Pelliot Tibétain 1067
A fifteen-line Old Tibetan text preserved among the Dunhuang manuscripts of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. It describes a golden palace — six-tiered, seven-courted, with eight golden gates, nine pendants, and ten seals of truth — then unfolds into a catalogue of qualities and their associated possessions: the auspicious with their tiger-skins, the sharp with their arrows, the red with their dye and blood.
The text opens with an invocation to a royal distribution: whatever is to be given at the throne-canopy is distributed to wherever is worthy. The ascending number sequence (six through ten) builds the palace like a chant, and the catalogue that follows maps the domains of the kingdom into paired attributes — each quality receiving what is appropriate to its nature. The pattern closely parallels PT 1290 ("The Naming of a Prince"), which similarly describes a golden palace, a petty kingdom catalogue, and protocols of royal governance.
The manuscript dates to the Tibetan Empire period (seventh to ninth centuries CE) and was sealed in the Dunhuang cave library around 1000 CE. It belongs to a genre of pre-Buddhist Tibetan praise poetry that maps political and cosmological order through enumeration. This is the first English translation.
...the truth is held, and —
Oh! To the throne-canopy of this day,
whatever is to be given is distributed!
When the word is spoken — "Give!" —
to wherever is worthy, it is given.
The excellent ones are at the golden crossroads.
The fine golden house is roofed:
Houses in tiers — six.
Inner rooms and courtyards — seven.
Golden gates in rows — eight.
Pendants all together — nine.
Seals of truth — ten.
The ten truths are arrayed.
The brass is governed:
one gate does not open;
one barely opens —
and the worthy receive food-vessels and silk.
The most auspicious — tiger-skins and brocade.
The equal — warmth in their going.
The noble sons — leisure and generosity.
The darkest — thrones and fruit.
The greatest — lords and ministers.
The sharpest — arrows and spears.
The reddest — dye and blood.
The most peaceful — thrones and fine horses.
The dark ones — they are like bears.
From that boundary and below,
what is lesser comes in time.
Whatever has great purpose —
the wooden houses are of middling account.
Each place, in the end, yields outward.
Colophon
Pelliot tibétain 1067. Bibliothèque nationale de France. Fifteen lines of Old Tibetan on a scroll sealed in the Dunhuang cave library (Cave 17, Mogao, Gansu) around 1000 CE.
This text is a royal praise catalogue — a genre of Old Tibetan political poetry that maps the grandeur of a realm through ascending enumeration and paired attributes. The golden palace is built in numbered tiers (six houses, seven courtyards, eight gates, nine pendants, ten seals), and the catalogue that follows distributes the kingdom's goods to each quality: the auspicious receive tiger-skins and brocade, the great receive lords and ministers, the sharp receive arrows and spears, the red receive dye and blood. It is a companion to PT 1290 ("The Naming of a Prince"), which shares the golden palace vision, the petty kingdom catalogue, and the protocols of royal governance.
First English translation. Good Works Translation from Old Tibetan by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Translator: Tankō (探光), Expeditionary Tulku. Source text accessed from the Old Tibetan Documents Online (OTDO) corpus, University of Tsukuba / Osaka University.
Translation notes:
Line 1 ("...the truth is held, and —") appears fragmentary, possibly the tail of a previous text or a damaged opening. The "$" symbol at the beginning of line 2 is a manuscript ornament marking the true start of the invocation.
The "dgu" (九) that follows most adjectives in the catalogue (lines 9–13) can mean "nine" or function as an intensifier meaning "most" or "all." This translation renders it as a superlative ("the most auspicious," "the darkest"), though an equally valid reading treats each entry as "the nine [qualities] of X are Y and Z" — a numerical taxonomy where each domain of the kingdom contains nine exemplars.
"Spyan rta" (line 13) is rendered as "fine horses." "Spyan" may be an honorific prefix before "rta" (horse), yielding "the honorable horse" or "royal steed." An alternative reading takes "khri spyan rta" as a single compound: "throne-inspection horse."
"G.yar mo 'brings" (line 15) is rendered as "of middling account." "G.yar" means "to borrow/lend" and "'brings" means "medium/middle." The phrase may refer to temporary or borrowed accommodation, in contrast to the golden palace above.
The bracketed "[ngon?]" in line 15 reflects an uncertain reading in the manuscript.
No reference translation was consulted. This English is independently derived from the Old Tibetan source text.
Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
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Source Text: Pelliot Tibétain 1067
Old Tibetan source text from the Old Tibetan Documents Online (OTDO) corpus, University of Tsukuba / Osaka University. Presented here for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above.
(1) bden zhan te /
(2) $ /:/ kye deng gI khri gdugs la ji dang ji la bdal lo / gtang zhes bgyis na
(3) gar bzang ba zhig la bdal lo / ba rab dag gser mdo na' / gser bzang dag
(4) khang phub ste / khang khang cag rim te drug / bar khang cag khyams tang bdun /
(5) gser sgo cag khrigs tang brgyad / tha rams cag sil tang dgu /
(6) phyag rgya dag bden tang bcu / bden bcu dag khrigs pa la / ra gan
(7) dag bdag zhan te / gcig dag sgo ma phyed / gcig
(8) tsam dag sgo phyed na' / bzang dag za bog dar /
(9) bkra dgu dag stag tang gzigs / mjam la dag dro ba ni /
(10) phags sbu dag dpying tang sbying / gnag dgu dag khri tang
(11) 'bras / che dgu dag rje dang blon / rno dgu dag mda' dang mdung /
(12) dmar dgu dag btsod dang khrags / bde dgu dag khri
(13) spyan rta / gnag dag dom dang 'dras / de tsham dag de ru bas
(14) ma bas dag slad na mchis / gang gang cag don mo che / shing
(15) khang cag g.yar mo 'brings / gang [ngon?] sa so phyi du nu / /
Source Colophon
Source text from the Old Tibetan Documents Online (OTDO) corpus, a project of the University of Tsukuba and Osaka University. The transcription is based on the original manuscript held in the Bibliothèque nationale de France as Pelliot tibétain 1067. Accessed April 2026. OTDO is a freely accessible scholarly resource for Old Tibetan documents from the Dunhuang cave library.
The text is presented as transcribed by the OTDO editors, with line numbers in parentheses corresponding to the manuscript lines. Tooltip corrections from the OTDO interface are noted: line 11, "'da" is corrected to "mda'" (arrow). The uncertain reading "[ngon?]" in line 15 follows the OTDO transcription.
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