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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
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