Christianity in early TibetPerhaps it was a forgone conclusion that Tibet would become a Buddhist country, surrounded as it was by the Buddhist kingdoms of India, China and Central Asia. Nevertheless, Tibet was subject to other the influences of other religions durin g its formative period, and among those influences we may perhaps include Christ ianity. The best evidence of the involvement of Christian missionaries in early Tibet co mes in the letters of Timothy I, who was Patriarch of the Nestorian Church betwe en 780 and 823, overlapping with the reigns of three of Tibets great Buddhist emp erors, Trisong Detsen, Senaleg and Ralpachen. Timothy Is letters contain a couple of references to Tibet. In one letter, he lists the lands in which the Trisagio n, one of the oldest Christian prayers, is recited. This list includes Tibet. In another letter, Timothy relates that he has recently appointed a metropolitan b ishop for the Turks, and is about to do the same for the Tibetans. These referen ces both date to the early 790s, during Trisong Detsens reign. Another kind of evidence is the many examples of crosses carved onto rocks in We stern Tibet and its neighbouring regions. Some examples were recorded by A.H. Fr ancke in the early 20th century. The first of these crosses has a Tibetan inscri ption, in the year of the pig.As far as I know this is the only record of cross with a Tibetan inscription fro m Western Tibet. In addition, Giuseppe Tucci found small metal crosses, apparent ly worn as ornaments, in the same regions. Now lets turn to Central Asia, where we have another interesting assortment of cr osses, and a Tibetan reference to Jesus the Messiah. First of all, there is a ra ther beautiful painting from Dunhuang, which at first glance looks like a bodhis attva. On closer inspection, we can see that his crown and necklace are adorned with crosses. What we have here seems to be a picture of a Christian (probably N estorian) saint, by an artist trained in the Chinese style. Roderick Whitfield d ates the painting to the late 9th century, shortly after the Tibetan rule of Dun huang. We have more evidence of Christian influence among the Tibetan manuscripts. Ther e is a divination (mo) text, Pelliot tibtain 351, which is mainly Buddhist in cha racter, but includes the following surprising passage:Man, your ally is the god called Jesus Messiah. He acts as Vajrapi and r kyamuni. Whe he gates of the seven levels of heaven have opened, you will accomplish the yoga that you will receive from the judge at the right hand of God. Because of this, do whatever you wish without shame, fear or apprehension. You will become a con queror, and there will be no demons or obstructing spirits. Whoever casts this l ot (mo), it will be very good. Gza Uray argued that the Christian elements here must have come from a Nestorian source, especially the idea of Jesus as the judge at the right hand of god, whic h is found in the Nicene Creed of the Nestorians, a copy of which is found in a Sogdian 9th-10th century manuscript in Turfan, not so far from Dunhuang. Rolf St ein, on the other hand, argued for a Manichaean source. Perhaps the source is no t terribly important here anyway, since Jesus seems simply to have joined the ar ray of local and Buddhist deities.Uray also located drawings of crosses on two Dunhuang manuscripts from the Frenc h collection, Pelliot tibtain 1182 and 1676. There is nothing Christian in the wr itings on these manuscripts; the first contains a scribes doodles and writing exe rcises, while the second is a copy of the Prajpramit in 100,000 verses To these Id like to add another cross, one that nobody has ever mentioned it befo re, partly no doubt because the manuscript was passed over in de la Valle Poussins catalogue and didnt even have a number until recently. IOL Tib J 766 contains th e sketch of a cross that is shown at the top of this post (just click on that im age to view the whole manuscript). The manuscript is just a strip of paper, prob ably an offcut from a manuscript, which has been used as a doodle pad by a scrib e. The writing is Tibetan and a Sogdian or Uighur script, perhaps both written b y the same scribe, who may have been a Uighur Turk who also wrote in Tibetan. As we know that Nestorianism was quite popular among the Uighurs, this would make sense. This particular cross has three beads at the end of each arm. Its quite similar t o the one in Pelliot tibtain 1182, which has three lines at the end of each arm, and to the cross in the crown of the saint pictured above, which has two beads a t the end of each arm. Having reviewed the evidence, it seems after that Buddhism was never in much dan ger of being supplanted by Christianity in Tibet. Even so, when we think about T imothy Is appointment of a bishop for Tibet during the reign of Trisong Detsen, a nd see sketches of crosses surrounded by Tibetan writing in the Dunhuang manuscr ipts it becomes possible to imagine an alternative history. And having this so c learly, and visually, impressed upon us might encourage us to think again about the reasons for the ultimate success of Buddhism in Tibet. References 1. Francke, A.H. 1925. Felseninschriften in Ladakh. In Sitzungsberichte der Preuss ischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-Historische Klasse. Jahrgang 1 925: 366-371. 2. Klimkeit, H.J. 1979. Das Kreuzessymbol in der zentralasiatischen Religionsbege gnung. In Zeitschrift fr Religions-und Geistesgeschichte 31.1: 99-116. 3. Stein, R.A. Une mention du manichisme dans le choix du bouddhisme comme religio n dtat par le roi tibtain Khri-sro lde-bcan. In Indianisme et bouddhisme: Mlanges off erts Mgr tienne Lamotte. Louvain-la-Neuve. 329337. 4. Tucci, Guiseppe. 1973. Transhimalaya. London: Barrie & Jenkins. [Translated f rom the French by James Hogarth.] 5. Uray Gza. Tibets Connections with Nestorianism and Manicheism in the 8th10th Cent uries. In Steinkellner and Tauscher (eds), Contributions on Tibetan Language, His tory and Culture. Vienna: Arbeitskries fr Tibetische und Buddhistische studien Un iversitt Wien. Do also visit the Tibeto-Logic blog for a fascinating dissection of the popular story of Jesuss visit to Tibet.