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Tibetan Documents concerning Chinese Turkestan. VI: The Tibetan Army
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
Under the rule of Buddhist ecclesiastics, fostered originally by foreign (Mongol) suzerains, Tibet has not been a military power. Probably no religion is more potent than Buddhism in damping the fighting spirit; of which developement Mongolia itself has in modern times afforded a signal example. The Tibetan people, though in some districts rough and turbulent, is not warlike: the brigand tribes of the northeast belong to a region which, since the overthrow (A.D. 1226) of the Tangut kingdom by Cingiz Khan, has been largely Mongolized, as even the geographical nomenclature proves, and which in native Tibetan times must have presented a quite different aspect. The Tibetan armies, when such are required, consist mainly of levies from the great monasteries; the creation of a small standing army in the most recent period has encountered prejudice.
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References
page 379 note 1 Barthold, , Turkestan, ed. 2, pp. 200, 202Google Scholar.
page 380 note 1 JRAS., 1909–1911.
page 380 note 2 JRAS., 1880, pp. 435–541.
page 380 note 3 2,860,000 men: another passage speaks of an army of a “hundred myriads”. The Chinese state that Sron-btsan Sgam-po threatened Ssechuan with an army of 200,000 men (Bushell, p. 444).
page 381 note 1 Ancient Khotan, pp. 430–4; Serindia, pp. 456 sqq., 1284 sqq.
page 384 note 1 Several of the names are cited, but as names of “provinces” and without identifications, on p. 46 of Dr. a. h. Francke's, “Notes on Sir Aurel Stein's Collection of Tibetan documents from Chinese Turkestan”, JRAS., 1914, pp. 37–59Google Scholar = Serindia, pp. 1460–6.
page 385 note 1 See infra, pp. 558, 562.
page 387 note 1 Note phyi-mahi-so (a. i, 0012) and so-slad-ma (a. iii, 0050) “later” or “subsequent” service; also khor-ziag (p. 398 and M.T., 001) “leave”.
page 387 note 2 According to the Chinese (Bushell, , JRAS., 1880, p. 442Google Scholar) “The [Tibetan] armour and helmet are very strong and cover the whole body, with holes for the eyes only”.
page 388 note 1 Several of these are noted (but ru-dpon as “master of a clan”) by Dr. A. H.Francke, op. cit., p. 44.
page 391 note 1 As suggested by Sir Aurel Stein in a note on p. 53 of DrFrancke's, A. H. above-cited paper (JRAS., 1914)Google Scholar. It should be mentioned that Dr. Francke takes hdrul-ba as = hgrul-ba, “the runner,” which, however, should be hdrul-ba-po. The sense of “post-runner” would indeed suit those passages where we seem to have the phrase hdrul-ba-la-rmas-pa, “inquired of the runner”: possibly “the post” is sometimes an equivalent of “the postman”.
page 393 note 1 In regard to the last two see Beal, , Buddhist Records of the Western World, i, pp. xci-iiGoogle Scholar, Life of Biuan-Tsang, p. 42.
page 393 note 2 See Francke, op. cit., pp. 50–1.
page 393 note 3 s here crossed out.
page 393 note 4 d here crossed out.
page 393 note 5 hpaṇ here crossed out.
page 395 note 1 stsi crossed out.
page 395 note 2 Below line.
page 396 note 1 h crossed out.
page 398 note 1 Compendious for gsol.