The Spread of Buddhism

the spread of buddhism in serindia 101

texts may be tentatively dated back to the  fth century. These texts

are Mahynist.

For the later period (600–1000 AD), we are in no better position

concerning external reports and absolute dates, but we have the full

amount of Khotanese, Khotan Sanskrit and (from 750 onwards) Tibetan

manuscripts. The relative chronology of manuscripts is disparagingly

rudimentary,^123 but Skjærvø (1999, pp. 330–338), in his pioneering

study, has linked different Khotanese versions of Buddhist texts to

dated Chinese or Nepali counterparts. He thereby found evidence for a

continuous intercourse between Khotan, on the one hand, and India,^124

Tibet and China on the other. The Indian Suvarabhsottamastra, an

important Mahyna text that emphasises the presence of the Buddha in

all phenomena, for instance, came to Khotan in four different recensions

from the  fth/sixth to the eighth century. After the Tibetan conquest of

Khotan in 750, many Tibetan texts—secular as well as Buddhist—were

translated in Khotanese. Names in Upper Indus inscriptions and even

the existence of a speci c genre, the de an “Confession (of the karma)”^125

bespeak regular relations between Gilgit and Khotan.^126

Buddhism seems at  rst glance to have thriven up to its brutal end

with the Muslim conquest ca. 1007, but Hamilton (1977) pointed to a

silent Turkicisation of Khotan during the tenth century. In fact in 975,

the king of Khotan had married a Qarakhanid princess. Later, one of

his sons allied with the Muslims to conquer the city.^127

3.2. Loulan

Since the city of Loulan apparently declined after its capture by the

Tuyuhun in 441 AD,^128 it would be a crucial case study for

early Tarim Buddhism. Unfortunately, Loulan texts with religious

(^123) Sander 1984.
(^124) A similar conclusion can be reached concerning the figurative arts (Rhie
1999–2002, vol. 1, pp. 315, 321): Khotan and Kashgar were the gate for all Indian
in uences in Central Asia.
(^125) Recitation of names of the Buddha in order to improve one’s karma (Emmerick
1979).
(^126) von Hinüber 1982a; 1989b, pp. 93f., 96, 99.
(^127) Kumamoto 1986, pp. 227f.
(^128) F. W. Thomas, 1934, pp. 48ff.; Enoki 1964, p. 167 with n. 124; Tremblay 2001,
p. 18 n. 22. The last king known is Sumitra in 383 AD (Lin Meicun 1990, p. 290).
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