yarkand, Khotan and Miran to the south-east.[490] It may be well to review briefly the special history of some of them.

The relics found near Kashgar, the most western of these cities, are comparatively few, probably because its position exposed it to the destructive influence of Islam at an early date.  Chinese writers reproduce the name as Ch’ia-sha, Chieh-ch’a, etc., but also call the region Su-le, Shu-le, or Sha-le.[491] It is mentioned first in the Han annals.  After the missions of Chang-Ch’ien trade with Bactria and Sogdiana grew rapidly and Kashgar which was a convenient emporium became a Chinese protected state in the first century B.C.  But when the hold of China relaxed about the time of the Christian era it was subdued by the neighbouring kingdom of Khotan.  The conquests of Pan-Ch’ao restored Chinese supremacy but early in the second century the Yueh-chih interfered in the politics of Kashgar and placed on the throne a prince who was their tool.  The introduction of Buddhism is ascribed to this epoch.[492] If Kanishka was then reigning the statement that he conquered Kashgar and Khotan is probably correct.  It is supported by Hsuan Chuang’s story of the hostages and by his assertion that Kanishka’s rule extended to the east of the Ts’ung-ling mountains:  also by the discovery of Kanishka’s coins in the Khotan district.  Little is heard of Kashgar until Fa-Hsien visited it in 400.[493] He speaks of the quinquennial religious conferences held by the king, at one of which he was present, of relics of the Buddha and of a monastery containing a thousand monks all students of the Hinayana.  About 460 the king sent as a present to the Chinese Court an incombustible robe once worn by the Buddha.  Shortly afterwards Kashgar was incorporated in the dominions of the Hephthalites, and when these succumbed to the western Turks about 465, it merely changed masters.

Hsuan Chuang has left an interesting account of Kashgar as he found it on his return journey.[494] The inhabitants were sincere Buddhists and there were more than a thousand monks of the Sarvastivadin school.  But their knowledge was not in proportion to their zeal for they read the scriptures diligently without understanding them.  They used an Indian alphabet into which they had introduced alterations.