Guge Kingdom

A Brief Introduction to Guge Kingdom

From the middle 10th century to the early 17th century, Guge Kingdom controlled the western area of Tibet, spreading Buddhism and resisting outer attacks. Guge Kingdom played an important role in the history after the Tubo Kingdom in Tibet.

History of Guge Kingdom

The royalty of Guge Kingdom was the direct descendants of Tubo Zamprogna (similar to the king in Chinese). Therefore, the fountainhead of Guge Kingdom's history can be dated back to the late Tubo Kingdom period.

In the 9th century, the once-prosperous Tubo Kingdom gradually declined. The last Zamprogna Langdama implemented the policy of eradicating Buddhism. As a result, contradictions between the monks group and the secular blue blood group among the rulers were intensified and wars broke out. Langdama died in a war in the year of 823. His sons and grandsons fought for the thrones. Jide Nimagun was defeated in the battles and escaped to the remote Nagri area. Later, he created a powerful kingdom-Guge Kingdom in Nagri area. In his late years, in order to avoid the tragedy of fight between brothers, he divided the Guge Kingdom into three parts and gave them respectively to his three sons.

In the beginning, the Guge Kingdom ruled that Buddhism was the foundation principle to govern the whole kingdom. The governors were all quite enlightened. They built the Tuolin Monastery and translated the Buddhism scriptures to spread Buddhism.

However, in the later Guge Kingdom period, the monks group got stronger and stronger, becoming the threat to the royalty. So the last king of Guge Kingdom decided to believe in Catholicism and built some Catholic churches. The monks group then staged an uprising. What's worse, they seduced the enemies of Guge Kingdom-Ladake to attack Guge Kingdom. As a result, Guge Kingdom was destroyed in 1635.