368 



NA TURE 



[September 23, 1909 



EXPLORATIONS IN CENTRAL ASLi. 



THE detailed results of Dr. Stein's latest achieve- 

 ment in the world of scientific exploration are 

 awaited with the deepest interest by all who concern 

 themselves with the problems of Asiatic research, and 



Fig. 1.— Hall of .\ncient Dwelling (Third Century A. d.) after Excavation, Niya Site. 



it seems probable that we may sit expectant for many 

 months yet before the extraordinary mass of informa- 

 tion contained in his collections can be reduced to 

 concrete form. Meanwhile, the Royal Geographical 

 Society has published the text of the lecture (con- 

 siderably amplified) which he de- 

 livered before it last March, and has 

 issued a neat little map which is in 

 itself a most necessary illustration tn 

 the story of his adventures. 



The particular field of exploration 

 which Dr. Stein has made his own 

 is the Tarim basin of Chinese 

 Turkestan. It was here at the very 

 beginning of the century that he 

 unearthed the first relics of an 

 ancient civilisation, which, under the 

 joint influence of India and China, 

 had flourished in the oases of the 

 Takla Makan desert and surrounded 

 the shores of that elusive lake, Lop- 

 nor, some fifteen or twenty centurie-- 

 ago. It has been usual to think 

 and to write of these buried Buddhisi 

 cities of the past as if the gradual 

 encroachment of a great sand-sea, 

 sweeping in huge progressive wave-, 

 from the westward, had in the 

 course of ages irresistibly engulfed 

 them, and driven forth their ancient 

 population to seek for more profit- 

 able fields elsewhere. To a certain 

 extent this is true, but the move- 

 ment of the sand-drifts was fre- 

 quently the result rather than the cause of_ the 

 desertion of these ancient sites. It was the failure 

 of the water supply, the universal process of desic- 

 cation which now almost ranks as a geological 

 feature recognisable tlirougliout the world, that per- 

 mitted the "sand-waves. Yet there are points in 

 NO. 2082, VOL. 81] 



Dr. .Stein's systematic investigation of cause and effect 

 which might lead us to believe in a return swing of 

 the climatic pendulum ; another beat in the " pulse of 

 .Asia " of which Mr. Huntington writes so convinc- 

 inglv. Here and there were found a people pushing 

 gradually outward from the narrow 

 ring of cultivation which borders 

 the desert back again towards the 

 old-world sites, although, in Dr. 

 .Stein's opinion, the sources of water 

 supply once dried up will never 

 again- reopen. 



However that may be, the im- 

 portant part of Dr. Stein's work in 

 the field was the collection of those 

 archaeological relics of the past, in- 

 cluding miscellaneous records (some 

 of which are far older than any 

 which have as yet come to light ir» 

 Central Asia or China), bearing in- 

 scriptions in Indian Kharosthi and 

 Brahmi, and specimens of early 

 Buddhist art in moulding and in 

 painting, the classification and in- 

 terpretation of wliich will certainly 

 prove to be the work of several years. 

 L'ndoubtedly Dr. Stein has added a 

 new chapter to Indian history, a 

 chapter which deals with the period 

 of Indo-Chinese religious affinity, 

 when Buddhism, still rooted in the 

 land of its birth, had spread out- 

 wards to the older civilisations of 

 Central .Asia and a never-resting 

 tide of pilgrims passed to and fro, seeking in- 

 spiration at every wayside fount of knowledge that 

 marked the weary road from ihe Chinese frontier 

 through Khotan to Kashmir, or, striking farther 

 west, refreshed the devotee in Badakshan and Kabul. 



Fio. 2.— SuuLhciii Series of Cave Teiiipicft at the " HalLs of the XhuusanJ Euddhas, 



The bourne of pilgrimage was ever the same. It was 

 northern India and the cradle of Buddha on the 

 borders of Nepal that was the end of all endeavour; 

 and the marvel of our present knowledge (derived 

 chieflv from the results of Dr. Stein's researches) is 

 that the way was made so plain and the facilities for 



