6. New Hypotheses: The Nature of the Ivory and Bone Carvings and of the Site at Begram
6.1 Introduction
As discussed in section 1.2.2 , in the 1920s before any systematic excavations had taken place at Begram, A. Foucher, director of the French Archaeological Delegation, surveyed and identified the site as ancient Kapisi, the main city and summer residence of the Kushan kings in the region of Kapisa during the first centuries CE (Foucher 1925: 259, 266; 1931: 342). This identification of Begram as ancient Kapisi was based almost exclusively on a description of the country of Kapisa and its capital by the 7th century CE Chinese pilgrim Hsüan-tsang. When the 1937 and 1939 excavation campaigns (Hackin 1939, 1954: Plates) at Begram revealed two anciently sealed rooms containing a large number of extraordinary finds, Foucher’s identification of the site as a royal Kushan capital seems to have contributed to the excavators' reference to the structure where the objects were found as the ‘Palace’ and the surrounding structures as the ‘Old’ and ‘New Royal City’ (see sections 1.3 and 1.4). The relative value of many of the objects was congruent with, and indeed enhanced, the theory that this was a royal capital: only royalty, it was argued, could command the resources to hoard over time such a cache of luxury goods. The more detailed arguments which have followed -- pertaining to the exact nature and use of the objects and of the settlement at Begram -- all rest on a base constructed from Hsüan-Tsang's report of a royal capital. [1]
The accounts of Chinese pilgrims such as Fa-hsien and Hsüan-tsang (Beal 1906, 1911; Watters 1904-5; Giles 1923), who traveled through India and Central Asia in the fifth and seventh century CE, respectively, have long been considered by scholars as primary sources for the geographic placement of the region's ancient peoples and for the identification, location and reconstruction of their cities and monuments. In the main, these Chinese pilgrims were moved by a desire to enter what they considered to be the core lands of Buddhism, to witness there the holy sites of the Buddha, and to collect ancient Buddhist texts so that they might be translated into Chinese. Alongside colorful accounts of their arduous journeys, with asides on the social and political conditions of the regions traversed, the travel reports of the pilgrims include seemingly meticulous eyewitness descriptions of extant structures and sites. Despite the bountiful detail in these descriptions, however, it may be as well to assess closely the extent to which these textual records may be relied upon in the reconstruction of ancient civilizations and their monumental remains, particularly where such remains clearly and widely antedate the pilgrims' own times.
With regard to Begram, the most effective way to evaluate the information presented by Hsüan-tsang is to reexamine his textual account against the archaeological record. And once Hsüan-Tsang’s account has been reconsidered, other aspects of the ‘royal treasure’ theory must be moved into a brighter light, there to be measured against various elements -- the nature of the structures at the site and numerous non-luxury items found with the ‘treasure’ -- which may further argue for its undoing.
[1] M. Julien was the first to publish a European (French) language translation in 1857. This was followed by S. Beal's 1884 publication of an English translation based partly on Julien's work and partly on a Chinese copy of the accounts of Hsüan-tsang. T. Watters was the last scholar to publish a major English translation of the work, in 1904. I have mainly relied on Beal's translation for purposes of the current analysis. Where warranted for argument's sake, I have included and compared material from the other translations.
Copyright © 2005 Sanjyot Mehendale, Jeanette Zerneke, and the Regents of U.C. unless otherwise noted.
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