Vol. VI, No. 3.] The Kingdom of gNya khri btsanpo. 95 



[N.S.] 



name Yarlha-shambu and called the mountain Yarlha sham- 

 bu lhari. (See dPag bsam Ijon bzang.) 



The classical country of Lhari is, however, in the west. 

 A river which for some distance forms the frontier of Spiti, and a 

 village on it, are called Lhari. A mountain near Leh is called 

 Lharimo. 



The capital of gNya khri btsanpo which was already in 

 existence when he arrived in the country, is called Phyi 

 dbang stag rtse. As a place of this name has not yet been dis- 

 covered in Central Tibet, the Central Tibetan historians (S. 

 Ch. Das, J.A.S.B., 1881) simply said that Lhasa was built on 

 the top of it and that it therefore disappeared. But there is 

 a place, spelt Phyi dbang, only eight miles from Leh, 

 situated in a valley which opens out on the plain Ladvags 

 gongkhai thang. On the maps, the place is spelt Phayang. 

 This, in my opinion, was the capital of the ancient king. It 

 must be a place different from Lhasa, for we find that one 

 branch of the descendants of Khri bkrashis tsegs dpal, in 

 c. 1000 A.D., went from Lhasa to Phyi dbang stag rtse to reside 

 there. Phyi dbang is the name of the town, and Stag rtse is the 

 name of the royal palace in it. Whether the name Stagrtse 

 still exists at Phyi dbang or not, I cannot say. The castle of 

 Stagrtse in Purig was evidently called after this old royal castle 

 of Phyi dbang. There are very extensive ruins in the Phyi 

 dbang valley which have never been examined. When I asked 

 the people of this place, who had once resided there, they 

 said : M The king " ! And yet, there is not a single passage 

 in the Ladakhi portion of the rGyal rabs which says that any of 

 the Ladakhi kings ever resided there. The site of this village 

 in a warm valley opening to the south, is superb. From the 

 lower part of it, the view up the Indus valley over a large por- 

 tion of Maryul is glorious. More even than Leh, Phyi dbang 

 was a suitable site as a residence of kings. 



After a time, the king built the palace of Ubu bla sgang. 

 There is evidently a mistake here. The nasal sign over the L 

 forgotten by the man who copied Schlagintweit's MS. From 

 a comparison with the names in the Bodhimor and Ssanang 

 Ssetsen it becomes evident that Umbu bla sgang (or lha sgang) 

 is meant. Umbu is the Ladakhi pronunciation of Ombu, the 

 tamarisk. In the form Urn or Om it is found in many local 

 names of Ladakh. The name Umbu bla sgang means ' the hill 

 of the priests (or lha ■ gods ') with the tamarisks/ This name 

 can be abbreviated in the same way as are many compound 

 words. (See my Ladakhi Grammar.) Then only one syllable 

 each of the two component parts is taken, and these are put 

 together. Thus the abridged form of Umbu blasgang would 

 be Urn bla or Umsgang. Now a place called Umla actually 

 exists at the other end of the plain on which Phyi dbang is 

 situated. It is perhaps eight or ten miles distant from the 



was 



