‘Blazing Light’: On the Original Tibetan Name for wamo 嗢末

Abstract

After the Tibetan Empire lost its power over Central Asian regions in the 9th century, a group of people in North-eastern Tibet (Amdo), known as wamo 嗢末, made its way into the Chinese chronicles of the subsequent dynasties. The corresponding Tibetan name for the group of people has been disputed since the late 1950s, when scholars first put hypotheses forward on the subject. This paper contends that the correct rendering in Tibetan is ’Od-’bar ‘blazing light’, a suggestion initially offered by Hungarian Tibetologist Géza Uray. Moreover, by reviewing all the proposals Western and Chinese scholars provided, this paper presents hitherto overlooked textual and phonological evidence to settle this dispute.