256 Chinese Clay Figures 



the Tibetan army of that time: 1 "When the troops go on an expedition, 

 they wear armor consisting of helmets and cuirasses. The latter are 

 made of iron scales 2 or of chains. On the helmet of the cavalry is 

 attached a red crest or a peacock-feather. From their waist hangs a 

 sword, on their back is slung a gun, and in their hand they carry a pike. 

 On the infantry helmet is a cock's feather. They have hanging to their 

 waist a sword, without counting a dirk. Under their arm is a bow and 

 arrow, and in their hand a buckler of rattan or wood. Some also bear a 

 pike in their hand. Their wooden bucklers measure one foot six inches 

 across, and three feet one or two inches in length, and are painted with 

 pictures of tigers, and ornamented with different-colored feathers; 3 

 outside they are covered with sheet iron." 



If the assumption is correct that Tibetan chain mail is Persian in 

 origin, the scale armor would remain to be looked upon as the national 

 body armor of Tibet, at least as the older type which preceded the in- 

 troduction of chain mail. 4 In former times, it seems to me, the latter 

 was traded over a direct route from Persia into Guge in western Tibet, 

 on the same path along which religious ideas of the Zoroastrians poured 

 in and exerted a deep influence on the shaping of the Tibetan Bon re- 

 ligion, while during the last centuries northern India became the mart 

 which supplied Tibet with this much-craved article. 



The Tibetan and Persian relations in matters of arms are expressed 

 also by the identity of the Tibetan and old-Persian sword. Indeed, 

 the Tibetan sword, as still in use at present, is the same as that re- 



1 Rockhill, Journal Royal Asiatic Society, 1891, p. 215. 



2 Mr. Rockhill has, "made of linked willow-leaf (shaped iron plates)." But 

 the expression liu ye ("willow-leaf"), as we see from the regulations of the Ming 

 dynasty, refers to scale armor, not to plate armor. Mr. Waddell (Lhasa and its 

 Mysteries, p. 168) speaks of cuirasses consisting of small, narrow, willow-like leaves 

 about an inch and a half long, threaded with leather thongs, still worn by Tibetan 

 soldiers, a few of whom also wear coats of chain mail. The Chinese physician Dr. 

 Shaoching H. Chuan, who visited Lhasa with the Chinese Mission to Tibet in 1906- 

 1907 has written a very interesting and well-illustrated article on Lhasa under the 

 title The Most Extraordinary City in the World {Nat. Geogr. Mag., 1912, pp. 959- 

 995) ; on pp. 978 and 980 are good illustrations of Tibetan soldiers wearing chain mail. 



3 In the Tower Armory there is a shield of the Angami-Naga, faced with bear- 

 skin, the side ornamented with tufts of feathers (Hewitt, Official Catalogue of the 

 Tower Armories, p. 100). Compare p. 210. 



4 In ancient India, likewise, scale armor seems to represent the older type. The 

 Cukramti describes solely this type of armor by saying that "armor consists of scales 

 of the breadth of a grain of wheat, is of metal and firm, has a protection for the 

 head, and is ornamented on the upper part of the body " (G. Oppert, On the Weapons, 

 Army Organization, and Political Maxims of the Ancient Hindus, p. 109, Madras, 

 1880). A suit of Tibetan scale armor is illustrated by A. Georgi (Alphabetum 

 Tibetanum, Rome, 1762, Plate IV) in the figure of a shaman, entitled cio kion (that 

 is, c'os skyong, "protector of religion"). 



