ANCIENT TIBET ANCIENT TIBET Research Materials from The Yeshe De Project TIBETAN HISTORY SERIES Ancient Tibet: Research Materials Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Ancient Tibet. {Tibetan history series; v.1) Includes Index. l. Tibet {China)-History. I. Dharma Publishing II. Series. DS786.A68 1986 951'.5 86-24124 ISBN 0-89800-146-3 Copyright ©1986 Dharma Publishing All rights reserved. No part of this book, including text, art reproductions, maps, tables, charts, and illustrations may be reproduced without written permission. Unauthorized reproduction is a violation of the laws of the United States of America and/or international copyright conventions. For information, write: Dharma Publishing, 2425 Hillside Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94704 USA Typeset in Mergenthaler Trump Printed and bound in the United States of America by Dharma Press, California 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 Dedicated to the People of Tibet CONTENTS Part One : The Land Chapters One Through Four The land of Tibet has undergone dramatic changes over the eons of geologic time as the great Himalayas formed, the plateau rose to a platform three miles high, and the plant and animal life gradually evolved to their present forms. Part Two : The People Chapters Five Through Eleven The Tibetan plateau has been inhabited for thousands of years, but the identity of the earliest people is still a mystery. Tracing the history of the Tibetan tribes and their early kings, however, reveals the ancient roots of Tibetan culture. Part Three : The Empire Chapters Twelve Through Twenty By the seventh century great kings and generals began to expand Tibetan territory beyond the plateau. An advanced civilization developed as new influences mingled with the old culture, and Buddhism became the religion of the land. Part One One Formation df the Tibetan Plateau 12 Two Modern Landforms 24 Three Ancient Environment 40 Four Modern Environment 54 Part Two Five The Earliest Inhabitants 86 Six Origins of the People 102 Seven The Ancient Tribes of Tibet 114 Eight Descendants of the Tibetan Tribes 126 Nine The First Tibetan Kings 140 Ten The Early Tibetan Culture 152 Eleven The Happy Generations 166 Part Three Twelve Advances in Tibetan Civilization 188 Thirteen The Dharma Comes to Tibet 200 Fourteen Foundation of the Empire 214 Fifteen Expansion of the Tibetan Empire 230 Sixteen The Reign of Mes-ag-tshoms 242 Seventeen The Dharma is Proclaimed 260 Eightee~ Height of the Empire 274 Nineteen Sad-na-legs and Ral-pa-can 290 Twenty The End of the Empire 304 Appendix A Charts 324 Appendix B Guide to Topics, Maps, Charts, Timelines 330 Appendix C Sources for Further Study 339 Appendix D Glossary 350 Index 357 PUBLISHER'S PREFACE ~he history of Tibetan culture stretches back several thou -l9 sand years to a time before the rise of modern civilizations. Surrounded by the immense power and beauty of the most dramatic landscape in the world, the Tibetan people created an independent and vigorous culture deeply in tune with the forces of nature. Located in the heart of Asia, Tibet very early became a meeting ground for Indian, Chinese, Central Asian, and even Western influences. The rich and complex civilization that re sulted from these cultural interactions preserved and transmitted some of mankind's finest achievements. Tibet's contributions to world civilization, however, are not well known. Westerners have often regarded Tibet as a kind of Shangri-la, an unknowable, timeless land hidden away beyond the mountain peaks. Few history books contain so much as a paragraph on Tibet, and many of Tibet's greatest kings and statesmen are known only to scholars in the field. The history of these kings and the ancient Tibetan tribes is also little known to most Tibetans. For example, as a young man in Tibet, I received an excellent education, but history was not a part of my studies. As I grew older, I wished to know more about the ancient history of my fatherland. But I found few works that presented the important events of ancient times in any detail. Preface ix Those that did presupposed a great deal of familiarity with Tibetan history and historiography; lengthy debates would hide the main flow of events, with scholarly interpretations often interspersed among the facts. A simple but detailed review of ancient Tibetan history was hard to find. I was also interested in how information in traditional Tibetan histories fit with old Tibetan records discovered early this century in Central Asia at Tun-huang. Histories of Tibet's ancient neighbors, which contained valuable references to events in Tibet, are also available now, for some of these records have been translated in the last century. But even newer books on Tibet contained only short summaries of this material. The actual texts of these records are in scholarly publications unavail able to general readers. The idea of Dharma Publishing creating an introductory book on ancient Tibetan history began over six years ago in the course of our research for the Nyingma Edition of the bKa'-'gyur and bsTan-'gyur. It seemed that such a volume might be welcomed both by Tibetans interested in the origins of Tibetan civilization and by my Western students and friends. To research the important events in ancient Tibetan history, the Dharma Publishing staff began to collect information from a variety of historical sources such as the 1\m-huang annals, the T'ang annals, the Li-yul texts, and Arab histories. Over several years, different research teams consulted the Western transla tions and discussions of these sources. Friends of Dharma Publish ing also brought interesting materials on Tibetan history to our attention. Broadening our investigation into Tibetan history, we found that history led naturally to archeology, and archeology to geology; research expanded to include the history of the Tibetan plateau, the development of the Tibetan environment, and the earliest inhabitants of Tibet. When we realized how far back Tibet's history could be traced, and how intriguing this scientific information is in the light of traditional Tibetan accounts, we decided to include some of this material. We summarized the current research to the best of our ability and included simple