page_title: Songtsen Gampo
section_title: Early life and cultural background
hierarchical_section_title: Songtsen Gampo / Early life and cultural background
caption_attribution_description: &lt;a href="http://bighugelabs.com/onblack.php?id=6180857891&amp;size=large" rel="nofollow"&gt;View On Black&lt;/a&gt;Recently I have been to Songtsen Library(dehradun,India)..Saw this Statue of King Songtsen Gampo on horseback in front of the Library ...According to them this statue of King Songtsen Gampo (617 -650 AD) is believed to be an emanation of Avalokitesvara, the Buddha of Compassion. He is credited with bringing Buddhism to Tibet. The institution is named after the 33rd Tibetan King, Songtsen Gampo (617-650). The sculpture, executed by the Western nun Khenmo Drolma
context_page_description: Songtsen Gampo, also Songzan Ganbu, was the 33rd Tibetan king and founder of the Tibetan Empire, and is traditionally credited with the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet, influenced by his Nepali consort Bhrikuti‘s native land Nepal’s Licchavi dynasty, as well as being the unifier of what were previously several Tibetan kingdoms. He is also regarded as responsible for the creation of the Tibetan alphabet and therefore the establishment of Classical Tibetan, the language spoken in his region at the time, as the literary language of Tibet.
  His mother, the queen, is identified as Driza Tökarma. The dates of his birth and when he took the throne are not certain. In Tibetan accounts, it is generally accepted that he was born in an Ox year of the Tibetan calendar, which means one of the following dates: 557, 569, 581, 593, 605 or 617 CE. He is thought to have ascended the throne at age thirteen, by this reckoning c. 629.
  There are difficulties with this position, however, and several earlier dates for the birth of Songtsen Gampo have been suggested, including 569, 593 or 605.
context_section_description: It is said that Songtsen Gampo was born at Gyama in Meldro, a region to the northeast of modern Lhasa, the son of the Yarlung king Namri Songtsen. The book The Holder of the White Lotus says that it is believed that he was a manifestation of Avalokiteśvara, of whom the Dalai Lamas are similarly believed to be a manifestation. His identification as a cakravartin and incarnation of Avalokiteśvara began in earnest in the indigenous Buddhist literary histories of the 11th century.
caption: Statue of King Songtsen Gampo on horseback in front of the Songtsen Library in Dehradun, India) This sculpture was executed by the Western nun Khenmo Drolma
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