Administration and Law in the Tibetan Empire: the Section on Law and State and its Old Tibetan Antecedents

The present study consists of a full translation and analysis of the three main versions of the Section on Law and State, a chapter on Tibetan imperial law and administration found in the mid-16th century Mkhas pa'i dga' ston by Dpa'-bo Gtsug-lag Phreng-ba, and in the Rgya bod kyi chos 'byung rgyas pa of Mkhas-pa Lde'u and the Chos 'byung chen po bstan pa'i rgyal mtshan of Lde'u Jo-sras, which both date to the mid to late-13th century. While the post-dynastic Tibetan historical tradition attributes this entire body of legal and administrative reforms to Emperor Srong-btsan Sgam-po (c.605-649), the individual legal and administrative catalogues contained in the Section on Law and State, when subjected to close analysis, can be dated to several different periods. The principal aim of this analysis is to underline the early Tibetan antecedents for the catalogues contained in the Section on Law and State. By relating the catalogues of the Section on Law and State to Old Tibetan sources, this analysis describes in detail the legal and administrative practices of the Tibetan Empire (c.600-c.850). Among the topics covered by this analysis are historical geography and the ‘nationalisation’ of clan territory, social stratification, technological innovation and legal culture. The Section on Law and State is not limited solely to law and administration, however, and also offers insights regarding cultural institutions such as religious practices and Tibetan funerary culture. Taken together, the scattered and fragmentary catalogues that make up the Section on Law and State, many of which ultimately derive from manuals and official records from the imperial period, constitute a rare juridical corpus of the Tibetan Empire. As such, it furnishes important and detailed information about the legal and administrative culture of the Tibetan Empire, and constitutes a fundamental source for Tibetan social history. The preservation of such documents within Tibet’s post-dynastic religious histories underlines the persistence of Tibetan political theory, according to which divine rulers, Buddhist or otherwise, must govern according to the just traditions of their forebears

Hunting for fortune. Wild animals, goddesses and the play of perspectives in early Tibetan dice divination

Le cerf, l'antilope, la gazelle et d'autres animaux sauvages sont au cœur de la divination par les dés dans le Tibet ancien. On les trouve dans les présages successifs d’environ deux douzaines de manuscrits de divination par les dés des ixe et xe siècles, retrouvés à Dunhuang, Turfan et autres sites occupés par les Tibétains le long de la route sud de la soie aux viiie et ixe siècles. En plus des cerfs, kiang et yaks, diverses espèces d’oiseaux et de gibier d’eau apparaissent à intervalles réguliers dans les présages. Ces animaux, dont la prépondérance a été relevée par d'autres chercheurs, sont plus qu'une évocation pittoresque de la faune tibétaine. Et ils font plus que simplement témoigner d'un processus par lequel les Tibétains ont assimilé une technologie divinatoire étrangère, imprégnant ces présages de leur propre sensibilité poétique et oraculaire. Ces animaux sauvages, de toute évidence omniprésents dans les présages, sont en fait essentiels aux échanges entre le sauvage et le domestiqué, et entre le divin et l'humain qui sous-tendent une plus grande économie rituelle de la fortune à laquelle la divination par les dés offre un mode d'accès très spécifique. Ces animaux sauvages se trouvent en concurrence en tant que dépositaires de la fortune et en tant que biens privilégiés des déesses sauvages sman qui surveillent les hauts plateaux sauvages, concurrence qui respecte un équilibre subtil entre la lutte (agonistique) et le hasard (aléatoire). Pour un client de la divination ou « joueur oraculaire », la fortune humaine (phya) peut être gagnée – essentiellement à partir des espaces sauvages surveillés par les déesses sman –, ou bien elle peut être perdue, souvent avec des résultats graves. Cette dynamique d'échange, dans laquelle l'essence faste du sauvage est absorbée par les humains et leur bétail, soulève également des questions intrigantes sur la relation entre la divination par les dés et la chasse et, plus généralement, sur le rôle que jouent les animaux et les divinités dans la construction de la personne tibétaine.Deer, antelope, gazelles, and other wild animals are central to early Tibetan dice divination. They appear in response after oracular response in approximately two dozen 9th- and 10th-century excavated dice divination manuscripts recovered from Dunhuang, Turfan, and other sites occupied by Tibetans along the southern Silk Road in the 8th and 9th centuries. In addition to deer, kiang, yaks, and so on, various birds and waterfowl make repeated appearances in the responses. These animals, whose preponderance has been remarked upon by others who have studied these texts, are more than just a picturesque evocation of Tibetan fauna. And they do more than simply bear witness to a process whereby Tibetans assimilated a foreign divinatory technology and infused it with their own poetic and oracular sensibilities. These seemingly omnipresent wild animals are in fact central to the exchanges between the wild and the tame, and between the divine and the human that underpin a larger ritual economy of fortune to which dice divination offers one very specific mode of access. As repositories of fortune, and as the favoured possessions of the wild sman goddesses who oversee the wild highlands, these wild animals index a competition wherein there lies a subtle balance between agonistic struggle and aleatory hazard. For a divination client or “oracular gambler”, human fortune (phya) may be won – essentially taken from the wild spaces overseen by the sman goddesses –, or it may be lost, often with grave results. This dynamic of exchange, in which the fortunate essence of the wild is absorbed by humans and livestock, also raises intriguing questions about the relationship between dice divination and hunting and, more generally, about animals and divinities in the construction of Tibetan personhood

Sørensen, Per K., Guntram Hazod, in cooperation with Tsering Gyalbo, Thundering Falcon: An Inquiry into the History and Cult of Khra-`brug. Tibet’s First Buddhist Temple

Thundering Falcon, the second collaborative effort from the same research team that produced the excellent work, Civilization at the Foot of Mount Sham-po, continues the work of Per Sørensen, Guntram Hazod and Tsering Gyalbo in the heartland of Tibetan culture in and around Yar-lung and ’Phyong-po. Taking Khra-’brug Temple as their jumping-off point, Sørensen et al. bring their immense historical and geographical knowledge to bear on various issues surrounding the temple, from its establishme..

Sources for the Old Tibetan Chronicle: a Fragment from the Non-Extant Chronicle Pothi

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A note on zhang: maternal relatives of the Tibetan royal line

This article examines the meaning of the Tibetan kinship term źao (“maternal uncle”, “father-in-law” or “wife-giver”) as it applied to the maternal relatives of the Tibetan royal line during the period of the Tibetan empire (c.600—c.850). Based on a close examination of several Old Tibetan sources, the article demonstrates that the appellative źao was lent to members of an aristocratic clan when one of its ladies gave birth to a Tibetan emperor (or upon his subsequent accession to the throne), and that the title was retained for at least four generations thereafter. The investigation also reveals a proscription governing the marriage practices of the Tibetan royal line: no heir-producing marriage with a single maternal clan was permitted until a certain number of generations had passed since an earlier such union. The ramifications of this practice are then considered alongside a modern parallel, and the paper closes with a few extrapolations concerning the social structure of the Tibetan empire

À nos lecteurs

Dotson Brandon. À nos lecteurs. In: Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie, vol. 24, 2015. Kingship, Ritual, and Narrative in Tibet and the Surrounding Cultural Area / Royauté, rituel et narration au Tibet et dans l'aire culturelle alentour. pp. 3-4