________________
DECEMBER, 1906.]
ARCHÆOLOGY IN WESTERN TIBET.
827
Notes on the Tibetan Text of the Inscriptions. No. 1. so blon is a compound of sopa, spy, and blonpo, minister. No such word as halpa is to be found in a Tibetan dictionary, but there is a Dard word halka, bright, splendid.
No. 2. The name Khri-ysum means three thrones.'
No. 3 ff. The title stong dpon, commander of a thousand, is invariably spelt in a defective manner in these inscriptions. The Ladakhis would have spelt it stong spon, if they had invented the title ; because now-a-days they still pronounce the word thus, the 8 before the p being very distinct. But in some of the inscriptions the spelling is even more defective than is the Ladakhi form, the & before the of stong being omitted, and the nasals dropped. I am much inclined to believe that this curiously defective spelling is due to imitation of the Lhasa dialect, which had probably been lately introduced by the then new dynasty of the Kings of Leb, who came from Central Tibet. The name Ge (rge) means 'virtue.'
No. 4. The name Gyalba-yeshes means "the victor, wisdom.' No. 5. The name Khrom means anger.' No. 6. The name bDang-'ajoms seems to mean . bow-bender, conqueror.'
No. 8. The first part of the name yZho-bru-dbang-cug is not now intelligible; or is it perhaps yzhonnu, youth ?" The second part means 'rich, power.'
No. o. The name dGeba means 'virtue.' No. 10. The name bLon-scan seems to mean having wisdom' (blo can).
No. 11. The name of the writer yGyal-khri means king's throne. It sounds almost like a royal name. The name of the castle d Bang-gLing means 'place of power.' The term pril myi is a case of the ancient orthography, and proves that this inscription is particularly old. No such word as pril can be found in the dictionaries, and I presume that it is related to the dialectical word spreloes which means distribute labour,' 'tell a number of labourers what each has to do. That we find in the inscription ani in pril. instead of an e, may be due to assimilation to the second syllable.
In contrast to the generally Central Tibetan nature of the stong pon inscriptions, this inscription shows its distinctive Ladakhi origin in spelling the word dbang, power,' as rbang. A literate Central Tibetan would have spelt it dbang, and an illiterate one ang, because the Central Tibetan pronunciation of this word is ang. The modern Ladakhi pronunciation is wang. The change of the pronunciation from the archaic dbang, through wang, to ang can be explained thus : - dbang can be taken to be bang furnished with a d prefix, and all such prefixes show an inclination to become either rors. In this case the d has actually become an r, and so the second stage in the pronunciation would be rbang, as in the inscription. Then, if a b is furnished with an r or 8 prefix, the combination tends to become simply o or w, and thus the third stage in the pronunciation would be wang, as it is in modern Ladakhf. Next w and 'a are occasionally interchangeable, e.g., wurdo='urdo ; woma = 'oma; wug pa='ugpa; and so the fourth stage of pronunciation would be ang, as in Central Tibet. Now, while we find the fourth stage of pronunciation in the dialect of Lhassa, and the third stage in the present Ladakhi dialect, a thousand years ago the Ladakhi dialect may quite possible have been still at the second stage, and hence the rbang of the inscription. The same spelling is found on a boulder noar Khalatse Fort, where the words are really rbang-byed, not drang-byed, as I read them then (see my Collection of Insoriptions printed at Leh). The original pronunciation of db bas been preserved in the classical orthography and perhaps in such forms as Ptolemy's Dabasae = men of Bus, Central Tibet.
No. 12. The name Skyid-ysam means 'threefold happiness, the noble one.' Nos, 18 and 14. The name Khrom means 'anger.'
