DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.36958#0015
a) Why did visitors using Sogdian language and script come to the
Indus valley? In case that we accept the plausible proposition that
they were merchants, we have to explain why there are no testimo-
nies for their presence in Gandhära and the adjacent parts of the
subcontinent.
b) We should take into consideration the unequal distribution of
the inscriptions, sometimes far from the (presumable) settlement
of the locals. Which factors restricted the presence of the "Sogdian
Traders" to a few selected places - like the Europeans in China
who had a few protected concessions?
c) Such a confinement would make sense in case that we under-
stand the Indus valley as a frontier district between two political
realms both controlling dependant statelets and tribes. One
formed part of the Buddhist world, the other one was perhaps
organized by Chionitic chieftains and later on included in the
empire of the Hephthalites.
Preliminary and certainly problematic answers to these questions
are formulated in my article "Sogdians in the Indus valley" (JETT-
MAR 1991: 251-253, PI CIII-CVI). But too many questions remain
open.
d) Apparently, Shatial was a well organized trading-place: maybe
a bridgehead protected by a fortress. But what was the economic
base of the minor concentrations? Was the river crossed there by
skinrafts? Did they replace Shatial in a later period?
e) Due to the glossary we know that xwn "Hun" was frequently
used as a respected personal name. Had a part of the Chionites
been completely integrated by the Sogdians, their former subjects?
Recently, there is a tendency to consider the Hephthalites as pas-
toral nomads covering a large distance between the high-meadows
used for grazing in summer, and the winter-camps. But perhaps an
earlier wave of similar descent was already fully integrated togeth-
er with many Iranian refugees (KUWAYAMA 1989).
f) HuMBACH (1980: 204-205) had assumed that some of the
inscriptions had a pejorative, even a pornographic meaning. That
is not accepted now. But HUMBACH was certainly challenged by
the observation that Sogdian inscriptions appear on the same
boulders which are decorated with carvings bearing sexual
allusions. Here we should rather think that those who made the
inscriptions, full of high aspiration, and those (illiterates) who
made the obscene figurai carvings did not belong to the same
XI
Indus valley? In case that we accept the plausible proposition that
they were merchants, we have to explain why there are no testimo-
nies for their presence in Gandhära and the adjacent parts of the
subcontinent.
b) We should take into consideration the unequal distribution of
the inscriptions, sometimes far from the (presumable) settlement
of the locals. Which factors restricted the presence of the "Sogdian
Traders" to a few selected places - like the Europeans in China
who had a few protected concessions?
c) Such a confinement would make sense in case that we under-
stand the Indus valley as a frontier district between two political
realms both controlling dependant statelets and tribes. One
formed part of the Buddhist world, the other one was perhaps
organized by Chionitic chieftains and later on included in the
empire of the Hephthalites.
Preliminary and certainly problematic answers to these questions
are formulated in my article "Sogdians in the Indus valley" (JETT-
MAR 1991: 251-253, PI CIII-CVI). But too many questions remain
open.
d) Apparently, Shatial was a well organized trading-place: maybe
a bridgehead protected by a fortress. But what was the economic
base of the minor concentrations? Was the river crossed there by
skinrafts? Did they replace Shatial in a later period?
e) Due to the glossary we know that xwn "Hun" was frequently
used as a respected personal name. Had a part of the Chionites
been completely integrated by the Sogdians, their former subjects?
Recently, there is a tendency to consider the Hephthalites as pas-
toral nomads covering a large distance between the high-meadows
used for grazing in summer, and the winter-camps. But perhaps an
earlier wave of similar descent was already fully integrated togeth-
er with many Iranian refugees (KUWAYAMA 1989).
f) HuMBACH (1980: 204-205) had assumed that some of the
inscriptions had a pejorative, even a pornographic meaning. That
is not accepted now. But HUMBACH was certainly challenged by
the observation that Sogdian inscriptions appear on the same
boulders which are decorated with carvings bearing sexual
allusions. Here we should rather think that those who made the
inscriptions, full of high aspiration, and those (illiterates) who
made the obscene figurai carvings did not belong to the same
XI