Written source · Tibetan

Sumpa Khenpo's Wish-fulfilling Tree: a Tibetan history of Buddhism

A Mongol-born Amdo lama's 1748 history of Buddhism in India, China, Tibet and Mongolia, with a year-by-year chronological table.

Full title The Excellent Wish-fulfilling Tree: history of Buddhism in India, China, Tibet and Mongolia (1748), with chronological tables (re’u mig)

འཕགས་ཡུལ་རྒྱ་ནག་ཆེན་པོ་བོད་དང་སོག་ཡུལ་དུ་དམ་པའི་ཆོས་བྱུང་ཚུལ་དཔག་བསམ་ལྗོན་བཟང་།

Sumpa Khenpo Yeshe Peljor (1704-1788)

Read the 4 passages Open the original book

Sumpa Khenpo Yeshe Peljor (1704 to 1788), a lama of Mongol descent from Amdo who studied in Lhasa and spent years at the Qing court in Beijing, finished his Dpag bsam ljon bzang in 1748. It narrates Buddhism in India, Tibet, China and Mongolia and ends with a chronological table (re'u mig) dating events by the Tibetan sixty-year cycle. The corpus holds Sarat Chandra Das's Calcutta edition of 1908, whose Tibetan text is badly garbled in the OCR; the quotes here come from Das's English index and his analytical list of contents for the Tibetan history (Part II), so they are the editor's summaries, not Sumpa's own words.

How they knew: Compiled from others
Who “Tartar” means here: In Das's English, 'Tartar' renders Tibetan Sog po and Hor, meaning Mongols: the Khoshut and Oirat (Oelod) armies and khans who ruled Tibet from 1642, and Chinggis Khan.
Why read it: It shows the Mongols from the Tibetan side, as the 'Tartar kings' of Tibet who made the Dalai Lama's government possible, and the index explains how Tibetan words were turned into 'Tartar' in English.
Watch out: Everything quoted is Das's English paraphrase of the contents, not a translation of Sumpa's text; the Tibetan OCR is largely unreadable. The chronological table itself was not found in readable form in this copy.

What it says: 4 passages

Cities Shigatse, Tibet1642

Gushri Khan's Tartars take Shigatse fortress

Editorial contextDas summarises Sumpa's account of how the Khoshut Mongol ruler Gushri Khan invaded Tibet, besieged the fortress of Samdruptse (Shigatse), took thirteen district forts and captured the king of Tsang, who was thrown into the Tsangpo river. Gushri was then proclaimed king of all Tibet and handed religious authority to the Dalai Lama's church. The 'Tartars' here are Oirat Mongols from Kokonor.

The seige of Sam-dub-tse (now fort Shi-ga-tse) by the Tartars and the capture of thirteen Jong by them under the lead of Gucri Khan … The king of Tsang surrendered himself. He was thrown into the river Tsang-po

Sarat Chandra Das, English analytical contents to his edition of Sumpa Khenpo's Tibetan text (Calcutta, 1908)

See the original page

About Khoshut Mongols ('Tartars') under Gushri Khan

Keep in mind

Das adds that the king was packed into something before being drowned, but that word is garbled in the OCR.

Buildings Lhasa1640s to 1690s

The Potala's Red Palace, built under the 'Tartar kings'

Editorial contextThe contents list the regents (desi) who governed Tibet under Gushri Khan's descendants, the 'Tartar kings', and credit the building of the nine-storeyed Red Palace of the Potala to the regent Sangye Gyatso. The Mongol khans held the title of king; the great building is credited to the Tibetan regent.

Succession of Desrid or governors … under the Tartar kings … The erection of the nine-storeyed Red palace (Phodañ Marpo) of Potala during the prime-ministership of Desrid San-gye Gya-tsho

Sarat Chandra Das, English analytical contents to his edition of Sumpa Khenpo's Tibetan text (Calcutta, 1908)

See the original page

About Khoshut Mongol kings of Tibet; the Tibetan regent Sangye Gyatso

Keep in mind

An editor's summary line; the Red Palace was built in the 1690s.

The name Mongolia1908 (Das's index)

Sog-po and Hor: the Tibetan words for 'Tartar'

Editorial contextDas's index to the Tibetan history glosses the Tibetan word Sog po as 'Tartary or a Tartar', and Sog yul (Sog land) as 'Mongolia, Hor, Tartary'. The English word Tartar in this edition is therefore a translation of Tibetan words for the Mongols, not a name the Tibetan author used.

Sog-po, the Tibetan for Tartary or a Tartar … Sog-yul Mongolia, Hor, Tartary

Sarat Chandra Das, index to his edition of Sumpa Khenpo (Calcutta, 1908)

See the original page (p. 130)

About Mongols (Sog po, Hor)

Keep in mind

The Tibetan-script headwords are garbled in the OCR (the second reads ཐོག་ཡུལ for སོག་ཡུལ).

Strange tales Tibet (legendary)legendary; 1748

Mongols descended from the Asuras

Editorial contextAmong the opening legends of the Tibetan history, Das lists one that gives each great people a different origin: the Indians from the gods, the Chinese from the naga demigods, and the Mongolians from the asuras, the demons who fought the gods. It sits beside the story of the Tibetans' descent from a monkey.

The origin of the people of Aryavartta (India) from the gods, that of the Chinese from the Naga demi-gods, and that of the Mongolians from the Asura (demons who fought with the gods)

Sarat Chandra Das, English analytical contents to his edition of Sumpa Khenpo's Tibetan text (Calcutta, 1908)

See the original page

About Mongols, Chinese, Indians

Keep in mind

A summary line by the editor; Sumpa reports it as a traditional legend.

The fine print

How we know

compilation Assembled from earlier sources. The author did not observe it directly.

retrospective compilation by a Mongol (Oirat-descended) Amdo scholar, with firsthand knowledge of 18th-century Kokonor and Mongol affairs

Research notes

Sumpa's chronology depends on Tibetan calendrical tradition (rab byung cycles) and on the Deb ther sngon po; Das's 1908 edition is partial and typographically imperfect.

Why it matters

Contains a chronological table (re'u mig) dating events year by year in Tibetan, Mongol and Chinese history, including Mongol khans: a native chronology to test against the New Chronology claims.