Thirteenth Dalai Lama Research Articles

Sain noyon xan kolostorvárosa

This article gives an overview of the three-hundred-year history of one ofthe largest Mongolian monasteries. During the Manchu period (1691–1911)and the sovereignty of the Mongols (1911–1921), it was the residence of theSain Noyon Khans, the rulers of Sain Noyon Khan Aimag. Although writtensources contain inconsistent data about its foundation, development, and thenames of its temples, the reminiscences of three old monks lively illustratethe life in the monastery and its vicinity before the destruction of the monastery. The monastery had various types of temples and schools, moreover,it was the headquarter of the Sain Noyon Khan himself. A local reincarnation and a Tibetan master resided there permanently, and the ThirteenthDalai Lama also visited it in 1906. The monastery was totally destroyed in1937–1938, but after the democratic changes old monks rebuilt a temple in1990, and started to educate the new generations of monks. The area is richin gold, thus the usual task of the monks is to pacify the local spirits. Manyof the statements of the article derive from the results of the ‘Documentationof Mongolian Monasteries Project’, taking place in 2007, which aimed atdocumenting all monasteries that ever existed in Mongolia.

Reimagining the Buddhist Universe: Pilgrimage and Cosmography in the Court of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama (1876–1933)

During his exiles from Lhasa in the 1910s, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama visited the holy places of Wutai Shan in China and Bodh Gaya in India. After his return, he commissioned paintings of these two places in cosmological mural programs of his palaces. While conforming to earlier iconographic traditions, these paintings employed empirical modes of representation unprecedented in Tibetan Buddhist paintings, revealing a close connection to the Dalai Lama's prior travels. This essay traces how these “modernized” renditions were incorporated into an existing pictorial template, and examines the deft rearticulation of a Buddhist cosmology in light of the Dalai Lama's own encounter with the shifting geopolitical terrains of the early twentieth century. I show that painting served as a powerful medium through which the Dalai Lama asserted his spiritual sovereignty and temporal authority over modernity's work of boundary making. The study elucidates a sphere of agency and creativity in the court of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama that has evaded historical inquiries to date.

Fit for a King? The Significance of a Gift Exchange between the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and King George V

AbstractBritain's tentatively built diplomatic ties with Tibet received a jolt on 28 June 1913 when four Tibetan boys and their chaperone Kusho Lungshar went to meet George V, King of England and Emperor of India at Buckingham Palace. Lungshar and the boys brought with them an extensive range of gifts and letters from the thirteenth Dalai Lama, inadvertently giving the British government a diplomatic headache: not only could this potentially have been interpreted as a breach of the 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention, but what should be given in return? By bringing together recently identified objects and archives now located in the British Museum, the British Library and the Victoria and Albert Museum, this paper will focus on the products of this encounter: the gifts. They will be considered here as statements of independence, signifiers of ‘Tibetanness’ and as examples of the developing protocols constructed by Britain in response to its encounter with Tibet.2

Beyond Shangri-La: America and Tibet’s Move into the Twenty-First Century by John Kenneth Knaus

Beyond Shangri-La: America and Tibet's Move into the Twenty-First Century by John Kenneth Knaus. American Encounters/Global Interactions Series. Durham, North Carolina, Duke University Press, 2012. xvii. 355 pp. $25.95 US (paper). Given the dearth of works on the relationship between the United States and Tibet, a monograph with the scope of John Kenneth Knaus' Beyond Shangri-La--which begins at first contact and runs through to the present--is a welcome addition. The author brings a wealth of invaluable personal experience, having long been acquainted with Tibet since his days training rebels there for the CIA beginning in the 1950s. As an historian, Knaus previously authored Orphans of the Cold War: America and the Tibetan Struggle for Survival (New York, 2000). Aside from works from this author, see: Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison, The CIA's Secret War in Tibet (Lawrence, Kansas, 2002); Melvyn C. Goldstein's exhaustive three-volume history of Tibet, A History of Modern Tibet, 1913-1951: The Demise of the Lamaist State (Berkeley, 1989); A History of Modern Tibet, Volume 2: The Calm Before the Storm, 1951-1955 (Berkeley, 1997); and, A History of Modern Tibet, Volume 3: The Storm Clouds Descend, 1955-1957 (Berkeley, 2013); and, Carole McGranahan, Arrested Histories: Tibet, the CIA, and Memories of a Forgotten War (Durham, North Carolina, 2010). Historically, on the infrequent occasions when Americans took notice of this sprawling, sparsely-populated corner of China, they have shown warm feelings toward the Tibetan people and sympathy for their long-standing struggle for autonomy. Though Tibetans practice Buddhism rather than Christianity, Americans admire their deep spirituality. Politically, Americans often subconsciously superimpose their nation's own anti-colonial struggle on the region, casting the Chinese as the oppressive British Redcoats and the Tibetans as the brave revolutionaries. When China went through an abortive democratic revolution in 1911, the country subsequently fragmented and regional warlords asserted their rule. This upheaval created an opportunity for Tibet to secure de facto independence with British support. This meant that Americans first took notice of Tibet at one of the relatively brief intervals over the past millennium when it was not under Chinese rule. During this period, the conservative religious authorities who held real power foiled the thirteenth Dalai Lama's attempts at reform and modernization, yet Americans often assume that Tibet could and should be independent. That said, at no point, however, has Washington been willing to provide the sort of political or material aid required to fulfill the aspirations of Tibetan nationalists. Knaus' overarching theme is that America has been in the right when it has supported Tibetan autonomy, but that it has never developed a coherent, sustained strategy that could deliver it. The first official contact was made between the United States and Tibet in 1908, when President Teddy Roosevelt's envoy to China, William Woodville Rockhill, travelled to Tibet to meet the dispossessed Dalai Lama. …

Children’s Healthcare and Astrology in the Nurturing of a Central Tibetan Nation-State, 1916–24

Abstract Between 1916 and 1924, a Tibetan public healthcare programme that focused on childcare and natal astrology comprised a central aspect of the mission of the Lhasa Mentsikhang (Institute of Medicine and Astrology). Assessing previously unused Tibetan language materials—including the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s edict for implementation and an accompanying childcare manual—the programme is contextualized with regard to regional developments in British India and China. Like British ‘mothercraft’ education programmes of the same period, the Tibetan initiative links the health of the population (from infancy) to the health of the state and its economy. Rather than appealing to the authority of ‘scientific’ colonial medicine, however, this paper discusses how indigenous medical techniques and theories are put forward as effective means to prove the nascent Central Tibetan state’s benevolence, legitimacy and sovereignty via intervention in the domestic sphere. Such attention to medical reform and to the domestic sphere brings light to an underappreciated effort by the Thirteenth Dalai Lama to cultivate a sense of Tibetan subjecthood and to reconfigure the relationship between his government and various segments of society. Significantly, this childcare initiative was entrusted not just to mothers, and the category of class is here more germane than the category of gender central within British programmes. Various social groups within a specifically delineated Tibetan territory are assigned tasks in the programme’s implementation, illustrating the desire to incorporate each into a reorganised Tibetan state bound by a newly articulated Buddhist ideal of shared social responsibility.

Boy on the Lion Throne: The Childhood of the 14 th Dalai Lama (review)

Reviewed by: Boy on the Lion Throne: The Childhood of the 14th Dalai Lama Hope Morrison Kimmel, Elizabeth Cody. Boy on the Lion Throne: The Childhood of the 14th Dalai Lama. Flash Point/Roaring Brook, 2009 [160p]. illus. with photographs ISBN 978-1-59643-394-6 $18.95 R Gr. 3–6 This very approachable biography of the fourteenth Dalai Lama begins with the stuff of legend: several Buddhist monks, disguised as simple travelers, head out to a remote region of Tibet in search of a boy, Lhamo Thondup, whom they believe to be the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama. The boy, not yet three, passes their series of tests, correctly selecting objects that had belonged to the thirteenth Dalai Lama from a larger group of items, and Lhamo’s life is never to be the same. While the biography covers the Dalai Lama’s life from toddlerhood up to his flight into exile in his twenties, the emphasis here is definitely on his youth. Kimmel does a solid job of putting the reader into the shoes of the young lama, called Kundun, including personable details such as his desire to play instead of study (he loved to run and slide over the freshly polished floors of the palace) and his boyish delight in technology (he once took the palace’s hand-cranked car out for a covert spin and hit a tree). There is lots of information about Tibet presented within the biographical format, and this would serve equally well as an introductory background on the region and on the Free Tibet movement. Kimmel is reverent without being adulatory, and her explanation of the Dalai Lama’s relationship with Maoist China is presented in simple, clear language. This is a strange and fascinating story told in an engaging style, and young readers will find lots to keep them turning the pages. Archival photographs, a selected bibliography, and a list of online resources offer further information. Copyright © 2009 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

The Men Who Would Not Be Amban and the One Who Would

On February 12, 1910, a Chinese expeditionary army marched into Lhasa and fired on unarmed civilians, overturned the Tibetan government, and forced the thirteenth Dalai Lama to flee to India. Many have condemned the invasion as a breaking point in Sino-Tibetan relations, but its origins remain murky. If it was not the handiwork of “Butcher” Zhao Erfeng, as many have supposed, then what happened on that fateful winter day, and why? This article examines late-Qing forward policy in Tibet through four key officials: Zhang Yintang, the diplomat who called for reforms and a Tibetan standing army; Zhao Erfeng, the ruthless frontier commissioner in Kham; Lianyu, the last amban of Tibet; and Zhong Ying, the neophyte who led the 1910 Lhasa expedition. Their stories reveal not a monolithic Qing policy but a contest of policy and personality that exploded into bloody strife, with aftershocks that are felt to this day.

Tibetan sacred dance: a journey into the religious and folk traditions

From the time Buddhism entered the mythical land of the snows, Tibetans have expressed their spiritual devotion and celebrated their culture with dance. Only since the diaspora of the Tibetan people have outsiders witnessed these performances and when they do, no one explains why these dances exist and what they really mean. Ellen Pearlman, who studied with Lobsang Samten, the ritual dance master of the Dalai Lama's Namgyal monastery in India, set out to discover the meaning behind these practices. She found the story of the indigenous shamanistic Bon religion being superseded by Buddhism - a story full of dangerous and illicit liaisons, brilliant visions, secret teachings, betrayals, and unrevealed yogic practices. Pearlman examines the four lineages that developed sacred cham - the secret ritual dances of Tibet's Buddhist monks - and achi lhamo storytelling folk dance and opera. She describes the mental and physical process of preparing for these dances, the meaning of the iconography of the costumes and masks, the spectrum of accompanying music, and the actual dance steps as recorded in a choreography book dating back to the Fifth Dalai Lama in 1647. Beautiful colour photographs from the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts and Pearlman's own images of touring monastic troupes complement the rare historic black-and-white photos from the collections of Sir Charles Bell, chief of the British Mission in Tibet during the life of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. - Lavishly illustrated with colour and rare historic photographs depicting the dances, costumes, and masks. - Looks at both sacred (cham) and folk (achi lhamo) forms and their role in the development, practice, and culture of Tibetan Buddhism.

The thirteenth Dalai Lama in Peking September – December 1908

The thirteenth Dalai Lama in Peking September – December 1908

Ramifications of the China-Pakistan Border Treaty

IN I9I0 THE THIRTEENTH DALAI LAMA fled Lhasa in face of a Manchu invasion; in March 1959 the fourteenth Dalai Lama likewise sought asylum in India in similar protest against direct Chinese control of Tibetan affairs. China took exception to India providing refuge for dissident elements from Tibet, and India was indignant at the Chinese frontier claims advanced simultaneously against India in Chou En-lai's letter of January 23, I959.1 The end of the period of Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai (Indians and Chinese are brothers) was approaching, while the Kashmir dispute still estranged Pakistan from India. The new military government in Karachi was anxious to reach a rapprochement with India that had been denied to the civilians, and was prepared to concede joint defence arrangements in return for a settle-