In the fifth and sixth centuries Khotan passed through troublous times and was attacked by the Tanguts, Juan-Juan and White Huns. Throughout this stormy period missions were sent at intervals to China to beg for help. The pilgrim Sung Yün[513] traversed the oasis in 519. His account of the numerous banners bearing Chinese inscriptions hung up in the temple of Han-mo proves that though the political influence of China was weak, she was still in touch with the Tarim basin.
When the T'ang effectively asserted their suzerainty in Central Asia, Khotan was included in the Four Garrisons. The T'ang Annals while repeating much which is found in earlier accounts, add some points of interest, for they say that the Khotanese revere the God of Heaven (Hsien shên) and also the Law of Buddha[514]. This undoubtedly means that there were Zoroastrians as well as Buddhists, which is not mentioned in earlier periods. The annals also mention that the king's house was decorated with pictures and that his family name was Wei Ch'ih. This may possibly be a Chinese rendering of Vijaya, the Sanskrit name or title which according to Tibetan sources was borne by all the sovereigns of Khotan.
Hsüan Chuang broke his return journey at Khotan in 644. He mentions the fondness of the people for music and says that their language differed from that of other countries. The Mahâyâna was the prevalent sect but the pilgrim stopped in a monastery of the Sarvâstivâdins[515]. He describes several sites in the neighbourhood, particularly the Go'sringa or Cow-horn mountain[516], supposed to have been visited by the Buddha. Though he does not mention Zoroastrians, he notices that the people of P'i-mo near Khotan were not Buddhists.
About 674 the king of Khotan did personal homage at the Chinese Court. The Emperor constituted his territory into a government called P'i-sha after the deity P'i-sha-mên or Vai'sravana and made him responsible for its administration. Another king did homage between 742 and 755 and received an imperial princess as his consort. Chinese political influence was effective until the last decade of the eighth century but after 790 the conquests of the Tibetans put an end to it and there is no mention of Khotan in the Chinese Annals for about 150 years. Numerous Tibetan manuscripts and inscriptions found at Endere testify to these conquests. The rule of the Uigurs who replaced Tibet as the dominant power in Turfan and the northern Tarim basin does not appear to have extended to Khotan.
It is not till 938 that we hear of renewed diplomatic relations with China. The Imperial Court received an embassy from Khotan and deemed it of sufficient importance to despatch a special mission in return. Eight other embassies were sent to China in the tenth century and at least three of them were accompanied by Buddhist priests. Their object was probably to solicit help against the attacks of Mohammedans. No details are known as to the Mohammedan conquest but it apparently took place between 970 and 1009 after a long struggle.
Another cultural centre of the Tarim basin must have existed in the oases near Lob-nor where Miran and a nameless site to the north of the lake have been investigated by Stein. They have yielded numerous Tibetan documents, but also fine remains of Gandharan art and Prakrit documents written in the Kharoshthî character. Probably the use of this language and alphabet was not common further east, for though a Kharoshthî fragment was found by Stein in an old Chinese frontier post[517] the library of Tun-huang yielded no specimens of them. That library, however, dating apparently from the epoch of the T'ang, contained some Sanskrit Buddhist literature and was rich in Sogdian, Turkish, and Tibetan manuscripts.
4
Ample as are the materials for the study of Buddhism in Central Asia those hitherto published throw little light on the time and manner of its introduction. At present much is hypothetical for we have few historical data—such as the career of Kumârajîva and the inscription on the Temple of Maitreya at Turfan—but a great mass of literary and artistic evidence from which various deductions can be drawn.
It is clear that there was constant intercourse with India and the Oxus region. The use of Prakrit and of various Iranian idioms points to actual colonization from these two quarters and it is probable that there were two streams of Buddhism, for the Chinese pilgrims agree that Shan-shan (near Lob-nor), Turfan, Kucha and Kashgar were Hînayânist, whereas Yarkand and Khotan were Mahâyânist. Further, much of the architecture, sculpture and painting is simply Gandharan and the older specimens can hardly be separated from the Gandharan art of India by any considerable interval. This art was in part coeval with Kanishka, and if his reign began in 78 A.D. or later the first specimens of it cannot be much anterior to the Christian era. The earliest Chinese notices of the existence of Buddhism in Kashgar and Kucha date from 400 (Fa-Hsien) and the third century (Annals of the Tsin, 265-317) respectively, but they speak of it as the national religion and munificently endowed, so that it may well have been established for some centuries. In Turfan the first definite record is the dedication of a temple to Maitreya in 469 but probably the history of religion there was much the same as in Kucha.
It is only in Khotan that tradition, if not history, gives a more detailed narrative. This is found in the works of the Chinese pilgrims Hsüan Chuang and Sung Yün and also in four Tibetan works which are apparently translated from the language of Khotan[518]. As the story is substantially the same in all, it merits consideration and may be accepted as the account current in the literary circles of Khotan about 500 A.D. It relates that the Indians who were part-founders of that city in the reign of Asoka were not Buddhists[519] and the Tibetan version places the conversion with great apparent accuracy 170 years after the foundation of the kingdom and 404 after the death of the Buddha. At that time a monk named Vairocana, who was an incarnation of Manjuśri, came to Khotan, according to Hsüan Chuang from Kashmir[520]. He is said to have introduced a new language as well as Mahâyânism, and the king, Vijayasambhava, built for him the great monastery of Tsarma outside the capital, which was miraculously supplied with relics. We cannot be sure that the Tibetan dates were intended to have the meaning they would bear for our chronology, that is about 80 B.C., but if they had, there is nothing improbable in the story, for other traditions assert that Buddhism was preached in Kashmir in the time of Asoka. On the other hand, there was a dynastic change in Khotan about 60 A.D. and the monarch who then came to the throne may have been Vijayasambhava.