Changing Relations 23
khyab). They were apparently installed to protect the borders and were not
allowed to intermarry with members of the units of Dunhuang.11
Apart from imposing their administrative system in such a way that Chinese
structures were embedded in it, Tibetans interfered in the economic structure
of the area as well. Coins were abolished as currency and objects had to be
bartered for grain and livestock for a weight (ingots?) of copper (Tib. srang
or dmar).
A system of tax and tribute was introduced which seems to be entirely
Tibetan, although some Chinese terminology was used as well.12 During the
reign of Emperor Ralpacan (Ral pa can, r. 815–c. 838) part of the tribute pay-
ment was raised by having the Śatasāhasrikā Prajñāpārāmitāsūtra copied in
Tibetan13 as well as in Chinese. The paper on which scriptures were copied was
exacted as tribute payment.14 The distribution of paper and the designation
11 See Taenzer, Dunhuang Region during Tibetan Rule, 79, for an extensive study of these
units.
12 A chapter on the various kinds of taxes is found in Taenzer, Dunhuang Region during
Tibetan Rule, 223.
13 That Tri Tsug Detsen (Tib. Khri gTsug lde brtsan, r. 815–841), commonly known as Ralpacan,
commissioned the writing of this sūtra on a large scale is stated in Takeuchi, Tsuguhito,
“ ‘Glegs-tshas’: Writing Boards of Chinese Scribes in the Tibetan-Ruled Dunhuang,” in
Scribes, Texts and Rituals in Early Tibet and Dunhuang, ed. Brandon Dotson, Kazushi Iwao,
and Tsuguhito Takeuchi (Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 2013), 101, where he lists
as possible dates for the process referred to in another manuscript (see note below) the
horse and sheep years 826 and 827. Cf. van Schaik, Sam, and Imre Galambos, Manuscripts
and Travellers: The Sino-Tibetan Documents of a Tenth Century Buddhist Pilgrim (Berlin,
Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2012), 24; here van Schaik and Galambos only refer to one of
the last Tibetan Emperors in this respect. The proof that it must have been Ralpacan lies
in P. tib. 1128 text I, lines 16–18: (see Taenzer, Dunhuang Region during Tibetan Rule, 262:
225 for a transliteration, translation and discussion of the manuscript). This is a tribute
related manuscript in which it is stated that in a horse year this sūtra had been written in
Shazhou.
14 This horse year cannot be later than 838. This Emperor ruled in another horse year (826).
But as this was an ongoing process he probably gave the order long before 838. It cannot
be excluded, however, that the previous Emperor Tri De Songtsen (Tib. Khri lDe srong
brtsan, r. c. 802–815) gave the order and that the execution of this task was carried on to
the reign of Ralpacan.
Ibid. P. tib. 1128 text II line 4: in the course of seven years the people of Dunhuang had
accrued a tribute debt of 48000 sheets of paper. According to Iwao (Iwao Kazushi, “The
Purpose of Sūtra Copying in Dunhuang under the Tibetan Rule,” in Dunhuang Studies:
Prospects and Problems for the Coming second Century of Research, ed. Irina Popova and
Liu Yi, St Petersburg: 2012, 103) a special format and quality of paper was used for the