The story
In the early 600s Songtsen Gampo, a ruler from the Yarlung valley in southern Tibet, subdues rival clans on the high plateau and founds the Tibetan Empire (c. 630 to 842). He moves his court to Lhasa, and by tradition sends his minister Thonmi Sambhota to India to adapt a script for the Tibetan language. In 641 he marries Princess Wencheng of Tang China, and he also wed a princess from Nepal.
The empire rises beside two older powers. To the east, the newly founded Tang dynasty is rebuilding a unified China. To the south, the Gupta world of India supplies Buddhist teachers, texts and the model for Tibetan writing. Tibetan armies, mounted and at home in thin air, expand into the Tarim Basin oases, Nepal and the Silk Road, fighting Tang, Arab and Turkic forces for control of Central Asia.
The high point comes in the 8th century. In 763, while Tang was weakened by the An Lushan rebellion, a Tibetan army captured Chang'an, the Tang capital, and held it for about two weeks. King Trisong Detsen made Buddhism a state religion and founded Samye monastery around 779. A treaty of 821 to 822 fixed the border with China, and its text, in Tibetan and Chinese, was carved on stone pillars. After the assassination of King Langdarma around 842 the empire broke into rival lords and monastic domains, and Tibet stayed politically divided for centuries.
Why it mattered
- Tibet gained a written language and a tradition of royal law and chronicles that outlasted the empire.
- Imperial sponsorship of Samye and Indian monks established Buddhism in Tibet, the root of Tibetan Buddhism and the later Dalai Lama institution.
- Tibetan control of Silk Road oases reshaped Central Asian trade and politics, and Tang's decline after 755 was partly due to Tibetan pressure.
- The empire gave Tibetans a lasting sense of a unified history, which later Tibetan and Chinese accounts use in opposing ways in modern disputes over sovereignty.
Sources
- Tibetan Empire Dissolves EBSCO Research Starters
Community notes
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