KHOTAN INFLUENCE 



Habitat and Domestication. The mulberry silkworm teems to be 

 indigenous to the warm temperate regions of Northern Chin*, and perhaps 

 also of the adjacent countries. It was, for example, found by me in 

 Miinipur (during the Burma-Maaipai Boundary Commission of 1882-3), 

 under conditions that perhaps ju^ifv the suspicion that it may be i 

 genous, as well as long domesticated, in that little frontier Bta' 

 some parts of Bengal as well. But if it h not a native of certain warm 

 temperate tracts of India proper, it or. urs immediately beyond the Hima- 

 laya, more especially toward the eastern extremity, and at a very early 

 period was successfully acclimatised on the extreme west in a tra- 

 country just beyond the Kashmir frontier known as Khotan. 



History. In Buddhist Burma, where the objection to taking life prevail* so 

 strongly, a formidable harrier opposed any great extension of the industry, even 

 although thu Biirmana for centuries past have been very partial to silk garment*. 

 Moreover, the silkworm oxists on the hills 01 



81 

 OMBYX 



for long been there reared a fact that points to a considerable antiquity for the 

 crafts of domestication of the worn), the reeling of the cocoons, and the weaving 

 of silk. Moreover, a special tribe of people are identified with silk the Yabein. 

 Turning now to China, it is customary to read of the silkworm having been 

 reared from a vast antiquity (2,000 to 3,000 i. . lialde. Hi*. C'Aino. 17S. 



ii., 355-6), and of the secret of its value having been carefully guarded until well 

 into the Christian era, when a princess, who married the Chief of Khotan, sue* 

 ceeded, at the risk of her life, in carrying off to the country of her adoption, eesd 

 of both the mulberry plant and the sill. I his is reported to have taken 



place in 419 A.D., and in this way originated tho silk industry and trade of Central 

 Asia. A century and a half later, from Khotan a knowledge in silk was diffused 

 to Persia on the one side and Greece and Rome on the other. Tho silk production 

 of Central Asia became, in fact, the envy of Europe, and led to the formation of 

 the silk-roads which were designed to facilitate the traffic in silk toward Rome. 

 Procopius (De BeUo Gothico, iv., 17, in Yates. Text. Antiq., 1843, 231) tails the 

 story of tho monks of Serind (according to Yates Khotan) having successfully 

 carried the eggs of the silkworm to Constantinople (530 A.D.) at the invitation of 

 the Emperor Justinian. This was desired so that the Romans might be able to 

 produce the raw silk themselves instead of having to purchase it from their 

 enemies, the Persians. A slightly different version of this story is told by Sir 

 Thomas Herbert (Travels, etc., 1677, 183-4), viz., " From the Sere* or Regio Senca 

 (part of Scythia towards Industan) this worm first came into Persia, not long 

 before Alexander's time : but until the Emperour Justinian's time it was not 

 known in Europe ; the first being presented by the Persians unto the Emperour 

 at Byzantium as a rarity." A curiously interesting confirmation of the tradition 

 of the introduction of silk into Khotan has recently been brought to light by Stein 

 (Ancient Khotan, 1 907, 259-60) in the form of a painted wooden tablet found in 

 the sand-buried ruins of Dandan-Uiliq, which Stein interprets as depicting the 



rm ^m~ r There 



story of the Princess who carried off from China the silkworm 

 seems every reason for concurring that the tablet dates from the closing 

 of the eighth century. One attendant is pointing to the headdress in which the 

 eggs were secreted, and also to the basket of cocoons obtained therefrom, while a 

 second is shown working at a silk-loom. The strongly Persian, in place of 

 the Chinese, expressions of the faces is perhaps due to the stronger Iranian than 

 Chinese influence at Khotan during that period, perhaps to some extent a direct 

 consequence of the trade that had been by then established in silk. In Japan 

 the domestication of the silkworm is perhaps very nearly as ancient as in China. 

 In India the mulberry worm has been systematically reared for many 

 centuries, though it seems probable there have been two independent sources 

 of the knowledge and stock possessed by India, viz. (a) Northern India, very 

 possibly from Central Asia (Khotan) and Persia ; and (6) Assam and Bengal, 

 possibly from across the Chinese frontier, in all likelihood via the little State of 

 Manipur. But it is curious and partly suggestive of the date of introduction 

 into Northern India, at all events, that in tho Pcriplut it should be stated that 

 the silk came down the Indus (from beyond Bactria) and was conveyed to the 

 great emporium Barygaza (the modern Broach), while no mention is made of 

 locally produced silk. This is apparently, moreover, the first mention of the great 



993 63 



Burma. 



China. 



Canted U> 



auk-rat*. 



- 



Japan. 



India. 



Xorthm 



