National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

INTRODUCTION

THE chronicles of Ladakh (La-dvags), which are here for the first time edited and

translated in their full extent, comprise in their earlier parts the history of the

ancient empire of Great Tibet and in their more recent parts that of the West Tibetan

empire. But even in the chapters dealing with the history of Great Tibet special

attention is shown to Western Tibet ; and these chapters do not appear to be mere

extracts from general Tibetan works of history. On the contrary, they appear to be

an original production, which had its origin in the west of the country.

The first European to hear of the existence of a continuous historical narrative in

Western Tibet was Csoma de Körös, who lived in Zaiis-dkar and Upper Kunawar

between A.D. 1820 and 1830. He says in a note appended to his list of Tibetan kings

(Prinsep's Useful Tables, p. 132) that there was a book at Leh containing the names

of the kings who successively reigned in that principality (Ladakh). But Csoma

was never able to see the book.

Csoma's statement was questioned by Sir Alexander Cunningham, who visited

Ladakh in A.D. 1846-7. He says that from Dpal-gyi-mgon (tenth century) down to the

end of the sixteenth century no historical records exist in Ladakh. This he explains

in the following way :—` During the invasion of Ladakh by Ali-Mir, the Mohamedan

chief of Skardo (sixteenth century), all the temples and monasteries of the country are

said to have been destroyed, and their libraries thrown into the Indus.' Cunningham,

however, managed to see historical books containing the history of Ladakh from

c. A.D. 1580 down to the Dogra wars (A.D. 1834). These chapters were apparently

translated for him into Urdu, and he wrote down in English what he was told. This

method explains a number of blunders found in Cunningham's chapter ` Under Native

Rulers '. But a comparison of his account with that of the chronicles, as we have

them now, plainly proves that his information was drawn from original' documents.

The first to bring a copy of such an original document to Europe was Hermann v.

Schlagintweit, who visited Leh in 1856. It was a copy specially prepared for him,

executed by three lamas, but not until valuable presents had been given to the ex-king,

Hjigs-med-rnam-rgyal. This copy was published by Emil v. Schlagintweit, with

a German translation, in Abhandlungen der kgl. bayerischen Akademie der Wissen-

schaften, vol. x, 1866.

A copy of the La-dvags-rgyal-rabs, very similar to that of Schlagintweit, must

have been in the hands of the Rev. H. A. Jäschke when he made his collections of

Tibetan words for his Tibetan-English dictionary. Many of the words and passages

B