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MINOR CHRONICLES : VI. THE SRA-SRA-MUN CHIEFS   181

ward, called Rab-rgyas, the Lha-mo-can castle was erected. After that a lady of

Pa-skyum, called Bil-ti, was married to the king [of La-dvags]. At that time the

Pa-skyum [chief] erected the two castles of Rgyal-mo-mkhar and Byu-ru-mkhar.

The [chief of] Pa-skyum used to pay taxes to the great Ladakhi king. The chief of

Pa-skyum was called Ra-yim-Khan. The [official] who ruled over Hem-babs (Dras)

under [the king of] La-dvags, was called Jo-mal.

The castle of Sim-sa-mkhar-bu was destroyed by the Sin-pa in the Sin-pa

(Dogra) war.

NOTES

The first part of the text contains a short genealogy of the old Dard chiefs of Sim-§a-mkhar-bu. It is short, because the names of so many members have been forgotten ; and I believe that several of its members are now in the wrong place. Still, with regard to a district where every other kind of information fails, it is of some value, as containing the names of at least some of its ancient chiefs. It contains all that Sah-ban could remember of his mother's tales. As regards the name of the first ancestor, the first syllable contains the title sra, this being the Dard word for Tibetan jo, ` chief,' ` prince.' The following two syllables, viz. sra, mun, are no longer understood ; but I believe that they once more contain the title of sra, followed by the word mun[i], Buddhist monk. It is not impossible that here, as well as in Baltistan and in Cig-tan, a ` religious beggar ' was placed at the head of the line. This idea of a mendicant ancestor is once more expressed by the occurrence of the word Pha-kyir (Faqir) among the following members of the pedigree.

The second part of the tale contains a half-legendary account of the abolition of the custom of sending girls to China instead of taxes. There may be some historical foundation in this story ; for it is well known that girls from Kashmir, and probably also from Dardistan) were much in demand for Oriental harems in former days. That Kashmir was actually under China in Tang times has been fully proved by Sir A. Stein in his Ancient Khotan (i, p. 13). But, instead of a Muhammadan priest, the original form of the tale may have meant a Buddhist or Hindu priest. With regard to the assertion that the Bo-dro-masjid (Tibetan mosque) was erected in those early Chinese days, I have come to the following conclusion :—There are several Bo-dro-masjids in Srinagar, and one of them is evidently the Jama` masjid. Referring to these, Pandit Anant Kaul says in his Jammu and Kashmir State, on p. 57, ` The site of the mosque is considered sacred by the Buddhists also, and even now men from Ladakh visit the Jama masjid and call it by its old name, Tsitsung Tsublak Kang.' Tsublak Kang is evidently intended for Tsug-lag-khan, the ordinary Tibetan word for old Buddhist temples. The word Tsitsung is unintelligible to me. Anant Kaul further says, ` The Jama masjid was built originally by Sikander in 1404 with

the materials of a large stone temple constructed by King Tárápida (693-7 A.D )    There are remains of several
stone temples round this mosque, whose builders are not known.' This note, evidently based on Sir Aurel Stein's researches in Kashmir, plainly states that the origin of the stone temple, which forms the groundwork of the famous mosque, actually goes back to the times of the Chinese Tang dynasty. Tárápida's temple, or at least some of the surrounding stone temples, may have been Buddhist, not Hindu, originally. Hence the veneration paid to the mosque by Tibetan Buddhists.

The third part of the above account contains a succession of dynasties or empires which ruled over the Pu-rig district, according to the tales received by Sah-ban from his mother. The times of Chinese rule were followed by those of a certain Tsag, it is said. It is possible that the word Tsag is identical with the word Chak, the name of a dynasty of Kashmir kings who ruled in the second half of the sixteenth century. In that case the name would appear to be in the wrong place in the above account : it would have to be placed at least after Tffműr. The occurrence of the name Tahi-mur ( = Tffműr) in this connexion is of particular interest. The above account is, so far, the only West Tibetan document that makes mention of one of Chingis Khan's successors as overlord over the country. But we know for certain, from Central Tibetan accounts, that Kublai Khan ruled over Ladakh, and that he even carried out a census of that country (see S. Ch. Das, JASB. 1904, Extra Number, p. 99). In 1399 A.D. Tffműr passed through Jammu on his way to Samarkand. From Jammu he went on a short expedition through the mountains of Kashmir. The Khri-Sultans are the famous chiefs of Dkar-rtse in the

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