Guma (Goma) Town (; , ), also known as Pishan Town (), is a town in the Taklamakan Desert, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China, about southeast of Kashgar.Hill (2009), p. 403. Small and rather poor, the town has about 2,000 inhabitants, most of whom are Uyghur and some Tajiks. The main crop is cotton. Pishan is served by China National Highway 315 and the Kashgar-Hotan Railway.
Guma is an ancient oasis town on the main caravan route between Khotan and Karghalik and, in Han times, the route left from here to go to Arachosia (Kandahar) through Hunza.Hill (2009), pp. 207-208; 506; 622; 628. The Hanshu (which describes events up to 23 CE) mentions that it had 500 households, 3,500 individuals and 500 persons able to bear arms. It was an important hub for caravans heading south to India over the Karakorum route or through the Pamirs to Jalalabad or Badakhshan.Hulsewé (1979), p. 97.
See also Silk Road transmission of Buddhism List of township-level divisions of Xinjiang
Footnotes
References
Hill, John E. 2004. The Peoples of the West from the Weilüe by Yu Huan : A Third Century Chinese Account Composed between 239 and 265 CE. Draft annotated English translation. Hill, John E. (2009) Through the Jade Gate to Rome: A Study of the Silk Routes during the Later Han Dynasty, 1st to 2nd Centuries CE. BookSurge, Charleston, South Carolina. . Hulsewé, A. F. P. 1979. China in Central Asia: The Early Stage 125 BC – AD 23: an annotated translation of chapters 61 and 96 of the History of the Former Han Dynasty. E. J. Brill, Leiden. . Roerich, George N. (1931): Trails to Inmost Asia: Five Years of Exploration with the Roerich Central Asian Expedition. Roerich. First Indian Reprint. Book Faith India, Delhi. 1996.
External links Satellite picture of Pishan Silk Road Seattle (contains useful resources, including a number of full-text historical works)