Book Title: Indian Antiquary Vol 58
Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications
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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
August, 1929
The chief contents of the documents examined are concerned with the transport of provions ; for though it must have been very hard for the Tibetans to provide victuals for large armies in desert countries, yet the a-ma-cas, or vassal-kings, were not forgotten and received their due share.
One of the kings, Sangrama the first, is of particular interest for the Tibetan historian; for this Khotan king married a Tibetan princess. She is called (Ancient Khotan, p. 582) a daughter of Phrom-ge-sar, who was apparently a king of Ladakh. Phrom is a clerical error for Khrom.8 The names Phrom and Khrom are both pronounced Throm, and this fact may have caused the mistake. As we learn from the Chronicles of Ladakh (see Antiquities of Indian Tibet, p. 93), Ladakh was in the year A.D. 900 still " held by the descendants of Gesar ": that means, that the dynasty called itself after Geser. We also know that Khrom-Ge-sar-gdan, the capital, “throne of Ge-ear," is an ancient name of Leh, which is still found in modern inscriptions; and thus we are led to believe that this particular princess came from Leh. In the Khotan Chronicles it is stated that she came from Kashmir: that means only that, instead of taking the short road across the Saser pass, she went to Khotan by way of Kashmir, which is the less dangerous.
Tibetan documents have, up to the present, been found at the following places in Turkestan: (1) in Mazar-Tagh, i.e., in the desert north of Khotan; (2) in Domoko, east of Khotan; (3) in Endere, 200 miles east of Khotan; (4) in Mîrån, 50 miles east of Charchlik, in the Lob-nor district; (5) in the Turfan district, chiefly at Murtuq, Tuyôg, Khotcho and Ili-köl. In the latter district we notice, too, that the Tibetan script was used even for other languages, for instance, Turkish and Chinese.
As regards places in the west of Turkestan, i.e., Khotan proper, Yarkand and Kashgar, these have not yet yielded any Tibetan documents, as there practically no manuscripts whatever have been found in the sands. But that is not to be wondered at.
Sir Aurel Stein remarks incidentally that the population of Turkestan may possess an admixture of Tibetan blood. That is quite possible, and I may mention two local names in that connection. The name of the village of Budia probably stands for an ancient Bhuttia, which is an ancient Indian name for the people of Tibet. Then also the name Glan-ru, the Tibetan form of the name of the Gospinga monastery already mentioned, clearly points to Tibetan inmates of that famous monastery.
Relics of the Tibetan rule in Turkestan are chiefly documents on wood and paper of secular and Buddhist character. Finds of Tibetan coins must not be expected, for it is quite probable that the coins used in those days were the current Chinese cash. The old documents often speak of don-tse coins, but we do not yet know what value was hidden under that expression. The present system of Tibetan coinage is not old and was probably introduced from Nepal. But Tibetan goals Gre often found in the sands of Turkestan, and several of them have been published by Stein.
As regards Buddhist Tibetan documents on paper, it is remarkable that many of them appear to be of rather modern origin. Several of those found at Khotcho, for instance, are written in modern orthography. We are led to believe, therefore, that even after the time of Tibetan government in Turkestan, the Tibetan form of Buddhism remained in the northern parts of the country. It must have existed up to the fourteenth century, for the modern orthography was introduced with the first publication of the bka. agyur (Kanjur), about A.D. 1300.
As regards the Lob-nor or Charchlik district, it is not yet possible to say anything definite with regard to politics. In the third century A.D. there appears & kingdom called Shan. shan and the names of five kings from there were discovered in Kush Ana documents by Rapeon and Lüders (Oxford Congress).
At the time of the Tibetan power, Lob-nor was apparently held by a tribe of 'A-zha (or Haža); whose identity has not yet become quite clear. F.W. Thomas believes them to be a separate branch of the Indo-Chinese family. Compare his article "The Ha-da," in JRA8., 1928.
(To be continued.) & The same mistake is found also in S. Ch. Das' Tibetan English Dictionary. The note on Phrom ge-ear was apparently taken from the same source.
