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Tibetan Documents concerning Chinese Turkestan. VII: Government and Social Conditions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
In regard to civil conditions in Chinese Turkestan the documents are not much more widely informative than in regard to other matters. The states along the northern trade route, Karashahr, Kuca, Aksu, Kashgar, although from about a.d. 675 they were dominated (not indeed occupied) by the Tibetans, appear to escape all mention; and this is the more regrettable as these states would seem from the culture objects recovered by archæological research to have enjoyed a rather fuller development of material civilization than those south of the desert. Their natural resources were not inferior, they were aligned along a more profitable route of trade and communication, they were less exposed to encroachment of the desert; their archæological remains are more extensive and better preserved. To these states, and to the Wu-sun people of the Tian-shan valleys, we have perhaps—unless the Khu chief (Khu Maṅ-po-rje) of the Tibetan Chronicle is really the Khu ruler of Kao-chang—not a single reference. The twin states of “Anterior” and “Posterior” Chü-shih, i.e. Turfan-Kao-chang and Gu-chen at the extreme east of the Tian-shan, do indeed seem to be indicated as goal of hostile expeditions (1931, pp. 821 sqq.). As has been made clear by Chavannes in Ancient Khotan, pp. 533–6, and Sir Aurel Stein, Innermost Asia, pp. 579–587, they maintained a precarious existence nearly to the end of the eighth century a.d., the Tibetans failing, despite their occupation of Kan-su, to secure possession of them either by diplomatic proposals to China or by force until the year a.d. 790.
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References
page 86 note 1 Bushell, , JRAS., 1880, pp. 453–4Google Scholar; Chavannes, , Tou-Kiue Occidentaux, pp. 179–182Google Scholar.
page 86 note 2 “Tun Huang Lu: Notes on the District of Tun-huang”: JRAS., 1914, pp. 703–728; 1915, pp. 41–7; “The Census of Tun-huang”, T'oung-pao, xvi, 1913, pp. 468–488Google Scholar; “A Chinese Geographical Text of the Ninth Century”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, vi, pp. 825–846Google Scholar.
page 87 note 1 Grenard in de Rhins, Dutreuil, La Haute Asie, ii, p. 61Google Scholar; followed by Hermann, A., Die alien Seidenstrassen, p. 76Google Scholar.
page 88 note 1 Abel-Rémusat, , Vitte de Khotan, p. 35Google Scholar.
page 88 note 2 Asia Major, ii, pp. 259–260.
page 88 note 3 Abel-Rémusat, op. cit., pp. 19, 28, 30–1.
page 88 note 4 Also a few districts in the vicinity of the capital with names ending in -ti (1930, p. 70).
page 88 note 5 Grenard, op. cit., pp. 58, 68; Chavannes, , Tou-Kiue Occidentaux, p. 125Google Scholar.
page 89 note 1 A. Khotan, p. 585, and Fa-hian, trans. Legge, p. 16. So, too, Hiuan-Tsang.
page 89 note 2 Hiuan-Tsang's figures are 5,000 and100; Fa-hian says “even several myriads”.
page 90 note 1 Similarly in Karashahr (Grenard, Dutreuil de Rhins, La Haute Asie, ii, p. 246)Google Scholar.
page 91 note 1 Journal Asiatique, XI, v, 1915, p. 191Google Scholar.
page 92 note 1 Beal, , Si-yu-ki, ii, p. 309Google Scholar.
page 92 note 2 Ancient Khotan, p. 143, n. 25.
page 92 note 3 Grenard, op. cit., ii, p. 31.
page 93 note 1 Giles, L., JRAS., 1914, pp. 705–6Google Scholar.
page 93 note 2 Bushell, , JRAS., 1880, p. 514Google Scholar: cf. supra, 1927, pp. 815–16.
page 93 note 3 Giles, L., Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, vol. vi, pp. 844–5Google Scholar.
page 93 note 4 Two Medieval Documents from Tun-huang, by Thomas, F. W. and Konow, Sten, Oslo, 1929Google Scholar.
page 93 note 5 It is not implied that prior to the Tibetan occupation no “Thousand districts” existed in Shan-shan. Elsewhere I hope to show that the toṃga of the Kharoṣṭhī documents was really a stoṅ-dpon.
page 94 note 1 L. Giles, op. cit., p. 834 (T'ien-tê Ch'êng); the Thianté-Kiun of Marco Polo, ed. Cordier, , i, p. 286Google Scholar.
page 95 note 1 Are they the Ling-hu and P'u-kuang of Documents Chinois, pp. 62,130 ?
page 96 note 1 Ancient Khotan, p. 569.
page 96 note 2 Forsyth, , Mission to Yarkund, p. 27Google Scholar. Cf. Grenard, op. cit., iii, p. 147.
page 97 note 1 See now Acta Orientalia, xii, pp. 68–70, where an endeavour is made to prove that chaṅ-kyur (chaṅ-kyir, caṅ khyir) = caṃkura corresponds to Sanskrit nagara-ralcṣa or nāgaraka.
page 98 note 1 This title occurs, along with naṅ-blon “councillor for internal affairs”, in the Lha-sa inscriptions (JRAS., 1911, p. 434).
page 99 note 1 I must not omit to give reasons for notaccepting the view, noticed previously (1927, p. 55), according to which źaṅ does not mean “uncle” but is a Chinese designation shang “chief”. This view is carefully stated in one of DrLaufer's, extraordinarily learned and valuable papers, Bird Divination among the Tibetans (T'oung-pao, 1914), pp. 103 sqq.Google Scholar, and reinforced in another (ibid., 1916, p. 430). At first sighttheargument seems conclusive: Dr. Laufer adduces a number of striking cases where the Tibetan zaṅ is represented in Chinese writingby shang. But let us first note some scruples: (1) if zaṅ were an adjective borrowed from Chinese, we should expect it to occur also in some other connections, whereas it appears only as a separate title or in the combination zaṅ-lon “zaṅ councillor”; (2) if zaṅ-lon means “chief councillor”, then the common phrase zaṅ-lon-chen-po “great chief councillor” is rather otiose; (3) in the Lha-sa ediets several ministers are called blon (or blon-po)-chen-po, and in some cases zaṅ follows, and this is an indication that the zaṅ here attaches not to that phrase, butto the personal name which it precedes. All this is smoothed away if we accept Waddell's original explanation (JRAS., 1910, p. 1274) of zaṅ-lon as “uncle minister”, meaning minister ofthe blood royal. The employment of shang in Chinese as a transliteration of zaṅ seems to have little bearing on the matter.
But really the most conclusive proof is supplied by some of Dr. Laufer's own examples. Three of these (pp. 74–8) are in the form naṅ-blon-Mchims-zaṅ “Interior Councillor Mchims-zaṅ”, phyi-blon-Hbro-zaṅ “Exterior Councillor Hbro-zaṅ”. Now Mchims and Hbro are both tribal names, and the form of the expressions is exactly parallel to Mchims-bza, Hbrobza, Tse-spoṅ-bza “Mchims wife”, “Hbro wife”, “Tse-spoṅ wife”, meaning [royal] wives from those tribes. Moreover, we have other similar appellations, e.g. Ma-zaṅ “maternal uncle” (Rgyal-rabs, foll. 32b, 5, 33b, 1–2, 3, 5 of the India Office copy) and Sna-nam-zaṅ-daṅ-Rgya-tsha “Sna-nam uncle and China grandson”, meaning that the person, whose name was Lha-snaṅ, was in avuncular relation to the Tibetan royal house and had a Chinese mother; cf. also the Hjaṅ-tsha-Lha.-dbaṅ who was a son of king Khri-lde-gtsug-brtan and had a Hjaṅ mother (JRAS., 1928, p. 85). I may also refer to the Dbon “nephew” Ha-zas noted above (1927, pp. 55–6). Preceding a personal name, zaṅ (also zaṅ-po, zaṅ-chen-po) is too common (1927, pp. 55, 59, 69; 1928, p. 72; 1930, p. 276; 1933, p. 398) to belocal.
page 102 note 1 Forsyth, , Mission to Yarkund, pp. 34, 102Google Scholar.
page 102 note 2 Chavannes, op. cit., pp. 107–8.
page 103 note 1 The gtan-ziṅ and dbaṅ-thaṅ of 1928, pp. 572–3, seem to mean “fixed allotments” and “special privileges” respectively.
page 103 note 2 Grenard, op. cit., ii, pp. 182–3, 212. Forsyth, op. cit., pp. 70–1.
page 105 note 1 Bushell, , JRAS., 1880, p. 469Google Scholar.
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page 107 note 2 Sir A. Stein, Serindia and Innermost Asia, s.v. burial.
page 111 note 1 See Ada Orientalia, xii, pp. 62–5.