precious metals, and are skilful weavers and potters. Their language is said to be more nearly allied to that of Burma than to any other of the same group;[1] but it has not yet been exhaustively studied.[2] It is now confined to the valleys of the Tsanpu, Upper Indus, Sutlej, and Chenab. The early history of the Tibetans, before the introduction of Buddhism, is probably quite fabulous; although there is some trace of the old religion of Tibet lingering in the eastern province of Kam. It is called the Bon or Pon religion, and appears to have been a worship of the powers of nature, with a creed identical with the Chinese doctrine of Taossé.[3] The people still have deities of the hills, the trees, the dales, and lakes.
It was centuries after the death of Sakya Muni in India, in 543 b.c., that the light of his doctrine spread over the Tibetan plateau. The disciples of Buddha long had to contend against opposition in their own country; their religion of peace and goodwill, not to man only, but to all the animated creation, was very gradually accepted, and it was more than three centuries before the famous King Priyadarsi, or Asoka, made Buddhism the religion of the State in India. Then a new era dawned upon the world. Former inscriptions of ancient kings that have been
- ↑ The Jesuit and Capuchin fathers who were in Lhasa in the last century studied the Tibetan language, and their records enabled Giorgi to publish his 'Alphabetum Thibetanum' at Rome, in 1759, In 1826, P. Schröter brought out a Tibetan - English dictionary, edited by John Marshman, which was published at the Serampore Press, and followed by the grammar and dictionary of J. J. Schmidt, in 1839. Meanwhile, that learned and indefatigable scholar, Csoma de Kőrös, produced a grammar and dictionary of Tibetan, at Calcutta, in 1834. There are also the grammar of Ph. Ed. Foucaux, and the 'Tibetische Studien' of A. Schiefner. In 1866, the Moravian missionary, H. A. Jäschke, published his grammar and small dictionary, lithographed in British Lahoul; and he commenced the publication of a more complete Tibetan lexicon in 1871.
- ↑ General Cunningham says that it resembles English in the similarity in sound of many words, and in that words are not spelt as they are pronounced. In Tibetan, to bring is brang; can is hyan; dull is dal; thick is tuk; wool is wal; lump is lhumpo (lumbo); there is der; here is dir; rogue is rog. ('Ladak,' p. 388.)
- ↑ The question of the Pon religion of Tibet is discussed by Colonel Yule in his edition of 'Marco Polo,' i. pp. 315-319. (See also Cunningham's 'Ladak,' p. 358.)
