G r e a t S e a l o f th e D a la i L am a .
LHASA
CHAPTER I.
THE EARLY HISTORY AND VISITORS OF TIBET.
T h e earliest historical relic of the Tibetans— like that of
many, perhaps of most other races— is a weather-beaten
stone, the Do-ring. It stands in the centre of Lhasa,,
across the courtyard in front of the western doors of
the -Cathedral or Jo-kang, beneath the famous willow-
tree. Like Asoka’s pillars on the one hand or the
Black Stone of Mukden on the other, it both records
a treaty and is the outward symbol of the prosperity of
Tibet. One might also add that, like the Omphalos at
Delphi or London Stone, it is to the Tibetans not only
the centre of their strange shoulder-blade-shaped earth,
but, more practical, the goal from which their journeys
and stages are reckoned. But the Do-ring is even more
than this. The terms of the treaty of 783 a .d ., now
barely decipherable upon its cup-marked surface, corroborate,
in some degree, the legendary history of Tibet so
far as it can be found in Chinese chronicles.
This history is not one of great interest, and may
be chiefly dismissed as one of continued hostility with
China, but of hostility on equal terms. That the result
of these border skirmishings was by no means as uniformly
satisfactory to China as one might imagine
from her version of the events, is clear, for about
the year 640 a .d . the King of Tibet, Srong-tsan-
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