buddhism in the west uyghur kingdom and beyond 213
this depiction exactly parallels Chinese art from the Tang Dynasty portraying
women dancing the Sogdian swirl.98
But dancers are depicted on panels in Sogdian tombs as well.99 Zhang
Qingjie has dealt with Sogdian dances in detail and concluded that the dances
called hutengwu (胡騰舞) and huxuanwu (胡旋舞) in Chinese sources
are two different styles, the former mostly performed by men, the latter by
women.100 It is possible that some manuscripts of the Sogdian version of the
Daśakarmapathāvadānamālā, of which only one leaf has been identified yet,101
contained illustrations as well and that these inspired the illustrators of the
Old Uyghur version.
The similarity between the wall paintings in Šorčuk and the illustrations of
the Daśakarmapathāvadānamālā found in the Turfan region can be explained
not only by referring to the chronology of Uyghur Buddhism but also by
recourse to the school affiliation. Traditionally, Šorčuk was a centre of the
Sarvāstivāda;102 the Old Uyghur work Daśakarmapathāvadānamālā belongs to
the Vaibhāṣika branch of the Sarvāstivāda.
In the early period of Uyghur Buddhism, Manichaean and Buddhist art seem
to have been closely connected and the use of gold in early Uyghur Buddhist
art shows the influence of Manichaean workshops as Lilla Russell-Smith has
rightly stated in her monograph Uygur Patronage in Dunhuang.103 Sogdian
Buddhist art has to be considered as having contributed to the formation of
Uyghur Buddhist art as well.
Illustrations of Buddhist Sogdian texts are rare but some examples have sur-
vived. An illustration of a narrative work on paper is found in the collection
of the Museum of Asian Art in Berlin (III 10; fig. 6.5).104 It is not as refined in
style as the illustrations of the Daśakarmapathāvadānamālā, but the use of
98 See Rong, “Migrations,” 240 (fig. 2, especially the left girl).
99 Cf. Hansen, The Silk Road, colour plate 14.
100 Zhang Qingjie, “Hutengwu and Huxuanwu: Sogdian Dances in the Northern, Sui and Tang
Dynasties,” in Les Sogdiens en Chine, ed. Étienne de la Vaissière and Éric Trombert (Paris:
École française d’Extrême-Orient, 2005), 93–106.
101 Sundermann, Werner, “A Fragment of the Buddhist Kāñcanasāra Legend in Sogdian and
its Manuscripts,” in Proceedings of the 5th Conference of the Societas Iranologica Europæa,
held in Ravenna, 6–11 October 2003. Vol. 1: Ancient & Middle Iranian Studies, ed. Antonio
Panaino and Andrea Piras (Milano: Mimesis, 2006), 715–724.
102 Some Mahāyāna manuscripts in Sanskrit were found here as well. See Tremblay, “Spread
of Buddhism in Serindia,” 106.
103 Russell-Smith, Lilla, Uygur Patronage, 116–117, 141–153, and passim.
104 To the same manuscript belong the fragments III 4941, III 4942, and So 10100q, which are
illustrated as well.