IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
448 FINDS OF TIBETAN RECORDS CH. XXXIX
Tibet. " With long lungs make haste " is the graphic close of the appeal.
Curious, too, is the petition of an old officer, complaining of not having received yet the promised reward for his services and hinting at their being needed again to repel certain fresh inroads. Elsewhere we have reports on a punitory expedition, movements of hostile cavalry,
directions about the transport of supplies, etc. The
urgent issue of reminders to certain dignitaries is solicited under orders from the supreme Government ; and expenditure authorized on certain specified items of wages and transport. In one of the wooden tablets a certain Jehu-lho, ` servant of the four Tiger ministers,' reports his presence at Little Nob after executing his mission, and in much distress from want of further instructions asks for his marching orders. In a paper document, still difficult to read owing to incrustation with dirt, we have a private letter to a high official recommending for his use a certain medicine to be prepared of boiled sheep's dung mixed with butter, barley-flour, and other savoury ingredients. From scarcity of writing material, the reverse of the same sheet has been used for a long-winded application by some one
else for a sealed passport to return to his home. A more !a
imposing record, dated in a year of the Twelve Years' ti
Cycle and bearing the red impressions of nine seals, a
contains curious court proceedings concerning the sale of a slave taken in a recent war, whom a priest disposes of
to a purchaser under certain guarantees in case of his tl
escape.
About the many points of interest which, according to my collaborators' opinion, the palaeography, spelling, and dialectic peculiarities of these records raise, it would be out of place to speak here. They belong to the earliest
written monuments of the language, and are bound to throw much new light on the social and military organiza-
tion of a period when Tibet played a powerful rôle in the
political history of Central Asia. The identification of the numerous local names mentioned in them will prove an
interesting and fruitful task. Here it must suffice to point out that among these names we have ` Cher-chen,' the
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