Talk:Guge

Latest comment: 6 years ago by InternetArchiveBot in topic External links modified

Untitled edit

Typographical correction "Ladakhis" not "Ladakhs" near the end of the article. (14th January 2007), Beefy_SAFC

I have removed the discussion part of the following paragraph in the article as discussions should be here (on the Discussion page!), rather than in the main article:

Perhaps as evidence of the kingdom's openness, del Andrade's party was allowed to construct a chapel in Tsaparang and instruct the people about Christianity. Perhaps as a consequence of this, an Islamic army of Ladakhis came from present day Kashmir and conquered Guge castle in 1632; the 700-year-old kingdom was destroyed. The Dalai Lama's army drove out the Ladakhis 50 years later. (I don't understand the previous two sentences, and I hope somebody who knows the history of Guge will sort things out. I'm not aware of an invasion in 1632. 1632? And certainly at that time the Ladakhis were Buddhist, except for the Baltis who were indeed Moslem. I think the person who wrote the foregoing was confused about Zorawar Singh's NINETEENTH century invasion. To refer to the Lhasa army which evicted the invaders as "The Dalai Lama's army" doesn't seem right. Again, I hope a real scholar of Tibetan history will chime in. The invasion of Ladakh and adjoining parts of Tibet in the 1830s was the work of invaders from Jammu, led by Zorawar, the wazir of Ghulab Singh, the hill chieftain of Jammu who stitched together what became the State of Jammu and Kashmir; while Ladakh isn't mentioned in this name, it accounts for some two-thirds of its area. As the article on Zorawar makes clear, the army that invaded Tibet was made up of Zorawar's Dogras from Jammu, who were Hindu, Moslems from Baltistan, and Ladakhis, who were most probably Buddhist. --David Lewiston)

Myrin1 12:48, 19 May 2007 (UTC)Reply


I deleted the signature from the end of the following paragraph in the article as signatures shouldn't be included in the article. Also, this paragraph sounds very POV and I recommend that someone who knows more about the topic than I do change it to NPOV.

During the so-called "Cultural Revolution" of the 1960s Maoist army destroyed the remarkable statues that graced these buildings. In 1969 the Chinese restored the structures as "tourist attractions." The books of Tucci and Govinda provide the only information about the appearance of these buildings before this wanton Chinese destruction. --David Lewiston

Myrin1 12:57, 19 May 2007 (UTC)Reply


The 1632 date for the invasion of Guge from "Kashmir" is WILDLY inaccurate. The invasion was in fact initiated TWO CENTURIES LATER in 1832 by Dogras under the leadership of Zorawar Singh, the wazir of Jammu hill chieftain Ghulab Singh, who some two decades later created the State of Jammu and Kashmir. In the 1830s the Dogras controlled Jammu and Ladakh but NOT Kashmir. The reference to "invasion by Kashmiris in 1632" is thus wildly inaccurate. And the reference to the Dalai Lama's army expelling the invaders FIFTY YEARS LATER is yet anothe wild inaccuracy. In fact the Lhasa authorities (not necessarily the Kundun of the day) despatched A Tibetan army soon after the invasion, killing Zorawar and routing the invading army.

This event seems to be a later episode. Guge was probably invaded by Ladakhis under the reign of Sengge Namgyal(1616-1642) who was trying to expand its kingdom and took hold of Zanskar and Spiti in the process.Miuki 07:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Do you consider the Communist Chinese destruction of Tsaparang anything other than barbaric? I can't thing of any gentler way to refer to it. --David Lewiston

Certainly the actions of the Chinese army and government on this ocasion were barbaric, and part of an ongoing system of barbaric actions.
The destruction of all art--even Warhols' sad little soup-can painting--is by definition barbaric. The use of the word barbaric as an adjective is by definition value-laden, usually to the extent of being biased.
In an encyclopedia article, adjectives that do not directly substitute for direct observation or comparison, or that do not provide participation in a category (e.g. orange, ancient, recent, rare, Persian, etc)--and I mean a descriptive, not a normative category (e.g. paleolithic or pre- industrial as opposed to primitive).
No doubt there are post-modernist objections that would equate all of these and all possible description--they can start their own wiki. My essential point is clear.
Thus, I think it is best for the barbarity of the Chinese actions at Tsaparang to speak for themselves in terms of normative adjectives on the basis of the fcatula adjectives and other context and data provided in an encyclopedic way at least in this encyclopedic context.
At such time as Wikipedia has a category along the lines of "Barbaric Historical Events" in which to put Tsaparang, along with the Fourth Crusaders attack on Constantinople, or the 1974 invasion of Cyprus by Turkey, etc etc etc etc, I might concede some qualification on this point. Clown in black and yellow 20:43, 9 July 2007 (UTC)Reply


Location Check edit

Mount Kailash is about 600 miles from Lhassa, not 1200. Mcmarturano (talk) 21:58, 27 November 2010 (UTC)Reply

Ancient? edit

Is the term "ancient kingdom" valid here? Medieval would make more sense. The kingdom was in no way ancient, it was founded in the 10th century. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:204:D77F:D5E0:698E:B735:8767:2EB4 (talk) 04:54, 17 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

External links modified edit

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Guge. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 01:59, 26 December 2017 (UTC)Reply