defenders of the buddhist faith, and is closely associated with divination, with a strong connection to divination via dice throwing. Lha-Mo's connection to dice throwing is apparent in a story in the Beun-mo bka'i than-yig, a religious text. In this story, Lha-Mo appears in the guise of a fortune teller multiple times, and ritually throws dice in each apparition, eventually healing a queen who was sick. The lamas of the Lha-Mo cult, the “Dpal-Idan dmag-zor rgyal-mo'i sgo-nas” still perform a dice throwing ritual for divination today, called ‘mo’. On the Silk Road The style of astragalomancy using numerical trigrams was widespread, and evidence of such is found in Turkish, Tibetan, Sanskrit, and Sogdian divination texts from the sixth century through to the 10th century. One particular text is called the Divination of Maheśvara, found on the silk road frontier of Dunhuang. This text is unique as it is a dice divination text in which the method is entirely different from any other known Chinese divination text. The text contains sixty four oracles, each of which is associated with a deity, as well as being keyed to a particular three number combination or numerical trigram, placing this method at an intersection between Chinese numerical trigram divination traditions, and Indian dice divination traditions. The method is as follows, you visit a diviner and pay his fee. He invokes the gods Śakra, Brahmā, and the four heavenly kings as well as other spirits, and instructs you to sit facing west. He hands you three four sided dice with concentric circles indicating their number on each side. You state your name and the issue you have come to receive guidance on, then you cast the dice one after the other, generating a trigram. The diviner then consults his text, and relates to you the oracle that combination refers to. If you are unsure about this divination, the process can be repeated, to a maximum of three oracles, with the final one seeming to take preference over the first two. In South America The huayru is a dice game played in South America at funerals. The game is traditionally played with llama bones, as they are believed to have a special power to attract the soul of the deceased. There are many reasons for the playing of this game, but all of which revolve around divining the will of the recently deceased. There is an