1897.] 
Central Asian Manuscripts. 
255 
ancient ruined viliara, or in some other old ruined building near Kucliar. 
But provisionally, they must be placed with the first class, with which 
they agree in every other respect. 
I will dispose of the second class first. For the present, there is 
too little information available to form any decided opinion. But the 
following points may be noticed. First: Sets 4, 5 and 6 of the 
Macartney MSS. were found in practically the same locality, i.e., 50 or 
60 miles (5 days’ march) East of Guma. The latter town lies about 
100 miles W. N. W. of Khotan. The find-place of those three sets, there¬ 
fore, must be somewhere about 60 miles North-West of Khotan. The 
Sets 2 and 3 were found in a different direction, viz., North-East of 
Khotan, in the Takla Makan desert: Set 2 at three marches (say, 35 
miles) and Set 3 at 50 or 60 miles from Khotan. The direct route 
from Khotan to China, by way of Lob Nor, skirts the Takla Makan 
desert. About 69 miles East of Khotan lies the town of Kiria, where 
that route turns North-East. Within the elbow thus made, and at 
a distance of about 3 or 4 miles to the left, lies the Takla Makau 
desert, stretching westward to the North of Khotan. The town 
of Pima (or Pein) lay a little to the North or North-West of Kiria, 
about 60 miles East of Khotan, and the China route ran original¬ 
ly by way of it (being thus a little shorter than the present loop- 
line by way of Kiria). The Chinese Buddhist Hiuen Tsiang, in 644 
A.D., passed by this route through Pima on his return to China; so 
did Marco Polo on his way to China in 1274 A.D. 67 In their time the 
Takla Makan desert already existed ; it lay a little to the North of 
Pima, and was advancing southward. In Hiuen Tsiang’s time, Pima 
was a comparatively recent settlement, its inhabitants having migrated 
south-eastward to it from another town (called Ho-lo-lo-kia) on the 
destruction of the latter by the advancing sands. In Marco Polo’s time, 
Pima still existed. At the present day, it has disappeared in the sands, 
and Kiria, still farther South, has taken its place. Beyond Pima and 
Charchan the sand had already encroached on the route, in Marco 
Polo’s time. Not long after his time, about 1330 A.D., the town of 
Lob-Katak, lying North-East of Charchan, about 3 marches (say 40 
miles) from Lob Nor, was overwhelmed by the sands. 68 It seems 
probable that the locality in which the manuscript Sets 2 and 3 were 
found, belonged to the original site of Pima, or was not far from it, 
perhaps at that of Ho-lo-lo-kia. The manuscripts might be, therefore, 
of the 13th century A.D., though they might also be much older. r Ihe 
67 See Yule’s edition of Marco Polo, Yol. I, pp. 196-203. Also Beal s Buddhist 
Records, VqI. IT, pp. 309 ff. 
53 See N. Elias’ TdriMz-i-Rashldt, p. 10. 
