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3o   THROUGH CHITRAL AND MASTÜJ   [Chap. II

extracted from the great history, Tzû chili tong chien.19 This narrates how the .Jabgu of Tokhâristân, Shih-li-tan-chtieh-lo, in A. D. 749, dispatched an envoy to the Imperial Court with the following application : ` The king of Chieh-shih,ijj, has personally attached himself to the Tibetans ; he harasses and troubles the Little P`o-lii ; he has established an army to obstruct its line of supplies. I, your subject, desire to destroy this perverse man. I pray you to send troops of An-hsi 20 which next year in the fifth month will reach the Little P`o-hi, and in the sixth arrive in the Great P`o-lii.' ` The Emperor gave his assent. In the ninth year Tien-pao (A.D. 750), in the second month, Kao Hsien-chih, general of An-hsi, triumphed over the kingdom of Chieh-shih and made its king P`o-t`ê-mo prisoner. In the third month Su-chia, elder brother of P`o-t`ê-mo, was appointed king of Chieh-shih.'

In discussing in Ancient Khotan the bearing of these records on the story of the Chinese occupation of Yasin and Gilgit, I have already set forth in detail the reasons which have convinced me that by the territory called Chieh-shih or Chieh-shuai must be meant Chitral.21 The most conclusive proof is supplied by a record in the detailed notice which the Tang Annals contain on T`u-ho-lo or Tokhâristân. After the mention of an event which belongs to the year A.D. 729, there follows the statement that a ` neighbouring barbarian people, that of Chieh-shih, proposed to lead the Tibetans (Tu f'o) to an attack upon T`u-ho-lo.22 Thereupon the Jabgu Shih-li mangch`ieh-lo 23 prayed that troops of An-hsi might come to his help to meet it. The Emperor, by his favour, caused troops to move which defeated the enemy.' As the notice proceeds in chronological sequence to mention the military help which Tu-ho-lo rendered to the Emperor in A. D. 758 in his struggle with rebels, it may be considered certain that the expedition against Chieh-shih here mentioned by the Tang Annals is identical with the one of A.D. 750, by which, as seen, P`o-t`ê-mo, king of Chieh-shuai or Chieh-shih, was defeated, and his elder brother Su-chia set up as king in his place.

The mention here made of Chieh-shih as a territory adjoining Tokhâristân, and one through which the latter was exposed to Tibetan aggression, would by itself suffice to suggest the identity of Chieh-shih with Chitral ; for a glance at the map shows that for the Tibetans, already established on the Indus as far as Baltistân and struggling for the possession of ` Little P`o-lu' or Gilgit-Yasin, the line of advance against Badakhshan would necessarily have led through Chitral. But this identification is made still more certain by a subsequent passage in the Tang Annals' notice of

Tokhâristân describing the territory of Chieh VI, a manifest abbreviation of Chieh-shih.24   It is
situated in the midst of the Ts`ung-ling mountains ; to the west and the south it is bordered by (the territory of) Shé-mi ; to the north-west are the I-ta or Hephthalites.' As the seats of the latter are placed by the same notice in Tokhâristân, which in its main portion south of the Oxus undoubtedly corresponds to Badakhshân,25 it is clear that Chieh or Chieh-shih which adjoined this on the south-east must be represented by the present Chitral.

Chieh-shuai (Chieh-shih) identified with Chitral.

Notice of Chitral in Tang Annals.

12 See Chavannes, Turcs occid., p. 2 x 4, note 2.

20 By An-hsi ` the West-protecting [garrison] ' is meant Kucha, then the administrative centre of the ` Four Garrisons', representing the Chinese protectorate in the Tarim Basin and to the north of it.

21 The graphic difference in the second character go or

I is very slight.

Q2 See Chavannes, Turcs occid., p. 158, where the name of Chieh-shih appears in the form of )4 Of .

23 The texts previously quoted replace mang A by ch`ang

, or tan

24 See Chavannes, Turcs occid., p. 159. In note 3 M. Chavannes had duly recognized Chieh Ajj as a form, abbreviated after the fashion usual in Chinese texts, of the

name which appears as Chieh-shih   Ij or Chieh-shuai

Ag go in the encyclopaedias previously quoted (see above, p. 29) and as Chieh-shih Oj j in the preceding passage

of the Tang Annals. But he had not attempted to locate the territory intended.

25 Cf. Chavannes, Turcs occid., pp. 155, 158 ; also Voyage de Song Fun, p. 24.