Kaufer-The Application of the Tibetan Sexagenary Cycle

8/13/2019 Kaufer-The Application of the Tibetan Sexagenary Cycle

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The Application of the Tibetan Sexagenary Cycle

Author(s): Berthold LauferSource: T'oung Pao, Second Series, Vol. 14, No. 5 (1913), pp. 569-596Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4526371.

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THE PPLICATIONFTHEIBETANSEXAGENARYYCLEWITH REFERENCE TO

P. PELLIOT, Le cycle sexage'natiredans la chronologie tibetaine(Journal asiatique, Mai-Juin, 1913, pp. 633-667)

BYBERTHOLD LAUFER.

Ch`ang-an cannot have seen any brighter days than Paris whenM. Pelliot, a second Hilan Tsang, with his treasures of ancientbooks, manuscripts, scrolls and statues, returned from his journey inCentral Asia which will ever be memorable in the annals of scien-tific exploration. His archweologicalmaterial bearing on the languages,literature and history of almost all nations of Central Asia hasnaturally led him to transgress the boundary stones which wereset up by the commonly accepted Monroe doctrine of sinology, andto take deep plunges into Turkish, Mongol, Tungusian, Tibetan,and kindred subjects. In studying the work of previous scholars inthese fields, M. Pelliot encountered a great deal that could notpass muster before his scrutinizing eagle eye, and that he was ableto enlighten considerably with the solid fund of his superior Chineseand historical knowledge. In the present investigation he turns hissearchlight on the prevailing methods of computing the Tibetanyears of the sexagenary cycle into our system of time-reckoning;he x-rays the father of this system, ALEXANDER CSOMA,who, inhis famous Tibetan Grammar (Calcutta, 1834), expounded a calcu-lation of Tibetan years which ever since has been a sanctified dogmaof Tibetan philology (with two exceptions which escaped the atten-

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570 BERTHOLD LAUFER.tion of M. Pelliot), and discovers in it two fundamental errors ofcalculation which gave rise to all subsequent misunderstandings.After careful examination of M. Pelliot's deductions and conclusions,and after testing them also from Tibetan works of chronology andnumerous examples of dates furnished by Tibetan books, it is theforemost and pleasant duty of the reviewer to acknowledge withoutrestraint that the results obtained by M. Pelliot are perfectly cor-rect, and that the rectifications proposed and conveniently summedup by him on p. 663 must be generally and immediately adopted.

The nerve of the whole matter is the date of the first year ofthe first Tibetan cycle. Csoma had calculated it at the year 1026,and M. Pelliot justly reveals the fact that he committed an errorof calculation, and that this date must be fixed at 1027.1) Thisyear as the starting-point of the Tibetan reckoning after cycles ismoreover confirmed by the working of the system. It should bepointed out that this discovery of M. Pelliot is not enuirely original.It was Father A. DESGODINS of the Mlissions E'tra,ageres who as farback as 1899 proposed to fix the beginning of the first year ofthe Tibetan cycle at the year 1027. In his "Essai de grammairethibetaine pour le lanrgage parle, p. 87 (Hongkong, Imprimeriede Nazareth, 1899) Father DESGODINS says literally: "Nous avonsfait le tableau complet des cycles de 60 ans, en partant de l'aunee,telle qu'on la compte au Thibet: et nous avons trouve' que lapremiere annee du premier cycle thibetain e'tait l'an 1027 de l'erechretienne, et noi l'an 1026, comme disent Csoma et Mr. Foucaux.

1) Despite his wrong calculation, Csomk has convertedcorrectly at least one date.In his translationof a Tibetan passportwhich was published n Hyde's Hisloria ReligionisP7eterum Per.sarum (.J. A. S. B., Vol. 11, 1833, p. 202, or J. A. S. B., N. S, Vol. VII,NO 4, 1911 [containing a reprint of Csoma's papers], p. 26) the date earth-dragon(saabrug) is justly rednced to 1688, also the Chinese cyclical signs Vsc DhId (woU h'en) beingcorrectly added in a footnote; but then immediatelyfollows the sentence: "The Tibetanreckoningcommences rom February, 1026".



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APPLICATION OF THE TIBETAN CYCLE. 571Quoi qu'il en soit, lorsqu'on est en pays thibetain, rien de plusfacile que de savoir l'annee quie les Thibetains comptent actuelle-ment; et, partant de la, on se fait un petit tableau pour les anneessuivantes. Cela suffit pour ['usage ordinaire." In the "Dictionnairethibetain-latin-frangais par les Missionnaires Catholiques du Thibet"(Hongkong, 1899) edited by Father DESGODINS,o whom is duealso a large share in the collection of the material, particularlyfrom the native dictionaries, the same statement is repeated twice,-first on p. 932 under the word rab abyuni "Cyclus 60 annorum(lul annus li cycli incoepit 1027 post Xum)," secondly on p. 976where it is said: "La 1re annee du ler cycle de 60 ans memoyoscorrespond 'a l'an 1027 de I'ere chretienne." The cyclical determi-nation indicated by the Tibetan words is fire-hare, and this isidentical with the one revealed by M. PELLIOTp. 651) from theReu miq. The writer can himself vouchsafe the correctness of thefact that the first year of the first cycle is designated fire-hare,as he found this indication in Tibetan works on chronology. It isthus obvious, that Father Desgodins, toward the end of the lastcentury, through a process of calculation similar to that of M. Pelliotand through an actual knowledge of the Tibetan chronologicalsystem, had arrived at the same result. The merit of M. Pelliot iscertainly not lessened by the fact of priority which his country-man may justly claim, for the rectification of the humble mis-sionary, couched in such a modest form, passed unnoticed anid didnot stir tlp those concerned in the case. There is not any doubteither that M. Pelliot, indepenident of his predecessor, has beenled to his result by sheer commonseuse and the exertion of hisown brainpower. As the facts are, Desgodins and Pelliot are theonly ones to be incarnations of Ma-nju9ri,while all the others,the present writer among them, have been deluded by a tempta-tion of Mara.



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572 BERTHOLD LAUFER.While Father Desgodins, as far as I know, never gave in his

writings any practical examples of Tibetan dates, there is anotherscholar who, though he has never stated his opinion oni the Tibetancycle and its application, proves by his method of conversion thathe understood it well, - and this is V. VASILYEV. M. Pelliot wouldhave Limself traced this fact easily, had he consulted Taranathatogether with the translation of Schieflier in that of Vasilyev (andit is always safe to consult the two), or VASILYEv'SVorrede zuseiner russischeneUbersetzung von Taranatha" (translated by SCH EFNERand published as a separate pamphlet, St. Petersburg, 1869). M. PELLIOT(p. 648 note) attributes the correct calculation of the year 1608 asthe date of the composition of Taranatha to SCHI.ETNER,ut thisfeat is plainily to be credited to VASILYEV (p. XViII). It turns outthat VASILYxv was acquainted with the Rent mig of our friendChandra Das, styled by him (Vasilyev) the Chronological Tablesof Sumiba Chutuktu (= Sum-pa mk'an-po). ). It is Vasilyev whocorrectly identifies the earth-nzon?keyear with our year 1608 asthe date of Taranatha's work, and (this is the salient point) thewood-pig year with our year 1575 as the date of Taranatha'sbirth, - both data being taken from the Reu, ninq where in factthey are so given. Schiefner copied from Vasilyev the date 1608,but changed the other date inito 1573. M. Pelliot, who without theknowledge of Vasilyev's indication correctly arrived at the date1575 by utilizing the statement of the colophon that Taranathawrote his work in his thirty-fourth year, very generously excusesSchiefner on the ground that 1573 is a simple misprint; I couldwisb to share this point of view, but to my regret I can not.

1) The work Kalpasnvriksha eferredto by SCHIEFNER,n which the same dates aresaid to be contained as those pointed out by VASILYEV, is nothing but the Sanskritizedtitle of the dPag bsam Ijon bza4 of Sum-pa mk'an-po; and as the chronologicaltableReu mig forms a portion of the latter work, so also Schiefner indeed speaks of the Reumiq. This seems to have escaped M. Pelliot.



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APPLICATION OF THE TIBETAN CYCLE. 573Before me is a copy of the Tibetan text of Reu mig writteu byScliiefner's unmistakable hand (already referred to by G. HUTH,Z. D. IV. G., 1895, p. 280); in this copy, Schiefner has enteredafter the cyclical determinations the dates of Csoma in each caseof a coincidence of events. Of course, this does not prove thatSchiefner absolutely believed in the dates established by Csoma;but if we notice that he marked the datum of the journey ofbSod-nams rgya-mts'o into Mongolia (fire-ox) = Csoma 1575, heis liable to the suspicion that he found the date for wood-pig twolines above by deducting 2 from 1575, and thus arrived at hisdate 1573. Takiing further into account that Schiefner, as alreadyshown by Pelliot, fell a victim to Schlagintweit, there is goodreason to believe that prior to this time he was victimized byCsoma; the one almost necessarily implies the other. It is there-fore impossible to assume that the correct calculation 1608 is dueto Schiefuer whom 2M.Pelliot will have to put down on his blacklist.1) Vasilyev, who had made his Tibetan studies among theLamas during a ten years' seclusiou at Peking, had the advantageof being removed fromi the European contagion which had spreadfrom India. There is no means of ascertaining what opinion wasupheld by Vasilyev in regard to Tibetan chrouology, anid for lackof evidence I should hesitate to confer upon him any posthumoustitle. The two examples mentioned are the only ones traceable inhis works and clearly stand out as exceptions in the history of

1) Schiefner has seldom had the opportunityof dealing with dates, and as far as pos-sible kept aloof from the translationof colophons.But to his honor it should not be pas-sed over in silence that in his Eine tibetische Lebensbeschreibungdk7amuni's St. Peters-burg, 1849, p. 1) he has correctly reducedthe date of the authorshipof the work, wood-tiger, to 1734 (while the date of the print, 40th year of K'ien-lung is not, as stated,1776 but 1775). The days and months given in both dates are carefully avoided, and thecolophon is untranslated. The fact is overlooked that the year of the Jovian cycle dmarser (Skr. piAgala) given in correspondencewith wood-tigerdoes not correspond o it butto fire-serpent,accordinglyto 1737; one of the two dates must be wrong.



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574 BERTHOLD LAUFER.Russian scholarship. The repetition of Csoma's errors on the pagesof our Russian colleagues goes to prove that Vasilyev did notbequeath to them any substantial lesson bearing on this question.0. KOVALEVSKI (MOHI'OACKan XpeCToNIaTin, Vol. II, p. 271, Kasan,1837),without quoting Csoma, implicitly shows that he believed in hischronology by lining up three dates for the lifetime of bTson-k'a-pa, first the fanciful statement of Georgi 1232-1312, secondlythe correct date of Klaproth 1357-1419, and thirdly the date1355-1417 after Vaidlirya dkar-po, as given by Csoma in 1834;his very manner of expressing himself on this occasion bears outhis endorsement of Csoma's dates.')

Prof. N. KUNER at the Oriental Institute of Vladivostok, inhis thorough and conscientious work "Description of Tibet"

1) It should not be forgotten that Mongol philology was developedin Europe onlines entirely different from Tibetan philology. Russia counted Mongols amonghersubjects,and Russian Mongolists always plodded along under the auspices of Mongol assistants. IfSchmidt and Klaprothwere correct in their conversion of Mongol cyclical dates into occi-dental years, this was by no means an heroic deed but simply due to information receivedfrom their Mongol interpreters. Tibet was always secluded and far removedfrom us, ourworkers had to push their own plough, and had to forego the privilege of consultingnatives of tbe country. The opportunityand temptation of forming wrong conclusionswerethus far greater. It is necessaryto insist upon this point of view, in order to observe acorrect perspective of judgment. Also the subjectstreated on either side were different.Inthe Mongol branch of research,historv was uppermost n the minds of scholars; in Tibe-tan it was the language, the problems of Sanskrit literature, and the religious side ofLamaism by which students were chiefly attracted, while history was much neglected. Cer-tainly, students of Tibetan did always notice the divergenceof their calculationsfrom thoseof Schmidt and Klaproth (also, as will be shown below, Dr. Hath, contraryto the opinionof M. Pelliot), but what did Schmidt and Klaproth know about Tibetanchronology?Theynever stated that Tibetan and Mongol year-reckoning agreed with each other, nor thattheir system of computation should hold good also for the Tibetan cycle. Nor is therereason to wonder that Lama Tsybikov convertedcorrectly the cyclical dates given in theTibetan text of Hor c'os byud edited by Huth; as a Mongol, he simply adoptedthe Rus-sian mode in vogue of recalculating Mongol cyclical dates into the years of our era, butthere is no visible proof forthcomingthat he proceededon the basis of anintelligentinsightinto the workings of Tibetan chronology,or on an understandingof the mutual relationsof the two cycles. The result of a mathematicalproblem may often be guessed, or foundby means of intuition or imagination; it is the demonstrationon which everythingdepends.



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APPLICATION OF THE TIBETAN CYCLE. 575(in Russian, Vol. II, 1, p. 107, Vladivostok, 1908), devotes abrief chapter to time-reckoning, and (invoking Rockhill) states asa fact (p. 108) that the first year of the first Tibetan cycle ofsixty years appears in Tibet as late as the year 1026, so that theyear 1908 appears as 43rd year of the 15th cycle.') It is certainlyeasy to talk about Bu-ston, and to refer the reader to his "Histoirede la religion f. 23 et suiv. de l'edition xylographe tibetaine (Lhasa)"without aiving any chronological and bibliographical references, asM. TH. DE STCHERBATSKOI does.2) The "wrong" dates which aremade afteL- a "system" are then still better than such a blank.

M. PELLIOTpasses on from Csoma to Huc, Koeppen and Schlag-intweit. At this point M. PELLIOT does not seem to me to do fulljustice to the facts ini his attempt to trace the history of the case.If the history of this error must be written (and the history of anerror is also a contribution to truth and one capable of preventingsimilar errors in the future), equal justice should be dealt out toall with equal measure. The propagator of Csoma's ideas in Europewas M. PH. ED. FOUCAUX (1811-1894) who published his "Gramn-maire de la langue tibetaine" in 1858 at a time when he was"professeur de langue tibetaine a l'Ecole Imperiale des LanguesOrientales". Foucaux was decidedly a superior man, of keeni intel-ligence, of bright and fertile ideas,8) commanding a fu1ll masteryof Sanskrit and Tibetan; and whoever has worked through hisedition and translation of the Tibetan version of the Lalitavistara,will cherish the memory of this hard and patient worker with a

1) Despite this wrong statement, 1906 is correctly identifiedwith fire-horse,and1907with fire-sheep.

2) La lit drature Yogdcdrad'apres Bouston (Extrait du Mutsdon, ouvain, 1905).3) One should peruse, for instance, his Discours prononcea 1'ouvertur.da couirsde

langue et de litterature tibetaine pres a la BibliothequeRoyale, dated at the end Paris,31 janvier 1842, the preface to his Specimendu Gy,a-tcher-rol-paParis, 1841) and theintroduction to the translation of Lalitavistara (Paris, 1848). The present writer is proudof owning a copy of the latter work dedicatedby Foucaux with his own hand to Jischke.



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576 BERTHOLD LAUFER.profound feeling of reverence and admiiration.His grammar, thoughbased on the researches of Csoma, is an original work revealingthe independent thinker on almost every page and, up to thepresent time, is the most useful book for the study of the Tibetanliterary language.') In fact, every student of Tibetan has made hisjuvenile start from this book which always enjoyed the hiahestauthority in our academic instruction. Now while Foucaux in thiswork has carefully considered and sifted all statements and opinionsof Csoma, he has embodied in it, without a word of criticism orany re-examination, Csoma's "mauiere de compter le temps" (p. 146)in its whole range; in particular, he has authorized aind sanctioned"le commencement du premier cycle 'a partir de l'an 1026 de l'erechretienne" (p. 148). This step was decisive for the fuirtherdevel-opment of this matter in European science; M. Foucaux hadimpressed on it the seal of his high academic authority, and sitncethis legalization, the error has been raised into the rank of adogma and believed to be a fact.

The correctness of this point of view of the matter is corrob-orated by two facts, - first by a long successive line of illustriousscholars in France following in the trail of Foucaux and all uni-reservedly accepting his teaching in matters of Tibetan chronologyup to recent times (even after the rectification of Father Desgodins),and second by the fact that it was from France that the germ ofthe error was carried to America. For our great authority on sub-jects Tibetan, Mr.W. W. ROCKHILL, was a student of Tibetan underM. Foucaux, and in his fundamental work "Notes on the Ethnologyof Tibet" (Report U. S. NTat.Mus. for 1893, p. 721, Washington,1895) stated: "The first year of the first cycle of sixty vears is

1) The same judgment was pronouncedby the writer in 1900 ( W.Z. K. M., Vol.Xli, p. 297). - The Manuel de tibdtainclassique of Dr. P. Cordierannounced or sometime is expected with great interest.



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APPLICATION OF THE TIBETAN CYCLE. 577

A.D. 1026, consequently 1894 is the twenty-ninth year of the fif-teenth cycle, or the 'Wood Horse' (shing ta) year of the fifteenthcycle". Here, the year 1026 is plainly laid down as a fact 1). Thefurther remark of Mr. Rockhill shows where the root of the evilreally lay, for his indication of the year 1894 as being a wood-horseyear is perfectly correct and in harmony with the table drawn upby M. Pelliot g). If Mr. Rockhill had had M. Pelliot's table at hisdisposal at the time when he wrote that paragraph, he would havedoubtless noticed that, if the year 1894 was a wood-horse year, the

1) Our case is well illustrative of how detrimental to science dogmatism and dogmaticstatements are. If Foucaux and Rockhill would have expressed themselves to the effect that"the first year of the first cycle, in the calculation of Csoma, is the year 1026", theirstatements would be formally correct, while the positive form of their sentences provesthem to be in silent agreement with Csomaand makes them share in the responsibilityfor his material error.

2) Where personal inquiry among Tibetans was possible, correct cycle dates haveusually been given in recent years. JAscHKE (Dictionary, p. 552) correctly says that 1874was a dog year (but on the same page gives impossible identifications or wood-dog,wood-pig, fire-rat and fire-ox years), and CHANDRA DAs (Dictionary, p. 1221) has it correctlythat the year 1903 is called c^uyos lo, water-hare year. In Schlagintweit'sand Rockhill'sjoined communication to the Dalai Lama translated into Tibetan under the auspices ofChandra Das, the year 1901 is justly rendered iron-ox (E. SCHLAGINTWEIT, Bericht uibereine Adressean den Dalai Lama in Lhasa, Abizandlungen er bayerischen Akademie,1904,p. 666, and plate). In the edition by CHANDRA DAS of the Tibetan prose version of Ava-dauakalpalataSdPag bsamatzri sii, Bibl. ind.) the year iron-tiger indicated on the Tibetantitle-page adequatelycorresponds o the year 1890 on the English title-page.A good authen-tic example is furnished by the convention between Great Britain and Tibet signed atLhasa "this 7th day of September in the year of our Lord 1904, correspondingwith theTibetan date, the 27th day of the seventh month of the Wood-Dragonyear" (Parliamen-tary Blue-books: Further Papers relating to Tibet, NO III, p. 271). VIDYiiBI1USAIIA (ATibetan Almanac for 1906-1907, J. A. S. B., N. S., Vol. II, 1906, p. 455) noted fromthe very title of this almanac that the Year 1906 was fire-horse, and from another onefor 1903 that that year was water-hare; neverthelessin his other publications (for exam-ple, Gyantse Rock Inscription, ibid., p. 95) he adhered to the chronology of Csoma. Arecent publication of the same scholar, an edition of the seventh chapter of Mi-la-ras-pa'slife (Darjeeling,1912) bears on the Tibetan title-page the year water-rat. A new confusionwas caused by G. SANDBERG (Hland-book f Colloquial Tibetan, p. 159, Calcutta, 1894)who allowed "the cycle now in progress in Tibet to commence n the year 1863", andthen gives a wrong table of years running from 1893 to 1906.



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578 BERTHOLD LAUFER.first year of the first cycle could not have been 1026, but 1027.Thus, the fact crops out that such a table as now offeredby M. Pelliothas never before existed in this form. The tables made up from theChinese point of view do not contain the names of the animals,though, of course, it would have been easy to supply them 1). Thetables made up from the Mongol point of view, as, for example,accompanying the Mongol Chrestomathy of Kovalevski, were rejectedby students of Tibetan, because the conviction gradually gainedground that there was a divergence in the application of the cyclebetween Mongols and Tibetans.

If M. Pelliot subjects the chronological table of Mr. WADDELL 2)to a critical analysis, it would have been a matter of justice torefer also to the table of historical dates appended by M. L. FwERto his opuscutle de vulgarisation which under the title "Le Tibet, lepays, le peuple, la religion" appeared in Paris (Maisonneuve), 1886.All dates there given (pp. 99, 100) down to 1650 are literally copiedfrom Csoma, and even the year 1025 is retainied as that of thefirst year of the cycle of sixty years. The fact that M. FEERmadethis opinion his own is clearly proved by his statement in "LaGrande Encyclopedie" (Vol. VII, p. 604) to the effect that "c'estde l'introduction parmi eux d'un des livres du Tantra, le Kalatchakraque les Tibetains font dater le commencement de leur iere (en 1025de la notre)". In this opinion he was fully joined by M. ED. SPECFITwho in the same cvelopoedia (Vol. XXXI, p. 63) states: "A cetteepoque (1025), les Tibetainis adopterent le cycle de soixante ans".M. SPECHT evidently had an additional reason for this belief, for headds immediately: "La periode Mekha gya tsho finit en 1024".

1) A comparativeview of the twelve Chinese "branches"and the twelve Tibetan ani-mals has been given by KLAPROTH (Descriplion du 7ubel, p. 56, Paris, 1831).2) In justice to Mr. Waddell it should be mentionedalso that in his book Lha,sa and

its Mpsteries (p. 450, London, 1906) he gives a correct table of the cycle from 1862to 1927.



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APPLICATION OF THE TIBETAN CYCLE. 579

Farther above on the same page, M. Specht explains that thisperiod begins in 622 A.D., and that it is perhaps the era of thehegira which the Tibetns adopted, "nous ne savons pas au justea quelle epoque"1). The date "1355 a 1417 environ" given for thelifetime of bTsoft-kea-pa by M. S. LFEI in his excellent work "LeNepal" (Vol. J, p. 169, Paris, 1905) testifies to the fact that alsoM. LEVI, following the traditions of Foucaux and Feer, sided withthe computations of Csoma. Also M. L. DE MILLOUfE (Bod-youl ouTibet, p. 185, Annales du Musde Guimet, Vol. XTI, 1906) acceptsthe date 1355 for the birth of bTsoA-k`a-pa, but on p. 188 setsthe date of his death at 1417 or 1419 2) (as he states that the

1) Thus, M. Specht pinned his faith on the year 1025, in order to arrive at theyear 622, the date of the hegira; but the calculationis wrong. True it is that the Tibetansare acquainted with the Mohammedan ra; six practicalexamnplesf this kind are foundin two Tibetan documentsdraftedat Tashilhunpo(bKra-sislhun-po) in 1781 and translatedin the appendix to S. TURNER,ecount of an Embassy o the Courtof the Teshoo Lama(p. 449, London, 1800). True it is further that the Arabs (Ma-k'ai kla-kto, the Mlecchaof Mecca)play an extensive r8le in the Tibetan speculationson chronology beginning withthe Kalacakra system (see for the present E. SCHLAGINTWEIT, Die Berechnungder Lehre,Abhandlungender bayerischenAkademie, 1896, chiefly pp. 594, 609). The period me k'argya-mts'omentionedby Specht, as the very name implies, is a period of 403 years which,if subtracted from 1027 leads to the year 624 (according to Schlagintweit 623), whichaccordingto Tibetan tradition was a wood-monkeyear.

2) This doubling of vears shows the influence of Schlagintweit's"improved"systemofchronology(comparePELLIOT, PP. 647, 648). - The date of bTsofi-k'a-pa'sife-timehashadmany varying fortunes. RiHYSDAVIDS (Enc. Brit., Vol. XVI, p. 99) adopted Klaproth'sdate 1357-1419; YULE (article Lhasa, ibid., p. 530), however, dated him 1365-1418,again in his edition of Marco Polo (Vol. I, p. 315) 1357-1419. It would, of course, bepreposterousto infer that those adopting the date of Klaprothwere actuated by a deepinsight into the matter. It is an entirely differentquestion whether the date 1357-1419is really correct. W. F. MAYERS (The ChineseGovernment, rd ed., pp. 106, 107) set thedate of bTsoft-k'a-pafrom 1417 to 1478, and in his essay Illustrations of the LamaistSystem in Tibet (J. R. A. S., 1868, p. 303) where also Koeppen is quoted in the casemore specificallyreferred to the Shengwitki a pj (byWeiYuan I/j,, 1842)as his source, without deciding the question of the striking diversity of the Tibetan andChinese dates. It is evident that Hilarion, who likewise gives 1417 as the year of thebirth of the reformer, drew from the same or a similar Chinese source, and that KOEP-PEN'S (Die lamaische Hierarchie, p. 108) charge of confusionbetween the years of birthand death should be directed toward the latter, not toward Hilarion. The Sh'ng wn ki, of



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580 BERTHOLD LAUFER.reformer died at the aae of 63, he should have consistently assumed1418). The remark in the foot-note that the date 1429 impartedby Sarat Chandra Das "parait tardive" is proof for the fact thatM. de Milloue, in like maanneras the present writer, entertainedserious doubts as to the correctness of the prevailing system ofcomputation. For the rest also M. de Milloue could not get awayfrom the firm grasp of traditional convention, and throughoutacquiesced in the accepted dates. M. BoNIN (Les royarnmesdes neiges,p. 273, Paris, 1911) derives fromn he tables of Csomathe date 1071as that of the foundation of the monastery of Sa-skya.

M. PELLIOT laments that Chandra Das does not give the cyclicaldetermination for 1747, the alleged date of the chronological tableReu miq translated by him. The question of the date of this workcannot be decided at a blow, as it is devoid of a colophon, andthe colophon is lacking for the reason that the Reu mig is not anindependenlt work of Sumu-pa mk'an-po but incorporated in hisgreat historical work dPag bsarnz jon bzan. For this reason I regretthat M. Pelliot did not turn to the latter, as he evidently knowsit from the edition of Chandra Das which, for the rest, is a verymeritorious piece of work; M. Pelliot would have theni discoveredthat the Reu miq is not contained in this edition (at least I cannotfind there a trace of it), although the editor in the preface to thelatter as well as in that of the former expressly assures us thatdPag bsam Ijon bza)i contains the Reu mig. The date of the com-pletion of the latter spontaneously results from the last date givenin the list of dates, which is 1746 indicated by me stag, fire-tiger,and as dPaq bsam Ijon bzait was published in 1748 (earth-(lragon),this year must hold good also for the publication of Reu nwig.Inrestoring the dates of this work wrongly reduced by Chandra Das,course, is a recent work and can hardly be looked upon as a pure source for the life ofbTsoA-k'a-pa.Presumably, the Ming shi may contain the dates of his birth and death.



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APPLICATION OF THE TIBETAN CYCLE. 581who simply acted under the hypnotizing influence of Csoma andSchlagintweit, M. Pelliot mainly insists on the dating of bTsofi-ka-pa. It is somewhat surprising that as a sinologue he did notnotice the fact that Reu mrig s replete with data of Chinese history:the dates of the Yfiaii, Ming and Ts'ing emperors are all com-pletely given and in perfect harmony with the well-known datesof the Chinese, if M. Pelliot's correct poinit of view in the iden-tification of the Tibetan cycle is adopted, while according to thecalculation of Chandra Das the dates are one year behind theChinese. This argument is very forcible, for we clearly recognizethat the cyclical determinations were really understood by theTibetans in exact agreemeintwith the Chinese (and accordingly withthe indications of M. Pelliot) as early as the Yuan and Mingperiods, while the practical examples pointed out by M. Pelliot allrelate to the age of the Manchu dynasty. It is thus further ob-vious that the Tibetans entertained correct chronological niotions ofChIiineseevents, and this fact must influence our judLgment avor-ably on behalf of their datings of contemporaneous Tibetan events;if the former group of dates is correct, there is a fair chance thatthe same will be true of the latter. Some examples may illustratethis. In Reu mig (p. 63 of the translation of Chandra Das) weread: "Yunglo became emperor of China 1402." We know fromthe exact chronology of the Chinese that Yung-lo ascended thethroue in 1403. The Tibetan text of Reu mnigruns thus: 9.gyairgyal-sar gsu7m-paYoin-loi ctos rgyal qkeod .. . . cu lug, "the third(in the series of the emperors of the Ming dynasty), the king ofthe law (Skr. dlharmara-ja)Yuin-lo was installed on the throne ofChina .... water-sheep." Conisulting M. Pelliot's table we find thatwater-sheep fell indeed in 1403. On the same page of Chandra Daswe read the following: "The second Min emperor Huni-wu tshaascended the throne of China .... 1398," a sentence which must



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APPLICATION OF THE TIBETAN CYCLE. 583death of Mangu (Tib. Muit-k"e)1) in earilt-slkeepsa lug) year - 1259,and the death of Kubilai (Tib. Se-c`en, not as Chandra Das writes,Sa-c'en) in fire-monkey (nme prel) year = 1296, may be pointed out.

But it can even be demonstrated that any Chinese dates ofwhatever period have correctly been reduced by the Tibetans to theyears of their cycle. Take, for example, the early Chinese datesoccurring in the epilogue to the Siitra of the Forty-Two Articlestranslated from Chinese into Tibetan, Mongol anid Manchu by orderof Emperor K'ien-lung in 1781 2). There we see on the same pagein interlinear print the Chinese date "26th 3) year of King Chaoof the C(hou dynasty with the cyclical signs kia yin 141 "

1) Compare the interesting study of M. PELLIOT, Mingi et Mdngki (*M6ska) inJournal asiatique, Mars-Avril,1913, pp. fil-459.

2) The edition referredto is the polyglot Peking print, the same as utilized by Hucand Feer. Compare L. FEER, Le Suira en 42 articles Iraduit du tib6tain, p. 45 (Paris,1878). Feer has not convertedthe Chineseand Tibetandates nto their occidental quivalents.

3) The text has the error 24, adoptedalso by Feer, but the 24th year of ChaoWangis B. C. 1029 with the cyclical signs 3j . . The indication kia yin and the Tibetanconversion based on this plainly shows that B. C. 1027 is intended. The error, however,must be very old, for it occurs as early as in the rGyal rabs where the following is onrecord: "When the statues of the lord Qakya and of the sandalwood ord had reachedthecountry of China, the annals of the dynasties in the great Chinese,archives were openedwith the intention of findingas to how the holy faith could be best diffused n the country.They discovered the fact that the former kings of China were the Chou dynasty whichwas coeval with King Yuddhishthiraof India, that after four rulers King Chao Wangascended the throne, and after twenty-fouryears of his reign, on the 8th day of the 4thmonth of the wood male tiger year (there is no agreementin the determinationof thetwo years except that Buddha's lifetime appearsas the same in both, but in that mannerthe date is given in the Chinese records) in the western region light, voices and manyother wonderful signs arose which were interpreted by the astrologersof China on duecalculation as indicating the birth of Bhagavat." This passage obviouslyshows that theTibetans were smart enough to notice the deviation between the two years, which probablyhas its cause in a diferent calculationaf Buddha'sbirth in China on the one hand andin Tibet on the other. The author of Gruib-mt'ael-kyie-b/k (compare .J. A. S. B., Vol.XLT, 1882, p. 88) who narrates the same event as rGyal rabs correctly imparts the date"26th year of Chao Wang", but adds that some authors believe that it was the 24th yearof his reign. In regard to the Chinese date of Buddha's birth see EITEL, HandbookofChineseBuddhism, p. 136.



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584 BERTHOLD LAUFER.(corresponding to B. C. 1027) = Tibetan Tiu Tou wang-gi lo nterdrug-pa sii pto staa lo, repeating the Chinese date and addinawood male tiger year, and such was B. C. 1027, the alleged date ofBuddha's birth. Turning to the next page we find "Mu Wang 53dyear { F" 1) (B. C. 949) = Tibetan Mu wahi lo ta gsum-pa C'up'o sprel lo, water male monkey year, and such was B.C. 949. Thenext date given "7th year Yung-piing of the Han" has no cyclicaldetermination in the Tibetan rendering.

M. PELLIOTdeserves special thanks for indicating the means ofrestoring the correct dates in HUTH'S translation of Hor c"osbyuinwhich is a mine of precious information. But it is not correct tosay that Huth, as imputed to him by M. PELLIOT,has never ob-served the divergence of a year which he regularly establishedbetweeni his translation and that of Sanang Setsen by Schmidt.HUTH indeed was fully conscious of this discrepancy, as plainlyshown by his remark (Z. D. M. G., Vol. XLIX, 1895, p. 281)that "Sanang Setsen (p. 53) states the year of the birth of Rin-ccen bzan-po to be in the Sim (wood)-dragon 2) year correspondingto 992, or as his chronology is ahead of one year (um eiimJahrvoraneilt), to the Year 991 A.D." HUTm, quite consistently with thewrong chronology wlhich he adopted from Schlagintweit, had formedthe opinion that Sanang Setsen's system of computation was deficientby being in excess of one year. He who is acquainted with theopinions of Huth will niot be surprised that in "Die Inschriften

1) The text has the misprint R IFP which would correspond o the 41st year ofMu Wang or B. C. 961 and to a metal (iron)-monkey ear. The very context shows thatmust be the correct reading.

2) This is certainly a gross misunderstanding f SanangSetsen's word sim which doesnot mean "wood" but is a transcriptionof the Chinesecyclical character en -4 (Tibetantranscription: zin). The wood-dragonyear would be 944 or 1004. SanangSetsen under-stands the water-dragonyear. A sudden flash of a wrong associationof ideas muisthavecrossed Dr. Huth's mind and led him to link Mongol sim with the Tibetan word sin,"wood".



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APPLICATIONOF THE TIBETAN CYCLE. 585

von Tsaghan Baisin" he gives three correct identifications of cyclicalyears (PELLIOT, p. 697, note 2). These dates occur in a Mongolinscription, and from his point of view, Huth was perfectly logicalin applying to it the Mongol system of calculation, presumablv byavailing himself of Kovalevski's table, while in his study of Tibetanworks he utilized what he believed to be the Tibetan system 1).

In the face of all these authorities, what could the students ofthe present generation do? It is perfectly human that they shouldaccept what they were taught in the classroom. Csoma, soon afterhis tragical death in the prime of life, was cauonized and honoredalmost with the rites of ani ancestral cult. The great.Foucaux fullyendorsed and upheld him in his chronology. Schlagintweit, by pro-fession a jurist yet for the rest a good and honest man, was nota philologist but what is worse, a bad logician; it was certainlyfoolish to trust him for a moment. And then - GINZEL enteredthe arena. Well known is the witty saying of King Ludwig IL ofBavaria, "a painter must be able also to paint". And we shouldjustly expect that "a permauent member of the Royal PrussianInstitute for Astronomical Calculation" should be able also to cal-culate. Csoma was not an astronomer and chronologist, but ascientist, about to issue an authoritative handbook on chronlologyas a safe guide to the historian, plainly had as such the duty ofrecalculating his precursor's computations and rendering to himself

1) There is no reason to assume with M. PELLIOT (p. 656) that aJigs-mednam-mk'a,the author of Hor c'os byun, was a Mongol writing in Tibetan. He was a Tibetanbybirth, born in a place near the monasteryblia-braii bKra-sis :ak'yil (HUTH, p. 357) in theprovince of Amdo (political territory of the Chinese province of Kan-su),and aftercomple-tion of his studies, was called into Mongolia as preacher; later on, he was appointedatYung ho kung in Peking and at Dalainor (La-mamiao). 40



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586 BERTHOLD LAUFER.and to his readers an account of what the real foundation of thissystem is. Ginzel's book, with its sanctification of the year 1026,denotes the climax in the singrularhistory of this comedyof errors,and by virtue of its highly autlhoritative character, indeed provedfatal. The higher must be estimated the merit of M. Pelliot whoultimately possessed enough pluck and wit to point to the very seatof the evil, and to eradicate it with a skilful operation.I do not wish to be misunderstood. I merely intended on thepreceding pages to contribute objectively and historically to theunderstandiugf of the development atid diffusion of the error inquestion, as the matter now presents itself to one who for fifteenyears has gathered documentary nmaterialfor writing a history ofTibetan philology. I did not mean, however, to write an apology,or to whitewash anybody entangled in the case, - and least ofall myself. Errors are errors, and nio matter whether they are smallor great, there is no excuse for them, and for myself I can oulysay stultum me fatuor. The importance of the present case mustby no means be underrated. An outsider may easily jump at theconclusion that it makes little difference whether the date of aTibetan book is accepted as 1818 or 1819. As a matter of prin-ciple, it makes a great difference which, if not in that example,yet in many others, may be of grave consequence. Above all it isthe total assembly of wrong dates which is distressing, - distressingbecause it has bred the germs of reflections and conclusions whichnow turn out to be wholly imaginary, - conclusions which wereinherited through three generations. We labored under the beliefthat the application of the Tibetan cycle differed from that of theMongols and Chinese, a difference poorly enough explained, and



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APPLICATION OIFlTHE TIBETAN CYCLE. 587this alleged diversity certainly gave rise to reflections on the trust-worthiness of Tibetan history. We were ridden by a veritable night-mare which rendered our lives miserable, we were haunted by afox-spirit which has now been felicitously exorcised by the newChang T'ien-shi. 1) The path is free, the fox has fled, and with afeeling of relief and encouragement we may hope to cope anewwith the fascinatincgproblems of the history of Tibet.

In regard to the origin of the Tibetan cycle M. PELLTOT enter-taiins some notions to which I am not ready to subscribe. "C'est dece cycle chinois que le systeme tibetain par elements et animnauxs'est, de toute evidence, inspire" (p. 660). This opinion is suagestedby the manifest consonance of the two systems, but it is not sup-ported by M. PELLIOT with any evidence derived from a Chineseor a Tibetan source. On the contrary, all evidence, as far as weknow it, speaks against the opinion that the Tibetan cycle is in-spired by that of China. Before presenting this evidence, it is justi-fiable to raise the question, - why, if the Tibetan cycle owes itsimpetus to Chinia, does it appear so late as 1027, why does it notmake its debut in Tibet during the T`angrepoch when this cyclewas perfectly known in China, aiid when both countries were inclose mutual relations? There is no trace of the application of thiscycle in the Tibetan inscriptions of the T"ang period nor in thecolophons of the Kanijurand Tanjur. The only date thus far revealed

1) The future historian of science will assuredlyremain mindful of the word of Mau-rice Maeterlinck (Le temple enseveli) that in each error of the past to which we clungtenaciouslyis usually hidden an excellent truth awaiting its hour of birth. All superstitionis ancient science, and all science is modern superstition.Progress advances n zigzags,anderror is a potent and necessaryfactor in the struggle for truth. The man who yielded tohis successors he opportunityof revealing an error was also a combatantorthe goodcause.



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588 BERTHOLD LAUIFER.in the colophon of a treatise of the Tanjur is worded in a Nepa-lese era.1) All the Tibetan historical works, as far as we kuow themat present, were composed after 1027, and the cyclical dates whichwe encouuter there for the earlier periods certainly are the resultof subsequent recalculations.2) The Genealogv of Tibetan Kings(rGyal rabs, written 1328, not 1327, as formerly stated) has itthat King Srofi-btsan sgam-po received books on time-reckoningfrom China and Mi-fiag, and if the T'ang shu (BUSHELL,The EarlyHistory of Tibet, p. 11) itnforms us that he invited learned scholarsfrom China to compose his official reports to the emperor, thismeans to say that a Chinese chancery was attached to the govern-ment offices of Lhasa where naturally the system of Chinese Nien-hao was employed, but apparently restricted to the official cor-respondence with China. Ecclesiastic literature marched along inits own way, and fed from the fountainhead of India drew its chro-nological inispiration from the same quarter. Buddha's Nirvana wasmade the basis of time calculation, and as there was no consensus

1) HUTH, Sitzungsberickteder preussischenAlkademie, 895, pp. 276, 282.2) But they are most certainly not the outcomeof "the imaginationof the historians",

as intimated by A. H. FitANCKE(AnfhropoS,Vol. VII, 1912, p. 264) whose remarks onthe chronologicalquestion, in my opinion, are not at all to the point. The fact that 'thedates in the sexagenarycycle do not come down from the first centuries of Tibetan histo-riography but from much later times" is as well known to me as to Mr. Francke. Thecontradictorydates given by the variouisTibetan authorsfor events of earlier history havenothing whateverto do with the sexagenarycycle but have entirely differentreasons.Afterthe introduction of the sexagenarycycle in 1027 it was as easy as anything to recalculateany earlier dates, in whateverform they may have been handed down, on the basis of thenew system, and as plainly proved by all facts, the Tibetans made these recalculations operfect satisfaction.The hasty conclusion of Mr. FRANCKE that "the dates occurringin thebTjun-mo bka-t'ati refer to the thirteenth [why the thirteenth, and not the eleventh?]century, and not to the eighth or ninth century"is entirely unwarranted.The dates mostobviously relate to the time for which they are intended, anidhave been made by a simpleprocess of correct arithmetical calculation. The imagination, in this case, is not on thepart of the Tibetans but exclusively in the mind of Mr. Francke.



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APPLICATION OF THE TIBETAN CYCL.E. 589on this date, several theories being expounded, dilferent computa-tions of events are met with among Tibetan authors according tothe standpoint which they took in that question. The great changecame about when in 1027 the KRlacakra system was introduced.In that year the Kalacakra was translated into Tibetan by Ri-maak'or-gyi Jo-bo ('the Lord of the Disk of the Sun'); in the nextyear, 1028, the great commentary to the Kalacakra was translatedinto Tibetan by Gyi Jo.1) Now we know that 1027 is the firstyear of the sexagenary cycle, and the coincidence of this eventwith the introduction of the Kalacakra doctrine is not accidental.Indeed, Kalacakra, "the wheel of time," as already intimated byme in l`oung Pao, 1907, p. 403, is inothing but a designation ofthe sexagenary cycle, and the vast literature on Kalacakra is filledwith expositions of this system. As correctly stated by CSOMA(J. A. S. B., Vol. II, 1833, p. 57), the Kalacakra was developedin the country of Sambhala,2) introduced into central India in thelatter half of the tenth century, and then by way of Kashmir intoTibet. I do not wish to take up again the discussion of the loca-tion of Sambhala, which is to be sought itn Central Asia. Divestedof the later legendary accounts, that country is not at all so fabu-lons, and viewed in the light of the recent discoveries it is easilydisclosed as a country where Iranian and Turkish Buddhism flour-

1) According o Reu mig in Schiefner'scopy. ChandraDas attributesthe formertrans-lation also to Gyi Jo; I am unable to say whether this is containedin the text fromwhich he translated.

2) M. PELLIOT(p. 652, note 1), on what authority is not known to me, writes thename Zambbala. The Kalacakratexts embodied n the Tanjur (Palace edition) as well asthe extensive later literature on the subject by Tibetan authors throughout follow thespelling Sambhala,and so do Csoma, Jischke, Desgodins,ChandraDas, and the PetersburgSanskrit Dictionary. The Tibetan gloss bde byuk shows that the name was connectedwithSkr. ta*bhbz.



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590 B13RTH0LD LAUFER.ished. According to Tibetan tradition, the sexagenary cycle formedby means of the Twelve Animals penetrated into Tibet from aregion of Central Asia, not from Chinia.1) This is all that can besaid for the present. The fundamental texts on Klalacakrawhich areof intense interest must be translated in e,ten.so to reveal to us thischapter of history in detail;.2) givigc only a few extracts, thoughI could, seems to me to be of little avail. Better progress in thestudy of Central Asia would have belen made if the suggestionmade by me six years ago (1. c., p. 407) had been carried out, forthat literature contains the key to the understanding of many prob-lems which now confront us in this new field. But workers inthis line are few, and men possessed of the courage of initiativeare rare. So we have to wait.

An important observation made by Mr. ROCKHILL (J. R. A. S.,

1) A distinction must be made between the mere knowledge of the series of theTwelve Animals and its utilization for chronologicalpurposes. There are indicationsthatthe series of the Twelve Animals was known in Tibet before the year 1027, as shown bythe symbolical interpretation of it in the legends of PadmasambhavaT'oung Pao, 1907,p. 400) and in other ancient writings centering aronnd this personage.- Another side ofthis question is presented by the iconographyof the Twelve Animals in Tibet and Chinawhich I hope to discutsson another occasionwhen the necessary llustrative material canbe published. It seems to me that the iconographicrepresentationof the Twelve Animals,as figured in the Tibetanworks of chronology,is entirely distinct from that of China anddecidedlypoints to another source.

2) The study of these texts will place on a solid basis our knowledge of Tibetanchronology which is now very scant. Then we may hope also to understandsuccessfullythe native works of chronology. SCHLAGINTWEIT (Die Berechnung der Lehre, 1.c.) has madea remarkablebeginning along this line by editing and translating the work of Suregama-tibhadra of 1592. Though the translationis not entirely satisfactory,he has accomplisheda great deal in elucidating the difficult terminology of the text, and this work is doubtlessthe best that the author has left to us. A standard book on astrology and chronology hasbeen printed in Peking under the title r Tsis g.nud yaiz gsal syron-me, containing numeroustables, calculations, and illustrations. The collected works (grn/ gbum) of the Lamas con-tain many treatises pertaining to this subject, even one dealing with Chinese chronology.



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APPLICATIONOF THE TIBETAN CYCLE. 5911891, p. 207, note 1) 1) merits to be called to mind in this con-nection. "Tibet is the only depenidency of China on which the im-perial Chinese almanac has not been imposed as a proof of itsvassalage. The Chinese almanac is sent from Peking on the firstof the tenth month of each year to the various provinces andtributary states. See e.g. Peking Gazefue,Nov. 19, 1887". A specialedition of the calendar for the Mongols was yearly prepared, downto the end of the Manchu dynasty, by the Calendar Section, ShiAienk'o 0I, , of the imperial Boardof Astronomv n Pekingand sent from Peking into Mongolia. The Tibetan calendar, how-ever, was not made in Peking but in Lhasa. The privilege reservedby Tibet in this matter is a clear index of the fact that there issome kind of a differencebetween the Chinese and Tibetanicalendars;if there were perfect agreement between the two, the request for,and the grant of, such a privilege would be baseless. The existenceof a difference was the immediate cause of that privilege. Certainly,this difference does not lie in the application of the cyclical yearswhere perfect harmony obtains. But it exists in the manner ofcounting the months and days. The Central-Asiatic origin of theTibetan cycle accounts also for the fact briefly commented on byM. PELLIOT (p. 661, note) that the Tibetan reckoning after monthsand days does not tally with the Chinese system. This fact, M. Pelliotcould have easily ascertained from the Wei Tsang tu shi (RoCEHILL'Stranslation, J. R. A. S., 1891, p. 207, or KL.APROTH'S Description duTubet, p. 57) where it is expressly recognized on the part of a Chinesewriter that the intercalation of months as well as days is differentin Tibet from Chinese practice. For this reason, Tibetan and ChineseNew Year do not necessarily fall on the same date, and Tibetan

1) See also his The Land of the Lamas, p. 241.



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592 BERTHOLD LAUFJER.and Chinese datings of mouths and days cannot agree 1). FatherA. DESGODINS 2), aaain, had a correct estimation of this matterwhen he stated: "Ce que je sais de certain, c'est que tout leursysteme d'astronomie est emprunte du Turkestan ou heur [intendedfor the Tibetan word Hor], que les noms des jours de la semaine,ceux des diverses constellations et des figures du zodiaque, etc., sontceux dont se servent les Turcs, et dont nous nous servons nous-memes; c'est aussi d'apres le comput du Turkestan que le calendrierest publie chaque anunee". In the same manner I had pointed out(1.c., p. 407) in opposition to Schlagiutweit and Ginzel that thebasis of the Tibetan calendar is neither Indian nor Chinese butTurkish. This fact is most clearly evidenced by the term Hor z,a,

1) This may be illustrated by a practical example. In 1906 the Tibetan New Yearfell on the 24th of February(Saturday),the Chinese New Year on the 23d of February(Friday). The following Tibetan dates of that year are taken from VIDYRBHnSA1IA'S paperA Tibetan Almanac(J. A.S. B., Vol. II, 1906, p. 456) and given in comparisonwith theChinese dates after Calendrier-annuaireour 1906 publishedby the Observatoirede Zi-ka-wei. May 14, 1906 (Monday)= Tib. 21/III = Chin. 21/IV (this example plainly showsthat the Tibetan day and month cannot be identified with the same in Chinese, for 21/IIlin China was April 14, Saturday); June 6 = Tib. 14,1V = Chin. 15/IV intercalary;June28 = Tib. 6/V = Chin. 7/V; July 9 = Tib. 17/V = Clhin.18/V; July 30 = Tib. 9/VI =Chin. 10/VI; August 31 = Tib. 12/VII = Chin. 12/VIE; September23 = Tib. 5/VIII-Chin. 6/V111; October 15 = Tib. 27/VIII = Chin. 28/VIII; October26 = Tib. 9/IX =Chin. 9/IX; November 18 Tib. 2/X = Chin 3/X; December 12 = Tib. 26/X = Chin.27/X; January 15, 1907 = Tib. l/XII = Chin. 2/XII; February8 = Tib. 25/XII = Chin.26/XII; on February13, 1907 New Year tallied in Tibet and China, but again March 4,1907 = Tib. 19/1 = Chin. 20/1; April 7 = Tib. 24/I1 = Chin. 25/IJ, etc. M. PELLIOTcertainly is correct in saying that among all peoples who have adoptedthe hebdomad hesame days of the week are in mutual correspondence;when it is Mondayin Tibet, it ison the same day Mondayin China and throughoutthe world, but this very same Mondayis expressed by a different number in the lunar system of both countries. The tentativeexperimentof calculation made by Al. PELLIOT, accordingly, s illusory, for S/IV of water-dragoni n Tibetan need not agree (and most probablywill not agree) witb S/IV in Chineseof that year.

2) In the book publishedby his brother C. HI.DESGODINS, Le Thibel d'aprcis a cor-resypondancee8 missionnaires,2nd ed., p. 369 (Paris, 1885).



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APPIICATION OF THE TIBETAN CYCLE. 593"Turkish month" 1), advisedly used by the Tibetans with referenceto their own months of Turkish origin in contradistinction to theIndian and Chinese moniths whose names are known to theirscholars and those employed only in literature. The date of thecompletion of Grub-mtVael-kyi m72e-loitnto which M. PELLIOT (p. 648)makes an inquiry is indicated in the colophon as the water-dogyearof the thirteenth cycle (rab byuAbcl gsum-pai c'u k'yi, consequently1742), on the tenth day of the sixth Hor month. Sometimes threestyles of a month are specified, thus in a work of the Fifth DalaiLama written in 1658 the month is indicated 1. by the Sanskritname 9ravana correspon(ling to the Tibetan rendering bya sbo,2. by the Chinese pi ts'a yob (yol = ygie A), and 3. by the Tibetanway Hor zla bdun-pa, ,,the seventh Hor month" 2).

Those who desire to compute into our reckoning the day andmonth of a Tibetan date must therefore not fail to ascertain whetherit is indicated in Chinese or Tibetan style. The rules to be observedare simple. Is the year expressed by a Nien-hao, month and dayare naturally Chinese. For example, a Tibetan work dealing withthe Sixteen Arhat, according to the colophon, was printed Tai C'iin

1) The term Hor zia in this sense is already registered in CsomA'sDictionary of theTibetan Language (p. 333). KLAPROTH (in his edition of Della Penna's Breve notizia delregno del Thibet, p. 24, Paris 1834) remarks on this term: "Il ne peut 'tre question icides mois des Mongols, qui ont le meme calendrierque les Tubdtains,tandis que celui desTnrcs, et des Mahome'tans n ge'n&ral, iffere du calendrierde ces derniers". The variousmeanings of the word Hor are well known (see 7'oung Pao, 1907, p. 404). From aninteresting passage in the Tibetan Geographyof the Min'culHutuktu (VASILYEV'8 transla-tion, p. 32, St. Petersburg, 1895) it appears that the word is identifiedby the Tibetanswith Chinese Hu 4pl; but whether it is really derivedfrom the latter, is anotherquestion.At any rate, it is not an ethnic but a geographicalterm. Different from this word Horvaguely denoting any peoples living in the north of Tibet is Hor as a tribal name ofTibetan tribes in the Tsaidamand in eastern Tibet.

2) See Z. D. M. G., Vol. LV, 1901, p. 124. The year is earth-dog, and as also M.Pelliot will admit, was correctly identifiedby me with the year 1658; this was facilitatedby the addition of the cyclical signs wu zui = A )f. The year is further given withthe designationof the Indian Jovian cycle vitarnba Tib. rnam-apjyad.



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594 BERTHOI.D LAUFE1t.Yun-ceoi oyal-polo dgu la-ba Ivrgycldar tstesla, "in the firsthalfof the 8th monthof the ninth vear of Kiug Yuna-chjetlgf theGreatTstillg" 1731); on the marginof the page,the sameis in-dicatedn Chinese 8; W ffi ;t + /t ,4 * El 1).In the LamaistnscriEstiollsf Pekingand Jeholthe days,asa lalle, are rlotgiven but ouly the months, he Tibetandatesap-pearingas translationsrom(7,hinese,he yearof the animalcyclebeing adeledo the ChineseNiell-hao.In the greatinscription fYungAo kunq(plates 2 and3 iLl heforthcomingublicationf theLamaist nscriptionsby FRANKEnd LAUFElL)ribe dgn zla dan-poi yar tstes-la, "irl the first part of the first winter month'',correspondso(:hin. X ,8 t _t ; stowzla alvrin-poistes-la+41,14 (plates30, 31, 42, 43); stonzla (]un-poi stesZ)zan-porg t vE t + (plates45, 47); Iglln 7a a6riqe-poistesbtaq-por=4 + 8 + Et (plates22, 23).Is the year indicatedollly in the Jovian cycle, so also themonthis given with the Sanskrit erm. For example,a workonthe svorshipf the TwentJr-Oneormsof the GUoddessara vrittenbytheSecondDalaiLanladGe-adanaya-lutstopalbzan-po1480-1542) is datedrqiacten-gyio ssron-gyizla-baSyar-wRoits'est)rqyad-la,"on the 8th dayin the firsthalfof tllemonthyesAtha5th month)

of the yearduaedub11i''.his yearis the 56th yearof the T;betan(59th of the Chinese)cycle answeringo water-doqwhichduringthe lifetimeof the author ell in 1502. Jovianand animalcycleare often combinetl, ay aticl hour being given ill Indianstyle.The colophonof the bioaraphyf BuEldhapitomized zySchiefuerruns thus: drnaqser zes bya siYb pto stug-gi lo, sm?z drug-can-gyiI) Thereis sometimes isagreement. Mahayanasatrarintedat Peking n the Sthyearof Yung-chengl730) impartsin the Tibetancolophon"firstpart of the fourthmonth"zla-ba bzi-pa-layar {stes-laj mherehe correspondingatein Chinese firs "the8thday of the 8th month".



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APPLICATTON OF THE TIBETAN CYCLE. 595zla-bai M4i-tugiiis, rqyal-ba iha-las b)yon-pai dus ts'igs-la, "iin thehour when the Jina deseetndedfrom Tushita heaven, on the 22ndday of the month karttika" (the year has been discussed abovep. 573).

Dates with the addition of monih and day occasionally appearalso in the recording of events of early history; thus, in rGyal rabs,mGar, the minister of King Sronr-btsan sgam-po, set out on hismission to China "on the 8th day of the 4th rnonth of the fire malemonkey year" (636 A.D.) 1).

M. Pelliot points out that Tibetan chronology, in its principles,is very plaini and easy. We do not doubt this for a momeut. Theprinciples of Tibetan grainmar are still much easier, aind yet theyare violated every day by experienced Tibetan scholars in their workof translation. Theory and practice are antipodal, and whoever willdive into the study of Tibetan books on chronology and colophonswith their often very complicated wordings of parallel dates inSanskrit, Chinese and native styles, teeming with astrological deter-minatioiis where the very terminology is still a mystery to us, willsoon recognize that it is not exclusively aeroplanes in which it ishazardous o fly2).

1) M. L. AUROUSSEAIJB. E. F. E. 0., 1910, p. 698) somewhatrashly accuses Mr.ROCKHILL,ho on one occasion gave the date 635 for this mission of having confounded"la date de la demande en mariage (634) avec celle du mariage lui-meme (641)". Mr.ROCKHILLs not guilty of any confusionin this case and is as familiarwith the dates citedas M. Aurousseau who ought to have turned to his Tch Life of the Buddha, p. 213,where both dates are plainly given. The date 635 (to be convertedinto 636) which isentirely independent rom the Chinese dates is simply that of Tibetan tradition. There arealways many sides to every question.

2) To those who have the inclination to solve puzzles and can affordthe time thefollowing problem may be presentedfor solution. The Lha-ldan dkar c'ag, a work of theFifth Dalai Laama, ccording to the colophon, was composed n 1645 (sa skyo/i-gi lo). Theday is expressed n a double manner; first, it was the day of Chinese New Year, secondlyit was in Tibetan gin byed dban-po gde k'yim-du Ae-bar spyod-pai p'yogs sna- ai bzald-podad.po I dbya,k ,i ac'ar-bai ts'es-la. What is the Tibetan day, and how does it comparewith the Chinese day?



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596 BERTHOLD LAUIJER.Additional Note. In regard to the employment of Nien-hao on the part of theTibetans in the T'ang period an example is given in l'ang shzs (ch. 216 Ti, p. 6) in the

case of King K'o-li k'o-lsu ;i[ t ; ,h- (= Tib. K'ri gtsug, usually styled K'ri Idesroii bisan) who reigned under the Chinese title Ii-i'ai j ; (compareBUSHELL,heEarly ilistory of Tibet, p. 87, J. R. A. S., 1880). The Nien-hao Chengn-kuanand King-lung 3.. 5 are utilized in the text of the Tibetan nscriptionof 783 publishedby Mr. WADDELL J. R. 1. S., 1909, p. 932). -

The fact that Sambhala was a real country is evidenced by the colophon to KanjurNo. 458 (I. J. SCHMIDT,Der ]ndez des Kanjur, p. 69), a text "collated with a book fromSambhalain the north". The spelling Zambhala s adopted by GRUNWEDEL (Mythologie desBuddhismus, Pp. 41, 42, 58, 244), which is not authorizedby any Tibetan text known tome; buit in Die orientalischenReligionen,p. 161, GRUNWEDELwritescorrectly Sambhala.What is more important,Grunwedelconcurs with me in the opinion that the calendar ofTibet is derived from Sambhala,and more specifically refers to Atiga as having introducedthe present form of the calendar andtime-reckoningbasedon sexagenary ycles (Mythologie,p. 58). Grunwedel is likewise correct in stating (p. 205) that "the saints practisingthecult of the sun-chariot" n Sambhala point to Iranian conditions, and this chimes in withhis view that the country of this name should be located on the Yaxartes.

After the above was written, I received, through the courtesyof the Oriental Instituteof Vladivostok, Part II of Lama TsYBIKOV's Lam-rim chen-po containing the Russiantranslation of the Mongol text publishedin Part I and with a very interesting ntroduction.On p. XIII,Lama TSYBIKOV, in discussingthe date of bTsont-k'a-pa,lludesto the year 1027as that of the first year of the first cycle.

Kaufer-The Application of the Tibetan Sexagenary Cycle

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