Section 21 – The Kingdom of Shule 疏勒 (Kashgar)

1. Shule 疏勒 [Shu-lo] = Kashgar – or Qäshqär – Mallory and Muir (2000), p. 69. There can be no doubt that Shule = Kashgar. See, for example, Stein (1907), pp. 47-57; CICA, p. 141, n. 373, and the detailed discussion of the various names for the town in Bailey (1958), pp. 50-54. See also note 1.58 above.

“The pilgrim Xuanzang tells us that its name in Sanskrit was Śrīkrīrāti which means something like ‘Fortunate Hospitality’ ; the local name was transcribed in Chinese as Shule..., which provides fairly dramatic evidence for what happens when a Chinese tongue tries to articulate Indo-European clusters of sound. From the perspective of the Chinese traveller, Shule was a main emporium en route to Ferghana and Bactria; it is highly likely that General Li Guangli led his forces through it in his quest for the ‘heavenly horses’ of Ferghana. During the Han period its population was initially recorded as about a quarter of the size of Kucha, i.e. 1,510 households, 18,647 people of whom 2,000 could bear arms (but the town was booming by the 2nd century AD when the number of families was about 21,000 and it was fielding ten times the earlier number of soldiers). We are informed that there were markets with stalls in the town. It was an important garrison town in the Western Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 9), but early in the 1st century AD it fell to Khotan only to be retaken by the Chinese under General Ban Chao. Thus, the trade route west was secure at the time that Marinus of Tyre was gathering information about the Silk Road through the agents of Maës the Macedonian in the early 2nd century AD.” Mallory and Muir (2000), pp. 69-70.