Myth about Tibetan evolution

  Myth believe Tibetans were decent from a monkey and a rock-ogress, it was in a cave on the Gonpo Ri hill in Yarlong valley Tsedang(Southern Tibet), the sublime Avalokiteshvara, having conferred layperson's vows upon a magical monkey, dispatched him to meditate in the snowy realm of Tibet. There, beside a black rock, while he was devotedly contemplating loving-kindness, compassion, enlightenment-thought and the profound Dharma of emptiness, a rock-ogress, suffering on account of her karma, approached him, and before she departed, made manifold indications of her carnal desire for him. Later, disguised as a woman, the ogress said to the monkey, 'Let us be married!' But the monkey replied, 'As I am a disciple of the sublime Budda, it would contravene my vows to become your husband'. ' If you reject me, I will have to commit suicide because I am destined in my previous incarnation to be degraded into a devil. Then days later, I will become the wife of a devil and give birth to countless devil sons and grandsons. At that time, the plateau will be plunged into a world filled with devils and thousands of people will be killed”. Exclaimed by the rock-ogress as she threw herself at the monkey's feet.

So the monkey stuck in the dilemma he had to return to Mt. Pota to seek guidance from Mother Buddha. She said: “This is destiny and this is an auspicious sign. It is a deed of great kindness to marry her and reproduce offspring for the plateau. As a Buddha, you should not hesitate to conduct kind deeds. go back to marry the ogress.”

Then they got married and brought six baby monkeys into the world at first. They had different hobbies and different dispositions, in some history it said these six babies lead to the origin of six main tribes in Tibet, but some other said one reborn from each of the six classes of beings. The monkey-child reborn from among the denizens of the hell realms had a stern countenance and could withstand great hardships. The child from the realm of the hungry ghosts had loathsome features and an insatiable appetite. The one reborn from the animal realm was stupid and vulgar. The monkey-child from the human realm was endowed with increasing wisdom and sensitivity. The one from the realm of the semigods was aggressive and jealous, and the monkey-child from the realm of the gods was patient and virtuous.

and then later when the number of off springs multiplied by reproduction, they had eaten up all the natural fruits and troubled with food shortage, then again with the kind help from the mother Buddha they came to know cultivation of crops.

After some time, physical changes appeared by shortened the tails and gradually they could speak language. Finally they evolved into human, the ancestors of the Tibetan people.

This story of human evolution of Tibetan is very popular within the Tibetan people and it was written in some ancient scripture as well as on the murals of some old temples like Jokhang temple in Lhasa, this story also makes sense if you remember what old Charles Darwin said - that we've evolved from monkeys.

Tibet history

Humans inhabited on the Tibetan Plateau at least twenty one thousand years ago. This population was largely replaced around 3,000 BP by Neolithic immigrants from northern China. However there is a "partial genetic continuity between the Paleolithic inhabitants and the contemporary Tibetan populations". Some archaeological data suggests humans may have passed through Tibet at the time India was first inhabited, half a million years ago.

The earliest Tibetan historical texts identify the Zhang Zhung culture as a people who migrated from the Amdo region into what is now the region of Guge in western Tibet. Zhang Zhung is considered to be the original home of the Bön religion. By the 1st century BCE, a neighboring kingdom arose in the Yarlung Valley, and the Yarlung king, Drigum Tsenpo, attempted to remove the influence of the Zhang Zhung by expelling the Zhang's Bön priests from Yarlung. He was assassinated and Zhang Zhung continued its dominance of the region until it was annexed by Songtsen Gampo in the 7th century.