Kashgar monastic cluster, (near) Kashi, Xinjiang, CN

Raw data

"Kashgar […] The modern Chinese name is 喀什 (Kāshí), a shortened form of the longer and less-frequently used (simplified Chinese: 喀什噶尔; traditional Chinese: 喀什噶爾 […]. Ptolemy (90-168 CE), in his Geography, Chapter 15.3A, refers to Kashgar as “Kasia”. [3]
An early Chinese name was 疏勒 (now Shule County), variously romanized as Su-leh, Sulei, Shule, Shu-le', She-le, Shu-lo or Sha-le […] Alternate historical Romanizations for "Kashgar" include Cascar [4][5] and Cashgar [6]."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashgar

"Xuan Zang passed through Kashgar (which he refers to as Ka-sha) in 644 on his return journey from India to China. The Buddhist religion, then beginning to decay in India, was active in Kashgar. […] The inhabitants were sincere believers in Buddhism and there were some hundreds of monasteries with more than 10,000 followers, all members of the Sarvastivadin School."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashgar

"Eminent monk Jiumoluoshi from Qiuci of Western regions ( 344—413 A.D.), one of the most famous Buddhist translators, once translated 384 volume scriptures of Buddhism together with his 300 disciples.
In 356 A.D., twelve-year-old Jiumoluoshi graduated from a Hinayana school in Kashmir. On his way home, he came across Shule state and paid tribute to the "Buddhist bowl’’ preserved in the temple. It is said that when he saw the bowl, he thought it was too light compared with such a large size. Just as his such thought, the bow fell to the ground. His mother reprimand him for not being pious enough to buddha. As a result, he decided to go forward no more and stay there to study Buddhism.
[…]
Kumarajiva did learn a Series of sutra in Shule from the winter of 356 to late 357 A.D. and reached such a height that a Shamen named Xijian not only respected him but also recommended him to the king of Shule to teach sutra.
[…]
The preliminary Buddhism was Hinayana which advocated self-salvation through austerity, whereas Mahayana founded after 2 A.D. debased Hinayana and advocated helping oneself and helping others at the same time
[…]
In the 2nd century A.D., the Guishuang kingdom of Da Rouzhi was the center of world Buddhism. But the fourth Buddhism conference held in Guishuang kingdom only include some theories of Hinayana. Chenpan who introduced Buddhism into Shule state [= the state around the city of Kashgar/Kashi - tmciolek] was a pious believers of Hinayana, the temple he built in Jiabishi (present-day Afghanistan) was temples of Hinayana. The tradition of believing in Hinayana lasted till Buddhism was replaced by Islam in Shule state.

After 5 century A.D., Mahayana was introduced into Shule. A Russian consular Petrovski stationed in Kashgar once found a volume of ancient Sanskrit (Hindustani), which was the classical work of Mahayana.

But Hinayana was deep-rooted in Shule and it was greatly advocated by the nobles in Shule since Chenpan. So it was pretty hard for Mahayana to develop there. The aforementioned prince of Shache Xuliyesumo was intended to spread Mahayana in Shule, but failed and went to Qiuci instead.

The story of Tang Xuanzang is well-known. When he got sutra and returned, his elephant fell into water due to too much loading and many rare volumes were either lost or destroyed. In the spring of 644 A.D., when Xiangzang reached Shule by way of Congling (Now Pamir Plateau), he did a lot of copy work.

In the meantime, Xuanzang found that everyone in Shule state  believed in power of Buddha and there were hundreds of temples and thousands of Buddhists, while other Buddhist cultural centers such as Yutian and Qiuci only had nearly a hundred temples and much less Buddhists. It can be said that the Buddhism Undertaking in Shule was the most prosperous in western regions at that time.
[…]
Buddhism in Shule Kingdom reached its peak at the end of 7th century and began to decline at the beginning of the 8th century. In 727 A.D., after monk Huichao from Korea had an investigation over Buddhism in Shule, he recorded Qiuci and Yutian as “have adequate temple and monks”, namely there were a large number of monks and temples. It indicated that the Buddhism Undertaking were prosperous in the two places. " - Kashgar Prefecture (2005).

"Kashgar/Shule: A Buddhist city that flourished from the early
period. In the latter half of the tenth century, it became a subject of
the Islamic Qara Khan Empire and Buddhism was terminated."
(Kudara 2002a:99-100)

Input by: tmciolek, Sep 2, 2010

Final data (and their sources)

Lat/Long coordinates' accuracy:
The monastery in question is assumed to be situated actually no farther than 20 km from the point defined by the coordinates below.

Location of Kashgar monastic cluster, CN.

General location of the Kashgar monastic cluster, CN.
Lat 39.466667 Long 75.983333
Mapping & images: Falling Rain Genomics (http://www.fallingrain.com), 2010.


Google Map link:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=39.466667+75.983333+(Approx.%20loc.%20of%20the%20Kashgar%20monastic%20cluster,%20CN)&ll=39.466667,75.983333&spn=05.0,05.0&t=k&hl=en

Final data - explanatory notes

1. Monastery's name

  • Kashgar monastic cluster

2. Monastery's modern country & province

  • China:Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu

3. Monastery's alternative/historical names

[missing data]

4. Monastery's lat/long coordinates

5. Other known nearby Buddhist monasteries

6. Modern name of the known nearest city, town, or village

7. The settlement's alternative/historical names

8. The settlement's coordinates

9. Monastery's major Buddhist tradition

10. Monastery's Buddhist sub-tradition

[missing data]

11. Date-early

[missing data]

12. Date-intermediate

[missing data]

13. Date-late

  • Buddhism is terminated in Kashgar area in the 2nd half of the 10th c. CE - Kudara (2002a:99-100)

14. Details of contacts with other monasteries

[missing data]

15. Type of evidence regarding the monastery

* Pilgrimage account

16. Additional notes

[missing data] (incl. details of the size of the monastic population)

17. Corrections & addenda to this page were kindly provided by

[missing data]

end of page

Page tags: 20km central-asia china cluster k mapped sarvastivada western-china xuanzang
Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License