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550 BC - 649 AD Shang Shung Kingdom

Tibetans believe that they originated from a monkey and a Raksasi, who married under the order of Avalokiteshvara and gave birth to six children, thus starting the history of Tibet. Mt. Gongpori located in the Shannan Region, is considered to be the place where the couple once lived according to a legend handed down through generations. In this early time the Tibetans indulged in a sort of devil worship, practised magic and probably offered human sacrifices to appease the wrath of the unseen powers. Recent archeological discoveries in different parts of Tibet show that the original inhabitants began to live in the highlands as early as the Palaeolithic Age. They later merged with the Qiang people, who had come the long way from Qinghai and Gansu Provinces, becoming the ancestors of Tibetans. Early archaeological investigations on the Tibetan Plateau concluded that this harsh, high-elevation environment was successfully colonized around 30,000 years ago.

The Tibetan culture is a magnificent culture which started in Shang Shung, the first kingdom of Tibet. Shang-shung (Zhang zhung), the area that was the original source of Tibetan culture, once actually included the whole of Tibet. Tibetan culture, thoroughly permeated with religion, is the product of a particular historical epoch. This culture of the Tibetan people finds expression in traditional folk art forms. It can be traced back as far as the Tubo and Shang-shung period. There were at least two early kingdoms in Tibet: ShangShung and Yarlung, the former situated to the west of Tibet. The kingdom of Shang Shung not only is a historical reality, but it is from there that Tibetan culture originated, preceding the Yarlung dynasty in Tibet. The ShangShung [Zhang Zhung, Shang Shung, Zan Zun or Tibetan Pinyin Xang Xung] appears to have been more of a culture zone than an actual "kingdom", so Tibetan history usually starts with the advent of of Buddhism under the Yarlung Kingdom.

The Shang-shung kingdom is usually considered to cover a geographical area corresponding to today's west Tibet. Shangshung, before its decline, was the name of an empire which comprised the whole of Tibet. The empire known as Shangshung Go-Phug-Bar-sum consisted of Kham and Amdo forming the Go or Goor, U and Tsang forming the Bar or Middle, and Guge Stod-Ngari Korsum forming the Phug or Interior. Shang Shung existed as a non-Tibetan country at the time of the emergence of Tibet as a great power in Central Asia. From the 11th century BC the Chinese used to call by the name of Kiang the tribes (about 150 in number) of nomads and shepherds in Koko- nur and the northeast of present Tibet; but their knowledge continued to be confined to the border tribes until the sixth century of the Christian era. The Lhasa dynasties which invited over the Hindu Buddhists Atisha and others about this time were entirely unknown to the Chinese and Cathayans. Even of Khoten the Cathayans knew absolutely nothing subsequent to 990, and Khoten relations with Sung were confined to complimentary missions. Hence analysts reject the idea that the Dbus and Shang-shung dynasties of the old Lhasa Empire had ever anything to do with China, North or South, in any shape or form, subsequent to the end of the ninth century, and up to the conquests of Kublai Khan four centuries later. From 866 to 1260 Tibet and Lamaism were as completely a blank to China as were the Franks and Christianity; nor had the Tangut monarchy ever at any period the faintest relations with Lamaistic Tibet.

The Bon religion of the royal period (seventh to ninth centuries) is said to have come from Tagsig (Iran?) via Shangshung, and Shangshung is the probable source of other early components of Tibetan civilization. A pre-Buddhist shamanistic religion prevalent in early Tibet, Bon-po originated just west of Mt. Kailas in Gu-ge, the capital of the ancient kingdom of Shang Shung. Like the Buddhists who came centuries after him, Miwoche combined the various native mystical cults under his own to fashion Bon, or Boen. He settled in Shang Shung, presently known as western Tibet's Guge region. Centered on the Tibetan Plateau, the tale of the kingdom of the Bon people is of profound importance, for it was from the Bon kingdom of Shang-shung that the myth of Shambhala arose. Shangri-La [Shambhala] was considered to be one of the great centers of the Zhang Zhung culture of central Tibet. These people settled in Tibet and practiced some form of ritual Bon culture, which must have evolved from Hindu and Zoroastrianism. Animal sacrifice and burning of junipers (fire) indicate strong confluence of Hindu and Zoroastrianism.

The Bon culture may or may not have a single central state. According to Bon belief, Shang Shung had 18 kings, but it is unclear whether this means 18 kings in dynastic sequence, or rulers of 18 co-existing kingdoms. History does not record the names of many of the kings of Shang Shung, nor is anything known of what they did. The absence of even a fictive "king list" would tend to suggest the absence of a dynastic sequence, even a mythic one. This "kingdom" of Shangshung, probably a confederation of local chieftains headed by the Ligmi (lig mi) meaning “existence”) dynasty, ruled much of present­day western and central Tibet for some centuries.

Although there is evidence of a lost Shang-Shung Ponpo (zhang-zhung; bon-po) script, it is generally believed that Tibet had no written language until King Songtsen Gampo (srong- btsan-sgam-po; 617-699). But legend relates that Tonpa Shenrab, who is supposed to be the first teacher of Bon [that is, surely a millenium prior to Songtsen Gampo], taught the calculation of astrology, medicine and other teachings. It is also said he invented the first writing, which did not exist before him. This writing is called the language of Shang Shung. It is called mar which means "divine", "coming from the sky". It is considered to be a very holy writing, a divine writing.

Around the middle of the 11th Century BC [e.g., circa 1063 BC], a semi-legendary figure known as Lord Shenrab Miwo reformed the primitive animism of the Shen race and founded the Tibetan Bon religion, whose practicioners are known as Bonpo. Bon was the official religion of the Shang Shung kingdom, introduced by Tonpa Shenrab Miwo into the ancient Kingdom of Shang Shung. The literature of the Bon religion is replete with references and allusions to Zhang Zhung which, according to these sources, was large and powerful, and once covered much of today's Tibetan territory. According to Bonpo sources there were eighteen Shangshung Kings who ruled Tibet before King Nyatri Tsenpo. The famous king of Shang Shung called Triwer,tri meaning 'divine', andwer meaning 'power', was a contemporary of Shenrab Miwo. And so 'Divine Power' way the king's name in the language of Shang Shung. That name, indicating the divine origin of the person who bore it, was the name of the kingdom's first ruler. Bon texts attest that Triwer lived one thousand years before the Buddha, in very ancient times.

The earliest Tibetan documents preserved at Dunhuang mention both Bon and Shangshung, but these documents can be difficult to date and even harder to interpret. Tiwor Sergyi Jhagruchen was the first Shangshung King. This culture predated the coming of Buddhism. Historically the first Shang Shung king was more or less at the time of Tonpa Shenrab, the founder of the Bon tradition. The eighth book of the Grub-mthaK-iel-kyi-me'-lok, in twelve books, by the Tibetan lama Chkoikyi Nyima (1674-1740) gives some information on the rise of the Bonpa in the region of Shang-shung, identified, not with the modern region of the same name in the northwest of Lhasa, but with Guge or Ghughe and Knaor or Upper Besahr.

Three stages are pointed out in the development of the Bonpa after the time of its mythical founder, who reckoned among his spiritual descendants sages of Persia, Leg-tang-mang (some names of Lao-kiun?) of China, of Thomo, of Uiniak (east Tibet), of Snmpar, and of Shang-shung. The first stage is that of the human historical founder of the religion, a sage of the name «f Shong-hon, who lived in the semi-historical time of Thide-toanpo, the sixth king of Tibet (the first is said to have ruled about 415 BC). The second stage, dating from the 3rd century BC, is that at whioh Bon theories and doctrines began to exist, a beginning coincident with the arrival in the country of three Bon priests from Kashmir, Dusha, and Shang-shung. The recital down to this point gives evidence of the vagueness of the traditions preserved by the Tibutans with reference to their own beginnings, and shows that the author has striven hard to put together shreds of ancient reminiscence within a fabulous and mythical account. With the third stage comes historical times.

According to some historians, Nyatri Tsempo, the first king of Tibet, was a contemporary of the Buddha Shakyamuni, while according to others he lived at a later time. It is commonly claimed that Tibetan Medicine originated with Tonpa Shenrab (ston pa gshen rab), the legendary founder of the Bon religion, and his son, Chebu Trishe (dbyad bu khri shes). According to the standard modern text book on the history of medicine used presently in Tibet [gso rig lo rgyus, Beijing, 2004], the ancient scholar Shenton Yeshe Lodo (gshen ston ye shes blo gro) asserts that Shenrab was born in 1957 BCE, while some modern historians would date his birth to the year 1917 BCE.

But the famed Zurkhar Lodo Gyalpo (zur mkhar blo gros rgyal po) relates in his Encyclopedic Outline that "At the same time that Bhagavan Shakyamuni arrived in the world, the one called Shenrab Miwoche arrived in Purang" (in Western Tibet). This statement dates the Buddha [Bhagavan Shakyamuni] to Shenrab. The Cambridge and Oxford histories of India accept 483 BC as the date of Buddha's nirvana. He was 80 years old when he died, so this puts his birth year at 563 BCE. The most recent birth date of the Buddha would be 562 BCE, versus the traditional Theravadin date of 624 BCE, while the so called "short chronology" puts the birth of the Buddha in the range of 484 BCE. But it is as difficult to take these works seriously as a work on the life of Tonpa Shenrab as it is to take the Morte D'Arthur as true history of British royalty.

The three regions of Tibet – the Zangbo Valley, Chang Tang, and Kham – give Tibet its varied physical landscape. The home of Shang Shung is the Changthang (the Tibetan words for “northern plain”), the remote north and west of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, and the highest, coldest and driest part of the Tibetan plateau. At 15,000 to 17,000 feet above sea level, Shang Shung represents the highest elevation civilization ever to have existed. By the early first millennium BC, the Tibetans began to create a civilization on the highest reaches of the Plateau in which mountaintop strongholds, lakeside settlements, and ritual centers associated with the dead predominated. The largest lake in the Changthang, Nam Tsho (‘Celestial Lake’) is nearly 50 miles long. It is the site of a series of Shang Shung monuments, all within sight of the lake. This area was visited in the 1870’s by two Indian spies working for the British Imperial government. They returned to India with fantastic stories of pyramids and other ancient wonders.

Scholars know very little about the Shang Shung Kingdom and its original geographical extent. The chronology of Shang Shung sites remains in question. The methodologies of archaeology, genetics, and historical linguistics have the potential to shed light on Tibet's prehistory, but they have so far been little employed. In the stunningly beautiful Changthang area in the Tibetan plateau, the Shang Shung culture built a large network of temples, forts, villages and tombs. There are a number of hilltop ruins in western Tibet ascribed by local residents to the Mon-pa, also called Mon dur, Mon rdzong or Mon mkhar. A semi-legendary prehistoric people, the Mon-pa were probably of non-Tibetan origin. Their hilltop forts exhibit diverse construction styles, and some of these structures were probably constructed in the Zhang Zhung period.

Until recently, little hard evidence of Shang Shung’s purported greatness had emerged. Archeological work on the Chang Tang plateau has found evidence of an Iron Age culture which some identify as the Zhangzhung. In his book, Tibetan Stones of Time:Exploration of the Ancient Bon Kingdom of Zhang Zhung, Bellezza’s findings date the stone remains to the Iron Age, a time span from the first millennium BC to the period of the first Buddhist Kings of the 7th century AD. Some locate the "lost" kingdom of Shang-shung and, in doing so, the original Shangri-La itself, in a remarkable gorge beyond the Himalayas, full of extraordinary ruins.

The Shang Shung kings of the past lived in different places such as Guge and Khyunlun Nulkar (Khyung Lung ngul mkhar), near Mount Kailash, and many others. The Silver Palace of Khyung-lung is in the upper Sutlej Valley of Zhang-Zhung. Khyung Lung is interesting because it is the place where the last king (of Shang Shung) lived. By one account, Khyung lung dngul mkhar is more than 3000 years old because from the time of sTon pa gShen rab mi bo che, there were eighteen famous Zhang Zhung kings and of these, two kings had their residence in Khyung lung dngul mkhar. Later, of the other Zhang Zhung kings, most continued to live in this area and used Khyung lung dngul mkhar for more than two thousand years, it is said.

The sacred Kailas mountain, also called Meru, occupies an important place in Hindu mythology. Mount Kailas is regarded in the Hindu mythology as the mansion of the gods and Siva's paradise, and as late as the mid-19th century was thought to be the highest mountain in the world, being estimated to have a height of 30,000 feet [actually 22,000 feet]. The Kailas mountain forms a great water parting to the north of the southern range of the Himalayas. The Indus starts eastward from its northern slope; the Sutlej takes off to the south-west from its southern side, and the Tsan-pu, or Brahmaputra, flows eastwards from its eastern base. The Sanskrit mythologists believed that the Ganges issued from the sacred lake Manasarowar. This, of course, was a pure conjecture, and an erroneous one. Geographers held that the Sutlej took its rise in the lake, but the true origin of that river is ascribed by Moorcroft to the Ravana-hrada lake, close to the west of the Manasarowar, and perhaps connected with it. The Manasarowar formed a beautiful feature of the Elysium of the Hindus, or Siva's paradise on the Kailas mountain. It is one of the four lakes of which the gods drink.

The 'Light of Kailash' is a monumental work of Chögyal Namkhai Norbu about the origins of the Tibetan Culture. In 1988 Prof. Namkhai Norbu, the founder of the Shang Shung Institute, organized an expedition to Mt. Kailash, which also visited the ancient cave-city near the modern village of Khyung Lung in Dzamda county. There he identified for the first time the cave-city with the last capital of Shang Shung, Khyung Lung Ngulkar (literally “Silver Castle in the Garuda Valley”). The remains of the three-story “Palace” of Khyung Lung, probably the King and his family’s residence, are still visible. Beneath the Castle there were other constructions of which there are no traces on the surface.

As the Shangshung empire declined, a kingdom known as Bod, the present name of Tibet, came into existence at Yarlung and Chongyas valleys at the time of King Nyatri Tsenpo, who started the heroic age of the Chogyals (Religious Kings). Initially the ancient kings of Shang Shung, in Western Tibet, fought off the armies of the emerging Yarlung kings of southern Tibet. The Bön master Gyerpung Drenpa Namkha (a gyerpung is the Bön equivalent of a lama or guru) struggled with Trisong Detsen to protect the Bön faith until the king finally broke Shang-Shung's political power. Shang Shung flourished until around 700 AD, when deteriorating climate and cultural and religious changes in Tibet combined in its demise. Songtsen Gampo (620 to 649), the first King of the Tupo Kingdom, introduced Buddhism as one of the pillars of his kingdom. The Bon culture of Shang Shung was seen as a political threat by Song-tsen-gam-po and thus this early Tibetan king adopted Buddhism and attempted to eliminate all traces of Bon Songtsen Gampo was forced to marry off his sister, Sadmarkar, to a powerful adversary in the West - the Shang Shung king Ligmigya - as a tribute. Srong btsan sgam po eventually murdered the last king of Zhang Zhung, King Lig mi rkya, who died in 649 AD. Bod grew until the whole of Tibet was reunited under King Songtsen Gampo, when the last Shangshung King, Ligmigya, was killed.

The kingdom of Shang Shung is named in the Dunhuang documents as having been conquered by the great Tibetan king. The gradual merger of the Tubo culture of the Yalong Valley in the middle part of the basin of the Yarlung Zangbo River and the ancient Shang-Shung culture of the western part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau formed the native Tibetan.