Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/368

Rh mese, &c. A respectful word for "head" is u, written dbu, which finds its cognates in Murmi thobo, Kusunda chipi, Sibsagar Miri tub, &c. Byu (bird), spoken chya, is still pye in Gyarung. Brjod (to speak), pronounced jod, is cognate to the Burmese pyauhtso, the Garo brot, &c. The word for "cowries" is gron- in written, rumin spoken Tibetan, and grwa in written Burmese; slop (to learn), spoken lop, is slop in Melam. "Moon" is zlava in written and dawa in spoken language, in which -va is a suffix; the word itself is zla-, cognate to the Mongol ssara, Sokpa sara, Gyarung t-sile, Vayu cholo, &c. The common spoken word for "head" is go, written mgo, to which the Munipuri moko and the Mishmi mkura are related. Sometimes the written forms correspond to double words which have disappeared. For instance, gye (eight), which is written brgyad and still spoken vrgyad in Balti in the west and Khams in the east, is gyad in Ladak, Lahul, and U. The same word does not appear elsewhere; but we find its two parts separately, such as Gurung^rr, Murmi pre, TaksyapAre, and Ta.kpa.gyet, Serpa gye, Garo chet, &c. Eta (horse) is reduced to to in speech, but we find ri, rhyi, roh in Sokpa, Horpa, Thochu, Miniak, and td, tah, teh, fay in Lhopa, Serpa, Murmi, Kami, Takpa, &c., both with the same meaning. Such are the various pieces of evidence obtained from an endless number of instances. The cases referred to above do not, owing to the difference of the causes, yield to any explanation of this kind. And it must be admitted that there are also many cases, some of them caused by irregularities of writing, modification of spelling by decay, and by a probable use of prefixes still unascertained, which also resist explanation, though the account just given stands good whatever solution, the question of prefixes may receive in future.

Little is known of the non-religious literature of Tibet. The most popular and widely circulated book is called The Hundred Thousand Songs of the Venerable Milaraspa. Their author Milaraspa (unless the work should be attributed to his disciples), often called Mila, was a Buddhist ascetic of the 11th century; according to Jaeschke, during the intervals of meditation he travelled through the southern part of middle Tibet as a mendicant friar, instructing the people by his improvisations in poetry and song, proselytizing, refuting and converting heretics, and working manifold miracles. His legends are not without wit and poetical merit. A number of poems written in an elevated and special style, dramatic works, and collections of fairy tales and fables are said to be in existence. A very extensive work, the Djrung yg (Sgruns yg), regarded as the national epic in Kham, has been partly seen by Desgodins and Baber. It is in prose; but the dialogue, interspersed with songs, is metrical, and is much more extensive than the prose framework. Religious discussions and philosophical dissertations alternate with comic episodes. It includes three divisions, the Djiung ling, which describes the invasion of part of Tibet by the Djiung or Moso; the Horling, which recounts the conquest of the Hor (Turk tribes) by the Tibetans, and conveys much historical information in a tale of magic and marvel; and the Djia ling (Chinese division), which narrates a contest of unknown date between the Tibetans and the Chinese. This work has apparently never been published, and even the manuscripts of the three divisions cannot, says Baber, be obtained in a complete form. But every Tibetan, or at least every native of Kham, who possesses any education, is able to recite or to chant passages of great length. Another Tibetan epic, the Gyaldrung, praises Dagyolong, a famous warrior who subdued the savage men of Kham. Besides these poems we find allusions to a sgrung, referring to the Yesser Khan. Dramatic works exist, as well as translations of Galen, also of the Ramayana in the first vol. of the Bstodts ogs of the Bstan-hgyur. For the religious literature, which is considerable, see.

Writing was not introduced until the 7th century. Notched sticks (shing-chram) and knotted cords were in current use, but the latter contrivance is only faintly alluded to in the Tibetan records, while of the other there are numerous examples. No mention is anywhere made of a hieroglyphical writing, but on the eastern frontier the medicine-men or tomba of the Moso have a peculiar pictorial writing, which is known in Europe from two published MSS. (in Journ. Roy. As. Soc., 1885, vol. xvii.); though apparently now confined solely to purposes of witchcraft, it perhaps contains survivals of a former extensive system superseded by the alphabetic writing introduced from India. According to tradition a tradition of which the details are open to criticism the alpha bet was introduced from India by Tonmi Samb ota, who was sent to India in 632 by King Srong btsan to study the Sanskrit language and Buddhist literature. Tonmi Samb ota introduced the socalled writing in thirty characters " (six of which do not exist in Sanskrit) in two styles, the "thick letters" or "letters with heads," now commonly used in printed books, and the half-cursive "cornered letters," so called from their less regular heads. The former are traditionally said to have been derived from the Landza character. The Landza of Nepal, however, is certainly not the origin of the Tibetan letter, but rather an ornamental development of the parent letter. The close resemblance of the Tibetan characters "with heads" to the Gupta inscriptions of Allahabad shows them to have been derived from the monumental writing of the period; and various arguments appear to show that the other Tibetan letter came from the same Indian character in the style in which it was used in common life. The Tibetan half-cursive was further developed into the more current "headless" characters of which there are several styles. From the monumental writing of Tibet was derived, for the special use of the Mongols in the 13th century, the short-lived writing known as Bagspa, from the name of the lama who worked it out.

Bibliography.—The works of Csoma de Kb ro's, Alex. Cunningham, Sarat Chandra Das, Desgodins, Leon Feer, Ed. Foucaux, A. A. Georgi, Bryan II. Hodgson, H. A. Jaeschke, Th. H. Lewin, Max Miiller, A. Remusat, W. Robin son, J. J. Schmidt, F. 0. G. Schroeter, and A. Schiefner have been already men tioned, and those of J. W. Bushell, A. Campbell, T. W. Rhys Davids, Hue and Gabet, Koeppen, C. Markham, Pallas, Ssanang Ssetsen, Schott, Pundit Nain Singh, and others are referred to under LAMAISM, LADAK AND BALTI, and LHASA (qq.v.). The following also may be named: E. Colborne Baber, "Travels and Researches in Western China," in Roy. Geogr. Soc. Suppl. Papers, I., 1882; C. H. Desgodins, Le Thibet d apres la correspondance des Missionaires, Paris, 1885; Th. Duka, Life and Works of Alexander Csoma de Ko ros, London, 1885; Konrad Ganzenmiiller, Tibet, Stuttgart, 1878; Krick, Relation d un Voyage an Thibet en 1852, Paris, 1854; A. Krishna, Explorations in Great Tibet and Mongolia, made in 1879-82; Report prepared by J. B. N. Hennessey, Dehra Dun, 1884, fol.; Terrien de Lacouperie, " Beginnings of Writing in and around Tibet," in Journ. Roy. As. Soc., 1885, xvii.; Id., The Languages of China before the Chinese, London, 1887; J. R. Logan, in Journal of the Indian Archipelago Eastern Asia, vol. vi., Singapore, 1852; W. Woodville Rockill, "The Early History of Bod-yul," append, to The Life of the Buddha, from Tibetan sources, London, 1884; Em. von Schlagintweit, Die Koenige von Tibet, Munich, 1866, and Buddhism in Tibet, London, 1803; H. Strachey, Physical Geography of Western Tibet; Trotter, Journ. Roy. Geog. Soc., 1877, vol. xlvii.; H. Yule, The Book ofSer Marco Polo, 2d ed., London, 1874.

 TIBULLUS, (c. 54-19 ), was the second in the tetrad of the elegiac poets of Rome. As we learn from Ovid, he was the successor of Cornelius Gallus and the immediate predecessor of Propertius. The information which we possess about him is extremely meagre. Besides the poems themselves that is to say, the first and second books we have only a few references in later authors and a short Life of probable but not undoubted genuineness. We do not know his prasnomen; and his birthplace is uncertain. It is, however, a plausible con jecture that he came from Gabii. The year of his birth has been variously assigned; but 54 B.C. may be taken as approximately correct. This would make him about twenty-five when he accompanied Messala on his Aquitanian campaign in 29, and thirty-five at his untimely death in 19. His station was that of a Roman knight; and he had inherited a very considerable estate. But, like Virgil, Horace, and Propertius, he seems to have lost the greater part of it in 41 amongst the confiscations which Antony and Octavian found expedient to satisfy the rapacity of their victorious soldiery. Tibullus, like Propertius, seems to have lost his father early. He once mentions his mother and sister; and, according to Ovid's elegy upon him, they were alive at his death.

Tibullus's chief friend and patron was M. Valerius Messala Corvinus, himself an orator and poet as well as a statesman and commander. Messala, like Maecenas, was the centre of a literary circle in Rome; but the bond between its members was that of literature alone. They stood in no relations to the court; and the name of Augustus is never once to be found in the writings of Tibullus. It was doubtless this community of taste which gained the young poet the friendly notice of Messala, who offered him an honourable position on his private staff when he was despatched at the end of 30 by Augustus to quell the Aquitanian revolt. Tibullus distinguished himself in the campaign and was decorated for his services. But this did not rouse in him any military ardour. His tastes lay in quite other directions; and he always speaks of war with horror and dislike. At the end of the war in 29 Tibullus returned to Rome, and thenceforward his life seems to have been divided between Rome and his country estate, though his own preferences were altogether for the country life. Soon after his return he made the