29/02/2024
Guge Kingdom
Read more: Originally, the capital was located at Purang (Tibetan: སྤུ་ཧྲེང་, Wylie: spu hreng), but it was later relocated to Tholing in the Sutlej canyon southwest of Mount Kailash. By around 1100 CE, it had splintered into smaller kingdoms. Tholing, positioned at 12,400 feet (3,800 m), became the capital, situated just 163 miles from Darchen and the last town before Tsaparang in the kingdom of Guge. Founded by Langdarma's great-grandson following Langdarma's assassination, which had led to the downfall of the Tibetan Empire.
Today, Buddhist monuments in both Tsaparang and Tholing lie mostly in ruins, save for a handful of statues and numerous murals, still well-preserved, showcasing the western Tibetan artistic style.
While Langdarma suppressed Buddhism in Tibet, his descendant King Yeshe-Ö, who reigned over the Guge Kingdom in the 10th century with Tholing as its seat, played a pivotal role in the religion's second resurgence or "second diffusion" in Tibet. The era of the Guge Kingdom was marked more by the revival of Buddhism than military conquests. King Yeshe-Ö constructed Tholing Monastery in 997 AD in his capital, alongside two other temples built around the same period: Tabo Monastery in the Spiti Valley of Himachal Pradesh and Khochar Monastery, south of Purang, both of which remain operational.