Gunacaṃdregāthā

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Gunacaṃdregāthā
གུ་ན་ཅན་དྲེ་གཱ་ཐཱ་
Phug-pa lhun-grub rgya-mtho 1.jpg
AuthorUnknown
TranslatorArthur Levy
Reuben Warner
Bahman Sohrabji
CountryKroraine
LanguageKroraini
SubjectKroraini history
Genreepic poem
Publishedc. 975 CE
Media typemanuscript

The Gunacaṃdregāthā (Kroraini pronunciation: [gunəˈt͡ɕəndregata]; Rygalic script: གུ་ན་ཅན་དྲེ་གཱ་ཐཱ་) is a Kroraini epic poem consisting of X,XXX lines of verse organised in unrhymed tristichs. The poem was written by an anonymous author during the Zalmaizai dynasty, between c. 950-975 CE. It is considered to be the national epic of Kroraine, and tells the history of the Gunacaṃdre dynasty, which ruled over the historical Kingdom of Shanshan from 769 to 902 CE. The text also gives details about nearby polities and cultures that had an influence upon or were influenced by Kroraine at the time, such as the Second Phuli Empire and the Tao dynasty.

The work is of great importance in Kroraini culture and language alike, and is regarded as a literary masterpiece. The language of the Gunacaṃdregāthā is not substantially removed from modern Kroraini, and with some effort the average Kroraini-speaker can understand the original manuscript without annotations.