HISTORY OF KHOTAN 
7^3 
two ancient Buddhist cities buried in the sand. But in 
their case the process of sanding up must have gone on 
for thousands of years. 
Further, there exist also, from the same year 632, 
accounts which state that the inhabitants of Khotan 
possessed chronicles, and that their writing, laws, and 
literature w'ere derived from India. This statement is 
interesting in the light of the MSS. which I discovered, 
and which are probably not of Indian origin. 
The same Chinese traveller whom I have just quoted, 
Shi Fa Hian, also journeyed, in the seventh year of the 
COPPER VASE FOUND AT WASH-SHAHRI 
53/135 of natural size 
reign of the Emperor Thai Isung of the Thang dynasty, 
from Khotan to Lop-nor. Speaking ot this journey, he 
states that travellers going that way pass through the town 
of Ni-yang {i.e. Niya), so as to avoid going astray in the 
marsh ; Ni-yang marking in that direction the limits 
of the country of Kiu-sa-tan-na, Khio-tan, or Kho-tan. 
This is the first time the name Khotan occurs in the 
Chinese chronicle. But the remarkable fact is, that the 
Chinese traveller knew Niya, a town which is not even 
mentioned by Marco Polo six hundred years later. And 
yet at the present day, six hundred years after Marco 
Polo, the Chinese traveller’s description of Niya and its 
