「吐蕃」・「羊同」などの名稱について

Abstract

Since the era of the Ancient Tibetan Kingdom, this country and its people were called Tu-fan 吐蕃 in the Chinese literatures and Tuput by Turkish. There have been some assumptions about what Tu-fan 吐蕃 or Tuput meant, but none of them are reliable. In my opinion, it was probably derived from the Tibetan vocable, 'Dbun or 'Dbud'(central). The governors of the Ancient Tibetan Kingdom called Lhasa and its environs 'Dbu' or 'Dbus' (central), when they occupied that district. Among the words of Qiang tribe 羌族， 'Dbun or 'Dbud' probably corresponds to 'Dbu' or 'Dbus'. So the Chinese characters of 吐蕃 were adopted for 'Dbun' by Tu-yu-hun tribe 吐谷渾族， which ruled Qiang tribe 羌族 in Qing-hai 青海 district and had already known the Chinese writing. On the other hand， 'Dbud' was immediately introduced into Tu-jue 突厥，and therefore 'Tuput' is found in the Orkhon Inscription. Next，Yang-tong 羊同, which is said to have been to the west of Tu-fan 吐蕃, can be assumed to have been derived from 'Myan-ro' which means the Nan River basin, Tu-yu-hun 吐谷渾, one of the old Mongolian tribes, couldn't pronounce 'mya', so that 'm' dropped off when the word was introduced, and then the Chinese characters of 羊同 were used. Hence, Great Yang-tong 羊同 and Small Yang-ton 小羊同 were small kingdoms, the former of which was in the Rgyal rtse region and the latter in the Gshika rtse region. It is not to be disregarded that when Tu-fan 吐蕃 rose, there was Tu-yu-hun 吐谷渾 between Tu-fan 吐蕃 and the Empire of Tang 唐. Besides， Xi-li Country悉立國, which was to the south-west of Tu-fan 吐蕃, may be Spa-gro in Bhutan, and Zhang-qiu-bo 章求拔, which was to the west of Xi-li Country 悉立國, was Ljon rgyu pa (roving tribe) and may be assumed to have lived in Sikkim district.