buddhism in the west uyghur kingdom and beyond 199
Gaochang 高昌), located near present day Turfan, is in scholarly literature usu-
ally referred to as the winter capital, Beš Balık as the summer capital. Buddhist
texts in Old Uyghur were found in large quantities at several sites in the Turfan
oasis and in Dunhuang, Kamıl (Chin. Hami 哈密) and some at the Edsin Gol
river. Buddhist archaeological remains from the West Uyghur Kingdom were
excavated at Beš Balık where Uyghur wall paintings and inscriptions were dis-
covered as well.38 A strong Uyghur domination over the region of Kočo and Beš
Balık dates already back to the year 803, when Tang troops in cooperation with
Uyghur forces ousted the Tibetans from the Turfan region.39
The West Uyghurs became vassals of the Khitan (in Chinese sources referred
to as Liao 遼) Dynasty by the end of the first quarter of the 10th century,40
and—more than two hundred years later (in 1131~1132)—of the Kara Khitai
Empire. Another group of Uyghurs founded a new state in the region of Kučā,
which merged with the West Uyghur Kingdom of Beš Balık and Gaochang in
the 10th century.41 Kučā was the centre of Tocharian civilisation at that time.
Sizable Uyghur groups were already present in those regions where their com-
patriots decided to settle down after their westward migration from Mongolia.42
The city-states located in the Tarim basin were multi-ethnic and often multi-
religious urban centres.43 We have to assume that Uyghurs living in different
in 1334. The author is Käkä (or: Gägä) from Čam Balık (located to the West of modern
Ürümči). See Geng et al., “Stèle commémorative,” 11–13. The Chinese literatus Yu Ji
(虞集) (1272–1348) is mentioned as the author of the inscription in Atwood, Christopher
P., “The Uyghur Stone: Archaeological Revelations in the Mongol Empire,” in The Steppe
Lands and the World Beyond them: Studies in Honor of Victor Spinei on his 70th Birthday, ed.
Florin Curta and Bogdan-Petru Maleon (Iaşi: Editura Universităţii “Alexandru Ioan Cuza”,
2013), 320.
38 See Umemura, Hiroshi, “A Qočo Uyghur King Painted in the Buddhist Temple of
Beshbalïq,” in Turfan, Khotan und Dunhuang: Vorträge der Tagung „Annemarie v. Gabain
und die Turfanforschung“, veranstaltet von der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der
Wissenschaften in Berlin (9.-12. 12. 1994), ed. Ronald E. Emmerick et al. (Berlin: Akademie
Verlag, 1996), 361–378 and Shatzman Steinhardt, Nancy, “The Uighur Ritual Complex in
Beiting,” Orientations 30.4 (1999): 28–37 (for archaeological research).
39 Zhang, Guangda, Rong Xinjiang, “A Concise History of the Turfan Oasis and Its
Exploration,” in The Silk Road: Key Papers, Part I: The Preislamic Period, Volume 2, ed.
Valerie Hansen (Leiden, Boston: Global Oriental, 2012), 404.
40 Biran, Michal, The Empire of the Qara Khitai in Eurasian History, 2nd edition (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2007), 15.
41 Pinks, Uiguren von Kan-chou, 61–62.
42 For Shazhou and Guazhou (瓜州) see Pinks, Uiguren von Kan-chou, 63.
43 For cross-cultural contacts between speakers of both Tocharian languages and speakers of
e.g. Sogdian and Turkic see Schaefer, Christiane, “Multilingualism and Language Contact