tsenpo

Tsenpo is a title, sometimes conventionally translated as “emperor,” used for the rulers of the Tibetan Empire. Songtsen Gampo (d. 649 CE) was the first tsenpo, who unified most of the Tibetan Plateau and founded the Buddhist Jokhang Temple in Lhasa. The last tsenpo of the Tibetan empire was Langdarma (d. 842), an anti-Buddhist king whose assassination by a Buddhist monk sparked civil war, and ultimately the collapse of the Tibetan empire. Later Tibetan rulers who tried to declare themselves inheritors of the Tibetan empire, such as the rulers of the kingdom of Tsongkha in eastern Tibet (eleventh century), also employed this title to strengthen their claims.