NOTES ON THE ETHNOLOGY OF TIBET. 721 



The first year of the first cycle of sixty years is A. D. 1026, conse- 

 quently 1894 is the twenty-ninth year of the fifteenth cycle, or the 

 " Wood Horse" (simig ta) year of the fifteenth cycle. 



The cycle of twelve years is copied on the Chinese, and needs no 

 description here. This cycle is, in Tibet as in China, the one most 

 commonly used, and in both countries to ask a person's age they say 

 "to what sign (of the duodecimal cycle) do you belong- ?" 



Schlagintweit {Op. cit., p. 276) says: 



In books as well as in conversation, the dates of past events are not nnfrequently 

 deteruiiuecl by counting back from tlie current year. For instance, the present year 

 being 1863, the birth of Tsongkhapa, which occurred in 1355 A. D., would be said 

 to have taken place five hundred and eight years ago. 



I may add that in conversation events which have occurred more 

 than three or four years ago are invariably spoken of as having hap- 

 pened in "olden times" or "a long while ago." Sometimes an event is 

 referred to such and such a year of the reign of such and such a Tale-lama. 

 On the whole Tibetans care very little about chronology of any kind. 



Another method of counting, but very little used, is that based on a 

 cycle of two hundred and fifty-two years made by a combination of the 

 five elements, 12 animals of the duodecimal system, and the masculine 

 and feminine particles previously referred to. (Schlagintweit, op. cit.^ 

 p. 281.) 



The Tibetan year (/o) is divided into twelve lunar months {dawa)^ 

 named "first month," "second month," etc. Every three years an inter- 

 calary month {(1(( Wafi) is added to compensate for the difference between 

 the solar and the lunar year. The days are divided into twelve hours, 

 as they are among the Chinese, from whom they have borrowed these 

 divisions.* 



Medical knowledge. — As with their astronomy and other sciences, so 

 with their medical science, the Tibetans have borrowed it from India 

 and China. While nearly all their medical works are translations 

 from Indian originals (see Csoma de Koros.Journ. Bengal Asiatic Soc, 

 IV, 1 et seq.), their pharniacopceia is largely borrowed from China, and 

 is nearly entirely vegetable. The Chinese derive a great number of 

 their most valued simples from Tibet, and the large lamaseries of that 

 country have medical faculties and pharmacies attached to them which 

 supply not only their own people with drugs, but nearly the -whole of 

 Mongolia. 



The Museum contains a few^ samples of Tibetan drugs, among which 

 I will only mention the chi/ar-tsa gong hu {Cordyceps sinensis), tsampaka 

 seed, or pod of the orxylum {Colosanthus indica, Blum.), and the yadro 

 {Anemarhena asphodeloides, Haubury). 



* For further details on Tibetan chronology and astrology I riust refer the reader 

 to Emil Schlagintweit, Buddhism in Tibet, pji. 273-328 ; Csoma de Koriis, Grammar 

 of the Tibetan Language, 148 et seq.; Ph. E. Foucaux, Grammaire Tibctaine, and 

 Journ. Roy. Asiat. Soc, n. s., xxiii, p. 206. 



H. Mis. 184, pt. 2 4(; 



