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Mariia Dmitrievna Sokhina
Ural Federal University, Ekaterinburg, Russia
NÜ GUO IN CHINESE HISTORIOGRAPHY: THE LOCALISATION OF TIBETAN “WOMEN’S KINGDOMS”
Part II: Western Tibet and Upper Ladakh
For citation
Sokhina, M. D. (2026). Nü guo in Chinese Historiography: The Localisation of Tibetan “Women’s Kingdoms”. Part II: Western Tibet and Upper Ladakh. Voprosy onomastiki, 23(1), 140–166. https://doi.org/10.15826/vopr_onom.2026.23.1.006
Received on 16 March 2025
Accepted on 15 August 2025
Abstract: In Chinese texts of the 5th–11th centuries (chronicles, treatises, encyclopedias, and travel accounts), the macro-toponym Nü guo ‘Kingdom of Women’ appears repeatedly. It was used in reference to both mythical and real polities in which women-rulers governed from generation to generation. This article is the second part of a study aimed at localising those Kingdoms of Women that were situated in Tibet or in its immediate vicinity. An analysis of written sources carried out by the author in the first part of the study demonstrated that the chronicles refer to Women’s Kingdoms located on different sides of the Tibetan Plateau. The research made it possible to establish the geographical location of one such kingdom that actually existed in Eastern Tibet during a certain historical period, namely until the mid-8th century. The second part of the study examines the possibility of locating the toponym Nü guo in the region of Western Tibet and the adjacent south-eastern part of Ladakh. These territories were once united by an ancient civilisation that left numerous residential and ceremonial monuments. At the beginning of the 7th century, the most powerful political formation in this vast area was the kingdom of Zhangzhung, where different cultural groups coexisted. The kingdom included once prosperous agricultural lands situated in the valleys of the upper basins of the Indus and Sutlej rivers. The way of life characteristic of the local population until relatively recent times reveals several parallels with the Women’s Kingdom described in the Chinese chronicles; moreover, in the upper Sutlej region local female deities are venerated. On the basis of ethnographic and archaeological evidence and data from written sources, the author advances the hypothesis that bearers of an ancient matriarchally oriented culture may have lived in the upper courses of the Indus and Sutlej rivers. This culture probably ceased to exist even before the rise of Zhangzhung.
Keywords: historical onomastics; Western Tibet; Zhangzhung; Guge; Ladakh; Leh; historical geography; medieval Chinese historiography
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