Talk:Songtsän Gampo

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Contents 1 Change of dates 2 Requested move 3 Srong-brtsan Sgam-po 4 Objection to heavy-handed editing 5 Tanguts and Songstän Gampo

[edit] Change of dates

Why was his birth-year changed about 10 years earlier, actually there are no water-tight arguments around his birth, so it is probably left as a range of years, or with a circa.

[edit] Requested move

Could anyone move this article back to Songtsen Gampo? Srong-brtsan sgam-po is the Tibetan romanization of his Tibetan name. Anyway, look at Wikipedia:Requested moves.

I would suggest that editors would edit in accordance to my style: [1].

Mr Tan 15:15, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Srong-brtsan Sgam-po

I am finding your reverts rather irritating. The article I had first written cites the Tang Annals and the Old Tibetan Chroncile. It is well known among those of us who work on Tibetan history that Srong-brtsan Sgam-po (the second emperor of Tibet) did not marry a Nepalese Princess, and did not introduce Buddhism to Tibet. These stories are first mentioned in the Me-long and the Bka'-bum as I had mentioned in the article. (Incidentally, these are citations, just because you can't read Tibetan doesn't excuse pretending that citations of Tibetan sources are not citations). If you can find an earlier citation for these stories then I will retract my position that they are late medieval fantasies, but I doubt you will. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 134.2.147.103 (talk • contribs) 16:30, 12 July 2005.

1. Could you always 'sign' your comments (with four tildes: ~~~~)?
2. Your addition, aside from anything else, used a version of the subject's name that was completely different from the title of the article. I personally think that your version should be the article title, but as it isn't, your text was confusing.
3. Citations of Tibetan sources are useful, but they're not enough here; you need to give citations that allow other editors (and readers) to verify your claims (Wikipedia:No original research).

--Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 16:49, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I've tried to tidy the English and style of the new material, but there's one stumbling block; the article now contains a confusing mix of different transliteration systems. Could someone with expertise make them consistent? If it's to the Tibetan romanisation scheme, I'll move the article in accord. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 13:09, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

-- rudy 20:29, 16 August 2006 (UTC) I don't know much about Tibetan, but if Thonmi Sambhota has not invented it, who did? What is the reason for doubting the traditional explanation?

[edit] Objection to heavy-handed editing

Dear "Tibetologist":

I noticed you have removed a lot of material (including a photo) from this page and given as your (unsourced) reasons that you believe that it is largely legendary and of "late medieval origins" and not "historical." When I wrote those notes I thought I had added quite a number of qualifiers to show where uncertainty existed. I will now rewrite them with even more qualifiers, but I must point out that your comments seem to have little or no real evidence to back them.

It should be noted that quite a number of early Tibetan traditions which were previously dismissed as later legends (for example, the famous religious debates in the late 8th century) have been, in fact, confirmed by archaeological finds from Dunhuang and elsewhere. Should this not give you some pause for dismissing such Tibetan traditions? Sure, they should be appropriately qualified - but not, I think, dismissed out of hand, unless you have really strong evidence to show they are untrue.

Please contact me if you have any queries - perhaps together we can make this a better, more accurate article. John Hill 11:06, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

It is normal practice in history to more ore less disregard hagiographic material that was compiled several centuries after the events described. It is not clear to my why this standard should be relaxed in Tibetan studies. While of course this material will contain some true material not found elsewhere it takes a lot of spade work to figure out what these nuggets of historicity are, and after all Wikipedia is not the place for orignal research. The Samye debates are a good example. No debate occured, and nothing occured at Samye. There was no winner and no loser, and Chinese style Buddhism (whatever that might be) was never surpressed in Tibet. Hoshan Mahayana was a real person, and was involved in scholarly discussion with his contemporaries. Some details e.g. the Nepali wife, are clearly made up, for starters her name Brkhuti (sp?) is the name of Avalokitesvara's second consort. Clearly someone thought along these lines -- Avalokitesvara is Songtsän Gampo, therefore Wencheng must be Tara and there must have been a second wife who was Nepalese named Brkhuti. Tibetologist 13:31, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tanguts and Songstän Gampo

It was my impression that the Tanguts didnt really immerge as historical until around 900, so I am rather surprized to read that Songtsän Gampo fought with them. Cam this poiht be elaborated any further? Also, can we cut out some of the wierd spellings at the very begining, redirects exist in all those places anyhow? Tibetologist 05:28, 14 March 2007 (UTC)