The name T’u-fan 吐蕃 seems to transcribe lho Phywa, or the Phywa tribe of the South. The tribal name of the royal house of Yar lung was Phywa, which is reflected in the name of Fu-kuo 附国 mentioned in Sui shu, chap. 83. Rngegs, or I 宜, ruler of Fu-kuo, is known to have referred to his kinsmen and neighbors the Yar lung as Bon po of the South, or Po yüan i 薄／簿緣夷. In choosing a name of the Kingdom of Phywa of the South, the Chinese may have adopted the character fan 蕃 with which to replace Fa 発, or Phywa, for the former was closer to Po yüan 薄緣 in sound and thus arrived at T’u-fan. A close examination of the text of Shih chia fang chih 釈迦方誌 establishes the identity of the Greater Yang-t’ung 大羊同 with Zhang zhung stod and of the Lesser Yang-t’ung 小羊同 with Zhang zhung smad. T’ung tien is found to confuse the two. The Yang-t’ung 楊同 mentioned by Hui-ch’ao 慧超 of Silla corresponds to the Greater Yang-t’ung of Shih chia fang chih, and his So po tz’u 娑播慈 is Sa spo rtse, which roughly corresponds to San po ho 三波訶, or *Sa spo kha, the western end of the Tung nü kuo 東女国 mentioned in Shih chia fang chih. Mo lo so 秣邏娑, said to be another name for San po ho can be identified with Mar (yul) sa bu, lying to the east of Sa spo rtse. What made identification of the Greater Yan-t’ung was a passage in T’ang shu, T’u-fan chuan, hsia, where Liu Yüan-ting’s 劉元鼎 return from T’u-fan in 822 was described with a reference to Ho yüan 河源. Though traditionally identified with the uppermost reaches of the Yellow River since the time of Chiu T’ang shu, this clearly refers to the headwaters of the Muru Usu. Thus it follows that the Greater Yang-t’ung facing it cannot be anything else but Zhang zhung stod.
