Cf. The Name Kushan, by J.F. Fleet, Jour. Roy. As. Soc., April, 1914,
pp. 374-9; The Shaonano Shao Coin Legend; and a Note on the name Kushan
by J. Allan, Ibid., pp. 403-411. PAONANO PAO. Von Joh. Kirste. (Wiener
Zeit. f. d. Kunde d. Morg., II., 1888, pp. 237-244.)
XXXII., p. 174.
YUE CHI.
"The old statement is repeated that the Yueeh Chi, or Indo-Scyths (i.e.
the Eptals), 'are said to have been of Tibetan origin.' A long account of
this people was given in the Asiatic Quart. Rev. for July, 1902. It
seems much more likely that they were a branch of the Hiung-nu or Turks.
Albiruni's 'report' that they were of Tibetan origin is probably founded
on the Chinese statement that some of their ways were like Tibetan ways,
and that polyandry existed amongst them; also that they fled from the
Hiung-nu westwards along the north edge of the Tibetan territory, and
some of them took service as Tibetan officials." (E.H. PARKER, Asiatic
Quart. Rev., Jan., 1904, p. 143.)
XXXII., pp. 178-179.
BOLOR.
We read in the Tarikh-i-Rashidi of Mirza Haidar (Notes by Ney Elias;
translated by E.D. Ross, 1895), p. 135, that Sultan Said Khan, son of
Mansur Khan, sent the writer in the year 934 (1528), "with Rashid Sultan,
to Balur, which is a country of infidels [Kafiristan], between
Badakhshan and Kashmir, where we conducted successfully a holy war
[ghazat], and returned victorious, loaded with booty and covered with
glory."
Mirza Haidar gives the following description of Bolor (pp. 384-5): "Balur
is an infidel country [Kafiristan], and most of its inhabitants are
mountaineers. Not one of them has a religion or a creed. Nor is there
anything which they [consider it right to] abstain from or to avoid [as
impure]; but they do whatever they list, and follow their desires without
check or compunction. Baluristan is bounded on the east by the province of
Kashgar and Yarkand; on the north by Badakhshan; on the west by Kabul and
Lumghan; and on the south by the dependencies of Kashmir. It is four
months' journey in circumference. Its whole extent consists of mountains,
valleys, and defiles, insomuch that one might almost say that in the whole
of Baluristan, not one farsakh of level ground is to be met with. The
population is numerous. No village is at peace with another, but there is
constant hostility, and fights are continually occurring among them."
From the note to this passage (p. 385) we note that "for some twenty years
ago, Mr. E.B. Shaw found that the Kirghiz of the Pamirs called Chitral by
the name of Palor. To all other inhabitants of the surrounding regions,
however, the word appears now to be unknown....
"The Balur country would then include Hunza, Nagar, possibly Tash Kurghan,
Gilgit, Panyal, Yasin, Chitral, and probably the tract now known as
Kafiristan: while, also, some of the small states south of Gilgit, Yasin,
etc., may have been regarded as part of Balur....
"The conclusions arrived at [by Sir H. Yule], are very nearly borne out by
Mirza Haidar's description. The only differences are (1) that, according
to our author, Baltistan cannot have been included in Balur, as he always
speaks of that country, later in his work, as a separate province with the
name of Balti, and says that it bordered on Balur; and (2) that Balur
was confined almost entirely, as far as I am able to judge from his
description in this passage and elsewhere, to the southern slopes of the
Eastern Hindu Kush, or Indus water-parting range; while Sir H. Yule's map
makes it embrace Sarigh-Kul and the greater part of the eastern Pamirs."
XXXIII., p. 182. "The natives [of Cascar] are a wretched, niggardly set of
people; they eat and drink in miserable fashion."
The people of Kashgar seem to have enjoyed from early times a reputation
for rough manners and deceit (Stein, Ancient Khotan, p. 49 n). Stein, p.
70, recalls Hiuan Tsang's opinion: "The disposition of the men is fierce
and impetuous, and they are mostly false and deceitful. They make light of
decorum and politeness, and esteem learning but little." Stein adds, p.
70, with regard to Polo's statement: "Without being able to adduce from
personal observation evidence as to the relative truth of the latter
statement, I believe that the judgements recorded by both those great
travellers may be taken as a fair reflex of the opinion in which the
'Kashgarliks' are held to this day by the people of other Turkestan
districts, especially by the Khotanese. And in the case of Hiuan Tsang at
least, it seems probable from his long stay in, and manifest attachment
to, Khotan that this neighbourly criticism might have left an impression
upon him."
XXXVI., p. 188.
KHOTAN.
Sir Aurel Stein writes (Ancient Khotan, I., pp. 139-140): "Marco Polo's
account of Khotan and the Khotanese forms an apt link between these early
Chinese notices and the picture drawn from modern observation. It is brief
but accurate in all details. The Venetian found the people 'subject to the
Great Kaan' and 'all worshippers of Mahommet.' 'There are numerous towns
and villages in the country, but Cotan, the capital, is the most noble of
all and gives its name to the kingdom. Everything is to be had there in
plenty, including abundance of cotton [with flax, hemp, wheat, wine, and
the like]. The people have vineyards and gardens and estates. They live by
commerce and manufactures, and are no soldiers.' Nor did the peculiar
laxity of morals, which seems always to have distinguished the people of
the Khotan region, escape Marco Polo's attention. For of the 'Province of
Pein' which, as we shall see, represents the oases of the adjoining modern
district of Keriya, he relates the custom that 'if the husband of any
woman go away upon a journey and remain away for more than twenty days, as
soon as that term is past the woman may marry another man, and the husband
also may then marry whom he pleases.'
"No one who has visited Khotan or who is familiar with the modern accounts
of the territory, can read the early notices above extracted without being
struck at once by the fidelity with which they reflect characteristic
features of the people at the present day.
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