Document Type : Original Article
Abstract
This paper surveys the legends of the foundation of Khotan. Khotan-Saka's were one of the Iranian tribes, which settled in Tarim Basin, an area in today’s Xin Jian province in western China. Chinese resources in the second BCE mentioned these new comers. Nevertheless, these resources did not add any details about Khotanese. However, the next resources contains some legends about the first king of Khotan and the extraordinary birth of him. Since all of these narratives belong to the period, which Khotanese converted to Buddhism, they were under influence of Buddhism but one can finds important hints about their believes, gods and their myths. Therefore, this paper, on one hand, surveys these legends and on the other hand studies those gods and their names. This paper concluded that the legend of the birth of the first king of Khotan is similar to the Saka's first king, which Herodotus mentioned; and the Khotanese god’s names give us information about their religious' believes. Moreover, this paper found some interesting similarities between these religious' believes and a couple of verses in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, which mentioned in the Rostam’s stories, the famous Saka hero, who is one of the most important characters of Shahname.
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