Gyantse stands where the Nyang valley opens on the road from Lhasa over the Karo La to Tsang and, southward, over the Himalaya to Dromo, Sikkim and Bhutan.
The fortress of Gyantse, the Pelkor Chode monastery (1418) and the Kumbum (1427-1440) are of the fifteenth century and do not exist in 1200. What stands there on 1 January 1200 the pages we opened do not say: fields, a farming village and the junction of caravan roads. The nearest named house is Ralung to the south-west (Tsangpa Gyare), with the Nyangtö valley's other families unnamed.
Who holds it
- Title
- Lord of the Gyantse valley
- Since
- not pinned
- Confidence
- low
No source we could open names the holder for the winter of 1199-1200.
Overlord
none: no one rules Tibet in 1200; the house answers to its own patrons and to the custom of the valleys
How things stand that morning
Not a town; a valley junction.
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.
Council
none known; the place is governed by its lord or house, and no source we could open names a headman or judge
Communities
Tibetan; no other community is attested here
Fairs and markets
none known; pilgrims and caravans meet at the feasts of the temples, but no fair is dated
Walls and castle
none known; the dzong (fort) as an institution of the district lord belongs to the fourteenth century
Trade and crafts
the wool, salt and barley trade between the Changthang, Tsang and the Himalayan passes (the general pattern; no 1200 source)
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: The Gyantse page of Wikipedia (read for another purpose) and the gazetteer. 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.
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.