This largely Buddhist kingdom existed for over a thousand years until it was conquered by the Muslim Kara-Khanid Khanate in 1006, during the Islamization and Turkicization of Xinjiang.

There is debate as to how much Khotan's original inhabitants were ethnically and anthropologically Indo-Aryan and speakers of the Gāndhārī language versus the Saka, an Indo-European people of Iranian branch from the Eurasian Steppe.

[4] To the Tibetans in the seventh and eighth centuries, the kingdom was called Li (or Li-yul) and the capital city Hu-ten, Hu-den, Hu-then and Yvu-then.

The local people also used Gaustana (Gosthana, Gostana, Godana, Godaniya or Kustana) under the influence of Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, and Yūttina in the ninth century, when it was allied with the Chinese kingdom of Șacū (Shazhou or Dunhuang).

[3][13] According to one version, the nobles of a tribe in ancient Taxila, who traced their ancestry to the deity Vaiśravaṇa, were said to have blinded Kunãla, a son of Ashoka.

[19][20] One suggestion is therefore that the early migrants to the region may have been an ethnically mixed people from the city of Taxila led by a Greco-Saka or an Indo-Greek leader, who established Khotan using the administrative and social organizations of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom.

Sten Konow, the Norwegian Indologist who critically examined the different versions of the tradition concluded as follows: "Kustana, the son of Ashoka, is said to have founded the royal dynasty of Khotan.

But Kustana's son Ye-u-la, who is said to have founded the capital of the kingdom is most probably identical with the king Yü-Lin mentioned in the Chinese chronicles as ruling over Khotan about the middle of the first century AD.

If there is any truth in the Chinese statement that Wei-chi or Vijita was the family name of the kings, it is of interest to note that this 'Vijita' dynasty, according to the Tibetan tradition, begins where the Han annals place the foundation of the national Khotan kingdom.

[40] Later the Saka would also move into Northern India, as well as other Tarim Basin sites like Khotan, Karasahr (Yanqi), Yarkand (Shache) and Kucha (Qiuci).

[43] In the 2nd century AD a Khotanese king helped the famous ruler Kanishka of the Kushan Empire of South Asia (founded by the Yuezhi people) to conquer the key town of Saket in the Middle kingdoms of India: [a] Afterwards king Vijaya Krīti, for whom a manifestation of the Ārya Mañjuśrī, the Arhat called Spyi-pri who was propagating the religion (dharma) in Kam-śeṅ [a district of Khotan] was acting as pious friend, through being inspired with faith, built the vihāra of Sru-ño.

On the death of Xiumo Ba, Guangde, son of his elder brother, assumed power and then (in 61 AD) defeated Suoju (Yarkand).

[52] The first recorded post-Tibetan King of Khotan was Viśa' Saṃbhava, who used the Chinese name Li Shengtian and claimed to a descendant of the Tang dynasty imperial family.

[59] Accounts of the war between the Karakhanid and Khotan were given in Taẕkirah of the Four Sacrificed Imams, written sometime in the period from 1700 to 1849 in the Eastern Turkic language (modern Uyghur) in Altishahr probably based on an older oral tradition.

It contains a story about four Imams from Mada'in city (possibly in modern-day Iraq) who helped the Qarakhanid leader Yusuf Qadir Khan conquered Khotan, Yarkand, and Kashgar.

"[73][74] Note:- Some names are in modern Mandarin pronunciations based on ancient Chinese records and Time period of rulers is in CE.

[84] Initially, the people of the kingdom were not Buddhist, and Buddhism was said to have been adopted in the reign of Vijayasambhava in the first century BC, some 170 years after the founding of Khotan.

[85] However, an account by the Han general Ban Chao suggested that the people of Khotan in 73 AD still appeared to practice Mazdeism or Shamanism.

[87][88] According to the Chinese pilgrim Faxian who passed through Khotan in the fourth century: The country is prosperous and the people are numerous; without exception they have faith in the Dharma and they entertain one another with religious music.

A number of Buddhist monks who played an important role in the transmission of Buddhism in China had their origins in Khotan including Śikṣānanda and Śīladharma.

[94] A seventh-century Chinese pilgrim named Xuanzang described Khotan as having limited arable land but apparently particularly fertile, able to support "cereals and producing an abundance of fruits".

The "urbanity" of the Khotan people is also mentioned in their dress, that of 'light silks and white clothes' as opposed to more rural "wools and furs".

The legend, repeated in many sources, and illustrated in murals discovered by archaeologists, is that a Chinese princess brought silkworm eggs hidden in her hair when she was sent to marry the Khotanese king.

Xuanzang, on his return from India between 640 and 645, crossed Central Asia passing through the kingdoms of Kashgar and Khotan (Yutian in Chinese).

The King of Khotan wanted to obtain silkworm eggs, mulberry seeds and Chinese know-how - the three crucial components of silk production.

According to his text, silkworm eggs, mulberry trees and weaving techniques passed from Khotan to India, and from there eventually reached Europe.

[100] Aside from the geographical location of the towns of Khotan it was also important for its wide renown as a significant source of nephrite jade for export to China.

Chinese carvers in Xinglongwa and Chahai had been carving ring-shaped pendants "from greenish jade from Khotan as early as 5000 BC".

[101] The hundreds of jade pieces found in the tomb of Fuhao from the late Shang dynasty by Zheng Zhenxiang and her team all originated from Khotan.

[101] The Kingdom of Khotan is known to have produced both cash-style coinage and coins without holes[104][105][106] At the cemetery in Sampul (Chinese: 山普拉), ~14 km from the archaeological site of Khotan in Lop County,[107] where Hellenistic art such as the Sampul tapestry has been found (its provenance most likely from the nearby Greco-Bactrian Kingdom),[108] the local inhabitants buried their dead there from roughly 217 BC to 283 AD.