Frontier town · Self-governing peoples of Tibet and the Himalaya · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Tsona

Tsona is the highest town on the Tibetan side of the Mon country (Monyul), the traditional name for the valleys south of the Himalaya from Tawang to Bhutan.

The Tsona dzong and the Mon-Tibetan trade in rice and salt belong to later centuries; in 1200 it is a border settlement where Tibetans, Mon (Monpa) and Lhoba meet. The Monyul page says nothing of Tsona; the position is from our notes (27.99 N, 91.95 E, the modern county seat of Cona).

Who holds it

Title
Headman of Tsona
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

Border settlement; lord not known.

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

not described by any source we could open

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The Monyul page and recollection. 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.

Sources and studies

  1. Wikipedia, Monyul

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.