The 'Phags-pa temple at Kyirong, which Wikipedia says formerly held one of Tibet's holiest images of Avalokiteshvara, the Arya Wati Sangpo (it was taken to India in 1959; no date of origin is given).
The page also credits a temple here to Songtsen Gampo in the seventh century (unsourced), says Atisha visited in the eleventh century, and names Kyirong as one of Milarepa's favourite meditation places. The Newar merchants who come up the Trisuli road make Kyirong the Tibetan stage where Nepal's rice is exchanged for salt and wool, so the temple is on the trade route and is likely to have been well known in the valley.
Who holds it
- Name
- Not named for 1200
- Title
- The keepers of the Phagpa temple
- Since
- not pinned
- Born
- not known
- Family
- not known
- Confidence
- low
Wikipedia's Gyirong County page gives no custodian.
How things stand that morning
Standing in some form; the image's presence is a tradition.
Military
No army is recorded and no number is known.
Patron
Local lords and the traders.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: One Wikipedia page, unsourced on the early dates. The trade in rice, salt and wool along the Kyirong road is from the campaign board's note on that road, not from the page.
"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.
On the map: A point.
Primary sources for Tibet (centre)
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.
- History of Buddhism in India and Tibet, Buton Rinchen Drub (Bu ston Rin chen grub) (1322). Optional background. Read online
- The Blue Annals, Go Lotsawa Zhonnu Pal ('Gos lo tsa ba gZhon nu dpal) (1476 to 1478). The fullest Tibetan account of who mattered around 1200, written three centuries later from earlier biographies and lineage records, many now lost. Read online
- The collected works of Lama Zhang, and the early Kagyu lives, Lama Zhang (Zhang Yudrakpa Tsondru Drakpa) and his disciples; the biographers of Drigung, Taklung and Phagmodru (the 1160s to the early 13th century). The nearest contemporary witnesses to the lords of central Tibet in 1200. Read online
- The Sakya genealogy, and the works of the Sakya hierarch of 1200, Jetsun Drakpa Gyaltsen (Grags pa rgyal mtshan) and Sakya Pandita; the genealogy by Ngawang Kunga Sonam (the hierarchs' writings about 1170 to 1250; the genealogy 1629). Sakya in 1200 was ruled by Jetsun Drakpa Gyaltsen, the third of the five founders, with his nephew Kunga Gyaltsen (later Sakya Pandita, born 1182) under his teaching. 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
- Indo-Tibetica (the temples and inscriptions of western Tibet), with the Royal Genealogy of Ngari, Giuseppe Tucci (editor and translator); the genealogy by Ngawang Drakpa (Ngag dbang grags pa) (the inscriptions and temple records of the 11th to 15th centuries; Indo-Tibetica published 1932 to 1941; the genealogy about 1497). Guge, Purang and Ladakh in 1200 are among the least documented kingdoms in the atlas. Read online
Sources and studies
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.