tingdzin wrote:There was certainly a civilization of some sort in Zhang zhung at that time, but almost nothing is yet known about it (by the standards of Western scholarship, which requires some sort of external sources to verify internal claims).
Again, we always have Chinese records to look at. The Chinese identified Qiang people in areas like Gansu, Qinghai and Sichuan, extending up to the eastern Tarim Basin.
The Chinese records tend to always note who has script and who doesn't (the Japanese for example are identified in the Sui history as originally not having script but receiving it from Korean peninsula, which seems to reflect the historical reality as it is presently understood). The dynastic records go into details about the cultural habits of foreign peoples. If there was a self-identifying Tibetan nation before the late sixth century, the Chinese it seems didn't ever hear about it. Again the opening remarks about Tibet in the Tang history:
- 吐蕃,在長安之西八千裏,本漢西羌之地也。其種落莫知所出也...
Tibet is 8000 li west of Chang'an. It was originally in the Han [206 BCE - 220 CE] the land of the Western Qiang people. It is unknown where their tribe came from. ...
I'm not sure how many western scholars of Tibetan history have seriously looked at Chinese records. It would require literacy in Classical Chinese since so little of it has been translated into European languages. The records of that region I think would go back to at least the later Han (so first and second centuries CE). They're all available in digital format nowadays:
https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisour ... 2%E6%9B%B8
Fasc. 87 is a Later Han account of the Western Qiang:
https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%BE%8 ... E5%8D%B787
... but relying only on much later Tibetan sources is not something that is going to be well accepted by critical scholarship. That being said, his works are also good to read for another perspective.
I'll have to take a look at his work at some point.
You can't rely on traditional narratives without taking a very critical hermeneutic. The Japanese, for example, take a critical approach to their histories written in the eighth century for example. Some of it is reliable, but a lot of it was clearly edited by a court needing to legitimize itself and trying to create a national identity. Archaeological evidence corroborated with foreign accounts (all from China in Japan's case) allows for a more realistic history to be produced. I think this same approach ought to be applied to any culture's history.
That being said, the Chinese histories have their agendas too, though different accounts of the same foreign culture over decades and centuries are often available for comparison.
In the case of Tibet, I've looked at the Tang Chinese account of it in two fascicles (fairly lengthy, which highlights how important Tibet was to the Tang history). It is interesting, for example, that it doesn't seem to mention Buddhism. There were plenty of envoys going to Tibet from China, but there's no real mention of a Buddhist institution in Yarlung Tibet. They mention a lot of blood sacrifices being done to seal oaths. So, how does that fit with the traditional Tibet narratives (especially later on when Yarlung kings are retroactively made Buddhist kings)? The legends have their place in cultural memory, but historians need to be critical and objective.
The Tibetan assaults on Khotan definitely did not predate the 7th century (external evidence). Any ideas about earlier invasions would have to be examined in the light of historical testimony from other Inner Eurasian sources.
There were plenty of tribes wanting control of Silk Road states as the income from taxation was quite lucrative and would fund any up and coming empire (or just make any warlord quite rich if successful in an attack).