History of Tibet

Condensed History:
Tibet has variously been known as Shangri-la, the Roof of the World, the Land of Snows…For centuries, the Buddhist kingdom of Tibet has had a unique hold on the imagination of the West. It was believed to be a land of riches and treasures, a lost land steeped in magic and mystery, and to Jesuits, a land that harbored a long-lost community of Christians, the Land of Prester John. But Lhasa was also the “Forbidden City” and until recently, very few Westerners laid eyes on the Holy City.

When Tibet’s doors were finally opened in the 1980s, it was no longer the same kingdom that had so captivated the foreign imagination. In fact, the country of Tibet had become the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) of China. The People’s Republic of China had decided in 1950 to “liberate” Tibet of its independence and did so between 1950 and 1970, driving out its spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and some 120,000 Tibetans into exile. A lot of the Tibetan cultural and historical heritage was deliberately destroyed during China’s Proletariat Cultural Revolution, and religion was forbidden, monks killed and temples destroyed, and some 1.2 million Tibetans killed.

Traditional Tibet remained fundamentally unchanged for many centuries, and technological invention was unheard of. Manual agriculture and animal husbandry were, and still are, the principal industries and activities in Tibet. But change is coming at a fast pace. Tibet has changed more in the past 50 years than during the previous 500. Several regions are becoming more developed and immersed in a cash economy. Most villages have at least one shop that ships in Chinese goods from the nearest town or city. Many Han Chinese have immigrated to Tibet recently, attracted by preferential loans and tax rates, higher salaries, and a stipend for hardship posting. The government in exile estimates that of Lhasa’s 13,000 shopkeepers, only about 300 are Tibetan. Because of the Chinese immigration and birth control policies, Tibetans are now in danger of becoming a minority in their own land.

But although traditional Tibetan institutions and beliefs came under heavy attack under the Chinese Communist regime, many social structures have managed to survive and are starting to make a comeback. The Tibetans are still hoping for independence, but there is a small but growing split among the Tibetan community on the best way forward. The Dalai Lama advocates a peaceful struggle, and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for his efforts. But at least some Tibetans are starting to move away from his overtly pacifist stand.

Full History:
Early History:
Tibet has variously been known as Shangri-la, the Roof of the World, the Land of Snows…For centuries, the Buddhist kingdom of Tibet has had a unique hold on the imagination of the West.

According to Tibetan legend, the Tibetan people came about from the union of an ogress and a monkey on Gangpo Ri Mountain. The two had six children, who are seen as the ancestors of the six main tribes of Tibet. Little is known historically about the origin of Tibetans except that they were nomadic warlike tribes who gained regional power in the 7th century. Expansion by the 8th century went as far as northern India, Nepal, Pakistan, Turkestan, and threatened the Tang Dynasty in China, eventually overrunning its capital. China and Nepal reacted to the threat by agreeing to alliances through marriage. It was in this way that Buddhism first came to Tibet.

Buddhism was initially slow to take hold in Tibet. It was no simple matter of simply adopting a prescribed body of beliefs. Many schools of Buddhism had already evolved by the 9th century, and there was division over which path Buddhism should follow in Tibet. In the mid-9th century, the Tibetan king was assassinated and the country quickly collapsed into warring principalities, and Buddhism dwindled, its monasteries experiencing a 150-year hiatus. The country was never again to rise to arms, and after the second diffusion of Buddhism, Tibet was to emerge as the most devoutly Buddhist nation in the world.

After the collapse of the Tibetan state, China recovered its territory and the two nations had almost no contact with each other for about 300 years. This changed when Genghis Khan raided Tibet in 1239. This led to a priest-patron relationship between the religious Tibetans and the militaristic Mongolians. Tibetan Buddhism became the state religion of the Mongol empire. With spiritual leadership also came temporal authority over Tibet for the head monks. This led to political intrigue, power struggles, and violence among the different Buddhist orders and monasteries. When the Mongol empire disintegrated, Tibet and China regained their independence and Tibet undertook to remove all traces of Mongol administration.

Rise of the Gelugpa Order and the Dalai Lamas:
In the late 1300s, a monk named Tsongkhapa established a monastery, where he steered clear of political intrigue and espoused monastic discipline and doctrinal purity. His teachings attracted many disciples, who steered away from the politically tainted Sakyapa and Kagyupa orders. The movement came to be known as the Gelugpa order and is still the most popular Tibetan order in Tibet today.

Tsongkhapa’s nephew, Gengden Drup, announced that he would be reincarnated in Tibet and gave his followers signs that would enable them to find him. By the time of the third reincarnated head of the Gelugpa (1543-88), the Mongols became interested in the increasingly powerful order. At a meeting with the Mongols in 1578, Sonam Gyatso received the title “Dalai,” meaning “Ocean,” as in “Ocean of Wisdom.” The title was retrospectively bestowed on his previous two incarnations. Ties deepened with the Mongolians, and the fourth reincarnation was found in the great-grandson of the Khan clan. Under the fifth Dalai Lama, all of Tibet was pacified in 1656, and he had become the spiritual and temporal sovereign of a unified nation. A great new age for Tibet was ushered in.

Chinese Manchu Intervention and Overlordship:
When the fifth Dalai Lama died, the government had to find his reincarnation and then wait 18 years for the boy to come of age. After the regent had held the secret of the Dalai Lama’s death for 13 years, it leaked and he was forced to install the sixth Dalai Lama, an unfortunate choice who became an ineffectual head of state. That, combined with the Qing’s (Chinese) perception of the threat of Tibetan-Mongolian relations, and disunity within Mongolian ranks, led to an invasion of Lhasa in 1705. In 1720, the Chinese Emperor declared Tibet to be a protectorate of China. This led to two centuries of Manchu overlordship and served as a convenient historical precedent for the Communist takeover more than two centuries later.

By the mid-18th century, it became clear that another ruler would have to be appointed until the reincarnated Dalai Lamas came of age. The post of regent was created and it was to be held by a lama. The problem was that few regents were willing to give up their power once the Dalai Lamas came of age. In the 120 years between the death of the 7th Dalai Lama in 1757 and the majority of the 13th, the Dalai Lamas wielded power for only seven years! Several died under suspicious circumstances and only the eighth survived to his majority.

The last significant military intervention took place in 1788 in reaction to an invasion from Nepal. Afterwards, there was a ban on foreign contact, imposed because of fears of British help in the Nepalese invasion.

Western Intervention and Independence:
At the height of the Great Game in the 19th century, there was a superpower rivalry between Russia and Great Britain, and some of Asia’s most obscure corners rose to vital strategic importance. Because Britain feared Russia moving towards its colonies in India, it invaded Tibet, in order to forestall such a threat. An Anglo-Tibetan treaty was signed in 1903, but the Manchus objected because it implied that Tibet was a sovereign nation with the right to make treaties of its own. And so the British signed a second accord with the Manchus in 1906 that recognized China’s sovereignty over Tibet. Four years later, China invaded Tibet and drove the Dalai Lama into exile.

The Qing Dynasty was toppled in 1911, and by 1912 the last of the Chinese troops had left Tibet. The 13th Dalai Lama returned to Tibet and sent word to the Chinese that he was assuming his spiritual and temporal leadership of the country. This has been read as a formal declaration of independence by Tibetans. The Chinese have a different version, saying that the Dalai Lama sent a letter expressing his great love for the Motherland. In any case, Tibet enjoyed freedom for 30 years.

During this time, the 13th Dalai Lama made attempts to modernize, but his attempts quickly fell victim to a conservative backlash, mostly by monks who feared the increasing empowerment of lay elements in Tibetan society. The Dalai Lama died in 1933, and the 14th Dalai Lama was found in 1940 at age 4 ½.

Communist Takeover and Tibetan “Liberation”:
In 1950, Chinese troops attacked Tibet, and the government could do nothing to resist but install the 14th Dalai Lama, a boy of 15 years old. An appeal to the United Nations was ineffective, as only El Salvador sponsored a motion to condemn the aggression. The presence of large numbers of Chinese troops in the Lhasa region depleted food stores and gave rise to massive inflation. There were rumors of massacres and forced political indoctrination. The “liberation” of Tibet was eventually to lead to 1.2 million deaths, a full-scale assault on the Tibetan way of life and culture, the large-scale destruction of almost every historical structure on the plateau, and the flight of the Dalai Lama (1959) and 120,000 Tibetans into exile. The principal culprits were the Cultural Revolution in China and ethnic chauvinism. The principal result was cultural genocide.

The Chinese took control of all the high passes between Tibet and India. Freedom fighters were killed, and young men were rounded up, shot, incarcerated, or put to work on Chinese work teams. As the Chinese themselves put it, they were liberating Tibet of reactionary forces and ushering in a new socialist society. They set about reordering Tibetan society in accordance with Marxist principles and whipped up a class struggle. They stole women’s jewellery and cut men’s plaits in the streets. The wholesale destruction of Tibet’s monastic heritage began in earnest, with riches being stolen, monks being force to discard their robes and marry, and scriptures burnt and used as toilet paper. The Dalai Lama was declared Enemy of the People Number One and Tibetans were forced to denounce him as a traitor and parasite. The Chinese changed Tibetan farming practices, which led to tens of thousands of deaths by starvation.

The TAR was formally brought into being in 1965, with talk of happy Tibetans fighting back tears of gratitude at becoming one with the great Motherland.

Post-Mao Years:
One year after Mao’s death, in 1977, the Chinese government announced that it would welcome the return of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan refugees. The Dalai Lama sent a fact-finding mission to Tibet first, and two others followed. They determined that 6254 monasteries had been destroyed, 1.2 million people killed, 100,000 Tibetans forced into labor camps, extensive deforestation carried out, and 2/3 of Tibet absorbed into China.

Limited religious freedoms came back in the early 1980s, but those who exercised those freedoms openly did so at considerable risk. Perhaps the most difficult thing for the Tibetans was the Chinese policy of Han immigration into Tibet. The government has lured Chinese settlers with preferential loans and tax rates, higher salaries, vacations and benefits, and a stipend for hardship posting. The government in exile estimates that of Lhasa’s 13,000 shopkeepers, only about 300 are Tibetan. Because of the Chinese immigration and birth control policies, Tibetans are now in danger of becoming a minority in their own land.

Although traditional Tibet had remained fundamentally unchanged for centuries, change is now coming at a fast pace. Tibet has changed more in the past 50 years than during the previous 500. Several regions are becoming more developed and immersed in a cash economy.

Despite coming under heavy attack under the Communist regime, traditional Tibetan social structures are starting to make a comeback. The Tibetans are still hoping for independence, but the Chinese government has not relented on its position regarding Tibet as a province of China and foreign governments are careful not to offend China. There is a small but growing split among the Tibetan community on the best way forward. The Dalai Lama advocates a peaceful struggle, and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for his efforts. But at least some Tibetans are starting to move away from his overtly pacifist stand.