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Sam Van Schaik | 324 pages | 25 Jun 2013 | Yale University Press | 9780300194104 | English | New Haven, United States Tibet: A History - Harvard Book Store

The earliest inhabitants of Tibet were a pastoral people. They herded goats, cattle and sheep. By BC people in Tibet learned to irrigate the land and grew rice and barley as Tibet: A History as raising herds of livestock. In the 6th century AD Tibet was divided into different kingdoms but early in the 7th century AD Tibet became a single, unified state. Also in the early 7th century a form of writing was created in Tibet based on Indian writing. Tibet became a highly civilized nation between India and China. It was also powerful. The earliest religion of Tibet was called . It was a shamanistic religion. Its followers believed there were good and evil spirits everywhere in nature. The shamans could communicate with the spirits and act as intermediaries. Tibet: A History in the 8th century Buddhism was introduced into Tibet from India. The first Buddhist monastery was built at Samye in c. Bon did not die but it adopted many Buddhist teachings. also adopted Bon beliefs. However a ruler named Lang Darmapersecuted Buddhists and after his death Buddhism declined. Moreover in the 9th century Tibet split up into warring states. Buddhism revived in Tibet in the late 10th century. Men like Rinchen Zangpo who founded monasteries and temples, and the Indian teacher Atisha led the revival. Tibet: A History in the great monastery was founded. In the early 13th century the Tibet: A History conquered a vast empire across Asia. In Tibet submitted to the Mongols. As a result, although Tibet became a vassal state it was never fully absorbed into the . He became the first priest-ruler of Tibet. It was a symbiotic relationship. The lama advised the emperor and in Tibet: A History received his patronage and protection. However in the Tibetans rebelled against the Sakya lama and overthrew him. Tibet then became a secular state. In the 15th century several new monasteries were founded in Tibet. In at Gandan. In at Drepung, at Sera in and at Trashilingpo in In Tibet Buddhists were divided into several sects. One of these was called the pa or yellow sect. In the leader of the sect, Sonan Gyats met the chief of a Mongol tribe called the Tumet. The Mongols were converted to Buddhism and the two men formed an alliance. Sonan Gyats was given the title . However he was called the third Dalai Lama. The two previous leaders of the sect were posthumously named the first Tibet: A History second Dalai Lamas. Sonan Gyats, the third Dalai lama, became the spiritual adviser of the Mongols while the Mongol chiefs became his patrons and protectors. The early 17th century was a period of civil war in Tibet. In they made him temporal ruler as spiritual leader of Tibet. From then on the Dalai Lama was a priest-king. When the Dalai Lama dies it is believed that he is reincarnated as a child. When the child is discovered he becomes the new Dalai Lama. Under the Fifth Dalai Lama Tibet was prosperous and powerful. However when the Dalai Lamas died his second in command, the Desi, kept the death secret. The Desi ruled in Tibet: A History Fifth Dalai Tibet: A History name. He also concealed the discovery of a child believed to be the 6th Dalai Lama. The 6th Dalai Lama was finally installed in However Tibet: A History less than pious ways angered the leader of the Tumet Mongols. In the Mongols attacked Tibet and they killed the Desi. They also deposed the 6th Dalai Lama, who Tibet: A History claimed was an impostor. However the refused to accept him. The Chinese were alarmed by the Dzungar success. In they sent a representative called an Amban to Tibet. They also stationed Chinese troops there. In time the Chinese began to see themselves as overlord of Tibet. In the 18th century Tibet isolated itself from the rest of the world. However in the early Tibet: A History century Tibet suffered a British invasion. At that time the British ruled India. While the British did not seek to rule Tibet they feared that it would fall under Russian influence. The Tibetan people ignored him. The British then forced Tibet to sign a treaty allowing some trade with the British Empire and excluding 'foreign influence' Russia from Tibetan affairs. The Chinese were alarmed by the British invasion of Tibet. They feared that if Tibet fell Tibet: A History British hands then China would fall under British influence. In the Chinese invaded Tibet. The Dalai Lama fled to India. However in a revolution broke out in China and the emperor was overthrown. Chinese troops in Tibet were forced to withdraw. In the Dalai Lama returned. However in Chinese troops returned and occupied parts of Tibet. In the British persuaded the Chinese to accept a treaty Tibet: A History the . The Chinese were given partial control over Inner Tibet, although the treaty said Tibet would not be absorbed into China. Neither side was satisfied with the treaty. In the Chinese invaded Tibet again but were forced to retreat. In the s and s some attempts were made to modernize Tibet but it remained a traditional and very isolated country. It was also a feudal Tibet: A History. Most of the land was owned by monasteries or by rich families. Most of the people were serfs. In Tibet was annexed by China. However in resentment of Chinese rule led to a rebellion. The rebellion was quickly crushed and the Tibet: A History Lama fled to India. Under Chinese rule serfdom was abolished and in Tibet was made an autonomous region. In a railway was built from Beijing to Lhasa. It is the highest Tibet: A History in the world. However in March rioting took place in Lhasa. Nevertheless at the present time the Tibetan economy is growing rapidly and the region is rich in minerals. Today the population of Tibet is over 3 million. A brief history of China. A brief history of India. A brief history of Nepal. A brief history of Vietnam. Tibet - History | Britannica

Tibetan historyas it has been recorded, is particularly focused on the history of Buddhism in Tibet. This is partly due to the pivotal role this religion Tibet: A History played in the development of Tibetan and Mongol Tibet: A History and partly because almost all native historians of the country were Buddhist monks. Tibet lies between the core areas of the ancient civilizations of China and India. Extensive mountain ranges to the east of the mark the border with China, and the towering Himalayas of Nepal and India form a barrier between Tibet and India. Tibet is nicknamed "the roof of the world" or "the land of snows". Linguists classify the Tibetan language and its dialects as belonging to the Tibeto-Burman languagesthe non- Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Some archaeological data suggests archaic humans passed through Tibet at the time India was first inhabited, half a million years ago. However, there is a "partial genetic continuity between the Paleolithic inhabitants and the contemporary Tibetan populations". The vast majority of Tibetan maternal mtDNA components can trace their ancestry to both paleolithic and Neolithic during the mid-Holocene. Megalithic monuments dot the Tibetan Plateau and may have been used in ancestor worship. According to Namkhai Norbu some Tibetan historical texts identify the Zhang Zhung culture as a people who migrated from the region into what is now the region of in western Tibet. In AD"the Kiang or Tibetans, who then lived a nomadic life west and south of the Koko-norattacked the Chinese posts of Gansuthreatening to cut the Dunhuang road. Liang Kin, at the price of Tibet: A History fierce fighting, held them off. Fu state was pronounced as "bod" or "phyva" in Archaic Chinese. Whether this polity is the precursor of Tufan is still unknown. The Tibet: A History rulers are more mythological than factual, and there is insufficient evidence of their definitive existence. is considered by traditional histories to have been the first king of the Yarlung Dynasty, named after the river valley where its capital city was located, circa fifty-five miles south-east from present-day Lhasa. Nyatri Tsenpo is said to have descended from a one-footed creature called the Theurang, having webbed fingers and a tongue so large it could cover his face. There he was greeted as a fearsome being, and he became king. The Tibetan kings were said to remain connected to the heavens via a dmu cord dmu thag so that rather than dying, they ascended directly to heaven, when their sons achieved their majority. During the fight the king's dmu cord was cut, and he was killed. Spyan-ras-gzigs while the ogress in turn incarnated Tibet: A History consort Dolma Tib. The Yarlung kings gradually extended their control, and by the early 6th century most of the Tibetan tribes were under its control, [16] when Namri Songtsen ? The government of Namri Songtsen sent two embassies to China in andmarking Tibet: A History appearance of Tibet on the international scene. Traditional Tibetan history preserves a lengthy list of rulers whose exploits become subject to external verification in the Chinese histories by the 7th century. c. Throughout the centuries from the time of the emperor the power of the empire gradually increased over a diverse terrain so that by the reign of the emperor in the opening years of the 9th century, its influence extended as far south as Bengal and as far north as Mongolia. Tibetan records claim that the Pala Empire was conquered and that the Pala emperor Dharmapala submitted to Tibet, though no independent evidence confirms this. The varied terrain of the empire and the difficulty of transportation, coupled with the new ideas that came into the empire as a result of its expansion, helped to create stresses and power blocs that were often in competition with the ruler at the center of the empire. The is a period of Tibetan history in the 9th and 10th centuries. During this era, the political centralization of the earlier collapsed. A civil war ensued, which effectively ended centralized Tibetan administration until the Sa-skya period. Thrikhyiding migrated to the western Tibetan Tibet: A History of upper Ngari Stod Mnga ris and married a woman of high central Tibetan nobility, with whom he founded a local dynasty. After the breakup of the Tibetan empire inNyima-Gon, a representative of the ancient Tibetan royal house, founded the first Ladakh dynasty. Nyima-Gon's kingdom had its centre well to the east of present-day Ladakh. The younger son, Srong-nge, administered day-to-day governmental affairs; it was his sons who carried on the royal line. According to traditional accounts, Buddhism had survived surreptitiously in the region of . The late 10th century and 11th century saw a revival of Buddhism in Tibet. Coinciding with the early discoveries of "hidden treasures" terma[27] the 11th century saw a revival of Buddhist Tibet: A History originating in the far east and far west of Tibet. Muzu Saelbar Mu-zu gSal-'barlater known as the scholar Gongpa Rabsal bla chen dgongs pa rab gsal —was responsible for the renewal of Buddhism in northeastern Tibet, and is counted as the progenitor of the Rnying ma pa school of Tibet: A History Buddhism. In the west, Rinchen Zangpo — was active as a translator and founded temples and monasteries. Prominent scholars and teachers were again invited from India. There his chief disciple, Dromtonpa founded Tibet: A History Kadampa school of Tibetan Buddhism, under whose influence the New Translation schools of today Tibet: A History. Other seminal Indian teachers were Tilopa — and his student Naropa probably died ca. The Kagyuthe Lineage of the Buddha's Wordis an oral tradition which is very much concerned with the experiential dimension of meditation. Its most famous exponent was Milarepaan 11th-century mystic. It contains one major and one minor subsect. During this era, the region was dominated by the Sakya lama with the Mongols ' support, so it is also called the Sakya dynasty. The first documented contact between the Tibetans and the Mongols occurred when the missionary Tsang-pa Dung-khur gTsang-pa Dung-khur- ba and six disciples met Genghis Khanprobably on the Tangut border where he may have been taken captive, around — Tibet: A History contacts ensued when the Mongols successively sought to move through the Sino-Tibetan borderlands to attack the Jin dynasty and then the Southern Songwith incursions on outlying areas. One traditional Tibetan account claims that there was a plot to invade Tibet by Genghis Khan in[30] which is considered anachronistic; there is no evidence Tibet: A History Mongol-Tibetan encounters prior to the military campaign in The Mongols invaded Tibet in with a small campaign led by the Mongol general Doorda Darkhan [33] [34] that consisted of 30, troops, [35] [36] suffering casualties. Tibet was incorporated into the Mongol Empire, retaining nominal power over religious and regional political affairs, while the Mongols managed a structural and administrative [37] [40] rule over the region, reinforced by the rare military intervention. This existed Tibet: A History a " diarchic structure" under the Mongol Tibet: A History, with power primarily in favor of the Mongols. One of Tibet: A History department's purposes was to select a dpon-chenusually appointed by the lama and confirmed by the Yuan emperor in Beijing. However, there was no doubt as to who had the political clout. When a dispute developed between dpon-chen Tibet: A History bzari-po and one of 'Phags-pa's relatives at Sakya, the Chinese troops were dispatched to execute the dpon-chen. Phagpa became a religious teacher to Kublai Khan. Phagpa developed the priest-patron concept that characterized Tibeto-Mongolian relations from that point forward. Through their influence with the Mongol rulers, Tibetan lamas gained considerable influence Tibet: A History various Mongol clans, not only with Kublai, but, for example, also with the Il-Khanids. A census was conducted in and Tibet was divided into thirteen myriarchies administrative districts, nominally containing 10, households. By the end of the century, Western Tibet lay under the effective control of imperial officials almost certainly Tibetans dependent on the 'Great Administrator', while the kingdoms of Guge and Pu-ran retained their internal autonomy. The Sakya hegemony Tibet: A History Tibet continued into the midth century, although it was challenged by a revolt of the Drikung sect with the assistance of Duwa Khan of the Chagatai Khanate in The revolt was suppressed in when the and eastern Mongols burned Drikung Monastery and killed 10, people. Between andtowards the end of the Yuan dynasty, the House of Pagmodru would topple the Sakya. The rule over Tibet by a succession of Sakya lamas came to a definite end inwhen central Tibet came under control of the Kagyu sect. The following or-so years were a period of relative stability. They also saw the birth of the Gelugpa school also known as Yellow Hats by the disciples of Tsongkhapa Lobsang Dragpaand the founding of the Ganden Tibet: A History, Drepungand Sera monasteries near Lhasa. After the s, the country entered another period of internal power struggles. With the decline of the Yuan dynasty, Central Tibet was ruled by successive families from the 14th to the 17th centuries, to be succeeded by the Dalai Lama's rule in the 17th and 18th centuries. Tibet would be de facto independent from the midth century on, for nearly years. Tibet: A History also kept Tibet: A History relations with some of the Buddhism religious leaders known as Princes of Dharma and granted some other titles to local leaders including the Grand Imperial Tutor. The areas under Lang administration were continually encroached upon during the late 13th and early 14th centuries. After prolonged legal struggles, the struggle became violent when Phagmodru was attacked by its neighbours in He continued to rule central Tibet until his death inalthough he left all Mongol institutions in place as hollow formalities. Power remained in the hands of the Phagmodru family until Tibet: A History relatively peaceful conditions favoured the literary and artistic development. Internal strife within the Phagmodrupa dynasty and the strong localism of the various fiefs and political-religious factions led to a long series of internal Tibet: A History. In they were overthrown by the Dynasty of Shigatse which expanded its power in different directions of Tibet in the following decades and favoured the Karma Kagyu sect. They would play a pivotal role in the events which led to the rise of power of the Dalai Lama's Tibet: A History the s. The rise of the Dalai Lamas was intimately connected with the Tibet: A History power of Mongolian clans. Gyatso accepted the second invitation. He died in in his mid- twenties. Some people say he was poisoned but there is no real evidence one way or the other. The Fifth Dalai Lama's first regent Sonam Rapten is known for unifying the Tibetan heartland under the control of the Gelug school of Tibetan Tibet: A Historyafter defeating the rival Kagyu and sects and the secular ruler, the Tsangpa Tibet: A History, in a prolonged civil war. Jonang sources today claim that the Jonang monasteries were either closed or forcibly converted, and that school remained in hiding until the latter part of the 20th century. However, before leaving Tibet for China in the Dalai Lama issued a proclamation or decree to Sonam Rapten banning all such sectarian policies that Tibet: A History been implemented by his administration after the civil war, and ordered their reversal. This Tibetan regime or government is also referred to as the . He was not required to kowtow like other visitors, but still had to kneel Tibet: A History the Emperor; and he was later sent an official seal. The fifth Dalai Lama initiated the construction of the Potala Palace in Lhasaand moved the centre of government there from Drepung. The death of the fifth Dalai Lama in was kept hidden for fifteen years by his assistant, confidant, Desi Sangye Gyatso De-srid Sangs-rgyas Rgya- 'mtsho. The Dalai Lamas remained Tibet's titular heads of state until He even produced a few Christian books in Tibetan. Capuchin fathers took over the mission until all missionaries were expelled in In the Tibet: A History 17th century, Tibet entered into a dispute with Bhutanwhich was supported by Ladakh. This resulted in an invasion of Ladakh by Tibet. Kashmir helped to restore Ladakhi rule, on the condition that a mosque be built in Leh and that the Ladakhi king convert to Islam. The Treaty of Temisgam in settled the dispute between Tibet and Ladakh, but its independence was severely restricted. The Qing Tibet: A History over Tibet was established after a Qing expedition force defeated the Tibet: A History who occupied Tibet Tibet: A Historyand lasted until the fall of the Qing dynasty in Tibet's history | Free Tibet

Pages Page size This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form beyond that copying permitted by Sections and of the U. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press without written permission from the publishers. For information about this and other Yale University Press publications, please contact: U. ISBN cl:alk. Tibet China —History. Please refer to print publication. An ancient stone lion on top of the tomb of one of the tsenpos. Photograph Amy Heller. Photograph Rachel Tibet: A History. Photograph Panglung Rinpoche. IOL Tib J Photograph Kazushi Iwao. Photograph Lionel Fournier. Photograph Imre Galambos. India and Tibet. The Tibetan empire in the eighth to the ninth centuries. Central Tibet and Tsang. I also owe much to contemporary scholars from all over the world who have written historical studies of Tibet: A History. My debt to them is evident in the notes and bibliography. However the importance of the late E. Gene Smith is perhaps not adequately represented there. For his personal encouragement and assistance, and his staggering achievements in bringing the literature of Tibetan Buddhism to the West, he is much missed. The Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center, which he founded, is now a wonderful online library of Tibetan works. I want to thank my parents, Paul and Barbara van Schaik, who have spent a lifetime in international aid work all over the world. I would also like to acknowledge two Nyingma monks from Bhutan, Tsultrim and Dawa. The help and Tibet: A History of many people has been instrumental in the publication of this book. It would take up too much space here to name them all, but I must thank Dan Tibet: A History, whose impeccable scholarship is matched with a determination to share its results. I also thank Robert Barnett, Jacob Dalton and Tsuguhito Takeuchi who offered useful advice which changed this book for the better. I am indebted to many other colleagues at the British Library, including Imre Galambos, an entertaining travel companion whose fascination with Chinese history and manuscript culture is infectious; Burkhard Quessel, whose bibliographic knowledge of Tibet never fails to amaze; and Frances Wood, always generous with her time and good advice. Finally, my wife Ananda has provided encouragement, forbearance, and a model of intellectual rigour that has informed all of my work. The Wylie system is now nearly standard, but those who are unfamiliar with the Tibetan language will recoil in horror from tangles of consonants like bsgrubs. Therefore I have used a phonetic system loosely based on the way these words are pronounced in Central Tibet, that should be fairly easy to read. The vowels a, o, and u change their sound somewhat when placed before certain consonants and this is sometimes shown with diacritics, but I have not done that here. Uncertain or nervous booksellers rarely seem to know what to do with books on Tibet. And so on. The plight of these books is indicative of the confusion surrounding the status of Tibet itself. Look at a map for another example. Where, on the map, is Tibet? The Tibetans have their own version of this distinction, which goes back many centuries. The clash of ideologies was particularly obvious in Marcha troubled anniversary for Tibet. In a war like this, history plays perhaps the most important role. Arguments supporting the current state of Tibet as a region of China reach back to the Manchu dynasty in the eighteenth century, and further still, to the great Mongol empire in the thirteenth century and the Tibetan empire in the seventh. Such arguments are countered by Tibetan claims that their empire was once the equal of the Chinese, and that later relationships with the Mongols and Manchus who were not, in any case, Chinese Tibet: A History on the model of the relationship between religious patrons and their priests. Then there are the arguments about what life was like in Tibet: A History before the Communist reforms of the s. Was it, as some claim, a spiritual paradise, a prelapsarian world in which everyone was happy with their lot, motivated by compassion and striving only for the highest Buddhist goal of freeing all living beings from suffering? Countering them, the Dalai Lama has spoken of life in modern Tibet using the very same words. Thus the year has become a line dividing good from evil, like the symbol of yin and yang, but with the black and white constantly switching from one side to another Tibet: A History on who is speaking. For over a thousand years most Tibetans were Buddhists, and Tibetan history features some of the most inspiring saints of any religious tradition. In Eastern Tibet violence might be prolonged for generations by blood feuds in vicious cycles of revenge. This is only to say that the same factors found in every other pre-modern society were active in Tibet. And why should they not have been? Romantic visions of Tibet tend to make Tibetans unrecognisable as ordinary people. But their adherence to Buddhism did not lessen their enjoyment of drinking, dancing and music. Nor did it lessen their anxieties about ordinary things such as birth, marriage and livelihood. Rather than trusting such things entirely to the impersonal force of karma, they often turned to ritualists who specialised in placating the gods, demons and spirits that populated the sky, land and rivers. It has been said that Tibet is special because it has been so Tibet: A History throughout its history, cut off from the world by its high mountains. But it is equally valid to see Tibet as being deeply involved with other cultures throughout its history. Lhasa has always been thronged with merchants and pilgrims travelling from distant countries, and for many centuries had its own Muslim community. These connections, and not a mythical isolation, are what have made Tibet what it is today. Until the twentieth century these local ties tended to be stronger than any Tibet: A History of a Greater Tibet, and they still threaten modern attempts to forge an overarching Tibetan identity. Likewise, a shared adherence to Buddhism did not curtail individual allegiances to particular religious schools or monasteries; nor did it prevent struggles, Tibet: A History violent, from breaking out between monasteries. Perhaps the greatest misrepresentation of Tibet is that it was unchanging. The writer of such a history can only hope to capture something of this diverse, ever-changing realm and the complex people who have inhabited it. What it means is that every event is suspended in a fragile network of causes and conditions without which it could not be. The Buddha said that only the omniscient could know the full complexity of causes behind even a single event. It is an apt lesson for anyone who would write history. We can glimpse a cause Tibet: A History, a condition there, but the complete view will probably only ever reveal itself to the omniscient. This history, this book, is a narrative, and any narrative is limited to the point of view of particular people and events. It is necessarily partial and incomplete. The Tibetans have their own marvellous tradition of historical writing, and the corpus of modern scholarship on Tibet grows every day. It is no longer possible, if it ever was, to grasp the whole; but we can choose a path. These are the stories that, layer upon layer, have contributed to the cultural identities of Tibetans today, to the sense of what it is to be Tibetan. Yet the Tibetan conquest was no simple barbarian onslaught. The Tibetans now had a window of opportunity to seize the city before the return of the Chinese army. That Tibet: A History was opened by a rebellious faction at the Chinese court who had gone over to the Tibetan side. A Chinese rebel opened up the Tibet: A History gates and the Tibetans walked into the capital unopposed. In a matter of days the new emperor had appointed a new government and declared a new dynasty. Meanwhile, totally demoralised by Tibet: A History cowardice of the previous emperor, the Chinese army simply fell apart. It Tibet: A History out that the Tibetans had no desire to try to put this chaos in order: no desire, in other words, to rule China itself. Having put their puppet emperor on the throne, they left the city. Some say that they heard rumours of a vast Chinese army advancing from the south. The general Tzuyi was indeed approaching, but at the head of a ragtag army numbering only a thousand or so. Soon afterwards the Tang emperor returned, his empire much reduced. Though they may have had no taste to rule from the imperial throne, the Tibet: A History set their border only a few hundred miles to the Tibet: A History of the capital and forced the Chinese emperor into a series of peace treaties that cut China off from the West. How did the Tibetans come to pose such a threat Tibet: A History China? This explosion of energy overwhelmed everything in its way: and so Tibet appeared. At its centre was the Divine Son, a man with the glamour of a deity, Songtsen Gampo. His father was a great king, and no ordinary king but a tsenpo, the embodiment of the divine in this world. When Songtsen inherited that title from his father, he would also inherit the glamour of the divine that his father Tibet: A History, a glamour that was already sweeping all of Tibet before it. He was always willing to use his semi-divine status to meddle in clan struggles while at the same time seeming to Tibet: A History above them. It was the nature of the tsenpo to be of this world Tibet: A History beyond it at the same time. Throughout his childhood, Tibet: A History was told his family history. Like rain falling from the sky, he enriched the earth. Local chiefs bowed down before him, for his fate was to rule over Tibet: A History. The indignity of death was not for them. Instead, at the appointed time, they ascended back to heaven on the sky cord. Still, Songtsen knew that his family had fallen somewhat since the age of these noble ancestors. They sky cord was gone, squandered by a more recent tsenpo called Drigum.