256 
R. Hoernle —Three further Collections of 
[No. 4, 
find-place of Sets 4-6 would seem to belong to the western extremity 
of the Takla Makan desert. The locality of Set 4 is described as “ an 
immense graveyard in ruins.” This part of the country and farther 
North-West was the scene of the fierce struggles between the Muham¬ 
madans of Kashgar and the Buddhists of Khotan in the early part of the 
12th century. A large cemetery at Ordam Padshah, near Yangi Hisar, 
marks the site of a great Muhammadan defeat in 1095 A.D. That 
site is now nearly buried in the sands. It was about that time, 
in the 11th century, that Sultan Satuk Bughra Khan succeeded in 
bringing together all the Uighur people into one nation. 59 All this 
would point to a similar conclusion, the 12th century, for the Macartney 
MSS. As to the chances of conservation of manuscripts under the 
condition in which they were found, I may quote the following remarks 
from Sir T. D. Forsyth’s Report 60 with reference to the castellated 
city, Shahri Nukta Rashid, now more or less completely buried under 
sand:— 
“As an instance illustrative of the dry character of the 
climate here, I may mention that we found sheets of matting, such 
as are used at the present day, in the foundations of walls, still in 
excellent preservation under the layers of raw bricks composing 
the structure of the battlements, although, as we are assured and 
as history tends to prove, the place has been in ruins for eight 
hundred years.” 
It not unfrequently happens, as Sir T. D. Forsyth remarks, that 
when the fierce wind sweeps over these sand-buried places, objects are 
disclosed to view temporarily and again buried under the sands. In 
this way, if not as the result of actual digging after treasure, the 
Macartney MSS. appear to have been obtained by their finder. 
I will now turn to the other class: those found in Kuchar and 
written in the Brahmi characters. These must be divided into two 
sections: (1) those written in the Northern Indian Gupta, and (2) those 
written in the Central Asian characters. Buddhism was very early intro¬ 
duced into Kuchar, probably as early as the 1st century B.C., and probably 
through Khotan, where it was introduced in the 2nd century B.C. 61 In 
the early centuries A.D. it was a stronghold of Buddhism ; later on that 
religion retrograded under the spreading rivalry of Nestorian Chris¬ 
tianity, and still more so under that of Muhammadanism. It never quite 
r 
69 See Sir T. D. Forsyth’s Report of a Mission to Yarkand, pp. 122-127 ff. 
69 Ibidem , p. 38. 
61 See Beal’s Buddhist Records , Vol. I, p. lxxviii, Vol. II, p. 313, 314. Journal , 
.As. Soc. Beng., Yol. LY, p. 197. 
