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0285 Results of a Scientific Mission to India and High Asia : vol.3
Results of a Scientific Mission to India and High Asia : vol.3 / Page 285 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000041
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TÎBET—TÎPPE$A.

253

Tibet.

This is the name now employed by Europeans to designate the longitudinal valley lying between the Himalaya and the Karakoram, which is drained on the east by the Dihông (by mistake sometimes called the Brahmapntra), and on the west by the river-system of the Indus and S,tlej.

Ritter, Cunningham, and recently Köppen,' have collected several of the older modes of spelling Tibet. Marco Polo writes T h eb e t h, Simeon Sethi 2 gives it Tovnlrz ; the Arabian annalists, Abu Zaid Al Hasan in the year 915 A.D., Ibn Haukal in about 950, Abu Richan in 1030, and Edrisi in 1154, write Ti-bat. In the Chinese description of Tibet, translated by Klaproth,3 it is said that a victorious chief who founded a powerful empire in Tibet (about 630 A.D.), called it Thu-pho, or Thu-fa, a name which Chinese historiographers have changed into Thou-fan. In Mongolian this country is called Tub ed, the vowel u having a sound between the u as we use it, and the French u in to ; the same sound also exists in the Swedish language. In Kalmuki the name sounds Töböd.4 The names Tobbat and Töbot are incorrect, as Schiefner has shown, who also has made evident,b that the word Tibet, or its modifications in use, are to be derived from the Tibetan

words thub 8Z:3 and phod Z5, which have both the meaning of to be able, to have

strength, to dare ; they have been combined for the purpose of increasing the power of their meaning.

The name now in use in Tibetan, besides several descriptive designations,° is Bod, Bod-yul, (yul, country), decidedly a softer form of p hod. To the Tibetans themselves Tibet is now a foreign word. In the districts bordering on the British dominions they have learned it from English, but in Balti the natives say that the Mussälmans are considered to have introduced it long before Europeans visited the country.

Tiloknâth, or Triloknâth, in Chamba,

Lat. 32°, Long. 76°     .43U L0,13 Hind., properly f-173ARTIEr Sanskr.

"Lord of the three worlds." Particularly an epithet of Siva.

Tippera, properly Tripura, in Bengal, Lat. 23°, Long. 91° . "Three towns."

 

Sanskr.

 

1 Ritter, "Erdkunde von Asien," Vol. IH., p. 177; Cunningham, "Ladâk," p. 19; Köppen, "Die Religion des

Buddha," Vol. II., p. 41.   •   2 "De Alimentor. Facultate." Edit. Paris., p. 70.—According to Thomas's most
interesting report, "On Marco Polo, from a Cod. Ital. Monacensis," Sitzungsberichte der baier. Acad., p. 261-70, Tubet is also found in Marco Polo, who calls it, however, f° una citta chel gran thane ghuasto per ghuerra." a Klaproth, "Nouveau Journal Asiatique," Vol. IV., p. 106. Compare "Asia polyglotta," p. 343.

4 Also I. J. Schmidt writes it so in his "Forschungen im Gebiete der älteren Bildungsgeschichte der Völker

Mittelasiens." Petersburg 1824.

5 "Mélanges Asiatiques de St. Petersbourg," Vol. I., p. 332, note.

e Such descriptive designations for Tibet are: Kha-va-chan-gyi-yul, the land full of mow, q. v.; gangsri'i-khrod, an assemblage of snowy tracts; gangs-ri'i-ljongs, a tract of icy or snowy mountains; sa-yi-lte-va,

the navel (the centre) of the earth.