It is believed that the early Tibetan kings were divine descendants, with ropes connecting them to the heavens. Upon their death, a heavenly being would pull these ropes, along with their bodies, back to the sky. As a result, there were no physical remains or tombs for the first seven Tibetan kings. The eighth king, however, accidentally severed the rope during a battle with rebels. From that point onward, the bodies of the kings could no longer ascend to heaven, and they were buried in southern Tibet.

Before Buddhism was introduced in the 7th century, Shamanism was the dominant religion in Tibet. Buddhist missionaries from India arrived, establishing a written alphabet for the Tibetan language and translating Buddhist scriptures into Tibetan. At this time, Tibet was a powerful kingdom, but by the 10th century, the unity of the region began to crumble, and Tibet fragmented into several smaller principalities.

Following the end of World War II, Mao Zedong's forces defeated Chiang Kai-shek and invaded peaceful Tibet. After the establishment of a pro-Chinese administration, Tibet experienced severe famine, a crackdown on civil liberties, and the imposition of the Chinese language. In March 1959, the people of Lhasa forced the Dalai Lama to flee to India against his will. During the 1970s, the Cultural Revolution brought destruction to Tibet’s cultural heritage. The Red Guards demolished nearly 2,000 official buildings and religious sites, burning nearly all Tibetan libraries and books in an effort to erase Tibetan civilization and language.