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The Dalai Lama and the Qing Empire, 1879–1910

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The Dalai Lama and the Qing Empire, 1879–1910 Chapter 14 The Dalai Lama and the Qing Empire, 1879–1910 The Qing emperors ruled over a multi-ethnic and multi-religious empire by uti- lizing a variety of governing techniques, including military occupation, shared bureaucratic administration, and religious patronage. Among the patronage relationships the Qing emperors maintained with their “subjects,” none was more complex than with Tibet, a theocratic country led by the Dalai Lama, leader of Yellow Hat Buddhism. For the Qing emperors to maintain control over their unstable western borderlands, they had to increase their influence over the Dalai Lama, a process that began in the seventeenth century but rap- idly progressed in the eighteenth. In 1720, the Qing Empire sent its first military expedition to Lhasa in an ef- fort to eliminate Dzungar Mongol influence over the Tibetan government and depose the “illegitimate” Sixth Dalai Lama. After helping to install the “rightful” Dalai Lama, the Qing government slowly built up a “protectorate” over Tibet administered by an imperial resident, or amban, with formal, but weak author- ity over the ecclesiastical government and control of a small Green Standard garrison of some 2,000 troops. Between 1767 and 1771, the Qianlong Emperor also built a copy of the Potala Palace in the Manchu summer resort at Chengde where he could conduct rituals as a great patron of Tibetan Buddhism and host Tibetan and Mongol envoys. From the Qing perspective, these arrangement made the Dalai Lama subordinate to the emperors, and Tibet part of the Great Qing Empire, but most Tibetans saw it simply as a lama-patron relationship with the emperors providing protection to Tibetan Buddhism. Qing influence in Tibet peaked in the immediate aftermath of two wars against the Gurkhas in the early 1790s. Having driven the Gurkhas back into Nepal, the Qing general Fuk’anggan drafted twenty-nine articles giving the Manchu amban the right to jointly appoint the highest non-ecclesiastical of- ficials in the government, to control Tibet’s international relations and military defenses, and required future reincarnations of the Dalai Lama to be selected by the amban from lots placed in a golden urn. Although now officially in con- trol of Tibet, early nineteenth century emperors and ambans little interfered in Tibetan life as long as the Dalai Lama, or the several regents, maintained the polite fiction of Qing overlordship. Most of the documents below, including those related to the enthronement of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, continue this fictitious relationship, but the last few represent a new turn in Qing-Tibetan relations in the early twentieth century. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004361003_016 The Dalai Lama and the Qing Empire, 1879–1910 155 In 1904, when Major Francis Younghusband led a British force into Lhasa os- tensibly to prevent Tibet from falling under Russian influence, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama fled to Mongolia. The amban, embarrassed that he could not pro- duce the Dalai Lama, deposed the theocrat and declared Qing sovereignty over Tibet. For the next five years, the Dalai Lama traveled in Mongolia, eastern Tibet, and finally to Mount Wutai, about 300 kilometers outside Beijing, where Qing officials finally invited him to an audience with the Guangxu Emperor and Empress Dowager Cixi in November 1908 and re-enthroned him as the Dalai Lama. Less than a year after the Dalai Lama returned to Tibet in 1909, however, relations with the amban deteriorated and Qing troops entered Lhasa. Fearing for his life, the Dalai Lama fled to British India and was once again dethroned by the Qing government. May 8, 1879 Memorial from Songgui, Imperial Resident at Lhasa, announcing that a date has been fixed by the Shangshang, or Treasury, for the enthronement of the “incarnation” of the Dalai Lama, and requesting His Majesty’s commands on the matter.1 The Tongshan jilong hutuketu, Awang bandian queji jianshan, the high dignitary in charge of the Shangshang or Treasury, has respectfully rep- resented that in reverent conformity with existing regulation, the hubilehan or re-embodiment of the Dalai Lama should be enthroned at the age of four years.2 The re-embodiment of the thirteenth generation of the Dalai Lama hav- ing how attained the age of four years, and being possessed of extraordinary spirituality and intelligence that has aroused the most eager hopes and expec- tations of the clergy and laity, the spirits have now been reverently appealed to in a special manner, and Buddha has been solemnly invoked [with a view 1 The Imperial Resident (Zhu Zha dachen 駐紮大臣), a Qing position created in 1727, theoreti- cally had wide-ranging powers over the theocratic government of Tibet and was commander of the local garrison. 2 The Treasury (shang shang 商上/rtsis-khang), presided over by four ministers (kablon), con- trolled all secular affairs in Tibet and was usually led by the regent before the Dalai Lama reached maturity. The Tongshan jilong hutuketu was Ngawang Pelden Chokyi Gyeltsen (1850–1886), the tenth Tatsak Jedrung/Kundeling Tagtshag, a line of reincarnation seated at Kundeling temple in Lhasa, who was regent and tutor for the infant Thirteenth Dalai Lama from 1875 until his own death in 1886..
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