Turfan Revisited -The First Century of Research intothe Arts and Cultures of the Silk Road

Edited byDesmond Durkin-MeisterernstSimone-Christiane RaschmannJens WilkensMarianne YaldizPeter Zieme

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1 :|45]

DIETRICH REIMER VERLAGBERLIN 2004

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k_ai»a»«fcg»=.'U*T^.u«i.*.',^fe-a;«»iuj iiu„

MONOGRAPHIEN ZUR INDISCHEN ARCHAOLOGIEKUNST UND PHILOLOGIE

Herausgegebenim Auftrag des Stiftungsrates der Stiftung Ernst Waldschmidtvon der Direktorin des Museums fur Indische Kunstder Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin - PreuBischer Kulturbesitz

MARIANNE YALDIZ

BAND 17

Sociolinguistic Implications of the Use of Tibetan inEast T\irkestan from the End of Tibetan Dominationthrough the Tangut Period (9th-12th c.)*

Tsuguhito Takeuchi

1. IntroductionIn his ground-breaking paper given in Paris in 19791, G. Uray showed

that 18 Old Tibetan texts from Dunhuang were written after the end ofthe Tibetan domination of Hexi and East Turkestan. In a paper given atthe Csoma de Koros Conference in 19842,1 proved that a group of lettersusing particular formulas date back to the post-Tibetan period as well.Summarizing the two studies, Uray (1988) enumerates 25 texts belonging to the post-Tibetan period. Through these studies, it has been recognized that the Tibetan language and script continued to be used by non-Tibetans even after the collapse of the Tibetan Empire and the Tibetanabandonment of East Turkestan3.

However, questions of how long and why Tibetan was used, and whatthe significance of the Tibetan texts in the post-Tibetan period within thehistory of Tibetan literature is, have remained unsolved. Since Uray'ssecond paper I have found more - a total of 57 texts, listed in Table 1,which is more than double the number enumerated before. Their identification has become possible due to the establishment of criteria for datingtexts, such as the presence of particular titles, distinctive letter formulas,and palaeographic features4. Though I expect to find more relevant textsin the future5,1 think it is time to reconsider the above questions in thelight of the newly identified texts.

Table 1: Old Tibetan Texts from thel?Ch. 0029. (VP 418)2 Ch.73.IV. 14. (VP134)3 Ch. 73. VII. frag. B. 8. (VP 540)4?Ch. 73. VIV. 13. (VP420)5?Ch.73.VIV 14. (VP421)6?Ch.73. XEI. 18. (VP 1383)7 Ch.77. II. 3. (VPC130)

8 Ch. 85. IX. (VP 1077)9?Or 8210/ S 5212 v

107P3711 P44(lr+25v,23v+24r)12 P44(lv-23r)13 P10314 P 127 v (11. 1-9)15 P 127 v (11. 10-14)

16 P127v(ll. 15-28)

17 P 127 v (11. 29-77)18 P849

19 P981 v(r?)20 P 984 (piece 2 r)

21 P99422 P 100323 P108024 P108125 P 1082

26 P 1097

Post-Tibetan Period6Buddhist text (Varsa-vidhi)letter (type 1)Buddhist text (mantras)Buddhist text (Visa-traya-damara)Buddhist text (Visa-traya-damara)regulations of a she7 societyChinese Amituojing* in Tibetantranscription with a Tibetan colophonletter (type 3, greeting 2), draftChinese-Tibetan phrase bookBuddhist text (Za-ma-togs etc.)letter from the Khotanese kingBuddhist text on phur-buBuddhist texts (Lha 7 mdo etc.)list of the sexagenary cycle9register of the concordant and non-concordant elements10distribution of Chinese clan namesaccording to the five elementsdivination textBuddhist text (Sanskrit-Tibetanformulary)letter (type 3), drafts; r: Ramdyanaletter (irregular form) to theKhotanese king, draftlist of Buddhist templesletter (type 3)lawsuitletter (type 1), lawsuitletter (type 3) from the Uighur Qa-ghanregister of grain delivery for abrewery

27 P1106r

28 P1106v

29 P1120v

30 P1124

31 P112532 P 112933 P 113134 P 117135 P 1188 v (draft 1)36 P 1188 v (draft 2)

37 P118938 P1190v39 P 121140 P121241 P122042 P122543 P1238

44 P 1256 v

45 P1263

46 P 1284

47 P210548 P 2111 (piece A)

49 Peking N182(huang 47)-11450 Peking N182 (huang47)-251 SI 0/141 (Oldenburg letter 1)52 SI 0/142 (Oldenburg letter 2)537SI 0/13954 Stael-Holstein Scroll

55?Otani 6013-601456 Yu-lin Cave no. 25 (North wall)

57 Zhejiang Dunhuang text 114

34J_

list of presents and barter goods,draftletter (irregular form) from theKhotanese king, draftletter (irregular form) to theKhotanese king, draftorder (lungs) to three localofficials in Ju-cangletter (type 3)letter (type 3)letter (type 3)order (lungs) by Cungshing11letter (type 1), draftletter (type 1) to the palace of theUighur Qaghan, draftletter (type 3)letter (type 3, greeting 1)letter (type 3, greeting 1)letter (type 3)letter (type 3)letter (type 3), draftphonetic transcription of a Chinesetext12name list of the envoys fromKhotanTibetan-Chinese lexicon (wordlist)letter (type 3) to the Khotaneseking, draft, and other draftsBuddhist texts (Fawangjing12 etc.)letter (irregular form) from theKhotanese king, draftletter (type 3), draftletter (type 3), draftletter (type 3)letter (type 3)Buddhist textpetition from the Khotaneseenvoysunidentified documentBuddhist text (a dedicatory inscription)pledge of allegiance

Each newly identified text provides plenty of issues worth discussing. Asspace is limited, I will consider only a few examples here. Let us first reconsider a previously known text.

2. A Letter from the Khotanese KingP[elliot] 44 is a codex15. The Buddhist text (PI. 1: lb-2a) contained

in it, which has been recognized as possibly the oldest text referring toPadmasambhava, has been translated by Bischoff and Hartman (1971).On the cover page (PI. 1: la-25b) part of another document with twolines in Tibetan, and part of a square seal in Chinese are found. Apparently the paper of this document was reused to write the Buddhist text, asseals are found elsewhere, too. In other words, the Buddhist text must bedated later than the document. Near the upper edge of the cover page thelower part of what seems to be an enormous Chinese character is seen.No similar example is found in Tibetan texts, though there is one comparable Khotanese text16.

PI. 2 is the concluding part of a letter from the Khotanese king to theChinese ruler in Shazhou (P 5538), where a large Chinese character chi11'rescript' is written18. A close examination of strokes and size has revealed that the Tibetan text possibly contains part of the same charac-

342 Sociolinguistic Implications of the Use of Tibetan in East Turkestan

25b

lb

2a

PL 1: Pelliot tibetain 44.

ter19. Below the character a seal and two lines in Khotanese are found,which read in part: "the fourth regnal year, the horse year, first month."This date has been identified as the fourth regnal year of the Khotaneseking Visa' &ura, namely, 97020.

In the Tibetan text two lines in Tibetan are found, too. The first linereads: ] lo gnyis stag-gi lo zla [bcu gnyisl] "the second year, the tigeryear, [twelfth month]."21 This does not conform to the ordinary OldTibetan dating formula22, but conforms well to the Khotanese formulamentioned above and is possibly a caique from Khotanese; the first partmay then be reconstructed as "the second [regnal] year."23 The similarities between the two texts find support in the use of square seals withChinese inscriptions in vermilion ink24. Thus, the most probable tigeryear of the Tibetan text is 978, which is the first or second regnal year ofVisa' Dharma, the king after VisT Sura in the Khotanese text25.

The above examination reveals that the Tibetan document on thecover page is probably the concluding part of a letter by the Khotaneseking Visa' Dharma to the Chinese ruler in Shazhou Cao Yan-lu26, oneof the latest datable correspondences between the Guiyijun of the Caofamily and the Khotanese Visa dynasty27. We should also note that theBuddhist text on Padmasambhava was written even later, namely afterthe 980s.

3. Classifications of the TextsThus P 44 should be added to a group of Tibetan texts written in the

10th century for international communication. The latter constitute themajority among those written in the post-Tibetan period. As shown inthe Classification by Genre in Table 2, there are 14 texts which wereused for international communication between the Chinese ruler in Dunhuang and the Khotanese king or the Uighur Qaghan in Ganzhou. Theyall belong to the period of the Cao-shi Guiyijun in the 10th century (cf.Table 3). The Classification by Date in Table 2 indicates that the numberof the texts increases significantly during the Caoshi Guiyijun period inthe 10th century.

Table 2: Classifications of the TextsA. Classification by Date

Zhangshi Guiyijun(848-C.915)

Caoshi Guiyijun(c.915^c.l002)

Guiyijun(848-C.1002)

B. Classification by Genre

internationalKhotanUighurKhotan / UighurKirghiz

between Chineseintercitylocal (in Shazhou)

Buddhist

total6

26

25

total14(6)(4)(3)(1)26(7)

(19)

13

Texts282, 7, 24, 26, 34?, 38

11, 12,18,19,20,217,25,27,28,29, 30, 35, 36, 37,41?, 43?, 44,46,48,49,50,51,52,54,56,571?, 3,4?, 5?, 6, 8,9, 10?, 13,14,15,16,17,22,23,31,32,33,39,40, 42, 45, 47, 53?, 55?

Texts

11?, 20, 28, 29,46,548, 25, 32, 3627, 44, 487

2, 22, 37, 39?, 40, 51?, 576,14, 15, 16, 17, 19?, 23, 24, 26,30, 31,33, 34, 35?, 38,41,49?,50?, 52?1,3,4,5,7, 10,12,13,18,21,47,53,56

Besides being used as an international lingua franca, Tibetan was alsoused by Chinese in Hexi for communication amongst themselves. InClassification by Genre, 'intercity' means correspondence between Chinese in Shazhou (Dunhuang) and other towns such as Yizhou (Hami: e.g.Text 22) or Suzhou (e.g. Text 40), while 'local' denotes communicationbetween Chinese within Shazhou. Let us look at two hitherto unpublished letters in the Oldenburg Collection in St. Petersburg29.

Text 51 (SI 0/141), which I call Oldenburg letter 1, is written in the letter formula and writing style peculiar to the post-Tibetan period (PL 4).After the addressee's name, a wide space is left blank. The sender's nameis written in the middle of the line, followed by the particular type ofgreeting expression. The writing style, which is rather cursive, may beconsidered the early phase of dbu-med writing30.

It is addressed to four people, beginning with Khong sing-thong.Sing-thong is a Chinese title of the highest priest-official during thetime of Guiyijun; Khong is a clan name31. This person may be identified with an individual in a Chinese Dunhuang text (P 2040 v) where

Tsuguhito Takeuchi 343he is said to have been in the post from 935 to 94432. His name is followed by the names of other priests and a high-ranking nun, mkhan-moByi-byi. The sender, A-cong, cannot be firmly identified, but is likelyto have been a Chinese woman living in another town. In the letter sheasks the high priests in Shazhou to return her brother because her housecollapsed.

Text 52 (SI 0/142) is a letter from the highest priests in Shazhou, withthe titles sing-thung and hva-shang22. Though the addressee is missingdue to paper damage, judging from the context it is most likely to be theChinese ruler in Shazhou. Traces of two square seals indicate that it is anofficial letter.

Text 57 (Zhejiang 114) is found among the recently published texts inthe Zhejiang Collection in Hangzhou. It is a pledge of allegiance to theruler (ling-gong)24 of the Guiyijun taken by the Chinese inhabitants ofSuzhou, who were subjugated again after revolting against the ling-gong.It is dated to the late 10th century (980s)35.

Text 6 (Ch. 73. XIII. 18) is another interesting example of the use ofTibetan by local Chinese36. It describes the rules and regulations of aBuddhist community, called she, formed by the Chinese inhabitants inShazhou, on which Chinese members have applied their simplified seal-mark or ab-dzi31.

4. Sociolinguistic ImplicationsIn this way, Tibetan continued to be used in the post-Tibetan period as

late as the 10th century not only as a medium for international communication but also for private and official correspondence among the localChinese. This presupposes the sociolinguistic situation in the precedingperiod that "under the long-lasting Tibetan domination the use of Tibetanlanguage prevailed among the multiethnic inhabitants of the area, andpenetrated to the degree that many of them became bi- or multilingualtoward the end of the Tibetan domination, and they began to bear Tibetanor Tibetanized names."38 Certainly, this sociolinguistic situation formedthe basis for the use of Tibetan by non-Tibetans in the later periods. Nevertheless, it is surprising to find a person with such a Tibetanized name asCang am-'gra lha-la-skyabs in a letter of the late 10th century (i.e., Text37)39. There must have been a reason for a well-born Chinese to intentionally employ a Tibetan name and use the Tibetan language after theend of Tibetan rule.

The use of Tibetan for international communication is easily understandable because Tibetan was apparently the most widely used secondlanguage among the various local ethnic groups, including the Chinese,Khotanese, and Uighurs. This is why we call it an international linguafranca. But why was Tibetan also used among the local Chinese, whomust have shared Chinese as their native language?

Chinese was of course the dominant language, but Tibetan continued tobe used also, for over a century. Some sociolinguistic prestige may be assumed to underlie the use of Tibetan by non-natives, but we cannot thinkof any political, economical, cultural, or religious prestige of Tibetan atthis period. The use of Tibetan was not restricted to any particular fieldwhich had a special 'prestige.' It was used for both private and officialcommunications, official documents such as pledges, and religious texts,side by side with Chinese. In other words, Tibetan was a freely available,officially recognized, optional code.

The sociolinguistic background for the use of Tibetan is that Hexi andEast Turkestan were multilingual communities where people could usemore than one language and switch their code as they wished. Tibetanwas a shared code in people's linguistic repertoires in addition to theirnative languages, and served as a convenient tool for a wider range ofcommunication, namely, as a lingua franca40. The Tibetan alphabeticwriting system is remarkably easy to learn for those illiterate in Chinese.From its use as a lingua franca, free from its ethnic identity, Tibetan evidently acquired a sort of 'fashionable' image, or sociolinguistic prestige,which promoted its further use.

PL 2: Concluding part of P 5538.

5. Activities of Local TibetansSo far I have emphasized the use of Tibetan by non-Tibetans. Howev

er, I doubt if this can solely explain the use of Tibetan more than one hundred years after the fall of Tibetan power, especially in view of the factthat the use of Tibetan increased toward the end of the 10th century, wheneven a Tibetan tantric text about Padmasambhava, as we saw above, wasnewly written. Behind this situation I would assume the presence andincreasing activities of local Tibetans in Hexi, especially the Koko-nor,A-mdo and eastern Gansu areas41.

PL 3: Pelliot tibetain 44, last page.

344 Sociolinguistic Implications of the Use of Tibetan in East Turkestai

PL 4: SI 0/141.

The well-known Stael-Holstein Scroll (Text 54) mentions aTibetan named 'Bal rgyal-sum, who was sent to Shazhou as an envoyby the Khotanese king in 92542. He is said to be familiar with all thecities along the route. He traveled from Khotan to Shazhou six times43.As his clan name 'Bal suggests, he may have been a local person fromMdo-smad, of the Sumpa tribe by origin, who became an official inKhotan44.

P 849 (Text 18), which is well known through the publication byHackin (1924), contains a list of Btsan-pos. It includes names, such asBkra-shis-dpal, Dpal-lde, 'O-lde, 'Khri-lde, and Bkra-shis-mgon-po,who are Glang-dar-ma's grandsons in 'Od-srung's lineage settled inWest Tibet45. Since the last Btsan-po on the list, Tsan-po A-tsa-ra, can beidentified with the well-known Ye-shes-'od, the text can be dated to 989or 100146. According to the colophon, the text was written in Suzhou orShazou47. Mention of the contemporaneous West Tibetan rulers in a textwritten in Hexi points to a link between West Tibet and Hexi. This recalls the founding of the Tsong-kha Tibetan kingdom in around 1015 byRgyal-sras alias Khri-lde, a son of 'Od-lde in P 849, who is said to havebeen invited from West Tibet (cf. Table 3)48.

After the collapse of the Tibetan Empire, the Btsan-po's descendantsfounded small kingdoms at the east and west ends of the empire, whereBuddhism was revived and Tibetan Buddhist texts, such as P 44 (Text12), were newly produced in the late 10th and early 11th centuries.

So far we have Old Tibetan texts attested till the late 10th or early 1 l,hcentury, which is really the final phase before the closure of the Dunhuang cave (c. 1010). We now enter the Tangut period.

6. Tibetan Texts in the Tangut PeriodIt has been argued that Tangut culture, especially Tangut Buddhism,

was influenced by Tibetan culture and Tibetan Buddhism49. Several Buddhist texts are regarded as having been translated from Tibetan50. Buthitherto not many Tibetan texts of that period have been attested and examined51. I have found among the Tibetan texts in the Kozlov Collectionin St. Petersburg a Tibetan Prajhaparamita sutra excavated in Khara-

Table 3: Chronological Table of Ruling Powers

c . 7 9 0 ( / 8 0 1 ) c . 8 5 0 9 1 2 c . 1 0 0 6Khotan

T a n g T i b e t

786D u n h u a n g [ _ _

848

VISA DYNASTY Karakhanids

c . 9 1 5 c . 1 0 3 6

T a n g T i b e t G u i y i j u n G U I Y I J U NZhang family CAO FAMILY

Tangut

766Ganzhou

c . 8 5 0 c . 8 9 04 -

T a n g T i b e t G u i y i j u n

1028

- 4 -U I G H U R T a n g u t

1 0 1 5 1 1 0 4

Tsong-kha Tibetan Kingdom

Tsuguhito Takeuchi 345

PL 5: XT 87.

khoto (PL 5). It is written on large pothi, on the verso of which a Tangut text is found52. Apparently the Tangut side was written later, but thetime interval can not have been very long. Thus, the most probable datefor the Tibetan text would be the 1 llh century. Nevertheless, the Tibetantext shows various Old Tibetan palaeographic features. It may have beenwritten and brought to the Tangut state from Dunhuang.

I also came across another unnoticed Tangut text among the Tibetantexts from Khara-khoto and Etsin-gol in the Stein Collection53. Thoughit is not bilingual, it was discovered together with several Tibetan textsfrom the same site, K.K. III. The Tibetan texts may be considered to becontemporaneous to the Tangut text, and yet they still retain Old Tibetanpalaeographic traits. These seem to suggest that the Old Tibetan textualtradition continued at least till the late 11th century in the Tangut kingdom.

On this occasion I wish to draw the attention of colleagues to the hitherto neglected but important group of Tibetan texts from Khara-khotoand Etsin-gol in the Kozlov and Stein Collections. There are 1041 textsin the Stein Collection54, and 81 texts in the Kozlov Collection55. Theyare mostly Buddhist texts, but are extremely rich in variety. Their datesrange from the late 11th to the 17th centuries. Some are written in the OldTibetan style, some in the Classical Tibetan style, some include Mongolian texts (Tibeto-Mongolian bilingual texts), and some are prints56.Their forms also vary, including pothi, scroll, concertina, and codex. Ishould also mention that I found 14 or more similar texts in the GermanTurfan Collection as well57. These texts provide evidence for variousstages of the development of Tibetan writing styles during that 700-yearperiod.

7. ConclusionIn this paper we have seen that the date of Old Tibetan texts from

Dunhuang can be extended into the late 10th or early 1 llh century. TheseTibetan texts were mainly produced by non-Tibetans for internationalcommunication, for local communication, and for writing Buddhist texts.The reason for the use of Tibetan by non-Tibetans is that Hexi and EastTurkestan were multilingual communities in which Tibetan was the mostwidely used second language among the various ethnic groups. Fromsometime in the 10th century on, local Tibetans in Hexi and A-mdo alsotook part in producing Tibetan texts.

Even after the closure of the Dunhuang cave, the continuous use ofTibetan can be attested by the texts from Khara-khoto, Etsin-gol, andTurfan, where the Old Tibetan textual tradition continued with minormodifications till the late 11th or early 12th century when the tradition wasfinally gradually replaced by the Classical Tibetan textual style whichhad begun a little earlier in West Tibet58.

Tibetan literature has been roughly divided into two groups or periods,namely, Old Tibetan texts, consisting of manuscripts and stone inscriptions written before the mid-9th century, on the one hand, and ClassicalTibetan texts, consisting mainly of printed texts dating from around the12th century onward. The intervening period has been considered a darkage. The post-Tibetan Empire Dunhuang texts and those from Khara-khoto, Etsin-gol, and Turfan, represent the post Old Tibetan literature ofthe eastern tradition, comparable to the western tradition represented bythe recently discovered Tabo texts59. Together they will bridge the gapand shed light on this hitherto neglected dark period in the history ofTibetan literature.

346 Sociolinguistic Implications of the Use of Tibetan in East Turkestan

Notes* This is a revised version of my paper read at the 8th Seminar of theInternational Association for Tibetan Studies, Bloomington, 1998. AJapanese version appeared in Tohogaku 104 (2002), 106-124. I wishto thank Professors Ch. Beckwith and Y. Yoshida for valuable comments. This research was financially supported by Grant-in-Aid forScientific Research on Priority Areas (A) "A Study of Publishing Culture in East Asia."

1 Published in Uray (1981).2 Published in Takeuchi (1986: enlarged edition, in Japanese) and

Takeuchi (1990: original edition, in English).3 Noticed earlier by Stein (1912; rpt. 1987, vol. 2, 185) and Hackin

(1924, VI), but since then not much attention has been paid to thisquestion till recently.4 Cf. Takeuchi (1986 and 1990). The palaeographic features suggestthat several more texts (e.g. P 814) belong to the post-Tibetan period,but in order to securely date the texts solely on palaeography, a moresystematic analysis needs to be done. Moriyasu's recent research onseals provides important clues for dating the texts (Moriyasu 2000).

5 For example, P 1080, 1257, and 2782v (a Tibetan letter written inKhotanese script), and Tibetan transcriptions of Chinese (P448,1228,1238, 1253, 1262) may belong to the post-Tibetan Empire period aswell.

6 Ch. (= Ch'ien-fo-tung), VP (= de la Poussin Catalogue number), andOr (= Oriental Manuscript) belong to the Stein Collection. P = PelliotCollection. SI O = Serlndia Oldenburg Collection. Otani = Otani Collection. Peking = Peking Library. Zhejiang = Zhejiang Collection inHangzhou, China.7 a.8 nmtm.9 ̂ nm.

11 ^zE (?).12 m&.13 j*3E«.14 ^b 182 SI (M47)-l.15 For the photos, see Choix de documents tibetains, tome 1 (Paris,

1978), pis. 62-74.16 One Chinese manuscript also contains the same large character (Stein

Or 8210/ S 11287; cf. Rong 1993, 8-9), but the Khotanese text is moresimilar in style to the Tibetan text.

17 JR.18 PL XXXVm in Bailey 1961. For the interpretation, see Bailey 1969,

125-29; 1964, 17-26; 1968, 58-61, and Rong 1993, 8-10.19 Lower left part of the right side, the radical meaning "power."20 Kumamoto (1995) reports a similar Khotanese official letter, where

the date is designated by the regnal year khayi-gvina, the second year(P 4091: cf. pis. CLV-CLVI in Emmerick 1973, and Bailey 1969,123). Kumamoto 1995, 247-248, relates khayi-gvina to Chinese Kai-yun H M and identifies it with the Chinese regnal year of Later Jin(944-946). Since the use of Chinese regnal years was not common inKhotan, we may consider it, following the suggestion by Y. Yoshida,to be an unknown Khotanese regnal year to be inserted most probablybetween Tianshou JiM and Tianzun JiM.Ci. note 25 below.

21 The second line reads: ] [dku] la gnang "granted to the [lord's] side."22 The month should be designated by a combination of a season plus

first/middle/last month (e.g., the last winter month).23 In the Khotanese text, the word parau, which corresponds to the Chi

nese chi 'rescript' is written in large size at the beginning of the firstline below the large chi. The corresponding Tibetan word bka', whichis missing from the cover page due to paper damage, is found on thelast page of the booklet (PL 3). Note that the word bka' is used in asimilar way in a letter from the Uighur Qaghan in Ganzhou in the 10thc. (P 1082; cf. Takeuchi 1986, 589-590). The use of the words chi,

parau, and bka' in emperors' letters seems to become prevalent in the10th century.

24 The seals are impressed in the same way, but the inscriptions are different.

25 If Visa' Dharma's reign began in 978, as claimed by Zhang/Rong(1993, 51), 978 is not the second year. But this is the only possiblecandidate among the previously identified regnal years. There is another possibility that the regnal year Tianshou ended in the third yearand the new hitherto unknown regnal year (possibly Kaiyun, mentioned in note 20 above) started in the same year. If so, the second yearof the new era would be 966, which is the tiger year.2 6 fi i i .

27 There are two more drafts of Tibetan letters from the Khotanese king(P 1106, 2111), and three drafts of letters from the Shazhou ruler tothe Khotanese king (P 984, 1120, 1284: cf. Takeuchi 1986, 589-591).Two letters in Khotanese (P 4091, 5538), and one Chinese letter (P2826: cf. Moriyasu 2000, 58-59 fn.72, 86-87, 99) have also beenfound. Three languages were used for communication between Khotan and Shazhou, of which Tibetan seems to have been most frequently used.28 The number refers to the text number given in Table 1.

29 Three Old Tibetan letters from Dunhuang are found in the OldenburgCollection: i.e., SI 0/141, 142, and 143. The first two belong to thepost-Tibetan period and will be discussed here, while the last one belongs to the Tibetan period. I plan to publish a detailed description ofthe three texts in Manuscripta Orientalia.

30 Cf. Takeuchi (1986, 1990).31 This name and title may be reconstructed in Chinese characters as

32 Chikusa 1982, 359, and Rong 1996, 289-292.33 fif ^t and ID |o]. Two sing-thung are named. One is not legible due

to paper damage. The other one has the clan name Han, probably$$ in Chinese script, but this sing-thung is not found in the lists ofsing-thung in Chikusa 1982, 359, and Rong 1996, 289-292. He maybe identified with one of the two sing-thungs who were in the postbetween c. 954 and c. 978; their clan names are unknown.34 *'£.

35 r8fiK#M;fc*Utt*H, 2000).36 First published by Thomas 1951,404-406, and later revised by Taka-

ta 1994, 142-144.37 For ab-dzi (flP ?), see Takeuchi 1995, 114-115.38 Takeuchi 1995, 133.39 Cang is the Chinese clan name 5S; am- 'gra is the phonetic rendering

of the Chinese title ffl f§f; and Lha-la-skyabs is a Tibetan given name.He was probably Chinese in origin, but bore a Tibetan given name.For the composition of names, cf. Takeuchi 1995, 129-132.

40 Bilingual lexicons and phrase books (e.g., Texts 9 and 45) were probably made as tools in such multilingual contexts.41 The presence of Tibetans in Xining, Liangzhou and Jingzhou and theiractivities are recorded in Chinese sources (e.g., Fujieda 1942, 82-84,fn. 156; Zhu 1988, 1-13, 293-294; Iwasaki 1993).

42 Thomas/Konow 1929 and Bailey 1951. Interestingly, the Tibetan text,which is a petition to the Chinese ruler in Shazhou, seems to have beenwritten by other envoys from Khotan who bore Chinese names and titles: 'Bye tu-tu (i£ IB H) and Co tu-tu (31 IB 1f).

43 The Khotanese text, 11. 34-36.44 Apparently a monk from Tibet named Sarrnadatta is also mentioned

among those envoys staying in Shazhou (the Khotanese text, 11. 9, 39,42).45 The list of names for the empire period is simple and contains manyerrors, while the detailed list starts with Khris-kyi-ling (= Skyi-de-nyi-ma-mgon), a grandson of 'Od-srung, who moved to West Tibet. Thelist includes the boys who were not enthroned.

46 The list contains: Khris-kyi-ling, the first king of Mnga'-ris, with his

Tsuguhito Takeuchi 347

three sons; Bkra-shis-rtsegs-pa-dpal, the king of La-stod, with histhree sons; Bkra-shis-mgon-po, the second king of Mnga'-ris; andTsan-po [sic] A-tsa-ra, the third king of Mnga'-ris, namely, Song-ngealias Ye-shes-'od, with his two sons, 'Khri-lde-mgon and Lha-cig-cag-she. The two sons later entered the priesthood and changed theirnames to De-wa-ra-dza and Na-ga-ra-dza in 996 and 998 respectively(Vitali 1996, 241-241). As the text gives their pre-ordination names,989 is the more likely date.

47 According to the colophon, it was written in the ox year by a man ofthe 'Bro clan, named 'Bro dkon-mchog-dpal (1. 201). The clan wasdeeply associated with West Tibet (Petech 1977, 15-16).48 Rgyal-sras has not been firmly identified yet. Yamaguchi 1988,51-52,states "Khri-lde, a grand-son of Bkra-shis brtsegs-pa-dpal, was invited[to Tsong-kha] from Mar-yul or Ladakh in 1008. He came to be calledRgyal-sras and founded the kingdom." Zhu (1988) considers Rgyal-sras to be a son of Khri-lde and to have been born in Turfan.

49 Nishida (1975) and Kychanov (1978). According to Kychanov 1978,208, "Tibetan influence on the essentially syncretic culture of Hsi Hsiawas the influence of Tibetan Buddhist tradition first of all."

50 For the Tangut Buddhist texts translated from Tibetan, see Nishida1975, 8-14; 1997, 455^168.

51 Kychanov 1978, 207, mentions a few manuscripts and xylographs inTibetan excavated together with books in Tangut and Chinese.

52 Numbered XT 87. The Tangut text written in verse has not been identified.

53 Site number K.K. IH. 0303. a.; stack location IOL Tib M Box 12.54 Listed by the former Tibetan curator U. Pagel and the present cura

tor B. Quessel. These texts were brought by Stein's third expeditionand are now located in the Oriental and India Office Collections ofthe British Library with the stack location numbers "IOL Tib M Box01-12."

55 Cf. Vorobyova-Desyatovskaya 1995. I hope to publish a catalogue-list of them with Dr. Vorobyova-Desyatovskaya.

56 There are 350 printed texts in the Stein Collection from Khara-khotoand Etsin-gol.

57 Among the 139 Tibetan texts published in Taube (1980), 14 texts defi

nitely belong to the post-Tibetan or later periods (Texts 26, 49, 50,52-56, 69, 102, 107,109, 120 and 127), and 12 may also belong tothe same periods (Texts 19, 25, 36, 47, 48, 51, 71, 103, 104, 111, 115and 117).

58 The so-called Second Reformation of the writing style (bkas bead

gnyis-pa) in the first half of the 9th century is sometimes considered tomark the end of Old Tibetan and the beginning of Classical Tibetan.However, as far as writing style and palaeographic features are concerned, the Third Reformation, which began sometime in the early11th century, seems to have played a greater role. (For the Reformations, cf. Skyogs-ston rin-chen bkra-shis: Li-shi'i gur-khang, rpt.Beijing 1981, 1-2; Ruegg 1998, 121).59 For the Tabo texts, see East and West 44-1 (1994, Rome: IsMEO),Scherrer-Schaub/Steinkellner 1999, and Petech/Luczanits 1999.

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