ASPECTS OF INTERNATIONAL TRADES AND CULTURAL EXCHANGES AS SEEN FROM THE TEXTUAL AND MATERIAL REMAINS UNEARTHED FROM CENTRAL ASIA

Moriyasu has demonstrated that as a means of exchange or payment thee old Uighurs began to use silk at first in Mongolia, and then cotton cloth called quanpu was added as both an accounting unit and a means of exchange among the West Uighurs around the 10th 11th centuries. Finally, silver replaced them in Mongol times. Such an economic phenomenon could not occur without the condition that Uighur merchants were actively involved in the long distance trade and that silver money circulated in a great amount in Central Asia. They must be linked to the worldwide circulation of silver at that time.Arakawa analyzed the Turfan Chinese documents serving as passports to the other world, and clarified the transition of the view on the other world held by Chinese in Turfan. That is, a new view on the other world which mixed in Buddhism and traditional Chinese. beliefs appeared only in the period of the Qu 麹 clan Gaochang Kingdom (6th 7th centuries), though the Buddhism had already been believed in … More among Chinese in Turfan in Gaochang commandery period (4th〜5th), and it shifted to the view of the other world on the Buddhism to request for rebirth in Jingtu 浄土 when it became the following Xizhou period (mid-7th 8th centuries).Takeuchi identified many Old Tibetan texts from Dunhuang written after the Tibetan abandonment of Hexi, and discussed that Tibetan continued to be used by non-Tibetans as a lingua franca in various genres, including international communications between the Chinese, Khotanese, and Uighur rulers, both official and private documents among local Chinese, and Buddhist texts.Yoshida discussed the etymology of Zhaowu which was a name of an old city in China where the Sogdians were alleged by the Tang time Chinese to have originated from. In Yoshida's opinion Zhaowu is to be identified with Chamuk, an element sometimes encountered in names of Sogdian kings. Chamuk in turn is most likely to be either an Hephthalite word denoting a title or a name of a legenday hero of the Hephthalite people, which later became an eponym.Matsukawa treated the Uighur elements survivng in the Mongolian edition of the Sutra of the Seven Stars of 'the Great Bear, an apocryphical text of Chinese origin that pervaded Eurasia, and which proved that this text was translated front Uighur into Mongolian.Matsui presented the information on several tens of secular Uigur texts from the St. Petersburg collection which are related to a group of Buddhist monks, at the Toyoq caves in the 13th century. It should be a groundwork for the further historical studies on the cultural and economic activities of the Uigur Buddhist monasteries. Less

Moriyasu has demonstrated that as a means of exchange or payment thee old Uighurs began to use silk at first in Mongolia, and then cotton cloth called quanpu was added as both an accounting unit and a means of exchange among the West Uighurs around the 10th 11th centuries. Finally, silver replaced them in Mongol times. Such an economic phenomenon could not occur without the condition that Uighur merchants were actively involved in the long distance trade and that silver money circulated in a great amount in Central Asia. They must be linked to the worldwide circulation of silver at that time.Arakawa analyzed the Turfan Chinese documents serving as passports to the other world, and clarified the transition of the view on the other world held by Chinese in Turfan. That is, a new view on the other world which mixed in Buddhism and traditional Chinese. beliefs appeared only in the period of the Qu 麹 clan Gaochang Kingdom (6th 7th centuries), though the Buddhism had already been believed in … More among Chinese in Turfan in Gaochang commandery period (4th〜5th), and it shifted to the view of the other world on the Buddhism to request for rebirth in Jingtu 浄土 when it became the following Xizhou period (mid-7th 8th centuries).Takeuchi identified many Old Tibetan texts from Dunhuang written after the Tibetan abandonment of Hexi, and discussed that Tibetan continued to be used by non-Tibetans as a lingua franca in various genres, including international communications between the Chinese, Khotanese, and Uighur rulers, both official and private documents among local Chinese, and Buddhist texts.Yoshida discussed the etymology of Zhaowu which was a name of an old city in China where the Sogdians were alleged by the Tang time Chinese to have originated from. In Yoshida's opinion Zhaowu is to be identified with Chamuk, an element sometimes encountered in names of Sogdian kings. Chamuk in turn is most likely to be either an Hephthalite word denoting a title or a name of a legenday hero of the Hephthalite people, which later became an eponym.Matsukawa treated the Uighur elements survivng in the Mongolian edition of the Sutra of the Seven Stars of 'the Great Bear, an apocryphical text of Chinese origin that pervaded Eurasia, and which proved that this text was translated front Uighur into Mongolian.Matsui presented the information on several tens of secular Uigur texts from the St. Petersburg collection which are related to a group of Buddhist monks, at the Toyoq caves in the 13th century. It should be a groundwork for the further historical studies on the cultural and economic activities of the Uigur Buddhist monasteries. Less