Tsewang Rabtan

Tsewang Rabtan (from Tibetan: ཚེ་དབང་རབ་བརྟན Tsewang Rapten; Chinese: 策妄阿拉布坦; Mongolian: ᠴᠡᠸᠡᠩᠷᠠᠪᠳᠠᠨ; 1643–1727) was a Choros (Oirats) prince and the Khong Tayiji of the Dzungar Khanate from 1697 (following the death of his uncle and rival Galdan Boshugtu Khan) until his death in 1727. He was married to Lha-bzang Khan's sister.

Tsewang Rabtan
Khong Tayiji
Khong Tayiji of the Dzungar Khanate
Reign	1697–1727
Predecessor	Galdan Boshugtu Khan
Successor	Galdan Tseren
Died	1727
House	Choros
Dynasty	Dzungar Khanate
Father	Sengge

Tsewang Rabtan
Chinese name
Chinese	策妄阿拉布坦
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Cèwàng Ālābùtǎn
Alternative Chinese name
Chinese	策旺阿拉布坦
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Cèwàng Ālābùtǎn
Second alternative Chinese name
Chinese	策妄阿喇布坦
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Cèwàng Ālābùtǎn
Tibetan name
Tibetan	ཚེ་དབང་རབ་བརྟན
Transcriptions Wylie tshe dbang rab brtan
Mongolian name
Mongolian Cyrillic	Цэвээнравдан
Mongolian script	ᠴᠡᠸᠡᠩᠷᠠᠪᠳᠠᠨ
Manchu name
Manchu script	ᡮᡝᠸᠠᠩ ᠠᡵᠠᠪᡨᠠᠨ
Abkai	Cewang Arabtan
Möllendorff	Tsewang Arabtan
Russian name
Russian	Цэван Рабдан
Romanization	Tsevan Rabdan
Oirat name
Oirat	ᡒᡄᡖᠠᡊ ᠠᠷᠠᡋᡐᠠᠨ

Political and military action

Tsewang Rabtan married his daughter, Boitalak (博託洛克), to Danjung (丹衷), the eldest son of Lha-bzang Khan in 1714.^[1] He used the occasion to destroy some of Lha-bzang's troops in preparation for an invasion of Tibet. He consolidated Dzungar power by 1715, and in 1717 sent one army of 300 into Amdo to retrieve the 7th Dalai Lama, planning to consolidate Tibetan support by bringing him to Lhasa, and another army of 6000, led by his brother Tseren Dondub, that successfully took Lhasa from the Khoshut and killed Lha-bzang Khan.^[2]

However, the first army failed to acquire the Dalai Lama, having been defeated by Qing troops at Kumbum. Dzungar troops went on the rampage through Lhasa and its environs, looting, raping and killing. Soon, the Tibetans were appealing to the Kangxi Emperor to rid them of the Dzungars. The Dzungar occupation of Tibet became more difficult to sustain as time passed and though they managed to defeat a poorly organized Chinese invasion at the Battle of the Salween River in 1718, Qing troops took Lhasa in 1720 during their second and larger expedition.^[3]

After Danjung died circa 1717, allegedly at the hands of Tsewang Rabtan, Boitalak married a taisha or prince of the Khoid, a section of the Dzungar people, and later gave birth to Amursana (1723–1757), who would grow up to be Khan of Dzungaria during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor.^[1]

See also

• Dzungar–Qing War

References

1. Hummel 1944, p. 10.
2. Smith 1997, pp. 123–4.
3. Mullin 2000, pp. 285–9.

Bibliography

• Chao-ying, Fang (1944). "Tsewang Araptan" . In Hummel, Arthur W. Sr. (ed.). Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period. United States Government Printing Office.
• Mullin, Glenn H. (2000). The Fourteen Dalai Lamas: A Sacred Legacy of Reincarnation. Clear Light Publishers. ISBN 978-1-57416-092-5.
• Smith, Warren W. (1997). Tibetan nation: a history of Tibetan nationalism and Sino-Tibetan relations. Westview Press. ISBN 978-0-8133-3155-3.

Tsewang Rabtan House of Choros (the 14th century-1755)  Died: 1727
Regnal titles
Preceded by Galdan Boshugtu Khan	Khong Tayiji of the Dzungar Khanate 1694–1727	Succeeded by Galdan Tseren