Master Archaeologist

Chapter 215 Ancient Xiangxiong Kingdom and Tubo

"Send this wooden tablet to the Institute of Tibetan Studies."

Kong Jianwen rubbed the center of his brows, and handed the blackened wooden tablet to Professor Ke.

Kong Jianwen dared to say that he had a little understanding of the ancient scripts of the Central Plains, such as bronze script, seal script, and official script, and Professor Li was even more proficient.

And now the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences has Chen Han, a fresh blood, joining.

Chen Han's research on bronze inscriptions (Zhong Dingwen) and seal script is also very in-depth.

However, regarding Tibetan, the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences is really helpless.

Although the gap between ancient Tibetan and modern Tibetan is not that big, the difficulty of distinguishing is about the same as the difference between traditional and simplified characters.

But they don't understand modern Tibetan either!
According to legend, the Tibetan language was invented by Songtsen Gampo during the Tubo period when he ordered Thonmi Sangbuza to go to India to study and came back to create it.

According to several important Tibetan historical records: Tibetans had no written language, Songtsen Gampo sent Tunmi Sangbuza to Tianzhu to learn Sanskrit and Buddhism.

After he finished his studies, he returned to Tubo and created the Tibetan language according to Sanskrit in accordance with the will of the King of Dharma.

From the 34 consonants in Sanskrit, Tunmi Sangbuza eliminated 11 that are not found in the Tibetan pronunciation, and added 7 according to the actual pronunciation of Tibetan pronunciation, and formulated 30 consonants.

From the 16 vowels in Sanskrit, 4 were selected that corresponded to the Tibetan language, and 4 vowel symbols were formulated.

He created Tibetan regular script based on the Sanskrit Rancha alphabet, and created cursive script based on the Urdu alphabet.

He also wrote 8 kinds of grammar books in Tibetan, and translated more than 20 Sanskrit Buddhist classics such as "Baoyun Jing".

This is the birth of the Tibetan language.

However, according to modern archaeological evidence, the Tibetan language does not seem to be born in this way.

Before the Tubo Kingdom, there used to be an ancient country on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau called the Zhang Zhung Kingdom, a tribal country dominating one side of the XZ Plateau.

In Chinese history, this country was called Qiangtong and Yangtong. According to records in Dunhuang Tibetan documents, this country was conquered by Tubo under the leadership of Songtsan Gampo, and Xiangxiong was established there.

Its address is almost the modern ALD district.

Don't look at the modern ALD area as a poor place with few people and difficult life.

But in the [-]th and [-]th centuries, the ALD area had a pleasant climate and was very suitable for living. It was the most prosperous area in the entire Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

Tribal forms of culture were formed here at least 4000 years ago and reached their peak before the 7th century!
The Zhang Zhung Kingdom that occupied this place at that time should have a population of no less than 1000 million!

According to the Dunhuang Tibetan documents in the early academic circles, it was believed that it died in 644, that is, it was conquered by Songtsen Gampo.

However, recently, with the publication of documents such as "Qiong Wang Yuchi's Inheritance History Turquoise", "Jaqiong Garbo's Lineage History Motto Collection" and "Sunshi Wang Tongji" and other documents, the academic circles discovered that Zhang Zhung finally perished in 955, the Tubo prince Jidnima Dagon hands.

In other words, Songtsen Gampo's so-called "unification of Tibet" was not actually true.

Songtsen Gampo only conquered Zhang Zhung and conquered the ALD area in name. In fact, it is still a high degree of autonomy, or it is similar to the tribute system and surrendered to Tubo.

The Zhang Zhung script used by the Zhang Zhung Kingdom is very similar to the current Tibetan language, but it is different from the modern Tibetan language, and was born earlier than the Tubo Tibetan language.

The excavation of these archaeological documents can almost confirm that before Songtsen Gampo invented Tibetan, the saying that there was no written language in Tibet is also nonsense.

The writing in Tibet should have gone through the development of Zhang Zhungwen-Tubo Tibetan-modern Tibetan.

And Xiang Zhungwen is the real script that borrowed Sanskrit letters and created according to the Tibetan language.

The Tibetans are closer to Qinghai and the Western Regions than to the north of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

In the south of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the Zhang Zhung Kingdom, which lives in the ALD region bordering Tianzhu, seems to have easier access to Sanskrit.

You know, the Tibetans moved their capital to L.A. after Songtsan Gampo.

The Zhang Zhung Kingdom in the ALD area has developed and lived in the ALD area since 4000 years ago.

The relationship between Xiangxiong script and Tubo Tibetan is like the relationship between Chinese characters and Xixia script, and it is also like the relationship between Chinese characters in Japanese and Huaxia Chinese characters.

The two look very similar, but the meaning of the word is completely different.

That is to say, the Tubo Tibetan script actually copied the Zhang Zhung script in form, and perfected and modified the characters on the basis of the Zhang Zhug script.

It is estimated that it was Songtsen Gampo's "glorious image" and its important influence on the growth of Tubo, so later generations pushed all these things on Songtsen Gampo.

The Tibetan language originally learned and evolved from the Zhang Zhungwen became the script created by Songtsen Gampo.

This kind of thing is very common in countries all over the world.

When a great man appears, there will always be various honors and good deeds that are not done by himself, and will be imposed on him.

Tibetan regular script and cursive script are quite different in shape.

The reason is that cursive script is derived from Xiangxiong script, while regular script is derived from Sanskrit.

In fact, Zhang Zhung script is an important reference text for Sambuza to create a complete Tibetan system.

During the more than 15 years from the creation of the Tibetan language to the beginning of the 800th century, according to historical records, there were three major revisions. After the three revisions, the Tibetan language was almost exactly the same as the modern Tibetan language.

And even if there is no revision of the Tubo Tibetan language before, because in Dunhuang there are a large number of Buddhist scriptures written in the Tubo Tibetan language of the Tang Dynasty, Tubo historical materials and other books.

For a long time, Dunhuang was occupied by the Tubo Kingdom, so there are a large number of books written in ancient Tibetan in the Dunhuang Grottoes.

Thanks to this, modern research on ancient Tibetan is also very mature.

At least it is more mature than the study of bronze inscriptions.

After all, these Buddhist scriptures written in ancient Tibetan are all in modern Chinese characters. It is not too easy to learn ancient Tibetan by comparison.

It is not a problem at all that Kong Jianwen and Chen Han can't understand the Tubo Tibetan script on this wooden tablet.

Take a photo and show it to the Institute of Tibetan Studies, they will definitely be able to understand it.

Perhaps, what is recorded on this wooden tablet is the life of the Tuyuhun royal family!
It's quite amazing to say the least.

Tuyuhun, which once had its own culture, characters, and language, was completely Tuboized after being conquered by Tubo for 200 years.

In modern times, even the writing and language of Tuyuhun have been completely lost, and this nation has disappeared in the long river of time.

"Fuck!"

Suddenly, a scream broke the contemplation of Chen Han and Kong Jianwen.

A researcher of the Qinghai Research Institute who was cleaning up the disturbed soil in the No. 1 robbery hole in the main tomb shouted in surprise:
"Professor Ke!"

"I found a silver-gold alloy seal!"

"There are inscriptions on it! But it seems to be in Tibetan!"

"On the printed surface, there is also an image of a Bactrian camel engraved!"

(End of this chapter)