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Guge was an ancient kingdom in Western Tibet. It encompassed the present-day tracts of Zanskar, Upper Kinnaur, Lahul and Spiti (now controlled by modern day India). The ruins of Guge are located 1200 miles westwards from Lhasa within Chinese-occupied Tibet, not too far from Mount Kailash.

Guge was founded in the 10th century AD. Its capitals were located at Tholing and Tsaparang. Its founder was the great-grandson of Glang Darma, the last king of Tibetan kingdom of Tubo. This king's eldest son became ruler of Mar-yul (Ladakh), and his two younger sons ruled western Tibet, founding the Kingdom of Guge and Pu-hrang. At a later period the king of Guge's eldest son Kor-re, also called Byang-Chub Ye-shes 'Od, became a Buddhist monk. He was responsible for inviting Atisha to Tibet in 1040, and thus ushering in the so called Phyi-dar phase of Buddhism in Tibet. The younger son, Srong-nge, was responsible for day-to-day governmental affairs; it was his sons who continued the royal dynasty. ^[1]

The first westerner to reach Guge was a Jesuit missionary Antonio del Andrade in 1626. Del Andrade is reported to have seen irrigation canals and rich crops in what is now a dry and desolate land.

Perhaps as evidence of the kingdom's openness, del Andrade's party was allowed to construct a chapel in Tsaparang and instruct the people about Christianity. Perhaps as a consequence of this, an Islamic army of Ladakhis came from present day Kashmir and conquered Guge castle in 1632; the 700-year-old kingdom was destroyed. The Dalai Lama's army drove out the Ladakhis 50 years later. (The invasion of Ladakh and adjoining parts of Tibet in the 1830s was the work of invaders from Jammu, led by Zorawar, the wazir of Ghulab Singh, the hill chieftain of Jammu who stitched together what became the State of Jammu and Kashmir; while Ladakh isn't mentioned in this name, it accounts for some two-thirds of its area. As the article on Zorawar makes clear, the army that invaded Tibet was made up of Zorawar's Dogras from Jammu, who were Hindu, Moslems from Baltistan, and Ladakhis, who were most probably Buddhist. --David Lewiston)

Western archeologists heard about Guge again in the 1930s through the work of Italian Giuseppe Tucci. Tucci's work was mainly about the frescoes of Guge.

During the so-called "Cultural Revolution" of the 1960s Chinese barbarians destroyed the remarkable statues that graced these buildings. In 1969 the Chinese restored the structures as "tourist attractions." The books of Tucci and Govinda provide the only information about the appearance of these buildings before this wanton Chinese destruction. --David Lewiston

Contents 1 Rulers 2 See Also 3 External links 4 Categories

The following shows some of the known rulers:

• Odsruns (842-905)
• Dpal'Khorbtsan (905-923)
• Skyidsde Nimamgon
• Dpal-gyimgon Inmaryul
• Bkrasismgon
• Lde-btsugmgon
• Sronne Yeses'od (circa 1035)
• Nagaraja
• Devaraja
• Khore
• Lhalde
• Ziba-'od
• Byan-chub'od
• 'Odldebtsanlde
• Bha-le
• Bkrasislde
• Bhare
• Nagalde
• Btsanphyuglde
• Bkrasislde
• Gragslde
• Gragspalde
• Aroglde
• Ashoglde
• Dzidarsmal
• Anantasmal
• Rilusmal
• Sanghasmal
• Dzitharsmal
• Dzismal
• Kalansmal
• Parrtesmal
• Punismal
• Pritismal

Xiangxiong

• "Unravelling the mysteries of Guge" by Xiong Lei, China Daily, May 8, 2003, retrieved November 24, 2005