SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This article analyses the contents and historical significance of a group of eight Bactrian documents (subsequently edited with translation and philological commentary in Bulletin of the Asia Institute 15, 2001 [2005], pp. 9-29). It is shown that these documents belong to a period of less than a century (mid-7th to mid-8th century C.E.) and that they derive from the region of Gozgan in north-west Afghanistan. The place-names, personal names and titles found in the texts are compared with those attested in Persian, Arabic and Chinese sources dealing with this area and period, as well as in the Bactrian legends on coins from Gozgan. As a result, several places and persons named in these documents are identified with varying degrees of certainty. Finally, the Bactrian word tsak “receipt” is identified as a word of Chinese origin which was also adopted into several other languages.