FPRELIMSheidi.fm Page i Friday, October 22, 2004 8:52 AM COMMONERS AND NOBLES FPRELIMSheidi.fm Page ii Friday, October 22, 2004 8:52 AM NORDIC INSTITUTE OF ASIAN STUDIES MONOGRAPH SERIES 67. Asta Olesen: Islam and Politics in Afghanistan 68. Hans Antlöv: Exemplary Centre, Administrative Periphery 69. Arne Kalland: Fishing Villages in Tokugawa Japan 70. Weng Eang Cheong: The Hong Merchants of Canton 71. Christine Dobbin: Asian Entrepreneurial Minorities 72. Eldrid Mageli: Organising Women’s Protest 73. Vibeke Børdahl: The Oral Tradition of Yangzhou Storytelling 74. Cecilia Nathansen Milwertz: Accepting Population Control 75. Sharifah Zaleha Syed Hassan and Sven Cederroth: Managing Marital Disputes in Malaysia 76. Antoon Geels: Subud and the Javanese Mystical Tradition 77. Kristina Lindell, Jan-Öjvind Swahn and Damrong Tayanin: Folk Tales from Kammu – VI: A Story-Teller’s Last Tales 78. Alain Lefebvre: Kinship, Honour and Money in Rural Pakistan 79. Christopher E. Goscha: Thailand and the Southeast Asian Networks of the Vietnamese Revolution, 1885–1954 80. Helle Bundgaard: Indian Art Worlds in Contention 81. Niels Brimnes: Constructing the Colonial Encounter 82. Ian Reader: Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan 83. Bat-Ochir Bold: Mongolian Nomadic Society 84. Shaheen Sardar Ali and Javaid Rehman: Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities of Pakistan 85. Michael D. Barr: Lee Kuan Yew: The Beliefs Behind the Man 86. Tessa Carroll: Language Planning and Language Change in Japan 87. Minna Säävälä: Fertility and Familial Power 88. Mario Rutten: Rural Capitalists in Asia 89. Jörgen Hellman: Performing the Nation 90. Olof G. Lidin: Tanegashima – The Arrival of Europe in Japan 91. Lian H. Sakhong: In Search of Chin Identity 92. Margaret Mehl: Private Academies of Chinese Learning in Meiji Japan 93. Andrew Hardy: Red Hills 94. Susan M. Martin: The UP Saga 95. Anna Lindberg: Modernization and Effeminization in India 96. Heidi Fjeld: Commoners and Nobles 97. Hatla Thelle: Better to Rely on Ourselves 98. Alexandra Kent: Divinity and Diversity 99. Somchai Phatharathananunth: Civil Society and Democratization 100. Nordin Hussin: Trade and Society in the Straits of Melaka 101. Anna-Greta Nilsson Hoadley: Indonesian Literature vs New Order Orthodoxy 102. Wil O. Dijk: 17th-Century Burma and the Dutch East India Company 1834– 1680 103. Judith Richell: Disease and Demography in Colonial Burma FPRELIMSheidi.fm Page iii Friday, October 22, 2004 8:52 AM Commoners and Nobles Hereditary Divisions in Tibet HEIDI FJELD FPRELIMSheidi.fm Page iv Friday, October 22, 2004 8:52 AM NIAS Monograph 96 First published in 2005 by NIAS Press Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Leifsgade 33, DK–2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark tel: (+45) 3532 9501 • fax: (+45) 3532 9549 E–mail: [email protected] • Website: www.niaspress.dk © Heidi Fjeld 2005 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Fjeld, Heidi Commoners and nobles : hereditary divisions in Tibet. - (NIAS monograph ; 96) 1.Aristocracy (Social class) - China - Tibet 2.Social classes - China - Tibet 3. Tibet (China) - Social conditions 4.Tibet (China) - Social Policy I.Title II.Nordic Instiute of Asian Studies 305,5’2’09515 ISBN 87-91114-17-9 Typeset by Thor Publishing Produced by Bookchase Printed in the European Union FPRELIMSheidi.fm Page v Friday, October 22, 2004 8:52 AM To Runa Jyoti FPRELIMSheidi.fm Page vi Friday, October 22, 2004 8:52 AM FPRELIMSheidi.fm Page vii Friday, October 22, 2004 8:52 AM Contents Preface xi Note on Tibetan terms xii Glossary xiii Introduction 1 Some conceptual clarifications • A brief outline of recent political history in Tibet • Official presentation of the ‘old Tibet’ • Lhasa: Tibetan and Chinese 1. Social Categories 22 Under Tibetan and Chinese rule • Pre-Communist Lhasa • Hereditary social divisions • Social distinctions and relations • The Mao era (1949–1976)• The 1980s • Contemporary Lhasa • Kyesa in the work units and the schools • Contradicting value systems? 2. Expressions of Rank in Daily Life 47 Menrig – the inferior kind • Miser – commoners • Kudrak – noble families • A new internal division • Thupten and Wangchuk • Summary 3. Marriage 71 Marriage: Practice and value • Arranged marriages • Pre-marital relations • Endogamous practices • Yangzom and her father • Kyesa as an indicator of behaviour 4. Keepers of Cultural Knowledge 95 History and religion • Zhesa – honorific language • Losar – the new year • Defining ‘culture’ as kudrak practices 5. The Value of Inherited Knowledge 117 Official recognition of kyesa and kudrak • Knowledge and education • Transfer of knowledge • ‘Internal’ and ‘external’ influences on knowledge vii FPRELIMSheidi.fm Page viii Friday, October 22, 2004 8:52 AM Commoners and Nobles 6. Morality and Rank 132 An articulated value and a ‘bodily automatism’ • Expressed motivation for yarab chözang • Buddhist motivation • Ideal and practice • The double person and coexisting moral orders • A bridge between Tibetan and Chinese value systems 7. Conclusion 152 Bibliography 157 Index 166 FIGURES 1. Overview of Lhasa, the city in Lhasa valley 15 2. Monks visiting Norbulinka, the Dalai Lama’s summer palace 17 3. Sale stands with katags 19 4. Two silver cups 49 5. Butter lamps 102 6. Offerings of butter lamps and food 108 7. A newly built house in Lhasa, resembling the traditional noble houses 112 8. Prayer flags on the mountain 140 9. People prostrating outside the Jokhang temple 143 viii FPRELIMSheidi.fm Page ix Friday, October 22, 2004 8:52 AM Preface This book is about the former aristocracy of Lhasa. The noble families, together with the clergy, constituted the political and economic elite of traditional Tibet. Since the Chinese takeover in 1950, the Tibetan socio-political system has been dramatically restructured and the book explores the role of the noble families in Lhasa today. It uses ethno- graphic data to look at the relations between Tibetans of common and noble backgrounds, and describes how, despite more than half a century of strong Chinese presence in Lhasa, the traditional categories of hereditary background (rigs [rigs]) are still operative as meaningful terms and in use as a principle for social classification in general and as a criterion for rank in particular. My interest in the Tibetan nobility goes back to the very first literature I came across about Tibet, namely the books written by British officers at the beginning of the twentieth century. Most, if not all, of these descriptions of traditional Tibet depict a Tibetan reality seen from the perspective of the elite, with whom the foreigners socialized. Traditional Tibet had a peculiar political organization, where the secular and religious aspects of society were united in the particular positions in the administration, so that most positions were shared between a man from a noble family and a monk. It was in the function of being officials in Lhasa, as well as estate administrators around Tibet, that the noble families were given their positions as the high-ranking elite of society. After the Chinese takeover, all institutional power was taken from the nobility, and a noble family background no longer provided membership in the higher strata. Given the dominant interpretation of the Tibetan nobility as a political institution in traditional Tibet, and the vast political changes after the Chinese takeover, I was interested in knowing whether a noble family back- ground is relevant in social interaction in contemporary Lhasa and, if so, how the noble families are seen both by themselves and by other Tibetans. Also, the changes in the socio-political environment in Tibet seemed to bring an opportunity for exploring the fundamental ideas of hereditary social divisions among Tibetans. The writings of the British ix FPRELIMSheidi.fm Page x Friday, October 22, 2004 8:52 AM Commoners and Nobles officials, as well as those of the earlier scholars (such as Carrasco and Stein) mention low-ranking groups (menrig [smad rigs]) living on the outskirts of society, seen and treated as being polluted. The description of these low-ranking groups show clear similarities to what we know as the untouchables of India. Both the top and the bottom of this social hierarchy seemed to be characterized by rigidity, as membership of these social groups was ascribed by birth rather than by achievements. These hereditary social divisions interested me, partly because they are equally intriguing as the Indian caste system, but also because of the dominant role that Buddhism has in Tibet, and the presumable colliding ideologies of Buddhism and a caste-like social hierarchy. This book was therefore a result both of an anthropological concern with social hierarchies, and of a particular interest in the nobility and their formal and informal roles in Lhasa after the Chinese re-structuring of Tibetan society. The persisting relevance of hereditary background in contemporary Lhasa indicates that rig is not only about political- economic power, but also connected to ideas about personhood and morality; on a fundamental level, rig reflects the ongoing debates on what defines Tibetan culture and identity. This book argues that the former nobility remains important for Tibetans today because they have come to represent the past, and that it is through their dominant position in Tibetan history that the nobles are seen to be the custodians of cultural knowledge today. In their search for the ‘original’ culture, Tibetans look to the former nobility and their cultural practices before the Chinese takeover, and thus, the noble families are no longer the political-economic power in Lhasa but rather the cultural elite. Two main fieldworks have been conducted in Lhasa for this book, the first from October 1995 to June 1996, and the second from January to April 1997. Most of the recorded data are based on talks with mainly three groups of informants. The vast majority are Tibetan women and men aged 20 to 40 years old, with or without formal education, and from both noble and commoner families. Another important group consists of well-educated Tibetan men of about 40 to 50 years old, also of common or noble background, and finally, elderly men and women, mostly of noble background.