page_title: Tibetan Empire
section_title: Reign of Tridu Songtsen (677–704)
hierarchical_section_title: Tibetan Empire / History / Reign of Tridu Songtsen (677–704)
caption_attribution_description: Eastern Hemisphere in 700 AD.
context_page_description: The Tibetan Empire existed from the 7th to 9th centuries AD when Tibet was unified as a large and powerful empire, and ruled an area considerably larger than the Tibetan Plateau, stretching to parts of East Asia, Central Asia and South Asia.
  Traditional Tibetan history described the exploits of a lengthy list of rulers. External corroboration is available from the 7th century in Chinese histories. From the 7th to the 9th century a series of emperors ruled Tibet. From the time of the emperor Songtsen Gampo the power of the empire gradually increased over a diverse terrain. By the reign of the emperor Ralpacan, in the opening years of the 9th century, it controlled territories extending from the Tarim basin to the Himalayas and Bengal, and from the Pamirs to what are now the Chinese provinces of Gansu and Yunnan.
  The varied terrain of the empire and the difficulty of transportation, coupled with the new ideas that came into the empire as a result of its expansion, helped to create stresses and power blocs that were often in competition with the ruler at the center of the empire.
context_section_description: The power of Emperor Tridu Songtsen was offset, to an extent, by that of his mother, Thrimalö and the influence of the Gar clan. (Wylie mgar; also sgar and ′gar). (There is evidence that the Gar were descended from members of the Lesser Yuezhi, a people who had originally spoken an Indo-European language and migrated, sometime after the 3rd century BC, from Gansu or the Tarim into Kokonur.)
  In 685, minister Gar Tsenye Dompu (mgar Bstan-snyas-ldom-bu) died and his brother, Gar Tridring Tsendrö (mgar Khri-‘bring-btsan brod) was appointed to replace him. In 692, the Tibetans lost the Tarim Basin to the Chinese. Gar Tridring Tsendrö defeated the Chinese in battle in 696 and sued for peace. Two years later in 698 emperor Tridu Songtsen reportedly invited the Gar clan (who numbered more than 2000 people) to a hunting party and had them massacred. Gar Tridring Tsendrö then committed suicide, and his troops joined the Chinese. This brought to an end the influence of the Gar.
  From 700 until his death the emperor remained on campaign in the northeast, absent from Central Tibet, while his mother Thrimalö administrated in his name. In 702, Zhou China under Empress Wu Zetien and the Tibetan Empire concluded peace. At the end of that year, the Tibetan imperial government turned to consolidating the administrative organization khö chenpo (mkhos chen-po) of the northeastern Sumru area, which had been the Sumpa country conquered 75 years earlier. Sumru was organized as a new "horn" of the empire.
  During the summer of 703, Tridu Songtsen resided at Öljak (‘Ol-byag) in Ling (Gling), which was on the upper reaches of the Yangtze, before proceeding with an invasion of Jang (‘Jang), which may have been either the Mosuo or the kingdom of Nanzhao. In 704, he stayed briefly at Yoti Chuzang (Yo-ti Chu-bzangs) in Madrom (Rma-sgrom) on the Yellow River. He then invaded Mywa, which was at least in part Nanzhao (the Tibetan term mywa likely referring to the same people or peoples referred to by the Chinese as Man or Miao) but died during the prosecution of that campaign.
caption: Tibet's Empire in 700 AD
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