This folder glossary is a shelf-specific slice from the central Good Works Glossary. The central glossary remains the source of truth.

Bon & Pre-Buddhist Tibetan Terms

Bang so (བང་སོ, Old Tibetan: bang so) — Burial mound or tumulus. The great royal tombs of the Tibetan Empire, massive earth-and-stone mounds that housed the remains of the btsan-po (emperors) and their grave goods. In Pelliot tibétain 1042, the bang so is the final destination of the elaborate funeral procession — the soul-image is brought down from the soul-tent, cut to the length of one tent-peg, and placed in the "soul-chamber" (thugs kang) of the burial mound. The offering-arrows are scattered on top, and the vermilion-mark ribbons are given to depart. The surviving imperial tombs at Chongye in the Yarlung Valley preserve the archaeological evidence of what PT 1042 describes in ritual detail.

'Brong g.yag (འབྲོང་གཡག, Old Tibetan: 'brong g.yag) — Wild yak. The undomesticated yak of the Tibetan plateau, distinguished from the domestic yak (g.yag) by its massive size, aggressiveness, and solitary or small-herd behavior. In the mythological narrative of IOL Tib J 731 ("The End of the Good Age"), the wild yak Skar Ba is the antagonist — ordained by the six sovereign lords to rule the northern plains, he challenges the eldest of three heavenly horses and kills him with a flanking charge, the right horn lifting and the left horn goring. The killing precipitates the central tragedy of the narrative: the separation of the surviving horse brothers, the youngest's alliance with the first human rider, and the founding of the horse-human bond through an oath of blood vengeance. The wild yak thus functions as the mythological catalyst for the domestication of the horse — an origin myth explaining why horses submitted to human mastery and why funeral rites include horse sacrifice.

Brong zi (འབྲོང་ཟི, Old Tibetan: brong zi) — "Wild Yak Calf." A mythological figure representing the good age in Bon eschatological texts. In IOL Tib J 735 ("The Decree of the Boundary"), the "good customs and good ways of the good Wild Yak Calf" (brong zi leg pa'i srid bzang po dang chos bzang po) ascended to heaven when bad times arrived, leaving the human realm under the dominion of the Demon Lord Zo-zo-brang. The Wild Yak Calf functions as the totemic embodiment of the golden age — its departure to the sky marks the cosmic transition from good times to bad. The term is related to but distinct from 'brong g.yag (the wild yak as an animal); here the diminutive zi ("calf" or "young") suggests the good age itself was young, vital, and now lost. The motif parallels the wild yak's role in IOL Tib J 731, where the yak Skar Ba kills the eldest heavenly horse, precipitating the end of the golden age through a different mythological mechanism.

'Brog srin (འབྲོག་སྲིན, Old Tibetan: 'brog srin) — "Wilderness demoness." A class of malevolent female spirit dwelling in the open pastureland of the Tibetan plateau. In IOL Tib J 734 ("The Age of Decline"), the 'brog srin attacks after the child Myi Smon Bu kills a magnificent animal at a mountain pass — she emerges from her cave-nest at Lha Brag Dkar Po (the White God-Cliff), strikes toward heaven and thrusts toward earth, her mouth red, her teeth long and white, her hair wild. She steals the child's vitality: seven head hairs, seven eyelash grains, seven turquoises. The 'brog srin is named individually as Pyan Ma Yed Yed Mo and also as Pyab Ma / Pyag Ma Yed Mo — suggesting either multiple demonesses or multiple names for the same entity. In the Myang kingdom section of the same text, she reappears alongside the Myang demon Phla Ha Ji Khu, requiring a separate ransom. The 'brog srin is distinct from the srin (general demon class) — the 'brog prefix marks her as a creature of the open wilderness, outside the settled kingdoms, making her a liminal threat at the boundary between civilization and the wild.

Brla (བརླ, Old Tibetan: brla) — "Vitality" or "bodily vigor." A term related to but distinct from bla (soul-force). While bla denotes the separable life-force or spiritual essence, brla refers to the physical vitality of the body — the energy that keeps flesh alive and strong. In IOL Tib J 734, the wilderness demoness steals the child's sku'i brla ("body's vitality"), causing a condition described as "teeth not reaching death, eyes not reaching tears, iron lids not closing" — a vivid portrait of a body suspended between life and death, too depleted to die but too damaged to live. The brla can be stolen, seized, or drained by demonic entities, and the Bon healing ritual aims to restore it through tracing sacred materials to their origins and "establishing them in hearing." The term appears repeatedly in Part II of IOL Tib J 734, where the diagnosis notes that the patient's brla "did not descend from the high fortress" and "did not rise from the low fortress" — suggesting that healthy brla should circulate vertically through the body.

Bdud (བདུད, Old Tibetan: bdud) — Demons in pre-Buddhist Tibetan cosmology. Malevolent spirits that cause illness, death, and misfortune. In the Dunhuang funeral ritual narratives (PT 1136, c. 7th–9th century), the "nine demons" (bdud dgu) are the specific agents of the black poison curse (rtsi dag gnag) — they inhabit the body of the afflicted and must be transferred to ransom animals through Bon exorcism rites. Later absorbed into Buddhist cosmology as the forces of Māra, but in the Old Tibetan context they are autonomous malevolent entities without Buddhist eschatological framing.

Bla (བླ, Old Tibetan: bla) — "Soul-force" or "vital essence." A concept from pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion denoting a separable life-force that inhabits and protects a person. The bla can be "wounded" (rmas) by spiritual attack, malign spirits, or the disruption of cosmic balance — a wounded bla is a serious condition requiring ritual intervention. In the Dunhuang coin divination manual Pelliot tibétain 1055, several casting results include a specific query: "if cast regarding whether the soul-force is wounded or unwounded" (bla nas gyod rmas sam myi rmas pa), with the worse omens (Iron, Ghost King) returning the sign of wounding. The concept survives in Tibetan Buddhist culture as the bla gnas ("soul-place"), a location in the body or landscape where the vital essence resides. The bla ma ("superior one," later "lama") may derive from the same root — the one who is "above" (bla) in spiritual authority.

Byad (བྱད, Old Tibetan: byad) — "Sorcery," "curse," or "hex." The most common term for malevolent ritual magic in pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion. Byad is the force that binds a victim through ritual means — it has a material dimension (the cursed person is "bound in evil first-garments," snga gos ngan las bcings) and a sustaining dimension (maintained by "evil outer food as poison-demon," phyi zas ngan dug du gdon). Pelliot tibétain 1039 preserves the most detailed surviving description of a byad dgrol ("sorcery-breaking") ceremony, performed by the Bon priest 'Bo-bu Lag-ngan. The ritual requires hostility-copper vessels (dku zangs), sorcery-sheep (byad lug), hostility-beer (dku chang), and a sorcery-bird (byad bya), all assembled in a "sorcery-house mixing-ground" (byad khyim sre ga) where the curse is gathered and dissolved through nine sky-rites and nine earth-rites. The cursed person's symptoms — muteness, frozen limbs, heart solid as calf-fat — suggest the byad was understood as a binding that literally freezes the victim's body and speech. The term persists in later Tibetan as the standard word for malicious enchantment.

Byad dgrol (བྱད་དགྲོལ, Old Tibetan: byad dgrol) — "Curse-breaking" or "dissolution of sorcery." The technical term for the counter-sorcery rite performed to dissolve a byad (curse) that has been placed upon a person. In Pelliot tibétain 1039, the byad dgrol involves two mechanisms: "by releasing the conditions, the sorcery is released" (rkyen bkrol gyi ni byad bkrol) and "by skill, the sorcery is dissolved" (skyen gyis byad dgrol). The first mechanism suggests that the curse depends on maintaining certain conditions — the ritual breaks these conditions (the material bonds of first-garments and outer food). The second mechanism suggests that specialized priestly knowledge is required to dissolve the remaining spiritual residue. The culminating cry — "The sorcery is dissolved! Dissolved!" (byad ni dgrol dgrol lo) — is the liturgical climax of PT 1039. The freed person is then "protected in the four quarters of the sky" (gnam gyi bzhir bso), establishing a cosmic shield against reinfection.

Byad khyim sre ga (བྱད་ཁྱིམ་སྲེ་ག, Old Tibetan: byad khyim sre ga) — "Sorcery-house mixing-ground." The designated ritual arena for curse-breaking ceremonies in pre-Buddhist Tibetan Bon practice. In Pelliot tibétain 1039, the byad khyim sre ga appears alongside two related spaces: the "hostility-house hatred-enclosure" (dku khyim sdang ra) and the "wound-house narrow-enclosure" (rma khyim 'phrang ra) — suggesting a tripartite ritual arena where hostility, sorcery, and the wound they cause are spatially separated and addressed. The Bon priest 'Bo-bu Lag-ngan "erects" (phub) the sorcery-house, indicating it was a physical tent or structure assembled for each ceremony. All five summoned kingdoms are called to this arena — "come to the sorcery-house mixing-ground!" (byad khyim sre ga shog) — making it the ritual center where the spiritual authority of multiple political entities converges to break the curse.

Bya Gshen (བྱ་གཤེན, Old Tibetan: bya gshen) — "Bird-Priest" or "Bird-Priestess." A specialized type of gshen (Bon ritual priest) associated with bird-related divination or healing. In Pelliot tibétain 1136, the Bya Gshen 'Jon Mo (Bird-Priestess the Skillful One) is the only practitioner capable of releasing a black poison curse — the ancestral Gshen Priest of Old explicitly defers to her. Her method involves binding ransom animals, performing three nights of Bon rites, and transferring the nine demons into substitute animals at dawn. The Bird-Priestess's superiority to the ancestral gshen suggests a specialized healing lineage within the broader gshen priestly class.

Cho (ཆོ, Old Tibetan: cho) — Rite, ceremony, or ritual declaration. In Pelliot tibétain 1060, cho is one of the two central terms structuring the horse classification ritual (alongside 'brang, "pedigree"). The cho is the formal ritual declaration spoken to a horse that establishes its supernatural classification — whether it belongs to the god-horse, demon-horse, dmu-horse, star-horse, rainbow-horse, or any of the other cosmic categories. The text insists that every horse must have its cho spoken: "If the rite is not spoken to the horse, one will not meet the true lord face to face." Even the piebald horse — whose cho is that of the carrion-eater, the lowest category — still has a cho. The term also appears in the divination assembly context, where each cosmic lord (god, demon, dmu, moon, sun, star, etc.) presides over a specific omen designated by cho.

'Brang (འབྲང, Old Tibetan: 'brang) — Pedigree, descent, or lineage claim. The second central term in Pelliot tibétain 1060's horse classification ritual (alongside cho, "rite"). The 'brang is the formal pedigree claimed for a foal that connects it to a supernatural lineage. When a horse is classified as a god-horse based on its white coat, its 'brang is "the pedigree of the god-horse"; a demon-horse's 'brang is "the pedigree of the demon-horse." The cho is spoken to the horse; the 'brang is claimed for the foal. The cho is directed toward the sky; the 'brang toward the earth. This sky-earth axis structures the entire ritual.

G.yal chags (གཡལ་ཆགས, Old Tibetan: g.yal chags) — Divination omen or omen-cast. The result of a formal divination ceremony in pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion. In Pelliot tibétain 1060, fourteen cosmic lords preside over specific g.yal chags: the god-lord Khar Mangs Skyol, the demon-lord Rmang Khug, the dmu-lord Btsan Ba, and lords of the moon, sun, star, rainbow, cloud, gnyan, naga, sman, gze, and srin. The text speaks of "nine auspicious omens" (g.yen dgu'i g.yal chags) cast from the sky, and a "fivefold omen" (g.yal nga ba) to be recounted. The system links horse classification, cosmic hierarchy, and divination practice into a single ritual framework.

G.yun drung (གཡུང་དྲུང, Old Tibetan: g.yun drung) — "Eternal" or "everlasting." The central symbol of the Bon religion, visually represented as a counterclockwise swastika, symbolizing permanence, indestructibility, and the eternal nature of Bon. In Pelliot tibétain 1046, a Dunhuang dice divination manual, the seven divine daughters of Lhe'u-rje-zin-dags are described as shining "like the g.yun drung sun" (g.yun drung gi nye ma bzhin) — the eternal sun whose light fills the four directions. The term appears throughout Bon literature as an epithet of the highest cosmic principles: the g.yun drung bon ("eternal Bon") is the religion itself, distinguished from later Buddhist assimilations. In the Zhangzhung language, the equivalent term is swasti — the same Indo-European root as the Sanskrit svastika — suggesting deep cross-cultural connections along the Silk Road. The g.yun drung rotates counterclockwise in Bon practice, opposite to the Buddhist clockwise swastika, and this directional distinction (Bon circumambulates mountains and temples counterclockwise) remains one of the clearest markers of Bon identity in the Tibetan religious landscape.

Dong tse (Old Tibetan: dong tse) — Divination coins. The casting instrument used in the coin divination system preserved in Pelliot tibétain 1055, a Dunhuang manuscript from the 9th–10th century CE. The diviner casts twelve coins and counts how many land face-up; each count (from four through eleven in the surviving text) corresponds to a divinatory sign associated with an element or figure: Water (4), Gold (5), Earth (6), Iron (7), Earth-and-Water (8), Confucius (9), Fire-and-Earth (10), Ghost King (11). The term may derive from Chinese 铜子 (tóngzǐ, "copper [coins]"), referring to the square-holed copper cash that circulated along the Silk Road, or from Tibetan dong ("hole") + tse (diminutive) = "small holed objects." A companion text, India Office Library Tibetan 0742, uses the same twelve-coin system but presents thirteen outcomes (one through twelve face-up, plus all face-down) and attributes the entire system to Kong-tse (Confucius) as its magical creator. The dong tse system is distinct from the older mo shing (divination sticks) attested in PT 1047, representing a different and likely Chinese-influenced divination technology that entered Tibetan practice through the multicultural environment of Dunhuang.

Dotse (Old Tibetan: dotse) — "Dice" or "points." The casting instrument in a five-element divination system preserved in Pelliot tibetain 1056. The diviner rolls multiple dice; the number showing a particular face determines which of the five elements (Water, Gold/Metal, Earth, and presumably Wood and Fire in the lost sections) governs the reading. Each element-oracle provides verdicts for the standard Mo query categories: household fortune, life fortune, marriage, building, illness, enemies, demons, lost goods, and travel. The dice counts are represented in the manuscript by sequences of @ marks — four @ for the Water oracle, five for Gold, six for Earth. The system differs from the coin divination of PT 1055 (which uses twelve coins) and the deity-speaker oracles of PT 1051 and ITJ 0738 (which channel named divine figures). The dotse system maps numerology onto elemental cosmology, creating a third distinct divination technology in the Dunhuang Bon corpus alongside coins and deity-oracles. The term may be related to Tibetan rdo ("stone") + a diminutive suffix, or to a Central Asian gaming die terminology. Fifth Mo text in the Bon divination corpus.

Sho (Tibetan: ཤོ, sho) — "Dice" or "dice divination." In Old Tibetan, sho denotes both the physical dice and the divination system performed with them. The Dunhuang Dice Oracle (IOL Tib J 740, Part I) is a 62-entry compendium: for each three-dice combination from 4-4-4 through 1-1-1, the oracle delivers a reading covering success, illness, enemies, journeys, and livestock prospects. The cosmological framework is pre-Buddhist: readings invoke gnam (sky/heaven), btsan spirits, mountain gods, and the individual's protective deity (lha) — belonging to indigenous Tibetan religion rather than the Buddhist interpretive system. The 62 entries of IOL Tib J 740 constitute the most complete surviving example of the Old Tibetan three-dice oracle genre; related systems appear in other Dunhuang manuscripts. Distinct from the mo shing (divination sticks) system of Pelliot tibétain 1047 and the coin-based system of Pelliot tibétain 1055. The same manuscript (IOL Tib J 740, Part II) contains the Tiger Year Legal Code — a corpus of seven judicial opinions unrelated to the divination material.

Dmu (དམུ, Old Tibetan: dmu) — In pre-Buddhist Tibetan cosmology, the cosmic ropes or threads connecting heaven and earth. The "blue-dark divine pronouncement" (mthing gi dmu rtod) is a ritual formula spoken when consecrating, naming, or claiming something under the authority of the dmu. In the Dunhuang funeral ritual narratives (PT 1136), the dmu pronouncement is used twice: once when a supernatural horse is placed in a leather corral for funerary service, and once when captured foals are named and branded. The dmu concept is closely connected to the Tibetan royal ideology in which the first kings descended from heaven via the dmu rope, and the dead returned to heaven the same way.

Dgra lha (དགྲ་ལྷ, Old Tibetan: dgra bla) — "Enemy god" or "warrior deity." A personal protector spirit in pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion that guards an individual's fortune, vitality, and success in conflict. The dgra lha is invoked when the divination touches on matters of enemies, warfare, or physical safety. In Pelliot tibétain 1051, the dgra lha appears in the auspicious oracles as a powerful ally: "The dgra-lha is formidable" (Oracle VIII); "A sman-spirit, a god, a land-spirit, and a dgra-lha are guarding you" (Oracle V). The dgra lha later entered Buddhist usage as one of the five personal protective deities (lha lnga), associated with the right shoulder, but in the Old Tibetan context it functions as an autonomous guardian spirit whose strength reflects the spiritual health of the person it protects.

'Dre (འདྲེ, Old Tibetan: 'dre) — "Demon" or "harmful spirit." A class of malevolent entities in pre-Buddhist and Buddhist Tibetan cosmology that devour fortune, cause illness, and inflict death. Distinguished from gdon (afflicting spirits that attach to persons) and bdud (cosmic demons), the 'dre are autonomous beings with appetites and personalities. Pelliot tibétain 1051 preserves the most vivid surviving speech of a 'dre in Old Tibetan literature: 'Dre Ma Ha, the Earth Demon, addresses the divination client directly — "No matter what I eat, I am not satisfied. Whatever I drink, I am not sated. Now that I have met you, do not think things will be even." The oracle's verdict is the most absolute in the known Mo corpus: "For fortune and destiny forever, there is none worse than this." The 'dre's insatiable appetite is the defining characteristic — unlike the calculated malice of the gdon, the 'dre simply consumes.

Ganglha (གང་ལྷ, Old Tibetan: gang lha) — A mountain deity or territorial god in pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion. In IOL Tib J 738, the Great Divination Manual, Ganglha speaks directly — "Ganglha speaks, saying: To the lord — a subject of the king's power. The footprint is held by the Bon priest." Ganglha's oracle is auspicious: the household is blessed because the gods are worshipped, marriage produces descendants, and the hearth is warm. The name combines gang (filled, full, or a mountain name) and lha (god), suggesting a deity associated with a specific mountain or range. Ganglha appears to be a benevolent territorial protector who rewards devotion and kinship bonds.

Gnam sman (གནམ་སྨན, Old Tibetan: gnam sman) — "Sky Medicine Goddess." The supreme sman deity in pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion, distinguished from the broader class of sman spirits by her celestial origin and her role as the presiding authority of divination and healing. In IOL Tib J 739, a seventeen-leaf Dunhuang divination codex, the Gnam-sman is the central figure: the entire divination ceremony opens with a ritual invocation summoning her and her retinue of nine-hundred-and-nine attendant medicine-goddesses from seven realms (sky, cliff, turquoise, abundance, rock, lake, and north). Offerings are prepared on left and right horns of the altar — white silk, vermillion, incense, gold drops, butter, beer, and four-cornered medicine-cakes — and when the goddess descends, the manuscript records onomatopoeic sounds: "the ears go si-si-li, the turquoise mist goes thu-lu-lu, the cliff-sound goes ti-ri-ri." The Gnam-sman's attendants number in a hierarchical catalogue: each realm contributes nine hundred and nine medicines, "each hundred becoming a full thousand." The Gnam-sman speaks in Oracle I with a decree: "The medicines gather and gather. Today is a great wave." Unlike the male deity-speakers in PT 1046 and PT 1051 (Yarlha Shampo, the Worthy God), the Gnam-sman represents a feminine healing authority that presides over the entire divination system rather than delivering individual oracles. The term connects gnam ("sky, heaven") to sman ("healing spirit, medicine"), placing her at the apex of the sman hierarchy: the sky-source from which all healing power descends.

'Gong po (འགོང་པོ, Old Tibetan: 'gong po) — "Seizing demon" or "possessing spirit." A class of malevolent spirit in pre-Buddhist and Buddhist Tibetan religion distinguished by its mode of attack: the 'gong-po "seizes" (bskyogs) its victim, producing a state of confusion, failure, and despair. In IOL Tib J 739 (Oracle IV), the 'gong-po's seizure is the cause of the most wicked verdict: "As for demons: the 'gong-po has seized you. Great scheming and plotting. Despair. Whatever you think or plan will not succeed." In ITJ 0738 (the Great Divination Manual), 'gong-po appears as a standard threat across multiple oracle entries. The 'gong-po differs from the 'dre (which devours) and the gdon (which afflicts): the 'gong-po specifically disrupts the will, rendering the victim unable to execute plans or move forward. The term derives from 'gong ("to obstruct, to seize from above"), suggesting an entity that descends upon and paralyzes its victim. In later Tibetan demonology, 'gong-po became one of the eight classes of worldly spirits (lha srin sde brgyad), but in the Old Tibetan context it functions as a specific diagnostic category: when the divination indicates 'gong-po, the remedy is exorcism, not propitiation.

Gdon (གདོན, Old Tibetan: gdon) — "Afflicting spirit" or "demon." A broad class of malevolent or disruptive spiritual entities in Tibetan religion that attach to persons, households, or places and cause illness, misfortune, quarreling, and death. The gdon are distinct from the bdud (cosmic demons) and the btsan (territorial spirits) — they represent a more intimate, personal form of spiritual affliction, akin to demonic possession. In the Dunhuang coin divination manual Pelliot tibétain 1055, gdon pya ("spirit-divination") is one of the standard categories the diviner can be consulted on. Under the Sign of Gold (extremely inauspicious), the gdon is described as "a great spirit afflicting the wealth and possessions" (nor rdzas shig la gdon che). Under the Sign of the Ghost King, "a deep-seated spirit has entered" (gdon phugs su zhugs) — the worst possible diagnosis. Under the mixed Sign of Earth and Water, the more benign reading is "a household deity and a spirit-presence" (myi lha dang gdon ngo mchis). The term survives in modern Tibetan medicine and folk practice.

Glud (གླུད, Old Tibetan: 'geg) — Ransom or substitute. The ritual practice of transferring illness, curses, or demonic possession from a human victim to a substitute animal, which then carries the affliction away. In Pelliot tibétain 1136, the Bird-Priestess uses a black ransom-sheep ('geg lug nag po) and a grey ransom-goat ('geg ra rgya bo) as the vehicles for the nine demons cast out of Lady Lho Rgyal. After three nights of Bon rites, the demons depart into the ransom animals at dawn. The glud rite is one of the most enduring practices of Tibetan religion, surviving in modified form into Buddhist Tibet and still practiced in some Bon and folk-Buddhist communities today.

Glud du bor (གླུད་དུ་བོར, Old Tibetan: glud du bor) — "Given as ransom" or "cast as substitute." The formulaic phrase for the completion of a ransom rite in pre-Buddhist Tibetan Bon practice. In IOL Tib J 734, the phrase is one half of the central ritual dyad: "lha la nyan du btsugs / srin la glud du bor" — "the gods were established in hearing / the demons were given as ransom." This dyad appears in every kingdom entry of the Catalogue of Kingdoms (Part IV), where sixteen Tibetan principalities each have their tutelary deity established in hearing and their threatening demon given a ransom. The ransom items include life-force needles, mustard-measures, turquoise, leather breast-plates, and Mon sheep. The practice represents a cosmic exchange: the gods receive ritual attention (hearing), the demons receive material compensation (ransom), and the patient escapes the threat of being dragged to "the land where fire-men burn and water-men boil." The glud du bor is the Bon equivalent of buying off a spiritual creditor.

Gshin yul (གཤིན་ཡུལ, Old Tibetan: gshin yul) — "The realm of the dead." The pre-Buddhist Tibetan afterlife, described in the Dunhuang funeral texts as a physical landscape through which the dead must travel, guided by the skyibs lug (ransom-sheep). Pelliot tibétain 1134 provides the most detailed surviving map of the gshin yul: a series of mountain passes, each with named features on the right and left sides of the path. The dead encounter specific scenes based on their moral conduct in life — whether they killed the war-horse at funeral, sacrificed the sister's cow, welcomed the nephew, or honoured the elderly with offerings. The realm is not entirely negative: it contains "joyful and happy lands" green in summer and winter, golden chain-meadows, and springs sweeter than wine. The afterlife topography constitutes a pre-Buddhist moral geography distinct from the later Buddhist concept of the bardo (intermediate state).

Gshen (གཤེན, Old Tibetan: gshen) — The priestly class of pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion. In the Catalogue of Kingdoms (IOL Tib J 734, Part IV), each of sixteen Tibetan principalities has a named gshen who defends it against demonic threat. The gshen are identified by both personal name and kingdom affiliation: Rtsang Gshen Snyal Ngag (Rtsang), Drang Gshen 'Brong Phyag (Ngas Po), Skyi Gshen Rgyan Ngar (Skyi Ro), Lde Gshen Rmun Bu (Yar Khyim), Dbye Gshen Kar Bu Ljon Phyug (Dbye), Rngegs Gshen Rmun Bu (Rngegs), and others. Their ritual is identical in each case: establish the gods in hearing, give the demons as ransom. This systematic naming of gshen by kingdom constitutes one of the most complete surviving registers of the Bon priestly network in the Tibetan Empire. Gshen performed funeral rites, divination, healing, exorcism, and cosmic mediation between the human and spirit worlds. In the Dunhuang ritual narratives, the gshen are the authorized specialists for death ceremonies and curse removal. The "Great Gshen Priest of Old" (pha gshen rabs kyi myi bo) in PT 1136 is an ancestral figure — a founding priest whose authority extends across generations. The gshen later became associated with the organized Bon religion and were partially absorbed into Tibetan Buddhist ritual culture, but in the Old Tibetan context they represent an independent priestly tradition.

Gtsigs (གཙིགས, Old Tibetan: gtsigs) — "Edict," "decree," or "charter." The formal term for a royal proclamation inscribed on a stone stele or sealed in a document box. In the Rkong Po inscription (insc_Rkong, c. 799–815 CE), the gtsigs is the instrument by which the emperor grants hereditary succession and tax exemptions to a local ruling family. The petition process is explicit: the Kar Po family "petitioned" (gsol ba) the emperor, and "it was granted accordingly" (de bzhin du gnang). A detailed copy of the gtsigs was kept in a "small box" ('phra men sgrom bu), while a public version was inscribed on the stele. The Bsam Yas inscription (insc_Bsam, c. 779 CE) uses gtsigs for the formal oath of the emperor and court to maintain Buddhism forever. The "detailed copy of the edict" (gtsigs kyi yi ge zhib mo) kept separately suggests a two-layer system: a permanent public monument and a portable archival copy. Gtsigs steles are the primary source for understanding the political and legal structure of the Tibetan Empire.

Gtsug lag khang (གཙུག་ལག་ཁང, Old Tibetan: gtsug lag khang) — "Temple" or "monastery." The standard Old Tibetan term for a Buddhist temple or religious foundation. In the Bsam Yas inscription (insc_Bsam, c. 779 CE), the gtsug lag khang at Ra Sa (Lhasa) and Brag Mar are named as the sites where the Three Jewels were established and the Buddha's Dharma practised. The oath declares that this practice "shall never, ever be abandoned" and that provisions for the gtsug lag khang shall not be diminished. In the Lcang Bu inscription (insc_Lcangbu, c. 815–836 CE), the minister Zhang Tshes Pong Nya Stos builds a gtsug lag khang in gratitude for imperial favour, establishing four monks in residence and endowing it with servants, fields, pastures, sacred objects, goods, and livestock. The term combines gtsug (crown, summit) and lag khang (hand-house, treasury), suggesting a "crown-treasury" — the repository of the highest teachings. Bsam Yas (Samye), the first gtsug lag khang in Tibet, was founded c. 779 CE under Khri Srong Lde Brtsan and remains the paradigmatic example.

Kha gan (ཁ་གན, Old Tibetan: kha gan) — "Khagan." A supreme ruler or emperor, borrowed from Turkic/Mongolian qaγan. In PT 1082, a diplomatic letter from "He-pur Khagan" (Hve-pur Kha-gan), the title identifies the author as a ruler of the Uyghur Khaganate, the major Central Asian power adjacent to the Tibetan Empire's Silk Road holdings during the late eighth to early ninth centuries CE. The letter addresses a Tibetan or Chinese official and covers palace construction at Kam-cu (Ganzhou), a dispute over a goldsmith requisitioned from Chinese service, military orders from Tibet, and the exchange of gifts including silk, grain, and autumn fruit. The Khagan's tone oscillates between formal diplomatic deference and frank frustration — he threatens to complain to a superior if his gifts are not reciprocated. The Tibetan rendering kha gan is one of the earliest attested Tibetan transcriptions of the Turkic title, providing primary evidence for Uyghur-Tibetan diplomatic relations in the Dunhuang period.

Khri sde (ཁྲི་སྡེ, Old Tibetan: khri sde) — "Myriarchy" or "ten-thousand district." The standard administrative unit of the Tibetan Empire, roughly corresponding to a district of approximately 10,000 households. In the Dunhuang documents, the khri sde is the primary unit of governance for Chinese subjects under Tibetan rule. PT 1083, the Marriage Decree, specifically grants Chinese subjects the right to "seek marriage partners within the myriarchy" (khri sde'i nang du dga' gnyen 'tshal bar), indicating that the khri sde defined not just administrative but also social boundaries. The term also appears in PT 1082, where the Khagan discusses inspecting "one myriarchy of Rma-grom." The khri sde system was one of the key instruments through which the Tibetan Empire governed conquered territories — organizing diverse populations into manageable administrative blocks regardless of ethnicity or prior political allegiance.

Khyim phya (ཁྱིམ་ཕྱ, Old Tibetan: khyim phya) — "Household fortune" or "domestic destiny." One of the standard divination query categories in pre-Buddhist Tibetan Mo practice. When a diviner casts lots, the client's question is classified into several phya (fortune/destiny) categories, each receiving a specific verdict. Khyim phya covers the welfare and prosperity of the home and family. In IOL Tib J 738, the largest Mo text in the Dunhuang corpus, khyim phya is always paired with srog phya (life fortune) as the first query category evaluated in every oracle entry — "khyim phya dang srog phya la btab na bzang" ("if cast for household fortune and life fortune — good"). Other standard categories include dgra phya (enemy fortune), don phya (affairs fortune), gdon phya (demon fortune), grog phya (companion fortune), and srId phya (estate fortune). The phya categories collectively map every major concern of Tibetan pastoral life — home, health, enemies, business, marriage, travel, illness, lost property, and prayer.

Lha sha / Srin sha / Myi sha (ལྷ་ཤ / སྲིན་ཤ / མྱི་ཤ, Old Tibetan: lha sha / srin sha / myi sha) — "Divine animal / demonic animal / human animal." The three cosmological categories of game animal in the Bon hunting mythology preserved in IOL Tib J 734 (Part III). When the child Myi Smon Bu goes hunting, he encounters three animals that each flee along the road corresponding to their nature: the white divine animal (lha sha kar bu) along the white god-road, the black demonic animal (srin sha nag po) along the black demon-road, and the spotted human animal (myi sha spur bu) along the spotted human road. None can be caught — "pursued but not reached, shot at but not struck." The tripartite classification (divine/demonic/human, white/black/spotted, god-road/demon-road/human-road) maps the Bon cosmos onto the landscape of the hunt. Only a fourth animal, unclassifiable and magnificent — with conch horns, a nose of the north, yak fur, and rhinoceros hooves — can be caught and killed. The implication: animals that belong to a single cosmic category escape along their designated road; the animal that transcends categories has no road to flee along.

Lha chos (ལྷ་ཆོས, Old Tibetan: lha chos) — "The dharma of the gods" or "divine law." The Buddhist ethical code as presented in argument against Bon practices. In IOL Tib J 990, a Buddhist polemic from the Dunhuang caves, the lha chos is the source of three prescriptions: do not commit adultery (g.yem ma bgyid cig), do not take the life of living beings (sems can no cog gi srog myi gcad do), and abandon strife and rely upon the dhāraṇī of joy (dga' dgu yangs pa'i gzungs ni bsten). The term is significant for its rhetorical strategy: by calling Buddhist ethics "the dharma of the gods," the author frames the Buddhist position not as foreign doctrine but as the gods' own preference. The lha chos thus stands in opposition to the Bon practice of propitiating local gods (yul lha) and door-gods (sgo lha) through animal sacrifice (srog chags). The polemic records a period when Buddhist and Bon traditions competed for theological authority in the Tibetan Empire.

Sgo lha (སྒོ་ལྷ, Old Tibetan: sgo lha) — "Door-god" or "threshold deity." A household protector spirit in Tibetan folk and Bon religion, stationed at the entrance of the home. In IOL Tib J 990, the Bon counter-argument to Buddhist ethics invokes the sgo lha alongside the yul lha (local gods) as deities requiring propitiation through animal sacrifice (srog chags): "Our door-gods and local gods are propitiated with living creatures." The sgo lha represents the most intimate level of the Tibetan spirit hierarchy — the divine protector of the domestic threshold. The Buddhist polemic does not deny the sgo lha's existence but argues that ethical conduct, not sacrifice, is what pleases such gods.

Skam chos (སྐམ་ཆོས, Old Tibetan: skam chos) — "Dry rites" or "austere practices." A term appearing in IOL Tib J 990 in the context of Bon ritual propitiation. The Bon counter-argument states that displeased gods "must be propitiated with dry rites" (skam chos su gsol). The precise meaning is debated: skam ("dry") may refer to rites performed without the "wet" element of blood sacrifice, suggesting a distinction within the Bon tradition between sacrificial and non-sacrificial modes of propitiation. Alternatively, it may denote austere or ascetic practices. The term preserves evidence that even within the framework the Buddhist polemic criticizes, Bon practitioners recognized multiple categories of ritual — not all of which involved animal killing.

Srin yul mye myi dgu chu myi rlang kyi yul (སྲིན་ཡུལ་མྱེ་མྱི་དགུ་ཆུ་མྱི་རླང་ཀྱི་ཡུལ, Old Tibetan) — "The land where fire-men burn and water-men boil." The Bon description of the demon realm, used as a formulaic threat in IOL Tib J 734 (Part IV). Every demon in the Catalogue of Kingdoms threatens to "drag" (bkri) its human victim to this realm. The phrase appears in all sixteen kingdom entries, making it the most repeated formula in the text. The imagery suggests a binary hell: fire-men (mye myi) who inflict burning, and water-men (chu myi) who inflict scalding — a torture realm governed by both elements. The Bon priest's intervention prevents the dragging by establishing divine hearing and giving the demon a ransom substitute. The formula is the earliest known Tibetan description of a punishment afterlife and predates the introduction of Buddhist hell imagery (naraka) into Tibet, suggesting an indigenous Bon eschatology of elemental torment.

Khri gdugs (ཁྲི་གདུགས, Old Tibetan: khri gdugs) — "Throne-canopy" or "royal parasol." The ceremonial canopy or umbrella raised above the throne, symbolizing sovereignty and royal authority in pre-Buddhist Tibetan culture. In Pelliot tibétain 1067, a fifteen-line royal praise catalogue, the khri gdugs is the focal point of a royal distribution: "Oh! To the throne-canopy of this day, whatever is to be given is distributed!" The invocation establishes the throne-canopy as the center from which the kingdom's goods radiate outward — to the auspicious, tiger-skins and brocade; to the great, lords and ministers; to the sharp, arrows and spears. The khri gdugs thus functions not merely as a physical object but as a cosmological axis: the point from which political order is broadcast to the realm. The term combines khri (throne) and gdugs (parasol/umbrella), suggesting the fusion of the throne's authority with the parasol's protective symbolism — a motif widespread across South and Central Asian kingship traditions, where the parasol (chattra in Sanskrit) marks the sovereign who shelters his people.

Kong-tse (Old Tibetan: kong tse, kong rtse, dkong tse; Chinese: 孔子 Kǒngzǐ) — The Tibetan Confucius. A syncretic figure in the Dunhuang divination literature who bears the name of the Chinese sage but functions as a semi-mythical king with supernatural powers. In India Office Library Tibetan 0742, Kong-tse is the creator of the twelve-coin divination system: "In the primordial heaven, Kong-tse, son of magical power, compiled many doctrines in summary and established them." He is also called "the magical king Li-bsam-blang" ('phrul kyi rgyal po li bsam blang), who established the divination "from upon his mount, with far-reaching thought." In the companion text Pelliot tibétain 1055, Kong-tse appears not as the system's creator but as one of eight divinatory signs — the Sign of Confucius governs the ninth casting outcome. In ITJ 0742's Eleven Coins section, Kong-tse is personally invested in the outcome: "Kong-tse is displeased" (kong rtse myi dgyes), making the reading universally bad. The figure represents Silk Road religious syncretism at the ground level: the historical Chinese philosopher transformed into a Tibetan oracle-king with magical authority. The spelling varies across manuscripts — kong tse, kong rtse, and dkong tse all appear in ITJ 0742 alone — suggesting oral transmission of the name into Tibetan.

Mdad (མདད, Old Tibetan: mdad) — The great funeral ceremony of pre-Buddhist Tibet. The mdad chen po ("great funeral") was the culminating ritual for a deceased emperor or high noble, to be performed within three years of death. Pelliot tibétain 1042 prescribes its timing in detail: the moon and stars must be consulted, and neither the middle winter month (when the ground is frozen and rites are futile) nor the middle summer month (when medicines cannot take effect) is suitable. A ten-day window from the twenty-third of the last autumn month to the third of the first winter month is explicitly forbidden. The mdad involves the formal meeting of the soul-effigy and the corpse, animal sacrifices, the distribution of the deceased's property, the adornment of the skyibs-sheep, and the final procession to the burial mound.

Phyva (ཕྱ་བ, Old Tibetan: phyva) — The divine or fated lineage in pre-Buddhist Tibetan cosmology. The phyva represents a cosmic ordering principle connected to heaven, fate, and the gods, opposed to and often at war with the bdud (demons). In the Dunhuang funeral narratives, phyva figures appear as divine ancestors: "Mgon-tshun Phyva" in PT 1134 is the heavenly father of the hero Lhe'u Yang-ka Rje, while the mother belongs to the bdud lineage — placing the child between the cosmic forces of order and chaos. The phrase "a son of Phyva" (phyva'i sras) designates a being of divine descent. The phyva-bdud opposition structures multiple pre-Buddhist narratives as a dualistic cosmology in which divine order and demonic disruption contend over human affairs. Some scholars connect phyva to the later Tibetan concept of phya (fortune, luck), suggesting the term originally denoted the cosmic allotment or destiny assigned to each being by heaven.

Phyi Byi Gnam Phyi Gung Rgyal Mo (ཕྱི་བྱི་གནམ་ཕྱི་གུང་རྒྱལ་མོ, Old Tibetan: phyi byi gnam phyi gung rgyal mo) — "Ancestral Queen of the Outer Skies." A grandmother goddess in pre-Buddhist Tibetan cosmology who serves as protector and restorer of lineages destroyed by demons. In IOL Tib J 731 (verso), when the Demon Lord of Nine Pinnacles devours a family — eating the father's flesh raw, wearing his skin, and killing the daughters one by one — the surviving boy escapes by grabbing the tail of a white crane and is carried to Phyi Byi Gnam Phyi's court in the sky. She receives him, hears his testimony of suffering, and sends him forth with the command "from here, go forth" — after which nine generations pass and the lineage is restored. Her role parallels that of other Inner Asian grandmother-goddess figures who receive orphaned heroes and authorize their return to the human world. The title gung rgyal mo ("queen of the heights/summit") suggests a celestial sovereignty, while phyi byi and gnam phyi ("outer" and "sky-outer") locate her at the outermost boundary of the cosmic hierarchy.

'Or gyer (འོར་གྱེར, Old Tibetan: 'or gyer) — Funerary chanter or mourning specialist. A ritual functionary in pre-Buddhist Tibetan funeral rites responsible for the formalized mourning chants and lamentations. In PT 1042, the 'or gyer serve alongside the gshen priests, weapon-bearers, and other ritual specialists. They "cut the mourning" at the gate of the burial enclosure when the funeral procession arrives, perform the blood-letting iron rite (gtar lcags) at the final dawn ceremony, and chant for the territorial spirits and the death-demon ('gab sri) during the night vigil.

Phangs bon po (ཕངས་བོན་པོ, Old Tibetan: phangs bon po) — The chief or leading Bon priest. The highest-ranking ritual specialist in the pre-Buddhist Tibetan funeral hierarchy. In PT 1042, the phangs bon po guides the funeral procession alongside the funeral bon priest (dur bon po), escorts the corpse "with tears weeping" (chu ngus), offers the rising-prayer and light-offering at dawn, administers the mother's breast-milk offering, and performs the demon-cutting (bdud gcad) that seals the gifts given to the dead. The phangs bon po's authority extends over the gshen priests, the corpse-master, and the common dispatch-bon priests.

Ring (རིང, Old Tibetan: ring) — The corpse or physical remains of the deceased in pre-Buddhist Tibetan funeral rites. Distinguished from thugs (the soul-effigy), the ring represents the material body. In PT 1042, the climactic moment of the funeral ceremony is the thugs spur mjal — the meeting of the soul-effigy and the royal body. "The face of the corpse and the face of the soul-effigy, the tent of the corpse and the tent of the soul-effigy — brought together three times." The ring has its own tent (ring gur), its own attendants (ring rkyen), and its own corpse-master (ring mkhan).

Ring mkhan — "Corpse-master" or undertaker. The specialist responsible for the physical care and handling of the deceased's body in pre-Buddhist Tibetan funeral rites. In PT 1042, the ring mkhan is listed among those purified by fumigation at the first dawn-conch, and is responsible for covering the soul-tent, the corpse-tent, and the prince with the ritual drape, performing the covering by sweeping (drul phyag). The ring mkhan occupies a distinct role from the gshen priests and the bon priests, suggesting a specialized funerary guild within the broader ritual hierarchy.

Rlad (Old Tibetan: rlad) — Fortune, destiny, or life-omen. A pre-Buddhist Tibetan divination concept referring to the cosmic fortune that governs a person's birth, health, and fate. In Pelliot tibétain 1285 (verso), the rlad is the central organizing principle of the text: the bird catalogue's function is to "cut the fortune of the sky" (nam gi rlad bchad) and "declare the fate of the firmament" (dgung gi sho dral) — the birds' dawn-songs are not merely described but ritually activated as agents of cosmic order. The rlad-reader (rlad bon) is a specialized fortune-reading priest who diagnoses illness through birth-omens, searching for the correct "match" in a formulaic ritual: "It matches, yes, it matches! But the match is not exact." The rlad-reading involves a birth-incantation where the birth-cord (gchang ma) must be cut with knife and blade, and the fortune "released into the hands" of the reader. The text's colour-coded disease dispatch — black banner for black illness, yellow banner for yellow, red for red, white for white — links the rlad system to a chromatic cosmology where diseases match their celestial origins. The term is related to later Tibetan rlung rta ("wind-horse," the prayer-flag fortune) and may represent an earlier stratum of the same omen-reading tradition.

Se (སེ, Old Tibetan: se) — The burial enclosure or funeral platform. A four-cornered (se gru bzhi) ritual space that serves as the staging area for the final phase of the Tibetan imperial funeral. In PT 1042, the funeral procession arrives at "the gate of the burial enclosure" (se'i sgor), where the soul-effigy and corpse meet, the circumambulation is performed, and the animals are sacrificed. The four corners of the se each receive four slaughter-sheep, and the eight "royal cords" (rgyal thag) receive four more. On the west side of the se, a multicoloured felt is spread for the skyibs-sheep. The se is distinct from the bang so (burial mound), which is the final resting place — the se is the ritual arena, the bang so is the tomb.

Skyibs lug (སྐྱིབས་ལུག, Old Tibetan: skyibs lug) — A ceremonially adorned sheep that serves as a soul-ransom (thugs glud) in pre-Buddhist Tibetan royal funerals. PT 1042 provides the most detailed surviving description of the skyibs-sheep's preparation: its shoulders are dyed with red barley-dye, its right horn wound with golden thread, its left horn with silver thread, its forehead adorned with turquoise, and its hooves shod with iron. One of the king's two tally-sticks is given to the skyibs-sheep — the other to the lord of the great court — symbolically pairing the ceremonial animal with the highest court authority. The skyibs-sheep is counted in the total of sacrificial animals, unlike the four corner-sheep and the four cord-sheep.

Mdzo (མཛོ, Old Tibetan: mdzo mo) — A female hybrid of yak (g.yag) and domestic cattle, prized across Tibet for its milk production. In the pre-Buddhist Dunhuang funeral narratives, the mdzo cow serves as a central ritual animal — its churned butter is the only substance capable of anointing the dead and smoothing death-stiffened hair. Pelliot tibétain 1068 contains two funeral smrang built entirely around the mdzo: in the first, a golden mdzo cow that began as a turquoise bird produces a single drop of milk whose butter smooths a dead sister's hair; in the second, only the mdzo cow Drang-ma of the Srin lineage — born from a female yak and a sral-cow in the distant land of Rgod-khyer — can produce butter powerful enough to loosen hair that stands to the sky. The mdzo's liminal nature as a hybrid animal may explain its ritual significance: neither pure yak nor pure cattle, it mediates between categories, making it an appropriate intermediary between the worlds of the living and the dead.

Shid (Old Tibetan: shid) — Funeral rite or funeral ceremony in pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion. The shid is the formal ritual of sending the dead to their destination, performed by gshen priests and accompanied by the recitation of smrang (origin narratives) that authorize the rite. In Pelliot tibétain 1068, the shid involves the slaughter and ritual distribution of the mdzo cow, the anointing of the deceased's body with churned butter, and the consecration of the ritual animal with turquoise horns, iron hooves, golden nose-rings, and silk reins. The ceremony includes the gathering of kinsmen, funeral assemblies of various sizes (great, small, many, nursing), and culminates at dawn with the priest's recitation of the activating formula: "In ancient times it benefited — now too it benefits." The shid is distinct from the mdad (the great funeral ceremony described in PT 1042), which is specifically a royal or imperial funeral; the shid appears to be the more general term for funeral rites at all social levels.

Snyun gyi zo (Old Tibetan: snyun gyi zo) — "The key to the illness" (lit. the taste or nature of the illness). A diagnostic term in pre-Buddhist Tibetan healing practice. In Pelliot tibetain 1285, the formulaic expression "snyun gyi zo ma 'tshal" ("could not find the key to the illness") is repeated for every episode where conventional diviners (pho gshen and mo gshen) fail to diagnose a noble's illness. Only the named Bon healer of each region can "find the key to the illness" (snyun gyi zo yang 'tshal). The paired term is skran gyi lde ("the lock of the tumor") — together they form the diagnostic formula: to heal, one must find both the key (zo) of the illness and the lock (lde) of the tumor. The metaphor implies illness as a locked mechanism that requires a specific key to open, a concept consistent with the broader Bon healing tradition's view of disease as a structural problem requiring precise ritual intervention rather than general spiritual appeasement.

Skran gyi lde (Old Tibetan: skran gyi lde) — "The lock of the tumor." The second half of the diagnostic formula in pre-Buddhist Tibetan healing, paired with snyun gyi zo ("the key to the illness"). In Pelliot tibetain 1285, the inability to discover "the lock of the tumor" defines the failure of conventional divination. The skran (tumor, swelling, internal mass) is conceived as having a lde (lock, key, mechanism) — a structural principle that must be identified before healing can proceed. The term suggests a proto-medical understanding of disease as having a specific internal mechanism, not merely a spiritual cause.

Pho gshen (ཕོ་གཤེན, Old Tibetan: pho gshen) — "Male diviner." In Pelliot tibetain 1285, the pho gshen are stationed at White Rock Mountain (Dags Ri Dkar Po) and are summoned in groups of one hundred to cast lots and read signs when a noble falls ill. They consistently fail to diagnose the illness — "they cast their lots, they read the signs, but could not find the key to the illness." They are distinguished from the mo gshen (female diviners of Dark Rock Mountain) and from the Bon healers who actually succeed. The pho gshen represent the limits of divination as opposed to the practical healing arts of the Bon tradition.

Mo gshen (མོ་གཤེན, Old Tibetan: mo gshen) — "Female diviner." In Pelliot tibetain 1285, the mo gshen are stationed at Dark Rock Mountain (Sribs Ri Nag Mo) and are summoned alongside the pho gshen when divination is needed. They too fail to diagnose. In some episodes they are described as wearing hooded robes (zhu bub), and as "raising their tongues" (mtho dang ljags se ljags) — a formulaic description of their oracular speech. The White Rock / Dark Rock pairing (dkar po / nag mo) with its male / female symmetry suggests a complementary divination system that, despite its institutional weight, cannot match the diagnostic power of the individual Bon healer.

Mtsho sman (མཚོ་སྨན, Old Tibetan: mtsho sman) — "Lake Goddess." A class of divine female spirit associated with lakes and bodies of water in pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion. In IOL Tib J 738, the Lake Goddess appears in Oracle VI ("The Turquoise Lake"): "The turquoise lake shimmers blue. The Lake Goddess — grace of the Gnyan spirit." The mtsho sman is distinguished from the mountain sman (gangs sman, "Snow Goddess") and the mu sman (celestial sman); together these form a three-tiered goddess hierarchy — sky, mountain, lake — that maps divine femininity onto the Tibetan landscape. The Lake Goddess oracle brings good fortune: household and life destiny are good, enemies are absent, prayers are granted.

Mu sman (མུ་སྨན, Old Tibetan: mu sman) — "Celestial Mountain Goddess." A divine female spirit of the highest order in the sman hierarchy, associated with the cosmic heights. In IOL Tib J 738, the Mu Sman appears in Oracle IV alongside the nāga valley, in Oracle XVIII as the keeper of the "medicine treasure," and in Oracle XXVIII among the "gathering goddesses." In PT 1051, the Spirit Oracles, the Mu Sman oracle is distinctly auspicious — "Mu-Sman the Gnyan's treasure." The name combines mu (sky, heaven — related to the dmu cosmic ropes connecting heaven and earth in Tibetan royal mythology) and sman (healing spirit/goddess). The Mu Sman thus represents the sman at her most exalted: the celestial goddess of healing, whose treasure is the medicine of the heavens.

Mo (མོ, Old Tibetan: mo) — Divination. The central practice of the pre-Buddhist Tibetan religious system, in which lots are cast (dice, coins, or sticks) to receive an oracle from a deity. The Mo practitioner acts as intermediary — the gods speak through the fall of the casting instrument. The Dunhuang corpus preserves four distinct Mo systems: coin divination (dong tse, PT 1055), dice divination with verdicts (PT 1046), elaborate deity-speaker oracles with cosmic verse (PT 1051), and the comprehensive Great Divination Manual (IOL Tib J 738, 286 lines — the largest Mo text in the corpus). Each oracle entry in ITJ 0738 follows a fixed structure: dice-throw markers, a verse introduction invoking pastoral or cosmic imagery, identification of the speaking deity, and verdicts for every category of human concern. The Mo tradition persists in Tibetan Buddhism today, most commonly as the practice of Mo divination by lamas using dice or mala beads, but the Dunhuang texts preserve the form in its pre-Buddhist state — no lama, no Buddhist framework, just the gods speaking through the fall of the dice. The term is cognate with Classical Tibetan mo ("divination") and is the origin of the phrase mo btab ("to cast a divination").

Ma shags (���་ཤགས, Old Tibetan: ma shags) — "Mother's sayings" or "mother's proverbs." A genre of Old Tibetan proverbial wisdom literature. The term appears in the colophon of IOL Tib J 730 as sum pa ma shags chen po — "The Great Sayings of the Sum pa Mother." The ma shags genre presents moral instruction, practical wisdom, and social observation through vivid natural metaphors, attributed to a mother-figure speaking to her children. The proverbs address family obligations, leadership, the nature of the wise and the wicked, and the resemblances between human affairs and the natural world. The Sum pa Mother's Sayings is the only complete surviving example of the genre from the Dunhuang manuscripts. Its existence suggests that proverbial instruction attributed to maternal authority was a recognized literary form in pre-Buddhist Tibetan culture.

Mu Su (མུ་སུ, Old Tibetan: mu su) — A rival or neighboring ethnic group mentioned in the Sum pa Mother's Sayings (IOL Tib J 730). The Mu Su appear three times in the text, each time as a benchmark for extreme situations: "One who is always at fault does not even make enemies among the Mu Su" (line 9 — too pathetic to provoke even a rival); "One without a Dharma-friend is pitiful even to the enemy of the Mu Su" (line 25 — so wretched that even the hardest enemy feels pity); "Brothers whose realm is not united are enemies to the Mu Su" (line 34 — disunited kin become as destructive as an external enemy). The Mu Su's precise identity is uncertain — they may have been a neighboring people on the northeast Tibetan plateau in competition with the Sum pa. Their consistent use as the archetype of "the adversary" suggests a well-known historical rivalry.

Sman (སྨན, Old Tibetan: sman) — "Healing spirit" or "mountain deity." A broad class of divine beings in pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion associated with mountains, healing, water, and fertility. The sman are among the most frequently invoked spirits in Dunhuang divination texts. Pelliot tibétain 1051 contains multiple sman-speakers: Mu-Sman (the celestial mountain spirit), Sman Be Kog, Sman Yung Mo Che, and Sman Rgod Da Chen ("the Great Wild Sman"). Their oracles range from auspicious to dangerous — the wild sman brings land-demons and devours fortune, while the domesticated sman guard prosperity. The sman hierarchy appears to mirror the Tibetan landscape: celestial mu sman at the peaks, domesticated sman in the valleys, and wild rgod sman in the untamed wilderness. The term connects to sman ("medicine") in Classical Tibetan, suggesting the sman-spirits were originally understood as the divine sources of healing power. In later Buddhist Tibet, sman became one of the eight classes of worldly beings (lha srin sde brgyad), but in the Old Tibetan context they are a major autonomous divine category.

Srin (སྲིན, Old Tibetan: srin) — "Srin-demon" or "ogre-spirit." A class of malevolent being in pre-Buddhist Tibetan cosmology, distinct from the 'dre (consuming demons), the 'gong-po (seizing demons), and the bdud (cosmic demons). The srin are associated with the earth, wilderness, and border regions. They gather collectively, wage cosmic war against the gods, and are sometimes propitiated rather than expelled. In IOL Tib J 739 (Oracle XXII), the "sky-srin" speaks a terrifying oracle: "The earth-demons gather... Among the demons, gathering and gathering — one person will certainly die." In Oracle XXV, "demons and srin are cast off" because the god's glory is well attended — the srin's words are extracted and they lose power. Most remarkably, in Oracle XLIX, gods and srin together cast an ornamental divination — three days measuring, three nights spreading — and the gods triumph. This oracle preserves the Bon cosmological tradition of a cosmic war between divine (lha) and demonic (srin) forces, where victory is decided by ritual contest rather than pure force. The lha-srin opposition is one of the foundational dualities of pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion, later absorbed into Buddhist cosmology as part of the eight classes of worldly beings (lha srin sde brgyad). In the Old Tibetan context, the srin function as autonomous, organized adversaries of the divine order — not merely individual afflicters but a cosmic faction.

Smrang — Ritual origin myth or mythological narrative. A genre of Old Tibetan literature that authorizes and explains ceremonial practice by anchoring it in mythological precedent. The smrang tells how a rite was first performed in a mythological time by named characters, establishing the pattern that all subsequent performances follow. In the Dunhuang collection, smrang texts accompany funeral rites, healing ceremonies, and horse sacrifice rituals — each narrative functioning as the mythological charter for its corresponding rite. Pelliot tibétain 1136 contains two smrang establishing the precedent for horse sacrifice and ransom-animal healing rites. Pelliot tibétain 1068 contains two smrang establishing the precedent for mdzo cow funeral rites — both telling the story of a brother performing funeral rites for a dead sister using the mdzo cow's churned butter. The closing formula "In ancient times it benefited — now too it benefits" connects the mythological precedent to the present-day funeral.

Ra mgo (Old Tibetan: ra mgo) — Literally "goat-head," used in Old Tibetan legal codes as a counting unit for persons — a headcount. In the theft laws of Pelliot tibétain 1075, ra mgo gcig ("one head") designates the principal offender who receives the severest penalty: in group theft of goods valued at three to four srang, "one head — death; below that, one person — banishment; below that, all present pay the fine." The graduated sentencing structure — death for the ringleader, banishment for the next accomplice, fines for the rest — represents a sophisticated approach to differential culpability in group crime. The term's animal-counting origin (goats were the baseline unit of pastoral wealth) reflects the nomadic economic foundations of Tubo legal thinking.

Rta grangs (Old Tibetan: rta grangs) ��� "Horse-count." An alternative valuation system used in Old Tibetan theft law for calculating penalties when goods are stolen from non-market lodgings. In Pelliot tibétain 1075, stolen goods from travellers' lodgings, sheds, kennels, and small dwellings are first assessed in lod-srang (a secondary currency unit distinct from the standard srang), then converted to horse-counts. The horse-count total determines whether the penalty falls to the death tier, banishment tier, or fine tier. The system suggests that horse-value served as a reference standard of wealth in the Tubo Empire — horses being simultaneously military assets, status markers, and units of account. The existence of a parallel valuation system for non-market theft implies that market theft (covered elsewhere in the legal codes) operated under different economic assumptions.

Smas (Old Tibetan: smas) — Indemnity or compensation. The term used in Old Tibetan legal codes for the financial recompense owed when one person causes the death or injury of another. In Pelliot tibétain 1073, the "Dog-Bite Law," smas designates the compensation paid by a dog-keeper whose animal kills or injures a person. The amount and form of smas varies by the social rank of the perpetrator and victim — ranging from one fine horse plus "upper pledge-gifts" (ya stags) and "many-returns" (mang 'ung) for the highest ranks, to one quarter or one half of the perpetrator's total household assets (bang za pyugs nor) for attacks on officials. The smas is distinct from capital punishment (bkum, "killed") — both can apply in the same case, with the dog-keeper executed and the smas paid from their confiscated estate.

Srang (སྲང, Old Tibetan: srang) — A unit of weight and currency in the Tubo (Tibetan) Empire, approximately one ounce of gold or silver. The srang was the primary unit for assessing the value of stolen goods in Old Tibetan legal codes and for calibrating penalties. In Pelliot tibétain 1075, the theft law, value tiers define ascending penalties: goods worth one srang and above trigger fines for all thieves; goods worth two srang and above trigger death for a lone thief; goods worth three to four srang trigger graduated sentencing (death, banishment, and fines distributed across a group of accomplices). The srang subdivides into ten zho (ཞོ), a smaller unit used for precise valuation. In the grain theft provisions, volume measures (khal and bre) are converted into srang and zho for penalty calculation — demonstrating that the srang functioned as a universal standard of value across commodity types. The term survives in modern Tibetan as the standard word for a unit of weight (approximately 50 grams in the contemporary system).

Skyin (Old Tibetan: skyin) — "Kalpa" or "cosmic age." The Bon eschatological concept of cyclical ages, analogous to the Buddhist/Sanskrit kalpa but rooted in the pre-Buddhist Tibetan cosmological framework. In IOL Tib J 733 ("The Descent of the Kalpa"), the phrase "skyin dang 'bab" ("the descent of the kalpa") recurs as the central eschatological event — the moment when the current cosmic age reaches its nadir and collapses. The text describes the approach to this descent through increasingly specific signs: moral inversion, political fragmentation, lifespan decline, and finally the rise and fall of named kings. The prescriptive sections promise that those who pray and maintain the old customs will "live a hundred years more" after the kalpa descends, while those who ignore the verse will "live a hundred years less." The term may be related to Buddhist bskal pa (Tibetan for Sanskrit kalpa), but in this pre-Buddhist context it carries a distinctly political dimension — the kalpa descends not just through moral decay but through the rise of specific foreign rulers and the destruction of the Middle Kingdom.

Drug Chen Po (Old Tibetan: drug chen po) — "The Six Great Ones." A political figure or formation prophesied in IOL Tib J 733 ("The Descent of the Kalpa"). After the black-faced king from Rgya (China) rules for sixty years from beyond the great sea, the Drug Chen Po emerges "from the frog's swampy muddy hole" (bug chor gyi rgya sa 'dam ba'i khung bu) and destroys both the Chinese ruler and the frog-king, commanding both territories and receiving tribute for seventy-two years. The identity of the Drug Chen Po is uncertain — the name could refer to six allied clans, a single ruler named after a group of six, or a dynastic title. After the Drug Chen Po's seventy-two years, the Dru-gu (Turks) appear from the east and rebels from the west — the scroll breaks off before revealing the outcome. The specificity of the timeline (60 years + 72 years) suggests this may be historical memory dressed as prophecy rather than pure eschatological speculation.

Slung (Old Tibetan: slung) — The imperial Tibetan messenger relay system. A network of relay posts (slung sa) through which official documents bearing seals (phyag rgya) and decree marks (bka' rtags) were transmitted across the empire. Pelliot tibétain 1290 preserves the most detailed surviving account of the slung system's protocols: damaged documents must be examined at each relay post for intact official marks; if inquiry delays transmission, a "messenger carrying an iron bird" (po nya lcags bya thogs thogs pa) is dispatched; lost documents on the plain require urgent sealed replacements; and passage must be marked from one post to the next to ensure the document arrives "without delay" (ma 'phyis slebs par). The slung system is among the oldest documented postal relay systems in Central Asia, predating or contemporary with the Tang dynasty's yì zhàn (驿站) courier system. The term may be cognate with later Tibetan rlung (wind/breath), suggesting speed of transmission.

Lcags bya (ལྕགས་བྱ, Old Tibetan: lcags bya) — "Iron bird." An urgent dispatch token in the Tibetan imperial messenger relay system. In Pelliot tibétain 1290, when an inquiry at a relay post (slung sa) takes too long, "a messenger carrying an iron bird" is dispatched to override the delay — "wherever the decree orders, go." The iron bird appears to have been a physical object — a metal badge or token carried by the messenger to authenticate the urgency of the dispatch and to ensure passage at each relay post. The term parallels the Chinese practice of carrying metal tallies (fú 符) to authorize official relay use, and the Mongol later pàizǐ (牌子) or tablet of authority carried by yam riders. The image of the iron bird may have been literal — a metal figure of a bird — functioning as an imperial laissez-passer that overrode normal relay protocols.

Srin (སྲིན, Old Tibetan: srin) — Flesh-eating demon or demoness in pre-Buddhist Tibetan cosmology. The srin are malevolent beings who devour flesh and steal hearts, corresponding functionally to the rākṣasa of Indian mythology. In Pelliot tibétain 1289, nine srin demonesses (srin zha mo dgu lcogs) attack the Lord of Lords in the northern pastures — "they reached hands into mouths and pulled out hearts" — killing him in a scene of extraordinary violence. The srin are distinct from the bdud (cosmic demons who cause illness and misfortune) and the gdon (afflicting spirits who attach to persons): srin are physical predators who literally consume the body. The feminine form srin mo ("demoness") appears in later Tibetan Buddhist mythology as the Srinmo, the supine demoness upon whose body Tibetan Buddhist temples were built — a transformed image of the same terrifying entity found in these pre-Buddhist texts. In narrative folklore, the srin appears as the classic ogress: IOL Tib J 732 ("The Peacock Bride") preserves a tale in which the named srin Srin-go Ya-go-phu devours an entire family — six sons, father, and mother — and pursues the youngest daughter through a flock of sheep. The daughter escapes by borrowing a ridge-hare's bell and cap and transforming into a peacock. The ogress, deceived by the hare wearing the borrowed items, grasps the wrong creature and returns empty-handed to tend the sheep — a rare comic resolution in srin narratives.

Srin rje (སྲིན་རྗེ, Old Tibetan: srin rje) — "Demon Lord" or "Lord of Flesh-Eaters." The noble or lordly form of the srin (flesh-eating demon), denoting a demon of sovereign rank. In IOL Tib J 735 ("The Decree of the Boundary"), the Srin rje Zo-zo-brang is the cosmic antagonist who brought bad times to the human realm — when the good customs of the Wild Yak Calf ascended to heaven, the Demon Lord Zo-zo-brang "released" evil from nine copper fortresses beneath the nine layers of earth, and his customs (srid) spread across the human world. The title combines srin (flesh-eating demon, functionally equivalent to the Indian rākṣasa) with rje (lord, noble), suggesting a hierarchical demon-kingdom paralleling the human political order. The Srin rje also appears in IOL Tib J 731 (verso) as the "Demon Lord of Nine Pinnacles" (srin rje dgu brtsegs), who devours a family and precipitates the intervention of the grandmother goddess Phyi Byi Gnam Phyi Gung Rgyal Mo.

Srin zha mo (སྲིན་ཞ་མོ, Old Tibetan: srin zha mo) — "Srin Demoness" or "Female Srin." The feminine form of the srin demon class, denoting a female ogress of supernatural power. In IOL Tib J 744, the final section of the Dunhuang coin divination manual, "the Gate of the Srin Demoness" (srin zha mo 'i sgo) is the name given to the casting outcome when all twelve coins fall face-down (zero coins face-up). Despite the demonic imagery, this is an overwhelmingly auspicious sign — the text explains that "all the gods trample her underfoot" (lha thams cad gyis zhabs kyis mnan), indicating that the divine forces have already conquered the demoness. The cosmological implication is a crosstruth: the most threatening image (the demoness's gate opens) yields the most favorable result (the gods are triumphant). Only the spirit-divination reading carries a residual warning — trickster spirits and hostile spirits still meet, even under the gods' feet. The Srin Demoness's Gate is the zero-coin complement to The'u Kong (all twelve coins face-up), forming the two extremes of the divination system.

The'u Kong (Old Tibetan: the'u kong) — The divinatory sign that appears when all twelve coins face up in the Dunhuang coin divination manual (IOL Tib J 744, continuing Pelliot tibétain 1055). The'u Kong is the most auspicious sign in the entire system — every query category returns a positive verdict: household fortune excellent, great companions, auspicious marriage, no enemies, no spirits arising, all undertakings obtained. The closing formula is "whatever this divination is cast for, it is extremely auspicious" (mo 'di ci la btab kyang bzang rab bo). The identity of the figure is uncertain. The name may represent a Tibetan rendering of Chinese 天公 (Tiāngōng, "Lord of Heaven," the supreme deity of Chinese folk religion), which would be consistent with its position as the highest sign in a divination system that already incorporates Chinese figures — the nine-coin sign is Kong-tse (孔子, Confucius) and the eleven-coin sign is Ki Wang (possibly 鬼王, the Ghost King). However, the sound correspondence between "the'u" and "tiān" is imperfect, and the identification cannot be confirmed. What is clear is that The'u Kong represents the apex of the manual's cosmology: the complete alignment of all twelve coins, the absolute maximum of divine favour, positioned between Kong-tse's auspicious wisdom (nine coins) and the Srin Demoness's conquered gate (zero coins).

Sum pa (སུམ་པ, Old Tibetan: sum pa) — An ethnic group of the northeast Tibetan plateau, historically inhabiting the region of modern Qinghai around Kokonor (Tso Sngon Po). The Sum pa are attested in Old Tibetan historical texts from the Dunhuang manuscripts as one of the peoples incorporated into the Tibetan Empire during its expansion. IOL Tib J 730 preserves the "Sum pa Mother's Sayings" (sum pa ma shags chen po), a collection of 49 lines of proverbial wisdom attributed to a Sum pa mother-figure. The proverbs reference the gods (lha), the Dharma-friend (dva bshes), the hungry ghosts (yi dags), and a rival people called the Mu Su — suggesting a cultural milieu where Buddhist and indigenous Tibetan concepts coexisted. The text's survival at Dunhuang indicates that Sum pa oral traditions were considered significant enough to be committed to writing and preserved alongside Buddhist texts, Chinese administrative documents, and Bon ritual manuscripts.

G.yung drung (གཡུང་དྲུང, Old Tibetan: g.yung drung) — "The Eternal" or "Everlasting." The central symbol and philosophical concept of the Bon religion, representing permanence, indestructibility, and the cosmic axis. In the pre-Buddhist context of the Dunhuang manuscripts, g.yung drung appears as a descriptor of sacred trees, ritual objects, and divine qualities rather than as the later geometric symbol (the counter-clockwise svastika adopted by organized Bon). In IOL Tib J 740 (The Three-Dice Oracle Manual), Oracle IX invokes "the eternal juniper" (g.yung drung gi shug pa) as a place of refuge where a hunted deer finds safety — "by the eternal, one does not die." Oracle XXIV names "the god who holds the eternal juniper," and the seven divine daughters "obtained the eternal." Oracle XXXVIII describes the divine daughters as "abiding like the sun of the eternal." In IOL Tib J 731, the term appears in mythological narrative. The g.yung drung concept bridges Bon cosmology and Buddhist eternity symbolism — the term was adopted into Tibetan Buddhism but retained its Bon associations as the defining self-designation of the Bon tradition: g.yung drung bon, "the Eternal Bon."

Yar-lha-sham-po (ཡར་ལྷ་ཤམ་པོ, Old Tibetan: yar lha sham po) — The great mountain god of the Yarlung Valley, one of the most important deities in pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion. Yar-lha-sham-po is the territorial god (yul lha) of the Yarlung Dynasty's homeland and one of the "soul-mountains" (bla ri) of Tibet — the physical mountain (6,636m, in modern Shannan Prefecture) is the deity's body, and the deity's power radiates from the peak. In the Dunhuang Mo texts, Yar-lha-sham-po speaks as a divine oracle-giver. In PT 1046 (The Dice Oracles), Oracle VI bears his name: "From the mouth of Yar-lha-sham-po." In IOL Tib J 740, he appears twice — Oracle XL ("To the happy land the bird descends") and Oracle LII ("The nine gods relax their minds. Worship the gods — long life and strong life force"). His presence in multiple Mo texts suggests he was a standard member of the Bon divination pantheon, not a local cult figure. In later Tibetan Buddhism, Yar-lha-sham-po was incorporated as a dharma protector (chos skyong), but the Dunhuang texts preserve his pre-Buddhist identity as a sovereign mountain deity who speaks to humans through dice.

The'u rang (ཐེའུ་རང, Old Tibetan: the'u rang) — "Trickster spirit" or "imp." A class of mischievous and capricious spirits in Tibetan folk religion, smaller and less powerful than the btsan (territorial spirits) or bdud (cosmic demons) but persistent and troublesome. The'u rang are associated with sudden frights, poltergeist-like disturbances, petty misfortune, and the disruption of domestic peace. In the Dunhuang coin divination manual Pelliot tibétain 1055, the the'u rang appear under the Sign of the Ghost King (the worst omen): "there is the sign of great Indra-spirits and trickster-demons" (rgyal byin dang the'u rang che ba'i ngo). Their pairing with rgyal byin (Indra) suggests a cosmological hierarchy from the highest celestial power down to the lowest domestic nuisance. The the'u rang survive in modern Tibetan folk belief as household pests of the spirit world — not evil in the cosmic sense but stubborn, irritating, and difficult to dislodge.

Thugs (ཐུགས, Old Tibetan: thugs) — In pre-Buddhist Tibetan funeral ritual, the royal soul-effigy. The thugs is a physical representation of the deceased's spirit, housed in its own tent (thugs gur), attended by its own retinue (thugs rkyen), and processed separately from the corpse (ring) throughout the funeral ceremonies. In PT 1042, the emotional climax of the ritual is the thugs spur mjal — the meeting of the soul-effigy and the body — when the two are brought face to face three times. At the burial mound, a small soul-image (thugs bu cung) is cut from the soul-tent and placed in the "soul-chamber" (thugs kang) of the tumulus. The thugs concept reflects a pre-Buddhist Tibetan belief in a separable soul that must be ritually guided to its destination — the same cosmological assumption that underlies the glud (ransom) rites and the smrang (origin narratives).

Tsham (མཚམས, Old Tibetan: tsham) — "Boundary," "measure," or "limit." A cosmic ordering principle in pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion, paired with Phyva to form the dual decree that governs the universe. In IOL Tib J 735 ("The Decree of the Boundary"), the opening and closing frame of the cosmological prologue is the "decree of the Boundary and the Phyva" (tsham dang phyva'i bka') — the cosmic ordinance that determined the transition from the good age to the bad. While Phyva represents divine fate or destiny, Tsham represents the boundary or measure that structures cosmic order — the line between what is permitted and what is forbidden, between the upper realm and the lower, between the good age and the bad. The pairing of Tsham and Phyva in this text suggests a dualistic cosmological framework in which fate (Phyva) operates within boundaries (Tsham), and both together constitute the decree (bka') that governs the cosmic transition. The term survives in Classical Tibetan as mtshams ("border, boundary, interval") and in the ritual concept of mtshams bcad ("cutting the boundary"), the practice of establishing a ritual space by marking its limits.

Zhang lon (བཞང་ལོན, Old Tibetan: zhang lon) — Ministers or high officials of the Tubo (Tibetan) Empire. The zhang lon formed the upper tier of the imperial bureaucracy, governing through a system of seal-bearing scribes ranked by the metal of their seals: jade (g.yu), gold (gser), silver (dngul), brass (ra gan), and copper (zangs), in descending order of authority. In the Dunhuang legal codes (PT 1071–1075), the zhang lon are the primary reference point for penalty scaling — the rank of both perpetrator and victim determines the severity of punishment. In Pelliot tibétain 1073, a person who deliberately sets a dog against a zhang lon or member of the clergy (dge ba) faces the death penalty if male household members are implicated. The term appears frequently in the Old Tibetan Annals and Chronicle as the title of the empire's most powerful administrators.

Gsang ba'i bon gis sul (གསང་བའི་བོན་གིས་སུལ, Old Tibetan: gsang ba'i bon gis sul) — "The traces of the secret Bon." A genre designation for esoteric lineage narratives in pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion. Pelliot tibétain 1040 identifies itself with this phrase in its opening line, distinguishing its content as a hidden or restricted tradition — a "secret Bon" (gsang ba'i bon) whose "traces" (sul, also "tracks" or "lineage marks") are being revealed. The term suggests that within the broader Bon tradition there existed categories of knowledge that were not publicly transmitted but preserved through specific lineage narratives. The narrative of PT 1040 traces the lineage of Rgyal Byin through three marriages, six magical transformations, the burning of a monkey skin, and the migration of sacred treasures from the Dmu divine realm through Nepal and Glo to Khyung Lung. Whether gsang ba'i bon denotes an institutional secret (esoteric priestly knowledge restricted to initiates) or a narrative secret (a hidden origin story revealed through ritual performance) remains ambiguous.

Khyung Lung (ཁྱུང་ལུང, Old Tibetan: khyung lung) — "Garuda Valley." The legendary capital of the Zhangzhung kingdom in western Tibet, the pre-Buddhist civilization that flourished before and during the early Tibetan Empire. In Pelliot tibétain 1040, the words "Mkhar Khyung Lung" ("Fortress of Garuda Valley") appear as the final words of the text, concluding a geographical narrative that has traced the migration of sacred treasures from the divine Dmu realm through Nepal and the kingdom of Glo — suggesting that the Rgyal Byin lineage's journey culminates at the Zhangzhung heartland. The archaeological site identified with Khyung Lung is located near the modern settlement of Khyunglung Ngülkhar in the Sutlej River valley of far western Tibet (Ngari Prefecture), where ruins of an extensive cave-and-cliff complex overlook the valley. The khyung (garuda) is the central symbol of the Zhangzhung civilization and of the Bon religion — a divine bird of prey associated with the sky, fire, and the destruction of serpent-demons (klu/nāga).

Lig-snya-shur (Old Tibetan: lIg snya shur) — The king of Zhangzhung named in Pelliot tibétain 1060, ruling from the Silver Fortress of Khyung-lung (mkhar khyung lung rngul mkhar). In the Catalogue of the Thirteen Kingdoms, Zhangzhung is listed first — the preeminent kingdom — with Lig-snya-shur as its monarch, served by ministers Khyung-po and Ra-stsang-rje and governing subjects from Gu-ge and Gug-lchog. The name is one of the few attested Zhangzhung royal names in the Dunhuang corpus. The extended ritual passage following his entry — involving horse offerings, mountain-and-valley searching, and payments to the Zhangzhung gods Mu-rgyung and Stang-rgyung — is the most elaborate of any of the thirteen kingdoms, reflecting Zhangzhung's position at the head of the political cosmos. Lig-snya-shur may be identical with or related to the semi-legendary Ligminyatsa known from later Bon historical texts, though the orthographic relationship is uncertain.

Rta lha (རྟ་ལྷ, Old Tibetan: rta lha) — "Horse-God." The supreme equine deity in pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion, presiding over white horses and the divine realm. In Pelliot tibétain 1060, the rta lha occupies the highest position in a thirteen-tier classification system that maps horse coat-colors to supernatural realms: the white horse belongs to the Horse-God and dwells "within the divine realm on high" (lha yul gung dang gyI nang du mchIs). Each of the thirteen coat-colors maps to a different supernatural patron — Horse-God, Demon, Dmu, Moon, Sun, Star, Rainbow, Cloud, Gnyan, Naga, Medicine-Goddess, Srin-demon, and Carrion-eater — creating a cosmological taxonomy in which the horse is the mediating being between the celestial and terrestrial orders. The rta lha's domain extends from individual horses (identified by coat-color) through herd-gatherings (where a hundred white horses are led by a named stallion) to the political order (where the Horse-God's principality is first among the fourteen celestial principalities). The rta lha concept survives in later Tibetan culture as the rta mgrin (Hayagriva) and in folk practices of horse-consecration, but the pre-Buddhist system preserved in PT 1060 is far more elaborate — a complete ritual technology for determining a horse's cosmic origin, speaking its lineage-word, and claiming its pedigree.

Rdzus (རྫུས, Old Tibetan: rdzus) — Magical transformation or shape-shifting. The ability to change physical form through supernatural power. In Pelliot tibétain 1040, the verb rdzus te ("having transformed into") appears repeatedly in a sequence of six magical transformations: male pheasant with great wings (sgyes pho pying cen), noble woman (myi btsun btsun mo), wild goose (bya gag), wealthy ram (g.yang pyug), red bear (khyi dom dmar), and spotted horse (rta thod rmang thod btsag smar gi thig le cen). Each transformation is accompanied by a distinctive onomatopoeic sound — thong thong (pheasant call), lhong lhong (swooping), dang dang (goose cry), thod thod (crossing), khal khal (charging). The same transformation sequence recurs as the signature power of the Rgyal Byin lineage, appearing three times across the narrative. The concept of rdzus is also attested in Buddhist Tibetan literature as rdzus 'phrul ("magical emanation"), but in the pre-Buddhist Bon context of PT 1040 it denotes a physical metamorphosis rather than a Buddha-field emanation.

Dru-gu (Old Tibetan: dru gu) — "Turks." A Central Asian people who feature in Bon eschatological and divinatory texts as agents of cosmic upheaval. In IOL Tib J 733 ("The Descent of the Kalpa"), the Dru-gu appear from the east after the fall of the Drug Chen Po, with rebels rising simultaneously from the west — the scroll breaks off before the outcome is revealed. In IOL Tib J 738 ("The Great Divination Manual"), Oracle XXXVI bears the Dru-gu's name: "The Dru-gu have arrived. When gods and demons mixed together cannot be separated — a bad oracle." The Dru-gu oracle is one of the worst in the manual, with nearly every fortune category returning bad or middling verdicts. The term corresponds to the Chinese 突厥 (Tujue), the Turkic peoples who dominated the Central Asian steppe from the 6th through 8th centuries CE. Their appearance in both prophetic and divinatory Tibetan texts suggests that the Turks were understood as a cosmologically significant force — not merely a political neighbor but an agent of the mixing of cosmic categories.

Gar Gsas (Old Tibetan: gar gsas) — A major deity in the Bon divination pantheon, appearing as a fierce and powerful oracle-speaker. In IOL Tib J 738 ("The Great Divination Manual"), Gar Gsas appears twice: in Oracle XXI — "Gar Gsas sits powerful, fierce-mouthed lord of all" — where his oracle is entirely auspicious (all fortune categories good, prayers granted, travelers arrive, the sick are healed), and in Oracle XXVI — "The sky Gar Gsas sits in splendor" — where again all verdicts are good and the oracle declares "whatever you do succeeds." The double appearance of a single deity across separate oracle entries is unusual in the Mo corpus and suggests Gar Gsas held particular prominence in the divination system. The name may derive from gar ("dance" or "performance") and gsas (a class of powerful Bon deities), suggesting a deity associated with ritual dance or performance — a fitting identity for an oracle-speaker whose words carry absolute authority.

Nyi btsun (ཉི་བཙུན, Old Tibetan: nyi btsun) — "Sun Goddess" or "Venerable Sun." A solar deity in pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion who appears as an oracle-speaker in IOL Tib J 738 ("The Great Divination Manual"), Oracle LVIII: "The Sun Goddess — she of the warm light. If the Sun Goddess were not — how many would be the beings!" The verse suggests a cosmological argument: without the Sun Goddess, countless beings would perish — her warmth sustains all life. The oracle is entirely auspicious, with all fortune categories returning good verdicts. The title combines nyi (sun) with btsun (venerable, noble, or lady), gendering the sun as a revered feminine figure. This is notable because in many Tibetan and Central Asian traditions, the sun is masculine (paired with a feminine moon), but the Bon Mo texts preserve an older stratum where the sun is a goddess. The Nyi btsun's appearance alongside the Mtsho sman (Lake Goddess), Mu sman (Celestial Goddess), and other female deity-speakers in ITJ 0738 points to a pre-Buddhist Tibetan cosmology in which the major cosmic forces — sun, lake, mountain, sky — were understood as goddesses whose speech could be heard through the fall of the dice.

'A-zha (འ་ཞ, Old Tibetan: 'a zha) — The Tuyuhun (吐谷渾), a Xianbei or Mongolic people who established a kingdom in the Qinghai region of the Tibetan borderlands before being conquered by the Tibetan Empire in the 7th century CE. In the Dunhuang administrative documents, the 'A-zha appear as a distinct ethnic group within the multi-ethnic Tibetan imperial administration. PT 1095 records an ox sale from an 'A-zha seller (Zing Nu-ku-spong of the Ma-ga Do-cin district) to a Chinese buyer, with Tibetan legal formulas and Tibetan, 'A-zha, and Chinese witnesses — demonstrating that the Tibetan Empire's legal system governed transactions across ethnic lines. Their continued presence as an identifiable group in Dunhuang contracts suggests they maintained a distinct administrative identity within the empire.

Dkar drus (དཀར་དྲུས, Old Tibetan: dkar drus) — "White assembly" or "oath-trial." A formal judicial proceeding in the Tibetan imperial legal system where oaths were administered to determine guilt or innocence. In PT 1096, a stolen horse case, the dkar drus is convened after preliminary testimony: the accused party is challenged to "obtain proof through an oath of innocence" (bro dkar gis thob shig) — if they dare swear, surety must be produced; if they dare not swear, "it shall be decided according to law" (khrims bzhin gchad par bgyis). The term combines dkar (white, pure) with drus (assembly, gathering), suggesting a ritual of purification through public oath-taking. The dkar drus functioned as a last-resort judicial mechanism when documentary evidence and testimony were insufficient to resolve a dispute.

Dpang rgya (དཔང་རྒྱ, Old Tibetan: dpang rgya) — "Witness-seal." The seal affixed by witnesses to authenticate a legal document in the Tibetan imperial administration at Dunhuang. Distinct from the sug rgya (hand-print/personal seal) of the parties themselves and the gnya' rgya (guarantor-seal) of sureties, the dpang rgya was stamped by named witnesses who attested to the validity of a transaction or legal proceeding. In PT 1084, the dpang rgya appears multiple times — the herdsman Ho To-to claims a witness-seal "is in my master's possession," proving prior purchase. The plaintiff Sha-sha also holds a dpang rgya proving he entrusted the animal. The system of multiple seal types (witness, personal, guarantor, likeness) constituted a layered authentication framework for the Tibetan imperial legal system.

Gnya' (གཉའ, Old Tibetan: gnya') — "Surety," "bond," or "guarantor." The foundational legal concept of the Dunhuang Tibetan administrative system. A gnya' is a person or oath that guarantees another party's appearance in court, fulfillment of debt, or validity of a sale. In PT 1096, multiple rounds of gnya' are posted: the horse keeper is given a surety date but fails to appear; the overseer is then ordered to post surety as well. In PT 1095, the seller's brother serves as khas len (guarantor) to fulfill obligations if the seller is absent. "Gnya' myi" (bonded person) in PT 1087 refers to persons bound by oath to serve. "Gnya' rgya" (guarantor-seal) authenticates the bond. The gnya' system was the connective tissue of imperial justice — without sureties, the courts could not compel appearance or enforce rulings across the scattered districts of the Dunhuang oasis.

Mchid shags (མཆིད་ཤགས, Old Tibetan: mchid shags) — "Sworn statement" or "oath-testimony." The formal testimony given under oath in a Tibetan imperial court proceeding. In PT 1096, the owner Hing-tse delivers a mchid shags — a passionate sworn statement declaring that his horse has been at the station for three years and demanding accountability. The court's final decree orders that on the fifteenth of the first winter month, "sworn statements shall be sought" (mchid shags 'tshol chig) from all parties. The mchid shags carried legal weight: a false sworn statement could result in punishment, and the refusal to provide one was grounds for adverse judgment. The term combines mchid (speech, word, statement) with shags (oath, sworn), reflecting a legal culture where the spoken word, when formally sworn, constituted binding evidence.

Mdzub chad (མཛུབ་ཆད, Old Tibetan: mdzub chad) — "Finger-measure." A form of biometric authentication in the Tibetan imperial administration at Dunhuang, used by persons who could not write their names. The width or impression of the right hand's fingers was pressed into the document as a personal mark. In PT 1087, the twelve bonded persons of Shan-shan authenticate the serf assignment document with "the right-hand finger-measure" (sug pa g.yas pha'i mdzub chad). The mdzub chad is distinct from the sug rgya (hand-print seal) used by literate officials and from the dpang rgya (witness-seal). Its use specifically for the bonded laborers — while their guarantors used seal-stamps — suggests a class distinction in authentication methods within the Tibetan legal system.

Ring lugs (རིང་ལུགས, Old Tibetan: ring lugs) — "Registrar" or "court clerk." The official responsible for recording legal proceedings, maintaining documentation, and managing court procedure in the Tibetan imperial administration. In PT 1084, the Registrar Stag-lo Mang Ka-sa presides alongside the Chief Witness at the formal hearing. At the conclusion of the case, "the Registrar wrote the document, stamped it, and Sha-sha's likeness-seal was affixed" — showing the Registrar as both judicial officer and documentary authority. The term also appears in loan and sale contracts, where actions taken "through the ring lugs" (ring lugsu) carry official legal force. The term may literally mean "long tradition" or "procedure," reflecting the Registrar's role as keeper of official precedent and process.

Lo thang (ལོ་ཐང, Old Tibetan: lo thang) — "Year-road" or "annual relay." The Tibetan Empire's corvée messenger and tribute transport system, in which each district was required to provide messengers on a seasonal rotation to carry official correspondence and tribute between Dunhuang and the Tibetan heartland. In PT 1098, the "autumn-rotation relay messenger duty" (ston res lo thang skyel ba'i pho nya) fell to Li G.yu-legs, who was absent from his post, necessitating the formal hiring of a substitute ('Bu Eng-tse) with a detailed contract specifying payment in barley, millet, and cloth. The lo thang system was the backbone of the Tibetan imperial communications network — its smooth functioning depended on corvée obligations being met, and the contractual apparatus for substitute labor shows how the system adapted to absences. The term combines lo (year) and thang (road/plain), suggesting a fixed annual route or circuit.

Gla thang (གླ་ཐང, Old Tibetan: gla thang) — "Hiring fee" or "wages." The payment for substitute corvée labor in the Tibetan imperial administration at Dunhuang. In PT 1098, the gla thang for relay messenger service was calculated in "black and white" grain (barley and millet) and cloth, totaling approximately fourteen units. Payment was split between an immediate installment (five khal of barley and one khal of millet) and a deferred remainder to be paid upon the substitute's return from service. The term reveals the economics of imperial labor substitution — corvée duties could be bought out, but only through formal contracts with witnesses, guarantors, and penalty clauses. The split-payment structure protected both parties: the substitute received enough to provision his journey, and the remainder was withheld against performance.

Sgyo yig (སྒྱོ་ཡིག, Old Tibetan: sgyo yig) — "Dispatch letter" or "sent letter." A formal personal letter sent via the Tibetan imperial relay system. In PT 1092, the verso carries the notation "Meng Phug-wen gyi sgyo yig" — "the dispatch letter of Meng Phug-wen" — identifying the document as a letter intended for physical delivery. The sgyo yig is distinct from the mchid shags (sworn legal statement) and the zhal che (judicial decree) — it is personal correspondence, not an official document, but it travels through the same postal infrastructure. PT 1092's content — a health inquiry, a request for a relay donkey, a report on a poor grain harvest, and a request for provisions — shows the sgyo yig serving as the vehicle for the practical anxieties of life under Tibetan imperial administration.

Gral thabs (གྲལ་ཐབས, Old Tibetan: gral thabs) — "Precedence" or "seating order." The formal ranking that determined an official's position at court councils and ceremonies in the Tibetan Empire. Literally "row-method" — the method by which officials were arranged in rows at formal assemblies, with higher-ranked officials seated closer to the presiding authority. In PT 1089, the most comprehensive administrative document in the Dunhuang corpus, gral thabs disputes between Tibetan, Chinese, Tuyuhun, and Nepalese officials required resolution by councils of great ministers (zhang-lon), whose decrees were sealed with vermilion stamps and distributed as authoritative registers. The document preserves a complete forty-rank hierarchy of the Shazhou garrison, from regiment commander (ru-dpon) down to deliberator (sam-mkhan). The phrase "gral thabs la mchid myi mjal pa" — "having a disagreement in matters of precedence" — occurs repeatedly, showing that precedence disputes were chronic in the multi-ethnic frontier garrison. The gral thabs system reveals the Tibetan Empire's bureaucratic sophistication: rank was indicated by material rank-tablets (thabs) of gold, turquoise, silver, or copper, and officials could be promoted through meritorious service regardless of ethnic origin.

To dog (ཏོ་དོག, Old Tibetan: to dog) — A military-administrative rank in the Tibetan Empire's frontier garrisons, borrowed from Chinese 都督 (dūdū, "military governor"). In PT 1089, the to-dog are Chinese officials who served alongside Tibetan-appointed officers at Shazhou (Dunhuang), forming one of several ethnic administrative tracks within the imperial hierarchy. The to-dog ranks included "to-dog ched-po" (great to-dog), "to-dog chung-ngu" (lesser to-dog), and "to-dog 'og-pon" (to-dog subordinate). In the Shazhou hierarchy, the great to-dog was ranked fourth — below the rtse-rje minister, the Chinese myriarch, and the Chinese myriarch-inspector, but above the thousand-chiefs appointed from Tibet. The to-dog's rank was indicated by a phra-men tablet, a type of rank indicator distinct from the silver and copper tablets used for other positions. The adoption of the Chinese military governor title into the Tibetan administrative system demonstrates how the empire adapted existing local governance structures rather than imposing a purely Tibetan hierarchy.

Stong zla (སྟོང་ཟླ, Old Tibetan: stong zla) — "Thousand-companion." A Chinese official appointed as the counterpart or companion of a Tibetan-appointed thousand-chief (stong-pon) in the frontier administration at Shazhou (Dunhuang). In PT 1089, the stong-zla were appointed from among the Chinese population and served alongside Tibetan military commanders, creating a dual-track administration where each Tibetan appointment had a Chinese parallel. The stong-zla held silver rank-tablets (ra-gan) and were ranked below the thousand-chiefs appointed from Tibet but above lesser positions. The existence of the stong-zla system reveals a deliberate imperial policy of ethnic parity in governance — rather than placing Chinese officials entirely under Tibetan command, the empire created companion positions that preserved local Chinese administrative participation while subordinating it to the Tibetan chain of command.

Tshe dus ngan pa (ཚེ་དུས་ངན་པ, Old Tibetan: tshe dus ngan pa) — "The Evil Age" or "the time of bad destiny." The pre-Buddhist Tibetan concept of eschatological decline, used to describe a cosmic epoch in which moral and social order collapses. In IOL Tib J 734, the phrase introduces the most extensive surviving prophecy of decline in the Dunhuang Bon corpus: "Because the evil age has descended, generation by generation all people will be shameless and without conscience" (tshe dus ngan pa la bab kyis / pyI pyir zhing 'greng myi 'o chog khrel myed ltas myed par 'ong ngo). The text elaborates the evil age through specific social symptoms: the rich are praised though wicked, the poor are scorned though wise, sons degenerate in body and character from their fathers, women become more powerful than men, queens infiltrate between king and minister, and kin kill kin. The concept parallels the Buddhist dharma-decline (mappo in Japanese, saddharmavipralopa in Sanskrit) and the Indian Kali Yuga (kaliyuga), but the Bon form is distinctly social rather than cosmological — it measures decline not by cosmic cycles but by the corruption of human relationships: between parents and children, between rich and poor, between king and minister, between husband and wife. The related term skyin dang 'bab ("the descent of the kalpa") appears in IOL Tib J 733, while tshe dus ngan pa in ITJ 0734 focuses specifically on the time and its quality of evil, making it the most direct Bon term for the evil age as a lived experience.

Nyan (ཉན, Old Tibetan: nyan) — "Hearing," "obedience," or "ritual allegiance." In pre-Buddhist Tibetan Bon ritual, nyan du btsugs ("established in hearing") is the central formulaic act of consecrating a person, object, or territory under divine protection. The concept appears throughout IOL Tib J 734, where the Bon ritual liturgy repeatedly "establishes hearing" for the patient Myi Rma Bu Mching Rgyal: "nyan kar ni btsugs so / stan kar ni rgyab bo" ("the hearing-post was planted / the witness-post was set up"). The ritual traces the origins of sacred materials — turquoise (g.yu), leather (bse), barley (nas), cloth (ras) — and establishes each in nyan, creating a multi-layered ritual shield. The nyan concept combines auditory receptivity (the gods "hear" the ritual) with political allegiance (the patient is "heard by" or "obedient to" the gods). This dual meaning — listening and loyalty — maps the religious practice onto the political vocabulary of the Tibetan Empire, where nyan also denoted the obedience of subjects to the sovereign. The nyan ritual is attested across multiple Dunhuang Bon texts as the standard mechanism for establishing divine-human relationship.

Mtshe (མཚེ, Old Tibetan: mtshe) — "Life-force" or "vital essence." The central ritual concept in IOL Tib J 734's Bon healing liturgy, where the Bon priests must trace the mtshe back to its cosmic origin and "establish it in hearing" (nyan du btsugs) to heal the patient Myi Rma Bu Mching Rgyal. The term appears in compound forms: mtshe his po his bdag ("the life-force lord," the personified vital essence being sought), bla mtshe srad po ("the thread of the upper life-force"), and mtshe mo ("the life-force needle," the ritual instrument thrust into a wing-horn to identify the life-force lord). The ritual traces the genealogy of the mtshe through mountains, valleys, and pastoral landscapes, searching for the "life-force lord" who is repeatedly "not found" (ma mchis) in any human-built structure — fortress, household, path, chamber — until the vulture and wild yak (the only creatures able to perceive it) identify it in the wilderness. The concept connects to the broader Tibetan notion of bla (soul/life-spirit) but in this Bon context is specifically tied to material origins: each sacred material (turquoise, leather, barley, cloth) has its own mtshe that must be individually traced and activated. The father-mother-son genealogy of the mtshe (Lha Mtshe Khar Ba, Mtshe Ma'i Khrun Bzangs, Gla Mtshe Srad Po) reveals a Bon cosmology in which vital essence is inherited through a family lineage of spiritual forces, not merely possessed by individuals.

Shog mkhan (ཤོག་མཁན, Old Tibetan: shog mkhan) — "Paper-maker" or "paper craftsman." A specialist artisan responsible for producing paper in the Tibetan imperial administration at Dunhuang. In PT 1078, Shang He'do is identified as the shog mkhan of Stong-sar district who pursues a debtor for two hundred yug-lengths of paper owed as tribute (sku yon). The existence of a named paper-maker as a district official reveals the importance of paper production in the Dunhuang economy — paper was not merely a writing medium but a commodity of tribute, measured in standardized yug-length units and subject to formal debt enforcement with penalties of confiscation and whipping. The term combines shog (paper) and mkhan (craftsman/expert), paralleling other artisan titles like gser mgar (goldsmith).

Zhing yig (ཞིང་ཡིག, Old Tibetan: zhing yig) — "Field register." An official land survey document maintained by the Tibetan imperial administration at Dunhuang, recording the allocation, measurement, and ownership of agricultural fields. In the land case of PT 1078, the zhing yig dkar cag (field register catalogue) is consulted as primary evidence in a dispute between Chinese families — it records that the total land at Yur-ba Ke-hva-gu-na measured eleven dor, with six dor assigned to each party by tally-stick (khram). When the register proves insufficient to resolve the dispute, the court turns to dor thag (rope survey) measurements and village elder testimony. The zhing yig represents the Tibetan Empire's bureaucratic infrastructure for governing a conquered agricultural population — Chinese fields measured and recorded in Tibetan administrative terms.

Dor thag (དོར་ཐག, Old Tibetan: dor thag) — "Dor-rope." A measuring rope used for land surveying in the Tibetan imperial administration, calibrated in dor units (a unit of land area, approximately 0.17 hectares). In PT 1078, the dor thag is employed alongside the field register (zhing yig) when documentary evidence alone cannot resolve a land dispute — the court orders physical rope measurement of the contested fields. The use of rope survey as a secondary verification method shows the Tibetan legal system distinguished between documentary and physical evidence, and could escalate from one to the other when documents were contested.

Rgan rabs (རྒན་རབས, Old Tibetan: rgan rabs) — "Village elders." Senior community members who serve as institutional witnesses in Tibetan imperial legal proceedings at Dunhuang. In PT 1078, six Chinese village elders — Im Hing-weng, Bam Kyir'do-tse, Leng Ho-an-tshe, Sag Dze-sheng, and Bam Kheng-tse — are summoned as "field village elders" (zhing tses rgan rabs) to testify about ancestral land holdings when both the field register and the rope survey fail to produce a decisive answer. Their unanimous testimony confirms the Wang brothers' ancestral ownership and becomes the basis for the court's verdict. The institution of rgan rabs represents living memory as legal evidence — when documents and measurements disagree, the elders' testimony carries the weight of generational knowledge.

Bka' sho (བཀའ་ཤོ, Old Tibetan: bka' sho) — "Royal decree" or "imperial edict." The formal legal instrument of the Tibetan Empire, carrying the authority of the btsan-po (emperor) and binding upon all subjects. In IOL Tib J 740 (ii), "The Tiger Year Casebook," the bka' sho is the foundational legal instrument: the entire text consists of seven judicial opinions interpreting the Tiger Year decree's provisions (sho tshigs) for specific cases. The Palace repeatedly invokes the Horse Year decree (rta'i lo'i sho tshigs) as binding precedent — establishing that decrees from different years formed a cumulative body of law, with later decrees building upon and citing earlier ones. The phrase bka' shos gcad ("adjudicated by decree") or bka' shos myi gcad ("not adjudicable by decree") appears throughout the Dunhuang legal corpus as the fundamental binary of Tibetan imperial justice: a case either falls within the decree's jurisdiction or it does not. The bka' sho was distinct from the zhal ce (judicial decision) — the decree was the statute, the zhal ce was the court's application of it. The term survives in Classical Tibetan as bka' (word, command, decree), retaining its association with sovereign authority.

Sho tshigs (ཤོ་ཚིགས, Old Tibetan: sho tshigs) — "Decree provisions" or "decree articles." The individual clauses or sections of a royal decree (bka' sho) in the Tibetan imperial legal system. In IOL Tib J 740 (ii), the sho tshigs of the Tiger Year decree are the subject of all seven judicial inquiries — each case asks how a specific provision should be interpreted and applied to a factual dispute. The text also references the sho tshigs snga ma ("earlier decree provisions") and the sho tshigs gyi yan lag ("supplementary articles of the decree"), indicating that decrees had multiple layers: a core text, earlier provisions that remained in force, and supplementary articles that addressed new cases. The phrase sho tshigs las gsang bar myi 'byung na — "if the decree provisions do not explicitly state" — appears in Case IV, showing that the legal system recognized legislative gaps and had a procedure for resolving them. The term combines sho (lot, decree, adjudication) and tshigs (joint, section, article), suggesting the decree was understood as a jointed or articulated instrument — a body of provisions that could be cited individually.

Zhal ce (ཞལ་���ེ, Old Tibetan: zhal ce) — "Legal judgment" or "judicial decision." The formal ruling issued by a court in the Tibetan imperial legal system, distinct from the royal decree (bka' sho) which was the underlying statute. In IOL Tib J 740 (ii), the zhal ce pas ("judge" or "adjudicator") appears as a distinct legal officer who submits findings to the Palace for final ruling. In PT 1096 (the Stolen Horse Case), the zhal ce is the formal court proceeding itself — a structured hearing with testimony, witness examination, surety requirements, and a final verdict sealed by officials. In PT 1084, the zhal ce rgan po ("Chief Witness" of the court) presides alongside the Registrar. The term combines zhal (face, presence, honorific for speech) and ce (oath, word, decree), suggesting the judgment was understood as speech delivered in the presence of authority — a face-to-face pronouncement carrying the weight of sworn testimony and institutional power.

Bag rgod (བག་རྒོད, Old Tibetan: bag rgod) — "Reckless marriage flight" or "elopement by force." A specific legal category in Tibetan imperial family law describing a woman who has fled from or abandoned her marriage. In IOL Tib J 740 (ii), Case II, a woman who committed bag rgod now resides at her father's family home; the husband petitions for her return, but neither the woman nor her parents have ever appeared for testimony. The Palace's ruling establishes two principles: (1) no penalty is assessed for the interval of separation, and (2) the actual wife must be restored to the husband. The term combines bag (marriage, bride) and rgod (wild, reckless, fierce), suggesting a departure characterized by unilateral action rather than mutual consent — distinguishing it from an orderly legal dissolution. The ruling's brevity — two sentences covering a complex family dispute — suggests that bag rgod was a well-established legal category with standard remedies that required little elaboration.

Chab srid (ཆབ་སྲིད, Old Tibetan: chab srid) — "Governance" or "state affairs." The standard Old Tibetan term for secular political authority and the administration of the realm. Literally combining chab (water, authority) and srid (existence, affairs, the worldly order), the compound evokes governance as the flow and management of worldly power. In the Zhol inscription, the term appears repeatedly in both its political and evaluative senses: Klu Khong is praised for being "the trusted mainstay of the governance of both outer and inner affairs" (phyi nang gnyis kyi chab srid), and the formula "his loyalty and devotion to governance were hard-won" (chab srid la dpend pa'i sems dka' ba byas so) serves as a refrain closing both the East and South faces.

Dku rgyal (དཀུ་རྒྱལ, Old Tibetan: dku rgyal) — "Honors" or "decorations." A formal term for the court honors and privileges granted by the Tibetan emperor to distinguished officials. In the Zhol inscription, the North face opens as "the text of the edict of honors (dku rgyal gtsigs) granted to Minister Stag Sgra Klu Khong, inscribed on a stone pillar." The dku rgyal system included silver charters of protection (dngul gyi yi ge chen po), hereditary military commands, immunity from collective punishment, and permanent access to the royal court — a comprehensive framework of aristocratic privilege rivaling anything in contemporary Tang, Byzantine, or Carolingian systems.

Glo ba nye (གློ་བ་ཉེ, Old Tibetan: glo ba nye) — "Close-hearted" or "loyal, trusted." A political metaphor pairing glo ba (lungs/liver, the seat of loyalty and feeling in Old Tibetan physiology) with nye (near, close). The opposite of glo ba rings (distant-hearted, treacherous). In the Zhol inscription, Klu Khong is repeatedly called "glo ba nye" — the trusted, loyal minister — in explicit contrast to the treacherous ministers 'Bal and Lang who are "glo ba rings." The somatic metaphor reveals an Old Tibetan political psychology in which loyalty and treachery are conceived as physical conditions of the internal organs — the loyal minister's heart is near the king, the traitor's heart has grown distant.

Nang blon (ནང་བློན, Old Tibetan: nang blon) — "Inner minister." A high court rank in the Tibetan Empire, designating a minister who served in the emperor's inner council (nang) as opposed to the broader assembly. The nang blon chen po (Great Inner Minister) was one of the most senior positions at court. In the Zhol inscription, Klu Khong held the dual office of Great Inner Minister and Great Adjudicator (yo gal 'chos pa chen po), and the inscription specifically records his admission to the inner ministerial council (nang blon bka' la gtogs par bcug).

Stong dpon (སྟོང་དཔོན, Old Tibetan: stong dpon) — "Thousand-commander." A military rank in the Tibetan Empire designating the commander of a unit of one thousand soldiers. In the Zhol inscription's North face, the position of thousand-commander of the Imperial Guard of Phan Yul (sku srungs 'phan yul pa'i stong dpon) is granted forever to the descendants of Klu Khong's grandfather Gsas Slebs, with the explicit decree that no one else shall be placed in the position. This hereditary military command — locked permanently to one family line — is one of the most extraordinary privileges in the inscription.

Dbon zhang (དབོན་ཞང, Old Tibetan: dbon zhang) — "Nephew-uncle." The diplomatic kinship term defining the formal relationship between the Tibetan and Chinese empires. Beginning with the marriage of Chinese Princess Wencheng to Emperor Srong Btsan Sgam Po in 641 CE, the Tibetan btsan-po became the "nephew" (dbon) and the Chinese emperor the "uncle" (zhang) — a fictive kinship that structured all subsequent diplomatic relations. The Sino-Tibetan Treaty Inscription (insc_Treaty, 821–822 CE) uses dbon zhang throughout as the fundamental term of address between the two empires: "uncle and nephew, the two, having deliberated together upon governance, made a great meeting and established a treaty." The kinship framework carried real diplomatic weight — it obligated both sides to the courtesies of family relations (gifts, messengers, mutual respect) and framed any violation as a breach of familial trust rather than merely political obligation.

Mjal dum (མཇལ་འདུམ, Old Tibetan: mjal dum) — "Meeting" or "summit." The formal term for a diplomatic council between sovereign powers in the Tibetan Empire period. In the Sino-Tibetan Treaty Inscription (insc_Treaty, 821–822 CE), the mjal dum chen po ("great meeting") is the ceremony at which the treaty was negotiated, the oath sworn, and the covenant sealed. The inscription records two mjal dum ceremonies: one held at Keng She in Chinese territory (winter 821, year of the Iron-Female-Ox), and one at Sbra Stod Tshal east of Lhasa (summer 822, year of the Water-Male-Tiger). The treaty text (gtsigs kyi mdo) was inscribed on a stone pillar (rdo rings) in the spring of 823. The mjal dum was not merely a diplomatic conference but a sacred event — the Three Jewels, the sun and moon, and the planets and stars were invoked as witnesses, and living creatures were sacrificed to seal the oath.

Chab srid (ཆབ་སྲིད, Old Tibetan: chab srid) — "Governance" or "political authority." The standard Old Tibetan term for sovereign governance and statecraft, combining chab (water, and by extension authority that flows) with srid (existence, realm, or administration). In the Sino-Tibetan Treaty Inscription (insc_Treaty, 821–822 CE), chab srid gcig du mol ("deliberating upon governance as one") is the formula describing the diplomatic process between the two empires — the phrase recurs throughout the east face as the standard description of each historical treaty negotiation. The term encodes a particular conception of political authority: governance as something that flows and covers, like water, rather than something imposed from above. The chab srid of the Tibetan kings is described as spreading "far and wide" (phyir zhing che) — an organic expansion rather than a territorial conquest.

Kong co (ཀོང་ཅོ, Old Tibetan: kong co) — "Princess." The Tibetan rendering of Chinese 公主 (gōngzhǔ), specifically designating Chinese imperial princesses married into the Tibetan royal house as part of the heqin (和親, peace through kinship) diplomacy. The Sino-Tibetan Treaty Inscription's east face names two: Mun Sheng Kong Co (文成公主, Princess Wencheng, married to Srong Btsan Sgam Po c. 641 CE) and Kim Shing Kong Co (金城公主, Princess Jincheng, married to Khri Lde Gtsug Brtsan c. 710 CE). These marriages established the dbon zhang (nephew-uncle) kinship framework that governed all subsequent Sino-Tibetan relations. The term kong co appears only in diplomatic contexts and is always paired with btsan po'i khab du blangs ("taken as the emperor's consort").

G.yung drung (གཡུང་དྲུང, Old Tibetan: g.yung drung) — "Eternal" or "everlasting." A pre-Buddhist Tibetan concept denoting permanence and indestructibility, later adopted into Tibetan Buddhism as a translation of Sanskrit svastika (the auspicious symbol). In the Sino-Tibetan Treaty Inscription's east face, 'O Lde Spu Rgyal is described as byin myi nyams pa'i g.yung drung gi rgyal po chen po ("a never-diminishing eternal great king") — the g.yung drung here functions as the highest royal epithet, denoting a sovereignty that does not wane. In the Bon tradition, g.yung drung becomes the central term of self-identification — g.yung drung bon ("Eternal Bon") — and the swastika symbol itself. The word preserves one of the oldest Tibetan philosophical concepts: the aspiration toward permanence in a world of impermanence.

Ta zhig (ཏ་ཞིག, Old Tibetan: ta zhig) — "Arabia" or "Persia." The Old Tibetan designation for the lands to the west of Tibet, encompassing what is now Iran, Iraq, and the Arab world. In the Sino-Tibetan Treaty Inscription's east face, Ta Zhig is listed alongside Mon (south), Rgya Gar (India), and Dru Gu (Turks, north) as one of the four directional powers that acknowledged the Tibetan emperor's authority. The inscription also groups Ta Zhig with China as gnyen rtseg ma ("kin by marriage") and yul khyim tshes ("household family") — suggesting that the Tibetan Empire maintained marriage alliances with western powers as well as China, or at least claimed to.

Dru gu (དྲུ་གུ, Old Tibetan: dru gu) — "Turk" or "Turkish peoples." The Old Tibetan designation for the Turkic peoples to the north and northwest of Tibet, encompassing various Turkic confederations (Western Turks, Turgesh, Uyghurs) that controlled the Central Asian steppe during the Tibetan imperial period. In the Sino-Tibetan Treaty Inscription's east face, the Dru Gu are listed as the northern power in the four-directional schema: Mon and Rgya Gar (south), Ta Zhig (west), Dru Gu (north), with China (east) forming the fifth. In the Dunhuang eschatological text ITJ 0733, the Dru Gu appear as apocalyptic invaders: "From the west — a host of Dru-gu will come as enemies."

Dpya' (དཔྱའ, Old Tibetan: dpya') — "Tribute" or "tax." The standard Old Tibetan administrative term for levied tribute owed by subject populations to the ruling authority. In Pelliot tibetain 1120, a tribute assessment from the Guiyi jun period, dpya' designates the comprehensive levy imposed on Tibetan household units within a Chinese chiliarchy — encompassing gold, cloth, dyed fabrics, paper, and beads. The phrase "dpya' 'bul ba" ("tribute payment" or "the tribute to be submitted") recurs throughout as the governing formula of the document. The term is distinct from voluntary gifts (skyes) and from military service obligations (dmag).

Guiyi jun (歸義軍, Chinese: guiyi jun) — "Return to Righteousness Army." The Chinese-Tibetan hybrid administration that governed Dunhuang and the Hexi Corridor from 848 to 1036 CE, after Zhang Yichao led a rebellion that expelled the Tibetan administration. The Zhang family ruled as military governors (jiedushi), maintaining a dual-track bureaucracy that used both Chinese and Old Tibetan in official documents. In Pelliot tibetain 1120, the continued use of Old Tibetan for tribute levies directed at Tibetan households demonstrates that Tibetan remained an administrative language under Chinese-led governance. The verso of the same document renders the ruler's title as "sha cu'i dbangs po dzo shang shi" (Lord of Shazhou, the Jiedushi) and applies the Buddhist honorific "bodhisattva of the immeasurable" — revealing how the Guiyi jun rulers legitimised their authority through both Chinese imperial titles and Tibetan Buddhist language.

Rkya (རྐྱ, Old Tibetan: rkya) — "Household" or "household tax unit." The basic unit of taxation in the Old Tibetan administrative system, designating a single Tibetan household liable for tribute. In Pelliot tibetain 1120, tribute is calculated by rkya within the Chinese chiliarchy structure: "bod rkya phyed dang bcu" (ten and a half Tibetan households) and "khyim lnga" (five households) constitute the two assessment groups for a single chiliarchy unit, with different gold rates applied to each. The term also appears in Pelliot tibetain 1089, where rkya is used to count households within administrative districts. As a unit of taxation, rkya encompasses not just a physical dwelling but the economic capacity of a family unit — livestock, agricultural output, and labour.

Sha cu (ཤ་ཅུ, Old Tibetan: sha cu) — "Shazhou," the Old Tibetan phonetic rendering of the Chinese place name 沙州 (Shāzhōu), designating the Dunhuang oasis on the Silk Road. Sha cu appears throughout the Dunhuang administrative corpus as the primary regional designation — in Pelliot tibetain 1120, the tribute document specifies "sha cu'i yul thang" (Shazhou's regional standard) as the benchmark for cloth quality, and the verso addresses "sha cu'i dbangs po" (Lord of Shazhou). The term also appears in Pelliot tibetain 1082, where the Khagan requests a goldsmith be sent "to Sha-cu." Shazhou was one of the most important nodes on the Silk Road, and its Tibetan rendering preserves the phonetic values of the Chinese name as heard by Old Tibetan speakers.

Stong sar (སྟོང་སར, Old Tibetan: stong sar) — "Chiliarchy" or "thousand-place." The Tibetan rendering of the Chinese administrative unit of one thousand households, used in the frontier administration at Dunhuang. In Pelliot tibetain 1120, "rgya stong sar" (Chinese chiliarchy) is the primary unit of tribute assessment — each chiliarchy containing a specified number of Tibetan households (rkya) and owing a fixed schedule of gold, cloth, dyes, paper, and other goods. The term is distinct from stong dpon (thousand-commander, a military rank) and stong zla (thousand-companion, a Chinese official paired with a Tibetan commander). The stong sar represents the fiscal-administrative unit while the stong dpon represents its military command and the stong zla its Chinese counterpart — three facets of the same dual-track frontier governance system.