Imperial preceptors

Who holds it

Name

Drogon Tishri Repa (Wylie 'Gro mgon Ti shri ras pa), the best-documented preceptor in 1200

Title

Imperial preceptor (dishi) or court preceptor of Huanzong; the holder of the title on 1 January 1200 is not pinned

Since

1196 (he went to stay in the Tangut kingdom); the date of the title is not given

Born

1164 (died 1236)

Family

A Tibetan monk of the Drigung Kagyu; teachers Jikten Gonpo Rinchen Pel (Drigung), Barompa Darma Wangchuk and Tsangpopa Konchok Sengge (Treasury of Lives)

Confidence

medium

Treasury of Lives: 'In 1196 he went to stay in the Tangut kingdom where he remained in his capacity as court preceptor for thirty years.' It gives no inviter, no emperor and no temple.

Overlord

The emperor Huanzong, as patron and protector (the state protects all religious sites, English Wikipedia).

What it holds

• Oversight of the Buddhist canons' revision
• Consecration of the emperor and the court rites
• A rank said to equal an imperial prince's

How it was acquired

The post was created in Renzong's reign, probably in the 1170s (Columbia blog).

Allies and rivals

The throne; the Drigung and other Kagyu houses in Tibet; the Tangut State Preceptor Tangchang; the Chinese-trained monks of the Huayan-Chan schools.

How things stand that morning

A Tibetan lama of the Drigung Kagyu is at the court; his influence over the emperor, the canon and the sangha is real but undated in the detail. The post is a channel for Tibetan teaching into the Tangut state and for Tangut patronage into the Tibetan houses.

Wealth

Imperial gifts and the revenues the office carries; none is given in the sources we read.

Military

None. A house of prayer; the state's garrisons protect it.

Patron

The emperor Huanzong.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. about 1226 (after 1200)Tishri Repa's thirty years at the Tangut court end (1196 plus thirty), shortly before the Mongol conquest; he dies in 1236.Depends on: The Treasury of Lives count of thirty years from 1196; the page does not state a year of return. Stopped by: An earlier return to Tibet or a death at court.

Places of note

• The court of Huanzong at Xingqing: Where the preceptors serve.

Where the sources disagree

• Brief and board speak of imperial preceptors only in general. The Columbia blog says Tsangpopa Konchok Sengge and Tishri Repa were 'probably the last Imperial Preceptors'; Treasury of Lives lists Tsangpopa only as one of Tishri Repa's teachers and calls Tishri Repa 'court preceptor'. The title he held in 1200 is therefore not pinned.
• The English Wikipedia article 'Imperial Preceptor' names none of these men and says the Xia post was 'established during the early rule of Renzong' (with a 'citation needed' flag).

Evidence: Two independent summaries agree on the post and its last holders; the exact title and years are not pinned.

On the map: A point at the capital.

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.