bcan pos who were not khri: Royal titulature and the succession to the throne in the Tibetan Empire

Abstract The paper surveys the distribution of the titles bcan po and khri in historical and non-historical documents of the Tibetan Empire. Their patterns of usage suggest the existence of strict rules that governed the bestowal of the titles within the royal family. In the second part of the paper a new chronology of succession to the throne in the Tibetan imperial dynasty is put forward, based not only on Tibetan imperial documents and post-imperial historiographical works but also on Chinese written sources.


Introduction
One aspect peculiar to forms of address of Tibetan rulers in official nomenclature has already attracted the attention of scholars working on early Tibetan history: the syllable khri regularly preceding the name of a bcan po. However, when the title bcan po is followed by a proper name, this proper name can take one of two forms: it may, or may not, be preceded by the syllable khrikhri is customarily pre-posed to some names, but not others. This paper on alleged bcan pos that are not termed khri in documents of the Tibetan Empire examines forms of address used with respect to the members of the royal family who, it seems, at some point in their life might have been conceived of as heirs to the throne, but did not necessarily take over the reign. 2 The paper is divided into two parts. The first is a philological study of royal names that are not preceded by the syllable khri, even though some of the persons are titled bcan po. The survey begins with the evaluation of historical documents that either stem from Central Tibet (inscriptions) or can be proven to have their origins in this region (the Old Tibetan Annals, OTA). It is assumed that these historical sources strictly accorded to official protocols in matters of naming and titulature and therefore constitute a more fundamental corpus for the present study. Following the examination of historical sources, contemporary records composed in Central Asian colonies will be surveyed for their use or omission of khri in imperial titulature. This part concludes with an etymological analysis of the term bcan po and its use in OT sources. The second part of the paper is historical and aims to present a new chronology of the succession to the throne in the Tibetan imperial dynasty. It examines historical documents of the period in the light of the textual and linguistic analyses undertaken in the first part.
The paper is based on primary sources that can be characterized by two criteria: their historical status (historical vs non-historical documents) and their place of origin (Central Tibet vs Central Asian colonies of the Tibetan Empire). There can be no doubt about the historical status of the documents originating in Central Tibet, but the status of the remaining records might require some justification. Since a detailed survey of each and every document is not possible here, 3 I restrict myself to presenting more general arguments in favour of their historical validity.
All the documents were originally written in OLT and therefore represent the non-translatory branch of OT literature. They were undoubtedly written during the Tibetan Empire (between 764 (Źol) and c. 850), which is confirmed by their language and content. Moreover, they share their phraseology and, as I will argue, agree in the application of strict rules to the use of official titles, rules that were apparently no longer recognized in post-imperial times. The paper puts forward coherence in the application of official titles as one of the indicators that can help us to validate OT documents. Irrespective of their individual subject matter (historical, historiographical, religious, administrative, etc.), the sources used in the paper all make references to historical personages (bcan pos or members of the royal family) and places. Such references can hardly be justified if one presumes the documents were composed in Central Asia after the fall of the Tibetan Empire; the contemporaneousness of the Tibetan Empire is the raison d'être for the existence of the records (see also Zeisler 2016: 468, 484f.). Even though it has been demonstrated that Tibetan language remained in use in Central Asia after the fall of the Tibetan Empire, the subject matter of the texts identified as post-imperial differs considerably from that of the texts discussed in the paper. 4 Neither do we have unambiguously dated post-imperial documents comparable in their content and language to those under discussion; for instance, the pillar inscription of Rgyal-lug-lhas, tentatively dated to 1012 by Richardson (1957: 65), markedly diverges in its linguistic traits and thematic interests from the imperial inscriptions. 5 Any hypothesis arguing for the post-imperial date of the sources used in the paper would have to indicate persons or institutions that could have had not only (propagandic) interest but also financial means to sponsor the literary activity of the circles in Central Asia that were primarily concerned with composing eulogies to the Tibetan royal family or creating prayers dedicated to Tibetan bcan pos. There is no reason why any of the non-Tibetan rulers in Central Asia should commission such works after the demise of the Tibetan polity and should even pay the scribes for writing eulogies to its rulers. As long as no alternative politicohistorical context has been offered and convincingly argued, the traditional view, dating the documents to the imperial period, has to be preferred.

I. (Lack of) khri in official titles 6
Before presenting the historical data, I shall make some lexical observations on the syllable khri. Its most general lexical meaning was "a ceremonial (raised) seat for a distinguished person". The syllable also formed part of the throne-title of legitimately established rulers of the Tibetan Empire. One notes the semantic proximity of khri, which was added to the name at the enthronement (see below), and the etymology of Eng. enthronement. The fact that setting a new ruler on the "throne" in the Tibetan Empire was a part of the ceremony of choosing a new ruler is additionally supported by the phrase rgyal sa nas phab "overthrew from the throne" (cf. example (3) below). The word khri was used as a throne-title and in this case did not denote the object on which the bcan po was seated. The latter was clearly referred to as rgyal sa.
Tibetan khri has cognates in other Trans-Himalayan (TH) languages (see STEDT #335). The data suggests that the primary meaning of their etymon might have been *"foot". The semantic shift from *"foot" to "(raised) seat" finds its parallel, for instance, in Eng. pedestal/Ger. Piedestal, Eng. podium/ Ger. Podium, Ger. Podest, all ultimately derived from Lat. pēs "foot" or Gr. podós "id." Tucci (1947: 310, fn. 8) recognized khri as a title bestowed on a bcan po with the ascension to the throne. On the other hand, Hummel and Zeisler, discussing the lexical meanings of the term, rejected any connection between the use of khri in regnal names and the meaning "(raised) seat". Hummel saw its origin in the language of the Źaṅ-źuṅ people. Accordingly, he maintained that the word was an equivalent of OLT sems and proposed translating it as "a being" (Ger. 5 For the text of the inscription, see Richardson 1957: 66f. 6 The Tibetan script is transliterated according to the principles put forward in Bialek 2020b. Tibetan proper names are hyphenated in order to enhance their readability in the text flow. If not otherwise stated, passages quoted from OT sources have been transliterated by the author on the basis of scans made available on the IDP and Gallica. The OLT orthography is strictly followed. The "reversed gi gu" is transliterated as ī. No distinction is made between a single and a double cheg in the transliteration. The passages from Tibetan texts have been translated by myself. Hummel 1993: 240). 7 Zeisler (2015: 758) proposed reconstructing the meaning of khri as *"star". She objected to the translation "throne", "for [it] does not really make sense in the names of archaic tribal leaders" (ibid.: 758). 8 Neither Hummel's nor Zeisler's interpretations account for the cultural usage of khri in the name-changing ceremony of bcan pos.
In his illuminating paper Brandon Dotson (2015) investigated Tibetan practices related to the naming of people. His main focus was on the naming of the bcan pos in the imperial period. Dotson argued that name-giving was "a central part of the Tibetan royal accession" (ibid., p. 8) or even that "the phrase 'naming the king' is the appropriate Tibetan equivalent of 'coronation'" (ibid., p. 11). According to Dotson, renaming by adding the syllable khri to the proper name was one of the means by which an heir was recognized as a rightful ruler, i.e. the bcan po. All the persons called "bcan po + khri + PROPER NAME" are known (also from foreign sources) to have ruled Tibet and there is no doubt about that. The present paper draws the obvious conclusion from Dotson's work in asserting that if khri was univocal with enthronement, the lack of khri meant no enthronement.

Central Tibetan documents
One finds the following forms of address devoid of khri ( To these one can also add: bcan po khri sroṅ lde brcan daṅ lde sroṅ yab sras Rkoṅ 1 which can be interpreted as "bcan po, Khri Sroṅ-lde-brcan and [bcan po] Lde-sroṅ, father and son". Below I shall briefly comment on the above forms of address. Ɣo-lde Spu-rgyal was a legendary person, so one can omit him from the discussion. The titles with which his name is provided in the documents are 7 Hummel's study is utterly ahistorical. Neither is it clear whether he understood khri in names like Ña-khri or Śa-khri as identical with khri at the head of regnal names of historical personages. 8 Zeisler overlooked two facts: 1. cognates of OLT khri are well attested in TH languages and the primary meaning seems to have been *"foot"; and 2. the more general meaning of khri was "(raised) seat" and not necessarily "throne" (for other CT meanings, see J: 50a). Zeisler's "stellar interpretation" of khri was based on an incorrect reading of a passage from PT 1038 (for its critical assessment, see Bialek 2018a: 2.569, fn. 3). For khri in titles of later times, compare khri čhen and khri pa used by Buddhist hierarchs.
From this laconic account we can infer that Lha-bal-pho acceded to the throne illegally, without the necessary ceremonies that accompanied the enthronement, and for that reason was not addressed with khri. On the one hand, the kinship term gčen "elder brother" is used and, on the other, Lha-bal-pho is called bcan po. One also notices that Khri Ɣdus-sroṅ died in the winter of 704/5, whereas Lha-bal-po was removed from the throne in the summer of 705/6. It follows that the latter remained on the throne for no longer than six months. 9 We know 9 According to Tongdian 通典, a compendium of knowledge written by Do You from 766 to 801, a certain 乞梨拔布 Qi-li-ba-bu died in 705/6 and his son 乞梨弩悉笼, Qi-li-nu-xi-long, who was then seven years old, ascended the throne (Beckwith 2003(Beckwith [1983: 279f., fn. 9; Petech 1988: 1087). Qi-li-nu-xi-lung transcribes Khri Ɣdus-sroṅ, whereas the syllables ba bu in Qi-li-ba-bu have been reconstructed as: Pulleyblank (1991) Schuessler (2007 Baxter and Sagart (2014) 拔 bá Y. paˊ, L. pɦaːt, E. bəɨt/bɛːt LH bɑs, OCM *bâts MC beat, OC *b ʕ <r>ot 布 bù Y. puˋ, L. puəˋ, E. pɔ h LH pɑ C , OCM *pâh MC puH, OC *p ʕ a-s Beckwith (2003Beckwith ( [1983), followed by Petech (1988Petech ( : 1087, reconstructed Qi-li-ba-bu as *Khri Bal-po, which is plausible but creates two problems: 1. *Khri Bal-po is otherwise not known as ruler; and 2. the syllable khri indicates that he must have been enthroned. The account is certainly distorted, for Khri Ɣdus-sroṅ was not the son of Qi-li-ba-bu if the latter should be identified with Lha-bal-po. On the other hand, Jiu Tangshu reports that it was Khri Lde-gcug-rcan who was enthroned at the age of seven (Bushell 1880: 456;Pelliot 1961: 12). The validity of Tongdian is additionally impugned by the from Chinese sources that the succession to the throne after the death of Khri Ɣdus-sroṅ was disputed among rivalrous heirs and their supporters. 10 History was more favourable to Rgyal-gcug-ru who eventually became the next bcan po. Lhas-bon is only spoken of in the context of his death: (4) sras lhas bon dron na bźugs / bźugs (282) pa las noṅs / (ITJ 750) The son Lhas-bon, upon abiding in Dron, passed away. (5) bcan po sras lhas bon daṅ / bcan mo khoṅ čo gñīs gyī (288) mdad btaṅ / (ITJ 750) [One] prepared the funeral for both the bcan po, the son Lhas-bon, and bcan mo Khoṅ-čo.
Lhas-bon must have been the heir to the throne, since in (5) he is called bcan po sras. 11 It seems that he died very young (his birth is not recorded), long before he could have been enthroned; the rightful ruler was then (i.e. in the years 739-42) Khri Lde-gcug-rcan who ruled well into the 750s. Lhas-bon's mother was ǰo mo Khri-bcun 12 whose funeral is reported in the year 745/6 (ITJ 750: 302).
Of Rgyal-gcug-ru, Sroṅ-lde-brcan, and Lde-sroṅ, we know that they later became rulers and their names were changed to Khri Lde-gcug-rcan, Khri Sroṅ-lde-brcan, and Khri Lde-sroṅ-brcan respectively: statement that Qi-li-ba-bu was the grandson of Khri Sroṅ-rcan who succeeded him to the throne in 650 (Petech 1988(Petech : 1087. In the OTA, Lha-bal-pho is called gčen, whereas Rgyal-gcug-ru (alias Khri Lde-sroṅ-rcan) is referred to as sras. In Bialek (2021a: 18) I have argued that kinterms were used with reference to the ruling bcan po up to his funeral. This means that gčen and sras (both occurring in the summer of 705/6) had the same point of reference, a person for whom Lha-bal-pho was an elder brother, but Rgyal-gcug-ru a son. Analysing the use of kinterms in the OTA, I have concluded that Lha-bal-pho must have been an elder brother of Khri Ɣdus-sroṅ (born to Khri Maṅ-slon Maṅ-rcan and Maṅ-paṅs) and so could not have been a legitimate ruler (Bialek 2021a: 14f.). In this case the OTA are correct in not calling Lha-bal-pho khri, but the sophisticated rules governing the succession to the throne in the Tibetan Empire were not well understood by the Chinese who, hearing of an enthronement, added khri to his name, producing Qi-li-ba-bu. Lha-bal-pho must have been enthroned (or better: put on the throne) because in (3) we read that he was overthrown from the throne (rgyal sa), but his enthronement was illegal and therefore the lack of the title khri. Alternatively, he might have received the title khri from his supporters (as suggested in Ch. Qi-li-ba-bu), but the official Tibetan chroniclers omitted it due to him being a usurper. According to this hypothesis, however, his throne name would have been *Khri Bal-po, which considerably diverges from all the other throne names of the epoch (see Table 1, Appendix). 10 Cf. Bushell 1880: 456;Pelliot 1961: 12. The events are also alluded to in the OTA when in 705/6 a revolt is recorded (ITJ 750: 150-2). 11 The appositional phrase bcan po sras "bcan po, the son" should be distinguished from the determinative bcan poɣi sras "bcan po's son"; see Bialek 2021a: 17. 12 Post-imperial sources address Khri-bcun with the title lǰaṅ mo (cf. Haarh 1969: 56). I interpret the title ǰo mo as referring to the first consort of a bcan po after she had given birth to an heir to the throne (see OTD). lǰaṅ mo is a later folk etymology, which fact is confirmed by the morphology of the title: lǰaṅ mo instead of the expected *lǰaṅ bzaɣ (compare other titles listed by Haarh). Moreover, Khri-bcun is a typical Tibetan name and since other foreign princesses are always called by their birth names transcribed in OLT we have no reason to presume that she was a foreign princess.
None of the preserved historical sources documents the name-giving ceremony of Khri Lde-sroṅ-brcan. In these three cases it can be reasonably argued that their previous names were pre-regnal and were replaced at the moment of their enthronement. 13

Central Asian documents
In no known OT document is the name Ɣwuɣi-dun-brtan prefixed with khri. 14 This is also true for PT 134 on which Richardson asserted "Khri-ɣuɣi-dum-brcan [sic] is the beneficiary of a long prayer in PT 134" (1998bPT 134" ( [1992. In fact, the document begins with the following formula: bcan po lha sras ɣwuɣi dun brtan kyi sku yon du bsṅo baɣi smon lam du gsol paɣ (l. 1). The name recurs in the penultimate line of the text as bcan po ɣwuī dun brtan. The syllable khri was evidently added by Richardson but is not attested in the text; Yamaguchi (1996: 253) did the same without stating his reasons. The last and unfortunately incomplete sentence of PT 1286 informs us that Ɣwuɣi-dun-brtan was a younger brother of Khri Gcug-lde-brcan (l. 69) and thus could not have legitimately succeeded the latter; because Khri Gcug-lde-brcan had been enthroned (khri), only his son could have succeeded him. 15 Yet another OT document reads: lha sras khri ɣod sruṅs brcan yum [s]r[as] (PT 230: 7). 16 Therefore, according to the disclosed patterns of the official imperial nomenclature, the names Ɣwuɣi-dun-brtan and Khri Ɣod-sruṅs-brcan indicate that the former was not enthroned whereas the latter was enthroned as a legitimate ruler.
13 See Dotson 2015: 9. 14 One finds two variants of his name in OLT: Ɣwuɣi-dun-brtan (PT 134) and Ɣuɣi-dum-brtan (PT 1286). The second syllable can be reconstructed as *dun; -n assimilated to -m before bilabial b-: -n > -m / -_ σ b-. The alternation ɣw-∼ ɣ-, unless a scribal error, is known from ɣwa ∼ ɣo "fox" in ɣwa/ɣo dom "fox-pendant" (PT 1071 and PT 1072, passim). The vowel o in ɣo might have resulted from assimilation to dom; a hypothesis not considered in previous studies (see Coblin 1994;Hill 2006). I will use the form Ɣwuɣi-dun-brtan as it seems to be the older variant. The address rgyal po qu rum dpal (PT 83: 8.11) certainly does not refer to Ɣwuɣi-dun-brtan as suggested by Richardson (1998bRichardson ( [1992: 190). 15 In this context one may recall the rules of succession in the Ladakhi kingdom: according to the Ladakhi Chronicle, the succession to the throne was always from father to son (Petech 1939: 17). The Buddhist stories that justify the regicide of Ɣwuɣi-dun-brtan may be an attempt to explain the murder of an illegitimate ruler; they have transferred his unlawful status as a ruler to the sphere of religion, claiming his departure from Buddhism. Ɣwuɣi-dun-brtan was unrighteous not in a Buddhist sense but in terms of law of royal succession. 16 Chinese sources provide his name as Qi-li-hu (Bushell 1880: 523;Pelliot 1961: 134), the first two syllables of which render OLT khri (Richardson 1998e [1971: 49; Beckwith 1993: 169, fn. 167). For its analysis, see section Khri Ɣod-sruṅs-brcan below.
But the issue is not as straightforward as presented above. The following formulas are attested in OT records: Presuming that these documents follow the official naming-protocol, it is conspicuous that Ɣwuɣi-dun-brtan is titled bcan po. 17 On the other hand, Khri Ɣod-sruṅs-brcan is not called bcan po, but the syllable khri (and -brcan) informs us that he ascended the throne (Richardson 1998e [1971(Richardson 1998e [ ]: 50 and 1998f [1988: 108). 18 The above analysis is based on the assumption that PT 134 and PT 230 conformed to the official naming-protocol. The texts could have been written in different circles that supported one or other pretendant to the throne, and so may be irreconcilable. An alternative hypothesis will be presented below.
In this connection I would like to draw attention to yet another significant occurrence of the formula "bcan po + PROPER NAME" discussed in more detail by Dotson (2007b: 8ff.). In the so-called Ɣphaṅ thaṅ ma catalogueapparently a document originally composed in the imperial perioda certain bcan po Mu-rug-bcan is attributed a commentary on Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra. 19 Mu-rug-brcan is called elder brother (gčen) of bcan po Khri Lde-sroṅ-brcan 17 He is also given the title bcan po in the Ɣphaṅ thaṅ ma catalogue; see below and Halkias 2004: 82. 18 The syllable brcan was spelled rcan in the names of the first bcan pos, but changed its form to brcan from Khri Sroṅ-lde-brcan onwards (see also van Schaik and Doney 2007: 183f.; Dotson and Helman-Ważny 2016: 126, fn. 104). (The assumed variant bcan in the Brag inscription is a misreading by Heller (1997: 389) as recently observed in Bialek 2021a: 27, fn. 68). Two possible explanations can be put forward: 1. The initial bmight have been added by analogy with bcan in bcan po; or 2. The etymological form brcan was enforced in consequence of standardization of orthography. I suggest the following development: the etymological form was rcan-and its basic meaning was "mighty" (the complex onset brc-does not occur in non-verbal etymons); owing to the military expansion of the polity, the syllable received b-by analogy with bcan po yielding brcan-. In the last step, it merged with bcan-the only variant known in CT sources for the word "mighty". The distribution of rcan vs brcan in the royal names seems to have had a temporal frame and was not triggered by the phonetic environment of the syllable. However, this alone does not suffice to date a document for, as remarked by Dotson and Helman-Ważny (2016: 126, fn. 104), not all texts attest to a coherent use of either rcan or brcan. Texts which have only bcan for earlier brcan are late in absolute dating, but those that use (b)rcan are not necessarily earlier owing to the conservatism and a tendency to use archaisms typical of written languages (the oldest dated occurrence of brcan is attested in ITJ 750: 291 for 742/3). bcan-for the etymological rcan-must not be confused with bcan in bcan po which, as I demonstrate in this paper, had a distinct etymon. As I will show below, the principles governing the use of the title bcan po rule out any connection with the word rcan-"mighty". Finally, the former was a noun and the latter an adjective; this explains their seemingly complementary distribution in OT records. 19 ɣphags pa dgoṅs pa ṅes par ɣgrel paɣi mdo bśad pa bcan po mu rug bcan gyis mȷad (Halkias 2004: 83); see also Halkias (2004: 56f.).
Mu-rug-brcan was still perceived as the heir to the throne; 22 2. The passage that mentions bcan po Mu-rug-bcan was compiled during the reign of Khri Sroṅ-lde-brcan (when the assumed commentary was written) and repeated in a later re-edited work; or 3. The catalogue was compiled after the fall of the Tibetan Empire and the royal naming-protocol was not observed any more.
Since we know that the Ɣphaṅ thaṅ ma catalogue was composed rather late, 23 only the second and third options can be considered correct. The titulature used in Ɣphaṅ thaṅ ma evinces serious revisions of the text so that no secure dating of the original can be proposed; cf.: 1. Mu-rug-bcan instead of OLT Mu-rug-brcan (Źwa W); 2. Dbaɣ-dun-brtan (Halkias 2004: 57) for OLT Ɣwuɣi-dun-brtan and Ɣuɣi-dum-brtan (see above); 24 3. The use of the title rgyal po: rgyal po lha sras sroṅ bcan sgam po and ɣphrul gyi rgyal po khri sroṅ lde bcan (Halkias 2004: 64). 25 One notices, however, a significant incoherence: the title rgyal po is used in the colophon (Halkias 2004: 64) but in the body of the catalogue we find: bcan po Khri Sroṅ-lde-bcan (ibid., p. 80), bcan po Dbaɣ-dun-brtan (p. 82), and bcan po Mu-rug-bcan (p. 83). It follows that large parts of the catalogue were re-edited in post-imperial times but there are still linguistic features that indicate its imperial provenance.
The above survey has concentrated on the names of bcan pos that lacked the syllable khri. The latter formed part of a regnal name and its bestowal constituted an important element of the enthronement ceremony. The custom is reflected in OT historical documents but its remnants can likewise be traced in non-historical records that were re-edited in post-imperial times. This finding has far-reaching consequences for the reconstruction of the royal dynasty: persons whose names are never provided with the title khri were not legitimate (i.e. enthroned) rulers. This concerns such widely discussed personages as Lha-bal-pho, Mu-rug-brcan, or Ɣwuɣi-dun-brtan, to mention just the most famous ones. Now one can reasonably ask: why were they nevertheless called bcan po?
The following cases of bcan pos who were not khri have been collected from historical documents dating back to the Empire:  Uray 1989: 15 andDotson 2007b: 2ff.). Yamaguchi (1996: 243) dated the Ɣphaṅ thaṅ ma catalogue to a period after the reign of Ɣwuɣi-dun-brtan. The latter is mentioned in the text. 24 The replacement of the OLT ɣwby db-in the name of Khri Gcug-lde-brcan's brother might indicate that the former was pronounced as [w]. 25 Since the catalogue was published only in modern printed letters (Halkias 2004: 58f.) and no reproduction has been made available thus far, it is also possible that some of the changes in spelling were added by the editor. †bcan po Lhas-bon ITJ 750: 287 *bcan po Sroṅ-lde-brcan ITJ 750: 291 bcan po Ɣwuɣi-dun-brtan PT 134: 1, Ɣphaṅ thaṅ ma †bcan po Mu-rug-bcan Ɣphaṅ thaṅ ma Some of them were later enthroned and acquired the title khri (these are marked with *). Some might have been foreordained to become bcan pos by virtue of their primogeniture, but never succeeded to the throne (marked with †). In texts they are additionally referred to by a kinterm, either sras or gčen, depending on their kin relation to the ruling bcan po. 26 But of Ɣwuɣi-dun-brtan, a younger brother of Khri Gcug-lde-brcan, we know that under normal circumstances he would never have ascended the throne (he is also never titled khri).
Why are all these persons (leaving aside Ɣo-lde Spu-rgyal) called bcan po? And why is Khri Ɣod-sruṅs-brcan, despite the title khri, never addressed as bcan po? Apparently the rules for the application, and thus also the distribution, of the titles bcan po and khri differed.

bcan po
The solution might lie in the etymology of the term bcan po. The latter has almost unanimously been understood as a mere title, i.e. devoid of lexical meaning, and has usually been related to CT bcan "mighty". However, its true nature was already alluded to early in the history of Tibetan studies by Francke (1914: 51): "In Ladakh the title or name bcan, bcan-po, would indicate that a certain person was descended from the royal family". This description certainly applies to all persons called bcan po in OT documents. I think that the connotation with the royal family had its origin in the etymology of the lexeme. Zeisler (2011: 109) proposed deriving bcan from the verb root √ʦa, although it was Benedict (1942: 321) who first related the CT verb bcaɣ to cha "offspring"; he also provided a list of further potential cognates. Due to its semantics the verb was not inflected for all stems, but formed only two: ACT/PFV bcas (v2) and DPASS bcaɣ (v3). 27 The verb is glossed in CT dictionaries under the latter form with the meaning "to bear, to bring forth" (J: 434b). I assume that bcan was derived from v3 bcaɣ, lit. "was born/brought forth" (Ger. "wurde geboren"), by means of the adjectival suffix -n, so that the etymological meaning of bcan can be reconstructed as *"born/brought forth" (cf. Eng. born < to bear). 28 The formation bcan po denoted a male descendant (lit. "born-he"), and bcan mo a female one (lit. "born-she"). Thus, bcan po and bcan mo denoted a male and a female offspring of the royal family and could be translated as "scion" and "scioness", respectively. 26 In Bialek (2021a) I argued that the currently reigning bcan po was the point of reference (ego) for the use of kinterms within the royal family. 27 See Bialek (2020a) for the inflectional morphology of OLT verbs. The verb root √ʦa was most probably a denominal stem derived from cha "offspring". 28 Zeisler's (2011: 109f.) explanation of the morphology of bcan differs from the one presented here. As opposed to Dotson's assumption that "all of the Tibetan ladies referred to as bcan mothat is, excluding in-marrying foreign princessesappear to be sisters of the reigning emperor" (Dotson 2009: 119, fn. 294), we actually have no historical evidence concerning their kin relations to the royal family. 29 Zeisler (2011: 110) assumed that bcan po denoted only an offspring of the heir-bearing mother. But this seems to clash with the fact that Mu-rug-brcan was called bcan po but was born to a different mother from the actual successor Khri Lde-sroṅ-brcan. The same objection most probably applies to Lha-bal-pho. I think it more secure to assume that bcan po and bcan mo denoted legal (i.e. officially recognized) offspring of an enthroned bcan po. 30 Now a clearer picture emerges: bcan po denoted a legal son of a Tibetan ruler, whereas khri was a title bestowed on the heir to the throne during the enthronement ceremony. The second part of the paper is an attempt at a new chronology of the dynastic line which includes these new insights.

II. Tibetan imperial dynasty
Considering together the conventions in language use that have been revealed with respect to the postpositions riṅ la and sku riṅ la (Bialek 2018b), kinterms of the royal family (Bialek 2021a), and the bestowal of the title khri discussed in the present paper, we can put forward a new chronology of succession to the throne in the Tibetan imperial dynasty. Table 1, arranged chronologically, juxtaposes known pre-regnal names with regnal names. 31 Khri Stag-bu, Khri Slon-bcan, and Guṅ-sroṅ Guṅ-rcan were active in the pre-historical period and therefore nothing certain can be said about the dates of their births and deaths because no documents have been preserved from before 650. The birth and death of Khri Sroṅ-rcan, Khri Maṅ-sloṅ Maṅ-rcan, Khri Ɣdus-sroṅ, Khri Lde-gcug-rcan, and Khri Sroṅ-lde-brcan can be partly established on the basis of the OTA. For the remaining bcan pos, inscriptional but also post-imperial evidence has to be included in the analysis.
In what follows, I will present arguments that support the reconstructed line of succession. For data not supplied by OT sources, post-imperial historiographies 29 The only clear case is Sad-mar-kar called bcan mo in PT 1287: 399, who was a sister of bcan po Khri Sroṅ-rcan. But PT 1287 is not a historical text and it is uncertain to what extent it followed the official naming protocol of the royal family (see also the next footnote). 30 This is of course an etymological explanation, and the real use of the terms might have changed over the course of time, first of all for bcan mo. For instance, in the OTA the term was applied to three foreign princesses: bcan mo Mun-čaṅ Koṅ-čo, bcan mo ga tun, and bcan mo Kim-śaṅ Khoṅ-čo. The Chinese princesses were not imperial daughters (Pelliot 1961: 13, 83, 95-6). 31 The bracketed names are supplemented from Central Asian documents. Lists of royal succession which reflect differing views on the chronology of Tibetan bcan pos can be found, e.g., in Li and Coblin 1987: 25ff., Tucci (1947) demonstrated the general validity of bcan pos' birth and death dates which are provided in post-imperial sourcesin order to arrive at the correct date one should consider only the data of the duodenary animal cycle and disregard other elements of the sexagenary cycle. Nevertheless, this approach does not always lead to correct results, and there is frequent disagreement between authors. 35 Chinese histories like Jiu Tangshu "Old Book of Tang" and Xin Tangshu "New Book of Tang" are another source of information. 36 Although they usually supply very detailed dates (including the day and month) one must not forget that these are the dates the particular information was delivered to the Chinese court and not the dates of the events. 37 Khri Sroṅ-rcan The date of birth of Khri Sroṅ-rcan remains unknown and has long been a matter of speculation. 38 If we agree that his grandson Khri Maṅ-slon Maṅ-rcan was 32 Cf. bcan po khri stag bu (= Stag-bu Sña-gzigs of other sources) in PT 1144: v3 and v4. 33 Cf. bcan po yab khri slon bcan in PT 1287: 83, 180, 184, 291. The bestowal of the titles bcan po and khri on Stag-bu and Slon-bcan may be an anachronism, but at the same time confirms the existence of the convention in the official titulature at the time of the text composition. 34 The Appendix provides an overview of the sources examined. 35 The best illustration of the complicated nature of post-imperial sources is Uray's (1989) survey on the dating of the Vyutpatti-Treatises and the "Great Revision". His study revealed great confusion among Tibetan historiographers concerning even the most basic information like the order of succession to the throne and the names of the bcan pos. However, if we look at the table in the Appendix to this paper we discover an interesting pattern: later historiographical sources provide correct duodenary dates for events that are recorded in the OTA (grey cells), but seldom for any other. 36 I have used the translations of Bushell (1880) and Pelliot (1961). One should not forget that, even though based on contemporary accounts, both histories took shape in the tenth and eleventh centuries (Petech 1994: 649). 37 Imaeda 2012: 114. 38 Cf., e.g., Yamaguchi 1970: 85ff.;Richardson 1998d ;Hazod 2000;Dotson 2007a: 59ff.

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born in 638 (he must have been born before 647, see below), then Khri Sroṅ-rcan must have been born not later than at the end of the sixth or the very beginning of the seventh century. Richardson's estimation that the year of his birth should have been somewhere between 609 and 613 (1998d [1965]: 6) is untenable because it would give an average of 18 or even 16 years for Khri Sroṅ-rcan and Guṅ-sroṅ Guṅ-rcan to have become fathers (e.g. Khri Maṅ-slon Maṅ-rcan was certainly more than 27 years old and Khri Ɣdus-sroṅ was 29 years old when their heirs were born in 676 and 704 respectively, but Khri Sroṅ-lde-brcan was 19 when his first son was born in 760/1). 39 Hazod (2000, esp. 175, fn. 4) and Dotson (2007a: 61f.) proposed the ox year 605 for the birth of Khri Sroṅ-rcan, 40 which I consider the latest possible date, although 593 seems to me the most plausible date (Bialek 2021b: 359f.). Concerning the death of Khri Sroṅ-rcan (recorded in PT 1288: 15), Richardson, based on Chinese sources, opted for the first months of 650 (1998a [1965]: 7) which correspond to the last months of the hen year 649/50 (PT 1288: 15).

Khri Maṅ-slon Maṅ-rcan
Post-imperial historiographical sources agree that Khri Maṅ-slon Maṅ-rcan was born in a dog year. Because his father Guṅ-sroṅ Guṅ-rcan died not later than in 647, it follows that Khri Maṅ-slon Maṅ-rcan must have been born in 638, otherwise he would have been 17 in 644 or 20 in 647 when his father died (see above) and could have taken over the government; instead, his grandfather Khri Sroṅ-rcan reigned again. One can speculate that Khri Sroṅ-rcan abdicated after the son was born to Guṅ-sroṅ Guṅ-rcan, securing the dynasty. Khri Maṅ-slon Maṅ-rcan must have been enthroned in 649/50 for in the record for the year 650/1 he is already referred to by his regnal name (PT 1288: 18) and no name-giving ceremony is alluded to. At the time of his enthronement he must have been at least nine years old, for otherwise he would not have been enthroned immediately after the death of Khri Sroṅ-rcan -Khri Ɣdus-sroṅ and Khri Lde-gcug-rcan were not enthroned until they reached the age of about nine (see sections Khri Ɣdus-sroṅ and Khri Lde-gcug-rcan below). 44 This argument also supports the hypothesis that Khri Maṅ-slon Maṅ-rcan was born in 638. He died in the winter of the rat year 676/7 (ITJ 750: 66-7).
Khri Ɣdus-sroṅ Khri Ɣdus-sroṅ was born in the winter of the rat year 676/7 (ITJ 750: 67), bestowed the title khri in the winter of the hen year 685/6 (ITJ 750: 92-3), and died on a military campaign in the winter of the dragon year 704/5 (ITJ 750: 148). Chinese sources state that he took over the reign at the age of eight (Bushell 1880: 451;Pelliot 1961: 9) which confirms the association of the name-changing ceremony with the enthronement.
Khri Lde-gcug-rcan Khri Lde-gcug-rcan was born in the spring of the dragon year 704/5 (ITJ 750: 146) and bestowed the title khri in the summer of the rat year 712/3 (ITJ 750: 185-6). According to Chinese sources, he took over the reign at the age of seven (Bushell 1880: 456;Pelliot 1961: 12 and 95) which again alludes to the name-changing ceremony of 712/3. In post-imperial sources the opinion prevails that Khri Lde-gcug-rcan died in a horse year, which would correspond to 754. 45 Khri Sroṅ-lde-brcan Khri Sroṅ-lde-brcan was born in the horse year 742/3 (ITJ 750: 291-2) and bestowed the title khri in the summer of the monkey year 756/7 (Or.8212/ 187: 17) after some turbulent years of internal fights (Or.8212/187: 12-3; Źol S 5-20). His death and the succession to the throne are immersed in a fog of 44 The number nine has symbolic value in Tibetan culture and therefore might have played a role here as well; see most recently Huber (2020.1: 65 and 2: 19-20). 45 The swine year of Ldeɣu-ǰo-sras and Mkhas-pa-ldeɣu (see Appendix) would correspond to 747/8 (ITJ 750: 307) or 759/60. Neither of these dates is compatible with other historical facts and therefore the swine year can be dismissed. In 755/6 the OTA-II address Khri Lde-gcug-rcan as yab "father" (Or.8212/187: 12), but this account is retrospective and it is apparent that by that time Khri Lde-gcug-rcan was no more alive since his funeral is not recorded in the sources.

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confusing information. Chinese sources report on three deaths of Tibetan bcan pos in this order: 804, 797, and 798 (Bushell 1880: 506, 510-1;Pelliot 1961: 67, 123, 124). The years 797 and 803 or 804that recur in later Tibetan and Chinese sources as marking changes on the Tibetan thronecould correspond to the abdication year of Khri Sroṅ-lde-brcan and his death respectively. 46 The abdication of Khri Sroṅ-lde-brcan is a recurring topic in later historiographical works (for an overview, see Richardson 1952: 141ff. andHaarh 1960: 122f.). Imperial sources do not support the hypothesis of another bcan po ruling between Khri Sroṅ-lde-brcan and Khri Lde-sroṅ-brcan. In my opinion, the former, after some internal disturbances caused by Mu-rug-brcan, directly ceded power to his son Khri Lde-sroṅ-brcan. It seems that Tibetan authors writing in later times did not understand the nuances of the imperial official language: neither the distinction between riṅ la "during the reign" and sku riṅ la "during the lifetime", 47 nor the significance of the enthronement ceremony intrinsically (or even tautologically) bound to the bestowal of the title khri on the rightful ruler were still recognized. This has brought about the proliferation of bcan pos and the necessity to explain their mutual relations. The inevitable language change (not considered as a factor by Tibetan historiographers in their discussions of old sources) might be blamed for the inconsistencies encountered. Uray's (1989: 5ff.) concise summary may serve as an example: he provides the names and the order of succession of Tibetan bcan pos at the beginning of the ninth century according to later Tibetan historiographical sources. By-and-large a great conundrum prevails. 48 Regarding Chinese sources, one citation from Haarh suffices to discredit their reliability for the discussed period: "For the period from the embassy in the beginning of 797 AD till the summer 803 AD, the Chinese sources show no record of diplomatic relations between the two countries." (1960: 136;cf. also Demiéville 1952: 323, fn. 1 andRichardson 1952: 145f.). Haarh's own analysis must be treated with caution since he did not include OT documents as his sources, apart from a brief quotation of the OTA (p. 152). Zu-zhi-jian, the assumed successor of Khri Sroṅ-lde-brcan in 797, according to Chinese sources (Bushell 1880: 506;Pelliot 1961: 123), was clearly not titled khri by the Chinese. The same sources refer, for instance, to Khri Sroṅ-lde-brcan as Ji-li-su-long-lie-zan and to Khri Gcug-lde-brcan as Ke-li-ke-zu. The first two syllables of the Chinese equivalents, Ji-li and Ke-li, transcribe the regnal title khri. A transcription of this title is visibly missing from the name Zu-zhi-jian which can in no way be a transcription of the name Mu-rug-brcan. Compare also Petech's remark: "In the beginning of the 9th century it might have been pronounced approximately Tsiuk-chih-tsiän. Probably the text is corrupt, because it is impossible to find 46 Cf. Bialek 2021a: 28. 804 as the year of Khri Sroṅ-lde-brcan's death was also accepted by Richardson (1952: 141 The first syllable 足 zú is identical with the last syllable in Ke-li-ke-zu (cf. also Pelliot 1961: 125). My conjecture is that Ch. Zu-zhi-jian reproduces Gcug-lde-brcan who was apparently identified as the acceding bcan po. Khri Gcug-lde-brcan was born in a dog year which might have been 794 and so the Chinese sources mistook him for the acceding bcan po, who was in fact his father, Khri Lde-sroṅ-brcan. 49 Khri Lde-sroṅ-brcan It is traditionally agreed that Khri Lde-sroṅ-brcan was born in a dragon year (which can only be 764, 776, or 788) but no independent evidence confirms that. If, as argued above, Ch. Zu-zhi-jian is a transcription of Gcug-lde-brcan, then the latter must have been born no later than 797, in which case his father must have been at least about twenty years old. 50 This supposition is further supported by the active role Khri Lde-sroṅ-brcan played as Lde-sroṅ in the Rkoṅ inscription, indicating that he had already taken over some official duties. 51 Richardson (1998c: 278), following Tibetan historiographers who almost unanimously dated Khri Lde-sroṅ-brcan's death to a hen year, and analysing the contents of the Ldan 2 inscription, concluded that the bcan po must have died in 817, the year in which his death was also reported to the Chinese (cf. Bushell 1880: 512;Pelliot 1961: 125). 52 Since the date of Khri Gcug-lde-brcan's accession to the throne can be established without doubt as 815 (see next section), Khri Lde-sroṅ-brcan most probably died in the same year. The latter date was also accepted by Dotson (2007a: 416). 49 The identification of Zu-zhi-jian with Gcug-lde-brcan may seem problematic: the Chinese sources use the accession name instead of his birth name. This, however, we observe with any other Tibetan bcan po whose birth is reported. The discrepancies can be explained away by the anachronistic character of Chinese histories. If the identification is correct, the birth of Khri Gcug-lde-brcan in 794 might have been a direct reason for the abdication of Khri Sroṅ-lde-brcanthe succession was secured. Above (see section Khri Maṅ-slon Maṅ-rcan) I have proposed an analogous explanation of the abdication of Khri Sroṅ-rcan. 50 Richarsdon (1952: 148) accepted the year 776. 51 The inscription was composed during the reign of Khri Sroṅ-lde-brcan (Bialek 2021a: 21f.). 52 In Bialek (2021a: 28 and fn. 77) I presented arguments against Richardson's reasoning, pointing out that events related in the Ldan 2 inscription took place in 804 and not in 816 as Richardson assumed.

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Khri Gcug-lde-brcan Grags-pa Rgyal-mchan maintained that Khri Gcug-lde-brcan was 21 when he took over the reign (see Appendix). This would confirm the date of his birth as 794. 53 The beginning of the reign of Khri Gcug-lde-brcan can be calculated on the basis of dates given in the Treaty inscription. The latter identifies the seventh, eighth, and ninth years of his reign as the years of ox (821; E 59), tiger (822; E 63), and hare (823; E 66-7), respectively. This makes 815 the first year of Khri Gcug-lde-brcan's reign (cf. Richardson 1952: 147). His enthronement ceremony is recorded in PT 1290: r2: bcan po mu cu brtan las// khrī gcug lde brcan du mchan gsol "The bcan po was bestowed the name of (lit. as) Khri Gcug-lde-brcan instead of Mu-cu-brtan". 54 After 817, Jiu Tangshu records only one death of a Tibetan bcan po: in 842 (Bushell 1880: 523;Pelliot 1961: 76). Aoki (1955: 77f.) concluded that this information concerns Khri Gcug-lde-brcan, who must have died in the hen year 841, as is almost unanimously maintained by Tibetan historiographers (see Appendix). However, between 831 and 839 Xin Tangshu additionally reports the death of an unnamed bcan po who reigned for about thirty years and was succeeded by his younger brother 達磨 Da-mo (Bushell 1880: 522;Pelliot 1961: 133). The name of the latter can be reconstructed as: Pulleyblank (1991) Schuessler (2007) Baxter and Sagart (2014) 達 dá Y. taˊ, L. tɦat, E. dat LH dɑt, OCM * dât MC dat, OC *[l] ʕ at 磨 mó Y. mɔˊ, L. mua, E. ma LH mâi, OCM *mâi MC ma, OC *m ʕ aj This must have been a transcription of Dar-ma (Aoki 1955: 82). Aoki (1955: 79) remarked that the account of the death of a bcan po in 842 included in Xin Tangshu was copied from Jiu Tangshu. The reference to Dar-ma is absent from the latter work which is older. Furthermore, the person does not bear the title khri. 55 Because Khri Gcug-lde-brcan acceded to the throne in 815, he would have celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of his reign in 844, so could not have reigned for about 30 years in 839. Therefore it seems that the undated information in Xin Tangshu refers to the death of Khri Gcug-lde-brcan and is misplaced chronologically; it should follow the account of the year 839.
Khri Ɣod-sruṅs-brcan 56 After the death of Khri Gcug-lde-brcan the succession to the throne was contested, possibly because no heir was born to him in his lifetime. His younger 53 The edict to the Skar inscription preserved in KhG (ǰa 128v1-130v5) uses the phrase bcan po dbon sras "bcan po, the grandson and son" (129r7). In Bialek (2021a: 23f.) I dated the Skar inscription to the first years (797-804) of the reign of Khri Lde-sroṅ-brcan. The compound dbon sras would therefore confirm that the heir to the throne was already born by that time. 54 The name Mu-cu-brtan does not seem to be attested in other sources. 55 Tibetan bcan pos were renamed some time after their death (Dotson 2015: 2); they obtained posthumous names under which they were known to later generations. "Glaṅ Dar-ma" was most probably such a name. The use of the name Dar-ma in Xin Tangshu would therefore indicate that the information concerning this person came to the ears of Chinese historiographers only after his death. 56 Events that followed the death of Khri Gcug-lde-brcan were discussed in more detail by Richardson 1957Richardson , 1998e [19711998f [1988Petech 1994;Vitali 1996: 541-51;and brother Ɣwuɣi-dun-brtan (PT 1286: 69) seems to have usurped the throne, but there is no trace of his enthronement, either in OT or later works. 57 Above I have argued that Khri Ɣod-sruṅs-brcan was recognized as a legitimate successor of Khri Gcug-lde-brcan and enthroned acquiring the title khri. Tibetan historiographers maintained that Khri Ɣod-sruṅs-brcan took over the reign immediately after the death of Glaṅ-dar-ma (Tucci 1947: 314 and 316). According to Chinese sources Khri Ɣod-sruṅs-brcan, not being a son of Khri Gcug-lde-brcan, succeeded the latter to the throne at the age of three (Bushell 1880: 523;Pelliot 1961: 134). The name of the new bcan po, transcribed as 乞離胡 Qǐ-lí-hú (Pelliot 1961: 134), can be reconstructed as: Pulleyblank (1991) Schuessler (2007) Baxter and Sagart (2014 There can be no doubt that the first two syllables transcribe OLT khri and the last one stands for ɣod. The equation of Qi-li-hu with Yum-brtan (see Petech 1939: 83 and1994: 650) is untenable. Neither can Qi-li-hu render Ɣwuɣi-dun-brtan (see Yamaguchi 1996: 250), for the latter was a younger brother of Khri Gcug-lde-brcan born to the same mother, Lha-rgyal Maṅ-mo-rǰe from the Ɣbro family (PT 1286: 69), and Qi-li-hu is stated to have been three years old around 842 (Bushell 1880: 523;Pelliot 1961: 134). Furthermore, Chinese sources mention neither regicide nor death of another bcan po shortly before or after 842, leaving no doubt that the death reported in 842 must have been that of Khri Gcug-lde-brcan. Apart from PT 1286, three other OT documents are known that mention Khri Ɣod-sruṅs-brcan together with his mother: in PT Yamaguchi 1996. I think that without any external or new evidence such as archaeological finds or discovery of hitherto unknown OT documents, the study of the Tibetan history of the period following the death of Khri Gcug-lde-brcan on the basis of post-imperial works alone is juggling with dates with no foothold in reality. Certainly some of the dates are more plausible than others but we lack an independent benchmark to judge which of them might be the correct ones. 57 His name is prefixed with khri only seldom in post-imperial works, cf.: khri dar ma wi dur brcan (Skyid paɣi g.yuṅ ruṅ du gdugs brdal ma 28.5-6), rgyal po khri glaṅ dar ma dbu dum can (GLR: 97v4), khri dar ma ɣu dum bcan (Stein 1961: 70.10), bcan po khri dar ma gčig dum (Stein 1961: 77.5), khri dar ma ɣu dum bcan (Bu-ston Rin-čhen-grub 1990: 43, fol. 144v5-6, but bcan po glaṅ dar ma ɣu dum bcan in 145v2), khri dar ma ɣuɣi dum bcan (Mes dbon rnam gsum gyi rnam thar by Ñaṅ Ral-pa-čan 132v2-3; apud Sørensen 1994: 409, fn. 1413). As we have seen, the Ɣphaṅ thaṅ ma catalogue calls him bcan po Dbaɣ-dun-brtan (Halkias 2004: 82) whereas the Čhos ɣbyuṅ me tog sñiṅ poɣi sbraṅ rciɣi bčud by Ñaṅ Ral-pa-čan, addresses him as Dar-ma Ɣu-dum-bcan-po (Meisezahl 1985: Tafel 309, fol. 463r1, but khri dar ma ɣu dum bcan in a list of Khri Lde-sroṅ-brcan's sons, Tafel 302, fol. 449v1). For an overview of his names in other post-imperial sources see Haarh (1969: 59f.). For unknown reasons, Yamaguchi (1996: 236, fn. 10), following Satō, contested the brotherly relation between Ɣwuɣi-dun-brtan and Khri Gcug-lde-brcan stating that this view was influenced by Chinese sources. Instead and in conflict with PT 1286, he maintained that the former was the son of the latter (p. 250).
In both cases pho braṅ is preceded by a genitive particle, a fact passed over in silence in previous translations (Tucci 1956: 52, fn. 1;Richardson 1998f [1988Scherrer-Schaub 1991: 432;Petech 1994: 651;Imaeda 1998: 88); only Lalou (1940: 297) accounted for the genitive. The construction "TITLE+NAME of TITLE+NAME" is otherwise not attested in OLT and therefore I read pho braṅ as forming one phrase with ǰo mo bcan mo ɣphan (for examples of the phrase "pho braṅ of TITLE+NAME", see Bialek 2018a: 2.281f.). Because the compounded kinterm yum sras is otherwise used only in apposition with a preceding proper name (see OTDO for examples), I have deleted the preceding genitive particle in PT 999. The phrases are confusing and rather unusual. The reason might be that Ɣod-sruṅs was still a minor and his mother together with their court assumed guardianship of him (that's why she is mentioned first in PT 131 and PT 999). I read bcan mo ɣphan as a proper name because monosyllabic proper names, like *ɣphan, are virtually unknown in OLT (see also Dotson 2015: 3 on di-and, rarely, trisyllabic proper names in Tibetan). It could only be a family name but in the case of a woman one would expect *ɣphan za. Maybe bcan mo ɣphan is a misspelling for *bcan ma ɣphan (cf. Bcan-ma-thog, later spelled also Bcan-mo-tog; see Yamaguchi 1969: 154, fn. 48).
Tucci was possibly the first scholar who conceived of the term pho braṅ as a title, explaining that it (spelled by him as ɣpho braṅ) designated "the second son in a ruling family" (1956: 52, fn. 1). This interpretation was later contested (Vitali 1996: 296, fn. 459;Yamaguchi 1996: 256, fn. 25) but the reading of pho braṅ as a title has been accepted. It is maintained that later in Western Tibet pho braṅ was a title "reserved for those (male) members of the royal family who, after their ordination, had the duty to protect the Buddhist teachings as members of the palace or from the palace" (Jahoda and Kalantari 2015: 85). Jahoda and Kalantari followed Vitali who gave this reading to pho braṅ in the following passage: bar pa bkris ɣod ni dguṅ lo bźi bču pa čhu pho phag gi lo la rab tu byuṅ nas/ pho braṅ byaṅ čhub ɣod du mchan gsol/ (Mṅaɣ ris rgyal rabs; apud Vitali 1996: 62, ll. 7-8) I suggest an alternative interpretation: Regarding the middle one, Bkris-ɣod, after (being 40 years old) [he] had entered the Buddhist order in the male water-swine year, pho braṅ was given the name as Byaṅ-čhub-ɣod.

Compare:
bcan po khrī (93) ɣdu[s] sroṅ du mchan gsold / (ITJ 750) [One] bestowed the bcan po with the name Khri Ɣdus-sroṅ. Yamaguchi 1996: 240). 59 Since in PT 999 it is the mother who is mentioned first, we can conclude that in 844 Khri Ɣod-sruṅs-brcan was still a minor, 60 and secondly, that PT 230 postdates PT 999 and PT 131. Accordingly, the relative dating of the documents can be proposed as: (oldest) PT 134 > PT 999/PT 131 > PT 230 > PT 840 (youngest). All the texts were apparently composed in or around Dunhuang. The phrase bod yoṅs gyi [rgyal] po čhen po (PT 131: 27) presents Khri Ɣod-sruṅs-brcan as a "great king of all Tibetans" and implies that his reign was recognized as far away as Dunhuang, even before his enthronement. Moreover, PT 840, an OT text that mentions both Ɣwuɣi-dun-brtan (alias Dar-ma) and Khri Ɣod-sruṅs-brcan (alias Ɣod-srus [sic]), does not show any traces of enmity between the two and instead "emphatically states that Buddhism was in full swing in the Land of Snow" (Karmay 1998(Karmay -2005 during their lifetime. 61 The textmost probably the oldest witness of the name Dar-malike PT 134 undermines later Buddhist narrations about the fights that followed the death of Khri Gcug-lde-brcan and the alleged persecution of the Buddhist community and institutions. 62 From what has been said, the following scenario can be sketched: Khri Gcug-lde-brcan died in 841 leaving no heir to the throne. His younger brother Ɣwuɣi-dun-brtan took over the reign but resigned or was compelled to resign soon after Khri Ɣod-sruṅs-brcan was born in 841. It is indeed surprising that Khri Gcug-lde-brcan did not have male descendants. If he died in 841, then he It is difficult for me to see any cultural or linguistic motivation behind the alleged semantic shift " 1 court; 2 residence, palace" > "TITLE of a human", even more so as the word is still attested dialectally even in western Tibet with the meaning "palace" (CDTD: 5192). Therefore I suspect that pho braṅ "palace" was used metonymically for the ruler rather than as his title; compare Buckingham Palace or the Palace which is commonly used metonymically to refer to the British royal family or the King as the head of state. In the same manner a word for a residence of a bcan po ( pho braṅ) might have come to denote the person who resided in a pho braṅ. Certainly, more text-historical studies are required in order to ascertain the function of the lexeme pho braṅ in instances like those encountered in Western Tibetan chronicles. The etymology of pho braṅ and its use in OT sources was discussed in Denwood (1990) and Bialek (2018a: 2.278ff.). 59 Scherrer-Schaub (1991: 432-3, fn. 30) argued that PT 999 was composed during the reign of Khri Gcug-lde-brcan in 832/3. The text does not use the official nomenclature of Central Tibetan documents and calls Khri Gcug-lde-brcan only lha sras, whereas one would expect at least the title bcan po. The reason for this variation is not known. 60 This is deduced from other similar formulas in OT historical documents; see Bialek 2021a. 61 The text in question is one of five works included in the manuscript PT 840 and was translated and analysed by Karmay (1998Karmay ( -2005. 62 The "dark age of Buddhism" was nothing more than a side-effect of the disintegration of the Tibetan Empire and the ensuing decrease of institutional and financial support for the Buddhist community. Later Tibetan historiographers spilt much ink on the issue not because they were particularly interested in the historical events that had led to the decline but, composing čhos (!) ɣbyuṅs, they were in need of an explanation for the waxing and waning fate of Buddhist institutions in Tibet. Map 5.2 in Ryavec (2015: 16) vividly illustrates the consequences of the historical events for the condition of institutional Buddhism in Tibet; starting in the mid-ninth century no new temples or monasteries were built for about a century and those already existing fell into ruin. . It seems rather that Khri Ɣod-sruṅs-brcan was in fact his (and ǰo mo Bcan-mo-ɣphan's) son but born after Khri Gcug-lde-brcan's death and therefore contested as the heir. This would also better match the contents of PT 999 and solve the problem, first recognized by Scherrer-Schaub (1991: 432-3, fn. 30), that the text mentions Khri Gcug-lde-brcan together with ǰo mo Bcan-mo-ɣphan and Ɣod-sruṅ. Should they be consort and son of Ɣwuɣi-dunbrtan there would be no reason for omitting the latter while mentioning Khri Gcug-lde-brcan. None of the OT sources addresses Ɣod-sruṅs as bcan po, but his affiliation with the royal family is established by the kinterm yum sras (PT 999: 5) in which he is referred to as sras. The lack of the title bcan po indicates either that he was contested as a legitimate son of Khri Gcug-lde-brcan or that the title itself was customarily bestowed only after the ruling bcan po had himself recognized the child (even if yet unborn) as his offspring. If Khri Gcug-lde-brcan died before the pregnancy of Bcan-mo-ɣphan became known, he could not have recognized his paternity and bestowed the title bcan po. Khri Ɣod-sruṅs-brcan was enthroned very early, around 843, 63 possibly to preclude internal fights that arose due to the unstable political situation and the declining economy. The worsening of the international economic situation from the 830s onward (Beckwith 2009: 158ff.) and natural disasters reported in Chinese sources (Bushell 1880: 522;Pelliot 1961: 133) only exacerbated the problems of the Empire.

651;
Conclusions § 11. In Bialek (2018b; 2021a) I demonstrated the existence of language conventions with respect to the royal family, which were observed in official documents composed in the Tibetan Empire. The conventions concerned the use of the postpositions riṅ la and sku riṅ la, as well as the application of kinterms. The latter were always applied from the perspective of the currently ruling bcan po. This paper adds yet another aspect to the royal forms of address: the titles khri and bcan po. The former was a throne title bestowed on the heir to the throne at the enthronement ceremony. bcan pos who were not titled khri were not legitimately recognized rulers. The title bcan po, on the other hand, confirmed that the person was of royal descent, but did not necessarily have a right to the throne. 64 63 We saw that taking over the reign, as reported in Chinese sources, was identical with the name-changing ceremony, i.e. with the enthronement. Chinese histories report that the new bcan po was three years old when he took over the reign (Bushell 1880: 523;Pelliot 1961: 134). 843 was a swine year and this year recurs in some post-imperial sources as either Khri Ɣod-sruṅs-brcan's birth year or the year of accession, or both (see Sørensen 1994Sørensen : 435, fn. 1555. 64 This particular pattern of distribution of the titles khri and bcan po can only be explained if we accept the proposed etymology of bcan po. If, following opinio communis, we insist on its relation to CT bcan (OLT brcan) "mighty", we will not only miss the regular pattern of its distribution but will also have to acknowledge any person called bcan po in OLT to have been a factual ruler, disregarding the title khri.
We can now summarize the curriculum vitae of a bcan po-to-be with respect to forms of address pertinent to various stages of his life. In the normal course of events an heir to the throne was addressed as bcan po sras, lit. "bcan po, the son", from his birth until the death or abdication of his father. If his father, the enthroned (khri) bcan po, died when the son was still a minor, the latter became bcan po (i.e. without the kinterm sras). He acquired the title khri at the enthronement ceremony which, however, never followed immediately after the death of his father. In this interregnum the status of the nominal ruler must have been ambivalent; he was not an enthroned ruler, but he became the focus of the kin terminology as soon as the funeral ceremonies for his father were finished. From this point on, all the relations within the royal family were defined by reference to him. 65 However, if while still alive the father had ceded the power to his son, who was then enthroned, the actual ruler was addressed as bcan po and became the point of reference for kinterms, whereas his father remained bcan po yab but lost his central position in the "kin tree". In two cases an abdication seems to have taken place three years after the heir to the throne himself had become a father: Khri Maṅ-slon Maṅ-rcan was born in 638his grandfather Khri Sroṅ-rcan possibly abdicated in 641; and Khri Gcug-lde-brcan was born in 794 his grandfather Khri Sroṅ-lde-brcan abdicated in 797. 66 The combined use of kinterms and the titles khri and bcan po resulted in a very precise description of the relative positions within the royal family. Their concerted application allowed for the identification of roles each male descendant of a bcan po played in the power game at the court. Taken together they formed a protocol of forms of address which the official documents of the Empire were bound to observe. The protocol was supplemented with expressions that narrowed down the temporal frame of the events to the reign (riṅ la) or life (sku riṅ la) of a bcan po. With the disintegration of the Tibetan Empire and the dissolution of the hierarchical structure of society with the royal family at its head, likewise the protocol lost its authority and actually, its applicability. It is no wonder that Tibetan historiographers composing in later times did not recognize the pattern in the forms of address and misinterpreted information contained in documents of yore to which some of them indeed might have had access.

Ɣphags
Ɣphags-pa (1238-80) ACT active 65 See Bialek 2021a. 66 By the age of three, the most critical years of childhood in terms of biological survivability might have been considered overcome. One can also think about the hypothesis that Khri Lde-sroṅ-brcan was chosen as the successor of Khri Sroṅ-lde-brcan exactly because he had already become a father and Mu-rug-brcan perhaps not. The significance of having an offspring seems to be alluded to in PT 1287: 301 where the account of Khri Sroṅ-rcan's accession to the throne is followed by a remark that he did not yet have an offspring. Permission to take out copies of sūtra from a library PT 1144 Old Tibetan Chronicles PT 1286 Royal genealogy PT 1287 Old Tibetan Chronicles PT 1288 Old Tibetan Annals I PT 1290 Catalogue of ancient principalities