26 Taenzer
by the dice statutes (Tib. sho tshigs), which were repeatedly changed by the
administration. The announcements of the results were made by a goddess
either a Buddhist or a pagan one.25 This shows that certain religious concepts
were included in the legal system.
At the beginning of Tibetan rule over Dunhuang the relationship of the
Tibetan administration and its Chinese officials seems to have been an ami-
cable one, they collaborated willingly; persons whose father already had had a
post during the Tang reign were appointed as well,26 Chinese officials received
farm animals as remunerations.27 A post in the administration was regarded
as an official duty (Tib. rje blas), which meant that whoever could gain such a
post neither had to join the army nor had to perform corvé duty or pay taxes.
The clergy also seem to have cooperated. At the end of the 8th century a
group of criminals came by night to take over Dunhuang. They were captured
by the clergy and questioned.28
As far as the ordinary people are concerned, there is no convincing material
which directly shows that they were suffering from the tax load although the
extensive copying of scriptures, the mass production of paper for these scrip-
tures and the production of red dye from safflower petals29 must have been a
strain on agricultural efforts for food production.30
[.. .]”. This shows that the method of making decisions in legal cases by using dice alluded
to in IOL Tib J 740 were indeed used in legal cases in Dunhuang.
25 Dotson, “Divination and Law,” 22–25 finds pagan gods while MacDonald (“MacDonald,
Ariane, Une lecture des Pelliot tibétain 1286, 1287, 1038, et 1290”, in Études tibétaines déi-
dées à la memoire de Marcelle Lalou, Paris: Librairie d’Amérique et d’Orient 1971, 271–287)
states that in other divination texts some pronouncements were made by bodhisattvas.
26 P. tib. 1089 line 59: transliterated, translated and discussed in Lalou, Marcelle,
“Revendications des fonctionnaires du Grand Tibet au VIII siècle,” Journal Asiatique 243.3
(1955): 171–212.
27 P. 3774 line 13: discussed, transliterated and translated in: Ikeda On, “Monk Longzang,” 26.
28 S. 1438 contains a number of letters referring to this event.
29 In P. tib. 1128, text II line 4 it is stated that the people of Dunhuang had accumulated a
tribute debt of safflower of 4722 srang in the course of seven years (Taenzer, Dunhuang
Region during Tibetan Rule, 263). On the various uses of safflower see: Trombert, Éric,
“Cooking, Dyeing and Worship: The Uses of Safflower in Medieval China as Reflected in
the Dunhuang Documents,” Asia Major (2004): 59–72.
30 P. tib. 1085 is the answer of the Tibetan administration to a complaint of the two units of
Shazhou concerning the demands of the local officials being so high that they were not
able to fulfil them. See Yamaguchi Zuiho, “On the Date of the Formation of the Tibetan
Military Units of the Chinese and Tongjiaren in Sha-cu,” Tōkyō daigaku bungakubu
bunkakōryū kenkyu shisetsu kenkyu kiyō 東京大學文學部文化交流研究施設研究紀要
[Records of Research of the Cultural Exchange Research Foundation of the University of