Retirement, Death and Succession
Trisong Detsen had four sons: Mutri Tsenpo, Muné Tsenpo, Mutik Tsenpo, and Sadnalegs (Khri-lde-srong-btsan, or Tride Songsten). The eldest son, Mutri Tsenpo, died early.
Trisong Detsen retired to live at Zungkar and handed power to his second son, Muné Tsenpo, in 797. From this point there is much confusion in the various historical sources. It seems there was a struggle for the succession after the death of Trisong Detsen. It is not clear when Trisong Detsen died, or for how long Mune Tsenpo reigned. The dBa' bzhed, a Tibetan historical text which may date back to the 9th Century, claims that Muné Tsenpo insisted that his father's funeral be performed according to Buddhist rather than the Bon rites.
It is said that Mune Tsenpo was poisoned by his mother who was jealous of his beautiful wife.
Whatever the case, both the Tang Annals and the Tibetan sources agree that, since Mune Tsenpo had no heirs, power passed to his younger brother, Sadnalegs, who was on the throne by 804 CE.
The other brother, Mutik Tsenpo, was apparently not considered for office as he had previously murdered a senior minister and had been banished to Lhodak Kharchu near the Bhutanese border.
Read more about this topic: Trisong Detsen
Famous quotes containing the words death and/or succession:
“There is a rhythm to the ending of a marriage just like the rhythm of a courtship—only backward. You try to start again but get into blaming over and over. Finally you are both worn out, exhausted, hopeless. Then lawyers are called in to pick clean the corpses. The death has occurred much earlier.”
—Erica Jong (b. 1942)
“We then entered another swamp, at a necessarily slow pace, where the walking was worse than ever, not only on account of the water, but the fallen timber, which often obliterated the indistinct trail entirely. The fallen trees were so numerous, that for long distances the route was through a succession of small yards, where we climbed over fences as high as our heads, down into water often up to our knees, and then over another fence into a second yard, and so on.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)