xxx Dr. Hoernle— Antiquities from Central Asia . [Extra Ko. 1, 
basements only remaining. 211 This cannot surprise, seeing that these 
erections were made of unburnt bricks. As Dr. Sven Hedin remarks 
(p. 740 of his book Through Asia) “the natives themselves have 
obseryed that the erosive action of the wind is incomparably greater 
than that of water.” Buddhist stupas used to be coated with a hard, 
brilliant plaster, to protect them against the erosive action of wind and 
weather. This was, no doubt, also the case in Kliotan ; but when 
outlying settlements were abandoned, and the plastering of the stupas 
fell into disrepair, their more exposed domes naturally were corroded 
and gradually swept away by the periodical sandstorms, the less exposed 
and stronger basements only surviving. 
It is well-known that Buddhism was introduced into Khotan from 
^ North-Western India (Kashmir), including 
Ancient Grseco-Bud- , . , n ,, , . ,. . 
Afghanistan and the countries immediately 
dhist Culture. .. c ., T ... ... 
- north or it. in connection with this circum¬ 
stance it is curious to observe numerous points of coincidence in the 
stupas of Khotan and those of Afghanistan; and these coincidences 
themselves are a further argument to support the theory that the find- 
places of antiquities around Khotan are the sites of groups of stupas or 
tumuli, and, in that sense, of ancient places of sepulture. It was a 
common practice among the Buddhists to build a stupa, or memorial 
tower, over the relics of a Saint, and to group round it minor stupas 
or tumuli of lesser personages, whether religious or secular. Instances 
of this practice are repeatedly noted by Hiuen Tsiang in the account 
of his visit to India. 25 The existence of numerous such groups of 
stupas and tumuli in Afghanistan is well-known. Many of them have 
been opened at different times. In Wilson’s Ariana Antigua , there 
is a long memoir by Masson on the “ Topes and Tumuli ” opened 
by him, and the relics found in them. Among them are ornamented 
funeral jars of a globular form with bones, ashes, and fragments of 
charcoal ; further coins, beads, rings, seals and other trinkets, coloured 
stones, pieces of crystal, etc.,—all being objects which we shall see 
represented in the Khotanese collection : some indeed having the very 
same form. More curious still, in one tumulus which Masson opened, 
belonging to the group at Passani, he found “ in the centre a human 
24 it would be interesting to know why Koh Gumbaz or the “ blue or green 
dome” is called so. Could it be the dome of a stupa still standing? In the Swat 
country, as Dr. Stein informs us in his Report of an Archgeological Tour with the 
Buner Field Force, pp. 11 and 66, the word gumbaz is uniformly applied to ruined 
stupas. 
26 See Beal’s Buddhist Records of the Western World , Vol. J, pp. 46, 175 et 
passim . 
