Khon family

Who he is

Name

Jetsun Drakpa Gyaltsen (Grags pa rgyal mtshan)

Title

Head of the Khon house

Since

1182

Born

1147

Family

Khon ('Khon)

Confidence

medium

Wikipedia (Sakya, Sakya Pandita) and the brief: the Khon head passes from brother to brother and uncle to nephew. Sonam Tsemo (1142-1182) died in 1182, Drakpa Gyaltsen (1147-1216) is the head until 1216, when Sakya Pandita succeeds.

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

• Sakya valley and the North Monastery (see the religious record Sakya for the drawing)
• The household of the head (bla brang): kin, servants and the stewards whom no source names
• Estates and tenants, gifts of disciples (not itemised)

How it was acquired

1073: Khon Konchok Gyalpo's foundation. Headship by family succession since.

Allies and rivals

No ally or rival of the house is named for 1200. Its teachers and pupils reach into Kadam and Kagyu houses (Sonam Tsemo is listed among the Sangphu masters on the Kadam page).

How things stand that morning

A famous teaching house in Tsang with three generations in view and no political reach.

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

• The succession depends on Palchen Opoche's sons: Drakpa Gyaltsen has no recorded son.

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. 1203Palchen Opoche dies.Depends on: Natural death on its date (Wikipedia, Sakya Pandita). Stopped by: A change in his circumstances in play.
2. 1216Drakpa Gyaltsen dies; Sakya Pandita becomes head.Depends on: Natural death on its date. Stopped by: A different choice of the family.
3. 1235-1239Phagpa (1235) and Chana Dorje (1239) are born to Zangtsa Sonam Gyaltsen (recalled).Depends on: Natural births. Stopped by: A change in Zangtsa's circumstances.

Where the sources disagree

• The brief says 'Sakya Pandita, about 17, is studying': agrees with the pages. Zangtsa's age is from our recollection.
• Chinese Wikipedia (Sakya monastery) says Drakpa Gyaltsen led the monastery 57 years; with the dates above it is 34 (1182-1216). Not used.

Evidence: The family tree to the second generation after Sachen is on the Wikipedia pages in two languages; the household and its servants are not. 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. Dates: 1200 is an Iron-Monkey year in the Tibetan cycle (the first sixty-year cycle began in 1027, a Fire-Hare year); 1 January 1200 falls in the closing weeks of the Earth-Sheep year (1199), before the Tibetan new year. Western years below are the ones the cited pages give; the Tibetan histories give animal-years and the conversions differ by a year or two.

On the map: No map part: the land is drawn on Sakya.

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