Abstract
In this paper are presented four new Kharoṣṭhī documents kept in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Museum. Two of them are legal transactions, respectively, about custody rights over two sons and grain loan dispute. The other two are a tax list and a payroll or account list. The peculiarity of the two lists is the new writing style of the numbers, presumably 1.5 and 2.
This research is supported by the National Social Science Fund of China (Grant number 12&ZD179). I would like to extend my gratitude to Prof. Duan Qing for her valuable suggestions and comments. In the preparation of this article, I am also grateful to Ms. Jiang Yixiu for discussing with me about some obscure readings and helping improving the paper. Finally, I wish to thank the staff of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Museum for facilitating access to the Kharoṣṭhī wooden tablets and granting permission to study and publish them.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The following symbols are used in the transcriptions of the texts: [] for an unclear or partially preserved akṣara whose reading is uncertain; (*) for a lost or illegible akṣara that has been conjecturally restored on the basis of context, parallel citation, or other means; < * > for an omitted akṣara that has been conjecturally restored;. for a missing portion of a partially legible akṣara;? for an illegible but visible or partially visible akṣara; + for a missing akṣara that would have appeared on an obliterated portion of the board.
- 3.
For the analysis of the stock phrase “nasti dānagrana asaṃna na gaṃdavo”, see Wu (2016: 79).
- 4.
- 5.
Burrow (1940: 16) pointed out that śata “hundred” occurs frequently as an administrative division.
- 6.
Stein (1907: 357–358) pointed out that at the ruin N. xv., many oblong, or “narrow tablets, lath-like or resembling mere labels” were found, “recording brief memos or items of account”, frequently arranged into small columns or detached items “usually ending with numerals”.
- 7.
During our discussion, Ms. Jiang Yixiu suggested that this form might signify 0.5 or 1.5. I think the latter is more reasonable since there is an additional stroke attached to the numeral 1. Besides, we might already have 0.5 in Kharoṣṭhī documents, which is are.
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Fan, J. (2020). Four New Kharoṣṭhī Documents Kept in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Museum. In: Li, X. (eds) Non-Han Literature Along the Silk Road. Silk Road Research Series. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9644-1_5
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