Florida State University Libraries

Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School

2018 The Eight Lhadé Tsowa (Lha Sde Tsho Brgyad): A Historical Examination of an Amdo Tibetan Community and Its Monastery Cameron Kyle Bender Foltz

Follow this and additional works at the DigiNole: FSU's Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

THE EIGHT LHADÉ TSOWA (LHA SDE TSHO BRGYAD):

A HISTORICAL EXAMINATION OF AN AMDO TIBETAN COMMUNITY

AND ITS MONASTERY

By

CAMERON KYLE BENDER FOLTZ

A Thesis submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

2018

Cameron Foltz defended this thesis on April 13, 2018. The members of the supervisory committee were:

Bryan Cuevas Professor Directing Thesis

Kristina Buhrman Committee Member

Joseph Hellweg Committee Member

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the thesis has been approved in accordance with university requirements.

ii

For Marmie and Poppy, who show their family the greatest love.

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I could not have completed this thesis without the support of many people. First of all, I thank my advisor, Dr. Bryan Cuevas. He has always encouraged me to pursue my interests and provided me with every resource at his disposal. His attention to detail is impressive and is a trait that I hope to develop. His precise translations of Tibetan into a natural-sounding English, careful reading of sources, and concern for neat design are all skills to which I aspire. Above all, he has been a very pleasant person to work with, and I will miss the fun of his seminars and translation classes.

I thank Dr. Kristina Buhrman. She is truly an encylopedia of knowledge and is very generous with both her knowledge and time. I thank Dr. Joseph Hellweg, who has an incomparable passion for scholarship and the study of culture. I have greatly benefitted from his advice and kindness. Additionally, I must thank Dr. Jimmy Yu for his patience while I stumbled through classical Chinese. I also thank Dr. Douglas Gildow who directed me to a number of useful resources and made me think further about this project when it was no more than an annotated bibliography.

Many years ago, I was lucky enough to take a few introductory cultural anthropology courses with the late Dr. Bruce Grindal (1940-2012). He was a captivating teacher. His classes introduced me to fascinating new ideas and changed the course of my life. I wish I had the opportunity to thank him for this while he was still alive, but this will have to suffice.

Finally, I would not have had the opportunity or ability to undertake this project without the love and support of my family. My parents have always worked for my happiness and well- being. As a new parent myself, I have grown to further appreciate all they have done for me, but of course, I cannot put into words my love for them. I also thank my brother, Chris, and sister,

iv

Jenny, for their encouragement with this project. Lastly, there is no way I could have completed this project without the support and love of my wife, Emily, who took on more than was fair to allow me time to finish this project. She is a continual source of strength and joy.

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures ...... vii

List of Abbreviations ...... viii

Note on the Spelling of Chinese and Tibetan Terms ...... ix

Abstract ...... x

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Tribes, Clans, or Segments ...... 4 Gansu Province ...... 9 Qinghai Province ...... 19 Sichuan Province ...... 29

CHAPTER 2 THE EIGHT LHADÉ TSOWA ...... 34

Sources...... 34 A Contemporary Tibetan View of Tsowa ...... 37

CHAPTER 3 GONGWA DRATSANG AND ITS COMMUNITIES (C. 1400-1723) ...... 43

Gongé Kachuwa: Founder of Gongwa Dratsang ...... 43 The Early Gongwa Community ...... 46 Surrounding Events in Amdo, Central Tibet, and China (1400-1700) ...... 53 The First Tsendrok Rinpoche (b. 1668) ...... 56

CHAPTER 4 INVASIONS, INCORPORATION, AND MIGRATION (1717-1736) ...... 68

CHAPTER 5 FUTURE PROSPECTS ...... 81

APPENDIX A TIBETAN TERMS ...... 86

APPENDIX B CHINESE CHARACTERS ...... 94

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 96

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 109

vi

LIST OF FIGURES

Map of Amdo ...... 15

Map of Gongwa Dratsang’s Communities ...... 78

vii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Ch. Chinese Man. Manchu Mon. Mongolian THL Tibetan Himalayan Library

TBRC Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center

viii

NOTE ON THE SPELLING OF CHINESE AND TIBETAN TERMS

I have used pinyin romanization to write Chinese words. Chinese characters of terms present in this work can be found in Appendix B. Regarding Tibetan, there is a great divergence between the transliteration of Tibetan words and their pronunciation. In order to make this work more accessible to the non-specialist, I have opted to use Wisdom Publications’ Style Guide with a few minor alterations. Transliterations of Tibetan terms according to Wylie’s system can be found in Appendix A (Wylie 1959).

Although the use of phonetic rendering makes it easier to read Tibetan words, it is not without its problems. For instance, the pronunciations of many words in Amdo Tibetan dialects differ markedly from Central Tibetan (so-called “Standard Tibetan”). As such, many of the

Tibetan words in this paper are not written as they would be said in Amdo, but rather as a Central

Tibetan speaker would say them. If I were to try and remedy this by using phonetics to represent

Amdo Tibetan pronunciations, other problems arise. Readers accustomed to Central Tibetan phonetics might not recognize words. Additionally, there are different dialects of Amdo Tibetan, so multiple renderings are possible. Another issue would be deciding which words to render in an Amdo Tibetan pronunciation and which to render in Central Tibetan pronunciation. For example, it seems inappropriate to render a Central Tibetan monastery or person in Amdo

Tibetan phonetics.

All translations in this work are mine unless otherwise indicated.

ix

ABSTRACT

A variety of social groups exist in the cultural area known in Tibetan as Amdo (covering parts of present-day Qinghai, Gansu, and Sichuan provinces in western China; see Map 1). Much investigation remains to be conducted on these terms as other scholars have noted (Hille,

Horlemann, and Nietupski 2015:4). Not only are there a multitude of terms in use, but Tibetan communities in different regions use the same term to describe different kinds of social groups.

One such term, tsowa, is commonly used in Amdo. Many scholars have translated tsowa as

“tribe” or “clan;” both of which introduce inaccurate connotations. As the meaning of tsowa is not uniform, local case studies in different regions are necessary to document the range of meanings this term contains.

This work is but one such case study of a group of tsowa, the Eight Lhadé Tsowa, that coalesced as support communities for a monastery in present-day Trika (Ch. Guide) County, which is in Tsolho Prefecture (Ch. Hainan) of Qinghai Province. It is based on documentary sources, both historical and contemporary, and will hopefully be used as the basis for future fieldwork. The present study surveys the available literature on tsowa, examines the history of one group of tsowa, proposes a working definition, and raises questions for future research.

x

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

In the northeastern corner of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, called Amdo by Tibetans, households form larger networks called tsowa. Many tsowa lived on land under the jurisdiction of a monastery and held obligations to them in the form of taxes and corvée labor. These tsowa were called lhadé. In this sense, lhadé were administrative divisions similar to parishes (Jacoby

2010; Tuttle 2011b). 1 One can translate tsowa literally as “group” or “plurality.” 2 Member families of tsowa in some areas pool resources for major expenses like weddings and funerals. In this way, they can be seen as a form of mutual aid group.

There are many variations in what terms are used to describe social groups and how the same terms are used in Amdo. Therefore, the term “tsowa” can be used to denote a different kind of group in different areas. Its meaning also varies between pastoralist and sedentary populations.3 Generally speaking, tsowa are composed of tents and households in pastoralist and horticulturist contexts respectively.4

Despite the many differences among tsowa, all of them exist as social networks. The social network consists of members tied together by a variety of factors. In particular circumstances, these ties are activated and mobilized.5 The social network is a useful concept for

1 See also Caple (2011:94-97). 2 The term tso is a pluralizer and wa is a nominalizer. Gelek (1998:50) proposes “group” as a literal translation of tsowa. Langelaar (forthcoming), instead, argues that tsowa is derived from a territorial meaning and is not etymologically related to the pluralizer. Davidson (2005:393 n. 43) gives a brief etymological description of “tso” and its meanings and considers it cognate with (transliterations:) tshogs (assembly, group), ‘tshogs pa (to assemble), and sogs (et cetera; to increase, to accumulate). 3 Thanks to Gerald Roche for pointing this out to me at the outset of my research. 4 As we will see, there is usually an intermediary unit, the encampment, comprised of tents. The encampments in turn form the larger tsowa. 5 For more information on the social network, see Mitchell 1974 and Schweizer and White 1998. Thanks to Joseph Hellweg for suggesting the use of this concept. Langelaar (2014, 2017, forthcoming) also employs the concept of network when describing tsowa in the Rebgong region.

1 analyzing tsowa because it highlights their flexible composition and functions without introducing features that are not aspects of all tsowa, such as kinship or descent. I call the ties between tsowa members internal obligations.6 These obligations depend on the local context. For example, in one horticultural village the responsibility of guarding water or sponsoring a religious festival may rotate among tsowa, whereas among the pastoralist Washul Sertar tsowa may resolve labor imbalances among families and provide defense in the case of pasture conflicts.

Additionally, many tsowa historically held ties to monasteries, larger federations of multiple tsowa, or Chinese officials. Typical obligations included the payment of horticultural products to a monastery or imperial authority and providing men to fight in a militia in times of conflict. I call these external obligations.

Notably, it is easier to find documentation of external obligations in historical records, e.g. between tsowa and a monastery. Conversely, the contemporary ethnographic literature tends to highlight internal obligations, i.e. the roles of tsowa within a community. A large reason for this emphasis on internal obligations is the relatively marginal position monasteries hold in contemporary Amdo as part of the People’s Republic of China versus their strong role as political and economic institutions prior to the mid-twentieth century. Monasteries can no longer legally own large tracts of land or collect obligatory revenue from surrounding communities. In other words, the contemporary relationship between tsowa and monasteries is not clear.

As one would expect, both types of obligations are dependent on a variety of factors and, consequently, vary both regionally and historically. Internal obligations are, for example, determined in part by the economic activity of the members in a tsowa. For example, a key

6 The most comprehensive examinations of the internal obligations of tsowa in Amdo and their constituent units are Langelaar 2014 and 2017.

2 activity of pastoralist tsowa is the collective defense of their pastureland from outside groups.

Similarly, farming tsowa may defend their water source from outsiders or ration the use of irrigation among members. The external obligations of a tsowa to a monastery may vary by their proximity. Whereas one tsowa may have been obligated to provide corvée labor to a powerful monastery, another tsowa outside of the jurisdiction of such a monastery could possess much more autonomy. Furthermore, historical changes in political administration, e.g. the shift from

Khoshud Mongol rule to Qing administration in the eighteenth century, likely altered the external obligations of tsowa.

Therefore, I argue against a reified understanding of tsowa as “tribes,” clans, and the like, instead acknowledging their variations across time and place. We need to employ other concepts to investigate Tibetan social organization in general and tsowa in particular. Accordingly, I define tsowa as a social network constituted by households, tents, or encampments of tents, which are mobilized by external obligations, usually to a monastery or a larger federation, and internal obligations to member households, e.g. defending member families in times of conflict.

In the remainder of this chapter, I survey the existing scholarship on tsowa, which underscores the existing lacunae on tsowa and highlights the variable meanings of the term. In

Chapter Two, I turn my attention toward a particular group of tsowa, the Eight Lhadé Tsowa and introduce my main source for examining them.

In Chapter Three and Chapter Four, I outline the history of the community and its monastery as well as contemporary political events in Central Tibet and China. The early history and enumeration of the Eight Lhadé Tsowa is obscure. The monastery under which they coalesced was founded in the fifteenth century, whereas it appears that the Eight Lhadé Tsowa may not have formed until as late as the eighteenth century.

3

Tribes, Clans, or Segments

Despite being a fundamental block of social life in many parts of Amdo, little research has taken tsowa as a primary focus.7 Most western-language scholarship treats them in passing as

“tribes,” “clans,” or a social unit within a tribe or clan. Both “tribe” and “clan” have their own problems as translations. “Tribe” carries unwanted social evolutionary connotations, i.e. that these social groups have not yet developed into a state. “Clan” runs the risk of inserting reified notions of descent groups into a social situation that is quite fluid.8

In Tibetan studies, when scholars use the terms “tribe” or “clan,” it is often employed in a loose sense to translate or discuss social groups. However, these terms have their own history grounded in the discipline of anthropology. The clan is traditionally envisioned as a unilineal — either patrilineal or matrilineal — descent group with a common ancestor. This means that in a patrilineal clan, one’s relatives are primarily reckoned through the male line. Clans are composed of segmented lineages possessing varying degrees of relation.9 Clans are also usually considered to be exogamous groups, i.e. members must marry outside of the clan.

Tribe, on the other hand, has less precise criteria than clan.10 Historically it has been used to describe societies believed to be more egalitarian and possessing a segmented social organization. Scholars have often considered clans to be the genealogical units which compose the territorial unit of the tribe. Tribes are usually contrasted with states. In the time in which this term was most frequently employed, the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century, social

7 There are some notable exceptions including Clarke 1992; Levine 1998; and Langelaar 2014, 2017, and forthcoming. 8 See Samuels 2016 on the use of “clan” among Tibetologists. See Langelaar 2017, for a particular example in Rebgong, where he shows that the tsowa there do not meet the traditional criteria for clan. Tuttle 2013 also makes this observation and uses “division” to translate tsowa. 9 For an influential explanation of segmentary lineages, see Forte and Evans-Pritchard (1940:1-24). For later works that seriously called into question the existence of segmentary lineages, see Kuper 1982 and McKinnon 2000. 10 Morton Fried 1967 bemoaned the nebulous use of “tribe” among scholars some sixty years ago.

4 evolutionary views were prominent within anthropology. As such, the term “tribe” was used to denote groups which were less evolved than societies with states. It was frequently used to describe groups of people under colonial domination.

The use of these terms as analytical categories has come under serious scrutiny within anthropological circles. 11 On the other hand, social evolutionary thinking is still prominent within social science in China, a point to which will we return below. While it may still be useful to examine whether these analytical categories have merit in a particular instance, it is problematic to use these terms in a loose sense divorced from their anthropological definitions.

These terms continue to connote aspects of their historical definitions. For example,

“tribe” still implies that a group of people are technologically primitive and non-white. Second, using these words in an imprecise manner obscures their object of inquiry, social groups, rather than shedding light on them. This obscuration both exoticizes them and makes them familiar. For example, labeling a group of people a “tribe” signifies that they are premodern or the remnant of a premodern period. However, so-called “tribes” continue to live in the present and are often members, willingly or unwilling, of the states in contrast to which they are defined.

Among the scholars who still choose to use the term “tribe” or “clan” to discuss social groups, many feel the need to qualify it. Others avoid a strict definition for these terms while some still apply the conceptual trappings of these terms to Tibetan social groups. For instance,

Fernanda Pirie characterizes tribes as distinct groups possessing egalitarian relations and chiefs rather than heads of state (2009:145). In another article (2005b:84), she states:

11 For example, Kuper 1982 traces the historical development of clan, lineage, and segmentary lineages. He argues that anthropologists should dispense with lineage-based analysis altogether. See also Hellweg 2017 in which he argues against archaeologists’ use of a reformulated notion of “tribe.”

5

[A]s Trapper suggests (1997:9, 315) ‘tribe’ is best thought of as a state of mind, a

construction of reality and a model for action…centrally opposed to that of the

centralised state. In Amdo, as described in this article, certain ideas about social

organization run through nomad society: group loyalty, the norms of the feud and

an attitude to leadership that combines recalcitrance with selective submission to

authority. It is the presence and interplay of such ideas that, I suggest,

characterize the tribal dynamics of these nomads’ groups, and continue to do so

within the context of the modern Chinese state.

Part of the issue with these assertions is simply that they are often not the case. For instance, some Amdo pastoralist groups have historically been much more powerful than others and families often dominate leadership roles within a group.12 Another is that many of these characteristics, e.g. “selective submission to authority,” are characteristic of citizens subject to a state’s authority whom would hardly be described as “tribal.” We may be surprised then to find that we are not dealing with an exotic category of tribe found in a historically stateless society but rather a form of social organization similar to social groups found in other Tibetan areas. In this light, “tribe” becomes more unsuitable as a translation for tsowa.

In the wake of widespread criticism of lineage theory and the analytical concepts of “tribe” and “clan,” many anthropologists have turned to Claude Lévi-Strauss’s concept of “house societies.”13 Lévi-Strauss examined Franz Boas’s fieldwork among the Kwakiutl and his inability to classify their kinship system. He also studied Krober’s work on the Yurok, in which Krober

12 It is worth noting here that the collectivization of livestock and their subsequent redistribution (based on family size) in the 1980s temporarily reduced economic inequality between households. However, this was the intervention of a “modern state” rather than the outcome of “tribal” organization. 13 For examples of scholars attempting to use the house concept, see the volumes Carsten and Hughes-Jones 1995 and Joyce and Gillespie 2000. For examples of this with Tibetan societies, see Fjeld 2006 and Langelaar 2017.

6 claimed that they fit none of the existing theories of descent. Influenced by these two shortcomings of descent theory, Lévi-Strauss generated the house society concept. He drew inspiration from noble houses in Europe, and he defined the house as “a corporate body holding an estate made up of both material and immaterial wealth, which perpetuates itself through the transmission of its name, its goods, and its titles down a real or imaginary line, considered legitimate as long as this continuity can express itself in the language of kinship or of affinity, and most often, both” (Lévi-Strauss 1982:174).

The house concept certainly has some advantages over other models. Foremost, it dispenses with the need for descent as a structuring principle and recognizes the importance of marital alliances and other forms of kinship. Additionally, it accords with social terminology employed in many societies. For example, in many Tibetan areas the house (tsang; kyim tsang) is an important social unit. 14 As we will see below, tsowa in many Amdo communities are comprised of households. On the other hand, many scholars observed difficulties using the house as an analytical concept (Carsten and Hugh-Jones 1995:19-21; Gillespie 2000). Further work is necessary to see how applicable this concept may prove in Amdo communities.15

For all the above reasons, it is necessary to conduct in-depth research in Amdo communities that pays close attention to their local categories. Several scholars have indeed noted the need to gain a deeper understanding into Amdo social groups. For example, Hille,

Horlemann, and Nietupski (2015:4) note the difficultly in translating tsowa and other social terms:

14 These Tibetan terms can also mean a “household,” which is important to distinguish from the house in Lévi- Strauss’s formulation. 15 See the discussion of Langelaar’s work below, in which he utilizes the Lévi-Strauss’s house concept to examine a group of tsowa.

7

[D]ifficult terms [to translate] are those denoting social and kinship groups in

Tibetan pastoral and semi-pastoral communities, such as tsowa (tsho ba), khag,

shokpa (shog pa, variant: (g)shog kha), déwa (sde ba), tsang (tshang), and rukor

(ru skor), and their Chinese/English renderings, for example buluo/“tribe” for the

Tibetan term shokpa.

This is evident in the following excerpt from Chen Qingying (2002:140) in which he gives definitions for Tibetan social terms. Note that shokka, tsopa/tsowa, depa/dewa, khak, and ruwa are all translated with the same five terms: clan, village, stockaded village, and division.

1. shog kha [shokka] (or shog khag་, abbreviation: shog): In Chinese, free translations include clan (zu, 族), village (zhuang, 庄), village/hamlet (cun, 村) stockaded village (zhai, 寨), division (bu, 部). Transcriptions include 学卡 (xueka)，秀卡 (xiuka)， 伙卡 (huoka)，休卡 (xiuka)， 休化 (xiuhua)，雪 化 (xuehua). 2. tsho pa [tsopa] (or tsho ba [tsowa]; abbreviation: tsho): Free translation: idem. Transcriptions: 错巴 (cuoba)，错哇 (cuowa)， 错瓦(cuowa)，错 (cuo) 3. sde pa [depa] (or sde ba [dewa], abbr.: sde): idem. Transcriptions: 岱 (dai)， 德 (de)，德哇 (dewa)，德巴 (deba) 4. khag [khak] (occasional abbr.: kha): idem. Transcriptions: 喀 (ka)，卡 (ka)， 克合 (kehe)，卡合 (kahe). (It is not generally used by itself). 5. ru ba [ruwa] (or ru): idem. Transcriptions: 如瓦 (ruwa)， 日哇 (riwa)， 茹 (ru)， 如 (ru)， 日 (ri)，柔 (rou) 6. tshang [tsang]: clan (族), tribe (部落). It is generally transcribed as 仓 (cang).16

At present, references to Amdo social groups are scattered, and references to tsowa are often anecdotal to the authors’ main purposes. In what follows, I will survey some of the treatments of tsowa in the scholarly literature. I will divide this survey by region, focusing on

16 He gives Tibetan script for the terms, which I have transliterated. For the Chinese phonetics and definitions, I give the pinyin and the Chinese characters because many characters are homographic when rendered in pinyin.

8 tsowa in Gansu Province, Qinghai Province (including Golok and Rebgong), and Songpan

County respectively. In attempting to sort through the scholarship, I will try to tease out resemblances among different tsowa by asking the following questions: (1) Are they part of a nomadic, sedentary, or agropastoralist society? (2) Do the tsowa possess notions of kinship and/or lineage? (3) Do the tsowa possess migration or origin stories? (4) How many families or tents do tsowa generally contain? (5) What function do they serve, e.g. mutual aid during weddings or pasture management? And (6) Were they historically under the jurisdiction of a nearby monastery?

My reason for asking these six questions is that they all address characteristics I have seen describing various tsowa. I ask the first question because the livelihood of a tsowa shapes its activities and the social units that comprise it. My second question is an attempt to further probe the notion that tsowa are “clans,” “tribes,” or descent groups. The third question explores how tsowa understand the history behind their group identity beyond shared economic, religious, and other activities. The fourth question is an attempt to document the difference in size among different tsowa, which has implications for all the other questions. For example, very large tsowa spanning multiple settlements are not likely involved as a whole in sponsoring a wedding. Rather, they may be composed of smaller social groups which undertake this task. I have asked the fifth question in order to examine why tsowa exist, i.e. what do they do? The sixth question is asked in order to examine the relationship between institutions and tsowa. This angle explores their role as administrative entities.

Gansu Province

In Cultural Relations on the Kansu-Tibetan Border (1939), the missionary-turned- anthropologist, R.B. Ekvall (1898-1983) discusses social structure in Gansu Province in the mid-

9 twentieth century. He mentions that villagers, i.e. farmers, tend to choose headmen and that nomads tend to have an “informal…head-man” (Ekvall 1939:40). Other tribes have a council of elders (rgan po) but no “chief,” 17 and some have hereditary chiefs. Ekvall (1939:69-70) continues:

There are two tribes which, to my knowledge, are different from most of the tribes

of northeastern Tibet in structure and organization [i.e. the types mentioned

above]. In the case of other tribes encampments are the only units within the

tribes, but in these two tribes there is an intermediate organization called the thsu-

ba [tsowa]. In one of these tribes the encampments are organized in twelve

divisions—the thsu-ba—according to the valleys in which their winter campsites

are located. These twelve divisions have recognized leaders or head-men whose

offices are hereditary and who exercise considerable power; but all are under the

one chief who is concurrently the head of his own thsu-ba and the unquestioned

chief of the entire tribe. Incidentally, he is one of the most powerful and autocratic

chiefs in the nomad country. From all indication these thsu-ba were once tribes

but were reduced to a subordinate position: they are no longer called rgyud

[gyü]—tribes—but are merely parts of a tribe. Such a tribe would seem to

illustrate one of the stages in the formation of a state. The other has fewer thsu-ba;

they are more independent of the chief and so more resemble a confederacy than

the beginnings of a state. Among the tribes of this part of Amdo are also found

confederations or associations of tribes, which are banded together for the

carrying out of certain aims and objectives. Such leagues are more permanent

17 Ekvall appears to be using “chief” and “head-man” interchangeably here.

10

than mere temporary alliances of tribes to carryout particular military operations

against a common enemy.

In this description, Ekvall discusses two different “tribes.” In the first, there are twelve tsowa. The tsowa are groups of encampments organized by the location of their winter campsite.

Each tsowa has its own hereditary leader, but the leader of the most powerful tsowa also leads the “tribe” as a whole. Notably, he speculates that the tsowa were likely more powerful and independent in the past but are now subordinate to the “tribe.” He frames this in terms of social evolution from “tribe” to state. These tsowa are organized according to their winter campsite. As we will see, tsowa among pastoralists are often a social group consisting of encampments.18

The second “tribe” has fewer tsowa, and they have more independence than the abovementioned group. He characterizes this “tribe” as more akin to a confederacy in contrast to the proto-state above. It is curious that Ekvall translates gyü as “tribe.” In most contexts, this indicates something closer to “lineage.” Unfortunately for us, he does not mention the names of the “tribes,” tsowas, the particular area of Gansu he is in, or the types of activities the confederacy-like “tribe” unite for.

Regarding the six questions I posed at the outset, (1) Ekvall was discussing mobile pastoralists in Gansu. (2) He postulates notions of shared lineage within tsowa in Fields on the

Hoof and he presumes an ancestor, but his statements are far from confident.19 (3) Ekvall does not mention migration or founding stories for any of the tsowa he discusses. (4) Unfortunately, he gives us no sense of the size of these tsowa. (5) In one of the “tribes” he mentions, tsowa appear to primarily function as groups of encampments. Their activities or purposes as a group in

18 See Nietupski’s information on tsowa in the Labrang area and Gelek’s information on Golok tsowa below. 19 Goldstein 1969 offers a good critique of this passage and the work as a whole.

11 the latter “tribe” is unclear. (6) It is unclear whether or not these “tribes” possessing tsowa had a relationship with local monasteries according to the information Ekvall provided, although he mentions other “tribes” which do have a formal relationship with monasteries.

Another German ethnologist, Hans Stübel (1885-1963), conducted ethnographic fieldwork among a group he called the Mewu Fantzu (Ch. fanzi) in Gansu during the summer and fall of 1936.20 According to Stübel, the Mewu were a “tribe” headed by a “chief” (Ch. toumu, tusi; T. dpon po).21 Within the tribe were four tsowa, each consisting of about 40-100 families or tents (Stübel 1958:56).

According to him, each tsowa had a leader, who was not selected by the chief.

Presumably, the leader was selected by the families or most powerful family in the tsowa. He states that these leaders had comparable standing to the chief. He does not give a term for the tsowa leaders, but I have seen the term “tsopön” in other communities. His role, unlike that of the chief, appears to not be hereditary and there are no rules on how long he can remain in office.

According to Stübel, the tsowas’ chief function is to provide “legal protection” (ibid.). If a member of a tsowa commits a crime, the tsowa leader and the tsowa’s members are responsible.

Stübel (1958:60) writes:

[The leader] carries on negotiations with the leader of another group if one of its

members is obliged to pay a member of his group for some crime. The leader of

the group whose member has committed the offense must exact the fine from the

criminal and give it to the leader of the victim’s group. If a member of one group

cannot pay a penalty demanded of him, the entire group guarantees to raise the

20 Stübel appears unaware that fanzi roughly means “barbarian” and was used by Chinese as a general term for Tibetans in Amdo. 21 Stübel gives the rendering “huan pu,” which is the local pronunciation of pönpo.

12

fine. The guilty person must then gradually pay off the debt to the members of his

group.22

He also tells us that it is much worse if a member steals from another member in the same tsowa.

As such, the penalty is much higher. Likewise, the penalty is higher if one steals from a lama, chief, or incarnation.23

Regarding my six questions, (1) Stübel was researching both nomadic and sedentary

Tibetans. It is unclear whether the tsowa he discusses common to both or just one. (2) He does not indicate any notions of kinship or lineage with the tsowa. (3) He does not mention any migration or founding stories. (4) He states that tsowa tend to contain about 40-100 families

(tents), (5) He primarily characterizes their purpose as providing group protection during disputes. (6) The group he studied was under the jurisdiction of Labrang Monastery.

In Labrang Monastery (2011), Paul Nietupski discusses the history of this great institution up through 1958. In detailing the monastery’s relationship with communities under its jurisdiction, he briefly discusses tsowa in relation to another social group called shokpa. He describes shokpa as the largest social unit in the communities surrounding Labrang Monastery in

Gansu Province. He argues, “the primary forces that bound the shokpa were kinship, territorial identification, and religion” (Nietupski 2011:56).24 These shokpa had leaders, either local ones called pönpo or Labrang-appointed leaders called gowa. Besides being a smaller unit within

22 Cf. with the “repkor [rukor]” in Pirie (2005a:15). 23 Stübel (1958:58). 24 Nietupski appears to take slight issue with other scholars’ translations of shokpa, quoting them as: “village, collection, neighborhood” (Clarke 1988:83), “several villages” (Goldstein 1968:42), “congregation” (Davidson 2005:96), and “lineage group” (Ekvall 1983[1968]:28). He notes that “village” is inappropriate for nomadic communities. He also says that concepts of territory were not static because a shokpa could move to a new area. Religious affiliation was also not permanent (Nietupski 2011:57). However, only Ekvall’s translated term refers to shokpa. Clarke is discussing a group in Central Tibet called “dongseuh,” Goldstein is discussing “tsho” in Central Tibet, and Davidson is discussing “tsho/sde pa” in tenth-to-thirteenth century Tibet.

13 shokpa, it is not clear what else differentiated tsowa from shokpa or why they existed. Despite most of his interviewees stating that shokpa consist of tsowa, he notes that the terms are sometimes interchanged or used ambiguously. This is a common source of confusion for many

Tibetan social groups.

An additional social group that Nietupski discusses are rukor, which he states are not constituent units of tsowa or shokpa, but can have overlapping membership. He states that in contrast to shokpa and tsowa, rukor do not have kinship as an element of membership. Rukor were groups that herd together in summer pastures and disbanded during the winter according to him. Another term he discusses is dewa. He implies that this is a term that develops later to refer to summer pasture and winter areas together. Among horticulturalists, it often refers to villages.

According to him, dewa eventually came to refer to areas containing their own shokpa, tsowa, rukor, and farming villages.

As the title of his work suggests, Nietupski’s information on social organization in communities is centered on their relationship to Labrang Monastery. For instance, we are given the titles of officers (gowa) who collect taxes from communities, but no information on whether the tsowa functions as a unit of taxation or if the village itself is taxed regardless of local groups.

A large part of this lacuna likely stems from a lack of sources. Monastic texts were generally unconcerned with village, or nomadic, life. Additionally, few monastic tax records and other administrative documents dealing with lay communities have surfaced from Amdo.

Unfortunately, as each year passes, fewer and fewer locals who remember village social organization before the massive changes of the mid-twentieth century survive.

14

Figure 1. Map of Amdo

15

One of the sources that Nietupski consults is Drukthar’s Sociohistorical Examination of the Tibetan Tsowa Shokpa [System] in Gansu. Speaking generally, Drukthar states (2002:35):

There are two organizational forms of tsowa. First, there are the tsowa [existing]

since the disintegration of the Tibetan empire, in which lineage (rikrü, dungyü)

relations acted as their foundation. The other type of tsowa are those that are

mostly without lineage relations. There can be numerous smaller tsowa within a

larger one, and these smaller tsowa can be composed of one lineage or people

who are merely related. Within smaller tsowas and shokpas, there are many tents

(ru) and encampments (rukor), and the encampment is a foundational unit of the

tsowa. Although each encampment has a representative, when significant political,

economic, military matters arise, all of the individual tsowa and encampments

consider the well-being of all the tsowa and command [accordingly]. Even though

these distinctive features of tsowa organization—connection by territory or

relation by lineage—are irreplaceable, the tsowa which are related by lineage

portray it as unimportant whether or not they connected by land.

This description seems generally applicable to the pastoralist communities that Ekvall,

Nietupski, and Pirie (see below) describe. It raises an interesting question about the primacy of territory or lineage in tsowa. This is a complicated issue because many Tibetan groups conceive of themselves in terms of abstract lineage expressed in terms such as gyü (lineage) or rügyü

16

(bone lineage).25 However, membership in Amdo social groups which describes itself as having a rügyü is not always determined by descent or familial relation.

In regard to the six questions, (1) Nietupski discusses both nomadic and sedentary

Tibetan groups, although primarily nomadic communities. (2) He indicates that tsowas are comprised of families that may or may not be kin. (3) He does not mention any migration or foundation stories. (4) He states that tsowa tend to contain about three to fifteen families (tents).

It is worth noting how tiny these tsowa are compared to the ones that Stübel discusses. As

Labrang had a large amount of communities spread out regionally under its jurisdiction, Stübel may have been working in a community quite different than Nietupski’s informants. (5)

Unfortunately, he does not outline the activities or social roles of the tsowa he discusses. (6) As with Stübel, Nietupski studied groups under the jurisdiction of Labrang Monastery.

In A Multi-ethnic Village in Northeast Tibet: History, Ritual, and Daily Life in Chu cha

(2013), Stobs stag lha,26 a native of Chu cha village in Pari County in the central part of Gansu province, relays an origin tale for the village’s three tsowa. His source is a female villager born in 1936. According to the story, a long time ago a couple moved into Pari from the west. They had three sons, and the father built a local deity shrine, or laptsé. His three sons went up there while he was worshipping. They each brought different items — a sling, a spear, and juniper.

Based on the item they brought, the father told them to go forth and be leaders of different tsowa.

Therefore, the three tsowa in Chu cha Village —Toptsang tsowa, Gyatig tsowa, and Ngokho tsowa — are each believed to have descended from one of these relatives. The descendants of

25 Bone here refers to a substance passed from a father to his children. As such, some have taken this term rügyü to mean patriline. However, these conceptions are often rather abstract, and women are sometimes seen as transmitters of a rügyü (see examples in Langelaar forthcoming). See below in Chapter Two for further discussion of rü. 26 I provide Wylie transliteration here rather than phonetics because this is the name under which his work is published.

17 these three tsowa eventually populated the Pari region with Tibetans.27 The narrator goes as far to claim that all Tibetans in Pari County are descended from these brothers (Stobs stag lha

2013:31-33).

As such, these tsowa have some, seemingly abstract, notions of descent. However, one can hardly claim that they constitute strict lineages. Furthermore, according to local legend when one of the tsowa stopped producing offspring due to a curse, they began adopting children from the other two tsowa. This event is said to have linked them closer together as kin. In addition, one group bearing the surname Niu, are believed to be Tu people who migrated into Chu cha before 1949 and joined the Toptsang tsowa. These features — the lack of specific lineage, in- migration into tsowa, and adoption into tsowa — complicate any attempt to classify them as a

“clan” or “lineage.” It is unclear from this work what constitutes membership in a tsowa. For example, does a bride join her husband's tsowa during marriage? Are tsowa exogamous groups in Chu cha?

According to village elders, each of the three “tribes [tsowa] had their own territories, mountain deities, reincarnation bla ma [lama], and festivals, and were all also part of Mchod rten thang bkra shis dar rgyas gling's [Chörten Tang Tashi Dargyé] monastic estate” (Stobs stag lha

2013:33). Furthermore, these elders claim that after 1949, the tsowa lost their sovereignty.

Villagers were required by the government to choose surnames, and some of these names reflect tsowa membership.

Although Stobs stag lha does not give precise data on the number of people and families in each tsowa, he gives the population of Chu cha Village and the number of Tibetan families

27 The legend of three brothers as the ancestors for tsowa is a common trope. For examples, see Chapter Two below for the origins of the Gongwa tsowa. Cf. Pirie (2005a:7) and Levine (1988:26-34).

18 with particular surnames in Chu cha.28 He writes, “The total population of Chu cha Village is

872 people (212 households), which includes one hundred Tu households, sixty-three Chinese households, forty-five Tibetan households, and four Hui households. The approximate percentage of each ethnic group is forty-six percent Tu, thirty percent Han Chinese, twenty-two percent Tibetan, and two percent Hui” (Stobs stag lha 2013:15). It is not clear to what extent non-Tibetans in Chu cha are members of tsowa.

To summarize, (1) the people in Chu Cha village are sedentary agropastoralists. (2) The tsowa possess a notion of lineage descending from common ancestor(s). (3) The tsowa do have a migration and founding story. (4) The size of the tsowas is unclear. (5) The tsowa in Chu Cha village before 1949 had their own reincarnate lamas, and their activities include venerating local deities. (6) Traditionally, all of the tsowa were part of Chörten Tang Tashi Dargyé monastery's estate.

Qinghai Province

Now, we turn to the literature on tsowa in Qinghai Province. Fernanda Pirie has studied social organization among nomadic pastoralists in Golok (southeastern Qinghai Province), although her primary fieldsite is in Machu County (Gansu Province).29 Pirie found that the

28 According to the author, a few of these surnames are used by Tibetan households who belong to particular tsowa. 29 The pastoralists in Machu that Pirie worked with employed the term “dewa” rather than tsowa to describe groups of encampments. In Machu, she tells us there are eight “tribes” called dewa. Following the use of “tribe” in Khoury and Kostiner (1990) and Tapper (1983), she uses the term to denote “distinct groups, dewa, with relatively egalitarian relations within them and leaders who are more like chiefs than heads of a state” (Pirie 2005a:10). Each of these dewa had headmen (gowa) who were either appointed directly by Labrang monastery for three-year terms or had hereditary headmen. Within the dewa are encampments called rukor, which each had about 40 tents, or 200 people, at the time of Pirie’s fieldwork. Importantly, she states that their group identity does not rest on notions of shared lineage but rather on ideas of shared territory. The rukor of a dewa share a territorial spirit that they worship. When she asked community members about tsowa, they recognized the term but considered it obsolete, and told her tsowa existed under the authority of monasteries. They connected tsowa with rü and ancestors but stated that rü are very now spread out so tsowa groups are “no longer of any practical significance” (Pirie 2005a:12). To review, the dewa social group in Machu appears to resemble the tsowa in many other nomadic areas, as it is composed of encampments called rukor. Although they recognized the term tsowa, it is not in wide use there. Due to the apparent

19 concept of tsowa is prevalent among pastoralists in Golok. Among the people she interviewed, tsowa are the groups of families once led by ruling families. According to her informants, tsowa

“refers to the groups formerly headed by one of the ruling families, but the ideas of lineage and descent do not form the basis of tribal affiliation among the ordinary people. Smaller groups often changed their allegiance from one tribe to another or moved for ecological reasons” (Pirie

2005a:12).

As her primary research was carried out in Machu and Golok is used as a basis for comparison, her information on Golok tsowa is somewhat cursory. With that caveat, regarding my six questions, (1) They are nomadic pastoralists. (2) The tsowa are reported to have been headed by hereditary rulers, but lineage and descent do not determine tsowa affiliation for most families. (3) There is no mention of migration or founding stories here, but they are likely since there are stories about hereditary rulers leading tsowa. (4) Tsowa size is not reported. (5)

Although Pirie does not discuss tsowa at length because it is uncommon in her primary research site, her work indicates that the Golok tsowa were similar to Machu dewa in respect to roles.30

That is to say that they managed pasture among member tents, defended their members from attacks, and retaliated in cases of incursions on their territory or livestock theft. (6) It does not appear the tsowa that her Golok informants discuss were under the authority of a monastery, although they did have lamas from Palyul monastery mediate disputes.

similarity between dewa in Machu and tsowa in other areas, I will address my six questions for tsowa in regard to the dewa instead. (1) They are part of a predominantly nomadic society. (2) According to Pirie, they do not have notions of kinship, but rather notions of shared territory. (3) There is no mention of migration or founding stories for the dewa. (4) According to Pirie, the dewa contain several hundred tents. The dewa are in turn comprised of rukor, which she states contain roughly 40 tents or 200 people. By this approximation, there are five people living in a typical tent. Therefore, we might conjecture by the given numbers that one of these dewa might have about 300 tents, or 1,500 people. (5) These dewa are quite large and serve to allocate pasture to different encampments and organize defense for the dewa. (6) These dewa were historically under the authority of Labrang monastery. 30 See previous footnote.

20

Lobsang Gelek, a Tibetan anthropologist from Kham, also conducted fieldwork in Golok.

He studied the Washul Sertar pastoralists.31 He observes the use of several terms for social organization—shok khak and dewa—and mentions that they can refer to the same group as tsowa.

In this area, tsowa are quite large, containing up to 400 households according to Gelek.

Compared to the tsowa of Labrang mentioned in Nietupski’s work above, these groups are very large. Gelek states (1998:50):

I gloss Tsowa as ‘wider camp group’ as it has a territorial basis; but it also

conveys the idea of common descent… The local territorial group can focus on a

local lineage but is not exclusively constituted by that local lineage; though many

people in one encampment are from the same patrilineage or clan it is a diverse

group. Each encampment is formed by a number of different Rus [rü], or

exogamous patrilineages which can intermarry.

Similar to the dewa of pastoralists in Machu, these tsowa are composed of encampments called rukor, or rurok. He translates these as “encampment,” and states that they consist of about five tents or households who herd together. They can have about 30 rukor and 10 different rü.

Gelek reports that there were forty-eight tsowa which formed the larger Washul Sertar group.

These included inner (nang) tsowa that claimed descent from a common ancestor and outer (chir) tsowa which joined later.

Regarding the six questions, (1) The Washul Sertar are mobile pastoralists. (2) Gelek indicates that tsowa are comprised of various lineages. (3) The most prominent lineage has a

31 According to Jacoby, the Washul Sertar people were historically distinct from the Golok people but were linguistically and culturally similar. Their traditional territories are now in Kandzé Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture and Golok Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture respectively (2014:42). Gelek, on the other hand, considers them to be one group within the Golok, calling them the “Washu Serthar [Washul Sertar] Golog…[or] the Golog Serthar” (1998:47).

21 founding myth (Gelek 1998:52). (4) Tsowa size varied widely from as few as twenty families to as many as 400. (5) Gelek states that the tsowa had their own territory, and their size corresponded to the size of their territory. Tsowa provided defense for the pasture, mediate disputes and “organise annual religious festivals and associated activities” (Gelek 1998:53). He states that almost all of the tsowa had their own mountain gods that they venerated and all of the tsowa shared one mountain god in particular. (6) According to Gelek, there were twenty-four monasteries affiliated with the forty-eight Washul Sertar tsowa.

Nancy Levine also conducted fieldwork with the Washul Sertar, some of it with Gelek.

She defines tsowa as “local kin-based groups” (Levine 1998:69). These were subdivided into rukor as Gelek described above. The encampments were able to graze their animals within their tsowa’s territory. Levine (1998:69) writes:

Each Tsowa was headed by a leader (dPon po) [pönpo], who was a member of the

dominant or founding clan, and a second-in-command (Blon po) [lönpo], who was

selected for his competence and who belonged to another clan. Each encampment

also had a leader cum representative (known as bCu dPon [chupön], literally

'leader of ten'). According to historical documents, the tribal leaders determined

the timing of seasonal movements and herding destinations, as well as assigning

the rotation of Tsowa members to keep guard over the pasture and fight for its

defence. They also negotiated the amount to be paid in compensation when

someone was killed.

Additionally, the forty-eight tsowa were under the authority of a “single chief or head

(dPon Chen) [pönchen]” (Levine 1998:70). Unfortunately, it is unclear what the “clan” is to which the tsowa leaders belonged. I think it likely was the most powerful family within the

22 tsowa, which Gelek above refers to as patrilineages (rü). I will forego answering the six survey questions, as the answers would be the same as those I provided for Gelek’s work above.

According to Sarah Jacoby (2010), there were three main divisions (Golok khak sum) of

Golok society—Akyong Bum, Wangchen Bum, and Pema Bum—all of which had further divisions. For instance, Akyong Bum had five subdivisions called tsokhak, each of which had their own leaders (pön). According to Jacoby, Wangchen Bum’s tsokhak governed nomadic communities (rudé), 32 farming communities (rongdé) and communities of people who had originally migrated in from elsewhere (chidé). This last type of community, chidé, appears similar and is etymologically related to the outer (chir) tsowa Gelek mentions among the Washul

Sertar.

Furthermore, Jacoby states:

Wangchen Bum included an upper and lower division, from which multiple layers

of subdivisions came forth. Listing these by their Tibetan names in the order of

larger to smaller, Wangchen Bum’s subdivisions included: ru ma [rüma] > ru sde

[rudé] or phyi sde [chidé] > shog chung [shokchung] or tsho shog [tsoshok] or

tsho ba [tsowa] > tsho ma lag [tsoma lak] > tsho yang lag [tsoyang lak]. Thirdly,

Pema Bum was divided into eight different principalities (dpon khag) [pönkhak]

each governed by their own leader. These principalities contained different

communities (sde ba) [dewa] each with multiple encampment circles (tsho khor)

[tsokhor] or groups of ten households (bcu shog) [chushok].

32 The -dé in these three terms is the same de- in dewa, indicating division, group, or village.

23

This information provides a glimpse of a very complex social structure. It is difficult to tease out exactly what tsowa refer to in this context, but tsokhor appears very similar to the tsowa of the Washul Sertar, i.e. they were all comprised of encampment circles. It also worth noting the use of -tso as a prefix for a variety of different social groups in this context.

As for the six survey questions, some of these questions are difficult to answer because the Golok polities covered a very large territory, contained many people, were not homogenous, and the work surveyed above is a general description. As we saw above, there were different forms of organization among the different Golok groups. With that caveat, (1) The Golok are primarily mobile pastoralists. (2) It is unclear to me to what extent lineage and kinship played a role in the composition of tsowa and other Golok social groups. As Pirie reports above, some of the rulers had hereditary lines. However, if we take tsowa among the Golok to indicate a group of encampments, they would likely include both kin and unrelated households. (3) There are numerous founding myths about various Golok figures. (4) Tsowa size is unclear. (5) Their role is unclear here due to a variety of undefined social group terminology, e.g. tsoma lak. (6) There were a variety of monasteries in Golok territory with relationships to local communities. Many of these monasteries were branches of Katok, the famous Nyingma monastery in Kham (Jacoby

2014:106-107).

In the Rebgong (Ch. Tongren) County of Qinghai Province, Reinier Langelaar conducted fieldwork in 2013 in Gartsé, a horticultural village. He defines the tsowa in this area as “village internal—or more precisely sde ba [dewa] internal—support networks” (Langelaar 2017:158).

He contrasts them with “the far larger federative tsho ba [tsowa] of, say, Zung chu [Sungchu] and dPa’ ris [Pari]” (ibid.).

24

He argues against characterizing these tsowa as clans or other types of descent groups, but rather analyzes them with Lévi-Strauss’s concept of the house. Importantly, friends and family members often belong to different tsowa, and “[tsowa] networks are activated only under specific circumstances, and consequently everyday life is lived without much, if any, concern for individuals’ tsho ba [tsowa] affiliations” (ibid.) These circumstances in which they are active include weddings, funerals, and other rituals.33 Some of the ritual activities include local deity propitiation, which is an aspect of many of the tsowa in other regions as well.

Tsowa are composed of smaller groups called rakha, which is a colloquial form of drakha, wherein dra- means tent. Langelaar (2017:58) further tells us:

These smaller units consist of a number of households said to have branched off

from a common ancestral house over time, and as networks are typified by higher

degrees of mutual responsibility. Not all households necessarily have

consanguineous relations with each other, although we do find a clear tendency

for patrikin to be pooled inside these groups. Because of the closer nature of these

smaller household groups, villagers actually tend to place the rva-kha [rakha]

before the overarching tsho-ba [tsowa] in terms of importance. Such personal

evaluations notwithstanding, rva-kha affiliation is rather opaque to non-members;

people can generally cite another person's tsho-ba, but rarely his or her rva-kha,

membership.

33 This provisioning of mutual-aid during life-cycle events by tsowa is not unlike the role played by kyiduk in other Tibetan areas. See, for example, Miller 1956 and Fjeld (2006:310-314). Thanks to Geoff Childs for pointing out this similarity between kyiduk and tsowa to me.

25

Importantly, the hereditary ruler of the village was drawn from a particular rakha. This is a common feature in other communities as well, in which a leader is drawn from a particular tsowa or another subdivision.

Langelaar states that Gartsé village has four tsowa, which possess 46, 34, 16, and 11 households respectively. The largest tsowa is comprised of five rakha, and the second-largest has three. Interestingly, the third largest tsowa is composed of two former tsowa, and one of these branches has two rakha. The smallest tsowa is not yet subdivided into rakha. The groups are interspersed among different parts of the village, rather than being located in separate sections.

However, “Oral tradition, certain toponymic names and other indications however strongly suggest that this was different in the past. Elsewhere [Langelaar forthcoming], I therefore suggest that tsho ba [tsowa] originally have likely arisen as hamlets, or otherwise territorially defined units” (Langelaar 2017:159). Additionally, the tsowa have “sister groups” in other villages due to migrations.

In keeping in line with his argument against framing tsowa as clans, he demonstrates that descent is not always a criterion for membership. For example, in cases of uxorilocal marriage, the groom and children join the bride’s tsowa. Also, adopted children also join their adopting parents’ tsowa. Likewise, tsowa members are generally unaware of how long their group has existed or who its founding member was, which runs counter to the concept of clans having a defined apical ancestor.

Additionally, incest is defined as occurring at the level of family members, not tsowa members, so the tsowa are not exogamous groups. Langelaar found that villagers generally consider three or four elapsed generations sufficient for couples to marry, i.e. “great- grandchildren or great-great-grandchild of the same couple may intermarry” (2017:168). He said

26 that he only heard the often-cited Tibetan explanation that seven generations must pass before relations are acceptable from a local scholar. 34 As for the six survey questions: (1) The inhabitants of Gartsé village are horticulturalists. (2) Tsowa are not kinship based, although they are often “framed in an idiom of patrilineal kinship” (2017:177). (3) The individual tsowa do not have elaborate migration or founding stories, but the local monastery’s twelfth century founder is well known.35 (4) The tsowa vary in size from eleven to forty-six households. (5) The tsowa support one another during major life-cycle events, times of conflict, and resolving disputes. (6)

Gartsé village does have a monastery and some of its tsowa were considered its parishioners

(lhadé), however further details are not provided.

In Bönkor, an agropastoral village in Mangra (Ch. Guinan) County in Tsolho Tibetan

Autonomous Prefecture of Qinghai Province, Nyangchakja conducted fieldwork. 36 He is originally from the village. In 2016, the village had twenty tsowa. Nyangchakja (2016:48) states that in this area:

Tsowa is a group of people who have had a kinship relationship, either

matrilineally or patrilineally, over the past four to five generations. Some tsowa in

Bon skor have fifteen families/households and some have seventy to eighty.

According to an origin story told by his grandparents, 37 there were originally three tsowa—Bönpo, Arik, and Tarshul—in Bönkor. The founding member, Bönpo Tsewo (approx.

34 See footnote 57 below where Lhadé Geming Pal outlines that this is a primary concern for composing genealogies. 35 See Langelaar (2017:166) for more on this point. 36 Nyangchakja (2016:49), highlighting the difficulty in translating territorial and social terminology, states: “I have I have reluctantly chosen to use the term 'village' (Chinese = cun; Tibetan = sde ba [dewa]) to refer to Bon skor [Bönkor]. 'Village' does not accurately frame the Bon skor area and administrative jurisdiction that includes a settled, farming area, deserts, and vast herding lands.” 37 They were born in 1945 and 1946 and are natives of Bönkor Village.

27 fourteenth century), immigrated to the area from elsewhere and had three sons. 38 He was rewarded the land by a local Mongol king named Bang Ama. Upon selecting the land to start his community, Bönpo Tsewo built a local deity shrine (laptsé).39 As their family grew, it became known as the Bönpo tsowa.40 The Arik and Tarshul tsowas were neighboring groups of people that were granted to the new community by the king (Nyangchakja 2016:63-72).

Nyangchakja states that historically as families grew larger, they branched into new tsowa. In describing tsowa formation here, the examples he uses are from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and all relate to an original figure of whose descendants eventually came to constitute a tsowa. Prior to 1958, village leaders were selected from one tsowa, the Nyingkar tsowa (also called the Pöntsang tsowa), which had split off the Bönpo tsowa in the past. Village leadership was hereditary (Nyangchakja 2016:48, 72).

From the data that Nyangchakja provides, it appears that tsowa in Bönkor have more in common with the anthropological concept of clans than the previously mentioned tsowa. For instance, he states that most Bönkor residents consider themselves to be descendants of Bönpo

Tsewo.41 As such, he could act as an apical ancestor for at least a large portion of the community, however much of the community migrated in from elsewhere. Additionally, as quoted above, the tsowa consist of kin. Furthermore, Nyangchakja (2016:185) states:

38 A founder immigrating from elsewhere and having three sons, or three siblings immigrating from elsewhere, is a common feature of other tsowa origin narratives. See footnote 27 above. 39 Cf. Gartsé and Chucha villages above where tsowa are also connected with particular local deities. 40 Cf. the Gongwa tsowa origin story below in Chapter Two. 41I take this to mean regardless of tsowa affiliation, since the later tsowa are characterized as developing out of the original three.

28

Marriage usually takes place between different tribes [tsowa]. Locals define incest

as marriage between any relatives. Sexual relationships within the same tribe are

considered incestuous and are taboo. All marriages are monogamous.42

This indicates that tsowa in Bönkor are exogamous groups within a larger group, i.e.

Bönkor village (and its approximately twenty tsowa). However, he also noted that they are not unilineal, and he seems to allow for the possibility that people can marry into a tsowa

(Nyangchakja 2016:48). These two features undermine its identification as a “clan.” As for the six questions: (1) Bönkor is an agropastoral community. (2) The tsowa consist of bilateral relatives. (3) The original three tsowa possess a founding story. (4) Tsowa size appears to range from fifteen to eighty families. (5) Historically, one tsowa provided hereditary rulers and the tsowa serve exogamous units. (6) Bönkor has ties with a number of monasteries, but their relationship to the tsowa is unclear.

Sichuan Province

We now turn to literature on tsowa communities in Sichuan Province. In their history of

Zungchu (Ch. Songpan) County, in northern Sichuan Province, Xiaofei Kang and Donald Sutton detail the interactions and conflicts between tsowa and the Chinese authorities there during the late fourteenth century to the present. Relying primarily on Chinese historical sources, this book provides a more panoramic and distant view than the previously mentioned works. They define tsowa as “divisions, clan, or federation of indigenes’ hamlets [Ch. zhai]” (Kang and Sutton

2016:6). Due to the nature of their sources, Kang and Sutton have little to say about the details tsowa, e.g. the role or lack of kinship in them, the existence of subgroups, and origin stories.

42He regularly employs “tribe” as a translation for “tsowa” throughout the work and in the glossary (p. 501), so in this quotation, “tribe” is referring specifically to tsowa.

29

Instead, they focus on their interactions with Chinese authorities. Their data gives the impression of large tsowa that reach across settlements.43

Kang and Sutton’s description accords with Samten Karmay’s description of local social organization in this area. In one article, he states, “Political organizations in Amdo tend towards tribal federations (tsho) [tso, read: tsowa] grouping villages or clusters of tents, in the case of nomads, in one valley or accoding [sic] to a geographical entity” (Karmay 1998 [1994]:528).

Here, we are seeing something different than the intravillage tsowa in Bönkor and Gartsé; the tsowa in Zungchu are linking multiple settlements together. In another article, Karmay (1998:427) writes:

Villages used to be grouped according to a political federation system in which

from four to seven villages, with a sacred mountain and a monastery for education

and religious gathering comprised a federation. Each federation had its own

leaders as well as social and political institutions: elected council, militia for self-

defence (each needed to have a good horse and gun ready whenever required),

and a general assembly of adultmen.

A difficulty, however, in assessing Kang and Sutton’s work is that as it relies primarily on Chinese language sources, it is difficult to tell whether or not the groups Kang and Sutton translate as “tsowa” described themselves with this term or not.44 In Chinese sources, a group

43 See for example, the map and listings of hamlet belonging to tsowa on Kang and Sutton (2016:73-74). 44 Kang and Sutton’s (2016:7 n. 11) unfamiliarity with Tibetan language is evident when they confuse dewa as an alternate pronunciation of tsowa rather than recognizing it to be a separate word: “[Tuttle] prefers the word ‘division’ to ‘clan’ or ‘tribe’ in translating ‘tsho ba [tsowa].’ Pirie, in ‘Limits of the State,’ renders this dewa (sde ba) on the basis of the Amdo grasslands pronunciation. We follow Shar khog Tibetans in using tsowa.”

30 might be called buluo, which can be used to translate tsowa, but buluo can also be used to describe or translate other social groups.45 Buluo is often used as a generic term much like “tribe.”

Kang and Sutton highlight two meaningful aspects of tsowa. The first is their ties to local monasteries. They contend that the allegiance between tsowa and monasteries acted as a bulwark against Chinese cultural influence, e.g. language and Confucianism (Kang and Sutton 2016:252).

Kang and Sutton (2016:25) elaborate on this alliance:

The characteristic tsowa of the Amdo region combined secular with religious

authority. As Bon and Buddhist sects spread, followers constructed monasteries

that served as social foci, recruiting and supporting monks and meeting local

ritual needs. The head lama might serve as chieftain, or be a chieftain’s appointee,

in some cases his brother. The tsowa were territorially based, but not necessarily

stable: tsowa might expand by absorbing other hamlets or finding a new patron;

they might divide, form local confederations or even seek a home elsewhere.46

The second aspect of tsowa that they highlight is the relationship between state powers and tsowa leaders. According to them, the Ming Dynasty followed the Yuan Dynasty’s practice of the recognizing existing local leaders in the Sino-Tibetan borderlands by bestowing titles to them. Kang and Sutton frame this as being part of the tusi system. Local leaders, in turn, used this source of legitimacy for their own ends. At times, they capitulated to some demands, and at others they organized tsowa militias to resist the Chinese state’s presence.

45 For example, Kang and Sutton translate Chen Qingyin and He Feng’s Zangzu buluo zhidu yanjiu (1991) as “Studies of the Tibetan Tsowa System,” when buluo in this work, in fact, refers to a variety of social groups in addition to tsowa (Kang and Sutton 2016:429). 46 There are several examples of local tsowa leaders whose brother headed the local monastery. See, for example, Apa Alo in Nietupski 2011.

31

They assert that much later, during the Democratic Reforms beginning in 1958, the tsowa system was upended as monasteries were stripped of their land holdings and wealth by the

Chinese government. “The tsowa system with its blend of religious and civil leadership was terminated, hamlet society was transformed, and the new institutions of the socialist state were introduced” (Kang and Sutton 2016:250).

Kang and Sutton are discussing a large area with many communities, so this complicates my attempt to answer my six survey questions. Clearly, regarding the sixth question, the relationship between monasteries and tsowa was important in this region. The other questions are not addressed thoroughly in the work as it takes a panoramic view of the region.

In this chapter, I have attempted to point out the deficiencies in our knowledge of tsowa in Amdo by surveying the existing literature. This gap is evident in the uncritical manner scholars have thrown around inaccurate terms like “tribe” or “clan” to translate tsowa and other social groups. Most of the information on social groups is piecemeal and, to be fair, not the focus of these authors. As a generalized working definition for tsowa, I have proposed that they are social networks composed of households (and tents), or tent encampments, with internal obligations that tie their members to one another and external obligations.

Admittedly, this is an elastic definition reflecting the multiple meanings of tsowa in different communities. It also may not be comprehensive, as perhaps there are forms of tsowa that do not fit these criteria with which I am currently unaware. The definition’s primary value is heuristic. Further historical and ethnographic research in particular communities is necessary to understand local social groups and improve any generic definition and also to provide detailed location-specific data.

32

My proposed definition is not intended to gloss over the fact that the term “tsowa” can indicate different types of social groups in different areas. We saw above, for example, that the

Washul Sertar tsowa contain many more families than any of the horticultural tsowa that we have data for. Some tsowa are solely composed of relatives (e.g. Bönkor), whereas others are not

(e.g. Gartsé). As this chapter relied mainly on anthropological work rather than historical studies, it is necessary to emphasize that tsowa not only vary by region but are also dynamic forms of organization that have changed over time. For example, monasteries no longer own the land on which many tsowa lived, which raises questions about the relationship between contemporary tsowa and the monasteries they previously held obligations to.47

This great diversity of social forms is all limited to one Tibetan term, tsowa. I have hardly touched on related terms, such as shokpa, which are also polyvalent. The matter becomes even more complicated in translation, when in some cases applying the term “clan” might signify a notion of shared ancestry, and in others it might distort the nature of these social groups. At this point, it is clear we must look at social terminology in their particular context to make sense of their meaning.

47 It would be unwise, however, to assume that all communities formerly under the jurisdiction of a monastery no longer share an economic relationship with them. For more on this topic, see Caple 2010, 2011, and 2017.

33

CHAPTER 2

THE EIGHT LHADÉ TSOWA

Sources

The Eight Lhadé Tsowa are found in two areas, Trika (Ch. Guide) County and Tsigortang

(Ch. Xinghai) County, 48 both of which are in Tsolho (Ch. Hainan) Tibetan Autonomous

Prefecture. They were originally based in Trika County, but many of their members migrated to

Tsigortang County in the eighteenth century. My principal source for this group is a historical work called The Mirror that Illuminates the Collected History of the Eight Lhadé Tsowa (Lhadé

Geming Pal 2005; henceforth History of the Eight Lhadé). This work is an example of the regional Tibetan-language cultural histories that began being published in the 1980s. History of the Eight Lhadé is divided into five sections: (1) topography; (2) general explanation of the Eight

Lhadé Tsowa; (3) detailed explanation of the Eight Lhadé Tsowa; (4) traditions, customs, and culture of the Eight Lhadé Tsowa; and (5) history of Eight Lhadé Tsowa’s monasteries and religious sects. In addition to topography, section one describes the flora and fauna, natural resources, and territory held prior to “liberation.” Section two discusses the various names that the Eight Lhadé Tsowa were called throughout history, their formation, the origins of the individual tsowa, general history, and Eight Lhadé Tsowa’s chiliarchs (tongpön; Ch. qianhu).

Section three gives more detailed information for each individual tsowa. Section four gives a brief description of cultural features commonly found in ethnographies, e.g. marriages, festivals, and funeral rites.

We know from a brief biography in the foreword that the author, Lhadé Geming Pal, was born between 1939 and 1940. In 1974, he was appointed as a supervisor during the period of

48 Tsigortang is also known as Drakar County.

34 collectivization.49 In 1982, he became a local teacher. He has received numerous degrees from

Chinese universities and has held numerous teaching positions. The preface also portrays him as a devout Buddhist.

Although there is still a tremendous amount of research to be carried out on social organization in Amdo, this is fortunately a time in which Tibetan scholars’ interest in local history has been high for several decades. Hoping to incorporate this valuable work, I have chosen to utilize Lhadé Geming Pal’s History of the Eight Lhadé for several reasons. It contains local knowledge that is not readily available in historical documents. Also, Tibetan language gazetteers are an underutilized resource, which can be used fruitfully in tandem with historical documents. History of the Eight Lhadé also provides us with information on how some contemporary Amdo Tibetans understand their history and present situation. Combining historical research on this type of text with ethnographic research will undoubtedly benefit our understanding of social organization.

In addition to History of the Eight Lhadé, I have consulted several other sources for information on the Eight Lhadé Tsowa. The Ocean Annals (Drakgönpa 1982) was completed in

1865 by Drakgönpa Könchok Tenpa Rapgyé (1801-1866) and is a rich historical work which documents the geography and spread of Geluk monasteries in Amdo.50 It contains important biographical details on the monastery and lamas connected with The Eight Lhadé Tsowa, often citing earlier sources. This work is referenced several times in the History of the Eight Lhadé.

49 During collectivization (c. 1958-1979), families were organized into collectives and communes, and their economic resources and activities were pooled. The household ceased to be the basic unit of production during this period. 50 For more on this work, see Tuttle 2011c.

35

I have utilized several of the earlier texts Drakgönpa references. These include two works written by the First Rongwo Drupchen, Shar Kalden Gyatso (1607-1677),51 The Biography of

Dewa Chöjé, written in 1644, and the Kalden Annals, written in 1652.52 The former work is the biography of one of Kalden Gyatso’s main teachers, and the latter is a short text that lists the founders and restorers of Geluk monasteries in Amdo.

New Gazetteer of Xining Prefecture (Yang Yingju 2016 [1747]; henceforth Xining

Gazetteer) is an official Qing dynasty provincial gazetteer. It contains useful information about the administration of the Trika area and its communities. It is occasionally referenced in History of the Eight Lhadé, but I utilize other sections of it that are not mentioned in the latter.

Cultural History of Trika (Tsetar and Khetsun 1996) is a Tibetan-language source that I have so far only been able to locate online. It was compiled in 1996 by Trika County’s

Supervisory Board of the Literature and History Institute, which is organized under the Chinese

People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). This work has entries for many of the monasteries and other religious sites in Trika County. Lhadé Geming Pal reproduces some of the entries from this work in History of the Eight Lhadé.

Tsolho Prefecture Monastic Histories (henceforth Monastic Histories), is a Tibetan- language encyclopedic volume containing historical entries on many of the monasteries in

Tsolho Prefecture. It was published in 1999. For the entries I consulted, Monastic Histories contains largely the same information as Cultural History of Trika, although the wording varies slightly. Monastic Histories is either using the latter as a source, or they have an unnamed source

51 Shar Kalden Gyatso is one of the most famous figures in Amdo history. He converted Rongwo monastery to the Geluk school in 1630. For more information on this figure, see Sujata 2005. [TBRC P711]. 52 The Kalden Annals has several names (see its entry in the Bibliography for other names).

36 in common. I am currently unable to find the sources of the information that these works contain that is not in Ocean Annals or the sources cited within Ocean Annals.

Tsolho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture Gazetteer (Tsolho Tibetan Autonomous

Prefecture Gazetteer Compilation Committee 1997; henceforth Tsolho Gazetteer) is a Chinese- language gazetteer. It has useful entries on monasteries associated with the Eight Lhadé Tsowa.

The Great History of Amdo (Horstang Jigme 2009) is a six-volume, Tibetan-language work compiled by Hortsang Jigme and published in 2009. It contains a wealth of information on monasteries, important figures, and communities in Amdo.

Abbatial Succession of Kumbum Monastery (Lobsang Tsultrim Gyatso 1903) is a

Tibetan-language text written by the sixty-third abbot of Kumbum (c. 1870-1874), Lobsang

Tsultrim Gyatso (1845-1915) (Karsten 1996:635). It contains biographical details on the lama who was important in the formation of the Eight Lhadé Tsowa.

Tibetan Buddhist Temples in Gansu and Qinghai (Pu Wengchen 1990) is a Chinese- language temple gazetteer. The Clear Mirror of Tibetan Buddhist Temples in Qinghai (Nian

Zhihai and Bai Gengdeng 1993) is a similar Chinese-language temple gazetteer.

A Contemporary Tibetan View of Tsowa

In theorizing about tsowa, Lhadé Geming Pal begins discussing various theories about the origin of the Tibetan people. He discusses the legendary story of how Tibetans descended from the mating of a monkey and a rock ogress.53 He notes the similarity between this myth and

Darwin’s theory of evolution, i.e. that humans evolved from other primates. He also relates

Friedrich Engels’s theory, which drew from Darwin’s ideas, that an intermediate species that was

53 For a translation of this legend, see Sørensen (1994:125-133).

37 note quite ape and not quite human, eventually evolved into humans through labor.54 In Lhadé

Geming Pal’s telling, they began to wear clothes, hunt, and so forth.

After many years in this state, Lhadé Geming Pal tells us that four major rü (lit. bones), or groups of Tibetan people arose. Eventually the four rü increased to six. Lhadé Geming Pal considers these six group to be the tsowa of primordial society. He then states that as people began to privately accumulate the remainder from production, conflict resulted, and people began to spread to different lands. Then, the 12 kingdoms and 40 principalities arose,55 and there were the sky kings and other legendary Tibetan rulers until the First Dharma King, Songtsen

Gampo (r. ?-649). Songtsen Gampo sent his troops into China during the war with the Tang

Dynasty in the seventh century. Many of these troops guarded the border with China, and many

Tibetans living in the area today believe that they are their descendants. During Relpachen’s reign (815-836), the number of troops in the area increased, and Lhadé Geming Pal claims the

Eight Lhadé Tsowa derived mainly from these troops. He states the Eight Lhadé Tsowa’s ancestor appears wearing a tall felt hat and exhibits many characteristics of the Dong, one of the original six rü.

Lhadé Geming Pal’s telling is a rather rich weaving together of Tibetan and Marxist historiography. That he blends these two perhaps seemingly incompatible historiographic narratives should not surprise the reader. One of contemporary Tibet’s greatest scholars,

Dungkar Lobsang Trinlé (1927-1997), did just this in his well-known history, The Merging of

Religious and Secular Rule in Tibet. Furthermore, the social scientific theory of social evolution, associated most with Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881) and Edward Tylor (1832-1917), had a profound impact on Marxist thought and is still normative in the Chinese academy. Social

54 See Engels 1876. Engels holds a prominent role in social scientific views in China. 55 This is a legendary period of Tibetan history featured prominently in the Epic of Gesar.

38 evolutionary theory went part and parcel in the development of clans, tribes, and lineal descent.

It also important to note that there has been an increase in the patrilineal histories of Tibetan tsowa and other social groups (Ch. buluo) among Tibetan and Chinese scholars since the 1980s

(Makley 2007:65).

A few observations are in order. In addition to referring to legendary groups of Tibetans, rü also refers to a substance passed down from the father to his children in many Tibetan societies. This is one reason that we see this term translated as “clan.”56 As Tibetans have their own concepts of descent, e.g. rü, it is not particularly surprising that Lhadé Geming Pal conceptualizes tsowa in terms of lineage, ultimately connecting them back to the Tibetan Empire at the height of its military expansion. However, we should be careful not to read Lhadé Geming

Pal’s explanation to mean that tsowa are patrilineal descent groups.57 Ideologies of patrilineal descent revealed in concepts such as rü and rügyü (lit. bone lineage) do not necessitate a patrilineal kinship system in practice.58

Before attempting to sketch the history of the Eight Lhadé Tsowa, let us look at how

Lhadé Geming Pal describes the eight tsowa which constitute this grouping. In examining the

56 For more on rü, see Levine 1981. For a recent discussion on the use of “clan” among Tibetologists, see Samuels 2016. 57 In another text, A Necklace of Lhadé Tsowa Family Lineages (Lhadé Family Lineages Compilation Committee 2005), Lhadé Geming Pal participated with a committee of family members to draw up genealogies. In the preface, he mentions a primary concern for compiling the work is to help ensure people do not marry others within seven generations of relation. This text is rather difficult to analyze. It has chapters for a variety of geneaologies including the individual tsowa which comprise the Eight Lhadé Tsowa and utilizes various such terms, such as rügyü and kyimgyü (lit. house lineage), without any apparent distinction between them. The text generally reads in the following manner: “A had three sons A1, A2, and A3. A1 had two sons A1.1 and A1.2. A2 had one son…”. No dates are given for any of the figures in the text, some of the family lines go back a very large number of generations, others are very short, and only the father’s name is given (marriage is not indicated). At present, I must take this text, especially the extremely long family lineages, with a measure of caution. In the future, it may be possible to further analyze the text through conducting fieldwork and interviewing families. A few primary questions I have concerns the approximate dating of any of the people listed in the genealogy and also if the genealogies ideally claim to outline the relations of all tsowa members or something smaller, such as a founding lineage. For now, I will have to leave the questions for future work. 58 For example, in southwestern Tibet, Heidi Fjeld (2006) found despite the presence of a patrilineal ideology, there were no patrilineal groups and people organized into bilateral households.

39 individual tsowa that make up the Eight Lhadé Tsowa, Lhadé Geming Pal pays special attention to their place of origin, the tsowa founder’s name if known, how the tsowa received their names, and famous people from the tsowa. The eight tsowa are: (1) Gongwa, (2) Gongmen, (3) Pöntsang,

(4) Minyak, (5) Shang, (6) Chortsang, (7) Dratsa, and (8) Atsok.59 It is important to recognize that the following information tells us much more about how these communities and Lhadé

Geming Pal envision their past than they provide solid historical information. However, this information is surely valuable for understanding the present communities, and in many cases is probably the only historical information available on some topics. Another benefit is that Lhadé

Geming Pal occasionally provides contemporary information about the tsowa including estimated household numbers and current locations.

The story begins in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century when, according to an origin story, three brothers from Gengya migrated to Rebgong and stayed there a few years before settling in Trika.60 They farmed on the banks of the Machu River (Yellow River). During that time, the eminent Sakya master Pakpa Lodrö Gyaltsen (1235-1280) founded Lukra Pekar

Chöling in the present-day town of Shong in Rebgong.61 Lhadé Geming Pal claims it has “lukra,” or sheep pen, in the title because it was built on the remains of a Gongwa family’s sheep pen and cites the Abbatial Succession of Rongwo Monastery as the source of this information. Over a long period of time, the three brothers’ descendants (rikgyü) increased and would eventually become the first of the Eight Lhadé Tsowa: the Gongwa.

Based on Ocean Annals, he determines that the three brothers are members of the Dong, which is one of the legendary six rü mentioned above. Within the eighteen divisions of the Dong

59 There is an alternate enumeration which includes Yonru tsowa and omits Gongmen tsowa. See Lhadé Geming Pal 2005:30-32. 60 Gengya could refer to an area in present-day Xiahe County or a village in Tsigortang/Drakar County. 61 Gendün Palsang (2007:236) gives the founding date as approximately 1245.

40 rü, he further identifies them as belonging to the Yutsa. There are several explanations for the

Gongwa tsowa’s name. One is that the one of the three brothers had a high (gong) collar.

Another is that they were pastoralists and kept their livestock enclosures up high (gong). He gives the first ancestor’s name as Tenzin Chöpal. He then tells us that, at present, the Gongwa tsowa consists of over one-hundred households (Lhadé Geming Pal 2005:72).

According to one telling, the Gongmen and Pöntsang tsowa began as “houses” (tsang) within the Gongwa tsowa. The Gongmen were a lineage (rikgyü) whose first ancestor was a doctor (menpa, supplying the -men in Gongmen), and the Pöntsang were a family line (burap tsagyü) of tantric practitioners indicated by pön, which can mean tantric practitioner in Amdo

Tibetan (Lhadé Geming Pal 2005:75). As the Gongmen and Pöntsang house populations increased, they eventually became separate tsowa. There are disagreements on the ancestor’s name, and Lhadé Geming Pal lists off several different names that community members claim are his. There are currently a few places in Trika with Gongmen as part of their name.

Several theories are supplied for the origin of many of the tsowa. For instance, three different theories are provided for the origin of the Shang tsowa, and four theories are provided the origin of the Atsok tsowa. One of these is that the Atsok tsowa is from one of the Akyong division of the Golok.62 Another is that they split off from the Arik people. These are typical of the theories Lhadé Geming Pal relates, and it is not unlikely that people migrated into what become the Eight Lhadé Tsowa and occasionally formed tsowa in the process. However, these origin stories serve to streamline what were almost certainly complex processes of immigration, group formation, and group assimilation, unfolding over time.63

62 See Chapter One for some information on the Golok. 63 For more on studying migration in this light, see Childs 2012.

41

It is important to recognize that many of Lhadé Geming Pal’s concerns and questions about the eight tsowa are questions that have traditionally been shared by anthropologists when researching “tribes.” For example, the question “Where do you all come from?” has long been asked by anthropologists to the communities they study. 64 As we saw earlier, questions surrounding lineage and origin have been of particular interest to social scientists in China since the 1980s. These concerns are influenced by Marxist and social evolutionary theory coupled with traditional Tibetan historiography and notions of descent.

If we follow Lhadé Geming Pal’s telling, the Eight Lhadé Tsowa is composed of eight distinct tsowa, each with its own origin place, founding member, and lineage(s). Furthermore, these tsowa are natural groups which formed as human society developed and organized itself into communities. In short, his presentation of tsowa reads much like the largely abandoned anthropological concept of “tribe.”

However, Lhadé Geming Pal (2005:30) also presents information that complicates this picture. He states that the Eight Lhadé Tsowa likely did not coalesce until at least the eighteenth century as pastoralists who worked on a monastic estate. Here, we move from a view of timeless human groups and legendary rü naturally dividing into tsowa into a specific historical context, one in which people are administered as tsowa and produce wealth for the monastery to which their pastures belong. In the next chapter, I will examine the history of the monastery which would come to hold jurisdiction over the pastures on which the Eight Lhadé Tsowa lived.

64 For more on this topic, see Burling 2012.

42

CHAPTER 3

GONGWA DRATSANG AND ITS COMMUNITIES (c. 1400-1723)

This chapter will examine the founding of Gongwa Dratsang Tösam Dargyé Ling monastery (hereafter Gongwa Dratsang) and the lives of its abbots. Although the information on the monastery and its communities in this period is sparse, the events that unfolded during this time laid the groundwork for the emergence of the Eight Lhadé Tsowa. In particular, the rise of the Geluk school in Central Tibet and its alliance with Mongolian rulers in Amdo allowed for the foundation of new Geluk monasteries in Amdo and the expansion of existing ones. This gave rise to vast monastic networks in the region and the incorporation of tsowa into monastic jurisdiction as lhadé. It is within this broader context of monastic expansion that Gongwa Dratsang increased its lhadé and eventually incorporated pastoralists living on the Yipzang Tang (Ch. Yezangtan)65 grasslands, who would later become known as the Eight Lhadé Tsowa.

Gongé Kachuwa: Founder of Gongwa Dratsang

Information concerning the founder of Gongwa Dratsang is sparse and scattered. Ocean

Annals reproduces a few short passages from seventeenth and eighteenth-century sources.

Twentieth-century sources cite Ocean Annals and provide additional information not present in the earlier sources of which I am familiar. What follows is a composite biography from the earlier and later sources. See “Sources” in Chapter Two for further information.

In the origin story discussed in Chapter Two, three brothers, whose descendants would become the Gongwa tsowa, settled in Trika in the fourteenth century. In the late fourteenth or

65 Yipzang Thang is also known in Tibetan as Yuzang Thang.

43 early fifteenth century,66 a boy who would come to be known as Gongé Kachuwa was born in

Gongwa village (Ch. Gongba cun) in the Trika region. He traveled to Central Tibet to study in its monasteries, and he may have studied at Tashi Lhünpo (Tsolho Gazetteer, 787). The “kachuwa” in his name is a title earned through scholastic debate and examination.67

When he returned to Amdo, there were not many supports for the Buddhist teachings other than a few tiny monasteries. The acting leader (nangso tsö) of Gongwa, high status community members, and those low in status requested that he build a monastery, and they provided all the required materials. They combined two small, Sakya monasteries in Gongwa and Mepa (Ch. Maba cun) villages into Gongwa Dratsang,68 sometime in the early to mid- fifteenth century. 69 The older monasteries provided a total of forty-seven monks. (Tsolho

Gazetteer 1997:787; Tsetar and Khetsun 1996).70 At the time of Gongwa Dratsang’s founding, they built one assembly hall and several monks’ quarters. Gongwa Dratsang is located near the

Jojo temple in Trika.71 Many monks lived at home in the village and came to the monastery during dharma sessions. After the dharma sessions were over, they returned home and engaged in agriculture or other work (Tsetar and Khetsun 1996).

66 Tsolho Gazetteer approximates Gongé Kachuwa’s dates as 1387-1446, which are clearly drawn from the dates of the seventh rabjung, or sixty-year cycle in the Tibetan calendar. 67 For more on the kachuwa degree and others, see Tarab Tulku (2000:12-13). 68In Cultural History of Trika, Gongwa village is called Shongpa village. For more information on these Mepa and Gongwa/Shongpa villages, see Tselo (2010:267; 262-263). 69 The Tsolho Gazetteer states that Gongé Kachuwa founded Gongwa Dratsang during Emperor Xuande’s reign (1426-1436). However, as noted above this source also states that Gongé Kachuwa studied at Tashi Lhünpo, which was not founded until 1447. Therefore, he either studied at another institution, or he founded Gongwa Dratsang sometime after 1447. 70 I am reading between the lines of two sources here. Tsolho Gazetteer states that there were two previous monasteries which were combined from Mepa and Gongwa villages, whereas Cultural History of Trika simply states that fourty-seven monks gathered from Mepa and Shongpa (Gongwa) villages. 71 The Jojo temple is a statue of Maitreya Buddha modeled after the famous statue in Lhasa’s Jokhang Temple. It is claimed to have been built where Sakya Pandita met Godan Khan.

44

A later incarnation of Gongé Kachuwa hosted Dewa Chöjé and gave him teachings.72

Biography of Dewa Chöjé states, “Although [Dewa Chöjé] had a master-disciple relationship with Gungwa [Gongwa] Rabjampa Sönam Lhundrup of Trika, he went to his dwelling [shukgar] and requested many teachings” (Kalden Gyatso 1999:231). As Dewa Chöjé (1593-1638) is a seventeenth-century figure, Gongwa Rabjampa Sönam Lhundrup is likely the third rebirth of

Gongé Kachuwa.73 Dewa Chöjé was from a powerful family that supported the Geluk school and ruled the region of Kyishö in Central Tibet.74 He aided Gushri Khan in his conquest of Central

Tibet. He is a significant figure in the Geluk expansion into Amdo, and he helped Gönlung

Monastery become the largest and most powerful monastery in Amdo until it was later eclipsed

(Sullivan 2013:104ff).

In The Biography of Drakar Ngak Rampa (39), an incarnation of Gongé Kachuwa appears alongside a powerful Mongol ruler and pays homage to Drakar Rinpoche:75

Drakar Rinpoche traveled from Central Tibet to Amdo and spent

several years in Tashi Khyil hermitage. During that time, a

Gongwa incarnation, known as Hotoktu, 76 invited Drakar

Rinpoche to place dhāraṇī and relics inside of stupas, and

consecrate many statues, scriptures, and stupas at the Gongwa

72 Dewa Chöjé Tenzin Lobsang Gyatso (1593-1638) was one of Shar Kalden Gyatso’s teachers. [TBRC P720]. 73 Drakgönpa states that Gongé Kachuwa had about three incarnations but that the lineage is no longer extant (1982:298). 74 For more on Dewa Chöjé and the Kyishö ruling family, see Sullivan (2013:85-115) and Yönten Gyatso 2006. 75 Drakar Ngak Rampa Rinpoche, Lobsang Tenpa Rabgyé (c. 1647-1726). For an article on this figure including a translation of this text, see Cuevas 2017. [TBRC P3308]. 76 Cuevas (2017:26 n. 64) translates this as the “Supreme Incarnate known as Ho thog thu,” and identifies him as the Second Changkya Ngakwang Lobsang Chöden. However, this passage and the corresponding passage in Ocean Annals indicate that this is referring to an incarnation of Gongé Kachuwa. Hutoktu is also a Mongolian word (M. qutuqtu) that was used by the Mongols for high-ranking reincarnate lamas. In the second half of the eighteenth century, the Qing dynasty began awarding this title on reincarnated masters (Mayers 1886 [1877]:109 n. 589). The term hutoktu is related to the Tibetan term for a reincarnated master, tulku.

45

residence.77 He did this and made extensive offerings. The ruler of

this area, Baatur Taiji, venerated [Drakar Rinpoche] and stayed

with him for several years. At the urging of many faithful

(disciples), including Baatur Taiji,78 Drakar Rinpoche also founded

an exceptional practice center called Melong Drakar.”79

Cultural History of Trika also narrates the above story of an incarnation of Gongwa inviting Drakar Rinpoche to Gongwa Dratsang to insert dhāraṇī into statues and consecrate them, but it gives slightly more detail.80 At that time, Drakar Rinpoche gave numerous teachings and empowerments to the people of Gongwa. Notably, the ruling Gongwa incarnate and people requested that Drakar Rinpoche take up permanent residence at Gongwa Dratsang, but he declined (Tsetar and Khetsun 1996).

The Early Gongwa Community

History of the Eight Lhadé tells us that during the lifetime of Gongé Kachuwa’s third incarnation, 81 the monastery’s support community was called the “Gongwa neighboring community,” or Gongwa Tardé.82 Gongwa is a reference to the community’s name, and tardé is

77 The Tibetan transliteration here is “gong ba’i sgar.” Sgar ba literally means “encampment” but can also refer to residences of incarnate lamas, an incarnate lama’s personal estates, and the title of the lama who presides over personal estates (Karsten 230, 345 n. 7; Tuttle 2013). 78 Baatur Taiji (1632-1714), was the son of Gushri Khan and ruler of the Kokonor Mongols during this period. For further information on him, see Sullivan (2013:133-139) and Atwood (2004:574-575). 79 Melong Drakar is likely the center called “Upper Gongba Monastery” in Xining Gazetteer (382). Ocean Annals relates that this hermitage was under the care of monks from Gongwa Dratsang, so if my identification is correct, this was also the case in 1746 when Xining Gazetteer were written. 80 It states that the statues were bronze and brought over from India. This level of seemingly inconsequential detail reinforces my sense that there is an older source that Cultural History of Trika is drawing from. 81 Unfortunately, we do not have firm dates for the third Gongwa incarnation, or in fact any of the incarnations. 82 The author states that this is an abbreviation of Gongwa Monastery’s Neighboring Village (transliteration: gong ba mthar gnas kyi sde ba). However, he only cites Chinese sources which appear to only provide the abbreviated form. Therefore, he might have created the long form rather than finding it any historical text.

46 a combination of the terms tawa and dewa. Chinese sources render this as “Gong wa ta er dai.”83

Tawa is used to refer to communities that have a relationship, e.g. economic obligations, with a monastery and are in its vicinity. As we saw in Chapter One, dewa is a difficult term to translate, but generally refers to villages or groups of mobile pastoralists.

Notably, the community is not referred to as the Eight Lhadé Tsowa or Gongwa Tsowa during this period in the sources I have consulted. It is not until much later, perhaps the last half of the nineteenth century, that the term “Eight Lhadé Tsowa” comes into use. Lhadé Geming Pal explains the use of the term tardé by noting that lhadé generally refers to the subjects of a large monastery or the estate of an incarnate lama.84 This term is honorific. By contrast, he says that a tawa can refer to the merchants outside of a monastery or the communities around a monastery of any size.85 In its early years, Gongwa Dratsang was tiny and Gongwa tsowa had not expanded much, so it was called tawa or tardé according to Lhadé Geming Pal.86

There is some evidence that the herders on Yipzang Tang held ties to another monastery prior to becoming Gongwa Dratsang’s lhadé. One modern source states that after Lobsang Tenpé

Gyaltsen (1581-1659) had visited Lhadé village, he founded Gönrong Drakya Dorjé Dzong monastery (henceforth Gönrong) in 1646 (Cultural Explanation of Tsolho Prefecture Toponyms,

248). This implies a relationship between Lhadé village and Gönrong. Another source mentions

83 New Gansu Annals, Supplement Gazetteer of Xining Prefecture (which appears to be mistakenly written as Xining fu zhi xu rather than Xining fu xu zhi) as cited in History of the Eight Lhadé. He also cites Tongkor Register (transliteration: Stong skor dkar chag), which is likely his Tibetan translation for the title of the Chinese work Huangyuan xian zhi (Huangyuan County Gazetteer Compilation Committee 1993). 84 For a discussion of Labrang monastery’s lhadé, see Nietupski 2011. 85 The tawa outside of Labrang referred to a merchant area. 86 Tuttle (2011b n. 3) says, “Tawa (mtha’ ba) refers to the villages near the monastery that are responsible for providing labor services to the monastery such as taking care of the monastery's animals. Tawa literally means “edge” and in this case it means the villages on the edge of the monastery.” He (2011b n. 4) continues, “Lhadé (lha sde) refers to the villages that support the monasteries by giving donations. Most monasteries have lhadé e.g, Rongwo lhadé (lha sde of Rong bo Monastery). These lhadé villages do not have a particular name and they are simply called lhadé. Usually tawa (mtha' ba) villages are poor and dependent on the monastery, whereas lhadé villages are better off and the monastery is dependent on them. One translation for lhadé is ‘Parish.’”

47 that the monastery annually received over 10,000 pounds of grain and two-hundred yak to fund its retreats. It lists the Eight Lhadé Tsowa as the main estate and benefactors, although it is unclear during what period this custom occured (Monastic Histories 1999:186). It is possible that the Eight Lhadé Tsowa held obligations to Gongwa Dratsang and Gönrong simultaneously.

The image that emerges is that of a moderately-sized monastery. The monastery’s monks were from two villages, and, presumably, both of these villages were populated by members of the Gongwa tsowa or what would later be termed the Gongwa tsowa. It is worth emphasizing that neither Ocean Annals nor the earlier sources cited therein use the term “Gongwa tsowa,” although Ocean Annals does occasionally employ the term “tsowa” when referring to other communities. The monks were members of the communities under Gongwa Dratsang’s jurisdiction, and they spent most of the year working in their villages as farmers. Besides

Gongwa Dratsang’s relationship with Mepa and Gongwa villages, it is unclear which communities Gongwa Dratsang had ties to and what estates it held during this early period

(1400-1700). Lhadé Geming Pal believes that the Eight Lhadé Tsowa had not yet formed during this period. As such, it also appears likely that Gongwa Dratsang did not yet hold jurisdiction over Yipzang Tang, the grasslands where the Eight Lhadé Tsowa would eventually be located.

The founding of Gongwa Dratsang took place during a period when the Geluk tradition was establishing its roots in Amdo by building monasteries and converting existing monasteries—often Sakya or Kagyü—to the Geluk school. Tuttle (2012) divides the establishment of major monasteries in Amdo into four periods: 1412-1459, 1596-1652, 1673-

1733, and 1748-1880. The characterization Tuttle gives still fits for those built during the first

48 period fits Gongwa Dratsang. Namely, Gongwa Dratsang was founded by a local member of the community, and he studied in Central Tibet before returning to build the monastery.87

I have not yet been able to obtain any institutional documents from Gongwa Dratsang or documents from its communities. With this caveat, it is possible to outline some of the likely economic characteristics of the monastery based on what we know about the operation of other

Geluk monasteries in the region, especially Kumbum Monastery, to which Gongwa Dratsang would eventually become a branch monastery. Later, we will also consult a list of Gongwa

Dratsang estates in Chapter Four.

Despite social organization in Amdo as being characterized as “tribal” by many scholars,

I have argued that we need different analytical concepts in order to better understand Amdo social organization. Monasteries acted as state-like institutions. They collected revenue, provided credit, provided education and sometimes healthcare, organized military defense, and mediated legal disputes. They were complex institutions with a variety of specialized roles. Whereas this has long been recognized, it is still common to portray the laity who supported and depended on these monasteries as “tribes.”

Frequently, as in the case of Gongwa Dratsang, monasteries were founded by members of their own communities. It seems reasonable to assume these founders perceived benefits from the presence of a new monastery in their community. Religious benefits (e.g. the ability to generate merit) and economic benefits (e.g. revenue from pilgrimage or a source of credit) were real to these communities. Many such benefits are difficult to delineate neatly into the categories

87 Tuttle (2012:131) observes that the major monasteries built or converted from 1412-1459 are “chiefly characterized by locals founding temples; whatever external influence there was fairly equally divided between Central Tibet and the Ming state. In this first period, we have examples of nearly the entire range of a mixture of local and external agency: locals who established temples after studying in Central Tibet, locals who were granted political and religious titles by the Chinese state and had also studied in Central Tibet, locals who were recognized by the Chinese state but had no connection to Central Tibet, and one Central Tibetan establishing a temple (with support from the Ming, but no clear connection to Central Tibetan hierarchies).”

49

“economic” or “religious.” For instance, monasteries provided an institution which trained ritual specialists, who in turn had the ability to placate local deities. Pacified deities produced good weather and, in turn, good harvests (or thriving herds).

All this is not to say that communities were always happy with their relations with their monastery. Communities changed allegiances and sometimes sought out aid from Chinese officials to escape the rule of monasteries or other local rulers. Furthermore, my point is not that we should refrain from examining relations of power and economic relationships between

Tibetan communities and the rulers whose jurisdiction they fall under. On the contrary, this is critical to understanding how Tibetan communities in Amdo were organized and what local terms such as “tsowa” mean.

Rather, I think it is our responsibility to try and understand the values of the people we are studying and how they framed and understood these relationships. This is why a new set of analytical concepts is necessary. If we frame these communities from the outset as primitive, stateless tribes or hoodwinked subjects under the manipulation of religious institutions, our research questions will be shallow, and we risk missing the mark in accurately describing Amdo communities.

Following Jacoby (2010) and Tuttle (2011b), who have both translated lhadé, or monastic estates, as “parishes,” I think we should consider this as an analytical lens for tsowa. In the context of medieval England, the parish referred to both the territory of a church and the members of its community.88 Each parish had a defined territory with a parish church. Like this term, lhadé and tsowa can refer to a group of people and the area they occupy. A key difference appears that lhadé were estates owned outright by the monastery, and tsowa members could

88 For more information on English parishes, see French 2001 and Pounds 2004.

50 feasibly live in a lhadé or on land under the control of other local rulers.89 As English parishes had obligations to the monastery, often in the form of the tithe and corvée labor, tsowa also held similar obligations, in some instances to a monastery as in the case of lhadé, and in others, to a secular ruler.

Turning to Kumbum monastery, Karsten (1996:258) tells us, “the Monastery owned a number of estates, called mchod-gzhis [chözhi]90 or lha-sde [lhadé]. These estates were located in the areas inhabited by the six tribes [tsowa]…” In time, Kumbum monastery came to possess enormous quantities of land through gifts by Qing rulers, donations by Tibetan and Mongolian local rulers, and land that it purchased from locals. In addition to taxes paid in kind by farmers and pastoralists working on Kumbum’s estates, the monastery also rented out houses, and vendor stalls at its markets (Karsten 1996:260).

An additional source of income was interest-bearing loans. The monastery could also expect considerable donations during holidays, and tenants also had corvée labor duty, e.g. aiding in the transportation of high lamas. Incarnate lamas also traveled to other regions to collect donations, and gifts of money and goods were also given voluntarily to the monastery by rulers as well as ordinary pilgrims. At Kumbum, an officer called the demci,91 or jasak lama,92 administered the monastery’s estates by supervising farmers and pastoralists.93 Tenants were not

89 In the context of Labrang monastery, lands that were under the jurisdiction of local rulers were called “midé” (lit. human district) in contrast to the lhadé (lit. divine district) (Nietupski 2011). 90 Literally “base of offerings.” 91 This is a Mongolian word meaning, “Business manager (a lama) in a monastery; inspector, guardian, custodian” (Lessing 1998 [1960]:250). See also Mayers (1886:88-89 n. 537, 114 n. 604). 92 Schwieger (2015:172) following Mayers 1886, Ning 1991, and Rawski 1998, states, “Jasak is a Mongolian word that, during the Qing Dynasty, was used to denote the hereditary chiefs of the Mongolian banners, but it was also used to refer to distinguished members of the Tibetan aristocracy. From the middle of the seventeenth century, jasak lama was an imperial title conferred on Buddhist clerics who acted as the administrative head of a large monastery. The jasak lama and the jasak grand lama (jasak da lama) exerted religious as well as secular authority.” 93 In the context of Labrang Monastery, this office appears to have been called gowa in the context of lhadé and kutsap for midé (Nietupski 2011:57-76).

51 allowed to vacate monastic estates without permission. 94 Although this sort of economic relationship between Tibetan monasteries has frequently been characterized as an exploitive feudal system, it is worth examining the relationship between the laity and monasteries in a nuanced manner.

It is reasonable to assume that Gongwa Dratsang and Kumbum’s relationships with their tsowa were similar in general. Namely, the tsowa lived on estates of the monastery and provided financial and other forms of support, and in turn, the monasteries had responsibilities to these communities, filling many roles similar to those that churches performed for their parishes in

England.

In brief, the available sources inform us that the first Gongé Kachuwa was born in the fifteenth century in Gongwa village in the Trika region. According to local legend, the Gongwa community had immigrated to Trika from Gengya in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century.

Gongé Kachuwa traveled to Central Tibet. After training there he returned to Trika, and at the request of the Gongwa leader and people, he founded Gongwa Dratsang monastery. According to some sources, this was accomplished by combining two preexisting small Sakya monasteries.

During the third Gongwa incarnation’s lifetime, the predecessor to the Eight Lhadé Tsowa was called the “Gongwa neighboring community.” It is unclear whether the term tsowa was used during this time to describe Gongwa Dratsang’s communities. The extent of Gongwa Dratsang’s communities is also unknown. It is likely that it did not yet hold jurisdiction over Yipzang Tang.

94 Much of this discussion shows strong continuity between Kumbum monastery and the administration of estates in Central Tibet. This is not altogether surprising as Geluk institutions, along with many of their administrative practices were effectively exported to Amdo. For more on the estate system in Central Tibet, see Goldstein 1968, 1971, 1973. For more on the expansion of Geluk institutions into Amdo, see Tuttle 2012.

52

Surrounding Events in Amdo, Central Tibet, and China (1400-1700)

During the time between the first and third Gongé Kachuwa’s lives, that is approximately

1400-1700, major events unfolded in Amdo, Central Tibet, and China which are worth briefly outlining for historical context. Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), 95 though originally from Amdo, traveled across Tibetan areas studying with Buddhist masters from different schools. He eventually founded the Geluk school, which would become the dominant school in Tibet. The

Three Seats of the Geluk school—Ganden, Drepung, and Sera monasteries—were founded in

1409, 1416, and 1419 respectively.

War between the Pakmodru rulers based in Ü and the Rinpung rulers broke out in the fifteenth century.96 The Pakmodru backed the Geluk school as a bulwark against the Rinpung.

The Rinpung, in turn, supported the Karma Kagyü school. In 1564, the Pakmodru lost control of

Ü, and in 1565, a rebellion also brought down the Rinpung and led to the founding of the

Tsangpa dynasty (Tucci 1949:45). The Tsangpa invaded Ü, which caused the Geluk paramount,

Sönam Gyatso (1543-1588),97 to flee from Central Tibet.

Sönam Gyatso traveled and propagated Geluk insitutions and teachings throughout eastern Tibetan regions and Inner Mongolia during 1578-1588, and he sought allies. During these travels, Sönam Gyatso converted many Tibetans and Mongolians to the Geluk school, and most importantly, he held an audience with Altan Khan (1507-1582; r. 1542-1582), leader of the

Tümed Mongols, who had conquered Amdo. Altan Khan converted to Buddhism and bestowed

95 Tsongkhapa Lobsang Drakpa [TBRC P64]. 96 Tsang corresponds to the western part of Central Tibet, present-day Shikatsé (Shigatse) prefecture level city. Ü corresponds to the northern and eastern parts of Central Tibet, i.e. the northern and eastern parts of present-day Tibet Autonomous Region. Ü and Tsang are eventually united and referred to Ü-Tsang, i.e. Central Tibet or present-day Tibet Autonomous Region. 97 [TBRC P999].

53 the title Dalai Lama on Sönam Gyatso.98 He gave massive economic and military support to the

Geluk. This event marks the beginning of the Gelukpa’s rise as the dominant school in Tibet. In the late sixteenth century, Sönam Gyatso founded Kumbum monastery at the birth site of

Tsongkhapa. Not long after Sönam Gyatso died, Altan Khan’s great-grandson was recognized as the Fourth Dalai Lama and eventually brought to Tibet. However, he died in 1617 under uncertain circumstances (Schwieger 2015:36).99

In 1618, the ruler of Tsang renewed his offensive on Ü, and the Phakmodru were conquered once and for all. In 1619, Tümed forces entered Ü, and in 1621 they pushed the Tsang army back into Tsang. 100 With Ü under Tümed control, the Geluk were able to reoccupy

Drepung monastery and recognize the Fifth Dalai Lama, Ngakwang Lobsang Gyatso, in 1622

(Schwieger 2015:39).

In turn, the Tsang rulers looked to another Mongolian group for support, the Khalkhas.

Their leader, Ligdan Khan (1588-1634; r. 1604-1634),101 attempted to unify his rule among other

Mongolian groups, but many opposed him, and large-scale fighting broke out (Atwood

2004:334-335). Before he was able to lend support to the Tsang rulers, he was defeated by the combined forces of the Manchu leader, Hong Taiji (1592-1643; r. 1626-1643), 102 and rival

Mongolian groups in a critical battle in 1632 (Schwieger 2015:41; Perdue 2005:125).103 After

98 In Tibetan tradition, this title was applied posthumously to Sönam Gyatso’s previous two incarnations, making him the Third Dalai Lama. 99 For further details, see Tucci (1949:55-56). 100 Nietupski (2011:6) says this force was led by Gushri Khan, but I believe this is an error and that it was Tümed forces rather Khoshud forces. 101 Last ruler of the Northern Yuan Dynasty and last Khan. 102 Second Emperor of the Qing Dynasty. During this time, the Ming Dynasty was lending support to Ligdan Khan to curb the influence of the Manchus (Atwood 2004:334). Hong Taiji is his personal name, rather than a title (Pang and Stary 1998:13 as cited in Elliot 2001:396-397 n.71). 103 Perdue (2005:125) states the significance of this battle: “Despite the growing intimacy of Machu-Mongol ties, one major Mongol leader, Ligdan (Linden) Khan of the Chahars, resolutely opposed the growing Manchu power. As the last descendant of Chinggis Khan, he held an official Yuan seal and viewed himself as the legitimate representative of the Mongolian imperial tradition. But after his losses in battle to the Manchus in 1628 and 1632,

54 this defeat he left for Kokonor,104 dying a few years later in Gansu (Atwood 2004:335). Ligdan

Khan’s steadfast ally, Tsogtu Taiji,105 also came to Kokonor in the 1630s, and he took control of the area.

In 1635, Tsogtu Taiji sent his son, Arslan, with a large army to attack the Geluk on behalf of the Tsang rulers. For reasons that remain unclear, upon arriving Arslan decided instead to attack the Tsang forces instead of the Geluk. However, in the Fifth Dalai Lama’s autobiography,

Arslan dies, poisoned by the Tsang on the order of his father, and smallpox afflicts his army.106

In 1636, Gushri Khan, leader of the Khoshud Khanate, invaded Amdo and defeated Tsogtu

Taiji’s troops. Gushri Khan’s sons would rule the Kokonor region of Amdo from 1637 until the advent of Qing rule in 1724.107

In 1638, Gushri Khan traveled to Central Tibet and held an audience with the young Fifth

Dalai Lama. In 1642, he conquered Tsang and killed its leader. Often, he is claimed to have then relinquished rule of Tibet to the Fifth Dalai Lama, although this overstates how much power was transferred (Tuttle 2011c). Gushri Khan was considered the King of Tibet, and his descendants inherited this title. With the backing of Gushri Khan, the Fifth Dalai Lama consolidated rule over

Central Tibet and established the Ganden Podrang government.

Meanwhile in 1644, the Ming Dynasty in China collapsed, and the Manchu forces proclaimed the Qing Dynasty. In 1652 at the invitation of the Shunzhi Emperor (1638-1661; r.

the Manchus took over the Yuan seal and enrolled the Eastern Mongols as a whole in the banner system… Only after this definitive victory could Hong Taiji proclaim the genuine three-nationality empire, which he named Da Qing in 1636. No longer did the Manchus need to hark back to their Jurchen predecessors of the twelfth century, the regional state of the Jin (1115-1234); now they could legitimately claim to be building a universal empire.” 104 Lake Kokonor (T. Mtsho sngon; Ch. Qinghai) and its surrounding regions. Kokonor is considered part of Amdo but has also been differentiated from it. See Oidtmann (2013:363 n. 776) for instances of it being portrayed as a region distinct from Amdo. 105 His name is also written as Choktu Taiji and Choghtu Taiji. For a brief biography of him, see Atwood (2004:550). 106 For a translation of this passage, see Karmay (2014:115-131). 107 For more information on Khoshud rule in Amdo, see Borjigidai 2002.

55

1643-1661), the Fifth Dalai Lama set out from Lhasa to Beijing to hold an audience with him.

This meeting marked a new era in Sino-Tibetan relations in which Chinese influence in Tibet increased. In 1655, Gushri Khan died and power passed on to his son Dayan Khan. With this context established, now let us return to Gongwa monastery and its communities.

The First Tsendrok Rinpoche (b. 1668)

The Gongwa incarnation who met with Drakar Rinpoche (c. 1647-1726) in the previous chapter was likely his third and final incarnation because in 1703 another incarnation lineage, the

Tsendrok Rinpoches, took charge of Gongwa Dratsang. The First Tsendrok Rinpoche also studied under Drakar Rinpoche. Ocean Annals and the other sources I have consulted do not make it clear why Gongé Kachuwa’s incarnation lineage died out. In this chapter, we will examine the life of the First Tsendrok Rinpoche, Gendün Döndrup (b. 1668),108 within the context of the tumultuous events transpiring in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries in Central Tibet and Amdo.

In Ocean Annals, the entry for the First Tsendrok Rinpoche, Gendün Döndrup, follows after Gongé Kachuwa and reads as follows (1982:298-299):

[Then] Tsendrok Khenpo Gendün Döndrup became abbot of Gongwa Dratsang.

Gendün Döndrup was born in the earth-monkey year of the eleventh rabjung

[1668] in Gongwa of Trika. 109 At the age of 13, he rode a horse to Central Tibet,

and studied at [Drepung] Gomang monastery. At age 27, he completed the debate

108 Karsten 1996:618 gives his year of death as approximately 1742, apparently citing General Account of Kumbum Monastery (1987), but I have not seen a date of death given in other sources. 109 “Gongwa” in this sentence is ambiguous, and it could mean a place called Gongwa in Trika, or a community, i.e. Gongwa tsowa, or both. (transliteration: Khri ka’i gong bar rab byung bcu gcig pa’i sa sprel la ‘khrungs). There is a valley and a village in Trika called Gongwa (see Tshe lo 2009:262-263). Lhadé Geming Pal explicitly interprets the above passage as being born into “Gongwa tsowa” (2005:27). However, in reflecting upon the origin of the name Gongwa, he does speculate that this could from the valley in Rebgong. on the Gongwa in Trika (2005:68-69).

56

circuit during the Mönlam Chenmo in Lhasa.110 He served under several masters

including the all-knowing Jamyang Shepa, 111 Jadrel Lobsang Rinchen, 112 and

Drakar Ngak Rampa. He was appointed as chamberlain (drönnyer) 113 and

translator for the Potala palace. At age 28, he was appointed as the dulwa lama.

He traveled on two occasions to [meet with] Chinese officials. 114 He was

[appointed the title of] Tsendrok Khenpo and became abbot of Kumbum

monastery in the wood-tiger year [1734/5] at the age of 67. Because Gendün

Döndrup had a strong relationship with Miwang [Polhané],115 the latter assisted

him in building a golden Chinese-style roof on the main temple. Before and after

that time, he gave countless teachings including the Vajra Garland on three

occasions, the Mitra teachings twice, the Kālacakra, and transmissions from Lord

Tsongkhapa’s complete works.

Accordingly, this means that Gendün Döndrup was born in Amdo while Gushri Khan’s descendants were ruling both Central Tibet and Amdo. In 1658, a few years after Gushri Khan died in 1655, his son Dayan, the Ochir Khan, succeeded him.116 Sometime between 1655 and

110 The Mönlam Chenmo is a great prayer festival held in Lhasa that was instituted by Tsongkhapa in 1409. It is held from the first new moon until the full moon of the lunar year. During this time, examinations are performed for the geshé degree, traditional debates take place, and many rituals are performed. 111Jamyang Shepé Dorjé (1648-1721/1722). He founded Labrang monastery, a very prominent institution in Amdo. His was the first of the Jamyang Shepa incarnation line who ruled Labrang monastery and its estates. For more information on this figure, see Chhospel 2011. [TBRC P423]. 112 [TBRC P3002] 113 Petech (1973:236) defines drönnyer as, “at the court of the Dalai-Lama and of the Pan-c'en [Panchen]: chamberlain. With higher officials: a sort of liaison and public relations man.” See also Petech (1972:244). 114 I am translating (the transliteration) “rgya nag gi mi sna” as “Chinese officials.” The Great Tibetan-Chinese Dictionary defines “mi sna” as “A person holding a definite rank within society or a delegate” (1984:2073). 115 Miwang Pholha Sönam Topgyé (1689-1747; r. 1727-1747) ruled Central Tibet for some twenty years after the upheaval following the tumultuous events of 1718-1725 described below. For more information on him, see Petech 1966, 1972, 1973 and Sperling 2012. [TBRC P346]. 116 Schwieger (2015:56), following Petech (1966:266-268), gives the year of succession as 1658. Atwood (2004:627) identifies the year of succession as 1655, the same in which Gushri Khan died.

57

1658, Gushri Khan’s ten sons divided up his vast territory among themselves, eight of them ruling over fiefs in Kokonor. Gushri Khan’s sixth son, Dalaibaatar (r. c. 1658-1690), became the

Dalai Hong Taiji117 leader among the other seven sons who were ruling Amdo (Petech 1966:266-

267). It is highly probable that Gongwa Dratsang and its communities at this time were under the jurisdiction of these rulers and owed them obligations such as taxes and corveé labor.

In 1681, Gendün Döndrup traveled to Central Tibet and enrolled at Gomang monastery at the great monastic seat of Drepung. At this time, Ochir Khan’s son, the Dalai Khan (r. 1671-

1701), was the Koshud King of Tibet. However, during his reign and his father’s reign, the Fifth

Dalai Lama gradually became the foremost power in Central Tibet (Schwieger 2015:55-58).

Gendün Döndrup presumably met Jamyang Shepa and Drakar Ngak Rampa at Drepung Gomang.

Jamyang Shepa was abbot of Drepung Gomang from 1700-1707 (Chhosphel 2011). I have not seen any information connecting Drakar Rinpoche directly to Drepung, but he was in Central

Tibet from approximately 1677-1686 (Cuevas 2016:11).

As Gendün Döndrup completed the debate circuit and then took up the posts of chamberlain and translator for the Potala in 1696, trouble was brewing between the Regent

Sangyé Gyatso (1653-1705) and the Kangxi Emperor (1654-1722; r. 1661-1722). The emperor discovered that the regent had been concealing the death of the Fifth Dalai Lama since 1682, claiming that he was in retreat. During this time, the regent had ruled in his name and corresponded with the emperor while forging his identity. To make matters worse, he had

117 Hong Taiji is also sometimes writing as Khung-Taiji. During the life of Dashibaatar, Hong Taiji was also translated into Tibetan (transliteration) as “mtsho sngon spyi dpon” (Borjigidai 2002:187).

58 maintained friendly relations with Galdan Khan of the Dzungars,118 despite his affronting the

Qing on several occasions (Schwieger 2015:115).119

In 1688, Galdan Khan invaded the territory the Khalkhas despite them having made peace with the Qing Emperor and having received titles from him. This invasion led to thousands of Khalkha refugees fleeing south into Qing territory. In 1690, Galdan moved his troops into

Qing territory to pursue the Khalkhas, and Qing troops attacked his forces and defeated him.120

During this time, the regent sent mediators in the Dalai Lama’s name to resolve the conflict between the Dzungars, Khalkhas and Qing. In 1696, the Qing forces delivered the finishing blow to Galdan and his troops. The emperor found out from prisoners of war that the regent had been concealing the Dalai Lama’s death and negotiating in bad faith in his name (Schwieger 2015:78-

81).

After the Fifth Dalai Lama’s death was uncovered, the regent and the Tibetan government announced the recognition of the Sixth Dalai Lama, Tsangyang Gyatso (b. 1683).

He had been previously recognized after the Fifth Dalai Lama’s death, but his identity was kept secret even from him (Schwieger 2015:103-104). The Sixth Dalai Lama was brought to Lhasa and enthroned in 1697. However, he was famously unfit for his duties preferring romantic company, drinking, and erotic poetry to the life of a monk and ruler.

Due to Sangyé Gyatso’s deception, the possibility of war between Qing forces and Tibet seemed quite likely. Qing forces seized the border town of Dartsedo in eastern Tibet in 1701

(Schwieger 2015:88). It is unclear in Ocean Annals precisely when Gendün Döndrup visited

Chinese officials, but it was almost certainly in or after 1696, that is following his appointments

118 The Dzungars had a major polity in modern-day Xinjiang. For more information about the Dzungars and the Qing conflicts and eventual genocide of them, see Perdue 2005. 119 The first was when he imprisoned the leader of the Oirats, Ochirtu Tsetsen Khan, in 1676. 120 For more information, see Atwood (2004:193-194, 299-301).

59 at the Potala palace. As to whom he visited or what was discussed, we can only speculate. There is some chance that he was part of a Tibetan delegation attempting to deescalate the tension between the regent and the emperor. It would be rather useful to find out what kind of translator

(lotsawa) he was. The Tibetan term is honorific and generally reserved for translators of

Buddhist scriptures, but perhaps he was a translator of Chinese or Mongolian due to his upbringing in a linguistically diverse environment.

In 1703, Gushri Khan’s great-grandson, Lhasang Khan (r. 1703-1717), inherited the title of King of Tibet. Since Gushri Khan’s death, the political power of his descendants, Dayan Ochir

Khan (r. 1658-1668) and Dalai Khan (r. 1671-1701) declined, and the Fifth Dalai Lama—and the regent ruling in his name after 1682—was the true political leader of Tibet (Petech 1972:12).

Lhasang Khan attempted to reassert the power that his great-grandfather once wielded. Resisting this, the regent tried to have him assassinated in 1705, but Lhasang Khan uncovered the plot and had the regent killed.

According to a few modern Chinese-language sources, Tsolho Gazetteer and Tibetan

Buddhist Temples in Gansu and Qinghai, it was in 1703, during this period of struggle between

Lhasang Khan and the regent, that Gendün Döndrup returned to Trika and took charge of

Gongwa Dratsang. However, these two sources also claim that his name was drawn from a golden urn and that is why he was appointed abbot of Gongwa Dratsang. This latter claim is untenable because the first use of the golden urn was not until the 1790s (Oidtmann 2013).

If Gendün Döndrup did indeed return to Trika in 1703, we can only speculate on his reasons for doing so at this time. Perhaps the growing political conflict between Lhasang Khan and Sangyé Gyatso were reason enough to leave. One of Gendün Döndrup’s teachers, Jamyang

Shepa, was quite close with Lhasang Khan and had a rift with Sangyé Gyatso. While Jamyang

60

Shepa was serving as abbot of Gomang (1700-1707), he refused to replace Sangyé Gyatso’s order to replace the monastic textbooks of Dulzin Drakpa Gyaltsen (1374-1434) with those of the

Fifth Dalai Lama. He also reportedly saved Lhasang Khan’s life after he was poisoned by

Sangyé Gyatso (Chhosphel 2011). Perhaps the tension between Jamyang Shepa and Sangyé

Gyatso played a role in Gendün Döndrup returning to Trika. It is also possible that he had simply acquired the credentials in Central Tibet that he came for and was ready to return to Amdo as many of his contemporaries did.

Whatever the specific reasons may be for Gendün Döndrup’s return to Amdo in 1703, it occurred within the context of a massive expansion of both Geluk monasteries and new incarnation (tulku) lineages into Amdo.121 Tuttle (2012:137) characterizes the period as “one dominated by A mdo [Amdo]-born monks who trained at Central Tibet's 'Bras spung [Drepung]

Monastery who returned home to establish major monasteries in A mdo.” This fits the trajectory of Gendün Döndrup and many other lamas. For example, in 1710, Jamyang Shepa would go on to found Labrang monastery with massive support from Erdeni Jinong.122 During this period, it is likely that the administrative practices of Central Tibetan monasteries, especially Drepung, were increasingly exported into Amdo.

According to the Monastic Histories, Gendün Döndrup’s return to his homeland was warmly received by the local populace. it had fallen into decline since the passing of the Third

121 Tuttle 2017 examines the rise of new tulku lineages in Tibetan areas, including Amdo, through seven periods of time. He observes, “The fourth period lasted for some seventy years (c. 1690– c. 1760) and was characterized by a near doubling of the rate of increase and a dramatic shift of new incarnations to eastern Tibet, Amdo in particular. This period also marks the zenith of Geluk new incarnations, with an average of well over one new lineage recognized per year (Tuttle 2017:44).” 122 Labrang Monasery would in time surpass the other major monasteries of Gönlung and Lamo Dechen in terms of political and economic might after the late eighteenth century (Tuttle 2013). Erdeni Jinong was a powerful Mongolian ruler in Amdo. See below for more on Erdeni Jinong’s role in supporting Lhasang Khan’s candidate for Seventh Dalai Lama, Kalsang Gyatso. Lhazang Khan considered Kalsang Gyatso as the true incarnation of the Sixth Dalai Lama, however he is generally counted as the Seventh Dalai Lama.

61

Gongé Kachuwa, and the local people reportedly begged him to take charge of the monastery

(1999:54-55):

At that time, patrons of the teachings, the faithful, the laity and monastics, and

people of high and low status begged with one voice, “Alas! The constant

protector in this life and the next has appeared in our land like the sole lamp

which illuminates the victor’s teaching. We possess excellent fortune and merit.

Therefore, from now on, we implore you to look after the community of monks,

the basis of the teachings with great love,” they begged him over and over. He

officially accepted their request and acted as their teacher.123 Then, all of the

faithful patrons offered him the fields in the monastery’s vicinity. Relying on the

patrons and this base of offerings, he renovated the basis and its supports

including the assembly hall. He established virtuous traditions, such as meditation

retreats, and he reformed the monastery’s laws in accordance with the Vinaya. He

transformed it into a pure monastery and sustaining the teachings from their

foundation,124 he upheld and propagated them.

This episode highlights aspects of the tsowa and monastery relationship. The first is that the, people according to the story, find benefit in a thriving monastery and want it to have a head lama. The transfer of wealth, fields and other unspecified kinds of wealth here, in this brief episode indicates that this is a fundamental aspect of the lama’s position. It is also worth noting

123 I am translating (the transliteration) ’dzin bdag as teacher here. This word is also implying here that he assumed ownership or control of the monastery and its communities. 124 A “pure monastery” refers to a monastery which only houses celibate monks (as opposed to non-celibate tantric practitioners). This implies that Gongwa Dratsang either previously belonged to a different school than the Geluk and Gendün Döndrup converted it or that it had diverged from Central Tibetan Geluk monasteries by allowing non- celibates. If the former is the case, it raises further questions about Gongé Kachuwa’s sectarian affiliation and which monastery he studied at in Central Tibet.

62 that this passage explicitly connects the link between the community’s offerings as a precondition for the monastery’s virtuous activities. Whether or not the community was actually so eager to donate land to Gendün Döndrup is not possible to discern, but this account serves to emphasize the economic relationship between communities and the monastery and how this was rationalized in religious and political terms.

We now step back from Gongwa Dratsang and return to the surrounding political context in Central Tibet. After Lhasang Khan killed the regent, he deposed the Sixth Dalai Lama, who was suspected by him and the emperor of not being the Fifth Dalai Lama’s true rebirth. Lhasang

Khan sent him to Beijing at the request of the emperor but he died en route in 1706 (Petech

1972:17). In 1707, Lhasang Khan then installed his own Sixth Dalai Lama, Ngakwang Yeshé

Gyatso, who may have been his own son. The emperor recognized Ngakwang Yeshé Gyatso as the authentic Sixth Dalai Lama (Karsten 1996). The killing of the regent and exile—and possible murder—of the Sixth Dalai Lama was received poorly by the Geluk establishment and by the

Tibetan people in general.

Rumors spread that the Geluk had found the Sixth Dalai Lama’s rebirth in Litang (eastern

Tibet). This was, of course, an affront to Lhasang Khan’s authority.125 Meanwhile, Lhasang

Khan’s relatives in Amdo, i.e. descendants of Gushri Khan’s sons who ruled the region, sensed an opportunity to weaken Lhasang Khan’s position. In 1712, the Dalai Hong Taiji, Dashibaatar

(1632-1714; r. 1690-1714),126 and Erdeni Jinong proclaimed the boy, Kalsang Gyatso, to be the

Seventh Dalai Lama. In 1714, Lhasang Khan sent envoys to investigate and perhaps do away with the child, but his family recognized the threat to their son’s life and sent him for

125 What follows is a very abbreviated account of the demise of the Sixth Dalai Lama and the installation of the Seventh Dalai Lama. For a fuller account, see Petech (1972:14ff) and Schwieger (2015:115ff). 126 Dashibaatar was Gushri Khan’s youngest son. He became Dalai Hong Taiji upon Dalaibaatar’s death in 1690 (Borjigidai 2002:190). Sullivan (2013:134) gives his birth and death dates.

63 safekeeping to the monastery of Dergé. The Kokonor Mongols who supported recognizing the boy as the Seventh Dalai Lama petitioned the Kangxi Emperor to recognize him, but he remained neutral and in 1715 had the boy escorted to Kumbum Monastery by Qing, Tibetan and

Mongolian troops in accord with previous tradition (Petech 1972:22-24, Kapstein 2013:147).

Kalsang Gyatso stayed at Kumbum from 1715-1720. During this time Lhasang Khan’s regime was overthrown by the Dzungar Mongols in 1718, and the Dzungars were in turn driven out of Tibet by a combined Qing, Tibetan, and Khoshud forces in 1720, events to which we will return below. According to several biographies of Gendün Döndrup, who by then had been abbot of Gongwa Dratsang for some time, he visited Kalsang Gyatso during his stay at Kumbum and requested a prophecy from him to benefit the study of the Buddha’s teachings at Kumbum. The

Seventh Dalai advised him to build a new temple for the buddhas of the three times.127 He had a captivating image of Mañjughoṣa built, which is known as “All-seeing Mañjughoṣa” and can still be seen today.

At this point, let us step back from the wider political events of the early eighteenth century and turn back to Gongwa Dratsang’s communities. Lhadé Geming Pal believes that it was under Tsendrok Gendün Döndrup’s abbotship that the eight groups which would later become called the Eight Lhadé Tsowa formed. They were several groups of pastoralists from

Gongwa village and from other areas that herded Gendün Döndrup’s livestock on grasslands southwest of Gongwa Dratsang called Yipzang Tang. Lhadé village (Ch. Lade cun), which is on

Yipzang Tang and about seventeen miles southwest of Gongwa Dratsang, is most likely is the namesake for the current enumeration the Eight Lhadé Tsowa (see Map 2).

127 These are Dīpaṃkaraḥ (the past Buddha), Shakyamuni (present Buddha), and Maitreya (future Buddha).

64

Lhadé Geming Pal notes that, as we have already seen, Ocean Annals (written from

1833-1865) do not contain the terms “Gendün Döndrup’s Lhadé” or “The Eight Lhadé Tsowa”

(2005:30). If these terms existed, he thinks they were in very limited use. He states that he believes the terms came into use in the late nineteenth century. He does not give an explicit reason for this, but it is probably because it is after the publication of Ocean Annals. Of course, this reasoning does not prevent an even later beginning to the use of “The Eight Lhadé Tsowa.”

It is not possible at present to verify the claim that the Eight Lhadé Tsowa developed out of herders from Gongwa tsowa during Gendün Döndrup’s lifetime.128 In fact, it is quite difficult to say much about the tsowa during this time. Many questions are still open. For instance, was the term “tsowa” even applied to these groups? What was the membership criteria for these groups? Were tsowa the taxable unit for Gongwa Dratsang? What benefits and obligations did membership entail?

With these concessions, it is possible to speculate to some extent about the nature of

Gongwa Dratsang’s communities during this time. As this area was under Khoshud administration from 1637-1723, any speculation will have to take into account local rule during this period. I will attempt to shed some light on the possible attributes of Gongwa Dratsang’s communities during this time based on what we know about this polity.

Uyunbilig Borjigidai (2002) attempts to describe the Khoshud rule in Kokonor (Amdo) based on Qing, Tibetan, and Mongolian sources. As noted above, the advent of Khoshud rule began when Gushri Khan’s forces invaded Amdo and defeated Tsogtu Taiji’s troops in 1637. At a date still open to question, Amdo was divided among eight of Gushri Khan’s sons while one of

128 As I have indicated above, it is not even certain that there was a Gongwa tsowa during Gendün Döndrup’s lifetime, much less during Gongé Kachuwa’s lifetime as “Gongwa” is a geographic designation and the Ocean Annals could just be employing the term in this manner.

65 his other sons and his descendants would rule in Lhasa. Borjigidai characterizes Khoshud rule in

Amdo as feudalistic. Gushri Khan’s descendants were aristocrats (Mong. taiji; plural: taijinar) who owned fiefs (Mong. ulus)129 composed of pastures and subjects (Mong. albatu). The fiefs were the taiji’s property (Mong. ömchi) and inherited by their descendants. Borjigidai

(2002:184) outlines the administrative units:

The Hoshuud [Khoshud] feudal lords controlled the land and people through a

complex administrative system. The pastures and the people were subdivided into

administrative units: ulus, otug, aimag and nomadic groups of households. The

rulers of the ulus comprised in hierarchical order these categories: the great noyan

(the khan or great taiji), the noyan (people with titles such as mergen, chohor

daichin and so on), the lesser noyan (lesser taiji), the tabunang, the four ministers

(yamutu dörben tüshimel), demchi, kyia and others. The great noyan was the head

of the ulus and it was his task to carry out feudal duties for the khan and to

manage the otug autonomously. The four ministers as well as the demchi officials

assisted the great noyan (the great taiji) in the management of the ulus.

It is nearly certain that Gongwa Dratsang and its communities were under the jurisdiction of the Kokonor Taijinar. We saw above, for instance, that one of the Gongwa incarnations payed homage to Drakar Rinpoche with Dashibaatar Taiji (1632-1714), who was Gushri Khan’s youngest son and leader of the Kokonor Taijinar from 1690 until his death in 1714. As such,

Gongwa Dratsang and its communities were likely administered to some degree as Borjigidai outlines. The specifics of such a system are, at present, difficult to trace. It would, however, be

129 Borjigidai uses the term “feud,” which although technically correct is uncommon. I have changed it to “fief” here.

66 reasonable to suspect that Khoshud rule heavily influenced the composition and roles of tsowa in the area.130

We started this chapter by examining the foundation of Gongwa Dratsang in the mid- fifteenth century through the life of its founder, Gongé Kachuwa. Sources are sparse on Gongwa

Dratsang between this period and the appearance of the First Tsendrok Rinpoche, Gendün

Döndrup (b. 1668), however, important events unfolded in Central Tibet, Amdo, and China. This wider political context is important for understanding tsowa during this period. This context is also important for understanding the events leading up to the 1724 incorporation of Amdo into the Qing Dynasty and its aftermath, which we will now cover.

130 As a preliminary observation, the Mongolian word aimag appears to contain many of the meanings and ambiguities of tsowa. Atwood (2004:5) writes: “The term aimag (ayimaq in Middle Mongolian) basically means class or division. It was occasionally used in Middle Mongolian for traditional tribal-political units but more commonly for provinces of China or Tibet. In the 17th century the word came to be used for the divisions of the larger Buddhist monasteries, each formed of monks from a similar district. In the 17th century, aimag occasionally appeared next to the administrative term otog. Combined with ulus (realm, people under one ruler), it designated a particular political unit (traditionally called a “tribe,” although not consanguineous)… The word bu or buluo, “tribe,” widely used in Qing Dynasty (1636–1912) administrative literature, was translated into Mongolian as aimag. Aimag, now seen as “tribe,” became the designation for the Mongols’ traditional ethnographic- political units…”

67

CHAPTER 4

INVASIONS, INCORPORATION, AND MIGRATION (1717-1736)

In this chapter, we will examine the Qing conflict with Khoshud forces in 1724. This resulted in a decisive victory for Qing forces and led to the incorporation of Amdo into China. It is in the aftermath of this conflict that the Eight Lhadé Tsowa most likely formed as support communities for Gongwa Dratsang.

As mentioned in the previous chapter, Lhasang Khan’s murder of the Regent Sangyé

Gyatso and overthrow of the Sixth Dalai Lama upset many Tibetans, including the Geluk elite, leaving the Khoshud leader in a tenuous position. Additionally, a series of difficult military expeditions also weakened his standing. Meanwhile, Tsewang Rabten, ruler of the Dzungars,131 feigned alliance with Lhasang Khan, for instance he married Lhasang Khan’s sister. Nonetheless, he was conspiring to invade Lhasa and contacted the three Geluk monastic seats regarding his plans. In 1717, his forces invaded Lhasa killing Lhasang Khan and deposing his appointed Dalai

Lama in the process (Petech 1972:29-33).

However, after the Dzungars defeated the Khoshud forces, they began looting and pillaging Lhasa and became heavily resented by the local populace. They also carried out a wave of sectarian violence against non-Geluk institutions. In 1720, the emperor’s representatives officially recognized Kalsang Gyatso as the official Dalai Lama. Qing forces joined together with Khoshud forces in Amdo, who accompanied them under the pretense that Tibet would be returned to Khoshud rule. After this, they marched to Lhasa escorting the Dalai Lama (Petech

1972:51-73).

131 He seized the Dzungar territory while Galdan Khan was invading Khalkha lands in 1688. For a concise biography of Tsewang Rabten, see Atwood (2004:550). Also, see Perdue 2004.

68

The Dzungars fled without much fight, and the emperor reorganized the Tibetan government under a council of ministers. The emperor also stationed a garrison of troops in

Lhasa to supervise the new government and eliminated the post of regent (Petech 1972). This, of course, did not sit well with the Khoshud rulers who felt they were owed control of Tibet. As previously mentioned, the Kokonor Taijinar were led by the Dalai Hong Taiji. The first Dalai

Hong Taiji was Gushri Khan’s sixth son, Dalaibaatar. After his death in 1690, Gushri Khan’s youngest son, Dashibaatar, became Dalai Hong Taiji. Dashibataar’s son, Lobsang Danjin,132 became the third and final Dalai Hong Taiji.

In 1724, shortly after the Kangxi Emperor’s death, Lobsang Danjin attempted to unify the

Khoshud, Tibetans, and the monasteries in opposition against the Qing Dynasty. Although this has frequently been portrayed as a “rebellion,” some scholars, such as Shu-hui Wu and Peter

Perdue, have challenged this characterization as a product of Qing historiography.133 According to this view, the Yongzheng Emperor played them against one another in order to provoke an attack so that he could incorporate this area into his empire.

The military campaign was led by Nian Gengyao (1679-1726), and under his command was Yue Zhongqi (1686-1754). It was swift and brutal.134 Many monasteries in the region were allied with the Kokonor Taijinar, and frequently their abbots were relatives of these rulers. These monasteries, especially those that resisted the conquest, met severe retaliation by Qing forces.

132 Lobsang Danjin’s name is also seen commonly as Lobzang Danjin, Lopzang Danjin, Lozang Danjin, and Lobjang Danjin. All of these use Danjin, which is derived from the Chinese phonetics of his name (Luobuzang Danjin). The Tibetan transliteration of his name (Blo bzang bstan ‘dzin) would render the phonetics as Losang Tenzin, however I have opted to use Danjin in order to prevent confusion. 133 See Wu (1995:62-73, 91, 96ff., 135) and Perdue (2005:247). 134 The most comprehensive treatment of the 1724 military campaign is Wu 1995.

69

For instance, Gönlung monastery was burned to the ground and its estimated 6,000 monks were put to the sword.135 Villages were razed, and civilians were also killed.

At Kumbum monastery, all but 300 monks were driven from the institution. The abbot

Lobsang Döndrup, also known as Achithu Nomonhan, 136 was executed (Wu 1995, Katō

2004:32).137 There is some disagreement as to whether Kumbum’s physical structures were destroyed. Schram (2006 [1957]), Wu (1995), and Schwieger (2015) following Wu (1995) make this claim, while Karsten (1996) is skeptical that Kumbum’s buildings were destroyed. 138

Sullivan (2013:322) also states “the monastery itself was largely undamaged.”

The Khoshud and Tibetan forces were roundly smashed, bringing an end to roughly eighty years of Khoshud rule over Amdo. The repercussions of this event are difficult to overstate. The Qing expanded their administrative rule into Amdo, for instance establishing

Xining Prefecture in 1724 and “converting former forts (wei) and guards (suo) of the Ming frontier into prefectures (fu), subprefectures (ting), departments (zhou), and counties (xian)”

(Ryavec 2015:148-149).

After the war ended, Nian Gengyao submitted thirteen proposals to Emperor

Yongzheng.139 Many of these proposals were accepted by the emperor. For our purposes, some of the major proposals which were accepted included the second proposal: regrouping the

135 For the most comprehensive work on this monastery to date, see Sullivan 2013. For this incident, see Sullivan (2013:321ff). 136 He was the nephew of Cagan Danjin, a Khoshud leader, whom Lobsang Danjin waged war against. [TBRC P4480]. 137 For the memorial given to the Qianlong Emperor by the presiding general and the emperor’s response, see Wu (1995:185-187). 138 Karsten (1996:130-131) downplays the importance of the 1723-1724 events stating, “From reading the local sources it appears that the Monastery suffered great losses; the monastic chronicle (KBDR), however, mentions the events of 1723/1724 only twice, almost at random. Perhaps later historians have made a mountain out of a molehill.” KBDR is Karsten’s abbreviation for Abbatial Succession of Kumbum Monastery (Lobsang Tsultrim Gyatso 1982) [TBRC W19838]. 139 For a discussion of each of the thirteen proposals, see Wu (1995:265-283). She divides these into measures pertaining to the Qinghai Mongols and Khalkha (one through four), measures regarding Tibetans and monks (five through seven and thirteen), and measures regarding military occupation (eight through twelve).

70

Mongolians into 29 separate banners (Ch. zuoling, Man. niru, Mon. sumu), each headed by a local ruler (Mon. jasak); 140 the fifth proposal: Tibetans will be taxed directly by Qing authorities; and the seventh proposal: monasteries will be regulated by Qing authorities.

The reorganization of the Kokonor Mongols into 29 banners divided their territory and strength. Each banner head was to be approved by the Qing authorities and paid an annual salary by officials stationed in Xining, and they were not allowed to organize meetings with one another. They were obligated to travel to Beijing and hold an audience with the emperor every four years (Wu 1995:270). After this, they would never again unite into a powerful political force.

In addition to dividing and weakening the Mongolian nobility, another aim of the new measures was to fix groups of people into designated territories. The mobility of pastoralist groups had long been a concern for Chinese rulers. Besides being difficult to combat such groups or conduct military reprisals, they are also harder to administer, e.g. through taxation and conscription.141

The second proposal coupled with the fifth proposal—direct administration of the

Tibetan population by Qing authorities—served to separate Mongolians and Tibetans from one another. The Tibetans had long paid taxes to Mongol rulers and worked on their estates.142

Separating them from Mongol administration was an important strategy to drain the power that the Mongol nobility drew from their oversight of Tibetan communities (Oidtmann 2016b:47-48).

140 This administrative system was an adaptation of one the Qing had used in Inner Mongolia (Bulag 2002). 141 We can observe some parallels between the Qing dynasty’s territorial restrictions and current moves by the People’s Republic of China to settle mobile pastoralists. 142 “Formerly, each ‘barbarian clan’ [fan zu] belonged on the surface [lit. externally] to the Qinghai Mongols and practically [lit. internally] to the lamas of each of the monasteries. Annually they gave a grain tax [tianba 添巴] [to the Mongols] and incense-grain [donations to the monasteries]” translated in Sullivan (2013:340) from Yang Yingju, Xining Gazetteer (Xining fu xin zhi), 816–7 (juan 31).

71

As such, the Tibetans were placed under the direct authority of the newly appointed Xining amban, rather than being organized into the banner system with the Mongolians.

The fifth proposal also called for conducting censuses by family and recording this data in state registers. Afterwards, people were grouped into decimal-based units of administration; groups of one thousand households were placed under the authority of a chiliarch (T. tongpön;

Ch. qianhu) and groups of one hundred households were presided over by a centurion (T. gyapön;

Ch. baihu). Presumably to garner loyalty, it also states that taxes should be lower than Tibetans previously paid to the Kokonor Mongols and monasteries (Wu 1995:273).

Whereas the second and fifth proposal sought to undermine the political power of the

Kokonor Mongols, the seventh sought to undermine the power of another political force, namely monasteries. Wu states that the reform of Kumbum monastery was taken as the model for reforming other monasteries. Not only was Nian Gengyao concerned that the institutions collected significant amounts of income through rents, taxes, and offerings, he was also concerned about monasteries’ caches of weapons, and how they harbored people fleeing from

Qing authorities. His proposals called for limiting the number of rooms in a monastery to 200, limiting the number of monks to 300, registering monks with ordination certificates (Ch. dudie),143 and requiring that they receive their financial support from the Qing authorities rather than the local populace (Wu 1995:274-275; Kang and Sutton 2016:100).

In response to the bloodshed and political reorganization, some people uprooted and fled.

This was the case with some members of the Eight Lhadé Tsowa who crossed the Yellow River.

In Lhadé Geming Pal’s (2005:35) telling, the primary cause for this was Mongolians, who under the influence of the Mongolian nobility, began suppressing one another until conflict broke out.

143 It is unclear to what extent this was implemented. See Sullivan (2013:323ff).

72

The Yongzheng Emperor then intervened and divided the pastureland among the Mongolians and Tibetans and gave farmers, nomads, and agropastorlists different terms. The terms for farmers, “tamed outcastes” (döldul), and nomads, “wild outcastes” (dölgö), appear to be translations of the Chinese terms “assimilated barbarians” (Ch. shufan) and “wild barbarians”

(Ch. shengfan). Lhadé Geming Pal states that political divisions were redrawn several times, and many communities and ethnicities from other regions were sent to Trika. According to him, this coupled with poor pastures were the main reasons that many members of the Eight Lhadé Tsowa decided to migrate into other regions across the Yellow River including Hangé (Lhadé Geming

Pal 2005:35).144 We are told that the tsowa knew that the Mongols who previously lived across the river were spread thin over an extensive territory, so they moved into the area. Due to this and subsequent migrations, there are still today tsowa in Hangé bearing the same names as their counterparts in Trika.145

In the nineteenth century, many of the Tibetan tsowa who had previously migrated across the Yellow River would come to be known as the “Eight Groups Around the Lake” (Ch. huan hai ba zu; huan hu ba zu). The Eight Lhadé Tsowa were one of these groups subsumed under the title of the “Gongwa Neghboring Communities,” or Gongwa Tardé.

It difficult at present to state with much detail how tsowa after 1724 were shaped and influenced by this profound political reorganization of Amdo. We do know the Qing increased its administrative divisions in Amdo in the years following 1724. In 1726, a subprefect was assigned to Hezhou (present-day Linxia in Gansu Province) by the emperor, which was followed

144 Hangé corresponds to present-day Drakar County (Ch. Xinghai), which is across the Yellow west of Trika and River. 145 Lhadé Geming Pal’s narrative diverges from other scholarship in a few instances. Whereas he puts the primary blame on the Khoshud who were working under the influence of their nobility, Wu has shown that Lobzang Danjin was effectively drawn into war. Also, he states that the high taxes assessed by the emperor were a primary reason for people to leave Trika, whereas Wu has pointed out that taxes were ordered to be kept below those levied by the Khoshud administration.

73 by the appointment of subprefects to several other Amdo regions including Trika in 1792

(Oidtmann 2016a:156; Ryavec 2015:147). Tibetans also increasingly began to turn to Qing courts to settle disputes,146 which must have had implications on the practice of seeking lamas as mediators during community disputes.

Just as these groups must have been shaped by Khoshud rule and administration, they had to respond to new pressures imposed by the Qing authorities. Several questions arise here.

How did the grouping of households into decimal units under local rulers relate to tsowa? Is it merely an administrative overlay on the ‘indigenous’ tsowa system? How were the Tibetan communities administered by the Qing after being separated from the Mongolians? If monasteries were forced to receive support from Qing authorities rather than local communities after 1724, what is the relationship between a monastery and its lhadé?

Some documents give us a few clues. For instance, the Xining Gazetteer, written in 1746, divides Gongwa into an upper group (Ch. shang gong ba zu) and a lower group (Ch. xia gong ba zu). The term zu, which I am translating group here, is often translated as “clan.” For example,

Upper Gongwa is said to have six estates (Ch. zhuang). Each estate lists how many households it contains as well as the number of individuals. Note that I have identified a few of these estates on Map 2. This data is found in the “military preparations” (Ch. wubei) section of Xining

Gazetteer. Many of the villages listed, e.g. Yaka Xiong, Ba’er ku, and Base’er still exist today and are currently under the jurisdiction of present-day Gongwa village (Tselo 2010:263-264).

In Greater History of Amdo, Hortsang Jigme has translated this passage into Tibetan. He translates “zhuang” as “tsowa.” I have been unable to determine how he was able to reconstruct the Tibetan names from the Chinese characters or how he determined that tsowa was the

146 See Oidtmann 2013 and 2016a.

74 appropriate translation for zhuang. It is possible that the estates listed below had tsowa within them and that this was a level of detail finer than that collected in the census. Below I have translated the passage from Xining Gazetteer with their names as provided in Greater History of

Amdo in respective footnotes:

The Upper Gongba group is located 40 li southeast of [Guide] fort. It is managed

by the centurion Dunzhu.147 The barbarian estate has six divisions:

1. Gongma estate:148 33 households with 117 people

2. Ashigong estate:149 32 households with 107 people

3. Longwo estate:150 33 households with 160 people

4. Bazong estate:151 39 households with 102 people

5. Nashou estate:152 8 households with 33 people

6. Longzang estate:153 44 households with 154 people

The Lower Gongba group begins about 20 li southeast of [Guide] fort and reaches

until about 70 or 80 li. [The border] is uneven. It is managed by the centurion

Awang Zhashen. The barbarian estate has seventeen divisions:

1. Sihawa estate:154 43 households with 235 people

2. Data’er:155 13 households with 107 people

3. Mo’erdi:156 8 households with 42 people

147 Donzhu is likely a phonetic rendering of Döndrup. However, this is probably not the First Tsendrok Rinpoche Gendün Döndrup as centurions and chiliarchs were laity (Tuttle and Tsehuajia 2010). 148 T. gong ba tsho ba. 149 T. A skong tsho ba. 150 T. rong bo tsho ba. 151 T. ‘ba’ rdzo tsho ba. 152 T. ne shul tsho ba. 153 T. lung bzang tsho ba. 154 T. nang so hong ba tsho ba. 155 T. stag thar tsho ba. 156 T. mo sde tsho ba.

75

4. Yaka Xiong:157 10 households with 62 people

5. Ba’er Ku:158 10 households with 59 people

6. Base’er:159 11 households with 75 people

7. Ganba:160 11 households with 79 people

8. Lisha bu:161 5 households with 31 people

9. Kejia bu:162 9 households with 51 people

10. Dipu:163 25 households with 179 people

11. Guoba liu:164 21 households with 141 people

12. Moyue:165 13 households with 98 people

13. Erjiao:166 17 households with 119 people

14. Zhaqie la:167 10 households with 69 people

15. Sha’er jia Gongma:168 13 households with 66 people

16. Se’er jia Shuma:169 12 households with 67 people

17. Se’er gu:170 13 households with 68 people

Hortsang Jigme claims that Gongwa Dratsang’s nearby communities, comprised of both

Upper Gongwa and Lower Gongwa, served as its estates. This seems possible, although I have

157 T. ya gshong tsho ba. 158 T. ‘ba’ khol tsho ba. 159 T. ‘ba’ ser tsho ba. 160 T. dkon pa tsho ba. 161 T. klu phyug tsho ba. 162 T. kha gya tsho ba. 163 T. chu phol tsho ba. 164 T. rgod pa sde drug. Note that Hortsang Jigme has translated the “liu” (six) into Tibetan as “six divisions” rather than reading it as a phonetic representation and dropped “tsho ba.” 165 T. rmog yi tsho ba. 166 T. Ar kya tsho ba. 167 T. chos tsha tsho ba. Note that this is quite different in pronunciation from the Chinese. 168 T. ser kya gong ma tsho ba. 169 T. ser kya zhol ma. 170 T. ser ko.

76 not seen any statement as explicit in Xining Gazetteer. A few observations are in order here.

Both Upper Gongwa and Lower Gongwa have a centurion, and the relationship between these two groupings is unclear.

Notably, none of the household groupings listed as either belonging to Upper Gongwa or

Lower Gongwa overlap with the names of the eight tsowa which comprise the Eight Lhadé

Groups or their territory on Yipzang Tang. This has a few possible implications. The first is that the names listed in Xining Gazetteer are, as I alluded to above, are villages and not the names of tsowa. As such these villages may have very well contained tsowa which are counted among the

Eight Lhadé Tsowa, e.g. Gongwa tsowa or Atsok tsowa, but this level of detail is not captured by the survey in Xining Gazetteer. If this were the case, we could speculate that most villages contained multiple tsowa, perhaps not unlike present-day Gartsé village.171

Another possibility, albeit unlikely, is that so much of the Eight Lhadé Tsowa fled between 1724 and 1746 (the year Xining Gazetteer was written) that they no longer existed as meaningful groups in Trika when the survey was conducted. There is also the possible explanation, following Lhadé Geming Pal’s explanation that the Eight Lhadé Tsowa grew out of

Gongwa Dratsang’s herding communities, that these herding communities evaded the survey.

A final possibility is that the Eight Lhadé Tsowa consists of herders who eventually organized into eight tsowa as lhadé of Gongwa Dratsang and adopted “Eight Lhadé Tsowa” as their name sometime after the mid-eighteenth century. As the contemporary documentary evidence does not contain references to the “Eight Lhadé Tsowa” and Lhadé Geming Pal also states that they formed after this period,172 I believe this is the most likely explanation.

171 See Chapter One. 172 More precisely, he argues that the Eight Lhadé Tsowa developed later from Gendün Döndrup’s herding communities who were present during this time (Lhadé Geming Pal 2005:30).

77

Figure 2. Map of Gongwa Dratsang’s Communities

78

If my interpretation is correct, it has some important implications. The first is that the

Eight Lhadé Tsowa came into existence as Gongwa Dratsang’s lhadé due to the rise of Gendün

Döndrup and his monastery. In turn, Gendün Döndrup’s rise was a result of the political climate in Amdo during this time, namely the expansion of the Geluk school into Amdo and the subsequent dismantling of the Khoshud polity by Qing forces in 1724. In other words, the formation of the Eight Lhadé Tsowa was inextricably bound within the expansion of Geluk monastic networks.

The Qing policies following 1724 must have had important implications for tsowa.

Fixing populations in place must have been particularly disruptive to pastoralists and, as mentioned above, prompted the dispersal of some tsowa. Although it is unclear precisely how effective Qing measures to control the income flowing to monasteries was, we do have records for 1741, in which the Xining Annals list Gongwa Dratsang as one of a group of twenty-one monasteries which received grain and clothing for its monks (Yang Yingju 1988:401). This demonstrates that the authorities certainly had some success in positioning themselves as an intermediary between monasteries and their communities.

It is within this context of Qing integration the Gendün Döndrup became the twenty- fourth abbot of Kumbum Monastery in 1734. In this light, it makes sense that Ocean Annals relate that he visited Chinese officials twice. It likely required official approval for him to become leader of such a prominent monastery, especially as only ten years had passed since its twentieth abbot was executed for participating in a so-called rebellion.173

173 Ling-Wei Kung 2018 has recently examined the shift in Qing sponsorship to monasteries in the Kokonor region during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Previously during the Ming dynasty, monasteries further east in Gansu received substantial imperial support. This context may have played a large role in the rise of Gendün Döndrup and the growth of Gongwa Dratsang during the early eighteenth century.

79

During his tenure as abbot, Kumbum monastery built a new golden roof with the assistance of Polhané, the ruler in Central Tibet. Apparently, he had come to know Polhané during his time in Central Tibet, who gave him a very large quantity of silver for the project.

Some sources state that previously, Gendün Döndrup sent the faithful Erkhe Jungwang to Central

Tibet so Polhané sent the silver.174

The picture which emerges is one of a local lama who traveled to Central Tibet, studied at Drepung, returned to Amdo, and ascended to the highest office of a major monastery. He negotiated relationships with both the Qing government and the Central Tibetan government, all the while retaining jurisdiction of his home monastery, i.e. Gongwa Dratsang, and its communities. This all took place within the context of Geluk expansion, and its within this context that the Eight Lhadé Tsowa were eventually established as support communities for

Gongwa Dratsang.

174 This is probably Erdeni Jinong in Petech (1966:282-284; 1972:97) and Karsten (1996:114), who fought against Lobsang Danjin and submitted to the Tibetan authorities during the 1724 uprising.

80

CHAPTER 5

FUTURE PROSPECTS

In this project, I have attempted to shed light on the Eight Lhadé Tsowa. This is part of a larger project of examining Tibetan social terminology, much of which we still have a dim understanding. As such, this is just one drop in a bucket of research remaining to be carried out.

More research needs to be carried out not just on the single term tsowa, but on several other terms, such as tsang, shokpa, dewa, and so forth (see Chapter One). Still more work also remains to conduct cross-cultural work on terms such as tsowa and cognates that exist in many Tibetan areas outside of Amdo.

We can now attempt to answer the six questions I raised earlier about other tsowa in

Amdo in Chapter One for the Eight Lhadé Tsowa. (1) The Eight Lhadé Tsowa are pastoralists. (2)

Lhadé Geming Pal frames the tsowa in terms of lineages, however, the details are sketchy. It is unclear to what extent kinship and lineage constitute criteria for membership, if there is an incidental correlation in these tsowa, or if many members of the same tsowa are considered unrelated. (3) Lhadé Geming Pal provides origin stories or theories for all of the tsowa in the

Eight Lhadé Tsowa. It is unclear to what extent these stories are known, recognized, and shared by members of the tsowa as opposed to being primarily the product of research by Lhadé

Geming Pal. (4) The number of tents in the tsowa during any period is unclear, with the exception that he states Gongwa tsowa still has over 100 households at the time of writing

(Lhadé Geming Pal 2005:72). (5) Regarding the activities and functions of the tsowa, it is clear that they participate in local deity propitiation, weddings, land management, and that they

81 historically took up arms during conflict.175 Unfortunately, the details are few and far between.

(6) Clearly, the Eight Lhadé Tsowa were historically under the jurisdiction of a monastery,

Gongwa Dratsang.

As there are many variations in the literature among tsowa, I have attempted to create a sufficiently flexible definition to help examine these groups. They are social groups with external obligations, most often to a monastery and sometimes to larger federations, and internal obligations to member households. This is a good working definition because it highlights the relationship tsowa have with outside institutions and how they have been utilized as an administrative unit, while also recognizing the mutual aid they provide for member households.

It also does not rely on problematic concepts like lineal descent, the clan, or tribalism.

However, there are a number of challenges that have hampered what I can confidently say regarding the Eight Lhadé Tsowa and tsowa in general. One such challenge is the paucity of relevant information in Tibetan texts. Tibetan texts, until the last few decades, are by and large concerned primarily with the hagiographies of lamas, philosophical topics, and other religious concerns. However, by reading carefully between the lines, information of a sociological nature can be gathered. There are some exceptions, such as local records and customaries (chayik) that can yield this kind of information. Unfortunately, I have been unable to locate administrative records for Gongwa Dratsang. It is my hope to conduct future fieldwork there, which will perhaps yield these kinds of documents.

By way of contrast, Chinese sources tend to provide much more information in the realms of economy, population, and social organization. They are, however, not without their own challenges. By and large, they present a more distant, general view of Tibetan societies

175 This type of information is briefly described in “Traditions, customs, and culture of the Eight Lhadé Tsowa” (Lhadé Geming Pal 2005:157-184).

82

(Tuttle 2013). For example, the individual groups comprising the Eight Lhadé Tsowa under present study were condensed into one group, the Gongwa Tardé.

With these caveats, this study brings forth several aspects of the Eight Lhadé Tsowa which I believe can serve as a useful basis of comparison for other tsowa. First, it would have been impossible to study this group without examining its monastery, Gongwa Dratsang. In fact, the Eight Lhadé Tsowa were most likely formed as its support communities (lhadé). Gongwa

Dratsang was originally founded by a local community member, Gongé Kachuwa, and according to oral history, the first three tsowa descended from three brothers who arrived a few centuries before. Although it is impossible to verify this claim, it would not be unreasonable to think that these three tsowa were present in the area before the other five tsowa or, at the very least, they are believed to have been there earlier by members of the community.

Over time, the number of tsowa grew to its present enumeration of eight. This highlights a second aspect of tsowa, namely how they are formed. Langelaar has addressed this issue in a forthcoming article, and he enumerates fives forms of development in tsowa origin narratives: diffusion, bifurcation of founding families, successive waves of immigration, fission, and fusion

(Langelaar forthcoming:5). In the case of the Eight Lhadé Tsowa, we see several instances of these processes. The first three tsowa—Gongwa, Gongmen, and Pöntsang—are all said in

History of the Eight Lhadé to have begun as houses (tsang) and bifurcated from the Gongwa tsowa as they grew. We also see instances of diffusion, most prominently with the Atsok tsowa.

Many of this tsowa’s members established communities in Drakar county.

This raises further questions about the process of migration and community formation in

Amdo. Under what circumstances do groups migrate, and where do they migrate to? It would be beneficial to examine monasteries as a pull factor in migration. At the very least, there should be

83 some correlation between the presence of moderate-size to large monasteries and in-migration because their presence correlates with surrounding support communities for immigrants to integrate with. In addition to examining monasteries as a pull factor in migration, we should also examine how the incorporation of people into lhadé may have created new communities or established new community identitites. In other words, we need to further examine monasteries as institutions which are central to community formation in Amdo.

A third issue regarding tsowa I have attempted to highlight is the need to understand the surrounding political environment when examining social organization. Further work is required to illuminate how administrative schemes relate with tsowa in all historical periods. In the context of the eighteenth century, this means researching the division of communities, assignment of land, and appointment of chiliarchs and centurions by Qing authorities. In the contemporary period, research must be conducted on modern administrative boundaries, social welfare programs, labor and educational out-migration, among other forces and how these relate to social organization. Still, in the study of the Eight Lhadé Tsowa more work remains to be done. Further historical research, particularly on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, must be combined with fieldwork.

This study began with an examination of the existing scholarship on tsowa, which is a rather flexible term. I proposed a general definition of a social group comprised of households, tents, or tent encampments with external obligations and internal obligations. I believe this will be a useful heuristic with which to examine other tsowa. In the particular community that I have studied here, the Eight Lhadé Tsowa, the external obligations to a monastery are in the forefront.

In fact, it appears these communities formed due to their relationship with the monastery. It has

84 been more difficult to examine internal obligations with the quality of documents at my disposal, and so I will save this task for future work.

85

APPENDIX A

TIBETAN TERMS

PRONUNCIATION TRANSLITERATION

Akyong Bum a skyong ’bum

Amdo a mdo

Amtso Rabjampa a mtsho rab ’byams pa

Arik a rig

Atsok a tshogs

Bang Ama bang a ma

Bayen bā yan

Belmangtsang dbal mang tshang

Bönkor bon skor

Bönpo bon po

Bönpo Tsewo bon po rtse bo burab tsagyü bu rabs tsha rgyud

Changkya Ngakwang Lobsang Chöden lcang skya ngag dbang blo bzang chos ldan chayik bca’ yig chidé spyi sde chir phyir

Chörten Tang Tashi Dargyé mchod rten thang bkra shis dar rgyas

Chortsang phyor gtsang chözhi mchod gzhi

86 chupön bcu dpon chushok bcu shog

Dartsedo dar rtse mdo

Dergé sde dge dewa sde ba döldul gdol dul dölgö gdol rgod

Dondrup Gyatso don grub rgya mtsho

Dong ldong

Drakar brag dkar

Drakar Ngak Rampa Rinpoche, Lobsang brag dkar sngags rams pa rin po che, Blo

Tenpa Rabgyé bzang bstan pa rab rgyas

Drakgönpa Könchok Tenpa Rapgyé brag dgon pa dkon mchog bstan pa rab rgyas drakha sbra kha

Dratsa bra tsha

Drepung ’bras spungs

Drogön Chögyal Pakpa ’gro dgon chos rgyal ’phags pa drönnyer mgron gnyer dulwa lama ’dul ba bla ma

Dulzin Drakpa Gyaltsen ’dul ’dzin grags pa rgyal mtshan dungyü gdung rgyud

Dunkar Lobsang Trinlé dung dkar blo bzang ’phrin las

Ganden Podrang dga’ ldan pho brang

87

Gartsé ’gar rtse; mgar rtse

Geluk dge lugs

Gendün Döndrup dge ’dun don grub

Gengya rgan rgya geshé dge shes

Golok khak sum mgo log khag gsum

Gomang sgo mang

Gongé Kachuwa gong dge dka’ bcu ba

Gönlung dgon lung

Gongmen gong sman

Gönrong Drakya Dorjé Dzong dgon rong brag skya rdo rje rdzong

Gongwa Dratsang Tösam Dargyé Ling gong ba grwa tshang thos bsam dar rgyas gling Gongwa Rabjampa Sönam Lhundrup gong ba rab ’byams pa bsod nams lhun grub

Gongwa gong ba

Gongwa Tardé gong ba mthar sde gowa ’go ba

Gyatik rgya tig gyü rgyud

Hangé Hang nge (also Hang nga)

Hotoktu ho thog thu

Hutoktu hu thog thu

Jamyang Shepa ’jam dbyangs bzhad pa

Jamyang Shepé Dorjé ’jam dbyangs bzhad pa’i rdo rje

88

Jojo [temple] jo jo’i [khang]

Jokhang jo khang

Kagyü bka’ brgyud

Kandzé dkar mdzes

Katok kaḥ thog

Kelden Gyatso skal ldan rgya mtsho

Kalsang Gyatso skal bzang rgya mtsho

Kumbum sku ’bum kutsap sku tshab kyiduk skyid sdug kyim tsang khyim tshang

Kyishö skyid shod lama bla ma

Lamo Dechen la mo bde chen laptsé lab rtse lhadé lha sde

Lhadé Geming Pal lha sde dge ming dpal

Lhadé Tsogyé lha sde tsho brgyad

Lhakarpo lha dkar po

Lhasang Khan bla bzang han

Lobsang Danjin blo bzang btsan ‘dzin

Lobsang Döndrup blo bzang don grub

Lobsang Tsultrim Gyatso blo bzang tshul khrims rgya mtsho

89 lotsawa lo tsa ba lönpo blon po

Lukra Pekar Chöling lug ra pad dkar chos gling lukra lug ra

Machu rma chu

Mangra Mang ra menpa sman pa

Mepa smad pa midé mi sde minyak mi nyag

Miwang Polhané mi dbang pho lha nas

Mönlam Chenmo smon lam chen mo nang nang nangso tsö nang so gtsos

Ngakwang Lobsang Gyatso ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho

Ngakwang Yeshé Gyatso ngag dbang ye she rgya mtsho

Ngokho Sngo kho

Nyingkar snying dkar

Pakpa Lodrö Gyaltsen ’phags pa blo gros rgyal mtshan

Panchen Lama pan chen bla ma

Pari dpa’ ris

Pema Bum pad ma ’bum pönkhak dpon khag

90 pön dpon pönpo dpon po

Pöntsang dpon tshang rakha rva kha rabjung rab byung

Rebgong reb gong; reb kong; reb skong rikgyü rigs rgyud rikrü rigs rus ru ru rukor ru skor rudé ru sde rurok ru rogs rü rus rügyü rus rgyud rüma rus ma

Sakya sa skya

Shang shangs

Shikatsé gzhi ka rtse shokchung shog chung shokpa shog pa shok khak shog khag

Shong zho ’ong

Shongpa gshong pa

91 shukgar bzhugs sgar tardé mthar sde

Tarshul thar shul

Tashi Lhünpo bkra shis lhun po tawa mtha’ ba

Tenzin Chöpal bstan ’dzin chos phel tongpön stong dpon

Toptak Lha stobs stag lha

Toptsang Stobs tshang

Trika khri ka tsang tshang

Tsang gtsang

Tsangpa gtsang pa

Tsangyang Gyatso tshangs dbyangs rgya mtsho

Tsendrok Gendün Dondrup Rinpoche mtshan sgrogs dge ’dun don grub

Tsendrok Rinpoche mtshan sgrogs rin po che

Tsewang Rabten tshe dbang rab brtan

Tsigortang rtsi gor thang

Tsolho mtsho lho tsokhak tsho khag tsokhor tsho skor tsoma lak tsho ma lag

Tsongkhapa Lobsang Drakpa tsong kha pa blo bzang grags pa

92 tsopön tsho dpon tsoshok tsho shog tsoyang lak tsho yang lag tsowa tsho ba tulku sprul sku

Ü dbus wa ba

Wangchen Bum dbang chen ’bum

Washul Sertar wa shul gser rta/thar

Yonru g.yon ru

Yutsa g.yu tsha

93

APPENDIX B

CHINESE CHARACTERS

PINYIN CHARACTERS baihu 百戶 buluo 部落 dudie 度牒

Dunzhu 敦住 fu 府

Guide 貴德

Guinan 貴南

Gongba 贡巴；工巴

Gongba cun 贡巴村

Gong wa ta er dai 公窪他爾代 （公洼他尔代）

Hainan 海南

Hainan zangzu zizhizhou zhi 海南藏族自治州志 huan hai ba zu 环海八族 huan hu ba zu 环湖八族

Kangxi 康熙

Lade cun 拉徳村

Luobuzang Danjin 羅卜藏丹津

94

Maba cun 麻巴村 qianhu 千戶 shufan 熟番 shengfan 生番

Shunzhi 顺治 suo 所 ting 廳 wei 衛 wubei 武備 xian 县

Xinghai 兴海

Xuande 宣德

Yezangtan 野藏滩 zhai 寨 zhou 州 zhuang 莊 zu 族

95

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Tibetan-language sources:

The Biography of Dewa Chöjé [Sde ba chos rje’i rnam thar]. In The Collected Works of Kalden Gyatso, by Kalden Gyatso, Vol. 1: 180-255.

The Biography Drakar Ngak Rampa [Brag dkar rnam thar]. In Collected Works of Drakar [Brag dkar gsung ’bum] Vol. 1, text ga, fols. 31-52, which are in Collected Works of Lobsang Tenpa Rabgyé [Gsung ‘bum/Blo bzang bstan pa rab rgyas], by Lobsang Tenpa Rapgyé.

Tsetar [Tshe thar] and Khetsun [Mkhas btsun] (ed.). 1996. Cultural History of Trika [Khri ka’i rig gnas lo rgyus]. http://www.tibetebook.com/lo_rcgxyus/tika/ti_ka-16.htm. Last acessed: April 2018.

Drakgönpa [Brag dgon pa]. 1982 [1865]. The Ocean Annals [Mdo smad chos ’byung]. Lanzhou: Gansu Nationalities Publishing House [Kan su’u mi rigs dpe skrun khang].

Drukthar [’Brug thar]. 2002. A Sociohistorical Examination of the Tibetan Tsowa Shokpa [system] in Gansu [Mdo smad byang shar gyi bod kyi tsho ba shog pa’i lo rgyus dang rig gnas bcas par dpyad pa]. Beijing: Nationalities Publishing House [Mi rigs dpe skrun khang]. [TBRC W23670].

Gendün Palsang [Dge ’dun dpal bzang]. 2007. Rebgong Regional Gazetteer [Reb gong yul skor zin tho]. Lanzhou: Gansu Nationalities Publishing House [Kan su’u mi rigs dpe skrun khang]. [TBRC W1GS91829].

The Great Tibetan-Chinese Dictionary [Bod rgya tshig mdzod chen mo]. 1984. Chengdu: Nationalities’ Publishing House [Mi rigs dpe skrun khang].

Hortsang Jigme [Hor gtsang ’jigs med]. The Great History of Amdo [Mdo smad lo rgyus chen mo]. 6 vols. Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 2009. [TBRC W2CZ7959]

’Jigs med theg mchog. 1988 [1744-1750]. Abbatial Succession of Rongwo Monastery [Rong bo gdan rabs]. Xining: Qinghai Nationalities’ Publishing House [Mtsho sngon mi rigs dpe skrun khang]. [TBRC W27315]

Kalden Annals [Skal ldan chos ’byung; A mdo’i chos ‘byung; Mdo smad a mdo’i phyogs su bstan pa dar tshul gyi lo rgyus mdor bsdus]. 1999. In The Collected Works of Kalden Gyatso, by Kalden Gyatso, Vol. 1: 341-355.

Kalden Gyatso [Skal ldan rgya mtsho]. 1999. The Collected Works of Kalden Gyatso [Yab rje bla ma skal ldan rgya mtsho'i gsung 'bum]. 4 vols. Lanzhou: Gansu Nationalities’ Publishing House [Kan su’u mi rigs dpe krun khang]. [TBRC W27306].

96

Lhachok Gyal [Lha mchog rgyal]. 2002. Gazetteer of the Gon Gongma Nomadic Group of Tunte Dzong, Southern Kokonor Prefecture [Dgon gong ma'i lo rgyus ’pho ’gyur rang yul srol]. Beijing: Nationalaties’ Publishing House [Mi rigs dpe skrun khang]. [TBRC W1GS53494].

Lhadé Geming Pal [Lha dge ming dpal]. 2005. The Mirror that Illuminates the Collected History of the Eight Lhadé Tsowa [Lha sde tsho brgyad kyi lo rgyus kun ’dus gsal ba’i me long].

Lhadé Family Lineages Compilation Committee [Lha sde khyim rgyud ’tshol sdud tshogs pa]. 2005. A Necklace of Lhadé Tsowa Family Lineages [Lha sde tsowa’i khyim rgyud mu ’brel ba so’i do shal].

Lobsang Tenpa Rabgyé [Blo bzang bstan pa rab rgyas]. 1990. Collected Works of Lobsang Tenpa Rapgyé [Gsung ‘bum/Blo bzang bstan pa rab rgyas]. Reb kong: Rongwo Monastery [Rong bo dgon chen]. [TBRC W28897].

Lobsang Tsultrim Gyatso [Blo bzang tshul khrims rgya mtsho]. 1982 [1903]. Abbatial Succession of Kumbum Monastery [Sku ’bum byams pa gling gi gdan rabs don ldan tshangs pa’i dbyang snyan]. [TBRC W19838]. Xining: Qinghai Nationalities Publishing House [Mtsho sngon mi rigs dpe sgrun khang].

Mugé Samten Gyatso [Dmu dge bsam gtan rgya mtsho]. 1997. The Collected Works of Lord Mugé Samten Gyatso [Rje dmu dge bsam gtan rgya mtsho mi ’jigs dbyangs can dga’ ba’i blo gros dpal bzang bo’i gsung bum]. 6 vols. Xining: Qinghai Nationalities Publishing House [Mtsho sngon mi rigs dpe sgrun khang]. [TBRC W00KG08362].

Trangmar Township [’Phrang dmar grong rdal]. https://baike.yongzin.com/word/viewWord.do?id=0000000054e5c91e0154e6156b99079 0. Accessed: January 2018.

Tselo [Tshe lo] (ed.). 2010. Cultural Explanation of Tsolho Prefecture Toponyms [Mtsho lho khul sa ming rig gnas brda ’grel]. Lanzhou: Gansu Nationalities Publishing House [Ch. Gansu minzu chubanshe].

Tsolho Prefecture Monastic Histories [Mtsho lho bod rigs rang skyong khul gyi dgon sde khag gi lo rgyus snying bsdus]. 1999. Xining: Qinghai Nationalities’ Publishing House [Mtsho sngon mi rigs dpe skrun khang]. [TBRC W20214]

Yönten Gyatso [Yon tan rgya mtsho]. 2006. On the Kyishö Governors [Skyid shod sde pa’i skor]. Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies 2: 1-48.

Chinese-language sources:

An Weijun [安维俊]. New Gansu Annals [Gansu xin tongzhi; 甘肃新通志]. 1909. 20 vols. (100 juan).

97

Chen Qingying. 2002 [1995]. An Examination of the Tibetan Tribal System [Zangzu buluo zhidu yanjiu; 藏族部落制度研究]. Beijing: China’s Tibetan Studies Publishing House [Zhongguo zangxue chubanshe].

Chen Qingying. 2004 [1991]. China’s Tibetan Tribes [Zhongguo zangzu buluo; 中国藏族部落]. Beijing: China’s Tibetan Studies Publishing House [Zhongguo zangxue chubanshe].

Deng Chengwei [邓承伟]. 2016 [1883]. Supplement Gazetteer of Xining Prefecture [Xining fu xu zhi; 西宁府续志]. Xining: Qinghai People’s Publishing House [Qinghai renmin chubanshe].

Nian Zhihai [年治海] and Bai Gengdeng [白更登] (eds.). 1993. The Clear Mirror of Tibetan Buddhist Temples in Qinghai [Qinghai zangchuan fojiao siyuan mingjian; 青海藏传佛教 寺院明鉴]. Lanzhou: Gansu Nationalities Publishing House [Gansu minzu chubanshe].

Pu Wengchen [蒲文成] (ed.). 1993 [1990]. Tibetan Buddhist Temples in Gansu and Qinghai [Gan qing zangchuan fojiao siyuan; 甘青藏传佛教寺院]. Xining: Qinghai People’s Publishing House [Qinghai renmin chubanshe].

Huangyuan County Gazetteer Compilation Committee [Huangyuan xian zhi bianzuan weiyuanhui; 湟源县志编纂委员会]. 1993. Huangyuan County Gazetteer. [Huangyuan xian zhi; 湟源县志; *Tibetan title: Stong skor dkar chag].

Tsolho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture Gazetteer Compilation Committee [Hainan Zangzu Zizhizhou di fang zhi bian zuan wei yuan hui; 海南藏族自治州地方志编纂委员会编]. 1997. Tsolho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture Gazetteer [Hainan zangzu zizhizhou zhi; 海 南藏族自治州志]. Beijing: Nationalities’ Publishing House [Minzu chubanshe].

Yang Yingju [杨应据]. 1988 [1747]. New Gazetteer of Xining Prefecture [Xining fu xin zhi; 西 宁府新志]. Xining: Qinghai People’s Publishing House [Qinghai renmin chubanshe].

Western-language sources:

Ahmad, Zahiruddin. 1970. Sino-Tibetan Relations in the Seventeenth Century. Roma: Roma Istituto italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente.

Atwood, Christopher Pratt. 2004. Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire. New York: Facts on File.

Bell, Sir Charles. 1928. The People of Tibet. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Borjigidai, Uyunbilig. 2002. “The Hoshuud Polity in Khökhnuur (Kokonor).” Inner Asia 4:181- 196.

98

Buffetrille, Katia. “Some remarks on mediums: The case of the lha pa of the mustical festival (glu rol) of Sog ru (A mdo).” Mogolo-Tibetica Pragensia ’08 1(2):13-66.

Bulag, Uradyn. 2002. The Mongols at China’s Edge. Lanman: Rowman & Littlefield.

Burling, Robbins. 2012. “Where did the Question ‘Where did My Tribe Come From?’ Come From?” In Origins and Migrations in the Extended Eastern Himalayas, edited by Toni Huber, 49-62. Leiden: Brill.

Caple, Jane. 2010. “Monastic Economic Reform at Rong-bo Monastery: Towards an Understanding of Contemporary Tibetan Monastic Revival and Development in A-mdo.” Buddhist Studies Review 27(2):197-219.

Caple, Jane. 2011. “Seeing Beyond the State? The Negotiation of Moral Boundaries in the Revival and Development of Tibetan Buddhist Monasticism in Contemporary China.” Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Leeds.

Caple, Jane. 2017. “The Ethics of Collective Sponsorship: Virtuous Action and Obligation in Contemporary Tibet.” Religion and Society 8(1):145-157. https://doi.org/10.3167/arrs.2017.080109

Carrasco, Pedro. 1959. Land and Polity in Tibet. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

Carsten, Janet and Stephen Hugh-Jones (eds.). 1995. About the House: Lévi-Strauss and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chhosphel, Samten. 2011. “The First Jamyang Shepa, Jamyang Zhepai Dorje,” Treasury of Lives. http://treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/Jamyang-Zhepai-Dorje/6646. Accessed: February 2018.

Childs, Geoff. 2012. “Trans-Himalayan Migrations as Processes, Not Events: Towards a Theoretical Framework” In Origins and Migrations in the Extended Eastern Himalayas, edited by Toni Huber, 11-32. Leiden: Brill.

Clarke, Graham E. 1988. “China’s Reforms of Tibet, and Their Effects on Pastoralism.” Kailash: A Journal of Himalayan Studies 14(1-2):63-132.

Clarke, Graham E. 1992. “Aspects of the Social Organisation of Tibetan Pastoral Communities,” In Proceedings of the 5th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Volume II, edited by Ihara Shōren and Yamaguchi Zuihō, 393-341. Narita: Naritasan Shinshoji.

Clarke, Graham E. (ed.). 1998. Development, Society, and Environment in Tibet. Wein: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press.

99

Cuevas, Bryan J. 2017. “Sorceror of the Iron Castle: The Life of Blo bzang bstan pa rab rgyas, the First Brag dkar sngags rams pa of A mdo (c. 1647-1726).” Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines, 39:5–59.

Czaja, Olaf. 2013. Medieval Rule in Tibet: The Rlangs Clan and the Political and Religious History of the Ruling House of Phag mo gru pa: With a Study of the Monastic Art of Gdan sa mthil. Wein: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften.

Dai, Yingcong. 2009. The Sichuan Frontier and Tibet: Imperial Strategy in the Early Qing. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

Davidson, Ronald M. 2005. Tibetan Renaissance: Tantric Buddhism in the Rebirth of Tibetan Culture. New York: Columbia University Press.

Dondrup Lhagyal, Phuntso Tsering Sharyul, Tsering Thar, Charles Ramble and Marietta Kind. “Bonpo monasteries and temples in Nagchu, Chamdo and Ngari regions.” http://www.thlib.org/places/monasteries/publications/bon-book.php#!book=/bonpo- monasteries/wb/b5/. Accessed: 2017.

Diemberger, Hildegard. 2007. “Festivals and their Leaders: The Management of Tradition in the Mongolian/Tibetan Borderlands.” In The Mongolia-Tibet Interface, edited by Bulag and Diemberger, 109-134. Leiden: Brill.

Diemberger, Hildegard and Guntram Hazod. 1999. “Machic Zhama’s Recovery: Traces of Ancient History and Myth in the South Tibetan Landscape of Kharta and Phadrug.” In Sacred Spaces and Powerful Places in Tibetan Culture, edited by Toni Huber. Dharamshala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives.

Ekvall, R. B. 1939. Cultural Relations on the Kansu-Tibetan Border. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ekvall, R. B. 1983 [1968]. Fields on the Hoof: Nexus of Tibetan Nomadic Pastoralism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Elliott, Mark. 2001. The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Elverskog, Johan. 2003. The Jewel Translucent Sutra: Altan Khan and the Mongols in the Sixteenth Century. Leiden: Brill.

Elverskog, Johan. 2006. Our Great Qing: the Mongols, Buddhism and the State in late Imperial China. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

Engels, Friedrich. 1876. The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man [Anteil der Arbeit an der Menschwerdung des Affen]. Incomplete essay.

100

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1876/part-played-labour/ Accessed: April 2018.

Fjeld, Heidi. 2006. “The Rise of the Polyandrous House: Marriage, Kinship and Social Mobility in Rural Tsang, Tibet.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Oslo.

Forte, M. and Evans-Pritchard, E.E. (eds.). 1940. African Political Systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

French, Katherine L. 2001. The People of the Parish: Community Life in a Late Medieval English Diocese. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Fried, Morton H. 1968. “On the Concepts of ‘Tribe’ and ‘Tribal Society.’” In Essays on the Problem of Tribe: Proceedings of the 1967 Annual Spring Meeting, edited by Helm, 3-20.

Gelek, L. 1998. “The Washu-Sertar: A Nomadic Community of Eastern Tibet.” In Development, Society, and Environment in Tibet, edited by Graham Clarke, 47-58. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

Gillespie, Susan D. 2000. Lévi-Strauss: Maison and Société à Maisons. In Beyond Kinship, edited by Rosemary A. Joyce and Susan D. Gillespie, 22-52. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Goldstein, Melvyn C. 1968. “An Anthropological Study of the Tibetan Political System.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Washington, Seattle.

Goldstein, Melvyn C. 1969. “Fields on the Hoof: Nexus of Tibetan Nomadic Pastoralism” Book review. American Anthropologist, New Series, 71(5):942-44.

Goldstein, Melvyn C. 1971. “Taxation and the Structure of a Tibetan village.” Central Asiatic Journal 15:1-27.

Goldstein, Melvyn C. 1973. “The Circulation of Estates in Tibet: Reincarnation, Land and Politics.” Journal of Asian Studies 32:445-455.

Hayes, Jack Patrick. 2014. A Change in Worlds on the Sino-Tibetan Borderlands: Politics, Economies, And Environments in Northern Sichuan. Lanham: Lexington Books.

Hellweg, Joseph R. 2017. “Tribes—Chimeras or Chameleons? Kinship, Marriage, Gender, and Hierarchy in Archaeological Theory and Nuer Ethnography”, In These “Thin Partitions”: Bridging the Growing Divide between Cultural Anthropology and Archaeology, edited by Joshua Englehardt and Ivy Rieger. Boulder: University Press of Colorado. DOI: 10.5876/9781607325420.c006

101

Helm, June (ed.). 1968. Essays on the Problem of Tribe: Proceedings of the 1967 Annual Spring Meeting of the American Ethnological Society. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

Hermanns, Matthias. 1956. “The A Mdo Pa greater Tibetans: The Socio-Economic Bases of the Pastoral Cultures of Inner Asia.” Human Relations Area Files. http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=aj01-007

Hille, Marie-Paule, Bianca Horlemann, and Paul K. Nietupski (eds.). 2015. Muslims in Amdo Tibetan Society: Multidisciplinary Approaches. Lanham: Lexington Books.

Horlemann, Bianca. 2002. “Modernization Efforts in Mgo Log: A Chronicle, 1970-2000.” In Amdo Tibetans in Transition, edited by Toni Huber, 241-270. Leiden: Brill.

Horlemann, Bianca. 2012. “Tibetans and Muslims in Northwest China: Economic and Political Aspects of a Complex Historical Relationship.” Asian Highlands Perspectives 21:141- 186.

Horlemann, Bianca. 2015. “Victims of Modernization? Struggles between the Goloks and the Muslim Ma Warlords in Qinghai, 1917-1942.” In Muslims in Amdo Tibetan Society: Multidisciplinary Approaches, edited by Hille, Horlemann, and Nietupski. Leiden: Brill.

Hummel, Arthur W. Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period (1644-1912). 2 vols. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress.

Humphrey, Caroline, and David Sneath. 1999. The End of Nomadism?: Society, State, and the Environment in Inner Asia. Durham: Duke University Press.

Jacoby, Sarah. 2010. “An Overview of Golok.” http://places.kmaps.virginia.edu/features/15372/descriptions/1209. Accessed: April 2018.

Jacoby, Sarah. 2014. Love and Liberation: Autobiographical Writings of the Tibetan Buddhist Visionary Sera Khandro. New York City: Columbia University Press.

Joyce, Rosemary A. and Susan D. Gillespie (eds.). 2000. Beyond Kinship: Social and Material Reproduction in House Societies. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Kang, Xiaofei and Donald S. Sutton. 2016. Contesting the Yellow Dragon: Ethnicity, Religion, and the State in the Sino-Tibetan Borderland. Leiden: Brill.

Kapstein, Matthew. 2013. “The Seventh Dalai Lama, Kelzang Gyatso,” Treasury of Lives. http://treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/Seventh-Dalai-Lama-Kelzang-Gyatso/3107. Accessed: February 2018.

Karmay, Samten Gyaltsen. 1998 [1994]. The Arrow and the Spindle: Studies in History, Myths, Rituals and Beliefs in Tibet, Vol. II. Kathmandu: Mandala Book Point.

102

Karmay, Samten and Philippe Sagant. 1987. “La place du rang dans la maison Sharwa (Amdo Ancien)” In Architecture, milieu et societe en Himalaya, edited by Denis Blamont and G. Toffin, 229-60. Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.

Karmay, Samten Gyaltsen (trans.). 2014. The Illusive Play: The Autobiography of the Fifth Dalai Lama. Chicago: Serindia Publications.

Karsten, Joachim Gunter. 1996. “A Study of the Sku-’bum/T’a-erh ssu Monastery in Ch’ing-hai.” 2 vols. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Auckland.

Katō Naoto. 1993. “Lobjang Danjin’s Rebellion of 1723: With a Focus on the Eve of the Rebellion.” Acta Asiatica 64:57–80.

Katō Naoto. 2004. “Warrior Lamas: The Role of Lamas on Lobjang Danjin’s Uprising in Kokonor, 1723-1724.” Memoirs of the Research Department of Toyo Bunko 62:29–43.

Kawakita, Jiro. 1954. “Some Ethno-geographical Observations in the Nepal Himalaya. Part II, Settlement Pattern, Territorial Organization, Ecology of the Ethnic Groups and Intensive Survey of Tibetan Community Named Tsumje.” The Japanese Journal of Ethnology 19: 34-134.

Khoury, Philip S. and Joseph Kostiner (eds.). 1990. Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Kuper, Adam. 1982. “Lineage Theory: A Critical Retrospect.” Annual Review ofAnthropology 11(1):71–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.11.100182.000443.

Langelaar, Reinier J. 2014. “Clans of Rebgong? The Tsho-ba of a Tibetan Agricultural Village.” Master’s Thesis. Humboldt University.

Langelaar, Reinier J. 2017. “Descent & Houses in Rebgong (Reb gong): Group Formation and Rules of Recruitment Among Eastern Tibetan Tsho ba.” In Mapping Amdo: Dynamics of Change, edited by Ptáčková & Zenz, 155-184. Prague: Oriental Institute.

Langelaar, Reinier J. Forthcoming. “Tibetan Ancestral Tales: Group History, Territoriality, and Origin Narratives in A-mdo (Qinghai, China).”

Lessing, Ferdinand D. 1998 [1960]. Mongolian-English Dictionary. London: Routledge.

Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1982 [1972]. The Way of the Masks. Translated by Sylvia Modelski. Seattle: University of Washing Press.

Levine, Nancy E. 1981. “The Theory of Rü Kinship, Descent and Status in a Tibetan Society.” In Asian Highland Societies in Anthropological Perspective, edited by C. von Fürer- Haimendorf, 52-78. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers.

103

Levine, Nancy E. 1988. The Dynamics of Polyandry. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Levine, Nancy E. 1998. “From Nomads to Ranchers: Managing Pasture Among Ethnic Tibetans In Sichuan.” In Development, Society, and Environment in Tibet: Papers Presented at a Panel of the 7th seminar of the International Association for Tibetan, edited by Graham E. Clarke, 69-76. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

Levine Nancy E. (n.d.). Reconstructing Tradition: Persistence and Change in Golog Social Structure. Unpublished manuscript. http://www.case.edu/affil/tibet/booksAndPapers/Segpaper.htm?nw_view=1307345682

Ling-Wei Kung. 2018. “The Transformation of the Qing's Geopolitics: Power Transitions between Tibetan Buddhist Monasteries in Amdo, 1644–1795.” Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines 45:110-144.

Makley, Charlene E. 2007. The Violence of Liberation: Gender and Tibetan Buddhist Revival in Post-Mao China. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Mayers, William Frederick. 1886 [1877]. The Chinese Government: A Manual of Chinese Titles, Categorically Arranged and Explained, with an Appendix. Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh.

McKinnon, Susan. 2000. “Domestic Exceptions: Evans-Pritchard and the Creation of Nuer Patrilineality and Equality.” Cultural Anthropology 15(1):35-83.

Miller, Beatrice D. 1956 “Ganye and Kidu: Two Formalized Systems of Mutual Aid Among the Tibetans.” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 12:157-170.

Mitchell, J. Clyde. 1974. “Social Networks.” Annual Review of Anthropology 3:279-299.

Munkh-Erdene, Lhamsuren. 2010. “The 1640 Great Code: An Inner Asian parallel to the Treaty of Westphalia.” Central Asian Survey 29 (3):269-288.

Ning Chia 1991. “The Li-fan Yuan in the Early Ch’ing Dynasty.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Johns Hopkins University.

Naktsang Nulo. 2014. My Tibetan Childhood. Durham: Duke University Press.

Nyangchakja (Snying lcags rgyal/ Niangjijia 娘吉加). 2016. The Last Dragon Banquet? Changing Wedding Traditions in an Amdo Tibetan Community. Asian Highlands Perspectives 41.

Nietupski, Paul Kocot. 1999. Labrang: a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery at the Crossroads of Four Civilizations. Ithaca, N.Y.: Snow Lion Publications.

104

Nietupski, Paul Kocot. 2011. Labrang Monastery: A Tibetan Buddhist Community on the Inner Asian Borderlands, 1709-1958. Lanham: Lexington Books.

Oidtmann, Max Gordon. 2013. “Between Patron and Priest: Amdo Tibet under Qing Rule 1791- 1911.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University.

Oidtmann, Max. 2016a. “A ‘Dog-eat-dog’ World: Qing Jurispractices and the Legal Inscription of Piety in Amdo.” Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident 40(1):151-182.

Oidtmann, Max. 2016b. “Overlapping Empires: Religion, Politics, and Ethnicity in Nineteenth- Century Qinghai.” Late Imperial China 37(2):41-91.

Pang, Tatiana and Giovanni Stary. 1998. New Light on Machu Historiography and Literature. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Perdue, Peter C. 2005. China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Petech, Luciano. 1966. “Notes on Tibetan History of the 18th Century.” T’oung Pao 52:261-292.

Petech, Luciano. 1972. China and Tibet in the Early XVIIIth Century: History of the Establishments of Chinese Protectorate in Tibet. Leiden: Brill.

Petech, Luciano. 1973. Aristocracy and Government in Tibet: 1728-1959. Leiden: Brill.

Pirie, Fernanda. 2005a. “Feuding, Mediation and Negotiation of Authority among the Nomads of Eastern Tibet.” Working Papers / Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, 72.

Pirie, Fernanda. 2005b. “Segmentation within the State: The Reconfiguration of Tibetan Tribes in China’s Reform Period.” Nomadic Peoples 9(1):83-102.

Pirie, Fernanda. 2006. “Legal Complexity on the Tibetan Plateau.” The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 38(53-54):77-99.

Pirie, Fernanda. 2008. “Violence and Opposition Among the Nomads of Amdo: Expectations of Leadership and Religious Authority.” Conflict and Social Order in Tibet and Inner Asia, edited by Pirie and Huber, 217-240. Leiden: Brill.

Pirie, Fernanda. 2009. “From Tribal Tibet: The Significance of the Legal Form.” Law and Anthropology, edited by Freeman and Napier, 143-163. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pirie, Fernanda. 2013. “The Limits of the State: Coercion and Consent in Chinese Tibet.” Journal of Asian Studies 72 (1): 69-89.

Pounds, N.J.G. 2004 [2000]. A History of the English Parish: The Culture of Religion From Augustine to Victoria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

105

Ramble, Charles. 1993. “Rule by Play in Southern Mustang.” In Anthropology of Tibet and the Himalaya, edited by Charles Ramble and Martin Brauen, 287-301. Zurich: Völkerkundemuseum der Universität Zürich.

Ramble, Charles. 2008. The Navel of the Demoness: Tibetan Buddhism and Civil Religion in Highland Nepal. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rawski, Evelyn S. 1998. The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Rock, Joseph F. 1956. The Amnye Ma-chhen Range and Adjacent Regions, a Monographic Study. Roma: Istituto italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente.

Rockhill, William Woodville. 1891. The Land of the Lamas: Notes of a Journey through China, Mongolia and Tibet. London: Longmans, Green.

Rockhill, William Woodville. 1894. Diary of a Journey through Mogolia and Tibet in 1891 and 1892. Washington DC: The Smithsonian Institute.Ryavec, Karl. 2015. A Historical Atlas of Tibet. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Samuels, Jonathan. 2016. “Are We Legend? Reconsidering Clan in Tibet.” Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines 37:293–314.

Schram, Louis M.J. 2006 [1954, 1957, 1961]. The Monguors of the Kansu-Tibetan Frontier, Parts I-III. Xining: Plateau Publications. http://hdl.handle.net/1811/24312.

Schwieger, Peter. 2015. The Dalai Lama and the Emperor of China: A Poltical History of the Tibetan Institution of Reincarnation. New York: Columbia University Press.

Schweizer, Thomas and Douglas White (eds.). 1998. Kinship, Networks, and Exchange. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sneath, David. 2007a. The Headless State: Aristocratic Orders, Kinship Society, & Misrepresentations of Nomadic Inner Asia. New York: Columbia University Press.

Sneath, David. 2007b. “The Decentralised State: Nomads, Complexity and Sociotechnical Systems in Inner Asia.” In Socialising Complexity, edited by Kohring and Wynne-Jones, 228-244. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

Sørensen, Per K. 1994. Tibetan Buddhist Historiography: The Mirror Illuminating the Royal Genealogies. An Annotated Translation of the XIVth Century Chronicle rGyal-rabs gsal- ba'i me-long. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

Sperling, Elliot. 1997. “A Note on the Chi Kyā Tribe” In Les Habitants du Toit du Monde, edited by Samten Karmay and Philippe Sagant, 111-124. Nanterre: Société d'éthnologie.

106

Sperling, Elliot. 2012. “Pho-lha-nas, Khang-chen-nas, and the Last Era of Mongol Domination in Tibet.” Rocznik Orientalistyczny 65 (1):195-211.

Stein, R.A. 1972 [1962]. Tibetan Civilization. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Stobs stag lha (CK Stuart, Gerald Roche, Elena Mckinlay, and Timothy Thurston, eds). 2013. A Multi-ethnic Village in Northeast Tibet: History, Ritual, and Daily Life in Chu cha. Asian Highlands Perspectives 24.

Stübel, Hans. 1958. The Mewu Fantzu: A Tibetan Tribe of Kansu. Translated by Frieda Schutze. New Haven: Human Area Research Files.

Sujata, Victoria. 2005. Tibetan Songs of Realization: Echoes from a Seventeenth-Century Scholar and Siddha in Amdo. Leiden: Brill.

Sulek E.R. 2012. “‘Everybody Likes Houses. Even Birds Are Coming!’.” In Pastoral Practices in High Asia: Advances in Asian Human-Environmental Research, edited by Hermann Kreutzmann, 235-255. Dordrecht: Springer.

Sullivan, Brenton Thomas. 2013. “The Mother of All Monasteries: Gönlung Jampa Ling and the Rise of Mega Monasteries in Northeastern Tibet.” Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Virginia.

Tapper, Richard. 1997. Frontier Nomads of Iran: A Political and Social History of the Shahsevan. Cambridge: University Press.

Tarab Tulku. 2000. A Brief History of Tibetan Academic Degrees in Buddhist Philosophy. Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies.

Teichman, Eric. 1921. Travels of a Consular Officer in North-West China. Cambridge: University Press.

Tucci, Giuseppe. 1949. Tibetan Painted Scrolls. Roma: Libreria dello Stato.

Tuttle, Gray. 2011a. “An Introduction to the Amdo Cultural Region,” May 12, 2011. http://places.thlib.org/features/15348/descriptions/1223.

Tuttle, Gray. 2011b. “Taktsang Lhamo Monasery (sag tshang lha mo dgon pa),” July 8, 2011. http://places.kmaps.virginia.edu/features/24125/descriptions/1268. Accessed: January 2018.

Tuttle, Gray. 2011c. “Challenging Central Tibet’s Dominance of History” in Mapping the Modern in Tibet, edited by Gray Tuttle, 135-172. Switzerland: IITBS, International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies GmbH.

107

Tuttle, Gray. 2012. "Building up the Dge lugs pa Base in A mdo: The Role of Lhasa, Beijing and Local Agency." Journal of Tibetology (Zangxue xuekan) 7:126-140.

Tuttle, Gray. 2013. “An Overview of Amdo (Northeastern Tibet) Historical Polities.” URL: http://places.thlib.org/features/24106/descriptions/1228.

Tuttle, Gray. 2017. “Pattern Recognition: Tracking the Spread of the Incarnation Institution through Time and across Tibetan Territory.” Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines 38:29–64.

Tuttle, Gray. “Local Histories.” http://library.columbia.edu/locations/eastasian/tibetan/guide/history/local.html Accessed: January 2017.

Tuttle, Gray and Tsehuajia. 2010. “Power and Polities in Chentsa before Communist Rule.” http://www.thlib.org/places/culturalgeography/#iframe=. Accessed: March 2018.

Vitali, Roberto. 2004. “Glimpses of the History of the Rgya Clan with Reference to Nyang Stod, Lho Mon and Nearby Lands (7th-13th Century).” In The Spider and the Piglet: Proceedings of the First International Seminar on Bhutan Studies, edited by Karma Ura and Sonam Kinga, 6-20. Thimphu: Centre for Bhutan Studies.

Wallenböck, Ute. 2017 “Gtsang A rig 藏阿柔 – A Tibetan Tribe Classified as Mongol” In Mapping Amdo: Dynamics of Change, edited by Ptáčková & Zenz, 185-210. Prague: Oriental Institute.

Walsh, E.H. 1906. “An Old Form of Elective Government in the Chumbi Valley” Journals and Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, New Series 2:303-308.

Wisdom Publications’ Style Guide for Books on Indian and Tibetan Buddhism. Revised August 13, 2015. https://www.wisdompubs.org/sites/default/files/WisdomStyleGuide201308.pdf. Accessed: April 2018.

Wu, Shu-hui. 1995. “The Chinese Conquest of Qinghai with Reference to Tibet and Khams 1717-1727 [Die Eroberung von Qinghai unter Berucksichtigung von Tibet und Khams 1717-1727].” Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.

Wylie, Turrell. 1959. “A Standard System of Tibetan Transcription.” Harvard Journal of Asian Studies 22:261-267.

Yeh, Emily T. and Gaerrang. 2010. “Tibetan Pastoralism in Neoliberalising China.” Area 43: 165–172.

108

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Cameron Foltz received a B.A. in Religion from Florida State University in 2014. In

2015, he enrolled in the M.A. program in the History and Ethnography of Religion track in the

Department of Religion at Florida State University. His research interests include social organization, local deities, pastoralism, and statecraft.

109