| Research Abstract |
During the first millennium, in particular 6-8th centuries, the Sogdians played the most active role as traders along the Silk Road between China and the West, with the result that many Sogdians came over to China and some became resident there. When they were referred to in the contemporary Chinese documents, their names were transcribed phonetically in Chinese characters. Since they bore the surnames peculiar to their home oasis states one can easily tell Sogdians from the others. They are K'ang 康 (Samarkand), An 安 (Bukhara), Shih 石 (Tashkend), Shih 史 (Kish), Mi 米 (Maimargh), Ts'ao 曹 (Kabudhan), and Ho 何 (Kushaniya).
In the last three years of my research, Sogdian proper names transcribed in Chinese characters were collected as many as possible. These names are attested in (1) the chronicles and other classical works on the Chinese history (where local kings of Sogdian oasis states are mainly recorded) ; (2) tomb inscriptions ; and (3) secular documents discovered in Cave 17 of Dunhua
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ng and from other oases of East Turkestan. In particular, the recent excavation in the Turfan area has brought to light several thousands of documents and they have been published by the Chinese team. The Chinese materials containing names of Sogdians are surveyed in section 3 of the present report.
All the names collected by the present author are given in the form of list in section 4. Each name is accompanied by the full reference to the document where it is attested, the date of the document, and, if possible, its original form of reconstruction. I must confess that a number of names have still been left unreconstructed in spite of the great effort by several Sinologists and Iranianists such as O.Ikeda, M.Arakawa, D.Weber, and myself. Brief history of the research is presented in section 1.
As an aid for reconstructing these Chinese transcription all the Sogdian names attested in the so far published Sogdian texts are also collected by me and they are listed in section 5. The list consists of three part : (a) those names attested in the Upper Indus inscriptions, (b) those collected from the Mug documents, and (c) the others found in miscellaneous documents and inscriptions. As the material comparable to the personal names Sogdian place names and other words transcribed in Chinese characters are collected in section 2. Sections following the two sets of lists are dedicated to the problems surrounding the reconstruction (section 6) and to the new facts revealed by the present research (section). Less
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