BuddhistRoadPaper 6.3 "Inside Out: The Social Life of a Pair of Inscribed Book Covers from Ancient Khotan"

This paper presents the preliminary findings of an in-depth investigation of a pair of wooden book covers, each inscribed on the inside, which a Russian diplomat brought from the Tarim Basin to St. Petersburg. Pinpointing the find-spot of the covers as a significant archaeological site to the east of Khotan, the present research analyses the inscriptions, sheds new light on the materiality of the covers, and suggests that they were probably used as votive objects. A salient aspect of the covers is that they bear testimony to a close connection between the monastery, to which they once belonged, and some prestigious monasteries known from Chinese and Tibetan sources. Based on a careful reconstruction of the ties between these monasteries and their socio-religious implications, a tentative hypothesis is ventured on the nature of the binary system of Buddhist monasteries in the Kingdom of Khotan (ca. 1st c.?–1006).