Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Tibet
TIBET
Plate IV.TIBET,[1] Thibet, or Tübet, an extensive and highly elevated region in the heart of Asia, comprising tablelands ranging from 10,000 to 17,600 feet above sea-level. The Himalayan mountain ranges and the transverse ranges of upper Yun-nan constitute the southern scarp, Boundaries.the Yun-ling Mountains of China the eastern scarp, and aries. the Kuen-Lun (Kiun-Liin) ranges the northern scarp, towards Turkestan and Mongolia; on the west, where it narrows considerably, it merges into the Pamir tablelands. Its extreme length from east to west exceeds 1600 miles; its breadth from north to south ranges from 150 miles in the west to an average of 500 in central Tibet and a maximum of 700 in the east. The area of Tibet exceeds 700,000 square miles.
Much of Tibet is wholly abandoned to wild animals, and much is uncultivable and occupied only by various wan dering tribes of nomads. The centres of the settled and agricultural population lie to the south, in a region named Bod-yul (meaning Bod-land) by the inhabitants, who are called Bod-pas; by the Hindus it is called Bhot, and by the Chinese Si-tsang. The greater portion of this region is governed, under the supremacy of China, by lamas and gyalpos, ecclesiastical and lay Bod -pas, the principal seat of government being at Lhasa, the chief city of Bod-yul. Portions are subject to Kashmir and Nepal, and to independent chieftains, and portions are directly subject to China; but the Bod -pa ethnological element prevails more or less throughout. Tibet was long a terra incognita to Europeans. It is difficult of access on all sides, and everywhere difficult to traverse. Its great elevation causes the climate to be rather arctic than tropical, so that there is no gradual blending of the climates and physical conditions of India and Tibet, such as would tend to promote intercourse between the inhabitants of these neighbouring regions; on the contrary, there are sharp lines of demarcation, in a mountain barrier which is scalable at only a few points and in the social aspects and conditions of life on either side. No great armies have ever crossed Tibet to invade India; even those of Jenghiz Khan took the circuitous route via Bokhara and Afghanistan, not the direct route from Mongolia across Tibet. European travellers.Thus it was no easy matter for the early European travellers to find their way into and explore Tibet. Friar Odoric of Pordenone is supposed to have reached Lhasa circ. 1328, travelling from Cathay; three centuries afterwards the, Jesuit Antonio Andrada, travelling from India, entered Tibet on the west, in the Manasarowar Lake region, and made his way across to Tangut and north-western China; in 1661 Fathers Grueber and D'Orville travelled from Peking via Tangut to Lhasa, and thence through Nepal to India; and during the first half of the 18th century various Capu chin friars appear to have passed freely between Delhi and Lhasa, by way either of Nepal or Kashmir. The first Englishman to enter Tibet was George Bogle, in 1774, on an embassy from Warren Hastings to the tashi (teshu) lama of Shigatze. In 1811 Thomas Manning made his way from India to Lhasa; he is the only Englishman who has succeeded in reaching the sacred city, and he had soon to leave it. During the 19th century Europeans have been systematically prevented from entering the country or speedily expelled if found in it. In 1844-46 the French missionaries Hue and Gabet made their way to Lhasa from China, but were soon deported back again. In 1866 the Abb6 Desgodins travelled through portions of eastern Tibet and reached Chiamdo (in Kham), but was prevented from approaching any closer to Lhasa. Last of all the Russian Colonel Prejevalsky succeeded in exploring portions of northern Tibet, but was unable to penetrate southwards into Bodland.
Name. Tie-bu-te, T u-bo-te (llth cent.); in Mongolian, Tubet, Tobot; in Arabic Tubbet; Rabbi Benjamin (1165), Thibet; J. de Piano Carpini (1247), Thabet; Rubruquis (1253), Marco Polo (1298), Tebet; Ibn Batuta (1340), Thabat; Ibn Haukal (976), Al Biruui (1020), Odoric of Pordenone (c. 1328), Orazio della Penna (1730), Tibet. A Tibetan, arriving at Darchiendo from Lhasa, states that he comes from Teu-peu, meaning High or Upper Tibet, Stod-Bod in contradistinction to SmadBod or Lower Tibet. The former expression, were it supported by any ancient authority, might be regarded as the etymological origin of "Tibet"; historical evidence, however, seems to indicate another source. The state of which Lhasa is the capital is often called Deba jung " or " land of the Debas " (sdepa Ijongs). The title of the tepa lama is familiar. Chinese records say that the king of the country is called diba; and Joh. Grueber informs us that the king is styled deva or leva, and is descended from an ancient race of Tangut Tatars. The Chinese annals of the T ang dynasty record that Fanni Ttibat, the historical founder of a state in the east of Tibet in 433, gave to his dominion his surname of Tubat. This was a famous family name proper to several Tatar dynasties which ruled in the north and north west of China, and belonged to the Sien-pi race, in the language of which tubat meant "a coverlet." An appended legend stated that the fifth ancestor of Liluku, the founder of the southern Liang dynasty and family and father of Fanni, derived the surname of Tubat, which became that of his family, from the fact that he was born in a coverlet while his mother Huykshe was sleeping. However worthless the legend, there is complete similarity between the name of the Tubat or Tobat Tatars and that of Tibet, and we may with considerable safety take the latter word as derived from the former, the fact being that it was and is still extensively used in the sense of "great," "chief," among the Tatar tribes. Tibet, however, is not the name by which the modern Tibetans designate themselves and their country. Bod-pa, "a man of Bod," Bod-yul, "country of Bod," are the expressions in current use; but what "Bod" means is uncertain. Hodgson has maintained that before the arrival of Indian teachers the people had no name for themselves or their country, and the present Bod comes from the Sanskrit B 6t an opinion which, though inconsistent with the evidence collected about Tubat, is rather confirmed by a legendary account. According to that account, the country, which was occupied by a race of men not yet emerged from primitive bar barism, was originally called Bod-rgyal, i.e., "Bod's victory." The secpndary name then might be in its simple form Bod, a Buddhist appellative suggested by the Sanskrit homonyms of -bat or -b at, part of the name brought in by the Tatar conquerors. Anyhow there is no occasion for the other etymologies suggested, such as that from Buddha, or that proposed by Schiefner (t ub and pod, both meaning "able," "capable"). An old name for Tibet in the native books is Gdong-mar-gyi-yul, "country of the red-faced men," so called ap parently from the ancient national custom of painting the face red, a practice which was forbidden by King Srong-btsan at the instance of his wife Wan ch eng, a Chinese princess. Among the Mongols Tibet was simply called Barontala (the " right side"), in contradis tinction to Dzdntala (the "left side"), which was among them the name of Mongolia. In China, during the Yuan or Mongol dynasty, it was called Wei-sze-Tsang, in which we recognize the names of the two central provinces of Dblls (U) and Tsang. Khachi, Khache, Khaschi, Kashi, are various forms of a term which is often met with in books as applied to a part of the plateaus of Tibet, and which cannot without difficulty be identified in positive geography. We take it to be simply a revival of the old name of the Tangut or Hia kingdom, the Khashi or Khoshi of the Mongols (982-1227), on the north-east of Tibet, on the west of the Hoaug-ho, whence Ho-si in Chinese history, and per haps the origin of the name. In the llth century Milaraspa made use of the term K ache for Mussulman; Hue and Gabet have reported the use of the same expression in the central provinces with a similar acceptation. A popular etymology has confounded it with the words K a-che for K a-chen, literally "big mouth," which is now supposed to be its meaning when applied co Mohammedans. Kashmir is also called K a-che, from the fact that it is under Mohammedan rule, says Jaeschke; but, as this has been the case only since 1605, there is great probability that here the term is simply used as an abridged form of Kashmir. (T. de. L.)
Maps.Geographers have long been in possession of maps of Tibet, compiled from surveys executed early in the 18th century by lamas, under instructions from the Jesuit fathers who made a survey of China for the emperor Kang-he. The lamas maps were the basis of D Anville's Atlas, published in 1733, and were employed by Klaproth in constructing his map of Asia in 1824; but they are generally very meagre, only reliable in the vicinity of the principal roads, and occasionally very misleading. They must have been compiled at best from rude estimates of distance and direction, and in some parts from mere hearsay or conjecture. They are, how ever, supposed to have been based on astronomical determinations of position; but this is improbable, for the latitudes of such im portant places as Lhasa and Batang are 30 to 60 miles in error. Our knowledge of the geography of the country is complete only for portions of western Tibet, which are subject to the maharajah of Kashmir, and have been regularly surveyed. This knowledge has been largely supplemented during the last twenty years by the work of natives of India the so-called trans-Himalayan explorers of the Indian Survey, notably Pandits Nain Singh and Krishna (A K) who have been trained to carry route surveys through regions which they may, but Europeans may not, enter.
Geographical divisions.Tibet is commonly divided into two parts called Great and Little Tibet, the former lying between 102 and 79 divisions. E long? the latter between 79 and 74. Great Tibet is broadly divisible into a western region, in which there is a considerable preponderance of tableland over hill and mountain and of lake basins over river basins, and an eastern region, in which the reverse holds good and the surface of the ground is so greatly corrugated that the natives call it rong-rtsub, " a rough country full of ravines." In Little Tibet the Himalayas converge towards the KuenLun, and the breadth of the plateau meridionally diminishes to less than a fourth of what it attains in Great Tibet. The entire region may be broadly divided into three longi tudinal zones, increasing in elevation from south to north, viz., a southern zone, which contains the centres of the settled and agricultural population; a middle zone, com prising the pasture lands of the Bod-pa nomads; and a northern zone, for the most part abandoned to wild animals, but partly occupied by tribes of Turkic and Mongolian nomads. The southern and middle zones comprise Bodland proper and are divided into four provinces, viz., Nari (Ngari, Ari) on the west, between 74 and 85 E. long.; Kham, otherwise Do-Kham, on the east, between 92 30 and 102; and in the centre, Tsang, adjoining Nari, and U or Us (otherwise Y or Wei), adjoining Kham; the two central provinces are commonly called U-tsang, as one. A considerable belt of the middle zone is known as the Hor country. The middle and northern zones embrace the greater portion of the region known to Bod-pas as the Chang-tang (Byan-tang, Jan-tang) or "Northern Plain," which, however, protrudes southwards and abuts upon the Himalayas from 80 to 85 E. long., thus interposing a nomad population between the settled populations to the east and the west. The northern zone merges on the west into the Pamir tablelands.
TablelandThe tableland of Tibet attains its maximum elevation, 17,600 feet above sea-level, on the 79th meridian, in the Lingzi-tang plateau of the northern zone; thence there is a gradual fall east, west, and south, the plateau level on the 97th meridian being about 13,500 feet in the northern zone and 10,000 in the southern. Between the 82d and 90th meridians the northern zone is known only from the maps of the lamas survey, which indicate a sur face slightly corrugated with hills and containing numerous lakes, some of great size, but no rivers of importance.
Rivers. The river basins in this zone apparently commence to the east of the 90th meridian and from them issue the Di-chu[2] (Chinese Kin-sha-kiang), whose headwaters unite at Di-chu Rab-dun, in 94 30 E. long.; the Chiamdo river or Lan-tsan-kiang; the Hoang-ho, in about 96, which flows through the Kiaring and Orin lakes (13,500 feet above the sea and each exceeding 80 miles in circum ference) and passes northwards out of Tibet through the Kuen-Lun; and the Ja-chu or Yalung-kiang, also in about 90 E. long., which flows southwards through eastern Tibet. In the middle zone a system of lakes on the 90th meridian gives birth to the Nag-chu, which becomes the Sok-chu and lower down the Giama-Nu-chu known to the Chinese as the Lu-tse-kiang and, trending southwards, winds round the eastern extremity of the Himalayas. In the lower zone the Indus and the Yaro-tsanpo rise on either side of the 82d meridian and flow in opposite direc tions parallel to the Himalayas, and then, passing through openings in those mountains twenty degrees apart in longi tude, enter India on the extreme east and west. The Lohit Brahmaputra rises behind the eastern Himalayas and flows south-westwards into India. The Giama-Nu-chu, Chiamdo-chu, and Di-chu flow southwards into Burma and Yun nan, through closely contiguous valleys between a system of meridional ranges which project as spurs from the Tibetan plateau. West of 82 a single water-parting between north and south that of the Mus-tagh and Karakoram, some times called the Turkic separates Indo- Tibetan from Turko- Tibetan waters; east of that meridian there are longitudinal water-partings between the basins of the several rivers already mentioned.
Himalayan region.The Himalayan Mountains, which constitute so considerable a portion of the southern scarp of Tibet, consist of a succession of longitudinal chains, running in general parallel to each other along the glacis of the plateau. These chains are much higher on their southern than on their northern faces, and are connected in some parts by trans verse ridges, but in other parts are broken and interrupted by fissures and valleys. The principal chain is the one of high peaks covered with perpetual snow which culminates in Mont Everest, 29,000 feet above the sea. This chain may be regarded as the geographical boundary between Tibet and India. In some parts it is the water-parting; but at the several points where its continuity is broken the water-parting recedes to an inner chain on the plateau, and basins are formed between the two chains, the waters of which descend in rivers to the plains of India. The plateau is a region of plains and wide open valleys of little depth; the scarp is a region of mountains and narrow confined valleys of great depth. The narrow valleys of the scarp, being lower, are warmer and more favourably adapted for cultivation than the broad valleys of the plateau.
Cháng-táng and rong.Higher than these last are the plains of the Chang-tang, which are, for the most part, too high and cold for any but pastoral uses. All such tracts the inhabitants call chdng-tdng, though the word strictly signifies "the Northern Plain "; and all tracts which contain valleys warm enough for cultivation they call rong (signifying a ravine or narrow valley or cleft in a hill), but more par ticularly the lower and warmer valleys which produce crops twice in the year; the word is also commonly em ployed to indicate a warm country. The alluvial beds in the valleys are composed of the debris of the surrounding rocks, laid out in horizontal deposits, which in course of time have become furrowed into gigantic ravines with a succession of narrow terraces in steps on each flank. It is on the existing lower alluvial beds and the remnants of higher beds that cultivation is carried on, in plots which are usually well watered and very fertile. The sharp needle-peaks, which are highest of all and bare of soil, but covered with perpetual snow, are met with most frequently in tracts of rong, and the rounded hills coated with grass to altitudes sometimes exceeding 16,000 feet in tracts of chang-tang. The forest-clad mountain slopes which are occasionally met with occur chiefly in the rong. The general direction of the hill and mountain chains is east and west, but north-west and south-east in western Tibet, north-east and south-west in the province of U, and north and south in eastern Tibet. The peaks rise in many parts to between 20,000 and 25,000 feet in the Mus-tagh range to 28,250 above the sea-level, but rarely to more than 10,000, and often to not more than a few hundred, feet above the general level of the plateaus from which they spring. The principal water-partings in some dis tricts follow the crests of low ridges and gentle undulations which are of barely appreciable elevation above the surface of the ground.
Nári.Nári, the western province of Bodland, is divided into Nari. the sub-provinces of Ladak and Balti on the west, between 75 and 79" E. long., now a part of Kashmir; Khorsum, between 79° and 82°, conterminous with the Himalayan provinces of British India; and Mang-yul or Dokthol, between 82° and 87°, conterminous with western Nepal. The last two are under the government of Lhása. Western Nári is bounded on the south by that portion of the Himalayan chain of snow-peaks which stretches in almost a direct line north-west from the Manasarowar Lake region to the Nanga Parbat peak (26,620 feet), at first facing the plains of the Punjab, then passing north of Kashmir. The provinces appertaining to Kashmir have already been described in the article Ladak and Balti (q.v.). The Karakoram chain, although its principal pass is 18,500 feet above sea-level, nowhere rises very high above the tableland. It constitutes a portion of the water-parting between India and Turkestan, separating the Lingzi-tang plateau, the highest in all Tibet, from the broad and open valley of Cháng-chenmo; it has been traced eastwards to the meridian of 82°, but no farther.
Khorsum.Khorsum is mainly cháng-táng, but has some upland cultivation round the capital, Rudok, and in the Gartang valley, and lowland cultivation in the rong of the great plateau (120 miles long by 15 to 60 broad) of Guge or Hundes, the upper basin of the Sutlej. In this province lie, within the small area of a square degree, the sources of four great rivers—the Indus, the Yaro-tsanpo, the Sutlej, and the Karnali—the sacred lakes of Manasarowar and Rakas Tal, 15,300 feet above the sea and each 50 miles in circumference, and two famous mountains, Nimo Namling (25,360 feet) to the south, believed by the Tibetans to be their highest mountain, and to the north the sacred Kailas Gangri (21,830 feet), the Kantysee of the lamas survey. From the Kailas Gangri a chain of hills stretches to the north-west, separating the upper basins of the Sutlej and the Indus; to the north of that another chain, running east and west, culminates in the Aling Gangri peaks (24,000 feet) and separates the Indus basin from the Pangong Lake (100 miles long, from 3 to 7 broad, and 14,000 feet in altitude), near which Rudok is situated. Roads pass from Ladak to Lhása through the plains of Rawang and Sarthol, the gold-fields of Thok Jalung and Thok Daurakpa, and the Hor country.
Mang-yul or Dokthol.Mang-yul, or Dokthol, contains the upper basins of the Yaro-tsanpo—here known as the Nári-chu—and its principal affluents, the Cha-chu and the Charta-tsanpo. The province is wholly Cháng-táng and its population nomadic, the capital, Sarka Jong, being merely a good-sized village.
U-tsang.The common border of the provinces of Nári and Tsáng falls nearly on the 87th meridian. Here the Cháng-táng recedes from the Himalayas, and its southern scarp, trending north-east, forms the upper fringe of tracts appertaining to U-tsáng that are capable of producing a single crop annually. The Yaro-tsanpo.This region constitutes the most important portion of the basin of the Yaro-tsanpo, for it contains the chief towns and monasteries of the settled Bod-pas. Cultivation commences on a slight scale where the river enters Tsáng on the west. The first town of any importance is Junglache (13,600 feet), on the right bank, with a large monastery. Thence goods may be taken down the river for some distance by boats of leather over a wooden framework, light enough to be carried back overland. Eighty-five miles lower down, also on the right bank, are the city of Shigatze or Digarchi (12,000 feet) and the great monastery of Tashilunpo (Teshu-Lumbo), the residence of the "tashi lama," one of two spiritual incarnations of equal rank, of which the other, the "dalai lama," resides at Lhasa; the monastery contains 3500 lamas. Between Junglache and Shigatze the river receives the Raka-tsanpo from the cháng-táng on its left, and the Sákya-Jong-chu from that on its right. The latter descends from the Himalayan water-parting past the monastery of Sákya (13,900 feet), which is surrounded by cultivation and governed by a chief lama called the "sákya-gángma," who is held in considerable reverence as an avatar. At Shigatze the Yaro-tsanpo receives the Pena-Nyang-chu from a valley to the south-east which contains the towns of Pena-jong and Gyangtse-jong (13,000 feet), and numerous monasteries and villages, and through which passes the main road from Bhutan to Shigatze travelled by Bogle in 1774. A little lower down it receives from the left the Shiang-chu, which rises in the Ninchen-thangla range and flows past the town of Namling (12,200 feet, 200 houses), where sheep are employed as baggage animals, the country being too cold for donkeys and the roads too stony for yaks. Then at Shangpa (Jagsa) it receives from the right the Rong-chu from the famous Yamdok-tso or Scorpion Lake to the south-east. This lake is 120 miles in circumference, 13,800 feet above the sea, and is surrounded by villages and monasteries; its scorpion claws embrace a peninsula which rises above 16,000 feet, is grass-grown to its summit, and embosoms the Damo-tso, a sacred lake, 24 miles round and 500 feet above the main lake, which is expected some day to rise and destroy all animal life by a flood. Here the roads from India via Bhutan and from Shigatze to Lhása converge, and after crossing the Khamba-lá (15,000 feet) strike the Yaro-tsanpo at Chiak-jam-chori ( = "the iron bridge at the rocky bank"). The river in its course from Shangpa down to this point is unnavigable, passing over rapids between precipitous hills; there is no road on either bank. A little below the bridge it receives from the left the Ki-chu, the river of Lhása (q.v.), the chief city of Bodland. Below the junction of the Ki-chu the Yaro-tsanpo continues its eastward course through a broad and well-peopled valley. It is crossed at Chetang by a ferry on the road from Lhása to Tawang in Bhutan via the Yarlung-chu valley (right bank), which is said to be the pleasantest and most populous in Tibet; fruits grow in profusion at its lower extremity and the hills are forest-clad. At Chetang the river is 350 yards broad, 20 feet deep, and 11,000 feet above the sea, and has a sluggish current. On crossing the meridian of 92° 30′ E. it passes out of the province of U into that of Khám and enters its eastern basin. Eastern basin of Yaro-tsanpo.After traversing the Eastern Kongbo (Khombo) district, it trends north-east for 100—miles in general parallel with the contiguous Kongbo Yar ranges and the distant Ninchen-thangla—and on reaching 94° turns abruptly to the south. Its course has been explored 20 miles below the bend, to Gya-la-Sindong (8000 feet), but no farther. The basin is bounded on the north and east by the continuous plateaus of Lharugo, Arig, Pemba and Lhojong, Pashu, Dainsi, and Nagong, and on the south by the inner Himalayan water-parting. Numerous tributaries join the river from both sides, but little is known of them. Those from Kongbo, Lharugo, and Arig are said to unite and join it a little above Gya-la-Sindong, and one from Nagong a little below. This last rises near the Ata-Gang-lá, a pass over the Himalayas between the Nagong plateau and the Zayul district, and is said to be on the direct road from Lhása to Zayul via Gya-la-Sindong; it is probably joined by the Kenpu river of the lamas' survey, which rises in the southern scarp of the Pemba-Lhojong plateau and probably flows through the Potod and Pomed districts of Khám. The independent Lhoyul country lies to the south of the Nagong-chu (lit. "black water"). The region is generally of a comparatively low elevation, is said to have much more of rong than of cháng-táng, and probably contains much more forest and luxuriant vegetation than any other part of Tibet north of the Himalayas.
Lower Yaro-tsanpo. The lower course of the Yaro-tsanpo has long been a matter of controversy between English and French geographers: the former have maintained, in accordance with information from natives of Tibet and Assam, that it enters the Assam valley and is the principal source of the Brahmaputra river, of which the Lohit Brahmaputra river is the eastern source; the latter have maintained, on the authority of Chinese geographers, that it flows into Burma and is the principal source of the Irawadi river. But now its eastern basin has been explored, and the Lohit Brahmaputra has been found to have its sources in a range bordering the Giama-Nu-chu; the Yaro-tsanpo must therefore necessarily pass into Assam, and measurements of the discharges of the principal rivers entering Assam from the north conclusively identify it with the Dihong. That river, which receives the Lohit Brahmaputra a little below Sadiya (450 feet above the sea), has been explored upwards into the Himalayas to a point within 100 miles of Gya-la-Sindong; but as yet nothing is known of the connecting channel, except that it must have a fall of about 7000 feet, or as much as the entire fall of the Yaro-tsanpo in its upper course of 900 miles.
South Tibetan basins.The Tibetan basins to the south of the Yaro-tsanpo which are included between the Himalayan chains of water-parting and of high snow-peaks are the Bheri, the Kali Gandak, and the Buria Gandak, subject to Nepal; then the following, which are subject to Lhása:—(1) the Tirsuli Gandak, on the direct road from Kathmandu to Dokthol via Kirong (9700 feet); (2) the Bhotia Kosi, through which the road from Kathmandu to Shigatze passes via Nilam Jong or Kuti (13,900 feet) into (3) the Arun-Barun basin, 120 miles by 30, which embraces the Dingri Maidan and Shikar Jong plateaus and the great Chomto Dong Lake (14,700 feet); this same road, after passing Sikkim and western Bhutan, where the chain of high snow-peaks, including Kanchinjinga (27,815 feet), is the water-parting, traverses (4) the Lhobra, (5) the Cha-yul, and (6) the Mon-yul basins, which are also crossed by the road between Chetang and Tawang. East of the 93d meridian the height of the peaks of the outer Himalayan chain falls to about 15,000 feet; the inner line of water-parting recedes northwards, and with it the boundary of Lhása rule. The included basins are occupied by independent semi-savage tribes,—Miris, Abors, Mishmis, &c.; but about the 97th meridian Lhása rule again asserts itself. The mountains again rise to a great height in the Nechin-Gangra range, the eastern most Himalaya, which terminates about the 98th meridian in spurs thrown off to the north and south, parting the waters of the Lohit Brahmaputra and the Giama-Nu-chu. The southern spur bends westwards in horse-shoe fashion round the Zayul basin, and then merges into the range which separates upper Assam and eastern Bengal from Burma. Lhása rule extends over Zayul, and for a short distance down the valley of the Giama-Nu-chu, embracing some tracts which lie outside the geographical limits of Tibet, as lower Zayul, where the elevation falls below 4000 feet and the climate is so warm that criminals are sent there from Lhása as a punishment.
The Giama-Nu-chu is called by the Chinese the Lu-kiang or Lu-tse-kiang. Its course is known down to about 27° 30′ N. lat., a few marches below Bonga, on the left bank, where the Abbé Desgodins established a mission station temporarily; but nothing certain is known of its lower course. It is generally believed to be identical with the Salwin river, which the Chinese also call the Lu-kiang; but the similarity of name is not conclusive of identity, for the Lu country covers a large area, and its name may be given to a second river rising among the Ly-su and Lu-tse tribes to the south. Nothing certain is known of the Salwin above 25° N. lat.; where it is crossed on the road from Tali-fu to Bamo, it is almost certainly of too small a volume to have its sources farther off than, say, 250 miles in the southern Tibetan scarp, and not far away in the heart of Tibet. There is a considerable probability that the Giama-Nuchu is the source of the Irawadi, and thus that Chinese geographers have been right in assigning a Tibetan origin to that river, though wrong in identifying it with the Yaro-tsanpo.
Eastern plateaus.The Dayul plateau, with the lofty mountains of Kokarpo to the north near Dayul (11450 feet) and Dokela to the south near Bonga, lies between the Giama Nu-chu and the Chiamdo or Lan-tsan-kiang; the latter river is believed to become the Mekong of Cambodia. The Ou-kio river of the Abb6 Desgodins rises in an important valley between the Giama-Nu and Chiamdo rivers and, flowing past Dayul, joins the former above Bonga. Next comes the Makham plateau, between the Chiamdo and the Di-chu, of which the chief town (11,900 feet) is called Gartok by Tibetans and Kiangka by Chinese. East of the Di-chu or Kin-shakiang lie the plateaus of Batang, Litang, and Darchendo, which, though geographically and ethnologically Tibetan, are directly under China. The last two are separated by the Ja-chu, which is known as the Yalung in its southerly course to join the Kin-sha; the united streams flow east wards through China as the Yang-tse-kiang or Blue river.
Western Hor country.The western Hor country lies to the north, on the direct Western route between Ladak and Lhasa; it is a region of extensive Hor grassy plains and numerous lakes, some of great size, and countr y occasional hill ranges, which, though often snow-covered, are of no great elevation above the tableland. It is in habited by nomads—Cháng-pas of local origin and Khampas from the east—and occasional communities of golddiggers and of traders in salt and borax, which are plentifully found on the margins of the lakes. Thok Daurakpa (15,300 feet), the centre of a large gold-field, is the chief settlement. Within a remarkable basin, surrounded by high hills and enclosing the great Dangra-Yum Lake and a cluster of small but well-built villages, Ombo, are lands which produce a profusion of barley at an altitude of 15,200 feet, a unique instance of cultivation at so great a height, no other cultivation occurring within 300 miles on either side. The Tengri-nur or Nam-cho, 150 miles in circumference and 15,350 feet above the sea, lies to the north-west of Lhása; and beyond it there is said to be a still larger lake, the Chargut-cho, and numerous smaller lakes, to one or more of which the sources of the Giama-Nu-chu may perhaps be traced, though as a rule the lakes in this region have no outlet. The Ninchen-thangla range lies between the Tengri-nur and Lhása; it is considered by some writers to rival the Himalayas, but is probably not more than 300 miles long nor anywhere higher than 24,000 feet above the sea.
The Cháng-táng.The Cháng-táng attains its greatest width (over 500 miles) on the meridian of 85°; north of Lhása it contracts to 400 miles, and is probably narrowest (140 miles) on the meridian of 97°. It is covered to a very considerable extent, probably everywhere below 16,000 feet, with a succulent grass, which forms from May to August the softest of green carpets and furnishes an abundance of green pasture. Willow and tamarisk are occasionally met with on the margins of the lakes; but as a rule there is little wood or scrub of any kind, and cultivation only in very exceptional localities, such as Ombo. Myriads of wild animals—chiefly the yak and the antelope, but also the ass and the camel—roam over the entire region, but mostly congregate in the uninhabited northern portion; their argols furnish a plentiful supply of fuel, without which it would be impossible for travellers to cross the country, as there are stretches of hundreds of miles in which no other fuel is procurable. As the Cháng-táng narrows to the east, its surface becomes corrugated with chains of low hills. Here too there is more marsh land than on the west: the Odontala plateau at the sources of the Hoang-ho river is described by Prejevalsky as one vast bog in summer, during the prevalence of the south-west monsoon from the Indian Ocean. The openings between the meridional hill ranges to the south permit the rain clouds to pass up to much higher latitudes before discharging their moisture than on the west, where they are faced by the great longitudinal ranges of the Himalayas.
The Kuen-Lun range.The Kuen-Lun has been identified, geologically, by Stoliczka, as far west as the Victoria Lake on the great Pamir, in 74°E. long.; it has been surveyed between 77° and 82°, where it rises to more than 22,000 feet, and towers above the plains of eastern Turkestan. To the east it is known for some distance as the Toguz-Davan (Eleven Passes) range; Prejevalsky observed a prominent peak (Jingri, 20,000 feet) on the 90th meridian, east of which successive portions are known as the Angirtakshia, Shuga, Namohon, Burkhan Budha, and Dzun-mo-Lun ranges. The rivers flowing north through openings in the Kuen-Lun are generally small, with the exception of the Hoang-ho. East of the 85th meridian the Kuen-Lun constitutes the chord of an arc formed by the Altin Tagh, Nan-shan, and Kokonur ranges, which project northwards and border the plains of the Lob-nur region and the Chinese province of Kansuh; several hill ranges and some great plateaus notably those of Chaidam or Tsaidam are comprised between the arc and the chord, and the region generally is closely allied to Tibet in its physical aspects. Occasional peaks rise to considerable altitudes and are covered with perpetual snow; the plateaus form a succession of steps ascending from the plains of Gobi to the Tibetan plateau.
Darchiendo, called Ta-chien-lu by the Chinese, on the extreme eastern boundary of Tibet, is the principal emporium of the trade between that country and China. Thence two important roads lead to Lhasa, one called the Jung-lam or "official road" (935 miles long), the other the Chang-lam or "northern road" (890 miles). The former, which is the more direct, is the post road and that by which officials travel between Lhasa and Peking; but it crosses much rugged and difficult country. The other is preferred by traders, as being less difficult and less harassed by officials, and mostly passing over plains with an abundance of pasture for their baggage animals. The former has long been known from the published travels of Hue and Gabet and the embassies from Nepal to China, and its eastern section, from Batang to Darchiendo, has been traversed by several Europeans of late years. The latter lies in regions in eastern Tibet into which no European has yet penetrated, but which were recently crossed by Pandit Krishna from north to south; they belong to the province of Kham, which appears to be split up into a number of districts, each governed by its own gyalpo or chieftain, who in some instances is subject to Lhasa, in others to China, but not unfrequently is independent of both. Darchiendo itself lies in the Minia (Miniak) district, from which the Changlam passes through a succession of petty districts, Tau, Dango, Dau, and Rongbacha or Horko, skirting Niarong (Gyarung?). The inhabitants of this last are said to have conquered the neighbouring districts and to have even braved the Chinese, but at last to have been won over to Lhasa by bribery. Rongbacha lies in the valley of the Ja-chu and contains the large town and monastery of Kanzego (2500 houses, 2000 lamas; 10,200 feet above the sea). Beyond it lies, in the valley of the Di-chu, the district of Dar-ge (De-gue), said to be one of the richest and most populous in all Tibet, con taining towns in which the best jewellery, saddlery, guns, and swords are manufactured. The Chang-lam passes through Dar-ge up to Kegudo (11,800 feet), where it meets roads over the Changtang from Chaidam on the north and the Koko-nur district in the north-east. Very little is known of the country between the Changlam and the frontiers of China; it is called Sifan or " the country of the western barbarians " by the Chinese; to the north are the districts of Chiamogolok and Banakhasum, inhabited by marauding tribes, and lower down are the Amdo and Thochu districts, on the borders of tracts occupied by the Manchu tribes of Sze-chuen (China). From Kegudo the Chang-lam trends westwards over the eastern Hor country, all chang-tang, for 300 miles. The route has not yet been explored, but probably passes through the pasturelands of the Sok-pas; on reaching Lake Chomora it turns south wards, then passes the monastery of Shiabden (14,930 feet), a notable resting-place for caravans, crosses the lower scarp of the Chang-tang by the Lani pass (15,750 feet), and finally descends into the Lhasa plateau.
Official road from east to west. The Jung-lam or official road from Darchiendo passes through road Litang (13,400 feet; 2500 houses) and Batang (8150 feet; 2000 from east houses) to Gartok or Kiangka, crossing en route the Yalung and to west. Kin-sha rivers; thence it proceeds up the valley of the Chiamdochu or Lan - tsan - kiang, and has been traversed by the Abbe Desgodins via Dayag (his Tchraya) to Chiamdo (his Tchamouto). He says, " To get an idea of the configuration of the ground let any one take a sheet of parchment, crumple it in his hands into many creases, and then spread it out on a table, and he will obtain a map in relief, furrowed with depressions and steep slopes and presenting very little flat surface. " Chiamdo is the chief town of the province of Kham, and, being considered a point of great strategic importance, is strongly garrisoned; it has a large monas tery, containing 3000 lamas. It is situated at the junction of two rivers, which are frozen in winter; but in summer the valleys are highly cultivated. Thence the Jung-lam proceeds south-west to the bridge of Shang-ye-Jam (Kia-yu-kiao) over the Giama-Nu-chu here called the Sok river and then ascends to Lhojong (13,140 feet) the Lourondson of the lamas survey where it is joined by the road from Gartok via Zayul and Nagong. It then trends westwards over the plateaus already mentioned as bordering the eastern basin of the Yaro-tsanpo, passes occasional small villages, monasteries, and lakes, crosses two lofty passes the Nub-Gang-la (17,940 feet) and the Tola-la (17,350 feet) descends to the little town of Giamda (10,900 feet) in Kongbo, and, passing out of Kham into U, enters the Lhasa plateau. From the capital it is continued over a distance of about 900 miles to the western limits of Khorsum, crossing the Yaro-tsanpo at the Chiak-jam-chori bridge and recrossing at Junglache, midway passing through Shigatze; it then tra verses a great breadth of chang-tang and crosses the meridional water-parting at the Muriam-la (15,500 feet). There are twentyfive staging places called tarjums, from 20 to 70 miles apart, be tween Lhasa and Rudok, with accommodation sometimes houses, but more generally tents for about 200 men; they are under the charge of a jalno, who is bound to provide yaks and other beasts of burden and horses for carrying the mails, impressing them from the nomads encamped near the tarjums. The road is generally well defined: loose stones are cleared away in the narrow defiles, and piles of stones, surmounted by flags on sticks, are erected at places on the open stretches of tableland where the track is liable to be lost.
The climate of Tibet differs greatly in different parts and at Climate, different seasons of the year. In western Tibet the frost is perma nent from October to April, and the lakes and rivers down to 8000 feet are frozen every winter; at 15,000 feet the thermometer falls below the freezing-point every night; and at 20,000 feet there is probably perpetual frost in the shade. The mean monthly tempera tures and ranges of temperature, embracing from six to ten years observations at the meteorological observatory at Leh (in 34 10 N. lat., height 11,540 feet), are as follows in degrees Fahrenheit:
lt;o to .d Z tf d i H 3 c a 3 d
o M a & | S i i % &
8 a i Jan. . . 18-0 28 -5 April 42 -0 31 -0 July 61-1 31-2 Oct. 41-3 30 -5 Feb. .. 21-0 30 -0 May 48 -6 30 l Aug. .V.I -li 31-3 Nov. 32 2 20 7 March 32 -0 28-0 June 56 4 31-8 Sept. 52 -8 31-4 Dec. 24 8 25 -2
At Lhása (in 29° 39′N. lat., height 11,800 feet) the mean temperatures observed by the pandits were 36° in February and March and 61° in June and July. Southern Tibet is described as being delightful in summer, the land covered with vegetation, streams flowing in every valley, and all nature bright, sparkling, and fresh. But in winter snow and frost reign supreme; all vegetation is dried up; the lakes and rivers are frozen; the roads and footpaths are paved with ice; and cold cutting winds sweep across the surface of the land. In northern Tibet Prejevalsky found "a terrible climate" in summer at 14,000 feet: in the second half of May wintry snowstorms were not unfrequent and the frost by night reached -9° Fahr.; and in June and July there were frosts (23° Fahr.) every clear night. In the winter the cold is intense; Hue and Gabet, crossing the Di-chu river in 1846, found a great herd of yaks entombed in ice, the river having frozen whilst they were swimming across. (J. T. W.)
Industry, Trade, and Government.
Industry.The industrial arts are at a somewhat low ebb, though in metal-founding the natives display a certain amount of ability and taste. Their statues and small bells are, however, only copies of Indian models. They use the iron from their mines, which is very good, for making excellent blades for sabres and other weapons. They are very fond of precious stones, but do not know how to work them. Their chief industries are connected with wool, the great and inexhaustible staple of the country. Weaving is generally the work of women. The cloth usually employed for summer garments is the Iwa-wa, which is dyed with madder or indigo, and sold in pieces eight or ten inches in width and about twelve yards in length. Another sort of cloth largely sold is the chro or p rug, of a better quality of wool, finer and thicker, which is often manu factured in Dblls (U), whence it is sometimes called Dblls p rug; it is generally dyed dark red. Terma is a superior kind of thin woollen cloth, a flannel-like fabric, dyed dark red, of which there are two sorts, le-t er, made of shawl wool, and bal-t er, of common wool. Sag-lad is for fine cloth made of fine shawl wool (le-na); and snam-bu is a woollen cloth, very coarse and loosely woven, the common sort of which is not dyed.
Trade.Every Tibetan is more or less a trader. Officers for the superintendence of trade, called garpons, are appointed by the king, the ministers, and the great lamaserais. The import and export traffic is carried on by caravans, which, according to the route and its difficulty, employ yaks or sheep. The two great markets are Shigatze (or Digarchi) and Lhasa, where the caravans arrive in December and January from China and Mongolia, Kham and Sze-chuen, Bhutan, Sikkim, and Nepal, Kashmir and Ladak. Of the four principal trade routes the two which start from Darchiendo have been mentioned above (p. 342). The third route, 915 miles in length, starting from Si-ning in Kan-su (China), runs along the Koko-nur to Jun, thence to Di-chu Rab-dun, crosses the homo, or lower Dangla, and proceeds via Giaro and Lake Chomora to Lhasa; this route, which is forbidden to the Chinese, is less frequented than the others because of the numerous bands of robbers infesting the country towards Si-ning. Much more im portant is the route which comes from the west, with Leh as its starting point; it runs via Gartok, Lake Manasarowar, Muriam pass, Tadom, and Shigatze to Lhasa. Like the other caravans, the yearly one which follows this route stops several times on the way for local fairs; the districts passed through are compelled to fur nish it with 300 yaks for carrying goods and to provide food for the travellers. The centres for Tibetan trade on the borders are for Mongolia and north China, Si-ning; for Sze-chuen, Darchiendo; and in Assam, Davangiri and Udalguri, where there is a great fair twice a year in connexion with the Tawang route. Darjiling is the central mart for the Chumbi valley trade,[3] Patna for that passing through Nepal, and Leh and Kashmir in the west. From China come silks of all varieties (Buddhist prejudice not permitting the Tibetans to rear silk-worms and kill them), carpets, and hardware; from Mongolia leather, saddlery, sheep, and horses; from Kham perfume; from Sze-chuen brick tea (some six millions of pounds annually; tea in leaf is not in use in Tibet); from Tawang, Bhutan, and Sikkim rice and tobacco; from Nepal broadcloth, silk, indigo, coral, pearls, sugar, spices, and Indian manufactures; from Ladak and Kashmir saffron and Indian commodities. Silver and gold are the most important articles of export; then follow salt, wool, woollen manufactures, furs, drugs, and musk. By the Nepal and Ladak routes Tibet exports large quantities of yaks tails, borax, gold, silver, and ponies. In 1882-83 the total exports to India amounted to 58,322 (Punjab 17,710, North-West Provinces and Oudh 40,612). The imports into Tibet reached 24,197 (1530 from Punjab, 22,667 from North-West Provinces and Oudh). The principal exports were borax (17,222), salt (13,978), wool and woollen goods (4936). The imports included grain (13,587), cotton goods (2875), and sugar (2395). In 1883-84 the export of borax had increased by 12,329 maunds (about 453 tons), that of wool and woollen goods by 2244 maunds (82 tons), while the ex ports of salt had decreased by 572 maunds (21 tons). The whole of the increase in borax is in the trade with Kumaun, and in weight it is almost double the increase in the export of rice from that district, for which it is bartered in Tibet, the usual rate of exchange being two of borax to one of rice. The total excess of the value of exports over imports amounted to nearly two lakhs of rupees. In 1885-86 the value of the wool and woollen stuffs exported rose from 4300 to 8800. These figures, however, convey no adequate idea of the British trade with Tibet, as a large quantity of goods passes through Nepal. Russian woollen cloths, coarse and loose, of scarlet, green, bine, and violet colour, as well as hearthrugs, thickly woven and of a flowered pattern, come through Yarkand and are conveyed all over the country.
Government.Since 1720 Tibet has been a dependency of China, and as such is under the Chinese viceroy of Sze-chuen. Chinese authority is represented by two imperial delegates, one of whom is the assistant of the other. They direct exclusively the foreign and military administration of the country, leaving the civil and religious govern ment in the hands of the Tibetans. They are appointed for terms of three years. Subordinate to these are two daluhi or great officers and two paymasters, residing, one of each grade, at Lhasa and at Bzhikartse (Shigatze or Digarchi). Next in rank are three commanders, residing at Lhasa, Digarchi, and Dingri near the Nepal frontier. Below these are three tingpuns, non-commis sioned officers, who complete the staff of military Chinese officers in the country. The usual number of Chinese troops, all ManchuTatars, in Tibet does not exceed 4500 men (2000 at Lhasa, 1000 at Digarchi, 1000 at Giangchi, 500 at Dingri). In matters of civil government the supreme authority belongs to the dalai lama, the rgyal-ba rin-po-c6, residing in the famous temple-palace of Potala (see LHASA, vol. xiv. p. 500). But he is consulted only in cases of emergency, when his decision is never questioned. His powers are transmitted to a special officer for life, nominated by the Chinese Government, who is known by several titles, such as de-sri or the Mongol nomokhan, "king of the law"; he is the rgyal-po or "king" as well as the prime minister of the dalai lama, and the regent when the latter is a minor. He is selected from among the four head lamas of the Chomoling, Konduling, Tangialing, and Chajoling divisions near Lhasa, so-called from their chief monasteries or dgonpa (vulg. gomba). Each of the four must be, like the dalai lama, an avatar, i.e., when removed by death he must reappear in the flesh as a child, and be raised to that position. Of equal rank with the nomokhan is the deba lama of dGa-ldan, the great monastery near Lhasa; he, however, is not an avatarian lama: his appointment has to be confirmed by the Chinese em peror. Next to him is the lama guru or chaplain of the dalai lama, the director of his conscience; he may be an avatar, but his nomination is also in the hands of the Chinese emperor, and this furnishes an interesting clue to the extent of the imperial power over the church of Tibet. The nomokhan rules with the help of five ministers: four of these laymen are for the financial, judicial, revenue, and home departments, and a fifth, a lama, for ecclesias tical affairs. The four provinces of Mngari-Khorsum, Dblls, gTsang (Tsang), and Khams (Kham) are ruled each by a bka-blon or governor, with a proper staff of minor officers, under the authority of the nomokhan. Besides these there are several minor kings or rgyal-pos outside of the four provinces; but within these provinces there are four principalities which are under the direct government of the Chinese imperial delegates.? These are (1) Dayag or Chraya and (2) Kiamdo or Chiamdo, both on the east; (3) bKra-sis-lhun-po or Tashilunpo, where resides the pan-ten rin-po-fe lama, who yields to none but the dalai lama in religious importance, and, though an avatar, requires also the confirmation of the Chinese emperor to his election; (4) Sakya-Kongma, south-west of the preceding. There is also a Chinese officer (y-tsiri) in residence at Lhasa who superin tends several minor principalities scattered over the country. Every five years Lhasa, Chiamdo, and Tashilunpo send envoys with presents to the emperor. In the east of the country is the princi pality of Darge or Degue, in the upper course of the Yalung-kiang, ruled by a king who recognizes the suzerainty of China, and at the same time since 1863 has managed to keep on good terms with the king of Lhasa, to whom he has promised submission. On the lower course of the same river are the Chentui or Gyarung tribes, who from the conquest of Tibet were subject to China, but since 1864 have been transferred by the Chinese Government to the rule of the king of Lhasa, who is now represented among them by a Tibetan resident. South of the Chentui is the principality of Dar-rtse-mdo or Darchiendo, the Ta-chien-lu (Tatsienlu) of the Chinese, the rGyala of the Tibetans, where the government, under the supervision of Chinese officers, is entrusted to a native king, called Ming-chang-se by the Chinese and rGyala rgyal-bo or king of rGyala by the Tibetans.
Ethnology.
Inhabitants.The Tibetans, in a legend of the Tandjur, pretend to be the descendants of an ape, sent to the snowy kingdom (i.e. Tibet) by Chenresig (Spyan-ras-gzigs = Avalokiteshvara), and of a Tibetan srinmo (a female demon or rakshasi). They had six children, whom, as soon as they were weaned, they abandoned in a forest of fruit trees. Coming back after a few years, the father found to his great surprise that their number had increased to 500. But, as they were starving, he had recourse to his patron Chenresig, who declared that he would be the guardian of the race. So he went to Mount Tise (or Kai la the Su-Meru), and threw down a great quantity of the five kinds of grain, with which the famished apes long fed themselves. As the consequence of eating this grain the monkeys tails and the hair on their bodies grew shorter and shorter, until they finally dis appeared. The monkeys began to speak and became men, and clothed themselves with leaves. The interest of this legend, when stripped of its Buddhistic adornments, lies in the fact that belief in a monkey ancestor seems to have been common to various branches of the race. The Tang-chang and Peh-lang tribes boasted also of being descended from a monkey; they were the two great divisions of the Tang-hiang or Tangut, offsets of the same Sien-pi stock as that of the conquerors of Tibet under Fanni Tubat (see note, p. 338 above). The inhabitants of Tibet belong to the Mongoloid races. Besides the Tibetans so called, occupying the greater part of the country, especially in the south from west to east, there are Turkic tribes called Hor in the north-west, Mongol tribes called Sog (Sok) in the north-east, and several ill-defined tribes on the borders of China, who differ from the others. The Tibetan race is not thoroughly homogeneous, as may be seen from the various accounts of travellers. On the west they are described as being short, with an average stature of 5 feet 2 inches, according to the measurements of General Alexander Cunningham; in central Tibet and the east they are of middle stature, rather tall than short, a difference resulting ap parently from their intermingling with the surrounding races. As general characteristics, they are strong, slender in limb, with black eyes slightly oblique, large mouth, brown hair, no beard, a clear ruddy brownish complexion with an intelligent expression. They are a people of good natural gifts, mild in temper, true to their word, kind and simple, fond of music, dancing, and singing, but thoroughly imbued with superstition and lacking enterprise. Ex ception is made of the people of the eastern borders, who are described as being cheats and cowards. The most highly gifted are the inhabitants of Amdo, the region beyond Kham, having Koko-nur on the north and China on the east. Taller than the Tibetans of the west, they are famed for their quick intelligence and open disposition; a large proportion of the readers and chief lamas of the great schools and the higher officials belong to this race. The nomad tribes of the north-east are known by the Chinese common appellative of Sifan ("western aliens"). They include Mongol, Tibetan, and other tribes. In the east, near the borders of China, are the numerous tribes called Gyarung or Chentui; their language has been studied by Hodgson, who has pointed out its remarkable similarity of structure to that of the Tagals in the Philippines. To the south of these are the Laka or Lolo (mainly in Sze-chuen), Liso, and Moso; the last-named have advanced to some extent into Indo-China. The Laka or Lolo are remarkable for their European white features. Their language, along with that of the Liso and Moso, &c., forms a group cognate to the Burmese. Not so far east are the Lutze or Kunung, Melam, Arru, Pagny or Djion, Telu, and Remepu, all speaking a dialect of Tibetan, mixed with foreign words, for which the name of Melam is appropriate. Savages are found, says the pandit explorer A K, in some of the valleys of the range north of Saithang (i.e., the Altin-tagh north of the Syrten plain). They have a thick and dark skin, are well built and apparently well fed. They are clad in skins, and live in caves and dens or under the shelter of overhanging rocks. Being ignorant of the use of arms in the chase, they lie in wait for their prey near springs of water or salt flats. They are remarkable for their fleetness of foot; even a horseman finds difficulty in over taking them. Whenever they see a civilized man they run off in great alarm. They are said to know how to kindle a fire by means of a flint; and they flay the animals they kill with sharp-edged stones. This is not the only survival of the Stone Age, for in the case of some religious rites the lamas are shaved with a "lightning stone." The country is thinly peopled and large tracts in the upper plateaus and Mngari-Khorsum are quite uninhabited. In the province of Kharn the population is very irregularly distributed, and the nomad character of the tribes occupying a great part of the upper country makes any estimate doubtful. The central provinces of Dblls and gTsang are the most densely peopled, and A K puts the population of Lhasa at 25,197 (7540 being lamas). The totals lately given by Chinese authorities (4,000,000) and by the Russian staff-officers (6,000,000) are probably nearer the truth than the 11,000,000 and 33,000,000 of former authorities. The Tibetans are a very social people, and all possible circumstances, especially marriages and births, are made occasions for feasting and enjoyment. The burial customs are peculiar. First the hair is plucked out from the top of the head, in order to facilitate transmigration. The corpse is not disposed of everywhere or always in the same way (lack of fuel sometimes preventing cremation), and the lamas decide whether it is to be put away by interment, by throwing into the river, by burning, or by exposure to beasts and birds of prey. The last-named mode (regarded as very honourable) has almost dis appeared in the west, but is still practised in the central and eastern provinces; the body is cut in pieces and the bones broken into fragments by professional corpse butchers, and, when all the flesh has been devoured at the selected spot, called dtir krod, to which the body had been previously carried, it is not unusual to throw the remaining fragments of the broken bones into the river; sometimes the phalanges of the fingers are preserved to be used in bead-rolls. The lamas are generally inhumed in a sitting posture, the knees being brought up to the chin and corded together as tightly as possible. In the case of the gyalpos or kahlons the body is burned in a metal vessel, the ashes being afterwards carefully collected to be made into an image of the deceased. Polyandry has been practised from the earliest times, and has been carried by the spread of the race into more genial countries, such as Bhutan. The joint husbands are usually, but not always, brothers. The arrangement seems to work smoothly, and women enjoy general consideration, according to all travellers who have spoken of the subject. The wedding ceremony takes place at the house of the bride's parents, after adequate presents have been offered by the elder brother, husband or bridegroom, and without the assistance of any priest. It consists chiefly in the engagement of the intending spouses and the placing of a piece of butter by the bride's parent on the head of the bridegroom and by his parent on that of the bride. Unless otherwise stated by the mother in each case, the elder husband is the putative father of the children, and the others are uncles. Polyandry has resulted in the assignment to the wife of a paramount position, which in the north-east and east of the country has grown among certain tribes into a real sovereignty, of which we hear from the beginnings of Chinese history, and which has left certain survivals among the Lolo and Moso tribes of the present day as well as in the late Burmese court.
Religion.There are two religions in Tibet—Buddhism, in the shape of Lamaism (q.v.), and an earlier creed, generally called the Bon religion, of which not much is known. The latter, a creed evolved from Shamanism, does not seem, from what is said in Buddhist books, to have received any regular form either in doctrine or other wise until the introduction of Buddhism, which incited the Bonpo to seek in a better organization the means of holding their own. They borrowed much from the Buddhists, as the latter did from them, many deities supposed to be Buddhist because of their Buddhist names being simply Bon gods. At the present day the two religions exist peaceably side by side, and the Bon creed has numerous adherents and rich convents in the central provinces of Dblls and gTsang, but few in the western and eastern provinces. The Bonpo are sometimes called the " Sect of the Black,"Bonpa. as distinguished from the "Red" or Old and "Yellow" or Reformed Lamaists, both appellations being derived from the colour of their garments, though Bonpo have been seen in red as well as in black. They are also called Gruh-drun-pa(see below). The establishment of the Bonpa or Bon-c"os, i.e., the Bon religion, is attributed to Gsen-rabs, also called Bstan-pa Gsen-rabs, i.e., Gsen-rabs of the doctrine, the name under which he is worshipped in the temples of his sect, as, for instance, at Tsodam in east Tibet, not far from Bonga; his statue, which occupies the central place, represents him as squatting, with his right arm outside his red scarf, and holding in his left the vase of knowledge. In a Bon sutra he is said to hold in his right hand the iron hook of mercy, with which he fishes people out of the ocean of transmigration, in his left hand the seal of equality, and to wear on his head the mitra jewel. His full name is Bon gsenrabs-gruu-drun.[4] Gsen-rabs-mi-po, or "(the) excellent human god," another name of the same personage, has been identified by some Tibetan authorities with Lao-tsze or Lao-kiun of China. This identification, however, rests only on the slender basis of an apparent affinity of sound between the ben of gscn and a common Chinese appellative for the Taoists. The genuine resemblances between Bonpa and Taoism come from the fact that both religions have drawn from similar sources, from the native rude Shamanism which is much the same in both countries, from the tantric and esoteric doctrines of India, and from Buddhist ideas. The identity is sufficient to have deceived the uncritical mind of native scholars, and the matter has not yet been carefully examined by Europeans. The eighth book of the Grub-mthah-sel-kyi-m6-loh, in twelve books, by a Tibetan lama, Chkoikyi Nyima (1674-1740), which, with three others, has been lately translated by Sarat Chandra Das (In Jour. As. Soc. Seng, for 1881-1882), gives some information on the rise of the Bonpa in the region of Shang-shung, identified, not with the modern region of the same name in the north-west of Lhasa, but with Guge or Ghughe and Knaor or Upper Besahr. Three stages are pointed out in the development of the Bonpa after the time of its mythical founder, who reckoned among his spiritual descendants sages of Persia, Leg-tang-mang (some names of Lao-kiun?) of China, of Tliomo, of Miniak (east Tibet), of Sumpar, and of Shang-shung. The first stage is that of the human and historical founder of the religion, a sage of the name of Shong-hon, who lived in the semihistorical time of Thi-de-tsanpo, the sixth king of Tibet (the first is said to have ruled about 415 B.C.). The second stage, dating from the 3d century B.C., is that at which Bon theories and doctrines began to exist, a beginning coincident with the arrival in the country of three Bon priests from Kashmir, Dusha, and Shangshung. The recital down to this point gives evidence of the vague ness of the traditions preserved by the Tibetans with reference to their own beginnings, and shows that the author has striven hard to put together shreds of ancient reminiscence within a fabulous and mythical account. With the third stage we come down to historical times. It is divided into three periods, the first dating from the arrival of an Indian pandit by way of Kashmir, who wrote some of the Bon books; the second being that of the introduction of Buddhism and the consequent persecution leading the Bonpo to multiply their sacred books, which they concealed; and the last being that of the revival of the Bonpa and the bringing forth of the hidden books subsequent to the overthrow and temporary effacement of Buddhism by gLang-dharma (908-1013). According to this source, which, however, is certainly tinged by Buddhist prejudice, it was only at the last-mentioned date that the Bonpa reached its complete organization.
Eighteen principal gods and goddesses are enumerated, including the red wrathful razor spirit, the black wrathful razor spirit, the tiger god of glowing fire (the popular god universally worshipped), the messenger demon Rgyal-po, otherwise Pe(d)kar rgyal-po (much dreaded and worshipped in the central provinces: he is said to be identical with the deity Kye-pang of Lhasa, figured as a wooden stick or log decked with rags; see Jaeschke, Diet., p. 7), the god of sound, the great demon, and the serpent demon. Information is lacking as to the specific characteristics of these gods, and it is not clear to which of them belongs the title of kun-tu bzang-po, frequently cited as the chief Bon god; he is reputed to have a wife Yom-ki-long-mo, the eternal female principle, and from their union have resulted all the minor gods and the whole world.
Bonpa literature.Of the Bonpa literature the only text which has been made accessible to Western scholars is a sutra translated by A. Schiefner in Mem. de l'Acad. de St. Petersb. (xxviii., No. 1) called Gtsangma klu hbum dkar-po (" The holy white naga, the hundred thousand "); but Buddhist influence is so manifest in it that no correct idea of the primitive Bon religion can be derived from it. In a native account, dating from the 18th century and translated by Sarat Chandra Das, the following are enumerated three works on philo sophy and metaphysics, four meditative works, nine ritual serials, six series of epistles, and four mystic works of a late period, in all of which the title of the translated sutra is not made known. It is stated in the translation that these Bon scriptures originally consisted of wholesale plagiarisms, subsequently altered in orthography and terminology from Buddhist canonical works. The Bonpo are said to have got the counterparts of the Kah-gyur in general. As a correlative of the six-syllable prayer of the lamas 5m mani pad-me hum (vulgarly "om-mani peme-on "), they have one in eight syllables, which they pronounce ma-tri-mu-tre-sa-ladzu. The Bonpo are now frequently confounded with the Red Lamas or Buddhists of the Old school, who are distinguished from the Yellow or Reformed sect by their garments.
History.
History.From the 11th century B.C. the Chinese used to call by the name of Kiang the tribes (about 150 in number) of nomads and shepherds in Koko-nur and the north-east of present Tibet; but their know ledge continued to be confined to the border tribes until the sixth century of our era. In the annals of the Tang dynasty it is said that the population of the country originated from the Bat-Kian or Fah Kiang; and, as the information collected in the first part of the notice concerning Tu-bat, afterwards Tu-ban, the modern Tu-fan, dates partly (as is proved by internal evidence) from a time anterior to the Tang dynasty (618 A.D.), some degree of reliance may be placed on its statements. There we are told that Fanni, a scion of the southern Liang dynasty of the Tu-bat family (which flourished from 397 to 415 at Liang-chu in Kan-suh), who had submitted to the northern Liang dynasty, fled in 433 with all his people from his governorship of Lin-sung (in Kan-chu) westwards across the Yellow river, and founded beyond Tsih-shih ("heapy stones") a state amidst the Kiang tribes, with a territory extend ing over a thousand H. By his mild and just rule he was soon enabled to establish his sway over an immense territory. His original state was apparently situated along the upper course of the Yalung river, an affluent of the Kin-sha-kiang. The foregoing statements, which are most probably genuine history, are preceded in Tibetan chronicles by a mass of legends invented by the native Buddhist historians for the purpose of connecting their monarchy with India.
Through the exertions of Prinsep, Csoma de Kb rbs, E. von Schlagintweit, and Sarat Chandra Das we possess five copies of lists of kings, forming the royal canon of Tibet from the legendary beginnings between the 5th and 2d century B.C. down to the end of the monarchy in 914. But the serious divergences which they show (except as to later times and in general outlines) make their unauthentic character plain. As the last published list is accompanied by a commentary, it is the easiest to follow, and requires only to be supplemented here and there from the other lists and from the Chinese sources. The first king, Gnya-khri btsan-po, is said to have been the fifth son of King Prasenadjit of Kosala, and was born with obliquely drawn eyes. He fled north of the Himalayas into the Bod country, where he was elected king by the twelve chiefs of the tribes of southern and central Tibet. He took np his residence in the Yarlung country south of Lhasa. This Yarlung, which borrowed its name from the Yalnng of the state of Fanni Tu-bat, is a river which flows into the Yaro-tsanpo. The first king and his six successors are known as the seven celestial khri; the next series consists of six kings known as the earthly legs; and they were followed by eight terrestrial Idi. This three fold succession is apparently an imitation or a debased form of the ancient legend of heavenly, earthly, and human rulers, which was carried into Persia and China, and from the latter country into Japan and Tibet, the relative number of kings being altered in the last-named countries to suit local convenience and the small amount of truth which they contain. Whilst giving an Aryan descent to their first kings, the ancient Tibetans assigned to their princesses a divine origin, and called them lhamo, "goddess." The gynaecratic habits of the race are manifested in the names of all these kings, which were formed by a combination of those of their parents, the mother's generally preceding that of the father. The Id6 kings were followed by four rulers simply called btsan ("mighty").
Then occurs a break in the lineal descent, and the king next in order (c. 461) may be the Tatar Fanni Tu-bat, but most probably his son and successor. His name was Lha-tho thori gnyan-btsan, otherwise Gnyan-btsan of Lha-tho thori, according to the custom usual in Tibet of calling great personages after the name of their birthplace. Lha-tho mea7is "heaps of stones," and therefore appears to be a translation of Tsih-shih, "heapy stones," the country mentioned in connexion with the foundation of a state by Fanni Tu-bat. It was during his reign that the first Buddhist objects are reputed to have reached Tibet, probably from Nepal. Little is said of his three immediate successors. The fourth was gNam-ri srong btsan, who died in 630. During his reign the Tibetans obtained their first knowledge of arithmetic and medicine from China; the prosperity and pastoral wealth of the country were so great that the king built his palace with cement moistened with the milk of the cow and the yak." To the same king is attributed the discovery of the inexhaustible salt mine called Chyang-gits wa (Byang-gi-ts wa = "northern salt"), which still supplies the greater portion of Tibet. The reign of his illustrious son, Srong btsan sgam-po, opened up a new era; he introduced Buddhism and the art of writing from India, and was the founder (in 639) of Lha-ldan, afterwards Lha-sa. He was greatly helped in his proselytism by his two wives, one a Nepal princess, daughter of King Jyoti varma, the other an imperial daughter of China; afterwards, they being childless, he took two more princesses from the Ru-yong ( = "left corner"?) and Mon (general appellative for the nations between Tibet and the Indian plains) countries. As a conqueror he extended his sway from the still unsubdued Kiang tribes of the north to Ladak in the west, and in the south he carried his power through Nepal to the Indian side of the Himalayas. How far southward this dominion at first extended is not known; but in 703 Nepal and the country of the Brahmans rebelled, and the Tibetan king, the third successor of Srong btsan sgam-po, was killed while attempting to restore his power. It is rather curious that nothing is said of this Tibetan rule in India, except in the Chinese annals, where it is mentioned until the end of the monarchy in the 10th century, as extending over Bengal to the sea, the Bay of Bengal being called the Tibetan Sea. J. R. Logan has found ethnological and linguistic evidence of this domination, which was left unnoticed in the Indian histories. Mang-srong mang btsan, the second son and successor of Srong btsan sgam-po, continuing the conquests of his father, subdued the Tukuhun Tatars around the Koko-nur in 663, and attacked the Chinese; after some adverse fortune the latter took their revenge and penetrated as far as Lhasa, where they burnt the royal palace (Yumbu-lagang). Khri Ide gtsng-brtan-mesag-ts oms, the grandson of Mang-srong and second in succession from him, promoted the spread of Buddhism and obtained for his son, Jangts a Lhapon, who was famous for the beauty of his person, the hand of the accomplished princess Kyimshang, daughter, otherwise kung-chu, of the Chinese emperor Juytsung. But the lady arrived after the death of her betrothed, and after long hesitation became the bride of the father. She gave birth in 730 to Khri srong Ideu btsan, in the Buddhist annals the most illustrious monarch of his country, because of the strenuous efforts he made in favour of that religion during his reign of forty-six years (743-789). His son and successor Muni btsan-po, being determined to raise all his subjects to the same level, enacted that there should be no distinction between poor and rich, humble and great. He compelled the wealthy to share their riches with the indigent and helpless, and to make them their equals in respect of all the comforts and conditions of life. He repeated this experiment three times; but each time he found that they all returned to their former condition, the rich becoming still richer and the poor still poorer. The sages attributed this curious phenomenon to the good and evil acts of their former lives. Nothing of im portance occurred during the following reigns, until that of Ralpachen, who won glory by his care for the translations of the Buddhist scriptures which he caused to be completed, or rewritten more accurately when required. In this reign a severe struggle took place with China, peace being concluded in 821 at Ch angngan and ratified at Lhasa the following year by the erection of bilingual tablets, which still exist. Ralpachen was assassinated by the partisans of gLang-dharma and the country fell into dis order. gLang-dharma instituted a violent persecution of Buddhism; but he was soon assassinated in his turn, and the kingdom divided into a western and an eastern part by his two sons. The partition did not, however, prevent internecine wars. The history for some time now becomes rather intricate, and requires some attention. Pal Kor tsan, the second western king, after a reign of thirteen years died leaving two sons, Thi Tasi Tsegpa-pal and Thi Kyida Nyimagon. The latter went to Ngari (Mngari) and founded the capital Purang; he left three sons, of whom the eldest declared himself king of Mang-yul (the Monhuil of our maps), the second seized Purang, and the youngest, Detsud-gan, became king of the province of Shang-shung (the modern Ghughe). The revival of Buddhism began with the two sons of the last-named, the elder of whom became a monk. The younger, Khorre, inherited his father's throne, and was followed in his authority by twenty successors. Tasi Tsegpa also had three sons, Palde, Hodde, and Kyide. The descendants of the first made themselves masters of Gung-t ang, Lugyalwa, Chyipa, Lhatse, Laughing, and Tsakor, where they severally ruled as petty chiefs. The descendants of Kyide spread themselves over the Mu, Jang, Tanag, Yarulag, and Gyaltse districts, where they also ruled as petty princes. Hodde left four sons,—Phabdese, Thide, Thich'ung, and Gnagpa. The first and fourth became masters of Tsangrong, the second took possession of Atndo and Tsongkha, the third became king of Dblls, and removed the capital to Yarlung, south of Lhasa. He was followed on his throne from son to son by eleven successors. History is silent as to the fate of the eastern king, the other son of gLang-dharma, and his successors, but the geographical names of the chieftainships enumerated above make it clear that the western kingdom had extended its power to the east. Chronology is deficient for all that period. While the dynasty of Khorre in Shang-shung and that of Thich ung in Dblls were running, another authority, destined to become the superior of both, had arisen in Tibet. Khorre left his throne to his son Lhade, who was himself succeeded by his three sons, the youngest of whom invited the celebrated Indian Buddhist, Atisha, to leave his monastery Vikrama Shila for Tibet, where he settled in the great lamaserai of Thoding in Ngari. Besides religious books and teachings, he introduced in 1026 the method of computing time by cycles of sixty years, "obtained from the Indian province of Shambala." He was the first of the several chief priests whose authority became paramount in the country. The kings of Dblls greatly patronized them, as for instance in the case of the celebrated Sakya Pandita by the seventh of these kings. Pandita, at the special request of Kuyuk, the successor of Ogdai, paid a visit to his court in 1246-48. Five years afterwards Kublai Khan conquered all the east of Tibet; and, after he had ascended the throne of China, the Mongol emperor invited to his court Phagspa Lodoi Gyaltshan, the nephew of the same Pandita. He remained twelve years with the emperor, and at his request framed for the Mongol language an alphabet imitated from the Tibetan, which, however, did not prove satisfactory, and disappeared after eighty-five years without having been very largely used. In return for his services, Kublai invested Phagspa with sovereign power over (1) Tibet proper, comprising the thirteen districts of U and Tsang, (2) Kham, and (3) Amdo. From this time the Sakya-pa lamas became the universal rulers of Tibet, and remained so, at least nominally, under twenty-one successive lamas during seventy years (1270-1340). Their name was derived from the Sakya monastery, which was their cradle and abode, and their authority for temporal matters was exercised by specially appointed regents. When the power of the Sakya began to wane, that of the rival monasteries of Digung, Phagdub, and Tshal increased largely, and their respective influence and authority overbalanced that of the successors of Phagspa. It was at this troubled epoch that Chyang Chub Gyalt shan, better known as Phagmodu from the name of his native town, appeared on the scene. He subdued Tibet proper and Kham, for the continued possession of which he was, however, compelled to fight for several years; but he succeeded in the long run, and with the approval of the court of Peking established a dynasty which furnished twelve rulers in succession. When the Mongol dynasty of China passed away, the Mings confirmed and enlarged the dominion of the Tibetan rulers, recognizing at the same time the chief lamas of the eight principal monasteries of the country. Peace and prosperity gradually weakened the benign rule of the kings of this dynasty, and during the reign of the last but one internecine war was rife between the chiefs and nobles of U and Tsang. This state of things, occurring just as the last rulers of the Ming dynasty of China were struggling against the encroachments of the Manchus, their future successors, favoured the interference of a Khoskot Mongol prince, Tengir To, called in the Tibetan sources king of Koko-nur. The Mongols were interested in the religion of the lamas, especially since 1576, when Altan, khakan of the Tumeds, and his cousin summoned the chief lama of the most important monastery to visit him. This lama was Sodnam rGyamtso, the third successor of Gedundub, the founder of the Tashilumbo monastery in 1447, who had been elected to the more important abbotship of Galdan near Lhasa, and was thus the first of the great, afterwards dalai, lamas. The immediate successor of Gedundub, who ruled from 1475 to 1541, had appointed a special officer styled depa to control the civil administration of the country. To Soduam rGyamtso the Mongol khans gave the title of Vadjra Dalai Lama in 1576, and this is the first use of the widely known title of dalai lama. During the minority of the fifth (really the third) dalai lama, when the Mongol king Tengir To, under the pretext of supporting the religion, intervened in the affairs of the country, the Pan-chen Lo-sang Ch o-kyi Gyal-ts ang lama obtained the withdrawal of the invaders by the payment of a heavy war indemnity, and then applied for help to the first Manchu emperor of China, who had just ascended the throne. This step enraged the Mongols, and caused the advance of Gushri Khan, son and successor of Tengir To, who invaded Tibet, dethroned all the petty princes, including the king of Tsang, and, after having subjugated the whole of the country, made the fifth dalai lama supreme monarch of all Tibet, in 1645. The Chinese Government in 1653 confirmed the dalai lama in his authority, and he paid a visit to the emperor at Peking. The Mongol Khoskotes in 1706 and the Sungars in 1717 interfered again in the succession of the dalai lama, but the Chinese army finally conquered the country in 1720, and the present system of government was established. The events which have happened since that time have been recorded in the articles Lhasa and Ladak.
Language[5] and Literature.
Bod-skad is the general name of the language of Tibet, which Lanis also occasionally called Gangs-can-gyi skad (i.e. "the glaciers guage. language "). This name is specially applied to the forms in use in Dblls-gTsang. The vernacular is called p dl-skad or common language in contradistinction to the Kos-skad or book language. Besides the Bod-skad there are two chief dialects[6] in Great Tibet, that of Khams, spoken in the three provinces of Mdo (Darrtsemdo), Kham, and Gong in the east, and that of Ngari-Khorsum in the west. Jaeschke arranged these dialects under three heads, (1) western, including those of Balti and Purig, the most archaic, and of Ladak and Lahul; (2) central, including those of Spiti and of Dblls and gTsang; (3) Khams. To the same Bhot group belong the Changlo or Bhutani or Lhopa, the language of Bhutan, of which we have a grammatical notice by Robinson (1849), and the Serpa and the Takpa, of Tawang, both of which are only known through the vocabularies collected by Hodgson. The later Takpa forms the transition between the Bhot group and the Si-fan group, which includes the Miniak, Sungpan, Lifan, and Thochu dialects, spoken near the eastern borders, as well as the Horpa, spoken on a larger area west of the preceding, and much mixed with Turkic ingredients. With the exception of the Sokpa, a Mongol dialect, and of the Gyarung, a pre-Chinese dialect, the languages spoken in Tibet belong to the large linguistic family commonly called TibetoBurman, a division of the Kuen-lun group, which is a part of the Turano-Scythian stock.
Grammar.The language is more consonantal than vocalic, though much softened in the central dialect. The consonants, 30 in number, which are deemed to possess an inherent sound a, are the follow ing: ka, k a, ga, nga, hi, fa, dja, nya, ta, fa, da, na, pa, p a, ba, ma, tsa, is a, dza, wa, zha, za, h, ya, ra, la, sha, sa, ha, a; the socalled Sanskrit cerebrals are represented by the letters ta, fa, da, na, sha turned the other way. Ya, when combined as second con sonant with k-, p-, m-, is written under the first letter. Ra, when combined as second letter with k-, t-, p-, is written under the first, and when combined with another consonant as first letter over the second. The vowels are a, i, u, e, o, which are not distinguished as long or short in writing, though they are so in the vernaculars in the case of words altered by phonetic detrition. Agglomerations of consonants are not objectionable; and they are often met with as initials, giving the appearance of telescoped words an appearance which historical etymology often confirms. Many of these initial consonants are silent in the softened dialects of the central provinces, or have been resolved into a simpler one of another character. The language is much ruled by laws of euphony, which have been strictly formulated by grammarians. Among the initials, five, viz., g, d, b, m, h, are regarded as prefixes, and are called so for all purposes, though they belong sometimes to the stem. As a rule none of these letters can be placed before any of the same organic class. Post-positions, pa or ba and ma, are required by the noun (sub stantive or adjective) that is to be singled out; po or bo (masc.) and mo (fem.) are used for distinction of gender or for emphasis. The cases of nouns are indicated by suffixes, which vary their initials according to the final of the nouns. The plural is denoted when required by adding one of several words of plurality. When several words are connected in a sentence they seldom require more than one case element, and that comes last. There are personal, demonstrative, interrogative, and reflexive pronouns, as well as an indefinite article, which is also the numeral for "one." The personal pronouns are replaced by various terms of respect when speaking to or before superiors, and there are many words besides which are only employed in ceremonial language. The verb, which is properly a participle, has no element of person, and denotes the conditions of tense and mood by an external and internal inflexion, or the addition of auxiliary verbs and suffixes when the stem is not susceptible of inflexion. The conditions which approximate most closely to our present, perfect, future, and imperative are marked either by aspiration of the initial or by one of the five prefix con sonants according to the rules of euphony, and the whole looks like a former system thrown into confusion and disorder by phonetic decay. As to the internal vowel, a or e in the present tends to become o in the imperative, the e changing to a in the past and future; i and u are less liable to change. A final's is also occasion ally added. Only a limited number of verbs are capable of four changes; some cannot assume more than three, some two, and many only one. This deficiency is made up by the addition of auxiliaries or suffixes. There are no numeral auxiliaries or segregatives used in counting, as in many languages of eastern Asia, though words expressive of a collective or integral are often used after the tens, sometimes after a smaller number. In scientific and astrological works, the numerals, as in Sanskrit, are expressed by symbolical words. In the order of the sentence the substantive precedes the adjective and the verb stands last; the object and the adverb precede the verb, and the genitive precedes the noun on which it depends. An active or causal verb requires before it the instnimental instead of the nominative case, which goes only before a neuter or intransitive verb. The chief differences between the classical language of the Tibetan translators of the 9th century and the vernacular, as well as the language of native words, existed in vocabulary, phraseology, and grammatical structure and arose from the influence of the translated texts.
Philology.The Tibetan language, in its written and spoken forms, has a great interest for philologists, on account of its bearing on the history of the so-called monosyllabic languages of eastern Asia. Is the Tibetan a monosyllabic language passing to agglutination? or the reverse? The latter is the fact, as we shall see further on. The whole question has turned upon the elucidation of the pheno menon of the silent letters, generally prefixed, which differentiate the spelling of many words from their pronunciation, in the central dialect or current speech of Lhasa. As long as the sounds of this dialect only were known, the problem could not be fully grasped. Remusat rather dubiously suggested, while Schmidt and Schiefner maintained, that the silent letters were a device of grammarians to distinguish in writing words which were not distinguished in speech. But this convenient opinion was not sufficient for a general explana tion, being supported by only a few cases. Among these are (a) the addition of silent letters to foreign words in analogy with older terms of the language (e.g., the Persian tadjik was tran scribed staggzig or "tiger-leopard," because the foreign term left untouched would have been meaningless for Tibetan readers); (b) the addition for the sake of uniformity of prefixed letters to words etymologically deprived of them; (c) the probable addition of letters by the Buddhist teachers from India to Tibetan words in order to make them more similar to Sanskrit expressions (for instance, rjefor "king," written in imitation of raja, though the original word was /e or she, as is shown by cognate languages). On the other hand, while phonetically the above explanation was not inconsistent with such cases as rka, dkah, >kah, bsfca, and nga, ruga, ngag, sngags,
ga, ngad, and brtse, brdzrra, dbyar, &c., where the italicized letters are pronounced in full and the others are left aside, it failed to ex plain other cases, such as dgra, mgron, spyod, spyan, sbrang, sbrul, bkra, k ri, krad, k rims, k rus, &c., pronounced da, don, cod or swod, Zen, dang, deu, ta, t i, tad or teh, t im, tu, &c., and many others, where the spoken forms are obviously the alteration by wear and tear of sounds originally similar to the written forms. Csoma de Korbs, who was acquainted with the somewhat archaic sounds of Ladak, was able to point to only a few letters as silent. But Major Cunningham, in his book on the same country (1854), held that the Tibetan writing, when first applied to the language, was the faithful transcription of speech, and he gave as a proof that the name of the province of U, written Dblls, was the Debasse of Ptolemy. Foucaux, in his Grammaire (1858), quoted a fragment from a native work on grammar several centuries old, in which the pronunciation of the supposed silent letters is carefully described. Since then the problem has been disentangled; and now minor points only remain to be cleared up. Jaeschke devoted special at tention to the dialectical sounds, and showed in several papers and by the comparative table prefixed to his dictionary that in the western and eastern dialects these sounds correspond more or less closely to the written forms. Thus the valuable testimony of these dialects may be added to the evidence furnished by foreign tran scriptions of Tibetan words, loan words in conterminous languages, and words of common descent in kindred tongues. And the whole shows plainly that the written forms of words which are not of later remodelling are really the representatives of the pronunciation of the language as it was spoken at the time of the transcription. The concurrence of the evidence indicated above enables us to form the following outline of the evolution of Tibetan. In the 7th century there was no difference between the spoken and the written language. Soon afterwards, when the language was extended to the western valleys, the prefixed and most of the important con sonants vanished from the spoken words. The ya-tag and ra-tag or y and r subscript, and the's after vowels and consonants, were still in force. The next change took place in the central pro vinces; the ra-tags were altered into cerebral dentals, and the yatags became Jf. Later on the superscribed letters and finals d and's disappeared, except in the east and west. It was at this stage that the language spread in Lahul and Spiti, where the superscribed letters were silent, the d and g finals were hardly heard, and as, os, us, were ai, oi, ui. The words introduced from Tibet into the border languages at that time differ greatly from those introduced at an earlier period. The other changes are more recent and re stricted to the provinces of U and Tsang. The vowel sounds ai, oi, ui, have become e, 6, u; and a, o, u before the finals d and n are now d, o, u. The mediae have become aspirate tenues with a low intonation, which also marks the words having a simple initial consonant; while the former aspirates and the complex initials simplified in speech are uttered with a high tone, or, as the Tibetans say, "with a woman's voice," shrill and rapidly. An inhabitant of Lhasa, for example, finds the distinction between sh and zh, or be tween's andz, not in the consonant, but in the tone, pronouncing sh and's with a high note and zh and z with a low one. The in troduction of the important compensation of tones to balance phonetic losses had begun several centuries before, as appears from a Tibetan MS. (No. 4626 St Petersburg) partly published by Jaeschke (Monotsber. Akad. BerL, 1867). A few instances will serve to illus trate what has been said. In the bilingual inscriptions, Tibetan and Chinese, set up at Lhasa in 822, and published by Bushell in 1880, we remark that the silent letters were pronounced: Tib. spudgyal, now pugyol, is rendered suh-pot-ye in Chinese symbols; khri, now t i, is kieh-li; hbrong is puh-hing; snyan is sheh-njoh and su-njoh; srong is su-lun, su-lung, and si-lung. These tran scriptions show by their variety that they were made from the spoken and not from the written forms, and, considering the limited capacities of Chinese orthoepy, were the nearest attempt at rendering the Tibetan sounds. Spra or spreu (a monkey), now altered into deu at Lhasa, teu in Lahul, Spiti, and Tsang, is still more recognizable in the Gyarung shepri, and in the following degenerated forms shreu in Ladak, streu-go in Khams and in cognate languages, soba in Limbu, saheu in Lepcha, simai in Tablung Naga, sibch in Abor Miri, shibe in Sibsagar Miri, sarrha in Kol, sara in Kuri, &c. Grog-ma, (ant), now altered into the spoken't oma, is still A-yoma in Bhutan, and, without the suffix, korok in Gyarung, k oro- in Sokpa, k orok, k alck in Kiranti, &c. Grang-fo (cold), spoken't ammo, is still grang-mo in Takpa, k yam in mese, &c. A respectful word for "head" is u, written dbu, which finds its cognates in Murmi thobo, Kusunda chipi, Sibsagar Miri tub, &c. Byu (bird), spoken chya, is still pye in Gyarung. Brjod (to speak), pronounced jod, is cognate to the Burmese pyauhtso, the Garo brot, &c. The word for "cowries" is gron- in written, rumin spoken Tibetan, and grwa in written Burmese; slop (to learn), spoken lop, is slop in Melam. "Moon" is zlava in written and dawa in spoken language, in which -va is a suffix; the word itself is zla-, cognate to the Mongol ssara, Sokpa sara, Gyarung t-sile, Vayu cholo, &c. The common spoken word for "head" is go, written mgo, to which the Munipuri moko and the Mishmi mkura are related. Sometimes the written forms correspond to double words which have disappeared. For instance, gye (eight), which is written brgyad and still spoken vrgyad in Balti in the west and Khams in the east, is gyad in Ladak, Lahul, and U. The same word does not appear elsewhere; but we find its two parts separately, such as Gurung^rr, Murmi pre, TaksyapAre, and Ta.kpa.gyet, Serpa gye, Garo chet, &c. Eta (horse) is reduced to to in speech, but we find ri, rhyi, roh in Sokpa, Horpa, Thochu, Miniak, and td, tah, teh, fay in Lhopa, Serpa, Murmi, Kami, Takpa, &c., both with the same meaning. Such are the various pieces of evidence obtained from an endless number of instances. The cases referred to above do not, owing to the difference of the causes, yield to any explanation of this kind. And it must be admitted that there are also many cases, some of them caused by irregularities of writing, modification of spelling by decay, and by a probable use of prefixes still unascertained, which also resist explanation, though the account just given stands good whatever solution, the question of prefixes may receive in future.
Literature. Little is known of the non-religious literature of Tibet. The most popular and widely circulated book is called The Hundred Thousand Songs of the Venerable Milaraspa. Their author Milaraspa (unless the work should be attributed to his disciples), often called Mila, was a Buddhist ascetic of the 11th century; according to Jaeschke, during the intervals of meditation he travelled through the southern part of middle Tibet as a mendicant friar, instructing the people by his improvisations in poetry and song, proselytizing, refuting and converting heretics, and working manifold miracles. His legends are not without wit and poetical merit. A number of poems written in an elevated and special style, dramatic works, and collections of fairy tales and fables are said to be in existence. A very extensive work, the Djrung yg (Sgruns yg), regarded as the national epic in Kham, has been partly seen by Desgodins and Baber. It is in prose; but the dialogue, interspersed with songs, is metrical, and is much more extensive than the prose framework. Religious discussions and philosophical dissertations alternate with comic episodes. It includes three divisions, the Djiung ling, which describes the invasion of part of Tibet by the Djiung or Moso; the Horling, which recounts the conquest of the Hor (Turk tribes) by the Tibetans, and conveys much historical information in a tale of magic and marvel; and the Djia ling (Chinese division), which narrates a contest of unknown date between the Tibetans and the Chinese. This work has apparently never been published, and even the manuscripts of the three divisions cannot, says Baber, be obtained in a complete form. But every Tibetan, or at least every native of Kham, who possesses any education, is able to recite or to chant passages of great length. Another Tibetan epic, the Gyaldrung, praises Dagyolong, a famous warrior who subdued the savage men of Kham. Besides these poems we find allusions to a sgrung, referring to the Yesser Khan. Dramatic works exist, as well as translations of Galen, also of the Ramayana in the first vol. of the Bstodts ogs of the Bstan-hgyur. For the religious literature, which is considerable, see Lamaism.
Writing.Writing was not introduced until the 7th century. Notched sticks (shing-chram) and knotted cords were in current use, but the latter contrivance is only faintly alluded to in the Tibetan records, while of the other there are numerous examples. No mention is anywhere made of a hieroglyphical writing, but on the eastern frontier the medicine-men or tomba of the Moso have a peculiar pictorial writing, which is known in Europe from two published MSS. (in Journ. Roy. As. Soc., 1885, vol. xvii.); though apparently now confined solely to purposes of witchcraft, it perhaps contains survivals of a former extensive system superseded by the alphabetic writing introduced from India. According to tradition a tradition of which the details are open to criticism the alpha bet was introduced from India by Tonmi Samb ota, who was sent to India in 632 by King Srong btsan to study the Sanskrit language and Buddhist literature. Tonmi Samb ota introduced the socalled writing in thirty characters " (six of which do not exist in Sanskrit) in two styles, the "thick letters" or "letters with heads," now commonly used in printed books, and the half-cursive "cornered letters," so called from their less regular heads. The former are traditionally said to have been derived from the Landza character. The Landza of Nepal, however, is certainly not the origin of the Tibetan letter, but rather an ornamental development of the parent letter. The close resemblance of the Tibetan characters "with heads" to the Gupta inscriptions of Allahabad shows them to have been derived from the monumental writing of the period; and various arguments appear to show that the other Tibetan letter came from the same Indian character in the style in which it was used in common life. The Tibetan half-cursive was further developed into the more current "headless" characters of which there are several styles. From the monumental writing of Tibet was derived, for the special use of the Mongols in the 13th century, the short-lived writing known as Bagspa, from the name of the lama who worked it out.
Bibliography.—The works of Csoma de Kb ro's, Alex. Cunningham, Sarat Chandra Das, Desgodins, Leon Feer, Ed. Foucaux, A. A. Georgi, Bryan II. Hodgson, H. A. Jaeschke, Th. H. Lewin, Max Miiller, A. Remusat, W. Robin son, J. J. Schmidt, F. 0. G. Schroeter, and A. Schiefner have been already men tioned, and those of J. W. Bushell, A. Campbell, T. W. Rhys Davids, Hue and Gabet, Koeppen, C. Markham, Pallas, Ssanang Ssetsen, Schott, Pundit Nain Singh, and others are referred to under LAMAISM, LADAK AND BALTI, and LHASA (qq.v.). The following also may be named: E. Colborne Baber, "Travels and Researches in Western China," in Roy. Geogr. Soc. Suppl. Papers, I., 1882; C. H. Desgodins, Le Thibet d apres la correspondance des Missionaires, Paris, 1885; Th. Duka, Life and Works of Alexander Csoma de Ko ros, London, 1885; Konrad Ganzenmiiller, Tibet, Stuttgart, 1878; Krick, Relation d un Voyage an Thibet en 1852, Paris, 1854; A. Krishna, Explorations in Great Tibet and Mongolia, made in 1879-82; Report prepared by J. B. N. Hennessey, Dehra Dun, 1884, fol.; Terrien de Lacouperie, " Beginnings of Writing in and around Tibet," in Journ. Roy. As. Soc., 1885, xvii.; Id., The Languages of China before the Chinese, London, 1887; J. R. Logan, in Journal of the Indian Archipelago Eastern Asia, vol. vi., Singapore, 1852; W. Woodville Rockill, "The Early History of Bod-yul," append, to The Life of the Buddha, from Tibetan sources, London, 1884; Em. von Schlagintweit, Die Koenige von Tibet, Munich, 1866, and Buddhism in Tibet, London, 1803; H. Strachey, Physical Geography of Western Tibet; Trotter, Journ. Roy. Geog. Soc., 1877, vol. xlvii.; H. Yule, The Book ofSer Marco Polo, 2d ed., London, 1874. (T. de. L.)
- ↑ The name Tibet is not, as usually alleged, unknown in the country itself, though only found there in an attenuated form. The following forms are also met with in Chinese annals T' u-bat (5th cent.) and
- ↑ 1 Tibetans call rivers either tsanpo = river or chu = water, the former being chiefly employed in southern Tibet, as for the great Yaro-tsanpo (Upper river) and its principal tributaries. Lakes are called cho or tso. A mountain pass is called Lá.
- ↑ This is still in a disturbed state, the pass being closed by the Tibetans in consequence (1) of the important preparations made in 1886 for a commercial mission to Lhása by Mr Macaulay and (2) of the pressure of the Nepalese Government on that of Tibet in a recent treaty, in order that the whole trade should pass through Nepal.
- ↑ The term gyuṅ-druṅ (svasti), also applied to his followers, means the cross cramponnée, the svastika, similar to that of the Buddhists, from which it differs only in direction, the Bonpo manner of circumambulation round a shrine or deity being from right to left, while the Buddhist manner is from left to right
- ↑ The Capuchin friars who were settled in Lhasa for a quarter of a century from 1719 studied the language; two of them, Francisco Orazio della Penna, well known from his accurate description of Tibet, and Cassian di Macerata sent home materials which were utilized by the Augustine friar Aug. Ant. Georgi of Rimini (1711-97) in his Alphabetum Tibetanum (Rome, 1762, 4to), a ponderous and confused compilation, which may be still referred to, but with great caution. The Tibetan characters were drawn by Della Penna, and engraved by Ant. Fontarita in 1738. In 1820 Abel Remusat published his Recherches sur les Langues Tartares, a chapter of which was devoted to Tibetan. The next work of importance was a dictionary, intended for European students, which was published, with Tibetan types, at the expense of the East India Company, in 1826 at Serampur, and edited by John Marshman, from a MS. copy made by FT. Chr. G. Sehroeter, a missionary in Bengal, who had substituted English for the Italian of the original. It was the unsifted result of the labours of an unknown Italian missionary, who had been stationed either in eastern Tibet or close to the frontier in Bhutan. It was properly a collection of all the sentences he could get written by a native teacher, completed with extracts from the Padma tangyig, a popular series of legends about Padma Sambhava. Unfortunately the work was left unfinished, and unrevised, as there was no Tibetan scholar to correct the proofs. Though richer in words than later dictionaries, the work cannot, for these reasons, be accepted as an authority on any doubtful point. The grammatical notice, consisting of forty pages from Schroeter, prefixed to this Dictionary of the Bhotanta, or Butan Language, hardly deserves mention. At Calcutta in 1834 the Hungarian Alexander Csoma de Koros (1784-1842) brought out his Dictionary, Tibetan and English, and his Grammar of the Tibetan Language in English, prepared on the western frontier, where he had resided for several years at the monasteries of Yangla and Pukdal in Zanskar, and finally at Kanum in Upper Besahr, enjoying the help of native scholars. His works are admirable so far as concerns the literary language (chiefly that of the Buddhist translations). At St Petersburg J. J. Schmidt published his Grammatik der Tibetischen Sprache in 1839 and his Tibetisch-Deutsches Worterbuch in 1841, but neither of these works justified the great pretensions of the author, whose access to Mongolian sources had enabled him to enrich the results of his labours with a certain amount of information unknown to his predecessors. In France, P. E. Foucaux published in 1847 a translation from the Rgya teher rol pa, the Tibetan version of the Lalita Vistara, and in 1858 a Grammaire Thibetaine; while Ant. Schiefner had begun at St Petersburg in 1849 his series of translations and researches. His Tibetische Studien (1851-68) is a valuable collection of documents and observations. In 1861 Lepsius published his paper Ueber Chinesische und Tibetische Lautverhdltnisse; and since 1864 Leon Feer has brought out in Paris many translations of texts from Tibetan Buddhist literature. In 1849 the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal published comparative vocabularies of spoken and written Tibetan by Bryan H. Hodgson, and grammatical notices of Tibetan (according to Csoma's grammar) and of Changlo, a Tibetan dialect, by W. Robinson. But it was at Singapore in 1852 that the general relationship of the Tibetan and the Burman, now admitted in comparative philology, was established for the first time, by J. R. Logan, in the Journal of the Indian Archipelago. Prof. Max Miiller, in his "Letter on the Classification of the Turanian Languages" of 1853, arrived in dependently at a similar conclusion. In 1857 the Moravian missionaries established a station at Kyelang, district of Garza, British Lahul, in Ladak, a school, and a lithographic press, and it is to the labours of H. A. Jaeschke of this mission that we are indebted for the most valuable materials for the practical study of Tibetan. From 1860 to 1867 that scholar made several important communications, chiefly with reference to the phonetics and the dialectical pronunciation, to the academies of Berlin and St Petereburg, and in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. In 1868 at Kyelang he published by lithography A Short Practical Grammar of the Tibetan Language, with special reference to the spoken dialects, and the following year a Romanized Tibetan and English Dictionary. He also published in 1871-76 at Gnadau in Prussia by the same process a Tibetan and German dictionary. Afterwards he prepared for the English Government^ Tibetan-English Dictionary, with special reference to the prevailing dialects, in 1881. Dr H. Wenzel, one of his pupils, brought out in 1883 from his Mb. a Simplified Tibetan Grammar. Major Th. H. Lewin with the help of a lama compiled A Manual of Tibetan, or rather a series of colloquial phrases, which was brought out at Calcutta in 1879. A portion of the New Testament has been translated into Tibetan. As regards native philology, the most ancient work extant is a grammar of the Tibetan tongue, by Tonmi Sambota, the introducer of the Indian alphabet, preserved in the Bstan-hgyur (mdo cxxiv). This collection also contains other works of the same kind, diction aries by later writers, translations of many Sanskrit works on grammar vocabulary, &c., and bilingual dictionaries, Sanskrit and Tibetan. As separate publications there are several vocabularies of Chinese and Tibetan; Mongol and Tibetan; Chinese, Manchu, Mongol, Oelo t, Tibetan, and Turkish; Tibetan, Sanskrit, Manchu, Mongol, and Chinese.
- ↑ There are without doubt many minor skad-lugs or dialects which are still unknown. For instance, in the Pan-yul valley north of Lhasa the inhabitants are said to speak an indistinct skad lugs.
