Imparting and (Re-)Confirming Order to the World: Authoritative Speech Traditions and Socio-political Assemblies in Spiti, Upper Kinnaur, and Purang in the Past and Present

This paper1 deals with authoritative speech traditions in the Tibetan-speaking areas of Spiti (in Tibetan transliteration [henceforth T.] sPi ti, sPyi ti, and so forth) and Upper Kinnaur (T. Khu nu) in eastern Himachal Pradesh, India, and in Purang (T. s/Pu hrang/hreng, and so forth), an area in the southwest of the Ngari Prefecture of the Tibet Autonomous Region (PR China) (see Fig. 1). In the distant past these areas belonged to Ngari Khorsum (T. mNga' ris skor gsum), a high-altitude region that was more or less congruent with the realm of the West Tibetan kingdom of the tenth to twelfth centuries. To a great extent it was also identical with the areas under the control of the later kingdoms of Purang, Guge (T. Gu ge), and Ladakh (T. La dwags) (see Vitali 1996; Petech 1997; Tshe ring rgyal po 2006 for accounts of the history of these kingdoms). This means that in historical, geographical, political, and cultural terms, Spiti, Upper Kinnaur, and also Purang share a lot of common ground. Therefore, in addition to exploring the social and political dimensions of authoritative speeches, I am also including the historical dimension of authoritative speech in these areas. This is also the main reason for referring to authoritative speech traditions.