It was following the decline of the north country that the kings of Tibet came to dominate the entire plateau. Sallying forth from their strongholds in the south of the country at the end of the 6th century, a priority of the Tibetan armies was to conquer the region around Nyenchen Thanglha, which lay on the frontier with Shang Shung.
But the advent of Tibet's imperial period did not lead to the diminishing of the importance of the holy mountain. According to ancient texts, the 8th-century Tibetan king Trisrong Deutsan relied on Nyenchen Thangla to protect his 'soul force'. After the break-up of the Tibetan empire in mid-9th century, it is believed that the descendants of King Trisrong were scattered across the Tibetan plateau. Among them, one group, the Ngadag lamas, eventually made their way south into Nupri, in the central Nepal Himalaya, where even today Nyenchen Thanglha is revered as the protective deity.
Enigmatic earthworks
In my bid to understand this obscure period of Tibet's history, I have visited Nyenchen Thanglha a number of times. During these explorations, I have come upon unrecorded archaeological sites at the mountain. Located in the shadow of the south side of the massif, are large man-made earthern platforms. However, since no excavations have been made, it is not possible to conclusively identify these enigmatic earthworks.
Reference to ancient structures in the region are to be found in the elusive text known as Logyu Chenmo, where forts are mentioned at places called Dam and Za. It does not seem unlikely that these platforms may have been part of the larger infrastructures of forts.
This conjecture is also supported by the oral histories of the region which indicate that the region around Nyenchen Thanglha was far more powerful and densely populated in ancient times than it is today, when all one sees are small plots of barley and peas such as around the villages of Largen Do and Tre Do.