283 258 THE MAURYAN PERIOD 282-283) the seventh century, tells how a king of China had asked Vaigravana for a son and the god brought him an Indian boy who was none other than ASoka’s son. A breast which appeared miraculously from the ground fed the child who took the name of “Breast of the Earth — Breast of the Mother” (Sa-las-nu-ma-nu), a periphrase which serves to translate ‘Kustana. His adoptive father named him king of Khotan. He went to occupy his territory with the Lord Chancellor Hjan-So (Yasas)*and several Chinese army units. The Chinese were soon joined by a nume- rous Indian tribe coming from the western region. An agreement was reached between the two colonies over the communal use of water and, throughout the territory, Hjai-So established Chinese and Indian towns and villages. * The Tibetan chronicle of the Li-yul*? supplies date and details : it locates Asoka’s accession in 184 after the Nirvana (302 B.C.), the birth of Kustana in 215-6 after the Nirvana (271-72 B.C.), his accession in 234-5 after the Nirvana (252-51 B.C.) and the death of Asoka in 239-40 after the Nirvana (247-46 B.C.). The Indian king Dharmasoka, who was converted to Buddhism by his “spiritual friend” the Arhat Yasas, went one day to Khotan. It was there that his wife, fertilized by an apparition of the god Vaigravana, gave birth to a male child. Aéoka, fearing he might be dethroned by that son, abandoned him on the spot, but the child was fed from a breast which came out of the ground, and his name was Kustana. At that time, a Chinese king (Shih huang ti?) who had as yet only 999 sons, asked Vaisravana for a thousandth one. The god gave Kustana to him, and the king welcomed him among his own. Once he had grown up, the adopted son quarrelled with his brothers and father and returned to Khotan, his native country, with ten thousand Chinese colonists. YaSas, ASoka’s minister, who had become insufferable at the Indian court, also went to Khotan with seven thousand men. There he came up against Kustana and the Chinese. After some frictions which were appeased by the god Vaigravana, an agreement was reached : the Chinese occupied Skam-sed to the east of the rivers; the Indians settled in Koa-Sed to the west of the rivers; the centre of the country was exploited jointly by both colonies. If there is the slightest element of truth in the Khotanese legend, it concerns the establishment of an early Indian colony in Khotan. Some documents in Prakrit of the North-West and in Kharosthi script, the oldest of which date back to the third century B.C., have been discove- red in the southern part of the Tarim Basin, mainly at Niya and Endere. °° Ip., tbid., pp. 89-136,