Kötenʼs 1244 Letter to Sa skya Paṇḍita

Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines numéro soixante-quatre — Juillet 2022 ISSN 1768-2959 Directeur : Jean-Luc Achard. Comité de rédaction : Alice Travers, Charles Ramble, Jean-Luc Achard. Comité de lecture : Ester Bianchi (Università degli Studi di Perugia), Fabienne Jagou (EFEO), Rob Mayer (Oriental Institute, University of Oxford), Fernand Meyer (CNRS-EPHE), Françoise Pommaret (CNRS), Ramon Prats (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona), Charles Ramble (EPHE, CNRS), Françoise Robin (INALCO), Alice Travers (CNRS), Jean-Luc Achard (CNRS). Périodicité La périodicité de la Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines est généralement bi-annuelle, les mois de parution étant, sauf indication contraire, Octobre et Avril. Les contributions doivent parvenir au moins six (6) mois à l’avance. Les dates de proposition d’articles au comité de lecture sont Novembre pour une parution en Avril, et Mai pour une parution en Octobre. 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Hébergement: http://www.digitalhimalaya.com/collections/journals/ret/ v The 1983 Copy of Kötenʼs 1244 Letter to Sa skya Paṇḍita Sun Penghao (Harvard University) Chen Qingying (China Tibetology Research Center) he year 1244 is traditionally believed to be the year that the Mongol prince Köten1 extended an invitation to Sa skya Paṇdita, starting a relationship which, after some twists and turns, finally evolved into the so-called Mongol-Sa skya hegemony in Tibet. Two of the early Tibetan sources related to this invitation have been subjected to philological scrutiny: Dieter Schuh suggested that at least part of Köten’s invitation letter preserved in A mes zhabs’s (1599–1657) 1629 history is the result of forgery;2 David Jackson later cast doubt on the alleged origin of another important epistle copied by A mes zhabs, the so-called “Sa skya Paṇḍitaʼs letter to the Tibetans,”3 which is traditionally believed to have come from the meeting of Köten and Sapaṇ. These two scholars have drawn attention to some critical issues concerning the textual transmissions of these two early documents of great political significance. In this article, we will reevaluate some of the problems they identified through the reading of a hitherto underappreciated document found in 1983 at the Sa skya monastery (hereafter referred to as “the ʼ83 copy”). In 1989, Huang Bufan ý_+ and Chen Qingying òmÅ, though unaware of their two western colleagues’ works, published a study of the ʼ83 copy, explaining its anomalies and arguing for its authenticity. However, due to the poor circulation of the edited volume that contained the article, their study has so far received little notice even in China. The ʼ83 copy that they studied is a unique version of Köten’s letter – it contains not only a unique Tibetan version of the text but also a set of Tibetan transcriptions of Chinese annotations. As we will see, the phonology of the Chinese matches the Early Mandarin of the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries. The ’83 copy thus constitutes an earlier layer of the textual transmission of T 1 2 3 For the Mongol spelling of Köten (Kuoduan , Kuodan , or Kuteng in Chinese, Go dan or Go tan in Tibetan), see Atwood 2015, 21. Schuh 1977, 26–69. Jackson 1986.  Sun Penghao & Chen Qingying, “The 1983 Copy of Kötenʼs 1244 Letter to Sa skya Paṇḍita”, Revue dʼEtudes Tibétaines, no. 64, Juillet 2022, pp. 614-628. Kötenʼs 1244 Letter 615 the letter in question. Recently, we introduced the studies by Schuh and Jackson to our peers in the Chinese academic world in the hope that their important contributions would receive due attention (Sun & Chen 2020). Conversely, the present essay aims to fully present the ʼ83 copy of Kötenʼs letter to scholars in the west. After a revised reconstruction of the Chinese gloss, we will also introduce recently discovered fragments of a Tangut woodblock-print that was produced through the patronage of Köten in 1244, to better contextualize his letter and discuss the multilingual and multiethnic officials in his court. Notably, Köten is addressed in the Tangut print set as “the crown prince,” which echoes some historical records about Kötenʼs endeavor to pursue the throne of the Mongol qa’an. We believe that it is appropriate to dedicate this essay to our friend Dan Martin, who has greatly enriched our understanding of Tibetan epistolary culture. 1. The ʼ83 Copy of Kötenʼs Letter One of the authors, Chen Qingying, had the rare opportunity to view the document in the summer of 1983 when he visited the Sa skya monastery. It is a 30cm wide by 10cm tall piece of thick white paper with writing on both sides, preserved in a room on the second floor of a building located across from the grand assembly hall. The room in which the letter was found was referred to as an “archivecum-library” (cangshu shi ̀T) by local monks and housed other manuscripts alleged to be epistles of Sa skya Paṇḍita. Largely owing to certain restrictions, but also because the camera (a Seagull [”û] 135mm) brought by Nga phod ʼJigs med (ïŽ}¿) was out of film, Chen Qingying and his companions (Nga phod ʼJigs med, Luo Zhao ¾˜, and Ding Mingyi {J) were unable to take any pictures but had to copy selected documents by hand, one of which was the ʼ83 copy. This copy contains not only a unique Tibetan version of Kötenʼs letter but also Tibetan transcriptions of Chinese annotations. For example,
ལམ་$ི་བཀའ་ཚ*གས་ལ་མ་བ-་བར་མ$ོགས་པར་འ1ིམས་ཤོག
⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮
4་ ནན་

⋮ ⋮ 6་ཡའོ་ཁན་ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ 9འི་ ལ་ཡི་ 616 Revue dʼEtudes Tibétaines These notes obviously denote the Chinese lu ß (klu), nan ô (nan), buyaokan Ó¨ (pu yaʼo khan), kuai j (khwaʼi), and lai „ (la yi). Taken together, they do not follow Chinese syntax, but when the word order is slightly adjusted, they carry the same meaning as the Tibetan counterparts they gloss: “Disregarding the hardship of the road, quickly come here!” Huang Bufan, a linguist of Sino-Tibetan phonology, recognized the importance of the phonology and, together with Chen Qingying, reconstructed most of the Chinese expressions. Below is a reproduction of the ’83 copy with revised reconstructions based on Huang & Chen 1989. Original transcriptions appear in brackets and are followed by our reconstructed characters. To clarify the structure, we present the text within the frame of an imperial edict and wherever possible use the same terms that have been used to study medieval European documents.4 [Invocatio] tshe ring gnam (tshang ming then * ) gyi she mong (shri ta * ?) dang (hwa * ) bsod nams chen poʼi (ta hu * ) dpal (hu koʼi * ) la brten (thā * ?) [Intitulatio] rgyal po (ham ti * ) nged kyi lung (shing tri * )/ ) paṇḍita (ho’e ?) kun dgaʼ [Publicatio] sa skya (pa’i thu * (phu hyi * ) rgyal mtshan (throm * ) dpal (hu ko’i * ) bzang po (zhan * ) la go bar byed paʼi gtam ( ngo ’ji ta’u * )/ ) dang / gnam [Narratio and Dispositio] nged pha ma (hu mu * saʼi (then ti * ) drin lan (ngan tyan * ) ʼjal baʼi ched du (trung * )/ lam (klu * ) gyi blang dor (ho’i tshu’i * ?) ma nor bar (pu thra * ) ston (chu khan * ?) shes paʼi (ho’i * ) bla ma (sri hu * ) cig (yi ko * ) dgos pa (ya’o * ) brtag pa byas (cin tro * ) dus (sri’u * ) khyed (ni * ) du ʼdug pas (hri ha’o * ?)/ lam (klu * ) gyi dkaʼ tshegs (nan * ) la ma blta bar (pu ya’o khan * ) mgyogs par (khwa’i * ) ʼgrims shog (la yi * )/ [Sanctio] yang na so rgas zer na (ni g.yu’i la’o la’o * ) sngon (tshan * ) ston pa thub paʼi dbang pos (shi kya ho yu hwam * ?) sems can (i tshi drung srin pi shin * ) gyi 4 Schuh 1977, Chapter 4 (158–177). Kötenʼs 1244 Letter 617 don du lus grangs med sbyin par btang ba (mo shru she sri * ) ci tsam (sya pi * ?)/ khyed (ni * ) kyi chos (hwa * ) go baʼi dam bcaʼ (ta’i zho * ?) (mam * ?) dang e ʼgel (ngo shin hyi *?)/ ngas (ngo ling * [/ ]?) mthaʼi khrims ra che ba (ta’i hwa tu * )5 blangs dmag chen poʼi (ta’i ping * ) ʼbab ʼdur byas na (shrang tsa’i ta’u can * ) sems can mang po la (yi tsi drung sring * ) mi gnod pa e yin (drus pu hya * ?)/ nga (ngo * ) dang sems can mang poʼi (yi tsi drung sreng * ) don (sri * ) du mgyogs par ʼgrims shog (sen la’i * ?)/ nyi ma nub phyogs (si ci’u bzhi tha’u * ?) kyi bande rnams (sing tu * ?) khyed shes su ʼjug pa yin (ni phu wa’i tsun * ?) / [List of gifts6] gnang sbyin (shrang si * ) dngul (yin tsa * ) bre lnga / gos (ton ji * ?) ta hūm (dmar chen * )7 gi chos gos (rgya sra * ) mu tig gi tshom8 can (hwam cin tru * ?) la mu tig (cin tru * ) stong phrag drug (lu tshan * ) dang nyis brgya (ri pa’i * )/ gos lu hang (ljang ser * ) gi ring ʼgag (chan ka la *?)9/ lham (sho tsa * ) ʼbob (can ba * ?) dang bcas pa kha ti kha tshang yug gnyis (kyin chon ri * )10/ thon ti (shan sren *?)11 kha tshang yug gnyis (ri phi * )/ 12 gos chen sna lnga (u sre’i * ) yug (yi ko * ) nyi shu rnams (ri phi * )13 yod (ya’u * )/ [Proclamatio and Personnel] ʼdiʼi don la (ci sri * 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 ) (gim gam * = yeke jasaq? The list of gifts (die Aufzählung der Geschenke) is intentionally not discussed by Schuh 1977. The list of gifts and the personnel appointed to the task are also uncommon elements in later protective or tax-exemptive edicts. The Tibetan transcription of Chinese, ta hūm (< dahong ), is used in the Tibetan letter, and the Tibetan dmar chen is used as its annotation. Lu hang (< lühuang ) and ljang ser, which appear several lines below, are the same. Read tshon? Not identified. Although the three syllables were written together, they respectively correspond to Tibetan terms kha thi, kha tshang, and yug gnyis. Here, gin may represent the Chinese jin . Quan  refers to kha tshang, which may be the same as kha gang, a measurement for textiles, like Chinese yifang  . We wonder whether thon thi is related to the Mongolian taji, which means shanduan , a kind of shiny satin. This may refer to wuse duan , “five-colored satin.” The number in the gloss (“two”) does not match the Tibetan (“twenty”). 618 Revue dʼEtudes Tibétaines )14 dor shrī mgon (hu ko’i hu * )15 dang (hwa * )/ jī ba 16 kha (mi sdi *?) mngags pa yin (khyu la’o * )/ [Eschatocol] ʼbrug lo (lung nyan * ) zla ba brgyad paʼi (pa yo * ) tshes grangs la (ki bzhi * ) song ba (khyen khyud * ) dge/ shu bham (ha’o * )/ As Professor Huang Bufan has demonstrated, the Chinese phonology represented by these transcriptions matches the Early Mandarin represented by the Zhongyuan yinyun 6ö÷.17 We can also see randomness in the choice of different Tibetan transcriptions for the same Chinese characters, such as srin, sring, and sreng for sheng ž, which seems to suggest that this was an ad hoc or personal note rather than a systematically edited annotation. Interestingly, in the case of words that are already in the form of their foreign transcriptions (perhaps already loanwords/Erbwörter at the time), the annotator uses Tibetan to gloss them: dmar chen for ta hūm (< dahong Hµ) and ljang ser for lu hang (< lühuang ·ý). This practice indicates that the annotator may have been a bilingual speaker of Chinese and Tibetan, instead of a monolingual Tibetan speaker who simply wrote down the sounds. The ’83 copy not only offers us a new look at the date of the letter, it also provides philologists with new materials to work with. For example, some terms for textiles, such as thon ti and kha ti, may not have come from Chinese, at least according to this annotator.18 But what was their usage? Although the later edicts of the Yuan dynasty had a dimension of public performance, we do not know in this particular case whether the letter was read out loud before an audience that included the primary recipient. If that was the case, the annotations may have accompanied the original document to facilitate its reading by the drafter, messengers, or negotiators, who may have included monolingual speakers from Köten’s court. We will discuss this point in the next section. 14 15 16 17 18 This most likely corresponds to the Tibetan mngags that comes later in the sentence. We thank Xie Guangdian  for his suggestion on this reconstruction. It is unclear whether this form represents the Sanskrit jīvaka, which is also the name of a famous physician. The Blue Annals record a Mongol general called Mi li byi, who went to Tibet with the general Dor ta. We cannot help but wonder if that name has anything to do with this Mi sdi. Huang & Chen 1989. See Karsten 2018 for more possibilities regarding their origins. Kötenʼs 1244 Letter 619 2. Sources of Skepticism The multiple variations between the ’83 copy and other versions allow us to review the skepticism expressed by scholars. Schuh, reading versions of the letter such as that of A mes zhabs, finds it odd that Köten’s court would have made use of so much Buddhist discourse in the letter.19 The ’83 copy gives us a variant reading that partly supports this doubt. When talking about the raison d'être of Sa paṇ’s future trip, the letter says, The ’83 copy nga dang sems can mang po’i don du … “For the sake of me and many sentient beings …” A mes zhabs’s version20 sangs rgyas kyi bstan pa dang sems can mang po la … “For the Buddha’s Teaching and many sentient beings …” The tone in the ’83 copy thus sounds more like what we would expect from a Chinggisid ruler at this time, emphasizing the Mongol lord himself rather than the Buddha’s Teachings. The ’83 copy is, however, not totally free of Buddhist discourse. Are we then to take all the Buddhist elements as the work of later editors? As Schuh has remarked, even by the end of the Yuan dynasty, the official ideology of the empire only traced the royal patronage of Buddhism to the reigns of Ögedei and Möngke.21 Christopher Atwood has also noted that “the Mongol image of ‘Tibet’ in the 1240s and 1250s was not based on the religiously-dominated society of Central Tibet, but rather on the pastoralists and farmers of Kökenuur.”22 However, we cannot for this reason simply dismiss any understanding of Tibet as a Buddhist society on the part of Köten. Since the appearance of studies by Sperling, Dunnell, and most recently Atwood, we can no longer talk about the early Mongol-Tibet interface without taking into account the Xia and Jin experience with Tibetans.23 The evidence we will present below also supports our belief that Köten and his courtiers are likely to have used Buddhist discourse in their negotiations with central Tibetans. Recently, two woodblock-printed fragments of the Tangut version of Zhenzhi’s © Foshuo dabaisangai zongchi tuoluoni jing "ÖH¢%Ê ¹qð¾Z¶ (Taishō Tripiṭaka no. 977, i.e., the Uṣṇīṣasitātapatrā 19 20 21 22 23 Schuh 1977, 38. Schuh 1977, 34. Schuh 1977, 58–69. Atwood 2015, 40. See Atwood 2015 for a full bibliography. 620 Revue dʼEtudes Tibétaines Dhāraṇī) were identified by Shi Jinbo.24 These fragments fortunately include a portion of the printing colophon, which was composed by a certain “national preceptor” (!") named *Buddhavajra (#$%&') and which clearly states that it was through the patronage of Köten that this trilingual (Tangut, Tibetan, and Chinese) block-print of the Uṣṇīṣasitātapatrā Dhāraṇī was produced in 1244. The cult of Uṣṇīṣasitātapatrā was doubtless inherited from the former Tangut kingdom.25 Moreover, printing editions in these three languages are also a tradition of the Tangut royal house, the earliest extant specimen of which is dated to 1149 – almost a century before Köten’s patronage.26 That is to say, in the same year when the invitation letter was sent to Sa skya, Köten was a patron of Buddhism just as the former Tangut kings before him had been, and he may also have employed members of the local Buddhist community in his administration.27 Shen Weirong, in his reading of the Buddhist texts of the Kharakhoto collection, observes that the Buddhist community in the area had an excellent translingual aptitude, being able to create new texts based on both the Chinese and Tibetan traditions.28 These data allow us to imagine the use of Chinese and Tangut as working languages in Köten’s administration. The Tangut fragments have also betrayed the self-proclaimed political status of Köten. There, Köten is addressed as ()*+,, literally “east-stairs crown-prince.” This must be the Tangut equivalent of Köten’s title, donggong huangtaizi U¤IL, “crownprince of the eastern-palace,” found in the 1243 Chinese edictal inscriptions at the Caotang monastery in Huxian (è¸ÇFXì±z ­).29 Another section of the colophon addresses Köten as *-+,./, “Crown Prince /ko ta/,” with the last two syllables being transcriptions of Köten. Therefore, both Tangut and Chinese contemporary sources address him as the “crown prince,” meaning he was expected by certain people to be the heir apparent to the 24 25 26 27 28 29 Shi 2015; and Shi 2016. Although the Tibetan prints have not been found, Zhenzhi’s version corresponds to the 'Phags pa de bzhin gshegs pa'i gtsug tor nas byung ba'i gdugs dkar po can gzhan gyis mi thub pa zhes bya ba'i gzungs (D593). Shi 2015; and Shi 2016. The cult was already popular among the Sino-Tibetan communities of Dunhuang during the eighth to tenth centuries. For Dunhuang’s Uṣṇīṣasitātapatrā cult and its social role, see Yu 2020. Hamanaka & Sizova 2020. This new evidence also prompts us to slightly revise the beginning of the Mongol patronage of Buddhism to the 1240s; see van der Kuijp 2004 for later Mongol support of Tibetan Buddhist text printing. Shen 2020. For the inscriptions, see Cai 2017, 21. Kötenʼs 1244 Letter 621 throne,30 which was at that time empty, while the political power rested in the hands of the regent-dowager Töregene (regent 1242– 1246, d. 1246), Köten’s mother. This period, however important for the development of the Mongol-Tibetan relationship, was a time when Mongol politics was, in Jagchid Sechen’s words, “extremely chaotic.”31 The Imperial Preceptor ’Phags pa (1235–1280) in the 1270s already considered Köten’s older brother Güyük (1206–1248) to be the third qa’an of the Mongol empire.32 This is arguably the orthodox view at Qubilai’s court at that time; however, this may have not been the case for other historiographical traditions. As Liu Yingsheng has observed, the Chinese Yuan shi  does not include Güyük in the benji ‚´ (“biography of emperors”) section, and the two Persian sources by Juwaynī and Rashīd al-Dīn both refer to Güyük as a mere qan, while they call other Mongol emperors qa’an.33 Moreover, Juwaynī reports that Köten once proposed himself as the rightful successor to the throne.34 Rashīd alDīn also mentions that Köten was chosen as the heir apparent by Chinggis Qan.35 In other words, Persian sources indicate that Köten may have competed with his brother Güyük for the emperorship. We are also reminded that, although the demanding of hostages was a standard Mongol practice, it was exceptional, as Atwood has noted, on the part of Köten to have felt confident enough to keep Sa paṇ and his nephews in his own entourage and not forward them to the emperor.36 Therefore, the act of sending an imperial edict to Tibet in 1244 and subsequently keeping the resulting hostages for himself might have stemmed from his ambition to claim the throne. This may explain why Köten, in his invitation letter to Sa paṇ, calls himself rgyal po (usually “emperor” in the edictal context) and the 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 Although it is generally believed that the huangtaizi-system was first established by Qubilai in 1260 and the use of imperial titles by the Mongols cannot be interpreted simply through their Chinese origins (see Hung Chin-fu 2010, 754), the phrase donggong huangtaizi in both Chinese and Tangut seems to point to a possible earlier example of such institution among the Mongols. Jagchid Sechen 1978, 34. For a survey of the discordant sources on Güyük and Köten, see ibid, 34–42. It remains to be examined what early sources were responsible for the confusingly diverse treatment of the two figures in later Tibetan and Mongol sources. For ’Phags pa’s writings on the Mongol royal family, see Ishihama 2001, 35–40. See Liu 2016. For a survey of sources on Köten, see Pochekaev 2018. For qa’an as a title reserved for the emperor, in contrast to qan which refers to the subordinate khan, see de Rachewiltz 1983. See, for example, Boyle 1997, 251; and Pochekaev 2018, 8. Liu 2016, 47 suggests that the Chinggis Qan here was a mistaken reference to Ögedei Qan. Atwood 2015, 42. 622 Revue dʼEtudes Tibétaines letter itself a lung (“edict,” Mon. jarliq) in Intitulatio.37 This use of lung constitutes one reason for Schuh’s doubt about the authenticity of the letter’s formality, because if Köten was just a prince he would only have been able to issue a gtam (Mon. üge) and not a lung, which was reserved for the qa’an. A letter sent to Sa paṇ from the hierarch of the dominant ’Bri gung school, Spyan snga Grags pa ’byung gnas (1175–1255/1256) further corroborates the idea that Köten may indeed have used “lung” in his letter. In it, he asks Sa paṇ to come to him in person, warning that “the golden-paiza-envoys said, ‘if you [Sa paṇ] do not come personally, no matter what you say, since we do not have the king’s edict (rgyal po’i lung), we dare not to invite you, and we have indeed not yet invited you.’”38 The term “king’s edict” here may have represented the same understanding of Köten’s status as the invitation letter. It is thus possible that Köten was intentionally posing as the Mongol qa’an in his communications with Tibet in 1244. That said, it should be noted that the letter is probably the earliest extant Tibetan witness of Mongol chancellery practices, and it is therefore possible that it contains certain “anomalies” (judged by later standardized practice) due to irregular translations and other factors.39 We have to leave problems such as the simultaneous use of both lung and gtam to the future. 3. Mentions and Citations With the ’83 copy we can also address some of the textual issues raised by Jackson concerning Sa paṇ’s Letter to the Tibetans. Sa paṇ’s letter has come under suspicion because 1) the earliest mentions and citations of it do not appear until the sixteenth century; and 2) the style, “colloquial in tone and not at all elegant,” is unlike that of Sa paṇ’s other writings.40 We believe the two issues are connected and both depend on the nature we attribute to Sa paṇ’s letter. If the letter represents the result of Sa paṇ’s negotiation with Köten, its colloquial style and late 37 38 39 40 The Tibetan term rgyal po seems to have not been exclusively used for qa’an, but both the formulaic Intitulatio and the following lung indicate that rgyal po here means “emperor.” Spyan snga 2000, vol. 1, 59: de la gser yig pa rnams kyis / rin po che lo tsāba mar la mi ’byon na zhal kyin gang btang yang nged la rgyal po’i lung med pas spyan ’dren mi phod cing mi ’dren par bya bar gda’ /. For the close connection of Spyan snga and his successors with the Mongols, see Czaja 2013, 89–99; and Samten & Martin 2015, 298. For example, the issue of title confusions that arose due to status changes, which is briefly dealt with in Qiu 2011, 106–7. Jackson 1986, 20. Kötenʼs 1244 Letter 623 inclusion in his oeuvre would not be strange. The interrogative particle e in Sa paṇ’s letter, which may strike a Tibetan reader as too colloquial,41 is actually reflecting the Mongolian ülü’ü, a common particle in edits with which a rhetorical question “Aren’t you afraid?” is made.42 We thus prefer the alternative hypothesis made by Jackson, which is that Sa paṇ’s letter “was the product of close consultations with the Mongols.”43 The “collected works” (gsung ’bum) of a scholar would not include such a quasi-political settlement. As for its late appearance, not only in catalogues but also in citations, we can think of two factors that may have contributed. First, during the time of Möngke (r. 1251–1259) and the succession war that followed his death, the two letters’ significance for Tibetan politics became limited. Even after ’Phags pa became the imperial preceptor and Sa skya the most powerful order in Tibet, Köten’s heritage would have been downplayed because he was not of Tolui’s blood line. As far as we know, ’Phags pa only mentioned Sa paṇ and Köten’s meeting once in his collected works, that is, in his 1275 praise for prince Manggala’s (d. 1278) patronage of Buddhist text production.44 It is possibly because prince Manggala, the third son of Qubilai, was deemed by ’Phags pa to be the successor of Köten in terms of their domains and roles in the empire.45 Second, there seems to have been a general trend toward giving increasing weight to official documents in Tibetan historiography. For example, none of the fourteen official documents of the Yuan government included in the Gnyags ston pa’i gdung rabs, a work of the eighteenth century,46 were found in the earlier and otherwise more detailed biography of Mus chen Rgyal mtshan dpal bzang po (1287–1347),47 although in many places the early biography was copied almost verbatim into the Gnyags ston pa’i gdung rabs. This seems to suggest that these official documents took on new historical significance some four centuries after their issuance. The two letters’ inclusion in later historical writings has also to do with the renewed Tibeto-Mongol connection that had developed since the late sixteenth century, especially in the case of A mes zhabs, who witnessed a new influx of Mongols, as well as the rise of the Manchus in Inner Asia, and corresponded with them through 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 Jackson 1986, 20. For ülü’ü in the Secret History of the Mongols and edicts, see Junast 2002. Jackson 1986, 20. See Ishihama 2001, 36. For Manggala’s life, see Shurany 2017. See Everding 2006 for this work and the documents it preserves. Nam mkha’ 2015. We thank Trawang (Sichuan University) for this reference. 624 Revue dʼEtudes Tibétaines letters.48 Letters and government documents began to become more prominent for religious leaders in Tibetan politics in the following period, as also shown by the emergence of the large numbers of letter-writing manuals that are listed in Schneider 2003 and Martin 2016. Moreover, new mentions and citations of the letter continue to be found. For example, Rin spungs Ngag dbang ’jigs med grags pa, (1532–1597), 49 in his poetical presentation of the life of Sa paṇ, obviously used Köten’s letter and copied the list of gifts almost unchanged.50 He thus offers us a version closer to the ’83 copy in many places than that of A mes zhabs, as is clear from the following examples:51 The ’83 Copy gos ta hūm gi chos gos … … dor shrī mgon dang / jī ba kha mngags pa yin / … tshes grangs la song ba dge / Rin spungs (1579) gos ta’i hung gi snam sbyar … … rdo shrī mgon dang / dzi ba kha mngags pa yin / … tshe grangs la song ba dge / A mes zhabs (1629) gos chen gyi chos gos … … dor sri mgon dang / dpon jo dar ma gnyis gtang ba yin/ … gnam gang la bris Rin spungs Ngag dbang ’jigs med grags pa himself was far from a rigorous historian,52 and we are not sure why he placed this prose passage between flowery verses in a practically unaltered form. But it should be noted that this citation of the letter predated A mes zhabs by half a century. We hope that in the future more of such records will be found. 4. Conclusion Having read the ’83 copy, an early version of Köten’s letter to Sa skya paṇdita, we agree with Schuh that later versions of the letter, such as that of A mes zhabs’s, were adulterated.53 However, we wish to 48 49 50 51 52 53 Oyunbilig & Shi 2014 studies the Mongol version of the correspondence between A mes zhabs and the Qing court that is found in the Qing archives. For the most recent study on his life (including his elusive dates), see Zhang 2021. Rin spungs 1985, 187–89. See Sun & Chen 2020 for a complete comparative chart that shows how Köten’s letter is rendered by Rin spungs Ngag dbang ’jigs med grags pa. Rin spungs Ngag dbang ’jigs med grags pa’s free adaptation of other works can sometimes be outrageous. For instance, he has transplanted the content of the fifteenth-century Man lung pa’i lam yig (TBRC W1KG13947, 1a–2a; and Newman 2020, 1–4) onto Sa paṇ’s trip to meet Köten in Liangzhou (Rin spungs 1985, 199– 201), therefore his version of the trip is furnished with vivid details. Schuh 1977, 40. Kötenʼs 1244 Letter 625 emphasize that the extent to which it was edited is debatable. Köten may have intentionally presented himself as the Mongol emperor to Tibet, and he may very well have used Buddhist discourse in his edict. The Chinese gloss in the 83’ copy and Köten’s connection with the printing of Buddhist texts point to the possible involvement of the multilingual personnel who had once worked for the former Tangut kingdom in the drafting of the invitation letter. Crucial to improvement of our understanding of the letter is to better understand the people behind it: who produced it, what languages they spoke, and what their religious practices and political conventions were. 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