Person

Thonmi Sambhota

7th century · 7th century

Thonmi Sambhota was, according to Tibetan tradition, a minister of the emperor Songtsen Gampo who was sent to India in the seventh century and devised the Tibetan script on the model of an Indian alphabet, as well as the first Tibetan grammar. Some modern scholars doubt his historicity, but the script attributed to him has been used to write Tibetan ever since.

Thonmi Sambhota — Image: Sahil Bhopal, Tashi Mannox · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

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Tibetan EmpireGovernance

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Cite this entry

APA: The Epoch Institute. (2026). Thonmi Sambhota. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/thonmi-sambhota
MLA: “Thonmi Sambhota.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/thonmi-sambhota. Accessed .
Chicago: The Epoch Institute. “Thonmi Sambhota.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/thonmi-sambhota.
Harvard: The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Thonmi Sambhota’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/thonmi-sambhota (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻