August i, 1907J 



NA TURE 



Zi9 



have learned very much from what the various speakers 

 in the course of the discussion itself have said. But it is 

 important for us, before arriving at a final conclusion, 

 to know what the most thoughtful and the most competent 

 opinion at both universities really demands, and we also 

 must either inform ourselves or be informed exactly what 

 the universities cannot do of their own motion and for 

 what purposes legislation would be required on the recom- 

 mendation of a Commission, and we should also desire to 

 be informed as to whether there does exist at the universi- 

 ties anything like a deadweight of obstruction against re- 

 forms which is of the character which could only be 

 removed by statute. Consequently, therefore, we desire 

 time to consider this matter in the light of the best inform- 

 ation which we can receive, and we look with confidence 

 for help and suggestions as to the best methods of pro- 

 ceeding from those of both universities who are most 

 competent to give it. In the meantime, I am quite con- 

 fident that this discussion will of itself have done good and 

 have been useful. This is one of the subjects on which, 

 in Carlyle's famous phrase, " if we differ we differ only 

 in opinion." It is merely a question of honest differences 

 of opinion as to what the best way to proceed is in order 

 to do what we all wish to be done ; and certainly it does 

 seem to me that the best minds of those who are either at 

 the universities or who are interested in the universities 

 cannot possibly be applied to a higher object than that of 

 putting these ancient homes of learning, which many of 

 us so deeply venerate, w-ith all their splendid traditions, 

 to the fullest possible use, and, where necessary, of bring- 

 ing them into closer conformity with the needs of the 

 country and with what, in the opinion of those best 

 qualified to judge, is the truest conception of learning as 

 it should exist to-day. 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS IN 

 CHINESE TURKESTAN. 



"PURTHER news of Dr. M. A. Stein's archaeological 

 explorations in Chinese Turkestan has now been 

 received. After leaving Kcriya at the beginning of the 

 winter, he proceeded eastwards 1200 miles along the 

 borders of the Taklamakan desert to the Lop-nor region, 

 where he intended to excavate. On the way he made 

 further investigations at the Rawak Stupa, in the 

 Hanguya Tati, and at the Domoko desert site, where he 

 found remains of the Dandan-Uiliq period, the eighth 

 century a.d. At the desert-site north of Niya, where in 

 1901 he had discovered the remains of a settlement buried 

 in the third century a.d., renewed excavations brought to 

 light more interesting and important antiquities of the 

 same kind as those discovered in 1901, especially notice- 

 able being the wooden tablets inscribed in Kharoshthi. 

 Among the clay seals of these tablets, impressions from 

 Graeco-Roman intagli are the commonest. 



Dr. Stein passed the scene of his former work at Endere 

 on his way eastwards, and also made further investigations 

 there. Evidence was now found that this site also was 

 originally occupied in the time of the Indian "Kharoshthi "- 

 using kingdom, and had been abandoned and re-occupied 

 by the Chinese in the seventh century, only to be aban- 

 doned again after the Tibetan conquest a century later. 

 During the period of their first abandonment, the Endere 

 settlements were seen as ruins by the great Chinese pilgrim 

 Hiuen-Tsang. 



Similarly, the oasis of Cherchen, which Dr. Stein reached 

 after leaving Endere, has undergone various vicissitudes 

 of settlement and desolation, having come into being again 

 only a few years ago, when, after the re-conquest of 

 Turkestan, the Chinese made it a penal station for re- 

 fractorv Turkis and Tibetans. Since Marco Polo's day it 

 had been abandoned, but then it was a flourishing province, 

 which had grown up since the time of Hiuen-Tsang, who 

 had seen hut the desolate and uninhabited ruins of what 

 had once been a town, where in 519 a.d. a previous 

 Chinese pilgrim had found a hundred families living. The 

 Taklamakan desert now encroaches, now recedes ; now 

 there is plenty of water, now little, and so the southern 

 oases wax and wane and wax and wane again. 



Dr. .Stein's objective being the Lop-nor region, he 

 passed on beyond Cherchen to Charkhalik, in the Tarim 

 basin, finding various Mohammedan remains on the way. 

 From Charkhalik he marched to Abdal, and thence more 

 than a hundred miles northward into the salt desert, to an 

 ancient site discovered by Dr. .Sven Hedin in 1900. As it 

 is only in winter that explorations in these deserts can be 

 conveniently carried on, the rigours of the Central Asian 

 winter had to be faced by Dr. .Stein now as in the 

 Taklamakan six years before, and 48° F. of frost, coupled 

 with an icy boreal wind, were the usual weather. 



On December 17 Dr. .Stein reached the site, and pitched 

 his camp at the base of the ruined stupa of the ancient 

 town. This turned out to be very like Niya, and is of 

 the same date (third century a.d.). Not only w^ere masses 

 of Chinese correspondence of that period found, but also, 

 what was really unexpected, large numbers of Kharoshthi 

 documents, which show that the Indian kingdom of Khotan 

 included, not merely Cherchen, but the distant Lop-nor 

 district in its dominion. The whole, then, of the Tarim 

 basin must have been ruled by the Indian maharajas of 

 Khotan in the third century a.d. This is a new contribu- 

 tion to history. 



This eastern extension of the Buddhist kingdom of 

 Khotan, which took its origin from that of Gandhara, 

 explains more and more the close original connection 

 between the hellenised art of India and that of China, and 

 shows how the sculpture and painting styles of Gandhara 

 passed, with their Greek character, which they derived 

 from the influence of the Seleuoid kingdom, easily by way 

 of Turkestan to northern Tibet and so to China and 

 Japan. 



The Lop-nor settlement was occupied by the Chinese in 

 order to control the road from Turkestan to Kansu ; 

 Sha-chau, the nearest Chinese town, lies 300 miles east of 

 the Lop-nor district. 



Among the most important and interesting of Dr. Stein's 

 discoveries have been those made at Miran, an ancient 

 site in the Charkhalik district, which throw light on the 

 connection between Grrcco-Indian and Chinese art. In the 

 debris mounds of a fort and stupa-shrines he has found 

 this time frescoes in which the influence of classical art is 

 reflected with surprising directness. 



" The main paintings, which illustrate scenes of Buddhist 

 legend or worship, are remarkable for clever adaptation of 

 classical forms to Indian subjects and ideas. But even 

 more curious are the figures represented in the elaborate 

 fresco dados. They are so thoroughly Western in con- 

 ception and treatment that one would expect them rather 

 on the walls of soine Roman villa than in Buddhist 

 sanctuaries on the very confines of China. One cycle of 

 vouthful figures, in a gracefully-designed decorative setting, 

 represents the varied joys of life — a strange contrast to the 

 desolation which now- reigns in the desert around the 

 ruins and, in fact, through almost the whole of this 

 region. Kharoshthi inscriptions, painted by the side of 

 the frescoes, and pieces of silk bearing legends in the 

 same script, indicate the third century a.d. as the approxi- 

 mate period when these shrines were deserted." 



From this account the importance of Dr. Stein's further 

 archaeological discoveries is evident, and both he and his 

 German imitators in the Turfan district, 200 miles north 

 of the Lop-nor, have added by their work a new chapter 

 to history. We cannot doubt that Dr. Stein has added 

 more to our knowledge by his fortunate expeditions to 

 Turkestan than had he, as he tells us his dearest wish 

 was to do, devoted himself to the exploration of Iitinian 

 antiquities in northern Persia. We knew much about 

 Persia, nothing about the ancient Indian kingdom in 

 Chinese Turkestan which Dr. Stein has discovered. 



Dr. Stein's minor object, the control of a trigonometrical 

 survey of the northern slopes of the Kuen-lun for the 

 Indian Government, has also been carried out with success 

 by Surveyor Rai Ram Singh. The net of the Indian 

 trigonometrical svstem has been extended from the head- 

 waters of the Keriya River along the mountain slopes above 

 Surghak and along the chain which Continental geo- 

 graphers call the "Russian," with its peak dubbed " Tsar 

 Liberator," right through to the mountains between 

 Cherchen and Charkhalik. This is a great achievement. 



NO. T970, VOL. 76] 



