King Trisong Detsen

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King Trisong Detsen

King Trisong Detsen (Wyl. khri srong lde btsan) (742-c.800/755-797 according to the Chinese sources) – the thirty-eighth king of Tibet, second of the three great religious kings and one of the main disciples of Guru Rinpoche. It was due to his efforts that the great masters Shantarakshita and Guru Padmasambhava came from India and established Buddhism firmly in Tibet.

The Sons of Trisong Detsen

There is some confusion in the various histories regarding the number and the names of Trisong Detsen's sons.

According to Erik Haarh, he had four sons: Mutri Tsenpo (mu khri btsan po), Mune Tsenpo (mu ne btsan po), Muruk Tsenpo (mu rug btsan po) and Mutik Tsenpo (mu tig btsan po). The latter, Mutik Tsenpo, became known as Tridé Songtsen (khri lde srong btsan) or Senalek (sad na legs). The situation is made more complex because later Tibetan sources use several of these names interchangeably. [1]

In Ancient Tibet [2], it says that there were three sons: Mune Tsenpo, Desong (lde srong) aka Senalek, and the third son, who is called both Murug and Mutik.

According to Dudjom Rinpoche's History of the Dharma (Wyl. bdud 'joms chos 'jung), King Trisong Detsen had three sons: the eldest was named Mune Tsepo, the middle one Murup Tsepo, and the youngest Mutik Tsepo, or Senalek Jingyön.

Notes

  1. See Brandon Dotson, “Emperor” Mu rug btsan and the ’Phang thang ma Catalogue, JIATS vol. 3, 2007, for a summary of Haarh's research.
  2. Ancient Tibet, Dharma Publishing, 1986, page 283