Boundaries.the Yun-ling Mountains of China the eastern scarp, and aries. the Kuen-Lun (Kiun-Liin) ranges the northern scarp, towards Turkestan and Mongolia; on the west, where it narrows considerably, it merges into the Pamir tablelands. Its extreme length from east to west exceeds 1600 miles; its breadth from north to south ranges from 150 miles in the west to an average of 500 in central Tibet and a maximum of 700 in the east. The area of Tibet exceeds 700,000 square miles.
Much of Tibet is wholly abandoned to wild animals, and much is uncultivable and occupied only by various wan dering tribes of nomads. The centres of the settled and agricultural population lie to the south, in a region named Bod-yul (meaning Bod-land) by the inhabitants, who are called Bod-pas; by the Hindus it is called Bhot, and by the Chinese Si-tsang. The greater portion of this region is governed, under the supremacy of China, by lamas and gyalpos, ecclesiastical and lay Bod -pas, the principal seat of government being at Lhasa, the chief city of Bod-yul. Portions are subject to Kashmir and Nepal, and to independent chieftains, and portions are directly subject to China; but the Bod -pa ethnological element prevails more or less throughout. Tibet was long a terra incognita to Europeans. It is difficult of access on all sides, and everywhere difficult to traverse. Its great elevation causes the climate to be rather arctic than tropical, so that there is no gradual blending of the climates and physical conditions of India and Tibet, such as would tend to promote intercourse between the inhabitants of these neighbouring regions; on the contrary, there are sharp lines of demarcation, in a mountain barrier which is scalable at only a few points and in the social aspects and conditions of life on either side. No great armies have ever crossed Tibet to invade India; even those of Jenghiz Khan took the circuitous route via Bokhara and Afghanistan, not the direct route from Mongolia across Tibet. European travellers.Thus it was no easy matter for the early European travellers to find their way into and explore Tibet. Friar Odoric of Pordenone is supposed to have reached Lhasa circ. 1328, travelling from Cathay; three centuries afterwards the, Jesuit Antonio Andrada, travelling from India, entered Tibet on the west, in the Manasarowar Lake region, and made his way across to Tangut and north-western China; in 1661 Fathers Grueber and D'Orville travelled from Peking via Tangut to Lhasa, and thence through Nepal to India; and during the first half of the 18th century various Capu chin friars appear to have passed freely between Delhi and Lhasa, by way either of Nepal or Kashmir. The first Englishman to enter Tibet was George Bogle, in 1774, on an embassy from Warren Hastings to the tashi (teshu) lama of Shigatze. In 1811 Thomas Manning made his way from India to Lhasa; he is the only Englishman who has succeeded in reaching the sacred city, and he had soon to leave it. During the 19th century Europeans have been systematically prevented from entering the country or speedily expelled if found in it. In 1844-46 the French missionaries Hue and Gabet made their way to Lhasa from China, but were soon deported back again. In 1866 the Abb6 Desgodins travelled through portions of eastern Tibet and reached Chiamdo (in Kham), but was prevented from approaching any closer to Lhasa. Last of all the Russian Colonel Prejevalsky succeeded in exploring portions of northern Tibet, but was unable to penetrate southwards into Bodland.
Name. Tie-bu-te, T u-bo-te (llth cent.); in Mongolian, Tubet, Tobot; in Arabic Tubbet; Rabbi Benjamin (1165), Thibet; J. de Piano Carpini (1247), Thabet; Rubruquis (1253), Marco Polo (1298), Tebet; Ibn Batuta (1340), Thabat; Ibn Haukal (976), Al Biruui (1020), Odoric of Pordenone (c. 1328), Orazio della Penna (1730), Tibet. A Tibetan, arriving at Darchiendo from Lhasa, states that he comes from Teu-peu, meaning High or Upper Tibet, Stod-Bod in contradistinction to SmadBod or Lower Tibet. The former expression, were it supported by any ancient authority, might be regarded as the etymological origin of "Tibet"; historical evidence, however, seems to indicate another source. The state of which Lhasa is the capital is often called Deba jung " or " land of the Debas " (sdepa Ijongs). The title of the tepa lama is familiar. Chinese records say that the king of the country is called diba; and Joh. Grueber informs us that the king is styled deva or leva, and is descended from an ancient race of Tangut Tatars. The Chinese annals of the T ang dynasty record that Fanni Ttibat, the historical founder of a state in the east of Tibet in 433, gave to his dominion his surname of Tubat. This was a famous family name proper to several Tatar dynasties which ruled in the north and north west of China, and belonged to the Sien-pi race, in the language of which tubat meant "a coverlet." An appended legend stated that the fifth ancestor of Liluku, the founder of the southern Liang dynasty and family and father of Fanni, derived the surname of Tubat, which became that of his family, from the fact that he was born in a coverlet while his mother Huykshe was sleeping. However worthless the legend, there is complete similarity between the name of the Tubat or Tobat Tatars and that of Tibet, and we may with considerable safety take the latter word as derived from the former, the fact being that it was and is still extensively used in the sense of "great," "chief," among the Tatar tribes. Tibet, however, is not the name by which the modern Tibetans designate themselves and their country. Bod-pa, "a man of Bod," Bod-yul, "country of Bod," are the expressions in current use; but what "Bod" means is uncertain. Hodgson has maintained that before the arrival of Indian teachers the people had no name for themselves or their country, and the present Bod comes from the Sanskrit B 6t an opinion which, though inconsistent with the evidence collected about Tubat, is rather confirmed by a legendary account. According to that account, the country, which was occupied by a race of men not yet emerged from primitive bar barism, was originally called Bod-rgyal, i.e., "Bod's victory." The secpndary name then might be in its simple form Bod, a Buddhist appellative suggested by the Sanskrit homonyms of -bat or -b at, part of the name brought in by the Tatar conquerors. Anyhow there is no occasion for the other etymologies suggested, such as that from Buddha, or that proposed by Schiefner (t ub and pod, both meaning "able," "capable"). An old name for Tibet in the native books is Gdong-mar-gyi-yul, "country of the red-faced men," so called ap parently from the ancient national custom of painting the face red, a practice which was forbidden by King Srong-btsan at the instance of his wife Wan ch eng, a Chinese princess. Among the Mongols Tibet was simply called Barontala (the " right side"), in contradis tinction to Dzdntala (the "left side"), which was among them the name of Mongolia. In China, during the Yuan or Mongol dynasty, it was called Wei-sze-Tsang, in which we recognize the names of the two central provinces of Dblls (U) and Tsang. Khachi, Khache, Khaschi, Kashi, are various forms of a term which is often met with in books as applied to a part of the plateaus of Tibet, and which cannot without difficulty be identified in positive geography. We take it to be simply a revival of the old name of the Tangut or Hia kingdom, the Khashi or Khoshi of the Mongols (982-1227), on the north-east of Tibet, on the west of the Hoaug-ho, whence Ho-si in Chinese history, and per haps the origin of the name. In the llth century Milaraspa made use of the term K ache for Mussulman; Hue and Gabet have reported the use of the same expression in the central provinces with a similar acceptation. A popular etymology has confounded it with the words K a-che for K a-chen, literally "big mouth," which is now supposed to be its meaning when applied co Mohammedans. Kashmir is also called K a-che, from the fact that it is under Mohammedan rule, says Jaeschke; but, as this has been the case only since 1605, there is great probability that here the term is simply used as an abridged form of Kashmir. (T. de. L.)
Maps.Geographers have long been in possession of maps of Tibet, compiled from surveys executed early in the 18th century by lamas, under instructions from the Jesuit fathers who made a survey of China for the emperor Kang-he. The lamas maps were the basis of D Anville's Atlas, published in 1733, and were employed by Klaproth in constructing his map of Asia in 1824; but they are generally very meagre, only reliable in the vicinity of the principal roads, and occasionally very misleading. They must have been compiled at best from rude estimates of distance and direction, and in some parts from mere hearsay or conjecture. They are, how ever, supposed to have been based on astronomical determinations of position; but this is improbable, for the latitudes of such im portant places as Lhasa and Batang are 30 to 60 miles in error. Our knowledge of the geography of the country is complete only for portions of western Tibet, which are subject to the maharajah of Kashmir, and have been regularly surveyed. This knowledge has been largely supplemented during the last twenty years by the work of natives of India the so-called trans-Himalayan explorers of the Indian Survey, notably Pandits Nain Singh and Krishna (A K) who have been trained to carry route surveys through regions which they may, but Europeans may not, enter.
