Jambhala: an imperial envoy to Tibet during the late Yuan.

• Author: van der Kuijp, Leonard W.J.

Two PASSAGES IN THE TWO available versions of Tshalpa Kun-dga' rdo-rje's Deb ther/gter dmar po or Hu lan debter, namely, a chronology of China's dynastic successions from the Zhou to the Tang dynasties and from the Tang to the Yuan dynasties,(2) that were adapted by later Tibetan historians, are owed to a report (or reports) transmitted to him by a certain [']Dzam-bha-la (*Jambhala), to whose name is affixed the following phrase:(3)

1. sto-shri-mgon [TSHAL 17].

2. sti-shri-mgon [TSHAL 25].

3. stwo-shri-mgon [TSHAL1 8b].

4. sogs-shri-mgon [TSHAL1 12b].(4)

G. Roerich interpreted the first two elements of this phrase in Tshal-pa's work to mean "Imperial Preceptor" (dishi); and he was followed in this by several other scholars.(5) However, none of them addressed the problem that logically follows from this interpretation, namely that of the meaning and/or function of mgon. In addition, they also did not comment on the then quite impossible and unprecedented situation of having a title within a personal name, if indeed they would be inclined to take the ignored mgon as part of his name. D. Seyfort Ruegg also referred to G. Roerich's observation, but he retained the reading tu-shri, and was disinclined to equate it explicitly with dishi;(6) his omission of the last element mgon in his translation-cumparaphrase is no doubt an oversight. The phrase in all its orthographic variability is left standing as it is in the Japanese translation of Tshal-pa's text by S. Inaba and H. Sato.(7) The recent Chinese translation of a version of Tshal-pa's work by Chen Qingying and Zhou Runnian transcribes it by, respectively, duoshiligun [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] deshiligun [UKNOWN TEXT OMITTED], whereas Tang Chi'an's translation of Yar-lung Jo-bo Sakya-rin-chen's chronicle of 1376 renders it by the problematic guoshi huzhu [UNKNOWN TEST OMITTED].(8) In their translations of, respectively, Dpal'byor bzang-po's text and `Gos Lo-tsa-ba's work, Chen Qingying and Guo Heqing merely transcribe it into Chinese without further comment.(9) From this we may conclude that they did not identify this phrase and, more importantly, that they at least did not understand it as reflecting dishi. We may also note here that none of the available listings of imperial preceptors, whether in Tibetan or Chinese sources, mention a *Jambhala as a dishi.(10) Most recently, L. Petech suggested that tvansri-mgon (sic!) of Bu-ston's biography - the text actually has tu-shri-mgon-reflects Chinese tuan-shih kuan (i.e., Pinyin Tuanshi guan) [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] "judge, magistrate, legal officer," the equivalent of Mongol jar[gamma]uji.(11)

Another version of this expression is found in one of the biographies of Sa-skya Pandita (1182-1251), where it is written as rdo-shri-mgon. As far as I am aware, it is first met with in the versified biography of 1579 by the Rin-spungs-pa prince Ngag-dbang 'jig-rten dbang-phyug 1542-?1625).(12) There we learn that the rdo-shi-mgon was one of the two envoys who were allegedly sent by prince Goden in 1244 to invite Sa-skya Pandita to his court in Liangzhou; the other one is referred to as dzi-ba-kha. We also encounter the former, this time as rdor-sri-mgon, in the letter of invitation which the Mongol prince purportedly addressed to Saskya Pandita, that is quoted in full for the first time in A-mes-zhabs Ngag-dbang kun-dga' bsod-nams' (1597-1659) biography of the Sa-skya-pa hierarch, which is contained in his well-known history of the leading families of Sa-skya of 1629.(13) Of interest is that here the name of his companion is given as the official (dpon) Jo-dar-ma.

The period during which the Mongols in China exercised a measure of political control over the Tibetan cultural area, that is, from 1240 to 1368, allowed for an influx of a substantial number of Mongol, Uyghur and Chinese loanwords into the lexicon of classical written Tibetan. (14) As is to be expected, most of these are of an administrative and institutional nature, and the vast majority are of Chinese rather than of Mongol/Uyghur origin; as far as I am aware, written Tibetan did not incorporate any Tangut loan words. It is for this reason that, at least in theory, sto-shri-mgon or its variants can derive from either a Chinese or a Mongol/Uyghur original. Orthographically speaking, the ligature st, where the s is a superscript, is now phonologically realized as /t/ in most Tibetan dialects. On the evidence of variants tu and to, we can surmise that this may have already been the case in the first half of the fourteenth century, if not earlier.(15) Similarly, the ligature mg with m as a prescript of radical g, is now realized as /g/. In the present instance, the orthographic stability of mgon is simply indicative of phonological and, above all, semantic unambiguity; it means "protector." However, the phonology of the first element of the expression was apparently so foreign to the Tibetan ear that no semantic sense could be made of it, and the result was an orthographic free-for-all. The second element shri is attested in the witnesses of Tshal-pa's work, not merely as a phonological approximation of Chinese shi as in dishi, guoshi, etc., also shri, but also of shi [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] as in da[i]shi, "Grand-Master,"16 and shi [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] as in yuanshi, "President."(17) In the absence of evidence to the contrary, and recognizing that, in the Tibetan and Mongol literature of the period, titles usually appear after the proper names of individuals, it is clear that this expression very probably represents a title.

Tshal-pa's first mention of *Jambhala occurs in the following sentence:(18)

... [the afore]said was observed by *Jambhala stoshri-mgon on the basis of an Old Chinese chronicle (deb-gter)[.] Recorded in writing in the temple of Lhasa.

Yar-lung Jo-bo inserts, between mthong-ba and lhasa'i, the phrase "by Si-tu Dge-ba'i blo-gros [= Tshal-pa's alternate name!, the most supreme of those who speak of the way (tshul) [in which] Sino-tibetan [relations were maintained!" (rgya-bod-kyi-tshul smra-ba-rnamskyi nang-nas mchog-tu gyur-pa si-tu dge-ba'i-blo-groskyis), which explicitly provides a subject for the finite perfective "recorded in writing" (yi-ger bris-pa yinno //). It is transparent that mthong-ba is equally to be taken as a finite verb, so that I believe we have to countenance the hiatus implied by variant f which reads a semi-final marker / despite the absence of a final particle in *o. The "[afore]said" (zhes[-pa]) concerns a brief chronology of the Chinese emperors, from the Zhou (ce'u) to the Tang dynasties, with particular mention of the famous pilgrim and translator Xuanzang 596-664) and the fortunes of the famous Jo-bo statue of Sakyamuni at the age of eleven that was brought to Tibet by princess Wencheng. Just prior to the passage quoted above, Tshal-pa closes his account with the statement:(19)

When Sri'i-glen Kong-jo [Ch. Shuilian Gongzhu [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED!,= Wencheng], in Tibetan [she is] called Mtsho'inang-du-padmo [In-lake Lotus], the daughter of Thang Tha'i-dzung [Ch. Tang Taizong], had come to Tibet, the Jo-bo Sakya [statue] arrived in Tibet. From that time up to the present seven hundred years have elapsed.

This passage is absent from Yar-lung Jo-bo's text. The Chinese sources are quite explicit about the fact that princess Wencheng - she was not the daughter of Taizong himself - arrived in Tibet in 641, so that the implied date of this particular passage would be 1341.(20) This means *Jambhala may have related this account to Tshal-pa in that year.(21) Alternatively, it is of course also possible that *Jambhala was transmitting a text which itself was either dated to the year 1341, or which he himself had dated to that year, for there is no absolute guarantee that this particular dating corresponds to the year in which he had provided Tshal-pa with the text, or even that it is not a gloss by the latter to identify the year in which he received this information.

The second entry of *Jambhala's name is preceded by a laconic account of the violent death of the deposed Zhaoxian emperor of the southern Song who, having been exiled by Qubilai to the Tibetan cultural area, had at some time become a monk in Sa-skya monastery.(22) Many years hence, in 1323, he was executed at the order of emperor Gegan [Yingzong emperor, r. 19 April 1320-4 September 1323!. Tshal-pa's text reads:(23)

During the thirteenth year of ci-dben (Ch. zhiyuan, [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] [in 1276] from [the time] Se-chen rgyal-po [Qubilai] dwelled at the capital, when three years had passed since the Sman-rtse emperor G.yi'u-ju (Ch. Youzhu) stayed in the capital [of Hangzhou], minister ('ching/ching-sang, Ch. chengxiang) Bayan conquered the Song empire and the emperor was dispatched to Sa-skya [monastery in exile]. Then, because [he] was subsequently murdered during [the reign] of emperor Gegan, [his] blood became milk [due to his innocence]. The empire of the Mongols is called ta'i-dben (Ch. Da Yuan). The [afore]-said statement (smras) by `Dzambha-la sto-shri mgon was recorded [by me Tshal-pa].

The first thing we notice about this passage is the way in which the date for the first event is given, which allows for the assumption that Tshal-pa's source for this information was ultimately of Chinese provenance. Tshal-pa's Tibetan rather neatly distinguishes between the social positions of the two protagonists, Qubilai and the Zhaoxian emperor, by deploying the honorific "dwelled" (bzhugs) for the former and non-honorific "stayed" (bsdad) for the latter. The conquest of the Southern Song was formally concluded by 14 June 1276,(24) or very shortly thereafter, in Shangdu, Qubilai's summer residence. The terminus ante quo of this passage, which coincides with Zhaoxian's execution, indicates that an encounter between *Jambhala and Tshal-pa might have taken place around the years 1324 or 1325, when the latter had journeyed to the imperial court.(25)

There is a...