Songtsen Gampo

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Tibetan name
Tibetan script :
སྲོང་ བཙན་ སྒམ་ པོ་
Wylie transliteration :
srong btsan sgam po
Pronunciation in IPA :
[ soŋtsɛnkampo ]
Official transcription of the PRCh :
Songzain Gambo
THDL transcription :
Songtsen Gampo
Other spellings:
Songtsan Gampo,
Songtsän Gampo
Chinese name
Traditional :
松贊干布
Simplified :
松赞干布
Pinyin :
Sōngzàn Gānbù
Statue of Songtsen Gampo

Songtsen Gampo († 649 ) was King of Tibet from approx. 617 to 649. Under him, the Tibetans began to play an essential role in the history of Central Asia for the first time.

His predecessors, who belonged to the Yarlung dynasty , in particular his father Namri Songtsen, who achieved a certain degree of unity in southern Tibet, laid the foundations for his success . Songtsen Gampo is the thirty-third in the traditional list of 42 oldest Tibetan rulers . Another term for the first kings of Tibet is "Chögyel" (Tibetan: chos rgyal ; Sanskrit: Dharmaraja ).

Under Songtsen Gampo, every 100 families sent a representative to the court. A palace was built in Lhasa , on the site of today's Potala Palace . There were nine ministries with the same number of ministers and one “code of law” with no less than 16 general moral principles. Tibetan cities with walls and small fortresses in built-up land have existed since the 6th century. There were metalworkers who were able to manufacture gold jewelry armor and crockery. Coins were minted and a script developed.

In 635 Songtsen Gampo asked the Chinese Tang Emperor Taizong to have a princess as his wife, which he got after a successful campaign against China. Princess Wen Cheng was a devout Buddhist; she brought monks and scrolls with her. In addition, the king is said to have married the Nepalese Buddhist princess Khri-btsun ( Bhrikuti ); but there is no reliable tradition about this. Songtsen Gampo also married a princess from the declining kingdom of Shangshung .

The position of Songtsen Gampo compared to the Chinese emperor is still important today, because the current Chinese government would like to see Tibet had been a vassal state of China. But the inscriptions on two pillars in Lhasa - one from 821 and one from 1794, both bilingual - speak of the independence and autonomy of both countries. On the latter, China's envoy Ho Lin confirmed that Tibet was not a vassal state of China during the Tang and Song times.

Buddhism began to gain a foothold in Tibet under Songtsen Gampo , even if there were few Buddhists at the time and their temples looked like simple chapels. The king himself founded two of these shrines in Lhasa, including the Jokhang Temple. For this reason, he is counted among the three Dharma kings of Tibet , alongside King Thrisong Detsen and King Relpacen (Tib .: ral pa can ) . The shamanic - animistic Bon religion was predominant at that time . Only in the 8th century, under King Thrisong Detsen (755-797), there were Buddhist monks of Tibetan origin and in 779 the first monastery in Tibet, that of Samye, was built .

See also

literature

  • Andreas Gruschke (Hrsg.): Myths and legends of the Tibetans. About warriors, monks, demons and the origin of the world. Diederichs, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-424-01309-9 ( Diederichs yellow series 124 Tibet ).
  • Robert K. Cooper: "The Four Truths." Novel about Songtsen Gampo and the founding of Tibet. Schneekluth, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-7951-1728-3 .

Web links

Commons : Songtsen Gampo  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Songtsen Gampo (alternative names of the lemma)
Songtsan Gampo, Songtsän Gampo, chin .: 松贊干布, Sōngzàn Gānbù
personal data
SURNAME Songtsen Gampo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES srong btsan sgam po
BRIEF DESCRIPTION King of Tibet
DATE OF BIRTH 6th century or 7th century
DATE OF DEATH 649