Pranidhi scene, temple 9 (Cave 20) of the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves, Turfan, Xinjiang, China, 9th century AD, with kneeling figures praying in front of the Buddha who Albert von Le Coq assumed were Persian people (German: "Perser"), noting their Caucasian features and green eyes, and comparing the hat of the man on the left (in the green coat) to headgear worn by Sasanian Persian princes.[140] However, modern scholarship has identified praṇidhi scenes of the same temple (No. 9) as depicting Sogdians,[75] who inhabited Turfan as an ethnic minority during the phases of Tang Chinese (7th–8th century) and Uyghur rule (9th–13th century).[76]
English: Praṇidhi scene No. 14, Temple No. 9, dated to the 9th century, Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves, near Turpan, Xinjiang, China. This and many other paintings were removed by Albert von Le Coq from the Bezeklik caves. They were destroyed in the Allied bombing of Berlin during the Second World War. The kneeling, praying figures on the bottom left were identified as "Persian" people (see Plate 20) by Albert von Le Coq. However, they were likely Eastern-Iranian-speaking Sogdians who maintained an ethnic minority community in medieval Turpan. Modern scholarship has identified the Caucasian-looking men in Scene No. 6 of Temple No. 9 (the same temple as the scene shown above) as ethnic Sogdians, as outlined in the following source: Gasparini, Mariachiara. "A Mathematic Expression of Art: Sino-Iranian and Uighur Textile Interactions and the Turfan Textile Collection in Berlin," in Rudolf G. Wagner and Monica Juneja (eds), Transcultural Studies, Ruprecht-Karls Universität Heidelberg, No 1 (2014), pp 134-163. See also endnote #32. For information on the Sogdians of Turpan under the Chinese Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) and Uyghur Kingdom of Qocho (856-1335 AD), see the following source: Hansen, Valerie (2012), The Silk Road: A New History, Oxford University Press, p. 98, ISBN 978-0-19-993921-3. For Sogdian influence on contemporary Uyghur religious life, including transmission of Manichaeism, Buddhism, and Nestorian Christianity, see: Peter B. Golden (2011), Central Asia in World History, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, p. 47, ISBN 978-0-19-515947-9. Liu, Xinru, "The Silk Road: Overland Trade and Cultural Interactions in Eurasia", in Agricultural and Pastoral Societies in Ancient and Classical History, ed. Michael Adas, American Historical Association, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001, p. 169. Albert von Le Coq, in his Facsimile-Reproductions of More Important Findings of the First Royal Prussian Expedition to Turfan in East Turkestan (German: CHOTSCHO: FACSIMILE-WIEDERGABEN DER WICHTIGEREN FUNDE DER ERSTEN KÖNIGLICH PREUSSISCHEN EXPEDITION NACH TURFAN IN OST-TURKISTAN), published in Berlin in 1913 by Dietrich Reimer (Ernst Vohsen), "by Order of General Management of the Royal Museums, From the Funds of the Baessler Institutes," (German: "IM AUFTRAGE DER GENERALVERWALTUNG DER KÖNIGLICHEN MUSEEN AUS MITTELN DES BAESSLER-INSTITUTES"), provided a cursory yet lengthy analysis (p. 28) of Praṇidhi scene No. 14 in Temple No. 9 of the Bezeklik caves. He called the kneeling figures on the left: "die augenscheinlich der iranischen Rasse angehören" (English: "apparently belonging to the Iranian race"). On the figure to the right wearing a green, fur-trimmed coat and presenting a bowl, which von Le Coq said perhaps contained bags of gold dust (German: "goldstaub"), he said that his facial features were Europoid (German: "das gesicht zeigt europäischen typus") and had bright green eyes (German: "die augen sind hellgrün") and black hair and beard (German: "der Bart und die Haare aber schwarz"). Of particular interest to von Le Coq was the man's head cap, which he found reminiscent of the headgear worn by earlier Sasanian Persian princes (German: "bemerkenswert ist die mütze, deren form am meisten an die mancher Adlerfittich-Mützen sassanidischer fürsten erinnert") He also noted the donkey and Bactrian camel in the foreground, loaded with tributary goods. It has been noted that the kneeling figure in the lower left corner is making an offering that resembles a chrysanthemum-shaped dessert excavated from Tomb No. 73, Zaghunluq, 5th-3rd century BCE, held in the Chärchän Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Museum Collection (image available here: https://www.penn.museum/silkroad/exhibit_daily_life.php).