place in 11th-13th c Kashmir ?

[mkapstei at UCHICAGO.EDU]

Dear list members,

Tibetan sources of the 11th-13th centuries
frequently refer to a place called
kha che khri [or krig] brtan

"khri [or krig] brtan in Kashmir"

The spelling khri brtan suggests the possibility
of an expression such as *sthiraasana or *dhruvaasana
as the source, taking the Tibetan khri in its meaning
of "throne, dais" (it has a homonym meaning "a myriad").
(I don't currently have a RaajataraNgani at my disposal,
and so would be grateful to anyone who might be able
to check whether such expessions are used there in 
any way that might be significant in this context.)

The spelling "krig" reminds me that this is sometimes
found as a vulgar transcription of Skt. k.r.s, as in 
"krig na" = K.r.s.na. (This of course reflects .s = kh
as we find sometimes in MIA, Nepali and elsewhere.)
But then I'm not sure what to make of the phrase as a whole. 

It has sometimes been suggested, too, that the Tibetan
phrase might have emerged from the Tibetan transcription
of the north Asian ethnonym Khitan, but I have never
seen this modified by kha che "Kashmir(i), Muslim",
nor is it plausible in the 11th-13th c. records with
which I am concerned, where Khitan is spelt Khyi tan,
and the references to Khri brtan clearly point to
northwestern India, or thereabouts, and not to north central
Asia. 

Finally, Khri brtan might name a region -- even Kashmir
generally -- or a specific location, and it definitely
does not refer to highland places such as Ladakh.

I would be grateful for any ideas. I'm quite puzzled.

Matthew T. Kapstein
Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies
The University of Chicago Divinity School

Directeur d'études
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris