TIBET HISTORY
However general, the history of Tibet begins with the rule of Namri Songzen, who first attempts to unify Tibet. His son Songtsän Gampo (604–649 AD) united parts of the Yarlung River Valley and ruled Tibet as a kingdom. In 640 he married Princess Wencheng, the niece of the powerful Chinese emperor Taizong.
Tibetan forces conquered the Tuyuhun Kingdom of modern Qinghai and Gansu to the northeast in 663 AD. Tibet also controlled the Tarim Basin and adjoining regions (now called Xinjiang), including the city of Kashgar, from 670 to 692 AD, when they were defeated by Chinese forces.
The Tibetans were allied with the Arabs and eastern Turks. In 747, Tibet’s hold over Central Asia was weakened by the campaign of general Gao Xianzhi, who re-opened the direct communications between Central Asia and Kashmir. By 750 the Tibetans had lost almost all of their central Asian possessions to the Chinese. However, after Gao Xianzhi’s defeat by the Arabs and Qarluqs at the Battle of Talas river (751), Chinese influence decreased rapidly and Tibetan influence resumed. Tibet conquered large sections of northern India and even briefly took control of the Chinese capital Chang’an in 763 during the chaos of the An Shi Rebellion.
In 821/822 AD Tibet and China signed a peace treaty. A bilingual account of this treaty including details of the borders between the two countries are inscribed on a stone pillar which stands outside the Jokhang temple in Lhasa. Tibet continued as a Central Asian empire until the mid-9th century.
Mongol Empire and Yuan Dynasty
Göden, a brother of Güyük, entered the country with military force in 1240. In 1244, Göden Khan ordered the Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyeltsen to meet him in Liangzhou for the purpose of spiritual instruction in Buddhism. Göden received various initiation rites and the Sakya sect of Tibetan Buddhism became the religion of the ruling line of Mongol khans. In return, after a second Mongol invasion in 1247 led to the submission of almost all Tibetan states, Sakya Pandita was appointed Viceroy of Tibet by the Mongol court in 1249, marking one of the occasions on which the Chinese base their claim to the rule of Tibet.
Sakya was accompanied by two of his nephews: Chana Dorje (Phyag-na Rdo-rje) would later marry a daughter of Kublai Khan, and Phagpa would become Kublai’s spiritual teacher. Despite the 1247 invasion and further expeditions into Tibet in 1251/52, it is generally held that the Tibetan experience with the Mongols was much less traumatic than that of other peoples, since the Mongol expeditions to Tibet were in part influenced by Tibetan leaders who sought to unify Tibet by the hands of the Mongol armies, but who for obvious reasons influenced the Mongols in exercising restraint in their handling of the Tibetans.
Through their influence with the Mongol rulers, Tibetan lamas gained considerable influence in different Mongol clans, not only with Kublai, but for example also with the Il-Khanids. Kublai’s success in succeeding Möngke as Great Khan meant that after 1260, Phagpa and the House of Sakya would only wield greater influence. Phagpa became head of all Buddhist monks in the Yuan empire, and Sakya would become the administrative center of Tibet. The lamaist clergy would receive considerable financial support, at the cost of mainly the Chinese areas ruled by the Yuan Dynasty. Tibet would also enjoy a rather high degree of autonomy compared to other parts of the Yuan empire, though further expeditions took place in 1267, 1277, 1281 and 1290/91.
In 1253, Phagpa (1235-1280) succeeded Sakya Pandita at the Mongol court. Phagpa became a religious teacher to Göden Khan’s famous successor, Kublai Khan. Kublai Khan named Phagpa the Imperial Preceptor of Tibet, offering him the rule of all Tibet. This is one of the points under contention in the issue of Tibetan independence, with the pro-Tibet argument of Tibet having been ruled by Tibetan rulers, ignoring the fact that Tibet was conquered by the Mongols in 1247 and that the “Tibetan ruler” Phagpa derived the power of his rule from the Mongol Empire.
Tibet would be ruled by a succession of Sakya lamas until 1358, when central Tibet came under control of the Kagyu sect.
Ming Dynasty
Main article: Tibet during the Ming Dynasty
Modern historians still debate on the exact relationship the Chinese Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) had with Tibet. Some scholars support the view that the Ming Dynasty had full sovereignty over Tibet, while others believe that Tibet was simply an independent tributary and that the Ming merely had non-militant suzerainty over Tibet by granting lama rulers various official titles.
Late 14th – 16th Century
Between 1346 and 1354, already towards the end of the Yuan dynasty, the House of Pagmodru would topple the Sakya. The following 80 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 Dragpa, and the founding of the Ganden, Drepung, and Sera monasteries near Lhasa. After the 1430s, the country entered another period of internal power struggles.
The Dalai Lama Lineage
It has been commonly wrongly believed that Altan Khan “bestowed” the “title” Dalai Lama on Sonam Gyatso, and placed him in a reincarnation line with Gendun Drup and Gendun Gyatso in 1578.
“More confusing in our time is that many writers have mistranslated Dalai Lama as “Ocean of Wisdom.” The full Mongolian title, “the wonderful Vajradhara, good splendid meritorious ocean,” given by Altan Khan, is primarily a translation of the Tibetan words Sonam Gyatso (sonam is “merit”).”
The 14th Dalai Lama added: “The very name of each Dalai Lama from the Second Dalai Lama onwards had the word Gyatso (in it), which means ‘ocean’ in Tibetan. Even now I am Tenzin Gyatso, so the first name is changing but the second part (the word “ocean”) became like part of each Dalai Lama’s name. All of the Dalai Lamas, since the Second, have this name. So I don’t really agree that the Mongols actually conferred a title. It was just a translation.”
While this did not really mark the beginning of a massive conversion of Mongols to Buddhism (this would only happen in the 1630s), it did lead to the widespread use of Buddhist ideology for the legitimation of power among the Mongol nobility. Lastly, the fourth Dalai Lama was a grandson of Altan Khan.
Khoshud, Dzungars, and the Qing Dynasty
His death was kept secret for 15 years by the regent (Tibetan: desi; Wylie: sde-srid), Sanggye Gyatso. His reasons for doing so are not really clear, but the Sixth Dalai Lama was only enthroned in 1697. The new Dalai Lama did not really live up to expectations: he would blackmail the Panchen Lama to let him return to the lay class, and afterwards grow long hair and spend the nights outside the palace, with women of his choice. He gained fame for writing love poetry.
In 1705, Lobzang Khan of the Khoshud used the 6th Dalai Lama’s escapades as excuse to take control of Tibet. The regent was murdered, and the Dalai Lama sent to Beijing. He died on the way, in Koko Nur, ostensibly from illness. Lobzang Khan appointed a new Dalai Lama, who however was not accepted by the Gelugpa school. A rival reincarnation was found in Koko Nur.
The Dzungars invaded Tibet in 1717, deposed and killed a pretender to the position of Dalai Lama (who had been promoted by Lhabzang, the titular King of Tibet), which met with widespread approval. However, they soon began to loot the holy places of Lhasa which brought a swift response from Emperor Kangxi in 1718, but his military expedition was annihilated by the Dzungars not far from Lhasa.
Many Nyingmapa and Bonpos were executed and Tibetans visiting Dzungar officials were forced to stick their tongues out so the Dzungars could tell if the person recited constant mantras (which was said to make the tongue black or brown). This allowed them to pick the Nyingmapa and Bonpos, who recited many magic-mantras. This habit of sticking one’s tongue out as a mark of respect on greeting someone has remained a Tibetan custom until recent times.
A second, larger, expedition sent by Emperor Kangxi expelled the Dzungars from Tibet in 1720 and the troops were hailed as liberators. They brought Kelzang Gyatso with them from Kumbum to Lhasa and he was installed as the seventh Dalai Lama in 1721.
The Qing put Amdo under their rule in 1724, and incorporated eastern Kham into neighbouring Chinese provinces in 1728. The Qing government sent a resident commissioner (amban) to Lhasa. Tibetan factions rebelled in 1750 and killed the ambans. Then, a Qing army entered and defeated the rebels and installed an administration headed by the Dalai Lama. The number of soldiers in Tibet was kept at about 2,000. The defensive duties were partly helped out by a local force which was reorganized by the resident commissioner, and the Tibetan government continued to manage day-to-day affairs as before.
While the ancient Sino-Tibetan relationships are complex, there can be no question regarding the subordination of Tibet to Manchu-ruled China following the chaotic era of the 6th and 7th Dalai Lamas. Already in 1725 two high Chinese commissioners had been appointed to control the temporal affairs of the country. In 1751, the Manchu (Qing) Emperor Qianlong established the Dalai Lama as both the spiritual leader and political leader of Tibet who lead a government (Kashag) with four Kalöns in it.
In 1788, Gurkha forces sent by Bahadur Shah, the Regent of Nepal, invaded Tibet, occupying a number of frontier districts. The young Panchen Lama fled to Lhasa and the Manchu Qianlong Emperor sent troops to Lhasa, upon which the Nepalese withdrew agreeing to pay a large annual sum.
In 1791 the Nepalese Gurkhas invaded Tibet a second time, seizing Shigatse and destroyed, plundered, and desecrated the great Tashilhunpo Monastery. The Panchen Lama was forced to flee to Lhasa once again. The Qianlong Emperor then sent an army of 17,000 men to Tibet. In 1793, with the assistance of Tibetan troops, they managed to drive the Nepalese troops to within about 30 km of Kathmandu before the Gurkhas conceded defeat and returned all the treasure they had plundered.[48] Soon the Chinese emperor decreed that the selection of the Dalai Lama and other high lamas such as the Panchen Lama was under the supervision of Qing government’s Amban Commissioners in Lhasa. An imperial edict ordered that future dalai lamas were to be chosen from the names of children drawn from a “golden urn”.
European contact
Portuguese missionaries in 1624 by the hand of António de Andrade, and were welcomed by the Tibetans who allowed them to build a church. The 18th century brought more Jesuits and Capuchins from Europe who gradually met opposition from Tibetan lamas who finally expelled them from Tibet in 1745. However, at the time not all Europeans were banned from the country — in 1774 a Scottish nobleman, George Bogle, came to Shigatse to investigate trade for the British East India Company, introducing the first potatoes into Tibet.
However by the 19th century the situation of foreigners in Tibet grew more ominous. The British Empire was encroaching from northern India into the Himalayas and Afghanistan and the Russian Empire of the tsars was expanding south into Central Asia and each power became suspicious of intent in Tibet. In 1840, Sándor Kőrösi Csoma arrived in Tibet, hoping that he would be able to trace the origin of the Magyar ethnic group. By the 1850s Tibet had banned all foreigners from Tibet and shut its borders to all outsiders.
In 1865 Great Britain began secretly mapping Tibet. Trained Indian surveyor-spies disguised as pilgrims or traders counted their strides on their travels across Tibet and took readings at night. Nain Singh, the most famous, measured the longitude and latitude and altitude of Lhasa and traced the Yarlung Tsangpo River.
British Invasion
At the beginning of the twentieth century the British and Russian Empires competed for supremacy in Central Asia. Tibet was the biggest prize of this rivalry. To forestall the Russians, in 1904, a British expedition led by Colonel Francis Younghusband was sent to Lhasa to force a trading agreement and to prevent Tibetans from establishing a relationship with the Russians.
On July 19, 1903, Younghusband arrived at Gangtok, the capital city of the Indian state of Sikkim, to prepare for his mission. A letter from the under-secretary to the government of India to Younghusband on July 26, 1903 stated that “In the event of your meeting the Dalai Lama, the government of India authorizes you to give him the assurance which you suggest in your letter.” The British took a few months to prepare for the expedition which pressed into Tibetan territories in early December 1903. The entire British force numbered over 3,000 fighting men and was accompanied by 7,000 sherpas, porters and camp followers.
The Tibetans were aware of the expedition. To avoid bloodshed the Tibetan general at Yetung pledged that if the Tibetans make no attack upon the British, no attack should be made by the British on them. Colonel Younghusband on December 6, 1903 replied that “we are not at war with Tibet and that, unless we are ourselves attacked, we shall not attack the Tibetans.”
Despite the mutual agreement, the British expedition did take the lives of a few thousand unprepared Tibetan soldiers and civilians. The biggest massacre took place on March 31, 1904 at a mountain pass halfway to Gyantse near a village called Guru. Colonel Younghusband tricked the 2,000 Tibetan soldiers guarding the pass into extinguishing the burning ropes of their basic rifles before firing at them with the Maxim machine guns and rifles. The Tibetan casualty, according to Younghusband’s account, was “500 killed and wounded.” Others have claimed that the Tibetan casualty was as high as 1,300.
According to the British, their intention was to disarm Tibetan soldiers who were being surrounded. The slaughter was triggered by the Tibetans who fired the first shot. But the accounts of those who pulled the triggers make it clear that the British had the intention of killing as many as possible. “From three sides at once a withering volley of magazine fire crashed into the crowded mass of Tibetans,” wrote Perceval Landon. “Under the appalling punishment of lead, they [the Tibetans] staggered, failed and ran…Men dropped at every yard.”
The British soldiers mowed down the Tibetans with machine guns as they fled. “I got so sick of the slaughter that I ceased fire, though the general’s order was to make as big a bag as possible,” wrote Lieutenant Arthur Hadow, commander of the Maxim guns detachment. “I hope I shall never again have to shoot down men walking away.”
In a telegraph to his superior in India, the day after the massacre, Younghusband stated: “I trust the tremendous punishment they have received will prevent further fighting, and induce them to at last to negotiate.”
When the mission reached Lhasa, the Dalai Lama had already fled to Urga in Mongolia (and was consequently deposed by the Chinese government). As Younghusband found the option of returning to India empty-handed untenable, he proceeded to draft a treaty unilaterally, and have it signed in the Potala by the regent, Ganden Tri Rinpoche, and any other local officials he could gather together as an ad hoc government. The Tibetan ministers Younghusband dealt with had apparently, unknown to him, just been appointed to their posts. The regular ministers had been imprisoned for suspected pro-British leanings and it was feared they would be too accommodating to Younghusband. A treaty was signed by lay and ecclesiastical officials of the said Tibetan government, and by representatives of the three monasteries of Sera, Drepung, and Ganden and the British force left the city of Lhasa on 23 September 1904.
The treaty made provisions for the frontier between Sikkim and Tibet to be respected, for free trade between British and Tibetan subjects, and for an indemnity to be paid from the Qing court to the British Government for its expenses in dispatching armed troops to Lhasa. It also made provision for a British trade agent to reside at the trade mart at Gyangzê. The provisions of this 1904 treaty were confirmed in a 1906 treaty signed between Britain and China, in which the British, for a fee from the Qing court, also agreed “not to annex Tibetan territory or to interfere in the administration of Tibet.” The position of British Trade Agent at Gyangzê was occupied from 1904 until 1944. It was not until 1937, with the creation of the position of “Head of British Mission Lhasa”, that a British officer had a permanent posting in Lhasa itself. A Nepalese agency had also been established in Lhasa after the invasion of Tibet by the Gurkha government of Nepal in 1855.
In the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1906 which confirmed the Anglo-Tibetan Treaty of 1904, Britain agreed “not to annex Tibetan territory or to interfere in the administration of Tibet” while China engaged “not to permit any other foreign state to interfere with the territory or internal administration of Tibet”. In the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, drafted by the British, Britain also recognized the “suzerainty of China over Thibet” and, in conformity with such admitted principle, engaged “not to enter into negotiations with Tibet except through the intermediary of the Chinese Government.”
Qing control reasserted
The Qing put Amdo under their rule in 1724, and incorporated eastern Kham into neighbouring Chinese provinces in 1728. Chinese government ruled these areas indirectly through the Tibetan noblemen. Tibetans claimed that Tibetan control of the Batang region of Kham in eastern Tibet appears to have continued uncontested from the time of an agreement made in 1726[65] until soon after the British invasion, which alarmed the Qing rulers in China. They sent an imperial official to the region to begin reasserting Qing control, but the locals revolted and killed him. The Qing government in Beijing then appointed Zhao Erfang, the Governor of Xining, “Army Commander of Tibet” to reintegrate Tibet into China. He was sent in 1905 (though other sources say this occurred in 1908) on a punitive expedition. His troops destroyed a number of monasteries in Kham and Amdo, and a process of sinification of the region was begun. Several observers and historians point out that some of the reforms implemented in this process also were beneficial to the local population.
After the Dalai Lama’s title’s had been restored in November 1908 and he was about to return to Lhasa from Amdo in the summer of 1909, the Chinese decided to send military forces to Lhasa to keep control over him. The Dalai Lama once again fled, this time to India, and was once again deposed by the Chinese. The situation was soon to change, however, as, after the fall of the Qing dynasty in October 1911, Zhao’s soldiers mutinied and beheaded him.
The Republic of China
On 1 January 1912 the Republic of China was established and one month later the regent of Qing Emperor Xuantong abdicated.[75] In April 1912 the Chinese garrison of troops in Lhasa surrendered to the Tibetan authorities while the new Chinese Republican government wished to make the commander of the Chinese troops in Lhasa its new Tibetan representative.
The Dalai Lama returned to Tibet from India in July 1912. By the end of 1912, the Chinese troops in Tibet had returned, via India, to China Proper.
The Tibet-Mongolia Treaty of 1913
In early 1913, Agvan Dorzhiev and two other Tibetan representatives signed a treaty in Urga, proclaiming mutual recognition and their independence from China. However, Agvan Dorzhiev’s authority to sign such a treaty has always been – and still is – disputed by some authorities including legal experts.
The 13th Dalai Lama himself denied he authorized Agvan Dorzhiev to conclude any treaties on behalf of Tibet. The Tibetan government never ratified this treaty and no Tibetan version of this treaty was published by Tibetan government. A Russian diplomat pointed out to the British ambassador that since Agvan Dorzhiev himself is a Russian subject, his legal ability to sign such a treaty is in question.
Some British authors have even disputed the mere existence of the treaty, but scholars of Mongolia generally are positive it exists, as were contemporary authors. The Mongolian text of the treaty has, for example, been published by the Mongolian Academy of Sciences in 1982.
The Simla convention of 1914
In 1914, representatives of China, Tibet and Britain negotiated a treaty in India: the Simla Convention. During the convention, the British tried to divide Tibet into Inner and Outer Tibet. When negotiations broke down over the specific boundary between Inner and Outer, the British demanded instead to advance their line of control, enabling them to annex 9,000 square kilometers of traditional Tibetan territory in southern Tibet i.e Tawang region, which corresponds to the north-west parts of modern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, while recognizing Chinese suzerainty over Tibet and affirming the latter’s status as part of Chinese territory, with a promise from the Government of China that Tibet will not be converted into a Chinese province. Tibetan representatives signed without Chinese approval, more so as an act of defiance now that the Chinese army had left; after the collapse of Chinese authority in Tibet in 1912. China maintains that it was signed under British pressure; however, the representative of China’s central government declared that the secretive annexation of territory was not acceptable. The boundary established in the convention, the McMahon Line, was considered by the British and later the independent Indian government to be the boundary; however, the Chinese view since then has been that since China, which had suzerainty over Tibet, did not sign the treaty, the treaty was meaningless, and the annexation and control of parts of Arunachal Pradesh by India is illegal. This paved the way to the Sino-Indian War of 1962 and the boundary dispute between China and India today.
World War and the decentralisation of China
The subsequent outbreak of World War I and the division of China into military cliques ruled by warlords caused the Western powers and the infighting factions within China to lose interest in Tibet, and the 13th Dalai Lama ruled undisturbed until his death in 1933. At that time, the government of Tibet controlled all of Ü-Tsang (Dbus-gtsang) and western Kham (Khams), roughly coincident with the borders of Tibet Autonomous Region today. Eastern Kham, separated by the Yangtze River was under the control of Chinese warlord Liu Wenhui. The situation in Amdo (Qinghai) was more complicated, with the Xining area controlled after 1928 by the Hui warlord Ma Bufang, who constantly strove to exert control over the rest of Amdo (Qinghai).
In 1934, soon after the 13th Dalai Lama died, the Kashag reaffirmed their 1914 position that Tibet remains nominally part of China, provided the former shall manage its own political affairs.
In 1935 the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso was born in Amdo in eastern Tibet and was recognized as the latest reincarnation. He was taken to Lhasa in 1937 where he was later given an official ceremony in 1939. In 1943, U.S. government officially recognized Tibet as a part of China.] In 1944, during World War II, two Austrian mountaineers, Heinrich Harrer and Peter Aufschnaiter came to Lhasa, where Harrer became a tutor and friend to the young Dalai Lama, giving him sound knowledge of Western culture and modern society, until he was forced to leave in 1959.
Rule of the People’s Republic of China
Neither the Republic of China nor the People’s Republic of China have ever renounced China’s claim to sovereignty over Tibet. The People’s Liberation Army first entered Chamdo on October 7 1950. The highly mobile units of the PLA quickly surrounded the outnumbered Tibetan forces, and by October 19 1950, 5,000 Tibetan troops had surrendered. Since the signing of the Seventeen Point Agreement in 1951, Tibet has been officially incorporated into the People’s Republic of China. According to this Agreement between the Tibetan and Chinese central governments, the Dalai Lama-ruled Tibetan area was supposed to be a highly autonomous area of China. Before 1951, according to anthropologists, a vast majority of the people of Tibet were serfs (“mi ser”), often bound to land owned by monasteries and aristocrats. Tibetans in exile have claimed that the serfs and their masters formed only a small part of Tibetan society, and argued that Tibet would have modernized itself without China’s intervention. However, the Chinese government claims that most Tibetans were still serfs in 1951, and have proclaimed that the Tibetan government inhibited the development of Tibet during its self-rule from 1913 to 1959, and opposed modernization efforts by the Chinese government.
This 1951 agreement was initially put into effect in the Tibetan regions under Dalai Lama’s administration (Ü-Tsang and western Kham). However, Eastern Kham and Amdo (Qinghai) were considered by the Chinese to be outside the administration of the government of Tibet in Lhasa, and were thus treated like any other Chinese province with land redistribution implemented in full. Most lands were taken away from noblemen and monasteries and re-distributed to serfs. As a result, a rebellion led by noblemen and monasteries broke out in Amdo and eastern Kham in June 1956. The insurrection, supported by the American CIA, eventually spread to Lhasa. It was crushed by 1959. During this campaign, tens of thousands of Tibetans were killed. The 14th Dalai Lama and other government principals fled to exile in India, but isolated resistance continued in Tibet until 1972 when the CIA abruptly withdrew its support. After the Lhasa rebellion in 1959, the Chinese government lowered the level of autonomy of Central Tibet, and implemented full-scale land redistribution in all areas of Tibet.
