Summary
Kuwabara Jitsuzo
Kuwabara Jitsuzo's widely accepted thesis in 1924, that immigrants surnamed An in medieval China came from Bukhara, is distorted. His reasoning assumes that family names were lightly given and that the popularity of An Shigao's name led Chinese authors to associate it with foreigners who came from the West. Kuwabara's assertions stemmed from his criticism of Chen Yuan's claim that An Shitong, a 12th century figure, originally came from Anxi.See the full content of this document
Extract
Kuwabara's misleading thesis on Bukhara and the family name An.
When in late 1923 or early 1924 Chen Yuan (1880-1971) sent to Kuwabara Jitsuzo (1870-1931) in Japan a draft of his article "Yuan xiyuren hua-hua kao" The Sinicization of People from Western Regions during the Yuan), he did not imagine that one seemingly obvious remark of his would provoke harsh criticism from his senior colleague. Chen Yuan in his article expressed the opinion that An Shitong (a twelth-century Song figure who embraced Taoism) originally came from Anxi (Parthia):
Why do we suspect that An Shitong was a native from the Anxi country? Among the translators of [Buddhist] texts in the Han period, there was An Shigao, named An Qing, heir-apparent of the king of Anxi. Travellers of the western regions called him "Marquis of An" (...). Adopting as family name the name of one's country is a practice from ancient times (...). An Shitong is an example of this.(1) Kuwabara received the draft in the spring of 1924, read it carefully, and by the end of August he had written a critical note because he felt "uneasy" about some points in Chen Yuan's paper. He published the note and offered it for the author's attention, adding that he would be happy if Chen Yuan would take it into consideration when publishing his paper.(2) Among the points Kuwabara felt "uneasy" about and strongly criticized was the fact that Chen Yuan considered An Shitong to be originally from Anxi. He argued as follows: In the Western Regions there was the An country. People from there who established themselves in China during the Tang period or before were referred to by the An family name. In the 4th juan of Lin Bao's Yuanhe xingzuan, on the family name An it is stated: "It derives from the An country (...). From An Nantuo of the Later Wei to his grandson [An] Pansuoluo, for generations they lived at Liang-zhou acting as sabao (...). [Pansuoluo] fathered Xinggui (...) who lathered Heng'an and Shengcheng; [Sheng]cheng fa...See the full content of this document
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