IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.1 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Citation Information
| 1Xx | PRELIMINARY ESSAY. |
Between 713 and 731 repeated missions are reported from the different kingdoms of India, one of which begged aid against the Arabs and the Tibetans, and requested the Emperor to bestow an honorific title upon the Indian monarch's army. The Emperor perhaps found this the most convenient part of the petition to comply with, and decreed it the title of " the Army which
cherishes virtue."'
In 742 foreign merchants who had arrived in China by the Sea
of the South brought a number of precious articles from the kingdom of Lions (Sinhala or Ceylon) to be presented to the
Emperor on behalf of Shiloshukia their king.2 Other embassies came from the same island in 746, 750, 762. There is then an
interval of many centuries before Ceylon is again heard of in the
Chinese Annals.3
47. Towards 758-760, China, it is said, having lost the country
xvii, p. 190. There is a King Chandrapida in the Kashmir Annals, but he is killed in 691. The king reigning 695-732 was Laladitya, a great conqueror. He seems to have had a brother Muktopida (see Lassen, iii,
993, 997).
1 See Julien, u.s., and compare Chine Ancienne, 309, 310. About this time there is frequent mention in the Chinese Annals of relations with two kingdoms called Great and Little Poliu, which lay between Kashgar and Kashmir. The king of Little Poliu dwelt in a city called Nieito, near a river called Soi. The Great Poliu was more to the east ; his country was occupied by the Chinese forces in 747 (Remusat, in Mein, de l'A cad . as above, pp. 100-102). Remusat renders Poliu Purut ; but there can be no doubt that the kingdoms in question are Ladakh and Balti, which continued to a late date to be known as Great and Little Tibet. These titles will be found in Tavernier I think, and in the letters of the Jesuit Desideri (1716), and indeed the term Little Tibet for Balti is scarcely yet obsolete. Ladakh is probably the city of Tibet, built on an eminence over a river" of Edrisi (i, 492). In Meyendorff we find the cities of Great and Little Tibet still spoken of at Bokhara. The Georgian Danibeg went from Kashmir to the " city of Tibet" in twenty days. It was three months from Lhassa. And the Tajik route given by Meyendorff speaks of reaching by the Karakorum pass Tibet, a city on the croupe of a mountain, with the governor's residence at the top," a description which applies perhaps equally well to Ladakh and Balti. The latter is perhaps the name concealed in the Poliu of the Chinese, and the Soi: may be the
Shayok (Meyendorff, pp. 122, 339).
2 Ch. Anc., 312. This is not mentioned by Tennent. The king reigning at Anurajapura at this time was Aggrabodhi III or Akbo.
Tennent, ib., 597.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.