• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Guge Kingdom - 877-1720

The Guge Kingdom was perhaps the most robust of the petty states founded by various descendants of King Lang-darma [Glang Darma], who fled from Lhasa after the collapse of the Tupo Kingdom in the later part of the 9th Century AD [the conclusion of the reign of King Lang-darma is variously estimated between 842 AD and 902 AD]. It was ruled by about 16 kings with armies of tens of thousands of soldiers. The kingdom played an important role in the second renascence in Tibet and survived for about 700 years. Ruins of Guge Kingdom can be explored even today in Ngari, Purang, Tibet (TAR, China). This kingdom is also to the west of Lhasa, Tibet. Guge, in western Tibet, may have existed side by side with Yarlung as early as 127 BC [according to some accounts], and seems to have persisted in some form at least until 1720.

The Kingdom of Guge, formerly Shang Shung, disappeared as an independent kingdom in 1630 when King Sengge Namgyal (r. ca. 1590-1640) of Ladakh took it, along with Zangskar, Lahul and Spiti. The Kingdom of Guge flourished up to 1679 when Dalai Lama Lobzang Gyatso (1617-82) declared war against Ladakh. Guge [aka Ku-keh], a part of Nari in Tibet, consists of two valleys. On all the higher passes into Tibet the vegetation reaches to about 17,500 feet, and in August they may all be crossed in ordinary years, even up to 18,400 feet, without finding any snow upon them; and it is as impossible to find snow in the summer on the great plain of Guge in western Tibet, at 15,500 feet above the sea, as on the plains of India.

The surrounding region once comprised the legendary land of Shang-shung, the cradle of Tibetan civilization, whose central province, Gu-ge, was ruled by independent kings from around the dawn of the Christian era until around 1650. In ancient times the kingdom of Shang-shung ruled here, followed in later years by a series of mutually independent kingdoms. The most splendid remains of this earlier era are castles of the Guge Kingdom. The boundaries of Shang-shung and that of Suvarna-gotra or the Amazonian kingdom by all accounts are one and the same. "Shang-shung", as Rai Sarat Chandra Das informs, "is a country which is called Guge or Upper Bushahr". Later on, this country was annexed to Tibet. Guge is sometimes called the Eastern Women's Kingdom or the the empire [sic] of the Eastern Women.

Guge or Hundes, the Tibetan course of the Satlej, is comprised between the Himalaya and its Cis-Satlej branch. It extends from the lakes of Mansarowar and Rakastal down the course of the Satlej to Kunawar. The surface of Guge differs remarkably from the rest of Tibet in the greater extent and depth of an alluvial deposit, found elsewhere in Tibet in smaller quantity, and here forming an undulating surface, gradually declining from 15,200 feet, the level of the lakes, to 10,000 feet at the confines of Kunawar. This province, familiarly known as the plain of Tibet, and which has mainly given rise to the erroneous impression of Tibet being a steppe, plain, or table-land, is 120 miles long and 15 to 60 in breadth, and is traversed by the Satlej and its various feeders, which flow in deep narrow ravines 1000 to 3000 feet below its mean level. The botany of Guge is scanty in the extreme; not one-twentieth of its surface was covered with vegetation.

The Rajah of Guge" in Tibet conquered Lahoul, and converted the people to Buddhism. The Tibetan Lamas remained in the country some time, but gradually died out. There was, according to popular accounts, an invasion of Lahoul by the Mongols, under a leader named Goldan Tsewang; these people were Buddhists, and it is affirmed that they remained in the conquered territory for a year or two, this being while Lahoul was still under Guge. The kings of Ladakh received a tribute of turquoises from Guge. About 1710 Delek, the son of Deldan, Oyalpo of Ladakh, warred against Guge, which state called in the aid of the Lhassan army. It would appear that the Gyalpo of Guge was killed in a war with the Ladakis. The invaders were however expelled by a force from Lhasa, which the last chief had asked for, and the Lhasan authorities afterwards retained the province in their own hands. A treaty was then formed with the ruler of Ladak, who married the daughter of the Lhasan commander, and received the district of Spiti as the bride's dowry.

This is stated to have taken place about the beginning of the last century, or about AD 1720, that is, some fifty or sixty years after the division of his territories by Singge Namgyal, and the foundation of the principality of Guge by his son Indra Namgyal. As the district of Spiti is said to have belonged to Guge, the family of Then-chhog Namgyal must have been dispossessed by that of Indra Namgyal some time beforehand.

The earlier history of Lahoul can only be gathered from old traditions, as any written records do not apparently exist. Before Lahoul came under the sway of the Rajahs of Kooloo, it was one of the provinces of the petty Buddhist kingdom of Guge, which bordered Chumurti and Upper Kunawur, and it is stated that the Gyalpos of Ladakh never ruled in the valley at all. When attached to Guge, which is in Tibet proper, Lahoul was larger than it is now, both Triloknath and Pangi, at present in Chumba territory, having been within its limits. About the time of Boodhee Sing or Maun Sing, Rajahs of Kooloo in the latter end of the seventeenth or beginning of the eighteenth century, the Guge Government in Lahoul had become almost powerless ; and the Chumba Rajah, taking advantage of this state of affairs, acquired considerable influence in Lahoul; more particularly was this influence felt towards Pangi and Triloknath, and for many years a nominal tribute was regularly demanded, a part of which consisted of twelve large dogs ; and at the same time the leading men in Chumba were accustomed to levy certain dues on their own account, such as woollen cloth, ropes, &c, &c.

Rajah Boodhee Sing of Kooloo married a daughter of the ruler of Kishtwar, and he himself went to that country to bring his bride home via Lahoul, and he is said to have taken the opportunity en route of impressing on the Lahoulees the advisability of throwing off the yoke of Guge", and of giving their allegiance to the Kooloo State. Lahoul was then, it seems, annexed to Kooloo ; and it is said Rajah Boodhee Sing introduced various improvements in the administration, among which was the chief one of paying the revenue in cash instead of in kind.

There can be little doubt but that both Chumba and Kooloo were, at this period, in accord as to the wresting of Lahoul from Guge; and Boodhee Sing being satisfied with that part of the country now under British rule, the remainder that lay in what is now known as Chumba territory, was seized by the Rajah of the latter principality. Guge never attempted to interfere with this act of spoliation, and, until the reign of Jeet Sing, almost the whole of Lahoul was in the possession of the Kooloo chiefs, when, on this Rajah's expulsion from his kingdom, in 1840, it reverted to the Sikhs, and again to the British in 1846.