History of Sherpa in Brief

History is a recorded document of oral narration of old people, religious records, commentaries, and contemporary research. The history of the origin of the world and humans can’t be written due to the length of the world. But we need to understand that this world is not the creation of a lord and god. Rather, it is the outcome of our actions. It means that it is not self-created or a providence of god.

Everything has its time—for instance, food for hunger and water for thirst. Nowadays, we need our self-identity. Identities are of various kinds. The identities of humans are religion, language, script, culture, lifestyle, food and beverage, clothing and tradition. At present, our need is our identity, though we have everything. It is because our history, culture and tradition are being destroyed these days. When something gets lost, it is human tradition to search for it.

The very day has come upon us. The reincarnations of Buddha and Guru Rinpoche have been recorded in letters and words, and our priests have preserved them. They are our precious gift to us. The preserved historical assets are: ཤར་བའི་ཆོས་བྱུང་སྔོན་མེད་ཚངས་པའི་དབྱུ་གུ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་བཞུགས་སོ།། ‘Shewi chho Jung Ngong me Chhang pi nyugu’ ‘Religious History of Sherpa’ and
་ཕ་མེས་ཀྱི་བྱུང་རབས་གསལ་དག་ཁུངས་ལྡན། ‘Fame ki Jungrab saltak khung Den’ a book related to the kin line of Sherpa. ‘Snow Light of Everest’ this book is about the marriage ceremony of the Sherpa people. Generally, there is no end of human thinking and thought process, and its interpretation never ends. The deep, sombre and extended history of Sherpa can’t be accommodated in a few words. It is like pushing a handkerchief in the hole of a needle.

Nonetheless, we have been trying to support you by bringing the past history, documents that are about to become extinct, and precaution matters for the future. There was birth of འཕགས་པ་སྤྱན་རས་གཟིགས་ཀི་གདུལ་བྱ། ། ‘Awalokeswora’ Buddha in the Himalayan state of Tibet. 1. སེ་རྨུ། ‘Semu’ 2. ལྡོང ‘Dong’ 3. སྟོང་། ‘Tong’ 4. དགྲ། ‘Da’ 5. དྲུ། ‘Tu’ and 6. སྤྲེ། ‘Te’ are six བོད་མིའུ་གདུང་དྲུག། ancestors. The book ‘Snowlight of Everest’ by Sange TenjinRinpoche mentions that Sherpas are the descendants of the ‘Dong’ clan.

In 196 B.C., there were many kings in Tibet, including the first king ‘Nyathi Chenpo’. The free fall of religions documents ‘Pang Kong Chakgyapa’, Chinta Mani and Stupa on the roof of the palace of the 28th Tibetan King ‘LhaThoThori Nyenchen’ is supposed to have started Buddhism in Tibet.

The 33rd King Song Chen Gonpo (617- 698 A.D), understanding that Buddhism was the best religion in the world, welcomed and assimilated Buddhism from India. As Tibet was a cold zone, he ordered customs and clothing from Mongols and learned all food and beverages from China. He made the Ten Commandments (Lha Chho Gewa Chyu) of religion of good and sixteen rules (mi chho changma chutuk) of sacred human religion. Thus, he introduced Buddhism in Tibet.

38th King of Tibet, Thisong Deuchen (790- 858 A.D.), invited hundreds of priests from India, including Guru Padma Sambhava, Upadya Bodhi Sattwa and Acharya Bimalamitra, Lochen Bairochana, Kawa Pal Chek, Chyangro Lui Gyalchen and Syang yeshe De and others welcomed and took the sacred preachings of Buddha and great and secret teachings of Guru Padma Sambhava. As a consequence, the nine ‘Yana’ of Buddhism spread like a ray of the Sun, and numerous people have got and are getting the opportunity to enlighten themselves by having a panacea of Buddhism.

The 41st King Thi Ralpchen (866- 901) once again made scholars translate all the Scriptures and ‘Tantras’ and added extra colour and sight to Buddhist literature. To protect the Scriptures and Tantras, he divided bald monks into saffron cloth and white clothes and gave them great respect. Now, it becomes necessary for us to understand that due to the grace of all these people, Buddhism is spreading.

Sherpas are found to be residing in particular areas like Kham, Minyank, Serta, and Amdo. Over time (Shyi Shya), the state of Minyank in Kham of Tibet is understood as ‘Shyi Shya’ in Chinese history. As Minyank of Kensuu and Yee became powerful in the reign of King Thang, Chali Chi Chhin and Li Te Ming became ministers one often another in turn. Later, their nephew Li Yen Hou protested and got hold of the power in 1038 A.D. Then the kin line name was given ‘Shyi Shya’, and the capital name was given ‘Shinching’ (South caste of today’s Nying Shya Ying Teu). As the State extended extensively, it is known that there were twenty-two provinces, and Tang Shyang Chhang, Chinese, Mongolian and other castes people used to reside there.

The monarchy of this kin line reigned for ten generations. It is mentioned that they reigned for around 190 years from 1038 to 1227 A.D. After the above-mentioned year, King Jinger Han of Yon Kingdom defeated the Minyak Kingdom. Thus came the end of the Minyak rule.

According to experts, in around 1480 A.D., they came to the present place after crossing the 19,500-foot-high Nangpala mountain, which is in the vicinity of the world’s highest peak, Mt. Everest, the ‘Chomo Langma’. Experts say they migrated to the Solukhumbu Region not due to conflict or war; rather, they came here for religion, peace and prosperity. They should have come here due to the Buddhist religion also. Its history goes back to Shakyamuni Gautam’s time when the second Buddha of Odiyana Lopon Pema Sambhava had occupied the sacred and secret Himalayan area near the lap of Mt. Everest. In around 1440 A.D., revered and pioneer Guru Ratna Lingpa minutely observed this place, did penance in caves for some time and predicted this place to be the best place of settlement for his followers in the future.

Nothing evolves itself. Similarly, somebody played a role in the settlement in Solukhumbu. At that time, Kyap Oak Sange Paljyor, Son of Chak Minyak Dongak Ringbu, was the disciple of Guru Ratna Lingpa. According to the foretelling of Guru Ratna, the Son of Chak Minyak, under the leadership of Ng Chak Gyakarwa Champo, was found to have come here. A group of them is found to have settled in Pangboche, while the other group of them is found to have settled in Dingboche. It is known that they made house yards, cultivation fields, and pastureland for sheep, and natural rule for the land ownership.

As the saying ‘Might is right’, they were using the land freely without paying any revenue. Until up to 1776 A.D., Sherpa people were living free and independent lives. During the unification of Nepal, from 1776 A.D to 1829, a pact between the Nepal government and Sherpa was found to have been made. According to the pact, Sherpa was given every right to religion and tradition as earlier, and they came under the governance of the Nepal government. Various battles took place in the area (Makgarpa) of SoluKhumbu. The cave (Tongi Fug) occupied by Sherpa for the war is known as the battle camp of thousand. War camps like (Bolthok Jong) Nepal Seeing Camp, Chhudak Jong, and Jonglok had been established.

There was no difficulty in crossing the border as it was free and rules were loose, though Sherpa’s were politically associated with Nepal in 1772 A.D. Later on, on October 4, 1961, Nepal China Joint Boarder Committee finalized the border on the principle of water running in the inclined surface. So, mountains facing north became part of China and mountains facing south became part of Nepal, according to the agreement.

Due to the agreement, our Sherpa community also got divided: Some in Tibet and some in Nepal. For example, the Sherpa’s Tinke Jong across Shankhuashaba, the people of Rongshyar across Lapchi Dolakha and the Sherpas of Khasa across Tato Paani Sindhu Palchowk. At that time, the Sherpa army and the Nepalese army had kept the border (Takmar) in Red Cliff. The same place nowadays is called ‘Jonglog’. Sherpas started living in northeastern Nepal after the accord between the King of Sherpa and the King of Nepal. Not only that, Sherpas used to reign in the area east in Darjeeling and Kalimpong, Sindhupalchock in the west. There were a few castes of Sherpa at that time, like Minyakpa, Thimi, Serta and Chawa. But soon after reaching Solukhumbu, various sub-castes like Lama, Taktho, Golek, Yulkongma, Pinasa, Chyawa, Salaga, Gopama, Khampache and many more are there today. Till 1857 A.D., Sherpas were found to be writing the caste as Pemba Chiri Sharpa Bhote. Thus, the names of places Bhote Koshi, Bhote Pool (bridge), Dola Kha (mouth in the Stone), Lama Bagar, Bhotehiti, Bhote Bahal, etc., ultimately prove the presence of Sherpa in those names. Ancient documents also prove such matters.

Therefore, to promote and extend the history, language and script of Sherpa and other castes of the world, we need to labour on certain matters regularly. Religion has a greater role in not destroying the history, language, script, culture and tradition of all castes.