Book chapter
THE LINGUISTIC AND HISTORICAL SETTING OF THE OLD TIBETAN INSCRIPTIONS
The Tibetan History Reader, pp.123-132
Columbia University Press
04/09/2013
DOI: 10.7312/tutt14468.11
Abstract
This essay introduces the Tibetan language and its earliest extant writings, which are to be found on stone obelisks in Lhasa dating from the eighth century. In contrast to later Tibetan historiography, which emphasized the roles of the emperors as cultural heroes, in early inscriptions the emperors were merely first among equals in the aristocratic clans of Central Tibet. Buddhism did eventually become a tool that could help the emperors take more power, but such incursions on the nobility’s prerogatives also led to civil strife. We have some sense of the power of the noble clans to harm or protect
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- THE LINGUISTIC AND HISTORICAL SETTING OF THE OLD TIBETAN INSCRIPTIONS
- Creators
- Fang Kuei LiW. South Coblin
- Contributors
- Gray Tuttle (Editor)Kurtis R. Schaeffer (Editor)
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
- Publication Details
- The Tibetan History Reader, pp.123-132
- DOI
- 10.7312/tutt14468.11
- Publisher
- Columbia University Press
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 04/09/2013
- Academic Unit
- Asian and Slavic Languages and Literatures
- Record Identifier
- 9984095002602771
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