Tibetan monasteries · Great Xia, the Tangut empire · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Dantig

Dantig is the old hermitage in the Tsongkha country to which the monks who fled central Tibet after 838 are said to have come, and from which, in the late 10th century, the Vinaya lineage went back to Ü and Tsang with the 'men of Ü and Tsang' (recalled; the Tibetan histories, not read).

Wikipedia's Amdo article names the refugee monks of 838 and the revival (Gewasel) without dates and does not mention Dantig. Dantig lay in the Qingtang kingdom's country (997 to 1104). Since 1136 it lies on Xia ground, in the hills of Hualong. Nothing dated survives for the house in 1200. The site is approximate: a hermitage in the hills north of the Yellow River, near Hualong; no source we could read gives its coordinates.

Who holds it

Title
Abbot and teachers of Dantig
Since
not known
Born
not known
Family
not known
Confidence
low

No holder is named for 1200. The English Wikipedia pages on Dantig, Gongpa Rabsel and Gewasel were not found, and zh.wikipedia refused our fetch; what follows is recalled from the Tibetan histories (Blue Annals), not read.

Overlord

The Xia prefecture of Kuozhou holds the ground; the house answers to its own teachers (not pinned).

What it holds

  • A hill hermitage and its small estates (nothing documented)
  • The memory of the transmission of the Vinaya

How it was acquired

Founded in the 10th century or earlier (recalled).

Allies and rivals

The Tsongkha chiefs (patrons in Gusiluo's day); the Xia prefect of Kuozhou; the Kadam and Sakya houses of Ü and Tsang to which its pupils went.

How things stand that morning

Standing on Xia ground; nothing dated.

Places of note

  • Dantig (approximate): Hills near Hualong; not pinned.

Where the sources disagree

  • The assignment lists Dantig as a house of Amdo to cover 'where dated'. We cannot date it from anything we read; the tradition places its fame in the late 10th century.

Evidence: Recalled tradition only; no Wikipedia page found, no inscription.

On the map: Marker only; the site is approximate.

Primary sources for Great Xia

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

  • Annals of the Western Xia, Wu Guangcheng (吳廣成) (1825 to 1827, compiled from Song, Liao, Jin and Yuan sources). A Qing scholar's year-by-year reconstruction of Tangut history from the Chinese histories, since the Xia left no surviving annals of their own in Chinese. Read online
  • Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government, Bi Yuan (畢沅), completed by Feng Jiwu after his death (late eighteenth century, finished after 1801, from Song and Yuan sources). A Qing scholar's continuous month-by-month chronicle of the Song and Yuan centuries, compiled from the Song shi, the Liao, Jin and Yuan histories, Li Tao, Li Xinchuan and other Song sources. Read online
  • Record of the Personal Campaigns of the Holy Warrior (Chinggis Khan) (presented to Khubilai in 1288, finished in Mongolian in 1290; the surviving Chinese version dates from 1369). A year-by-year Chinese account of Temujin's wars, drawn from the lost Altan Debter (the same source behind the Yuan shi's first chapter and Rashid al-Din). Read online
  • The Secret History of the Mongols (1228 or 1240 (the colophon's Year of the Rat is disputed), with later additions; the surviving Chinese transcription and gloss were made under the Ming in the 1380s). The only Mongol account of Temujin's rise, written within living memory. Read online
  • History of the Song, the chapters on Xia and on foreign states, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345). The Song court's accounts of its neighbours, each arranged as an annal of embassies and wars. Read online
  • Compendium of Chronicles: the Turkic and Mongol tribes and the life of Chinggis Khan, Rashid al-Din Hamadani (about 1300 to 1311, in the Ilkhanate). The fullest description of who held what on the steppe around 1200, written a century later from Mongol court records (the Altan Debter) and from informants such as Bolad Chingsang. Read online
  • History of the Jin, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office, with Ouyang Xuan among the chief compilers (1343 to 1344, from the Jin veritable records and the Jin national history). The official history of the Jurchen empire that ruled north China and Manchuria in 1200. Read online
  • History of the Song, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345, from the Song veritable records, state histories and the Huiyao). The official history of the Southern Song, which ruled from Lin'an (Hangzhou) in 1200. Read online

5 more in the sources library for The Tarim, the Uyghurs and Xia.

Sources and studies

  1. Wikipedia, Tsongkha (cites Twitchett 1994, Smith 2006, Tuttle 2013; read this session)
  2. Wikipedia, Amdo (read this session)
  3. Wikipedia, Hualong Hui Autonomous County (read this session)
  4. The Blue Annals (Deb ther sngon po, 1476), tr. G. Roerich 1949: recalled, not read this session
  5. Author's recall of the secondary literature (Petech, Tucci, Stein, Davidson, Smith, Kapstein, Dunnell): not re-read this session, so marked 'recalled' in the text

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.