The Tibetan lands: houses, monasteries and clan chiefs, with no king

Who rules

Name

none; the kings fell in the ninth century and no one has taken their place

Title

No ruler: the realm has no king, regent or council

Since

the ninth century (the end of the monarchy, en Wikipedia, History of Tibet)

Confidence

high

Every page we opened agrees that no king, state or army rules central Tibet in 1200. The Sakya hegemony is of the 1240s and after, the Phagmodrupa of 1354, the Dalai Lamas of 1578 and after.

What the realm holds

• Sakya and the Khon house (Sakya, Khon family)
• Drikung Til (Drikung Til)
• Taklung (Taklung) and Reting (Reting)
• Tsurphu (Tsurphu)
• Ralung (Ralung)
• Densa Thil and the Lang clan (Densa Thil, Lang clan)
• Tsel Gungthang (Tsel Gungthang)
• The Jokhang and Lhasa (Jokhang, Lhasa)
• Samye (Samye)
• Shalu and Narthang (Shalu, Narthang)

How it was acquired

No acquisition: the monarchy ended in the ninth century and the houses grew in the eleventh and twelfth centuries on the patronage of lay families.

Allies and rivals

Teacher-and-pupil ties bind the Kagyu houses (Gampopa to Phagmo Drupa to Jigten Sumgon, Tashi Pel and Lingje Repa and then Tsangpa Gyare). Sakya stands apart; the Kadam are the older network. Friction: Drikung and Taklung over gifts to Densa Thil (undated); the brief names a Drikung and Phagmodru rivalry through the 1190s, which no page we opened shows as fighting.

The realm that morning

A country of houses without a king. Five things the campaign can rely on: no army; no state; no Mongol; no Sakya hegemony; no fighting attested in the winter.

Wealth

Estates and tenants, pilgrim gifts and the great teachings, the barley, butter and wool of the valleys, salt of the northern lakes (the Changthang lakes and Dagze Tsaka), the Nepal and Dromo trade roads and the tea that comes from Kham. No figures.

Military

No army and no standing force. A house or lord calls on retainers, tenants and kin. No source we could open gives a number.

Threats

• Quarrels between the Kagyu houses over the Densa Thil inheritance and over patrons
• Famine, flood and the loss of a hierarch
• The Mongol rise, which is far off in 1200 (first contact 1206 on one account; Dorda 1240; Godan 1244)
• Raids from the Ghurid-held plains on the Dromo road (Bakhtiyar Khilji, 1205 or 1206)

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 of Sakya dies.Depends on: Natural death on its date (Wikipedia). Stopped by: A change in his circumstances in play.
2. 1204The second Karmapa, Karma Pakshi, is born in Kham.Depends on: Natural birth on its date (Wikipedia, Karmapa). Stopped by: A change in his parents' circumstances.
3. 1205-1206Bakhtiyar Khilji's expedition from Bengal reaches Tibet by the Chumbi valley and is beaten back (the Chumbi page says 1206).Depends on: His conquest of Nadia (1203 or 1204) and a march from Bengal; the route is debated. Stopped by: No Ghurid conquest of Bengal.
4. 1206Temujin is proclaimed Chinggis Khan; one account puts the first Mongol contact with Tibet in this year.Depends on: The Mongol rise on the steppe (the Mongolia sheet's). Stopped by: No Mongol rise.
5. 1208Chenga Drakpa Jungne of the Lang clan becomes abbot of Densa Thil; Sakya Pandita is ordained by Shakyashribhadra.Depends on: The Lang clan keeping the patronage; the scholar reaching Tibet. Stopped by: A rival named by Drikung or Taklung; the scholar not arriving.
6. 1210-1217Taklung's Tashi Pel dies (1210); Tsangpa Gyare dies (1211); Drakpa Gyaltsen dies and Sakya Pandita succeeds (1216); Jigten Sumgon dies (1217).Depends on: Natural deaths on their dates. Stopped by: A change in any of their circumstances in play.
7. 1224Phajo Drugom Zhigpo of Ralung reaches western Bhutan and begins the Drukpa rivalry with the Lhapa.Depends on: The Phajo page's date; the brief says about 1222. Stopped by: A closed road.
8. 1240Dorda Darkhan's Mongol column burns Reting and Gyal Lhakhang.Depends on: A Mongol army reaching Tibet. Stopped by: No Mongol rise.
9. 1244-1251Godan summons Sakya Pandita (1244); he reaches Liangzhou in 1246, meets Godan in 1247 and dies there in 1251.Depends on: The Mongol conquest of the Tangut (1227) and Jin (1234) first. Stopped by: Any change in the Mongol conquests.
10. 1290 and 1354The Drikung are broken by the Sakya and Mongols (1290); the Phagmodrupa overthrow Sakya (1354).Depends on: Mongol-Yuan rule and its collapse; far outside the game's horizon. Stopped by: No Mongol conquest.

Places of note

• Sakya: Khon house; Drakpa Gyaltsen
• Drikung Til: Jigten Sumgon
• Taklung: Tashi Pel
• Tsurphu: Karma Kagyu seat
• Ralung: Tsangpa Gyare and the Gya clan
• Densa Thil: Phagmodru mother house; Lang clan
• Jokhang: Lhasa
• Samye: First monastery
• Shalu: Chetsun house
• Reting: Kadam

Where the sources disagree

• Tsurphu was founded 1189 (brief and en Tsurphu), 1187 (zh) or about 1190 (from Dusum Khyenpa's age): the brief's 1189 is kept.
• Shalu: 1040 (en) against 1087 (zh). Ralung: 1180 (en) against 1193 (zh). Taklung: 1178 or 1180 (en). All stated on the records.
• Densa Thil's abbot: the Chinese page dates Chenga Drakpa Jungne's appointment to 1208; the English Phagmo Drupa page says Jigten Sumgon appointed him. We use the dated one.
• The brief's 'Lang and Rlangs' are one clan; 'Radreng' is Reting; 'Tsang Rong' is not resolved (we use it for Dinggye and Gamba).
• Phajo Drugom Zhigpo reaches Bhutan in 1224 (his page), not about 1222 as the brief has it.
• The brief's Kham dates (Kampo Nenang and Karma Gon in 1147) differ from the English Dusum Khyenpa page (1164 and 1185): those two houses are the Kham sheet's.
• The English Bhutan and Monyul pages say Tibetan-Mongol forces occupied all of Bhutan by the eleventh century and that the Lhapa founder fled to Bhutan in the fourteenth: both anachronistic and not used.
• The Barom Kagyu founder Barompa Darma Wangchuk (1127-1199 or 1200) dies at the turn of the year (en Wikipedia, Kagyu); his house (Barom Riwoche in Nangchen) is in Kham, but no record on this map covers it: the Kham research wrote none.
• Positions: the English Jokhang page's longitude is 9 km off; the German Drigung page's coordinates cannot be Maizhokunggar County; the gazetteer's 'Yadong' is in Inner Mongolia.

Evidence: The hierarchs and house foundations agree across the Wikipedia pages in four languages and the brief; the lay lords, the lands and the revenues of 1200 are in no source we could open. 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: The polygons colour the central Tibetan ground as one realm; they follow modern counties and say nothing about who holds what. The Changthang, Bhutan, Sikkim, Kongpo and the Mon border are peoples; the houses on all of it are on the other records.

Primary sources for this realm

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