Tibet1

Lewis Doney

Introduction
The geographical extent of what constitutes “Tibet” (Bod/ Bautai/ Baitai/ Tubbat/ Fa/ Tufan) in this
contribution varies considerably as the Tibetan empire (ca. 600–850 CE) expanded and contracted at its
various borders over time.2 In fact, even the existence of the very thing at the beginning of the seventh
century is open to debate, and so I shall prefer to speak of the empire of the Yar lung (/klung) dynasty.
This indicates the hereditary lineage of power originating in and based around the Yar lung valley, in
what I shall call for ease central Tibet—corresponding to the more eastern part of the area marked “Bod”
(the standard Tibetan word for Tibet) on the map below.3 From this power base, the Yar lung dynasty
expanded in all directions except much to the direct south (due in part to the Himalayas), and so the land
that Arabic sources of this period, for instance, called Tubbat was situated west of China, north of India,
south of the Uyghur Turkic territories and east of the Khurasan marches.

1
This contribution was researched and written with funding from the European Research Council while employed
by the project ‘Beyond Boundaries: Religion, Region, Language and the State,’ ERC Synergy Project 609823 ASIA.
I would like to thank Quentin Devers, Emanuela Garatti, Erik Hermans and Sam van Schaik for their helpful
comments to an early draft of this contribution.
2
On the earliest references to the various designations of ‘Tibet’, see Beckwith 1987a, 7. The most accessible
introduction to this period is van Schaik 2011a, 1–50. Another, denser, but still accessible account is Kapstein 2006,
51–83. Beckwith 1987a remains the most impressive monograph-length study of the Tibetan empire’s foreign
relations, while the book that contains Dotson 2009 and Hazod 2009 is a mine of historical and geographical
information on the empire itself.
3
This map is taken from Hazod 2009, 166 (map 2) and reproduced with the kind permission of Guntram Hazod.

1
The Yar lung dynasty’s power base was at first ensured by alliances with a small collection of other
minimally developed nomadic-pastoralist and agricultural families or clans centred around the relatively
fertile region through which the gTsang po River (or Brahmāputra) flows. The increase in their power
meant coming to rule over a far larger but still sparsely populated area—corresponding to the Tibetan
plateau and even beyond—inhabited by connected ethnic groups sharing the spoils of military conquest,
Silk Road trade, and the taxation of others’ trade. This expansion was achieved by taking control of other
kingdoms, city states and regions (by alliance or force) between the seventh and ninth century and ruling
them as an empire with an emperor (btsan po) at its head. The term btsan po is difficult to translate, but
may be akin to the term “emperor” used for the historical rulers of China or Japan.4 In other words, it is
an indigenous term for the sole ruler of the Tibetan state. The term btsan po, when used alone without
adjectival qualification, is therefore inapplicable either to anyone in the same country who has not held
this position, or to the head of another state, kingdom or empire (who are all considered inferior, see
Tibetan references below to the Chinese emperor as only a “ruler”). From the seventh century onwards,
though, the Yar lung rulers were also “emperors” in the more literal sense of the term, “ones who rule
over an empire,” and the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE) referred to them as either btsan po or using terms
meaning “emperor” from this period onwards.5 Since the ruler was an emperor, he was subject to no other
ruler; so it is only natural to try to convince others to submit. As Beckwith states, this “system of kingship
provided a strong impetus to expansion.”6 The Tibetan, Chinese and Arabic histories written soon after
this period all claim that the Yar lung rulers conquered the “kings of the four directions and forced them
to pay tribute.”7
The Tibetan empire reached its greatest extent during the reign of Emperor Khri Srong lde brtsan
(756–ca. 800 CE). In the northwest, it threatened the territory of the fourth and fifth Abbasid caliphs, Al-
Mansur (714–775 CE) and Harun al-Rashid (763/766–809CE), on the banks of the Oxus; in the east, the
Tibetan army even occupied the Chinese capital Chang’an (present day Xi’an) for 15 days in 763, during
which time they named a new Chinese emperor and even announced the beginning of a new era.8 Khri
Srong lde brtsan also presided over the growing institutionalization of Buddhism in his empire, as a state
religion (though not necessarily the only one). This patronage was epitomized by his construction of the
bSam yas Monastery, one of the first large-scale Buddhist constructions on the Tibetan plateau. Its
architecture shows signs of influence from the older Buddhist cultures surrounding the empire at this

4
See Beckwith 1987a, 14–15, n. 10.
5
Beckwith 1987a, 20.
6
Beckwith 1980, 30.
7
Beckwith 1980, 30.
8
See Beckwith 1987a, 143–57.

2
time—most notably South Asia and China. If I have not done justice to these two great neighbouring
civilizations in this contribution, it is because here I wish to focus on the impact on Tibetan culture of the
smaller regions that the Yar lung dynasty’s empire actually controlled, which are generally less well
covered in introductions to this period. These influences, and the reciprocal effect that imperial rule
exerted (especially on the southern Silk Road) during this time, will be among the main topics for
discussion in this contribution. It will be seen that this period, when seemingly “everything happened” for
the Tibetans and their neighbours in the north and east, constituted a moment of high connectivity in
religious and material culture, trade, war and diplomatic relations not to be matched again in the region
until the Yuan dynasty of the Mongols (1271–1368 CE).

The Beginning of the Tibetan Empire

The prevailing consensus among scholars studying imperial “Tibet” is that Tibetans are genetically
diverse today and were historically ethnically diverse too. Matthew T. Kapstein states of the Tibetan
plateau, “[w]ith a mean elevation of over 12,000 feet and an area of some 1.2 million square miles, it is by
far the most extensive high-altitude region on earth. Roughly speaking, the Tibetan plateau embraces one-
third of the territory of modern China and is the size of the entire Republic of India.” 9 The prehistoric
inhabitants of the Tibetan plateau were of different ethnic groups, as is reflected in their clan names
during the imperial period and even today, before becoming ethnically Tibetan over the course of the past
two millennia.10 Aside from Turkic and Tibeto-Burmese, there is also evidence of some later Indo-
Scythian contact, as suggested by the tumulus burial traditions archaeologists have described across the
plateau.11 However, in pre-imperial times these different groups came together and lived in connected
polities or small kingdoms (rgyal phran) of kin-based groups that can perhaps justifiably be called
Tibetan by the late sixth century. Guntram Hazod points out that the common ancestry of the Tibetans
narrated in later Buddhist historiography,

were associated with Minyag (Tangut), the Sumpa (Chinese: Supi) and Azha (Chinese: Tuyuhun)
[in the northeast] (both of Turkic tongues) and with the population of Zhangzhung (Zhang–
zhung). The last mentioned relates to the prehistoric Zhangzhung power in present-day west
Tibet, which was conquered by the Tibetans in the seventh century. In this account the
Zhangzhung people are linked with the rü (clan, lit. ‘bone’) called Ma (rma), a term for ‘man’ and

9
Kapstein 2006, 3.
10
Hazod 2012.
11
Hazod 2009, 175.

3
 an ethnonym that in this classification probably also includes the originally Tibeto-Burmese
population of the Highlands usually associated with the name Mön (Mon).”12

Thus, the commonly understood extent of “Tibet” has more to do with the incorporation of a number of
ethnicities (most notably Turkic and Tibeto-Burmese) within a single cultural matrix over time than a
shared genetic makeup, and the Tibetan empire and its imposed lingua franca Tibetan spoken and written
language (known as Old Tibetan) made a significant and long-lasting impact in this respect (see below).13
The ninth-century narrative history known as the Old Tibetan Chronicle states that the Tibetan
empire was formed out of these mid-sixth century polities, spear-headed by one such patrilineal group
named the house of Yar lung.14 “Spear-headed” is a particularly apt description here, since it appears that
the success of the burgeoning Tibetan empire may have been due in large part to its military harnessing of
iron-forging technology.15 The Yar lung group raised a bloody rebellion against another kinship lineage
(that of Ngas po to the north) and rallied the heads of other ruling houses (the dBa’s, Myang, gNon, and
Tshes-pong) as loyal ministers/councillors (blon [po]) around their new ruler (rje), sons of sTag bu sNya
gzigs. The successful lineage of rulers, also known as the sPu rgyal dynasty, thus controlled what they
called “rTsang Bod,” (corresponding to “Bod” on our map), in the early seventh century.16
At this time there were no cities, no Buddhist monasteries or other large centres of population.
Only after the fall of the empire did the town of Lhasa (first known as the temple-site of Ra sa in the
eighth century) grow into a hub of pilgrimage and then of trade and eventually a capital. In the early
imperial period the emperors either lived in fortified castles or sat at the head of a mobile court that
travelled around central Tibet as a tented encampment. Chinese visitors to the court in the early ninth
century, as described by Sam van Schaik following Chinese sources, encountered:

a vast tented encampment, with the tsenpo’s [emperor’s] tent in the very middle, surrounded by a
fence of spears. Within this enclosure, halberds were planted in the ground every ten paces. In the
middle, great flags flapped in the wind. At each gate to the residence there were armed guards
and priests wearing bird-shaped hats and tiger girdles. Inside, the tsenpo sat on a platform

12
Hazod 2012, 44, n. 2; square brackets are mine.
13
See also Kapstein 2006, 27–33.
14
Dotson 2009, 16–17.
15
Pre-Common Era metal items associated with horsemanship, hunting and warfare discovered in Tibet are made of
bronze and have more in common with the western Iranian province of Lorestan, so may have been sourced there
(Melikan-Chirvani 2011, 90–92). In contrast, it appears that the indigenous forging of iron allowed for weapons and
other items of warfare to become more plentiful on the Tibetan plateau itself and available for the Yar lung
dynasty’s military to use.
16
Beckwith 1987a, 8.

4
 ornamented with gold dragons, lizards, tigers and leopards. He was dressed in plain cloth, with
his head bound in a turban of bright red silk. At his right-hand side was the prime minister, a
Buddhist monk [though this was probably not the case at the early court]. The other ministers sat
below the platform.17

Not much is known about life outside the court, but even today the climate in central Tibet is quite mild
compared to surrounding parts of the plateau, and the lower valleys can be tilled as arable land while the
upper valleys are grazed by cattle. This means that a mixed agricultural-pastoral economy was always the
norm, in contrast to the higher northern plateau where only the latter was possible.18 Evidence suggests
that the population of central Tibet shared similarities in ethnicity, livelihood and language (the latter only
unified with an official script in the seventh century). Despite these unifying features, the Tibetan
heartland was still sparsely populated and divided along regional and clan lines. Each generation of allied
clans enthroned a male of the Yar lung dynasty to act as a primus inter pares ruler of an empire consisting
of a number of conquered kingdoms. Loyal ministers, drawn from not only the families who had first
supported the Yar lung house but also principalities newly encompassed by the empire, did service to the
emperors and their sons. These ministers and their families benefited thereby with land taken from
disloyal or rival rulers. The empire thus led to new ways of stratifying elite society through the creation of
an aristocracy and a large degree of favouritism shown to these select few within law.19 As the emperor
moved his itinerant court of administrators, judiciary, priests and guards in semi-nomadic fashion around
the lands of his loyal aristocracy, he would thereby draw on aristocratic wealth for the provision of his
court, and constantly renew or reinforce the bond between ruler and ministerial family and his position as
primus inter pares.20 The primus inter pares form of rulership seems to have been deeply unstable and in
the end unsustainable, so that either Buddhism or the economic bankruptcy caused by the end of the
expansion of empire, or both, led to the collapse of this important binding force and the eventual
implosion of the sPu rgyal dynasty of Yar lung.21
The entire duration of the imperial period, like its beginning, was marked by internal power
struggles, marital alliances and territorial disputes. These problems existed both within the Yar lung
dynasty and also between them and other local polities and major families of central Tibet.22 In fact, the
emperors did not always hold meaningful power (which sometimes resided with their queens), and the

17
van Schaik 2011a, 43 (square brackets are mine).
18
Kapstein 2006, 6.
19
See Pirie 2018, 3–5.
20
Dotson 2009, 43–46; Hazod 2009.
21
See Ramble 2006, 129–133; Hazod 2012, 48; Beckwith 2011, 233.
22
Hazod 2012, 49–55.

5
mGar family maintained a brief period of supremacy in the late seventh century, sometimes called a
“shogunate” due to the fact that their power to subvert the rule of the emperor was based on their military
prowess.23 However, such internal matters will not be emphasized in this more outward-facing
contribution. Even before the imperial period, Tibetan kingdoms were surrounded by, and maintained
some contact with, many stronger states, kingdoms and empires. For instance, the son of the Ngas po lord
defeated at the inception of Tibetan expansion in the late-sixth century is said to have fled to Turkic
territory (Dru gu).24 Here I shall describe some of the other impacts that imperial relations had on the
exchange of trade and technology between central Tibet and its neighbours listed by Hazod, above, as
well as other city states to the north (such as Khotan), Indic regions to the south and southwest, and of
course Tang China. I shall move roughly clockwise around the compass, ending in the west and then
returning to the northeast—these two points being where we have the greatest evidence for the lasting
effects of the Tibetan empire after its collapse in the ninth century.

The North
Whatever may have been the initial impetus for forming the Tibetan empire around the beginning of the
seventh century, it soon coalesced around one major aim: “to realize a larger political and economic
project, namely to participate more strongly in the markets on the Silk Road or to control them.”25 To this
end, the Yar lung dynasty spent lavishly on gaining military expertise in both weaponry and intelligence.
They were aided by pre-existing links between the local polities surrounding Yar lung to the west and
northeast and the wider world (only the uninhabitable Northern Plains [Byang thang; Chinese: Qiangtang]
lay to the north and northwest). The dynasty further capitalised on these links through its civil and
military cataloguing and division of these areas.26 The invention of Tibetan writing during the reign of
Emperor Khri Srong btsan (died 649; known to later histories as Srong btsan sgam po, Srong btsan “the
wise”) acted as a catalyst to this administrative ordering of the empire, with the Yar lung dynasty
modifying a late Gupta script from northern India or Nepal for use in writing the Tibetan language.27
Other Tibeto-Burman languages contemporaneously chose a Sinitic character script, for example
the Mi nyag people (the Tibetan name for what would later become the Tanguts; Chinese: Dangxiang).
Thus, the use of Gupta script was based on a pragmatic or political choice rather than a linguistic
necessity. It may have been practical, perhaps because western Tibetan trade was already using an Indic

23
See Dotson 2009, 18–19.
24
Denwood 2008, 10.
25
Hazod 2012, 46.
26
See Lalou 1965; Dotson 2012; Hazod 2012, 46.
27
See Scherrer-Schaub 2012, 218–33; van Schaik 2011b; Schuh 2013.

6
script for its correspondence or record keeping, or because an alpha-syllabic script was considered easier
for the administrators and generals to learn than one made up of thousands of characters. Another
explanation may lie in the soft power of the intellectual and Buddhist traditions that were written in
Prakrit and Sanskrit (see below). Alternatively (or additionally), the choice could have been politically
motivated—due to closer relations with the kingdoms of Harṣavardhana Śīlāditya (ca. 590–648 CE) in
India and the Newar Licchavis (ca. 400–750 CE) in what is now Nepal than with the Tang state during
this period.28 All of this suggests that, as Christopher I. Beckwith says, “the Tibetans were very well
informed about the geography of their neighbours” and could keep written records on them. 29 The Tibetan
conquest of the Tarim region, for instance, was the result of a carefully planned and executed strategy.
Tibetan military forces spread northwards into the Tarim Basin from at least 660 onwards, and by
around 670 had gained the submission of the Western Turks there and conquered the Silk Road states of
Khotan (today’s Hotan; Chinese: Hetian), Kashgar (Chinese: Kashi) and Kucha (Chinese: Qiuci).30
Khotan, on the southern Silk Road, was to prove especially important to Tibetan writing technologies and
Buddhism. In 692, Chinese forces expelled the Tibetan occupiers from Khotan, but more than a hundred
years later, in the early 790s, they recaptured the kingdom.31 The Tibetans, having borrowed their script
from the south, appear to have inherited from the north a fairly well-spread form of wooden writing
support and method of ensuring the privacy and safe delivery of written messages. There is an evident
continuity between the wooden slips and sealed wooden “epistles” conveyed along the southern Silk Road
around Khotan (written on in Kharoṣṭhī script) from the third to fourth centuries and those in Khotanese
and Tibetan during the eighth century.32 Tibetans most likely borrowed their epistolary technology and
postal infrastructure in order to manage their occupation of Khotan and other Silk Road city states.
The Khotanese were an already well-established Silk Road civilization, maintaining existing trade
relations with the Tibetan plateau and other regions and a long history of Buddhism. As evidenced in their
mythology, they had apparently successfully balanced the competing claims of South and East Asia on
their attention.33 Monks from Khotan, perhaps even indigenous Khotanese, settled in the heart of the
Tibetan empire by the eighth century at least, and no doubt exerted some influence on the type of
Buddhism adopted at the Tibetan court and thereafter used as a form of international language with the

28
Schuh 2013, 172; see also van Schaik 2011b, 72–75.
29
Beckwith 1980, 30.
30
Beckwith 1987a, 30–34; Denwood 2008, 7; Dotson 2009, 18.
31
Beckwith 1987a, 155; Denwood 2008, 7.
32
Compare Skjaervo 2004 and Takeuchi 2004a.
33
Their state founding myth (translated as the Prophecy of Khotan in Emmerick 1967, 14–43) gives them a blended
Indic and Chinese ethnic heritage and narrates methods for solving conflicts between the two great powers on a local
level. See also below for the importance of Buddhism in these narratives.

7
surrounding regions.34 The early imperial Tibetan encounter with an already established cosmopolitan
Silk Road centre may have acted as inspiration to create such a Buddhist society of trade, wealth and
luxury on the Tibetan plateau. However, their management of the Khotanese differed somewhat from
earlier administrations. In contrast to the wooden slips on which were written Kharoṣṭhī in the third and
fourth century, these wooden slips were written on in Tibetan in around the eighth century by foreigners
as part of the Tibetan military administration of the area from their fort in Mazār Tāgh, north of Khotan.
Earlier scholars suggested that the locals held little interest for the Tibetans except as sources of supplies
such as grain (barley, wheat, millet, grass and horse fodder), meat and dairy products and that the king of
Khotan continued to administer his realm in most matters.35 Against this view, Tsuguhito Takeuchi
suggests that the location of the hill stations (ri zug) at Mazār Tāgh and at Mīrān, near lake Lop, were
outside the population centres of Khotan and the Lop Nor region respectively for sound military
reasons.36 This was done in order to protect Khotan and the southern trade routes against military
aggression, at this time especially Uyghur attacks. He concurs that such small kingdoms were able to
maintain their own regimes, but adds that the Tibetans did not remain aloof—they not only brought their
own soldiers from Tibetan, Sum pa and Zhang zhung (Chinese: Yangtong) regions to the area, but also
recruited local Khotanese, Chinese, ’A zha (Tuyuhun) and mThong khyab peoples into the military
system.37
Other forms of communication display a rich mixture of northern and northeastern influence on
the Tibetans. The Tibetan formulae for writing contracts may have come from Khotan, as much as from
China, and were then indigenised under the Yar lung dynasty.38 These appear in paper documents from
the late eighth/early ninth century onwards and in turn influenced the contract-writing procedure around
Dunhuang (Tibetan: Sha cu) to the east, which was used alongside modified Chinese forms by non-
Tibetans for the most part.39 These Tibetan-language contracts, as well as contemporaneous Khotanese
sources, reveal that strings of “Chinese, or Chinese-style, coins and grain were the main forms of money
during the Tibetan occupation, that coins were used in the purchase of people and livestock, and that grain
was used in the purchase of land and property, loans and hiring of labour.”40 Although the use of coins
was perhaps more widespread than previously expected, other forms of money were used far more
regularly than in China. Monetary use of textiles was much rarer, and this is consistent with a more

34
Tong 2013, 21–22.
35
Described in Wang 2004, 107.
36
Takeuchi 2004a, 53.
37
Takeuchi 2004a, 50.
38
See Takeuchi 1995, 118–20.
39
See also Wang 2004, 107–13.
40
Wang 2004, xv; see also ibid., 107–13, based on the evidence amassed in Takeuchi 1995.

8
general shift away from references to carpets or linen (and a fluctuation in references to silk) in
documents from eastern Central Asia after the mid-sixth century.41 Nonetheless, the Khotanese continued
to monetise wool, cotton, hemp, felt and exceptionally silk (perhaps more often in trade with China rather
than Tibet) well into the ninth century.42

The Northeast
During the reign of Emperor Khri Srong btsan (died 649 CE), his ministers subjugated the Mi nyag and
the Sum pa (Chinese: Supi), the latter of whom had reneged on their former alliance in the northeast.43
Their claimed territory did not encompass the whole of the Sum pa region, which probably lay in the
upper Mekong basin bordered by the Salween river in the southwest and the Yangtze River in the
northeast. Instead, Tibetan-controlled Sum pa abutted and partially overlapped cultural Sum pa in the
southwest.44 This area is still included within a list of military districts under Tibetan control thought to
reflect the empire around 744–764.45 These Sum pas appear to have been peacefully incorporated into the
Tibetan military infrastructure and been rewarded with ranks superior to those of more outlying and
rebellious conquests.46 They were probably used as “shock troops” against the Chinese forces, like
soldiers from Zhang zhung in the west.47 Therefore, the conquest of territory to form the Tibetan empire
was not always carried out at the point of a sword or by ruthless subjugation.
In the middle of the seventh century, the Tibetan empire expanded northeast and conquered the
’A zha (Chinese: Tuyuhun), who were based to the west of Kokonor Lake (Chinese: Qinghai Hu) and the
southeastern Tarim Basin. The ’A zha were a Turkic kingdom who had been a thorn in the side of both
bordering Turkish, Tibetan and Chinese areas since the fifth century.48 Like the Sum pa, perhaps the ’A
zha were not degraded by incorporation into the empire. After 663, the ’A zha became a vassal state
(rgyal phran) of the Yar lung dynasty, as indicated by their performance of a yearly sku bla rite of fealty
to the emperor, and this status allowed the ’A zha some autonomy within the Tibetan empire.49 This area
was famed for its horses, and in return, loose Tibetan control of this region and its animals helped the
empire not only to play a role in the lucrative trade of horses along the Silk Road, making it also a “Horse

41
Wang 2004, xiv–xv and 75–92.
42
Wang 2004, 95–106.
43
Beckwith 1987a, 20–22.
44
Denwood 2008, 12–13.
45
Denwood 2008, 10.
46
Dotson 2009, 38, n. 50; ibid, 70.
47
See Denwood 2008, 10 and 13, and below.
48
See Beckwith 1987a, 17–19.
49
Hill 2015b; Dotson 2009, 40–41.

9
Road,” but also to strengthen the Tibetan military by means of an expanded cavalry.50 Half of the ’A zha
population were not willing to submit and fled towards China, who provided them with the new province
of Anlezhou in Liangzhou. However, the Tibetan army conquered Liangzhou in early 758 and it
thereafter became a Tibetan military centre (khrom).51 The example of ’A zha shows, though, that the
options of Tibet’s neighbours were not limited to fighting and/or perishing when they came into contact
with the encroaching empire.
Thus, by well-calculated opening forays into the northeast, the Yar lung dynasty were able to
seize control of both the economic means and the man- and horse-power necessary to realize their
imperial ambitions. As the empire expanded, it became easier for members of friendly states to use travel
and trade networks within the Tibetan empire than risk war-torn northern routes. There was, for example,
an alternative southern Silk Route that circumvented Dunhuang, running from Ruoqiang, southeast into
Tibetan territory, through Golmud (Chinese: Ge’ermu) and the east past Dulan and Kokonor Lake to
Xining and Lanzhou where it met the main route through the Gansu Corridor (Chinese: Hexi zoulang).52
At Dulan, archaeologists have surveyed ancient burial mounds in various states of completeness due to
weather and looting. These sites appear to contain tombs and coffins, painted on the walls of which are
indications of the rich connections maintained by the Tibetan empire and perhaps earlier links between
Turkic and early Tibetan burial culture.53 Yet the Yar lung dynasty’s expansion into the northeast also
brought them increasingly into contact with Tang China.

The East
Tibetan culture was not held in high regard in Chang’an, as reflected in slightly later Chinese sources
such as the Tang History (Tangshu).54 Yet the growing military might of the Tibetan empire was
undeniable, and it had already represented a potential threat to China from its beginnings during the Sui
dynasty period (581–617 CE). However, the Tang’s alternatives, like those of their vastly smaller ’A zha
neighbours in the northwest, were also not limited to military success or defeat. In 641, Emperor Taizong
(598–649 CE) gave Princess Wencheng (Tibetan: Mun chang Kong co) in marriage to the son of Khri
Srong btsan, who then married her when his son died around 646.55 The Old Tang History (Jiu Tangshu),
deploying a common literary topos, records Khri Srong btsan as converting to Chinese culture under
Wencheng’s influence:

50
Tong 2013, 19.
51
Dotson 2009, 40–41.
52
See Tong 2013, 21, map 3-1.
53
Heller 2003.
54
Schaeffer, Kapstein and Tuttle 2013, 6–10.
55
Beckwith 1987a, 23, n. 54; Dotson 2009, 22–25.

10
 He also discarded his felt and skins, put on brocade and silk, and gradually copied Chinese
civilization. He also sent the children of his chiefs and rich men to request admittance into the
national schools to be taught the classics, and invited learned scholars from China to compose his
official reports to the emperor.56

It appears that relative peace reigned at this time. A Chinese embassy passed unharmed across the Tibetan
empire to meet with King Harṣa in northern India at least once during this decade (in 643 CE), and they
must have been aided by a system of Tibetan post stations along the way.57 Shortly after the death of the
Indian ruler, Chinese diplomat-pilgrims ran into danger in his capital of Kānyakubja (today Kannauj in in
Uttar Pradesh), and successfully called the Tibetan army (as well as the Licchavis) to their aid.58 This pax
Tibetica lasted for a few decades of the mid to late seventh century. However, by the eighth century, the
Tibetan empire had once again blocked off this ambassadorial route on both sides and Indian embassies to
China between the 690s and 720s had to skirt around Tibetan controlled territory by means of the
northern Silk Road to complain to the Tang of the growing intrusion of Arabs and Tibetans into South
Asia.59
In 706, the Tibetan empire signed a treaty with the Chinese, followed up around 710 with the
marriage of Princess Jincheng (Tibetan: Kim shang Kong co) of the Tang to Prince rGyal gTsug ru (704–
ca. 754 CE) who would in 712 be enthroned as Emperor Khri lDe gtsug brtsan.60 The Tang History
narrates events somewhat differently, from a Chinese perspective.61 This princess is recorded as bringing
not only a wealth of silk wares, musicians, performers and craftsmen, but also Buddhist accoutrements
and clergy.62 Princess Jincheng’s acts on behalf of the dharma could well have been more influential in
establishing the religion at the Tibetan court than those performed earlier, during Khri Srong btsan’s
reign, by his more famous Chinese queen, Wencheng.63 Silk, princesses and perhaps also Buddhism were
important parts of Tang-Yar lung diplomacy during the long eighth century. During the period from 634

56
Bushell 1880, 445; quoted in Dotson 2009, 11; see also Schaeffer, Kapstein and Tuttle 2013, 11–13.
57
Huber 2008, 45; Sen 2016, 18–22. However, Tansen Sen (2016, 22) suggests that the new spirit of friendliness
between the courts of Taizong and Harṣa at this time may have been in part due to distrust on both sides of the
ostensibly peaceful intentions of the Yar lung Dynasty in between.
58
Huber 2008, 46; Sen 2016, 22–23.
59
Sen 2016, 24–26.
60
The so-called Old Tibetan Annals’ records for this period are translated in Dotson 2009, 104–109; Schaeffer,
Kapstein and Tuttle 2013, 47–51.
61
Schaeffer, Kapstein and Tuttle 2013, 13–16.
62
Tong 2013, 20.
63
Dotson 2009, 19.

11
to 846, it is estimated that the Tang sent 66 envoys to the Yar lung, and were sent the same 125 times, and
though silk flowed from east to west it was reciprocated from the Tibetan side with lavish metalwork such
as golden animal-shaped vessels and grand models of pastoral or cosmopolitan structures.64 Commerce
also flowed between the lands, with animals such as horses, sheep, cattle and rare birds, animal products
including musk, yak tails, and superior honey, textiles, metalwork and natural products (e.g. salt, gold,
jade and gemstones) from the west being traded for inter alia silk, paper, ink, and perhaps even tea from
the east.65 This, of course, does not mean that the relationship between the two imperial powers was
uniformly peaceful over these two hundred years.

The Southeast
Around 750, the Yar lung dynasty strengthened its ties with the Nanzhao (Tibetan: Mywa or ’Jang)
kingdom, which consisted of two ethnically diverse groups: the more sinified majority known to the
Tibetans as the “White Mywa” (Mywa dkar po; Chinese: Bai Man) and the ruling elite known as the
“Black Mywa” (Mywa nag po; Chinese: Wu Man).66 The Nanzhao leadership switched its allegiance
between the Tang to the Yar lung dynasties at various points during the long eighth century, but was
never accorded parity with either. 67 In the 750s, the Nanzhao ruler Ge luo feng (Tibetan: Kag la bong;
reigned 748–779 CE) allied with the Yar lung dynasty and fended off Tang military advances into
Nanzhao territory—for which he was rewarded with the title of “emperor younger brother” (btsan po
gcung).68 However, this alliance did not last many years after his death and in 794 the region returned its
allegiance to the Tang.69 However, the earliest extant stone inscription in Tibetan dates from the period of
positive Yar lung-Nanzhao relations. It was discovered and probably erected at the “first bend of the
Yangtze River” in Lijiang district, at a flash point of many Yar lung-Nanzhao-Tang territorial disputes.70
Its importance for connectivity resides first in its “evidence of the use of Tibetan language in the eighth-
century south-eastern region of the empire.”71 The conversion of some of the local population to the
Tibetan language (both spoken and written) is a trait also found in the Tibetan-controlled Dunhuang from
the eighth to the ninth century (see below), and suggests an intentional policy of the Yar lung dynasty in
addition to being simply a practical option for the conquered population. The Dehua bei Inscription of

64
Tong 2013, 20.
65
Beckwith 1977, 96–100.
66
Backus 1981, 49.
67
Bryson 2015, 63.
68
Uebach 2012, 53–56; Bryson 2015, 64–69.
69
Takata 2006, 165–67 provides a short outline of all these events; see also Bryson 2015, 69–70.
70
See Takata 2006; Uebach 2012, 59–62; Bryson 2015, 60–63.
71
Uebach 2012, 59.

12
766 and the ninth-century Old Tibetan Chronicle also show signs of a mixed Tibetan-Chinese (or
Chinese-emulating Tibetan) system of titles granted to loyal officials of Nanzhao acting as ambassadors
to the Yar lung court.72
The second important feature of the Lijiang Inscription is as a new form of material support for
Tibetan public proclamations in the eighth century, and their use was soon seen throughout the empire.
Such stone steles most likely co-existed with proclamations on wooden and paper supports, and perhaps
other materials and by oral means with a longer history of use on the Tibetan plateau.73 As discussed
above, wooden supports had been used for epistolary and administrative documents since the invention of
writing, and were probably inspired by their use in Khotan and the Silk Road. Paper manufacture ranks
among the most important technologies introduced during the long eighth century, and indicates a
balancing eastern influence on Tibetan writing culture. In 648, according to the New Tang History (Xin
Tangshu), Emperor Taizong agreed to send artisans skilled in making ink and paper to Yar lung court,
perhaps as part of the spirit of reconciliation at the time.74 In the year 744-745, the Old Tibetan Annals
entry records the emperor’s proclamation that paper should replace wooden tallies as a form of record
keeping.75 The Old Tibetan Annals were probably themselves written on wooden slips first, hence their
brevity, and later transferred onto paper.76 Helga Uebach argues that this entry provides the earliest extant
use of the term “paper” (shog) in Tibetan (which is rather late considering the existence of paper
production technology in the Tibetan empire since the mid-seventh century) and that it suggests a
growing literacy among the population of central Tibet at least.77 Yet, the question of the source(s) of
inspiration for the Tibetan imperial stone inscriptions remains unresolved, since this practice possesses
antecedents in indigenous standing stones and was common not only in China, but also in Turkic and
Indic areas, and in Nanzhao itself.78
The technology of stone pillar construction (and bell founding) and their adornment with artistic
and written Tibetan epigraphy became more popular in the Yar lung valley as well as on the borders of

72
Bryson 2015, 65–66; Uebach 2012, 61.
73
See Scherrer-Schaub 2002.
74
Bushell 1880, 446.
75
Uebach 2008, 60; Dotson 2009, 124.
76
Dotson 2009, 10–11.
77
Uebach 2008, 64.
78
See Aldenderfer 2003 on prehistoric standing stones of the Tibetan plateau. During the imperial period, Hazod
(2014, 73) argues that the three extant ninth-century tortoise-borne steles are “adoptions of Chinese or Turkic
models, whereby the Tibetan example with its crouching posture and the neck slightly pulled back is closer to the
‘Turkish model,’ as represented by the sixth-century Turkic Bugut inscription pillar.” In contrast, the complex
technology of founding large Buddhist temple bells, with imagery and text in both Tibetan and Indic scripts cast into
the bronze, appears to have come from Tang China (where Korean artisans were employed as experts in the art; see
Doney forthcoming).

13
the empire from the mid-eighth century onwards—sponsored by the emperors, their queens and their
ministers. Stone pillars were used to record treaties between the Tibetan empire and the Tang, proclaim
support for state Buddhism, “set in stone” the privileges accorded to the families of loyal ministers, and to
mark the tombs of the emperors with fitting eulogies to their lives.79 This priceless stele corpus was
augmented with tablet, wall and rock inscriptions in the later ninth and tenth centuries, whose content
increasingly shifted from imperial proclamations and eulogies of rulers and ministers to Buddhist prayers,
mantras and instructions, representations of deities and records of the construction of temples and
monasteries.80
The stone inscriptions begin to appear during the lifetime, or perhaps the reign, of Khri Srong lde
brtsan, who ruled over the empire at perhaps its peak of extent and cosmopolitanism. In the Old Tibetan
Annals, Prince Srong lde brtsan is born into a glorious Tibetan empire in 742. The entry for that year
reads:

[742-743] In the year of the horse, in the summer the Btsan po’s court resided in Mtshar-bu-sna.
The Chinese emissary An Da-lang and the Black Mywa emissary, La-bri, paid homage. At Zlo
they made an account of the [respective] removal and installation of Shud pu Khong-zung and
Lang-gro Khong-rtsan. They made a tally of jurisdictions. At Khu-nye Mon-gangs, Minister
Mang-po-rje made an administration of ’A-zha. Btsan po Srong-lde-brtsan was born at Brag-mar.
The mother, [Sna-nam] Mang-mo-rje [Bzhi-steng], died. So one year.81

This terse statement displays the imperial Tibetans’ literary debt to China. First, there is the use of the
animal cycle to identify years. Second, this annalistic style of recording only the major court events of the
year strongly resembles the benji, biannian and nianbiao styles of literature in China.82 However, the text
also marks time with reference to Tibetan imperial power. It records where the older emperor held his
court that summer, to distinguish it from other horse years. As Dotson rightly comments, ‘[i]n this way,
time itself was centralized by the figure of the Tibetan emperor.’83 Furthermore, this account portrays
events at the court as evidence of the power of its empire. This entry recounts the homage that the
Chinese emissary paid to Emperor Khri lDe gtsug brtsan (704–755 CE), suggesting positive diplomatic
relations between the Yar lung and the Tang dynasties at this time. It shows other areas to be under

79
See Richardson 1985; Li and Coblin 1987.
80
See Iwao et al 2009, 54–69 and 74–94.
81
Dotson 2009, 122–23; square brackets are Dotson’s.
82
Sørensen 2009, 1.
83
Dotson 2009, 11.

14
Tibetan control, including the ’A zha principality. While the Old Tibetan Annals’ literary style suggests
the background cultural influence of China, this entry describes Prince Srong lde brtsan as born into an
independent, ordered and powerful Tibetan empire.
Prince Srong lde brtsan was enthroned as Khri Srong lde brtsan in the summer of 756.84 This
coronation brought an end to the rebellion by rival clans, and perhaps temporary overthrow of the Yar
lung dynasty, that marked the last year of his father’s reign; thus it ensured the continuation of the
dynastic lineage.85 The so-called Zhol Inscription records that he rewarded a minister, Ngan lam sTag ra
Klu khong, for remaining loyal to the royal institution throughout the uprising and for counselling the
emperor in bringing many districts and fortresses of China under subjugation. This inscription also
contrasts Tibetan imperial power with that of the inferior and fearful Chinese lord (rgya rje; not
designated an emperor), Suzong (He’u ’ki wang te; 711–762 CE).86
The crowning event of this subjugation was the brief sacking of Chang’an in 763, after the Tang
had been weakened by the internal An Lushan (ca. 703–757 CE) / Anxi rebellion of 755 and the deceased
Suzong was replaced by his son in 762. The Old Tibetan Annals record this event and blame the downfall
of the western capital on a lack of respect from the new Chinese emperor, Daizong (727–779 CE):

[762-764] … The Lord of China having died at the end of winter, [another] Lord of China was
newly installed. As he found it unsuitable to offer [Tibet] silk tribute and maps, and so forth,
political ties were destroyed, and Zhang [Mchims-rgyal] Rgyal-zigs [Shu-theng], Zhang Stong-
rtsan and others crossed the iron bridge at Bum-ling. They waged a great campaign. They sacked
many Chinese strongholds, such as ’Bu-shing-kun, Zin-cu, and Ga-cu. Zhang [Mchims-rgyal]
Rgyal-zigs [Shu-theng] returned to the land of Tibet. Zhang [Mchims-rgyal] Rgyal-zigs [Shu-
theng], Minister [Ngan-lam] Stag-sgra [Klu-khong], Zhang Stong-rtsan, Btsan-ba, and others led
a military campaign to the capital and sacked the capital. The Lord of China fled, [another] Lord
of China was newly appointed, and the military campaign returned. Zhang [Mchims-rgyal]
Rgyal-zig [Shu-theng] went to Tibet for a great consultation. So one year.87

The narrative here does not include a depiction of Khri Srong lde brtsan, but rather reflects positively on
his reign. This is history written by the victors of this particular campaign and glorifies not only the

84
Dotson 2009, 128–29.
85
See Beckwith 1983.
86
See Richardson 1985, 1–25; Li and Coblin 1987, 138–85; Doney 2013, 63–69.
87
Dotson 2009, 132; square brackets are Dotson’s. As with the invitation of Princess Jincheng (above), the Tang
History naturally describes the same events somewhat differently (see Schaeffer, Kapstein and Tuttle 2013, 16–19).

15
emperor but also the top ministers and generals—against the common enemy of the expanding empire,
China. In rewarding Ngan lam sTag ra Klu khong for his part in this victory, the Zhol Inscription thereby
also portrays Khri Srong lde brtsan as a powerful and generous emperor. Like the Old Tibetan Annals, the
Zhol inscription questions the character of Tibet’s neighbouring ruler in order to compliment the Tibetan
emperor’s strengths by comparison.88
The subsequent Yar lung-Tang treaty of 783 laid less of an emphasis on Tang superiority and
brought a reduction in open hostilities between the two powers.89 However, the truce was soon broken by
the Tang and the two sides became antagonistic once more.90 Only the treaty of 821/822, the final of
seven agreements between the Yar lung and Tang dynasties, was “the first one in which the political co-
equality between the two powers was also recognised by the Chinese side” as evidenced by the unique
way in which the Treaty Inscription of 823 is written.91 It initiated a longer period of peace between the
two empires, but the Yar lung dynasty fell soon after and perhaps was already unable to exert great
military pressure on the Tang due to internal problems. The Tibetan empire could not expand far to the
direct south, due to the mighty Himalayan range. Having introduced above the Yar lung dynasty’s early
connections with India and the Licchavis in what is today Nepal (a topic I shall pick up again with
reference to Buddhism below), I shall instead move on in clockwise fashion to discuss the western
regions.

The West
In the southwest, a number of large and small kingdoms fell to the Tibetan empire at various times during
the long eighth century, although some of the more outlying areas were always under threat of
independent rebellion or return to Chinese control.92 Zhang zhung bordered Tibetan and Turkic territories
and was culturally and economically connected with central Tibet long before it was officially linked
through the wedding of its ruler, Lig myi rhya, with the sister of Khri Srong btsan in the early to mid-
seventh century.93 Yet this marriage alliance, and the ambassadorial power that Princess Sad mar kar held

88
Doney 2013, 68.
89
It is described according to the Tang History in Schaeffer, Kapstein and Tuttle 2013, 19–21.
90
See Beckwith 1987a, 149f.
91
Hazod 2014, 41. Kazushi Iwao (2012) goes further, claiming that the Yar lung dynasty showed signs of taking a
superior position to the Tang even in the 783 treaty and actually led the 821/822 treaty negotiations.
92
See Denwood 2008, 10–15.
93
Beckwith 1987a, 20. In the map accompanying this chapter, Zhang zhung has a relatively small extent compared
with its representation in Denwood 2008, 21 for instance, where it extends farther east along the gTsang po River
and north to the southern border of the uninhabited Northern Plain (Byang thang). See Zeisler 2010, 379–407 for
further discussion, a problematisation of the simple identification of Zhang zhung and Yangtong, and the argument
that at least Upper Ladakh may have also fallen within one of these two overlapping tribal units.

16
there, led to the Yar lung dynasty claiming Zhang zhung in 649, after which it rebelled in 677–678, was
annexed in 679 and finally subdued between 744–764.94 After this, they were used as “shock troops” like
the Sum pa in the northeast. Probably even more Zhang zhung territory was subsumed into the Tibetan
empire than Sum pa areas.95
Thus, the Tibetan emperors of the seventh and eighth centuries possessed at most times the
manpower and taxable land necessary to expand even further into the west and north. However, this
meant facing the strong Tang and Arabic forces expanding in opposite directions along the Silk Road
during this period.96 In the west, the growing Tibetan empire met and incorporated largely Dardic-
speaking Indo-Aryan groups.97 Philip Denwood suggests that Baltistan, southeast of Gilgit, became a
Tibetan territory before 704; Great Palūr, which was centred around the Gilgit basin itself (and perhaps
stretching south to bordering Uḍḍiyāna to the southwest) then fell under Tibetan control around 726.98
Finally, Little Palūr (Tibetan: Bru zha) in the Yasin Valley, northwest of Gilgit (and north of Greater
Palūr), was perhaps conquered by Tibetan troops in the 730s, but was returned into Chinese hands by Gao
Xianzhi in 747.99 Bettina Zeisler has more recently questioned some of Denwood’s findings, and the issue
of the names and extents of these western territories during the long eighth century remains a thorny
issue.100 However, it is clear that the important north-south trade routes of the region now known as
Ladakh at various points came under the control of the Yar lung dyansty, who capitalised on the wealth
flowing through this area. Inscriptions found in the Ladkhi region and dating from the imperial period are
written in many languages and scripts, including Tibetan, Sogdian, Tocharian, Arabic, Chinese and
Śāradā (Kashmiri), and thus reflect the diversity of those living in and travelling through the western part
of the Tibetan empire.101 Kashmir was a centre of learning, and there is evidence that intellectual
traditions, especially medical classics that were translated into both Tibetan and Arabic translations, were
sourced from this region.102 Kashmir also maintained their own independent relationship with Tang China

94
Dotson 2009, 25–26; Denwood 2008, 10.
95
Denwood 2008, 10.
96
Dotson 2009, 18–19.
97
Kapstein 2006, 5.
98
Denwood 2008, 14–15.
99
Denwood 2008, 14.
100
See Zeisler 2010. One issue raised by Zeisler (2010, 416–25) concerns the map that accompanies this chapter.
This map shows a region marked “gSer-rigs?” (“Gold Clan”; Sanskrit Suvarṇagotra; Chinese: Jinshi), which Zeisler
points out may more likely designate a people or race than a geographical area—one was given different domains in
different sources (specifically farther northeast or farther south than is shown on our map depending on Khotanese
and Indian sources respectively).
101
My thanks to Quentin Devers for this information.
102
See Yoeli-Tlalim 2011, 4; Bladel 2011, 76–77.

17
at this time, serving (when it was not disrupted by war) as an avenue for the former to complain to the
latter about both Tibetan and Arabic incursions.103
Tibetan rule over northwestern regions also brought the Tibetan army increasingly into contact
with Iranian areas to the west (sTag gzig/Ta zig, Par sig/Pa ra si ka).104 One event that is writ (over)large
in the global history of this period is the so-called Battle of Talas (751 CE), in which it is claimed the
Abbasid Arabs, Qarluq Turks and Tibetans together withstood the Chinese forces at the height of Tang
power, halting their westward expansion for good (and introducing paper-making to Baghdad through the
artisanal skills of Chinese captured in the process).105 This battle actually seems to have taken place in the
town of Aṭlach nearby Talas (Arabic: Ṭarāz) on the present-day border
between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and no Tibetan evidence is available to prove that the Tibetan army
took part.106 Perhaps some local rulers affiliated to the Tibetans helped the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258
CE), and/or the Tibetan army independently engaged Tang forces around Kashgar (conceivably forcing
the western arm of the Tang forces to fight on two fronts). Warfare between the Abbasid Caliphate and
the Yar lung dynasty is reported in the early ninth century, in which the latter are allied with the Qarluq
Turks who appear to have helped the Tibetan armies extend surprisingly far west, and even to have
controlled regions around the Pamirs in present-day Tajikistan at times.
The expansion of the Tibetan empire into Kashmir and beyond seems to have obstructed the flow
of direct trade from India to western and largely Muslim regions. Trade was not stopped completely but
forced to go through “Tibet.” It is difficult to know when this occurred, since we can only rely on an
anonymous and terse geographical account in Persian from 982 (which may quote an earlier witness), the
Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam min al-Mashriq ila l-Maghrib, “The Boundaries of The World from The East to the
West”). It states: “all goods from India come to Tibet, and from Tibet come to the cities of the
Muslims.”107 However, the Yar lung dynasty was not only militarily involved in the west, but also
continued a probably long-standing trade relation with western regions. This included the Tibetan export
of musk, sheep products and wool, cloth and slaves into Iranian areas, as well as iron and steel products
such as chain mail and swords.108 Reciprocally, examples of eastern Iranian precious metalwork seem to
have also been imported from the late seventh century onwards, influencing the style of central Tibetan

103
See Sen 2016, 24–32 on this relationship.
104
See Yoeli-Tlalim 2011, 1–8.
105
See, for example, Brunn, Toops and Gilbreath 2012, 17.
106
See Beckwith 1987, 138–41. However, absence of evidence is not a proof of their non-involvement, and Tibetan
sources are admittedly exceptional sparse around this particular year.
107
Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam, p. 73, quoted in Melikan-Chirvani 2011, 93; see also Heller 2001.
108
Beckwith 1987a, 109–10, n. 4.

18
gold ware.109 Such Tibetan-Iranian designed gold ware may also have been among the gifts sent to
Chang’an (see above), and so complemented the works sent directly from regions west of Tibet to China
over the northern Silk Road.

Buddhism as a State Religion

Along with imperial control of these western and northwestern areas came a flow of Buddhist traders and
artisans into the Yar lung Valley that served to enrich the court’s religious material culture. The Yar lung
court may have been in contact or familiar with Nestorian Christianity, more properly known as the
Church of the East, and Manichaeism, but it was Buddhism that became a state religion in the eighth
century.110 As mentioned above, the empire had entered the Kashmir and Gilgit regions and subsequently
defended them constantly as a military force, attracted to the area for its economic benefits. As Kapstein
notes, “[i]ronically, therefore, war and booty were among the conditions that facilitated the eventual
Tibetan adoption of Buddhism.”111 Amy Heller discusses Kashmiri-Tibetan relationships during the
eighth century, when access between northeast India and China was cut off due to Tibetan military
expansion onto the southern Silk Road:

There was constant and strong support for Buddhism at the Lhasa court during the first half of the
eighth century, and many statues from Kashmir and Gilgit were imported into Central Tibet and
then carried throughout the regions under Tibetan sovereignty, including Khotan and Dunhuang.
Early Tibetan monks greatly esteemed the Buddhist art of neighbouring regions, particularly
Kashmir, Nepal, Bengal and Bihar, and actively acquired and emulated it.112

Thus, southwestern influence in central Tibet was balanced by that of artisans from the Kathmandu
Valley due to the connections between the Yar lung and Newar Licchavi rulers.113 In addition, the impact
that control over northeastern regions had on imperial-period aesthetics should not be forgotten. Other
pieces of art from central Tibet show the Central Asian style holding sway within the artistic depiction of
Buddhist themes under imperial patronage, even sometimes displayed together with evidence of the
Kashmiri style.114 These diverse ingredients all contributed to the Tibetan Buddhist style which emerged
during this time and matured over the proceeding centuries.

109
Melikan-Chirvani 2011, 97–104.
110
See Uray 1983.
111
Kapstein 2006, 65.
112
Heller 2001, 19, col. ii.
113
See Linrothe 2016; van Schaik 2011b, 72–75.
114
Lojda, Klimburg-Salter and Strinu 2016, 121–129.

19
 Although Buddhist priests and artists may have been present at the Tibetan court and patronised
by its emperors during the seventh century, the late eighth century marks a watershed moment for the
institution of Buddhism in the Tibetan empire. The ascendancy of the empire allowed the emperor to
confer high status, patronage and support on the Buddhist institution of ordained monks (the saṃgha). On
the famous stele that still stands outside bSam yas Monastery in what was the heart of the empire, Khri
Srong lde brtsan proclaims that such patronage “shall never be abandoned or destroyed,” as well as
provide the wealth that makes the “provision of the necessary accoutrements” possible.115 The donee is
not a specific person or clan (as in the Zhol Inscription, above), but rather monastic followers of
Buddhism. The bSam yas Inscription draws on certain rhetorical devices used in earlier secular
proclamations, for instance the Zhol Inscription, in order to evoke both imperial expansion and the
stability of the dynastic lineage. It uses these rhetorical topoi to lend authority to Buddhism. Reciprocally,
the ministers who swore to protect this newly established state religion also thereby pledged their
continued loyalty to the Yar lung dynasty, and the imperially-sponsored construction of large temple
structures centralized the generally itinerant power base of the empire around the two “capitals,” Ra sa
(later to be named Lhasa) and Brag dmar (further southeast where bSam yas stands). The circular
maṇḍala symbolism inherent in the design of bSam yas Monastery reflects the ideal empire, with the
emperor identified with the powerful cosmic buddha (Vairocana) at its centre—as at other imperially
sponsored Buddhist sites in East Asia more generally during this period.116
Foreign Buddhist teachers also played a strong part in the spread of Buddhism throughout the late
eighth-century Tibetan empire. For example, the ruling emperor, Khri Srong lde brtsan, provides an
almost first-person royal explanation (bka’ mchid) of the background to his (re)establishment of
Buddhism as a state religion once he gained power in 756. He describes internal antagonism, on the part
of some disloyal ministers, to the “southern” religion that had been patronised by the Yar lung dynasty
since the time of his forefathers. He goes on to say that, after reading augurs suggesting the folly of such
anti-Buddhist feeling, he invited a “Spiritual Friend” (dge ba’i bshes gnyen; Skt. kalyāṇamitra) to teach
him the dharma, who is most likely the Buddhist Madhyamaka master, Śāntarakṣita (died 788?).117
According to this explanation, the emperor then spread (or perhaps imposed) the religion throughout his
empire, in the west as far as Zhang zhung and Little Palūr and in the east up to the “bDe blon khams” area
that included Dunhuang and more besides, by means of councils held with his loyal nobility (including
the preferentially treated lords of the ’A zha).118 He thereby apparently succeeded by-and-large in

115
See Richardson 1985, 26–29; Li and Coblin 1987, 186–92; Doney 2013, 69–72.
116
Kapstein 2006, 71–72; Doney 2013, 71.
117
See Doney 2017, 311–12.
118
See Richardson 1998 [1980], 92–93; Doney 2017, 313.

20
realizing his intention of granting all Tibetans access to Buddhist liberation from the mundane world of
suffering (saṃsāra).119 Buddhism probably had little wider influence on Tibetan cultural practices beyond
the court, unlike the transformations it wrought from the post-imperial period onwards.120 Yet, even if the
spread of Buddhism itself throughout the empire was more rhetorical or real, the idea of this spread was
important in part because it reflected positively on the Yar lung dynasty’s power over their realm. The
identification of Buddhism as a state religion and the emperor as Buddha Vairocana may also have
facilitated relations between the Yar lung dynasty and rulers of surrounding states, which made similar
claims around this time. Unfortunately, we lack concrete evidence such as written communications
between these rulers that would corroborate such a hypothesis.121
A mass translation exercise funded and led by imperial power formed part of the process of
establishing Tibetan Buddhism.122 By the ninth century, this created a quite substantial royal library
(catalogued in the lHan kar ma and ’Phang thang ma catalogues) that may have been emulating either the
monastic libraries of Nālandā and Dunhuang or the royal libraries of Chang’an, among others.123 When
Buddhist texts were translated during the eighth century (or possibly also the seventh), they were
translated. A path not taken would have been to simply copy the works in their original languages and
make Sanskrit or some Prakrit the priestly or scholarly language at the Tibetan court. Instead, there is
evidence that the earliest translations relied more on the transcription of key Buddhist terminology than
later translators did. In this, they resembled the early Chinese translators of Mahāyāna Buddhist sūtras,
for example Lokakṣema’s (Zhi Loujiachen, second century CE) translation committee.124 Nevertheless,
the general trend was to translate these works, which suggests that the Tibetan language (which had only
recently been written down itself) was considered worthy of communicating instructions for
enlightenment. Perhaps this is an indication of the very difference of Tibeto-Burman to the Indic
language, so that it was believed that Sanskritisation would not properly achieve the aim of spreading the
dharma among the Tibetans. Alternatively, it speaks to the self-importance felt by the Yar lung dynasty at

119
van Schaik 2016a, 59–62. Later Tibetan histories recount that one of the pious Buddhist sons of Khri Srong lde
brtsan, Mu ne btsan po, also attempted (and failed) thrice to liberate his poorer subjects from the financial
inequalities of the Tibetan social system by levelling the difference between rich and poor (see Sørensen 1994: 404–
405). However, this can be neither proved nor falsified on the basis of the (admittedly almost non-existent)
contemporaneous or proximate sources on this early ninth-century period of Tibetan imperial history.
120
See most recently Doney 2017.
121
However, see below on Khotanese and Mi nyag representations of the Tibetan emperors as bodhisattvas—
emanating from the borders of the empire if not from outside.
122
See Scherrer-Schaub 2002.
123
See Herrmann-Pfandt 2008; Halkias 2004; Wang 2014, 220–23.
124
Harrison 1993. My thanks to Sam van Schaik for pointing out this similarity.

21
the time, who spread Tibetan language as it spread its empire and felt that Tibetan could also be the
language of Buddhism.
Slowly, Buddhist translation literature began to change the Tibetan language. In this way, the
Tibetans have followed a general linguistic trend among states that convert to a new religion, including
lexical borrowing, loan translation/calque, free translation and periphrasis, and loan shifts in inherited
lexemes. For example, the early neologism for scripture(s) itself in Tibetan is dar ma, either an
approximation of the Sanskrit word dharma or a borrowing of a Prakrit word *darma(?), which means the
same thing. The emperors took a leading role in the production of Tibetan scripture and even
disseminated a series of authoritative guides to the translation of Sanskrit, Pāli and perhaps also some
northeastern Indic dharmic languages (rgya gar skad, lit. “Indian language”) into Tibetan calque
translation terms.125 For instance, Skt. tathāgata, “thus-gone” (an epithet for the Budddha), was translated
literally as de bzhin gshegs pa (“thus gone”); whereas Sanskrit. arhat (meaning “venerable one”) became
dgra bcom pa (literally “one who conquers the enemy”), which is based on a received (false) Indic
etymology, but nevertheless attempts to do justice to the believed original meaning of the term in the
source language.126 The neologisms that were created for the truly astounding wealth of translations
produced over the long eighth century have become part of the language. So de bzhin gshegs pa has
become a standard Tibetan epithet for the Buddha, whether or not Tibetans either realise it translates
tathāgata or not, or think much about what the individual parts of the Tibetan term mean.
The influx of Indic Buddhism exerted a great influence on Tibetan culture, introducing new
notions of virtue, concepts such as karma and rebirth, sophisticated methods of philosophical reasoning
and advice on how to follow the ideal of dharmic kingship among others.127 Other aspects of the South
Asian poetic and narrative traditions that entered Tibetan culture with the translation of all sorts of
literature, and their indigenous transformations over time, are also undeniable.128 However, we should not
ignore the translations into Tibetan from Chinese, from Khotanese or from other Prakrits that appear to
have been undertaken without the production of imperially edicted guidance.129 At least one bilingual
Tibetan-Chinese (or Chinese-Tibetan) lexicon of technical Buddhist vocabulary exists in Dunhuang, but it
is difficult to date and its authorship and intended audience remain debated.130 Other manuscripts from the

125
Doney 2013; Scherrer-Schaub 2002.
126
Hill 2015a, 919, col. ii.
127
See, for instance, Snellgrove 1987, 381–526; Ruegg 1995, 1–35; Walter 2009, 165–285.
128
A good source of references for further reading is Roesler 2015.
129
See Stein 1983; Silk 2013; Emmerick 1967.
130
See Apple and Apple 2017 on this document from the Mogao cave 17 near Dunhuang, Pelliot tibétain 1257,
which is now held in the Biblithèque nationale de France in Paris. Apple and Apple argue that it is a copy of a
document somewhat like a questionnaire, in which Tibetans sought from Chinese monasteries to discover the
Chinese equivalents of Tibetan calque translation terms that they were already using in their translations.

22
imperial period and later suggest that Chan Buddhism (Tibetan: bSam gtan), which in Japan is known as
Zen, was popular in Tibetan translation too.131
From Khotanese, at least in part, the Yar lung dynasty appears to have learned something of how
to be a bodhisattva king, a royal figure bringing his subjects to the path towards enlightenment.132 In the
Prophecy of Khotan (Li yul gyi lung bstan pa), translated from Khotanese into Tibetan during the imperial
period, the founder and first ruler of Khotan is the miraculous child of the great Indian Buddhist king,
Aśoka, and his chief consort. He is also born displaying the physical signs (lakṣana) of a great being, such
as webbed hands and feet, a long tongue and sheathed genitalia. He is cast away to die by exposure but
then rescued by the kingly Buddhist deity Vaiśravaṇa and adopted as the son of a Chinese emperor, “a
great Bodhisattva,” before eventually leaving and discovering Khotan. The narrative then identifies the
next, perhaps also mythic, generation of Khotanese royalty as bodhisattvas, while future arhats and
religious helpers of the kings are described as emanations of celestial tatāgathas and bodhisattvas.133
Another text, the ninth or tenth-century Prophecy of the Khotanese Arhat (Li yul gyi sgra bcom
pas lung bstan pa) speaks of an unnamed Tibetan emperor as an emanation of a celestial bodhisattva—
one who inhabits a higher plain of existence but helps beings in this world through his emanations.134 This
emperor is depicted as spreading the dharma throughout the Tibetan empire and giving a boost to
Khotan’s efforts too:

‘At that time the king of the Red Faced Ones will use their great power and strength to seize and
hold numerous countries belonging to others. Then a bodhisattva will take birth as the king of the
Red Faced Ones and the practice of the true dharma will come to the land of Tibet. Scholars and
sūtric scriptures will be brought from other countries, and then temples and stūpas will be built
and the two kinds of sangha established in the Land of the Red Faced Ones. Then everyone,
including the king and ministers, will practice the true dharma.’135

I have argued elsewhere that this description conforms more closely to the Tibetan eulogistic form of the
Old Tibetan inscriptions, which ascribes both militaristic and religious accomplishments to its Buddhist

131
See van Schaik 2014. Two other Mogao cave 17 documents (now held in the British Library), IOL Tib J 709/9
and IOL Tib J 667, together make up a treatise on Chan Buddhism that the work itself says had been authorised
under the seal of Khri Srong lde brtsan. This treatise thus alludes to his activity as patron of the dharma coming from
China as well as India.
132
Doney 2013, 29–36.
133
The Prophecy of Khotan is translated in Emmerick 1967, 14–47.
134
See Thomas 1935, 73–87; van Schaik 2016b.
135
Translated in van Schaik 2016b, 56.

23
emperors, than to the depictions in the Prophecy of Khotan above.136 Whereas the period of loose Tibetan
control over Khotan influenced the Yar lung dynasty’s depiction of themselves as bodhisattva kings,
perhaps here is evidence of the effect of the Tibetans on the Khotanese depiction of their new masters,
who in earlier pre-conquest narratives are described as barbarian aggressors along with the Uyghurs,
Turks and Sum pas.137

Dunhuang and the Lasting Influence of the Tibetan Empire

There is epigraphic evidence further east of the depiction of emperor Khri Srong lde brtsan as a
bodhisattva who allowed his subjects to enter the path towards enlightenment. In Brag lha mo Rock
Inscription A, inscribed to the southeast of what is today Jyekundo (sKye dgu mdo; Chinese: Jiegu zhen)
in the eastern part of the Tibetan empire, a high-status member or even ruler of the Mi nyag ethnic
group—a substantial portion of the later Tangut region which was allied to the Yar lung dynasty during
the second half of the eighth century—proclaims:138

During the reign of the emperor, the bodhisattva, Khri Srong lde brtsan [his] merit was great.
After that authority (literally, “secure helmet”) spread to the borders in the ten directions, [Khri
Srong lde brtsan] was inspired and codified many Mahāyāna sūtra scriptures. Over a thousand
[people], including Me nyag --- rgyal, entered the path of liberation. [He?] extensively built the --
- monastery, and the subjects and --- offered support. The sacred teachings --- [He?] accepted the
Mahāyāna and firmly maintained [it].139

Brag lha mo Rock Inscription A is difficult to date accurately, but appears to fall within the period of Mi
nyag alliance to the Yar lung dynasty (also corresponding roughly to the reign of Khri Srong lde brtsan,
756–ca. 800 CE). The rock is also situated in land controlled by the latter at that time. The inscription
describes the recent spread of Buddhism throughout the Mi nyag ethnic area, using the symbolism of the
spread of empire and giving Bodhisattva Khri Srong lde brtsan the credit for their conversion.
The text of the inscription is written in Tibetan, rather than in a local Mi nyag language, but it
also records the names of a local nobleman or ruler and monastery. This suggests that the text of the
inscription was a locally authorized rather than centrally created and sent out to Brag lha mo to be
proclaimed there. Perhaps this use of Tibetan is further evidence of the impact of the empire in the

136
Doney 2015, 32–33; Doney 2013, 75–76 and 78.
137
See Belanger 2014; van Schaik 2016b, 48–52.
138
See Heller 1997; Doney 2015, 36–39.
139
Doney 2015, 37.

24
provinces, as with the southeastern Lijiang inscription above. Furthermore, the mention of the emperors
as bodhisattvas accords with their description in the Prophecy of the Khotanese Arhat from the northern
part of the empire. If Khri Srong lde brtsan evidently intended to spread Buddhism (and hence his own
self-representation as a Buddhist ruler) to the edges of his realm within his lifetime, here we have proof
that this was achieved, at least rhetorically in the eyes of some of the elites of the subject polities.
From 787 to 848, the Tibetan empire ruled over Dunhuang, belonging to the Guazhou Province
(Tibetan: Kwa chu khrom) with it base in the Guazhou oasis, 15km to the east of Dunhuang.140 This area
was pivotal for trade and connectivity, since here the northern and southern Silk Roads came together
before entering the Gansu Corridor that led to Liangzhou and Chang’an. Gertraud Taenzer explains how
the Tibetan administration split the inhabitants into civil and military units, the former paying taxes and
remaining relatively untouched by Tibetan culture and the latter group in addition performing corvée
labour (including recruitment as soldiers) and more often taking on Tibetan names.141 The area was
primarily Buddhist, and military units included some monks who became military citizens (though
perhaps not soldiers). Regional councils (’dun sa/tsa) administered both the general “bDe blon khams”
area and the more specific Kwa cu military district that included Dunhuang, and gradually new rules were
introduced for the Tibetan government of both monastic and lay organisations, altering the already
existing structures but with a relatively light touch.142
Inhabitants of the area came from diverse ethnic backgrounds, and Dunhuang was visited by
embassies, armies, pilgrims, and merchants from many more lands during the long eighth century. Works
found at the beginning of the twentieth century at the Mogao cave complex near Dunhuang, walled up in
cave 17 or the so-called “library cave,” are written in Chinese, Khotanese, Sanskrit, Sogdian, Tibetan,
Uyghur and other languages. They include important works such as the Old Tibetan Annals and Chan
Buddhist works described above. During the Tibetan occupation, many monastic and lay inhabitants of
the region worked as scribes for grand sūtra copying projects undertaken by Emperor Khri gTsug lde
brtsan in the ninth century. There they worked in both Tibetan and Chinese on such classic outlines of the
bodhisattva path and the “perfection of [Buddhist] wisdom” (prajñāpāramitā) as the Śatasahasrika-
prajñāpāramitā-sūtra (Tibetan) and Mahā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra (Chinese), as well as the
Aparimitāyurnāma-mahāyānasūtra (Tibetan and Chinese) that lies closer to the tantric Buddhism of
spells (dhāraṇī) and liberation in this lifetime.143 Taenzer suggests that the relationship between the Yar
lung dynasty and Dunhuang was at first amicable, and that local officials were well rewarded with official

140
Taenzer 2016, 19.
141
See Taenzer 2016, 20–22; for more on the geographical divisions, see Iwao 2012.
142
Dotson 2009, 69; Taenzer 2016, 27–35.
143
See Dotson 2013/2014 [2015].

25
duties, titles (though never higher than Tibetans) and exemption from conscription and taxes.144 Not only
the above copied sūtras, but also other ritual texts and prayers dating from the period of Tibetan control
over Dunhuang are dedicated to increase the merit or life-span of the Tibetan emperor.145
When the empire began to collapse in the mid-ninth century, it gave up control of Guazhou and
Dunhuang to the local Zhang (848–ca. 915 CE).146 In this uprising, the private army of Zhang Yichao
(died 872 CE) was aided by the clergyman Hongbian (Tibetan: Hong pen; died 862/868 CE) to whose
memory the walled up “library cave” at Mogao was originally dedicated.147 Some scholars have even
suggested that Buddhism was at the root of the general implosion of the Tibetan empire.148 Others instead
see the process working in the opposite direction: economic bankruptcy of the empire having an effect on
both its previous expansion and also its ability to fund the monastic institutions, including at Dunhuang.149
Many on either side of this debate maintain that Buddhism in central Tibet was exclusively a religion
centred around the emperor at his court and not shared by all (with the attendant effects on literacy that
this may have had), whereas others dispute this view.150 All serious scholars now agree that there is
certainly no evidence that Buddhism in central Tibet or at Dunhuang or other outlying parts of the empire
suffered from the mythical anti-Buddhist persecution by Khri ’U’i dum brtan (also known as Glang Dar
ma; ruled 841–842 CE) that once held a firm place in the historical imagination of Tibetan Buddhist
tradition and Tibetan Studies. The evidence instead suggests that the emperors stayed Buddhist to the
end.151
When ’U’i Dum brtan was violently killed in 842, his assassination meant the beginning of the
end of the Tibetan empire. Hazod suggests that this incident happened at the site of the 821/822 Treaty
Inscription, “in the same side valley of the Skyid chu [just east of Lhasa] where the kingdom had been
founded 250 years earlier.”152 Towards the very end of the dominance of Tibetan empire, Yar lung
dynastic power became split between two rival factions and then disintegrated into what later histories
call the “time of fragmentation” (sil bu’i dus).153 Although Tibet’s glory days of empire were behind it,
their effects continued to be felt.

144
Taenzer 2016, 26 and 21, n.4.
145
Rather than, say, the Tang emperor; see for example, Chen 2014, 249–52.
146
Taenzer 2016, 19.
147
Taenzer 2016, 35–37; Imaeda 2008.
148
Hazod 2012, 48; Ramble 2006, 133.
149
Kapstein 2006, 77–79; Beckwith 2011, 233.
150
van Schaik 2016a, 62.
151
van Schaik 2016a, 63.
152
Hazod 2014, 77.
153
See Kapstein 2006, 81–85 on this decline; Dalton 2011 on the “time of fragmentation.”

26
 Christopher Beckwith states that historians, Sinologists and even Tibetologists of thirty years ago
mistakenly held that the Tibetan empire had little effect on world history, whereas it perhaps had some
limited impact (through its Buddhism) from the Yuan period onwards.154 Beckwith played an important
role in correcting those misconceptions, especially in highlighting the cultural consequences of the
Tibetan imperial expansion for Buddhism in relation to Islam in the late first millennium.155 More recent
works have reinforced this new perspective, for example those scholars drawing on the Dunhuang corpus
that shows the long-lasting influence of Tibetan as both an international and a local lingua franca among
Chinese and Khotanese across all sorts of genres of communication.156 The abiding impact of Tibetan
tantric Buddhism among East and Central Asian devotees has also received increasing attention. It has
become clear that Tibetan tantric Buddhism played a role in the imperial florissance among other
kingdoms such as the Ordos, Uyghur and Tangut peoples, the latter of whom would later play their own
part in world history in their relations with the Mongol Yuan dynasty.157 In the west too, the wake of
empire was still felt after it sunk under its own weight in the mid-ninth century. Ladakh in northern India
has remained culturally Tibetan up to modern times, and the Gu ge kingdom of mNga’ ris in western
Tibet (tenth to seventeenth century CE) proudly charted its royal lineage back to the “bodhisattva kings”
of the Yar lung dynasty.158 Although the Silk Road gradually lost its once mighty dominion over East-
West trade, due to the booming of maritime commercial routes from the ninth century onwards, the
Tibetan empire’s expansion at the tail-end of the great Silk/Horse/Musk Road period had a long-lasting
impact on Central Asia for centuries to come.159

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