Gar Günsa (), also called Günsa or Kunsa (), is a township in Gar County in the Ngari Prefecture of the Tibet region of China. Gar Günsa is situated on the bank of the Gartang River, one of the headwaters of the Indus River flowing to the south of the Kailash Range, at an elevation of . Gar Günsa, along with its sister encampment Gar Yarsa, used to be the administrative headquarters for Western Tibet (Ngari) and jointly referred to as Gartok. In 1965, the headquarters of Ngari was moved to Shiquanhe, which also serves as the headquarters of the Ngari Prefecture as whole.
The seat of the township is Gar Chongsar (; ). The Ngari Gunsa Airport is adjacent to the village. Two other administrative villages, Sogmai () and Namru () are part of the township.
Name
Gar () means "encampment". During the 15th and 16th centuries, the Karma Kagyu lamas moved through the length and breadth of Tibet in "Great Encampments" or garchen.: "During this pivotal period of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, [Gyelwang Karmapa's] power was manifest in his Great Encampment, garchen in Tibetan. The garchen's influence included even outposts in Ngari of far western Tibet and it maintained a significant presence at the major pilgrimage site of Tsari, or Crystal Mountain, along the border with Arunachal Pradesh.": "Karmapa lamas who used to be on the move constantly lived in large tent cities with great pomp. The mobile Karmapa encampments were known as Karma Garchen and thus the style patronised in the encampments was labelled the Karma Gadri style (the style of the Karma encampment)." The term is also used often for military camps.Eric Teichman, Travels of a Consular Officer in Eastern Tibet: Together with a History of the Relations Between China, Tibet and India (Cambridge: The University Press, 1922), p. 130.
Gar Günsa means the "winter camp".Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol. 10 (Encyclopædia Britannica, 1973; ), p. 3.John Keay, History of World Exploration (The Royal Geographical Society; Mallard Press, 1991), p. 76. The ninth century bilingual text Mahāvyutpatti translated günsa as Sanskrit (), literally, the residence of the winter season.Mahāvyutpatti: 5600-5699, Eyes of Worlds website, retrieved 20 July 2021. Even though Gar Yarsa has acquired the name "Gartok" in popular parlance, officially, "Gartok" consisted of both Gar Günsa and Gar Yarsa (the "summer camp"). The latter is forty miles upstream on Gartang at a higher altitude.: "Gartok in reality consists of two distinct places situated forty miles apart. The one we visited is known as Gar Yarsa or Summer Quarters, and the other, which is also on the Indus but at a lower altitude, Gar Gunsa or Winter Quarters."
History Tibetan administration Gar Günsa, along with its sister encampment Gar Yarsa, was referred to as "Gartok", and served as Lhasa's administrative headquarters for Western Tibet (Ngari) after it was conquered from Ladakh in 1684. A senior official called Garpön was stationed here. The Garpöns lived in Gar Gunsa for nine months in the year, and stayed at Gar Yarsa during August–October.
But in the British nomenclature, the name "Gartok" was applied only to Gar Yarsa and the practice continues till date.
Chinese administration After the Chinese annexation of Tibet, Gar Günsa continued to function as the headquarters of Western Tibet till 1965, after which it was moved to Shiquanhe. It was felt that the living conditions in Gar Günsa were extremely difficult. (This book uses SASM/GNC/SRC transcriptions)
See also List of towns and villages in Tibet
References
Bibliography
External links Günsa Township, OpenStreetMap, retrieved 21 July 2021.