Replacing a pillar of Tibetan Buddhist historiography: on the redactions of the so-called Pillar Testament (bKa'-chems-ka-khol-ma).

This article explores the unmined textual history of one of Tibet's most influential historiographies, the Pillar Testament (bKa'-chems-ka-khol-ma), usually dated to the eleventh or the twelfth century. Drawing on previously known and unknown witnesses, the article compares a variety of narratives across most extant redactions. In doing so, it finds that the redaction chiefly consulted by scholars to date is an expanded and contaminated version that is notably later than previously assumed. Instead, another and heretofore largely neglected witness emerges as the most archaic extant redaction. The textual comparisons spotlight a wide range of alterations in the work's narratives and thus demonstrate how perceptions of early Tibetan historical episodes shifted over time. Such changes affected remembrance of Sino-Tibetan imperial relations, the origins of Buddhism and writing in Tibet and the genealogy of its emperors, among other things. The article concludes by critically discussing the witnesses' dating and the hope we may place in the hunt for the work's illustrious but elusive original. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]