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Words of Truth: A Prayer for the Land of Tibet by HH Dalai Lama 

Background 

The Tibetan plateau was inhabited at least as long as 20, 000 years ago. 

Once a loose federation of five or so kingdoms, Tibet had been a sovereign nation for hundreds of years prior to the Chinese occupation of 1949/50.  Today the Tibetan cultural area makes up 25% of Chinese geographical territory.  Large parts of Tibet such as Amdo and Kham comprise a great part of the Chinese provinces of Xinjiang and Qinghai, and were incorporated into China before the invasion.  Therefore, what lately has been designated the Tibet "Autonomous" Region (TAR) comprises only 1/4th of the land of Tibet, but it occupies a position of particular strategic importance. 

Once the juncture of Ladakh, Kashmir, Mustang, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, India, Bengal, Mongolia and China, Tibet despite its forbidding geography had cultural, linguistic, economic, and political relations with each one of those states and despite times when it held an inferior feudal position with regard to China -- the famous patron/client arrangement -- a majority of historians agree that Tibet was for centuries an independent country, thought it was rarely centralized.  As recently as 1918, a Chinese army was repulsed from the Kham border.

It is estimated that there are 6 million Tibetans.  Only 2 million inhabit the TAR; 4 million live outside that region, most in what is now China. 

According to Indian estimates, there are only 120, 000 Tibetan refugees living in exile in different parts of the world, most --  80, 000 to 90, 000 -- in India.  Countries such as Canada, Switzerland, and the USA have also become havens for Tibetan exiles.  Nepal and India have been generous in donating land for monasteries that function today as "incarnations" of those destroyed in the ruthless Cultural Revolution and its aftermath.   Currently involved in improving their economic links with the Peoples' Republic of China, both those countries have felt it necessary to curb their public support of Tibetan cultural and religious activities.    [^link to Goldstein and Beal's 1980s study of Pala nomadic herders of Tibet.]

For reasons given above, anthropologists and merchants use the word Tibet in a very wide sense meaning "Tibetan ethnographic area." This region, which is as big as the USA, extends from areas of Siberia, Buryata, and Mongolia in the north, to the Himalayan kingdoms of Nepal and Bhutan plus the recently incorporated Indian provinces of Sikkim and Mustang, and the rest of Himalayan India in the south. It also includes Ladakh, Lahoul, Spiti, and Kinnaur in the west, the Tatar regions of Manchuria, part of Yunan and a good deal of Szechuan, China to the east.  There are Tibetan communities in the hills of Burma (Myanmar) and Laos, too. 

Called Bhot by Tibetans, the Mongols called the high plateau To-Bhot (high Bhot) which in European languages became Tibet.  In Nepal, the people of Tibetan heritage are called Bhotia. 

Until very recently, Tibet was a culture that relied on subsistence agriculture and herding. Except for caravans of traders, people mainly lived in the numerous valleys in small communities that exist in relative isolation. 

Armies detoured around it as far as was possible.  When they did not, large segments of the population picked up and moved out of their way.  In that way, Tibetans settled in Turkestan, Mongolia, Nepal and other areas.  

Travel to Tibet

According to Stephen Batchelor (The Tibet Guide: Western and Central Tibet. Wisdom Publications, 1998) if you are considering a visit Tibet know that,

"By visiting Tibet, tourists contribute much needed foreign exchange to the [People's Republic] Chinese government only a small percentage of which is likely to reach the local [Tibetan] people.  On the other hand, it is also true that worldwide sympathy for the plight of Tibet has increased enormously ever since foreign visitors have been allowed freedom of access to the country.  The Dalai Lama has personally encouraged people to go to Tibet to see the situation there for themselves.  . . .  ." AND " . . ., if you stay in small Tibetan-run hotels, eat at Tibetan-run restaurants and shop in Tibetan stores, you can contribute directly to the local indigenous [ie. Tibetan] economy."

However in 2003, the People's Republic of China decided to import 100 non-Tibetan tourist guides to "serve" the most frequently visited Tibetan areas. 

Since that time, thousands of Chinese have been relocated to TAR.

History

Before the seventh century CE, there were no written records.  Notched sticks and knotted cords were in use as aids to memory.  There may have been a form of picture writing, and certainly pictures and symbols were used for religious and ritual purposes. 

In 622, King Srong.tsan (pron. Songtsen) Gam.po who conquered territories in China and India, sent his minister Thomi Sambhota (regarded an incarnation of Manjushri) to collect sacred books from India.  As a consequence, a written Tibetan language was developed that is derived from the Devnagri script used for Sanskrit.  The originally brush-formed letters with horizontal heads have changed little though they are carved into blocks of wood for use in printing.  A half-cursive form with "cornered letters" developed into the more current headless form. 

Though the first Buddhist objects reached Tibet from Nepal in 461, it was Songtsen Gampo who firmly helped establish Buddhism.  In this he had the help of two of his wives, the princess Bribsun (pron. Trisun, a.k.a. Bhirkuti,) daughter of King Jyotivarma of Nepal, and the princess Wen Ching from imperial China.  He also had a Tibetan wife, who is often depicted holding their child.  Some scholars believe that the two "foreign" women are the actual inspiration for the cults of the Green and the White Taras, respectively.

In 639, the same ruler founded Lha-ldan (God's ground,) the city that is known as Lhasa (pron. Hasa.)  Succeeding kings favored Buddhism, and during the eighth century, invited Indian scholars to Tibet.  When Kamalashila came, the monastery of Samye was built for him.  

The fifth of the Tibetan kings, Khri-srong De-tsan (Trisong Deutsen) set an influential example when he abandoned Bon, the traditional beliefs, for Buddhism.  Under his rule in 747, Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche) arrived from the southwestern regions.  During his short stay his impact was widely felt, for besides translating many volumes of the Kanjur (the Buddhist canon,) his personal influence firmly established the tantric Buddhist tradition.

Relations With China

By 763, repeated incursions by the Chinese had increased tensions, so King Trisong Deutsen ordered a force of  200,000 men to proceed from A-sha to confront them.  After defeating the Chinese army at the border, the victorious Tibetans continued on to the capital city which, at that time was Ch'ang-an (present-day Xian in Shanxi province.)  The Chinese emperor, Tai-Tsung (763-804) fled for his life.

These events occurred during the reigns of Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne (768-814) ruler of a greater France, and of Haroun al-Rashid (786-809) who is characterized as the pitiless Caliph of Baghdad in The Thousand and One Nights' Entertainment.   Tibet and China eventually agreed on the treaty of Ch'ing-shui in 783.  This established that the boundary between the two countries would be the Tatu River and that all land in the Kokonor region west of T'ao-chou was to be ceded to Tibet.

In 790, the Tibetans recaptured four Turkic garrison towns that they had lost to the Chinese a hundred years before (in 694.)   Inspired by this victory, the Tibetan army continued as far west as the Pamirs, the Oxus River and the lake to its north that had long been called by the caliph's subjects, Al-Tubbat -- Arabic for "the Tibetan" [lake]. 

Alarmed by this advance, the Caliph allied himself with China in order to keep Tibet in check.  Attacked by these allied forces, the Tibetans held on without substantial loss of territory despite considerable loss of life. 

These events occurred during Japan's Heian period (794-1192,) while in the region of Burma-Cambodia, the Khmer civilization (800-1432) that eventually produced Angkor Wat emerged, soon to dominate southeast Asia. 

After assuming the Tibetan throne, Tri Ralpachen (806-841) sent troops towards the Chinese border, but through the intercession of Buddhists in both countries a peaceful resolution was eventually accomplished.  Solemn and inclusive religious ceremonies sealed the peace treaty that was signed in 821.  

Besides the Buddhist invocation to the Triple Gem, the celestial bodies were called upon as witnesses to the agreement.  The text of this unprecedented and praiseworthy treaty was inscribed on stone pillars in the manner of Indian ruler, Ashoka (272-231 BCE.) 

There are at least three of these public announcements:  

One was erected outside the Chinese emperor's palace gate in Ch'ang-an (Xian, in Shanxi province.)  The Tibetan counterpart was erected the next year --  822, before the principal entrance to the Jokhang in Lhasa.  (Its western face bears the inscription of the treaty in both Tibetan and Chinese. The eastern side bears an edict concerning the nature of Sino-Tibetan relations.  On the north are the names of the seventeen Tibetan officials who participated, and on the south are the names of the eighteen Chinese officials.)  The third pillar was erected in 823, at Gugu Meru right on the border between the two countries. 

The edicts publicly reaffirm the boundaries established by the earlier (783) treaty of Ch'ing-shuil, and were to have restored the formal ancient relationship of mutual respect and friendship forever. 

The Lhasa pillar is still standing and 1, 200 years later, we can still read: 

Tibet and China shall guard the present border and the territory over which they each hold sway.  All to the east of the present boundary is the domain of Great China.  All to the west is totally the domain of Great Tibet . . .  .  Tibetans shall be happy in the land of Tibet; Chinese shall be happy in the land of China.

Oppression of Buddhism, and then, Revival 

Beginning in 899 under King Lang-dharma, there was widespread persecution of Buddhists, which some historians attribute to concern over a decline in political authority.  The consequences of that oppression was a period of about 5 generations during which there was some social and cultural decline and confusion.  However, Buddhism was firmly re-established after the arrival in 1050 of Atisha, who had come from Bengal to settle at the great monastery of Thoding.  This revival was complemented by the work of the intrepid Tibetan, Marpa the Translator and his devoted student, the yogi Milarepa. 

Various monasteries then exerted predominant influence, but the original stream is known as Nyingma.  Sakya lamas were the next to establish their monastery and tradition, followed by the Kagyu who were the first to publicly announce incarnated lamas.  Change came with reforms instituted by Tsongkhapa, who in 1407 organized a conservative form of  Buddhism usually referred to as Gelugpa. 

In return for helping Buddhism reach the Mongols,* the Gelug lama, Sonam Gyatso, received the abbotship of Ganden near Lhasa and the title in 1576, of Dalai Lama (Ocean, or Wide-wisdom, Teacher.)   During the reign of the fifth Dalai Lama, the Mongols exerted such influence in Tibet that some local rulers even called for Chinese intervention.  In response, Gushri Khan decided to invade Tibet and in 1645, established the Dalai Lama as monarch.

The Dalai Lama, also called Gyalpo Rinpoche (Precious King,) is one of those considered to be an incarnation on earth of Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara.  The Tashi or Panchen Lama, though, is considered the incarnation of Buddha Amitabha.  The former, being closer to sentient beings in experience, perhaps held greater secular power, and he was situated in the capital Lhasa, in his palace and monastery called the Potala.  

The Tashi Lama at Tashilunpo, though he is also considered an emanation of Buddha Amitabha, was "only" spiritual advisor to the former. [link is to 1902 drawing by S. C. Das.]

The various 7 or 8 regions of Tibet were administered by both lamas and laymen. There were local rulers,  aristocracies and landholders, as well as territories administered by monastic institutions or labrangs.  Besides various ministers of state, there was a national assembly, the Tsongdu, and a lesser assembly that was always in session.  Administrative subdivisions were divided into prefectures, each under two men -- one a layman, the other a lama.  They collected taxes in kind -- sheep, barley, wool -- and were responsible for judicial duties and communications.  Under these local sub-prefects were the village headmen and elders who were appointed.

We have accounts by travelers such as the Italian, Marco Polo, some Arab and  Turkish traders, and there may also be evidence of earlier Roman contact.  However, the first documented European contact came in 1661 with the Jesuit Antonio Andrada.  Six years later an Austrian traveled to Lhasa followed by the Belgian, D'orville.  In 1774, British East India Company agents reached the Tashi Lama at Shigatse. 

In the 19th-century, Europeans were prevented from entering Tibet, and expelled if caught. They managed to visit the Forbidden City anyway.  The Bengali Indian scholar Sarat Chandra Das whose dictionary is well-known, obtained Tibetan texts, and the American W. W. Rockhill collected geographical information.  When Indian officials tried to open trade with Tibet, they were refused and fighting broke out in Sikkim. 

The Tibetans were repulsed by the British; the Chinese intervened, and a treaty was signed which the Tibetans refused to recognize. When a Mongolian Russian, Dorjieff, interested the Russians in Tibet and the Dalai Lama tried to play Russia off against the British, the "Great Game" was afoot.  

Russian arms began arriving in Lhasa and British interests were threatened when conflict again broke out on the Sikkim-Tibetan border.  After fruitless negotiations, Col. F. E. Younghusband managed to enter Tibet in December 1903 with armed British troops that reached Lhasa in August.  Finally, a treaty resulted which included trade concessions.

Though the Russians and British agreed to stay out of Tibet, the Chinese were not included in the picture.  Though a large segment of  Tibetan territory had been under Chinese influence as for example, western  Szechuan, for the most part Tibet had been able to exert its independence as the Chinese situation deteriorated severely in the 20th century. 

Under the Communists, a treaty was signed, which Tibet, defenceless in the community of nations, could not avoid.  Then the Chinese broke the conditions and moved great numbers of troops and Chinese settlers into Tibet. 

Interference was followed by fighting, most notably in the eastern part of Tibet. Then the Dalai Lama fled to India as did many other people.

All in all, it is estimated 1.5 million died as a consequence of the invasion. The Cultural Revolution period of the 1960's was especially damaging.

A conservative estimate of the number of Tibetans living in exile in lands other than China is 150, 000. 

In an effort to undermine the attachment felt by the people of Tibet for its religious leaders, many of whom had left, the PRC government began to intervene in the selection of reincarnate lamas, most notably the Panchen Lama whose monastic status is higher than the Dalai Lama's.

In Jan. 2000, the present (17th) Karmapa, Urgyen Trinlay Dorje was obliged to flee in order to be able to fulfill his religious aspiration. 

Today, roads, dams and railroads are being built with slave labor.  The environment is being ruined and the natural resources robbed.  News regularly emerges with the testimony of fleeing refugees, of atrocities being committed on the land, the animals and the people.

"In 1950, the forested areas of eastern Tibet were annexed to China and renamed as parts of Sichuan and Yunnan [for example, Kartse.] Tibet's forests became the PRC's second largest timber source, and an intense programme of clearance began. It is estimated that in 1950 forests covered 9% of Tibet, but that by 1985 the total area had been reduced to 5%. In Kham, between 1950 and 1985 forest cover was reduced from 30% to 18% -- an estimated reduction of 40%. In U'Tsang and Amdo there was a 50% reduction. Roads continue to be built to make the forests accessible for logging. By 1985, 15% of U'Tsang's forests and 50-70% of those in Kham had been opened up by road. " ~ Tibet Facts 3

~ I am indebted to John Brzostoski's article at  Art of Tibet. 

*Some links are to historical maps from the University of Texas' Perry-Castaneda collection.

As a hermit kingdom Tibet avoided foreign dealings, but as a Buddhist pacifist country she needed a defence umbrella, as does post-war pacifist Japan today. She took it from powerful friendly neighbours Mongols, Manchus, Nepalese, tacitly, perhaps, British India.  She was in all other ways completely self-governing.

In Europe’s medieval period, the religious and temporal rulers had an ambiguous, often competitive, relationship, their fluctuating fortunes determining the extent of interference in one another’s ecclesiastical and political affairs, but neither could claim suzerainty or sovereignty over the other, especially after the establishment of the modern state system. Thus China sought to influence procedures of selection of important lamas as religious-cum-political authorities, but on entry into the international system, both countries became bound by the rules of modern nationhood.
Nationality is grounded in many factors, ethnic, geographical, cultural, linguistic, historical et al, and on all counts Tibet has a clear claim to national Statehood.

In 1913, the 13th Dalai Lama declared Tibet independent, issuing stamps
and passports and creating other paraphernalia of a modern sovereign
state. (Outer Mongolia became independent in 1911, got linked to the
Soviet Union in 1924 and re-emerged as a democracy in 1992. Inner
Mongolia was demographically Han-ised and integrated into China as an
"autonomous" province.)

Tibet’s independence was recognised by neighbours such as Russia and British India with whom she had treaty relationships. The independent Tibetan entity lasted over three decades.  Hence the entry of the PLA into Tibet in 1949 was, according to UN law, an act of aggression into another sovereign territory. The continuing occupation and exploitation thereafter bears all the marks of a classic colonial enterprise. It is not only overseas imperialism that deserves the name: Russia and China were and the latter still is, a land empire
with adjoining colonies.

The 1914 Shimla Treaty, negotiated between a sovereign Tibet, a sovereign China and the British Empire in India, resulted in the MacMahon Line between "inner Tibet" and India and a demarcation between "outer Tibet" and China.  However, the Chinese representative merely initialled and did not sign the treaty.  China keeps India on the defensive by harping on the fact that the MacMahon Line is an imperialist boundary. British imperialism’s fairly orderly withdrawal from her colonies could not have been possible if the successor states had not respected the boundaries, however inequitable, it left behind.
India and Pakistan abide by Radcliffe’s lines: even China did not absorb
Hong Kong till the British lease lapsed. The outstanding post-colonial
illegality is China’s brutal military occupation of Tibet, and India’s
anomaly is to recognise the boundary but not respect the status of the
other "high contracting party."

With contestable historical and legal claims, China embarked on a ruthless policy of re-structuring Tibet, absorbing good parts of her territories into Chinese provinces, altering her demography from fully ethnically Tibetan to a Han majority. Having failed to eliminate Buddhism from the plateau, and having failed to live with it, the signs now are that China regards Buddhism itself as subversive of her legitimacy. Tibetan government employees are required to be demonstratively atheist to keep their jobs.

After leaving Tibet in 1959 the 14th Dalai Lama re-asserted Tibet’s Constitutional independence, repudiating the 17-point Agreement of virtual surrender which had been signed under duress by his representatives in Beijing. With dwindling support from India and the international community in the face of force majeure, he, at Strasbourg in 1988, announced his "Middle Way"
compromise, a modern version of the pre-1913 status quo ante, accepting
Chinese sovereignty in foreign affairs and defence, but demanding genuine administrative and religio-cultural autonomy for the shrunken TAR (Tibet Autonomous Region), and the right to speak for all Tibetans, i.e., including the majority outside the TAR.

If earlier China used northern Tibet for her nuclear base cum dumping ground for wastes, and mined the country for ores and depleted her of forest cover, today the large immigrant Chinese population is generously serviced with modern infrastructure and urban comforts. Similarly, the plateau is now the object of a belated concern for her ravaged ecosystem, but Tibet and her neighbours are still threatened by China’s plans to divert rivers originating in Tibet to water mainland China’s arid regions.

The Dalai Lama, despite his refusal, or inability, to conduct either terrorist campaigns or satyagrahas in occupied Tibet, keeps the issue simmering in the international community by his sheer presence. It does not attract the same attention as Palestine, probably lacking, as His Holiness puts it, an oil dimension. Still, even though the Middle Way formula cuts no ice in Beijing, China over the past decade responded to international pressures and resumed a farcical round of talks with his representatives.

However, as China’s military-industrial complex grows, so does her stonewalling: Lodi Gyari, leader of the Tibetan delegation said in Paris on the eve of their last trip, "in recent times the Chinese side has been coming out with statements and actions that not only do not contribute to the creation of a congenial atmosphere, but are direct attempts to undermine the Tibetan position and discredit the person of the Dalai Lama." On return his brief public statement simply announced that "both sides expressed in strong terms their divergent positions on a number of issues."

To manage the approaching Olympics so that embarrassing pro-Tibet
demonstrations as at the Games venue in Athens be not repeated in
Beijing, Hu Jintao calls for harmony, but the Dalai Lama underscores the
need for Chinese rulers to overcome their overweening harshness and
arrogance.

The Chinese hope that the Tibetan problem will go away with the Dalai Lama, whenever that happens. But India still needs the Tibetan card. The Tibetan Youth Congress, though kept on a non-violent leash, is very active. The Friends of Tibet, a group of Indian supporters, last month organised a well-attended international conference in Delhi for an independent Tibet, with resolutions demanding recognition for the Tibetan government-in-exile and for the UN according to its 1993 declaration, to move for the decolonisation of Tibet.

Finally, more than a "card," the Tibetan cause is a compelling moral cum political and strategic issue, powered by the energies of cultural and religious identity. China herself does not treat the case as closed.

2005: A Train to Lhasa

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