Tsurphu

Who holds it

Name

Drogon Rechen ('Gro mgon ras chen)

Title

Steward of the Karma Kagyu seat at Tsurphu after the first Karmapa's death

Since

1193 (recalled)

Born

1148 (recalled; died 1218)

Confidence

low

En Wikipedia (Dusum Khyenpa) names Drogon Rechen as the first Karmapa's main disciple and holder of the Golden Rosary lineage, and says the prediction letter went to him and then to his pupil Pomdrakpa. That he sat at Tsurphu in January 1200 is our recollection of Treasury of Lives and the Karma Kagyu histories and is unchecked; the Tai Situpa and Karmapa pages we opened do not cover 1193-1204.

Overlord

none: no one rules Tibet in 1200; the house answers to its own patrons and to the custom of the valleys

What it holds

• Tsurphu and the Dowo Lung valley
• The first Karmapa's relics and the sealed letter (tradition)
• Branch houses in Kham (Karma Gon, Kampo Nenang, Pamphuk): Kham sheet

How it was acquired

Founded by Dusum Khyenpa 1187-1190 (pages differ); held by his disciples after 1193.

Allies and rivals

Teacher line Gampopa. Brother houses: Phagmodru (through the Dagpo Kagyu), Tsalpa, Taklung and Drukpa all list Dusum Khyenpa as teacher or fellow (Wikipedia, Dusum Khyenpa lists Taklung Thangpa and Tsangpa Gyare among his disciples). No quarrel is recorded. Far connection: the Kham sheet reports that the Tangut page of Wikipedia has a disciple of Dusum Khyenpa given the title Supreme Teacher by a Xia king, with no name and no date (we did not read that page).

How things stand that morning

A seat whose founder died seven years ago, held by a steward-disciple until the incarnation is found. Quiet.

Wealth

No source we could open gives figures; the usual base is estates and serfs, herds, pass tolls, trade in salt, wool, tea and barley, and the gifts of patrons.

Military

No standing army; the house or lord calls on retainers, tenants and kin. No troop numbers are given by any source we could open.

Threats

• None known.

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. 1204Karma Pakshi, the second Karmapa, is born in Kham.Depends on: Natural birth on its date (Wikipedia, Karmapa lists 1204-1283). Stopped by: No such birth if the player changes the family's circumstances.
2. c. 1207-1218 (recalled)Pomdrakpa recognises the boy from the letter; Drogon Rechen dies in 1218 (recalled).Depends on: The letter surviving and the boy being found. Stopped by: Loss of the letter or the boy.
3. 1253-1283Karma Pakshi at the Mongol court of Mongke and Khubilai; his imprisonment and flight.Depends on: The Mongol court, absent in 1200. Stopped by: No Mongol rise.

Places of note

• Tsurphu: The monastery, 70 km from Lhasa at about 4,300 m

Where the sources disagree

• The Tsurphu founding date differs on the pages we opened (1159 and 1189 on one page, 1187 on another, about 1190 from the founder's age): the brief's 1189 is kept.
• The en Dusum Khyenpa page gives Kampo Nenang as 1164 and Karma Gon as 1185, not 1147 as the brief suggests for both; those two are the Kham sheet's.

Evidence: The head of Tsurphu in 1200 rests on our recollection and on the pages that name Drogon Rechen only as principal disciple. Treasury of Lives, the Blue Annals, the Red Annals, Petech, Sorensen and Hazod and Davidson could not be opened in this session (treasuryoflives.org and rigpawiki.org refused the fetch; the archive.org full texts were refused or cut off), so facts marked 'recalled' are from memory of those works and unchecked.

On the map: Position within about 10 km; the Tolung valley as a whole is a province record.

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