A New Kharoṣṭhī Document from Kucha in the Hetian County Museum Collection

Abstract

This article presents a previously unpublished Kharoṣṭhī document from the collection of the Hetian County museum in the Xinjiang Autonomous Uyghur Region, China. Although the document was in all likelihood found in the Niya area, its contents make clear that it stems from the ancient kingdom of Kucha. The document is formed by a sealed pair of tablets that out of conservation concerns have not been opened yet and an attached external tablet: this article will only deal with the contents of the latter, for which I provide transcription, a tentative translation, notes, glossary, and a tentative transcription of what is visible of the exterior surface of the main double tablet in appendix. The document can be firmly dated to the later half of the third century because it mentions a certain Sagamoi, who is well known from the Niya corpus. In spite of the brevity of the document and the uncertainties involved in its reading, the document provides many new bits of information, like the name of an early king of Kucha (Pitrṛbhakta), evidence that the term nuava was the ancient name of Shan-shan, and possibly Tocharian and Iranian words.