1881.] 
Sarat Chandra Das —Contributions on Tibet. 
227 
He made large offerings to the great monastery of Samye and distributed alms 
to the indigent and helpless. But before a year and nine months had passed 
after this demonstration of devotion to the monastery, the promising king 
was poisoned by his mother, who perpetrated this foul act to place her 
youngest son on the throne. The second son Murug-tsanpo’s accession to 
the throne being considered inauspicious by the astrologers and soothsayers, 
the youngest son Mutig-tsanpo, a boy eight or nine years old, received the 
crown. He is said to have miraculously received his lesson in sacred literature 
from the venerable Padma Sambhava He ordered translations to be made from 
Sanskrit books of Buddhism, and built the temple of Dorje Vyin at Gyal-de- 
kar-chun. After a long and prosperous reign, in which he strenuously 
exerted himself to promote the welfare and happiness of his people, he died 
at a good old age, leaving five sons, viz., Tsaii-ma, Lha-je, Lhun-dub, Lafi- 
darma and Ralpachan. The first two of these seem to have reigned, if they 
reigned at all, for a few years, having fallen victims to the intrigues of the 
Buddhist ministers. The youngest Ralpaclian, even from his childhood, 
gave excellent proofs of his intelligence and ability. His assiduity and 
aptitude for learning were very great. At the age of eighteen, he was 
raised to the throne by the Buddhist ministers of State who were very 
powerful, the opposition being nearly extinct through the continued and 
rigorous persecution of the late kings. 
CHAPTER IV. 
Ralpachan. 846-00 A. D. 
This celebrated sovereign was born between 816 and 860 A. D. Imme¬ 
diately after his accession he sent offerings to the different temples built 
by his ancestors. He built a new nine-storeyed temple, of which the three 
lower storeys were of stone, the three middle of brick, and the topmost 
three of wood. In the upper floors he kept Buddhist scriptures, images, 
and model ehhorten (shrines). In the middle floors he accommodated 
the Pandits and translators of the holy writs, and the ground floors he 
reserved for the use of his court and state affairs. Although his ancestors 
had obtained many translations of Sanskrit works, yet not satisfied 
with them, he obtained fresh manuscripts from Magadha, Ujjayani, Nepal 
and China. Some of the ancient Sanskrit works being irregularly and 
inaccurately translated into the Tibetan language, which was still very 
imperfect, he invited the Indian professors of Sanskrit, such as Jina Mitra, 
S'urendra Bodhi, S'ilendra Bodhi, Dana Sila and Bodhi Mitra to conduct the 
great work of translation. These great scholars, with the assistance of the 
Tibetan professors, named Ratna Rakshita, Manjusri-Varma, Dharma- 
