A “Dog-eat-dog” World: Qing Jurispractices and the Legal Inscription of Piety in Amdo

Abstract

Historians of Tibet have largely ignored the influence of the Qing colonial context on the development of Tibetan society. Using previously inaccessible Chinese, Tibetan, and Manchu-language archives from Qinghai and Gansu, this essay examines the ramifications of Qing rule on the development of legal culture in the Amdo region. In the late 18th century, the arrival of Qing magistrates in Amdo presented new opportunities for Tibetan litigants to resolve conflicts. Although reluctant to get involved in lawsuits, Qing officials soon found themselves dragged into a variety of matters ranging from natural resource disputes among Tibetan laypeople to large scale feuding between monasteries over issues such as the appointment of abbots, pilgrimage, and rights over property—both animate and inanimate, belonging to the estates of reincarnate lamas. This litigation not only resulted in the creation of a new “Tibetan” code derived from Mongol law and other indigenous practices, but also generated a large body of decisions and compacts, composed in both Tibetan and Chinese, that profoundly shaped the organization of indigenous society in Amdo. These new traditions of “jurispractice” fundamentally re-shaped the political and religious structures of local society and resulted in legal restrictions and regulations of religious activities.