The former area of Kucha now lies in present-day Aksu Prefecture, Xinjiang, China. Kuqa town is the county seat of Aksu Prefecture's Kuqa County. Its population was given as 74,632 in 1990.
Etymology
The history of toponyms for modern Kucha remain somewhat problematic;[2] however, it is clear that Kucha, Kuchar (in Turkic languages) and Kuché (modern Chinese),[3] correspond to the Kushan of Indic scripts from late antiquity.
While Chinese transcriptions of the Han or the Tang imply that Küchï was the original form of the name,[4]Guzan or Küsan is attested in the Tibetan Annals (s.v.), dating from 687 CE.[5]Old Uyghur and Old Mandarin transcriptions from the Mongol Empire support the forms Küsän / Güsän and Kuxian / Quxian respectively,[6] instead of Küshän or Kushan. Another, cognate Chinese transliteration is Ku-sien.[3]
Transcriptions of the name Kushan in Indic scripts from late antiquity include the spelling Guṣān, and are reflected in at least one Khotanese Tibetan transcription.[7]
The forms Kūsān and Kūs are attested in Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat's 16th-century work in Chaghatai, the Tarikh-i Rashidi.[8] Both names, as well as Kos, Kucha, Kujar etc., were used for modern Kucha.[3]
History
Kingdom
Tarim Basin in the 3rd century
For a long time, Kucha was the most populous oasis in the Tarim Basin. As a Central Asian metropolis, it was part of the Silk Road economy, and was in contact with the rest of Central Asia, including Sogdia and Bactria, and thus also with the cultures of South Asia, Iran, and the coastal areas of China.[9]
Chinese official and diplomat Zhang Qian traveled the area westward to visit Central Asia, during the 2nd century BCE, stopping at Kucha. Chinese chronicles recount that Princess Xijun, a Han princess married to the king of the Wusun, had a daughter who was sent to the Han court in 64 BC, but when the daughter stopped at Kucha on the way, she decided to marry the king of Kucha instead.[11]
According to the Book of Han (completed in 111 CE), Kucha was the largest of the "Thirty-six Kingdoms of the Western Regions", with a population of 81,317, including 21,076 persons able to bear arms.[12] The Kingdom of Kucha occupied a strategic position on the Northern Silk Road, which brought prosperity, and made Kucha a wealthy center of trade and culture.[13]
During the Later Han (25–220 CE), Kucha, with the whole Tarim Basin, became a focus of rivalry between the Xiongnu to the north and the Han Chinese to the east.[15] In 74 CE, Chinese troops started to take control of the Tarim Basin with the conquest of Turfan.[16] In the first century CE, Kucha resisted the Chinese and allied itself with the Xiongnu and the Yuezhi against the Chinese general Ban Chao.[17] Even the Kushan Empire of Kujula Kadphises sent an army to the Tarim Basin to support Kucha, but they retreated after minor encounters.[17]
Chinese conquest
Kizilgaha Beacon Tower, built by a Chinese garrison during the Han dynasty, located south of Kucha
In 124, Kucha formally submitted to the Chinese court, and by 127 China had conquered the whole of the Tarim Basin.[18] Kucha became a part of the Western protectorate of the Chinese Han Dynasty, with China's control of the Silk Road facilitating the exchange of art and the propagation of Buddhism from Central Asia.[19] The Roman Maes Titianus visited the area in the 2nd century CE,[20] as did numerous great Buddhist missionaries such as the ParthianAn Shigao, the Yuezhis Lokaksema and Zhi Qian, or the Indian Zhú Shuòfú (竺朔佛).[21] Around 150 CE, Chinese power in the western territories receded, and the Tarim Basin and its city-states regained independence.[22][23]
Kucha became very powerful and rich in the last quarter of the 4th century CE, about to take over most of the trade along the Silk Road at the expense of the Southern Silk Road, which lay along the southern edge of the Tarim Basin.[13] According to the Jinshu, Kucha was highly fortified, had a splendid royal palace, as well as many Buddhist stupas and temples:[27]
There are fortified cities everywhere, their ramparts are three-fold, inside there are thousands of Buddhist stupas and temples (...) The royal palace is magnificent, glowing like a heavenly abode".
Culture flourished, and Indian Sanskrit scriptures were being translated by the Kuchean monk and translator Kumarajiva (344-413 CE), himself the son of a man from Kashmir and a Kuchean mother.[13] The southern kingdoms of Shanshan and the Jushi Kingdom (now Turfan and Jiaohe) asked for Chinese assistance in countering Kucha and its neighbour Karashar.[13] The Chinese general Lü Guang was sent with a military force by Emperor Fu Jian (357-385) of the Former Qin (351-394).[13] Lü Guang obtained the surrender of Karashar and conquered Kucha in 383 CE.[13] Lü Guang mentioned the powerful armour of Kucha soldiers, a type of Sasanianchainmail and lamellar armour that can also be seen in the paintings of the Kizil Caves as noted in the Biography of Chinese General Lü Guang: "They were skillful with arrows and horses, and good with short and long spears. Their armour was like chain link; even if one shoots it, [the arrow] cannot go in."[13]
Lü Guang soon retired and the empire of Fu Jian crumbled against the Eastern Jin, and he established a principality in Gansu, bringing Kumarajiva together with him.[13]
Kucha ambassadors are known to have visited the Chinese court of Emperor Yuan of Liang in his capital Jingzhou in 516–520 CE, at or around the same time as the Hepthalite embassies there. An ambassador from Kucha is illustrated in Portraits of Periodical Offering of Liang, painted in 526-539 CE, an 11th century Song copy of which has survived.
The Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang visited Kucha and in the 630s described Kucha at some length, and the following are excerpts from his descriptions of Kucha:
The soil is suitable for rice and grain... it produces grapes, pomegranates and numerous species of plums, pears, peaches, and almonds... The ground is rich in minerals-gold, copper, iron, and lead and tin. The air is soft, and the manners of the people honest. The style of writing is Indian, with some differences. They excel other countries in their skill in playing on the lute and pipe. They clothe themselves with ornamental garments of silk and embroidery...
There are about one hundred convents in this country, with five thousand and more disciples. These belong to the Little Vehicle of the school of the Sarvastivadas. Their doctrine and their rules of discipline are like those of India, and those who read them use the same originals... About 40 li to the north of this desert city there are two convents close together on the slope of a mountain... Outside the western gate of the chief city, on the right and left side of the road, there are erect figures of Buddha, about 90 feet high.[29][30][31]
A specific style of music developed within the region and "Kuchean" music gained popularity as it spread along the trade lines of the Silk Road. Lively scenes of Kuchean music and dancing can be found in the Kizil Caves and are described in the writings of Xuanzang. "[T]he fair ladies and benefactresses of Kizil and Kumtura in their tight-waisted bodices and voluminous skirts recall--notwithstanding the Buddhic theme--that at all the halting places along the Silk Road, in all the rich caravan towns of the Tarim, Kucha was renowned as a city of pleasures, and that as far as China men talked of its musicians, its dancing girls, and its courtesans."[35] Kuchean music was very popular in Tang China, particularly the lute, which became known in Chinese as the pipa.[36] For example, within the collection of the Guimet Museum, two Tang female musician figures represent the two prevailing traditions: one plays a Kuchean pipa and the other plays a Chinese jiegu (an Indian-style drum).[37] The music of Kucha, along with other early medieval music, was transmitted from China to Japan during the same period and is preserved there, somewhat transformed, as gagaku or Japanese court music.[38]
During a few decades of domination by the Tibetan Empire, in the late 7th century, Kucha was usually at least semi-independent.
In the 8th and 9th centuries, Uyghurs increasingly migrated into the area. After the destruction of the Uyghur Khaganate by Kyrgyz forces in 840, Kucha became an important center of the Uyghur kingdom of Qocho.[40]
The extensive ruins of the ancient capital and the Subashi Temple (Chinese Qiuci), which was abandoned in the 13th century, lie 20 kilometres (12 mi) north of modern Kucha.
Francis Younghusband, who passed through the oasis in 1887 on his journey from Beijing to India, described the district as "probably" having some 60,000 inhabitants. The modern Chinese town was about 700 square yards (590 m2) with a 25 feet (7.6 m) high wall, with no bastions or protection to the gateways, but a ditch about 20 feet (6.1 m) deep around it. It was filled with houses and "a few bad shops". The "Turk houses" ran right up to the edge of the ditch and there were remains of an old city to the south-east of the Chinese one, but most of the shops and houses were outside of it. About 800 yards (730 m) north of the Chinese city were barracks for 500 soldiers out of a garrison he estimated to total about 1500 men, who were armed with old Enfield rifles "with the Tower mark."[41]
Kucha is now part of Kuqa, Xinjiang. It is divided into the new city, which includes the People's Square and transportation center, and the old city, where the Friday market and vestiges of the past city wall and cemetery are located. Along with agriculture, the city also manufactures cement, carpets, and other household necessities in its local factories.[citation needed]
Archaeological investigations
There are several significant archaeological sites in the region which were investigated by the third (1905–1907, led by Albert Grünwedel) and fourth (1913–1914, led by Albert von Le Coq) German Turfan expeditions.[42][43] Those in the immediate vicinity include the cave site of Achik-Ilek and Subashi.
Kucha was an important Buddhist center from Antiquity until the late Middle Ages. Buddhism was introduced to Kucha before the end of the 1st century, however it was not until the 4th century that the kingdom became a major center of Buddhism,[44] primarily the Sarvastivada, but eventually also Mahayana Buddhism during the Uighur period. In this respect it differed from Khotan, a Mahayana-dominated kingdom on the southern side of the desert.
According to the Book of Jin, during the third century there were nearly one thousand Buddhist stupas and temples in Kucha. At this time, Kuchanese monks began to travel to China. The fourth century saw yet further growth for Buddhism within the kingdom. The palace was said to resemble a Buddhist monastery, displaying carved stone Buddhas, and monasteries around the city were numerous.
Kucha is well known as the home of the great fifth-century translator monk Kumārajīva (344-413).
Po-Śrīmitra was another Kuchean monk who traveled to China from 307-312 and translated three Buddhist texts.
Po-Yen
A second Kuchean Buddhist monk known as Po-Yen also went to Liangzhou (modern Wuwei, Gansu, China) and is said to have been well respected, although he is not known to have translated any texts.
The language of Kucha, as evidenced by surviving manuscripts and inscriptions, was Kuśiññe (Kushine) also known as Tocharian B or West Tocharian, an Indo-European language. Later, under the Uighur domination, the Kingdom of Kucha gradually became Turkic-speaking. Kuśiññe was completely forgotten until the early 20th century, when inscriptions and documents in two related (but mutually unintelligible) languages were discovered at various sites in the Tarim Basin. Conversely, Tocharian A, or Ārśi was native to the region of Turpan (known later as Turfan) and Agni (Qarašähär; Karashar), although the Kuśiññe language also seems to have been spoken there.
While written in a Central Asian Brahmi script used typically for Indo-Iranian languages, the Tocharian languages (as they became known by modern scholars) belong to the centum group of Indo-European languages, which are otherwise native to Southern and Western Europe. The precise dating of known Tocharian texts is contested, but they were written around the 6th to 8th centuries CE (although Tocharian speakers must have arrived in the region much earlier). Both languages became extinct before circa 1000 CE. Scholars are still trying to piece together a fuller picture of these languages, their origins, history and connections, etc.[45]
The Kizil Caves lie about 70 kilometres (43 mi) northwest of Kucha and were included within the rich fourth-century kingdom of Kucha. The caves claim origins from the royal family of ancient Kucha, specifically a local legend involving Princess Zaoerhan, the daughter of the King of Kucha. While out hunting, the princess met and fell in love with a local mason. When the mason approached the king to ask for permission to marry the princess, the king was appalled and vehemently against the union. He told the young man he would not grant permission unless the mason carved 1000 caves into the local hills. Determined, the mason went to the hills and began carving in order to prove himself to the king. After three years and carving 999 caves, he died from the exhaustion of the work. The distraught princess found his body, and grieved herself to death, and now, her tears are said to be current waterfalls that cascade down some of the cave's rock faces.[46]
A "Han Gui bilingual Wu Zhu coin" (漢龜二體五銖錢) produced by the Kingdom of Kucha with both a Chinese and what is presumed to be a Kuśiññe inscription.
From around the third or fourth century Kucha began the manufacture of Wu Zhu (五銖) cash coins inspired by the diminutive and devalued Wu Zhu's of the post-Han dynasty era in Chinese history. It is very likely that the cash coins produced in Kucha predate the Kaiyuan Tongbao (開元通寳) and that the native production of coins stopped sometime after the year 621 when the Wu Zhu cash coins were discontinued in China proper.[47] The coinage of Kucha includes the "Han Qiu bilingual Wu Zhu coin" (漢龜二體五銖錢, hàn qiū èr tǐ wǔ zhū qián) which has a yet undeciphered text belonging to a language spoken in Kucha.[48][49]
^Grünwedel, Albert (1920). Alt-Kutscha. pp. 251 ff (Doppeltafel Tafel I, II – Fig. 1, Fig. 2) – via National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project: Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books. Also black and white 1912 photograph.
Hill, John Edward (2015). Through the Jade Gate - China to Rome. A Study of the Silk Routes 1st to 2nd Centuries CE. Vol. I. North Charleston, S.C.: CreateSpace. pp. 121–125, note 1.30. ISBN978-1500696702.
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