I had recently seen the syllable dgya written in place of the rgya in rgya nag (China) and rgya mi (Chinese) on several occasions by some poets. I asked around a bit but all the only answer I could get was that "they are just the same" which led me to believe that they were anything but the same. So I asked some closer friends and discovered the following: dgya is the ancient spelling (brda' rnying) for dgra, as in dgra bo (enemy). By writing rgya nag instead of dgya nag, they are able to make a subtle (or perhaps not so subtle) political statement while still keeping them as homophones. I have to hand it to them, it's rather clever!
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