202 Translation of a Tibetan Passport. [ApriL, 
Bod-pahi zla hdres med-ching lo-thog mi-khal-gyi Akhri sgrub dés Agré byung 
phyin Jdé-var Agrims chhug. 
A square 
seal. 
Translation. 
‘From the noble (city) Lhassa, the circumambulating race of 
religion.—To those that are on the road as far as Arya Desa or India, 
to clerical, laical, noble, ignoble lords (or masters) of men; to resi- 
dents in forts, stewards, managers of affairs, to Mongols, Tibetans, 
Turks, and to dwellers in tents in the desert; to ex-chis (or el-chis, 
envoys, or public messengers, vakils or ambassadors, &c.) going to 
and fro; to keepers and precluders of bye-ways (or short-cuts) ; to the 
old (or head) men, collectively, charged to perform some business of 
small or great importance; to all these is ordered (or is made known). 
These four foreign (or travelling) persons residing at Lhassa, /chang- 
lo-chan, Mohammedans of It’hang-na, after having exchanged their 
merchandize, going back to their own country, having with them six- 
teen loads on beasts; having nothing for their defence except some 
Lahori-weapons,—do not hinder, rob, plunder, et cetera, them; but let 
them go to and fro in peace. 
Thus has been written from the noble Lhassa, the great religious 
race, from the senate-house of both ecclesiastical and civil affairs, in 
Sa-hbrug* (in the year of T. ch. 1688). On the day of the 
month. (These dates are wanting). 
Note.—There is no Tibetan joined with them. They have about a 
man’s load of victuals wrapped up in a bundle; with that there has been 
made an increase (of packages), but let them go in peace.” 
A square 
_ Seal. ee 
Mm hort ch arnetic 
——=————— 
* Sa-hbrug (earth’s dragon) is the title of the second year of the Tibetan cycle of 
sixty years: it corresponds with Vibhava of the Indian and Véi Dhin of the Chinese 
cycle. The Tibetan reckoning commences from February, 1026: as therefore 
Hyde’s first edition was printed in 1701, and he uses the expression “ nuperis annis 
ex India redux,’ the MSS. has been referred to the twelfth cycle, then current, 
which fixes its date to the year 1688. 
Colonel Warren in the Kala Sankalita (Chron. tab. xxi.) has given a full de- 
scription of the Indian system ;—a ‘catalogue of the Tibetan cycle, which is two- 
fold, one following the Sanskrit, the other following the Chinese system, will be 
published in the Tibetan Dictionary now preparing for the press. 
