This New Asiatic Society 1s quite cosmopolitan in its selection of writers: most of the publications are by Chinese, but there are also English, "American and Tibetan ¢ontributors. An Englishman named [Watch writes on the mysteries of Kham and her waterways and, the Another extraordinary thing in. the present discussions "re borders, frontiers and origins, Is the almost entire absence of any original or Tibetan data. Authentic Tibetan his-ory dates back to the days of Songdzen Gambo, 640 AD. Tu 41 A.D.
married the Chinese princess, daughter of Tal Dzong, of the Tang Dynasty. Two years. previously Songdzen Gambo married a young Nepalese. princess and. these youn wives are supposed greatly to have Influenced the young king towards religion.
According to Chinese and Tibetan records Songdzen and Tresong Dedzen were warlike and made frequent raids into China conquering the greater part of Yunnan and Sze chuen, reaching as far as Changon (Sian) the then capital of China, Tal Dzong of the Tang Dynasty was 50 harassed by Songdzen that he was glad to make peace and offered him his young daughter Wencheng marriage. All this seems fairly authentic and can be verified, Tibetan history from 640 A.D. has been kept right down to the present day, Another very important point is the use of the Chinese word "fan" in some of the books of the sories. The "Plotorial Classic" of Sikang makes frequent use of this word which seems unfortunate in some way both Chinese and English dictionaries translate It as barbarian, aborigine and savage. The author of this. interesting and instructive book says that he received much help from his "fan-fu," that is, his barbarian wife. "Fan" may.be used, however, in tribal sense and "hsi-fan" sometimes means the Western tribes or the tribes in the west. But neither een-
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Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.