When Gendun Chopel returned to Tibet in 1945, he was working on the White Annals, a political history of Tibet. He began work on the project in India, where he saw reproductions of ancient documents from the Tibetan monarchy that had been discovered in the Library Cave at Dunhuang in 1908. At least one of his motivations for returning to Tibet was to study the many ancient inscriptions found on pillars and steles across Tibet for the information they could provide about early Tibetan history. He was returning to Lhasa from a day of such research on the night of his arrest. He entrusted the unfinished manuscript to his student Horkhang and continued to provide instructions for its publication while he was in prison. Although he was instructed by the Tibetan government to continue work on the project after his release, he did not do so and the work was published unfinished. The opening poem and first paragraphs are translated here, providing ample proof of Gendun Chopel’s patriotism.
From the mouth of the Guide, flow waves of joy
Into the ocean of milk, good fortune of migrators.
Protect us with the light of your smile
Of forty perfect teeth, bright as the moon.
The descendants of the gods of clear light, endowed with the light of the lineage’s great pearl,
Ascending to the snowy midst of snowy mountains, dazzling realm of the four domains,
Your happy subjects, protected by your word, followed you to a happy land.
May the three ancestral kings, patriarchs of the realm, prevail, endowed with the magic power of all knowledge.
How the one god Padmapāṇi, in the form of the lord of humans,
The great god, turned the wheel of the two systems;
How Songtsen Gampo, outshining the three worlds,
Brought the kingdoms in the four directions under his rule.
Compiling the available ancient writings
Setting forth authentic accounts and clear chronologies,
I have mustered a small degree of courage
To measure the breadth and might of the first Tibetan realm.
It is said that Tibet’s army of red-faced demons,
Pledging their lives with growing courage
To the command of the wrathful Hayagrīva,
Once conquered two-thirds of the earth’s circle.
Born of the lineage of the gods of the Heaven of Clear Light, those kings who manifested themselves as emperors ruling all of the vast earth with the golden wheel of the dual system of method and wisdom were in reality the noble and supreme protectors of the three lineages who simply came in the form of humans. Not only that, to the sight of ordinary beings, in terms of their territory, their dominion, and their military might, they were not inferior to the Indian king Śrīharṣa, the Tang emperor Taizong, and the Persian king Yazdegerd.
In ancient times, there is no doubt that we had very extensive royal chronicles, accounts of what those kings and ministers did each day and month. However, beginning from the uprising against King Lang Darma, the seat of the royal family moved to many places and there was fear of the armies of upper and lower Mongolia two or three times. By the time of the various gains and losses in Kham, the royal chronicles had completely disappeared. In later times, it came to be that apart from histories of whatever deeds were done related to religion, nothing was left of everything else.
Therefore, there were many actual events of great importance: the Tibetan army arriving in India, capturing Kānyakubja, the capital of Magadha, and placing King Arjuna in prison, making about one hundred and eighty large and small towns vassals of Tibet; at a time in the past, Nepal remaining under Tibetan control for a little more than a generation; a large Tibetan army going beyond Wutaishan in China, deposing the emperor himself; and such places as Drugu, Khotan, and Yunnan also remaining under Tibet for more than a century. The parts of the royal chronicles that are able to touch on the truth have been forgotten. They are widely known among foreign historians, but for the most part the people of our country have come to the point where they have no knowledge of them.
The story of the invasion of India appears in detail in the Testament of Ba,183 and [the account of] how the [Chinese] emperor fled from his capital is visible on the south face of the stone pillar at Zhol [at the base of the Potala]; this will be set forth below. Therefore, to that end I will discuss here the stories of the various deeds of those royal fathers and sons related to worldly governance; this will primarily describe how they went about increasing the area of their domains and kingdoms through fierce battle. Therefore, since they are widely known, I will not weary [the reader], giving just a small amount of the biographies of the extraordinary true natures of the royal fathers and mothers and how they made their mark on the excellent dharma.
Comparing the domains made by divine monarchs
As well as dates in royal chronicles,
This bride, based on three methods of calculation,
Is insistently offered to impartial scholars’ sons.184