Talk:History of Tibet

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[edit] Why no maps?

There needs to be a historical map of Tibet. During the period from 750-815 Tibet ruled Northern India (the Palas), Nan chao, the Tarim Basin and Afghanistan, and was a world power. This needs a map. John D. Croft 02:47, 1 June 2007 (UTC).

Why no modern map? IceDragon64 22:28, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Tibet has been unlawfully detained by china since long....Its Hiostory shows that people of tibet live without any violance still China want it to be slavery state. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.17.213.99 (talk) 15:23, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] THERE IS NO MENTION OF LHASA UPRISING ANYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!

heck no dont mirge them. what about kids doing projects like mine?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!11 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.39.144.157 (talk) 23:55, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

ive been searching wikipeida and there was no mention of the Lhasa Uprising in tibet!! heres some link i found online:
http://www.tibet.ca/pub/lhasauprising.html [1]
http://www.tibet.ca/en/wtnarchive/1993/6/20_3.html [2]
http://tibet.dharmakara.net/TibetFacts10.html [3]

there is no mention anywhere, other than from tibetans that the Lhasa Uprising even happened, there has not been any confirmation of it from any other countries. History of Tibetan Resistance is being lost here.... --User:tibetanPerson 3:13 pm monday, march 05 2007.

Per your request I've added a bit about the Lhasa Uprising. Also neglected was the existence of the Tibetan Government in Exile. That's been remedied as well. Longchenpa (talk) 01:42, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I AGREE GET SOME INFO IN THERE NOW! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.119.98.199 (talk) 14:46, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

It would be great to have that. Would you be willing to write that up? Longchenpa (talk) 06:07, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sino-Tibetan hypothesis

Bold textRe: Sino-Tibetan hypothesis excerpted from Talk page on Tibetan language article.

No, Sino-Tibetan is not well established, for that mattter neither is Tibeto-Burman technically. A language family is well established when one can point to sound laws relating the relevant langauges. This can be easily done with indo-european e.g. Grimms law says a Indo-European K becomes H in germanic Germ. Haupt / Lat. Caput, Eng. hemp / Grk. Kannibas, Eng. heart / Gk. Kardia. etc. if anyone can point out such a soundlaw relating Chinese and Tibetan I will give him a hundred dollars.

I hereby name several prominent linguists who doubt the Sino-Tibetan hypothesis: Roy Andrew Miller, Christopher I. Beckwith, George van Driem. --Nathan hill 14:06, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Hello folks, it seems that soom good fellow did me the kindness of undoing all of my changes and claims that they are suspect and Bizzare. While of course I would welcome detailed criticism and improvement of my additions, this discription of them I must admit hurt my feelings. Also, I went to some length to cite both secondary sources and original documents. If the anonymous emmender would be so kind as to specifically criticise my edits I would be most grateful. --Nathan hill 13:16, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Hello folks, the quality of this article is extremely bad. Please read some boosk about Tibetan history in particular papers by Luciano Petech, Christopher Beckwith's The Tibetan Empire in Central Asia, and Paul Pelliot's Histoire Ancien du Tibet. I have tried to take out the thigns which are basically false, but hardly have time to go through it thoroughly. Also, Tibetan names should always be accompanied with Wylie tranliteration to do otherwise it like spelling the Frnech Name Jacques as "Zhak", in 8th century Tibet all of the silent letters were pronounced.

--Nathan Hill

Your own edit was not that good. You have removed a number of things without explanation. I guess you say they are "basically false." Fred Bauder 11:16, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

For example, you deleted this: "In the 13th century Tibet was conquered by the Mongol leader Genghis Khan, who ruled Tibet through a local puppet government." but replaced it with nothing. This conquest was the end of the strong independent kingdom, the beginning of the special relationship with the Mongols and is the basis of modern Chinese claims of sovereignty. It needs to be not only mentioned, but perhaps focused on. Fred Bauder 11:37, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

Genghis Khan (i.e. Cinggis Qan) was dead when The Mongol Empire acquired Tibet, he died while on campaign against the Tanguts. I can't remember who was ruling at the time, I think it was Altan Qan. I couldn't remember and was in a hurry. Hopefully my more recent changes (still unfinished) you will find more pleasing. Also, the Mongols never made a full scale invasion thus I think 'conquer' is wrong. The question of sovreignty does not interest me, what interests me is the the historical truth. ---Nathan Hill

Sino-Tibetan as a linguistic family is certainly not as well-studied as, say, Indo-European, at the moment, but it still is the prevailing consensus (and increasingly so) among most linguists that Tibetan and Chinese are indeed related and should be included within a single family. That's not to say that this automatically validates Chinese sovereignty over the region, of course, but let's keep linguistics and politics separate for now.

The main differences among mainstream linguists concerning this family lie in its internal structure, and this is closely-linked to what name should be applied to the group. There had been (and still are) many differing views on which name was most appropriate: the original TIBETO-BURMAN (eg. Juilius Heinrich Klaproth) already included both Tibetan and Chinese; so did TURANIAN (eg. Friedrich Max Müller), which included all non-IE and non-Afro-Asiatic languages; INDO-CHINESE (eg. John Casper Leyden) sometimes included the Daic languages as well; this was later changed to SINO-TIBETAN (eg. Robert Schafer, Paul Benedict, James Matisoff) where TIBETO-BURMAN was truncated to a sub-group which usually excluded Chinese. Note that this does not exclude Chinese from the main family, ie. Chinese was, and still is, not considered a language isolate. (I'll not be surprised, though, that a few scholars will try to argue this.)

Anyway, some linguists such as George van Driem are now advocating a switch back to the old TIBETO-BURMAN, because:

"The Sino-Tibetan hypothesis, that the first split in the language family at its greatest time depth was between Sinitic and the rest of the family, remains unsupported. No evidence has ever been adduced to demonstrate the existence of shared innovations which define Tibeto-Burman excluding Sinitic as a unified group. Sinitic shows greater affinity with certain Tibeto-Burman subroups such as Bodic [note: which includes Tibetan], and it is amply evident today that certain Tibeto-Burman subgroups such as Gongduk show greater divergence from mainstream Tibeto-Burman features than Sinitic does. These insights have led to the abandonment of the Sino-Tibetan theory in favour of the older Tibeto-Burman theory." (emphases are mine) (See Van Driem, George "Tibeto-Burman Phylogeny and Prehistory: Languages, Material Culture and Genes". Bellwood, Peter & Renfrew, Colin (eds) Examining the farming/language dispersal hypothesis (2003), Ch 19.)

In other words, preferring to use the name T-B instead of S-T actually results from a closer genetic link between Tibetan and Chinese, not the other way round! Ironic, isn't it? (Now how do I sign out?- 202.20.5.206)202.20.5.206 05:39, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the excellent research & amplification of the relationships between Tibetan, Tibeto-Burman, and Sino-Tibetan. Very informative. technopilgrim 22:19, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

There are still many prominent dissenters. Roy A. Miller and Christopher I. Beckwith do not beleive that Chinese is genetically related to the Tibeto-Burman family. W.S. Coblin and Jerry Norman have questioned the results of much of historical Chinese phonology on methodological grounds, which would preclude classifying it. George van Driem has put forth the Sino-Bodic hypothesis, however, he will and does admit that none genetic relationship between any of these languages has been proven with sound laws. --Nathan Hill

My edit went through before I meant to, so I didn't get to do an edit summary. I removed the "finally" because it has connotations of inevitability and finality, both of which carry a subtle POV. I removed the rest because it was speculation. DanKeshet 20:17, Jan 13, 2004 (UTC)

Hi Adam,

I don't want to get into a discussion of whether speculation or predictions belong on Wikipedia right now because of the server slowness, but if you're going to engage in predictions, please at least qualify or source them (as you did some). I'm speaking specifically of:

This will create problems for the Tibetan resistance to Chinese rule, since the religious prestige of the Dalai Lama will no longer be available.

which speaks with absolute assurity about future events. DanKeshet 21:37, Jan 14, 2004 (UTC)

How about a map showing the territorial extent of Tibet over time? D.E. Cottrell 08:13, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Origins

Presuming is unhelpful, especially when it's a means of promoting your own POV. There is a dispute over Tibetans' origins, so I've edited the article to say so. Markalexander100 09:06, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Wheels

I read that prior to 20th century (?) wheel vehicles were forbidden in Tibet, formally because of offending the Dharma wheel. Actually, wheels may not have been very useful in such a mountainous place. Is it true? I suppose that Lamas have changed their opinion by now.

[edit] Excised from Tibet

The following may or may not be usable:

Well into 1950s, Tibet was regarded as a free country. Indeed, China also had a mission in Lhasa, underlining the fact that Tibet was nominally independant.

On July 8, 1949, following the defeat of Chiang Kai Shek’s Nationalist Government in the Chinese civil war, the Tibetan Government asked the Chinese mission to "vacate", calling upon its rights as an independent country to request the expultion of diplomats. Tibetan records show that they had planned this expulsion of the Chinese agents for more than a year.

China invited Tibetans early in the 1950s to "accede peacefully" and backed up this emphatic plea by stationing an army near the city of Chamdo in East Tibet. A Tibetan delegation hurriedly agreed to go to Peking to talk to the PRC themselves in an effort to defuse the sudden tension. On October 7, 1950, the day the Tibetan delegation was scheduled to arrive, 80,000 soldiers of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China attacked Tibet and announced its 'peaceful liberation'. The Dalai Lama was forced to sign, under duress, the " 17-Point Agreement of May 23, 1951", surrendering to the Chinese attack. Imposed on the Tibetan government, the "Agreement", the PRC claims, shows that Tibetans not only agreed to, but actually invited Chinese Communist troops to "liberate" Tibet. This brought about the systematic devastation of the Tibetan people and culture. This naturally, took Tibet by surprise. The legality, or lack thereof, and account of the PRC's invasion of an independent Tibet.

Mark ¹ 03:03, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Having a mission in Lhasa doesn't mean recognizing Tibet as independent. The full name of the ROC/"Chinese" mission in Tibet was "Resident Office of the 'Commission of Mongolian-Tibetan Affairs' in Tibet", obviously it was not an embassy and ROC constitution promulgated decades ago had listed Tibet as part of China. In a ten-point statement issued on 16 Nov 1934, the Tibet locality reaffirmed that "Tibet shall remain an integral part of the territory of China"[M. Goldstein, 'A History of Modern Tibet', p239]. Since the People's Republic(1949~) is internationally considered as the succession state of the Kuomintang republic, the PLA military operation in 1951 should not be classified as "invasion of an independent state"

--219.79.31.173 08:45, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Since that paragraph has lain here undisturbed for two months, I don't think it's something you need to worry about. ;) Mark ¹ 09:05, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tibet's status, Imperial China, and the legality of the Simla Convention

The section describing the relations between Tibet and China in the 1700s says that "the Tibetans, in the view of the Chinese, once again acknowledged themselves as subjects of the Empire of China." Is not the Tibetan view of their status worth mentioning in this context?

From the Tibetan declaration of independence, issue by the 13th Dalai Lama in 1912: "The relationship between Tibet and [imperial] China was that of priest and patron and was not based on the subordination of one to the other."

I would disagree with the statement that "The treaty [Simla Convention] was never signed by the Chinese and thus never came into force." The convention was published in "A Collection of Treaties" by Aitchison, which is the offical record of treaties relating to British India. Even without China's signature, it could still be considered a legal treaty between Tibet and Britain. The publication of the convention was delayed for some years because certain British officals worried that it conflicted with the 1907 Russo-British treaty. Once it was published in the 1930s, the British began enforcing the McMahon Line, the boundary drawn by this treaty.

Also, to say that the McMahon Line is "very generous to Britain" is to make a judgement call of an entirely subjective nature. McMahon drew the line along the mountain ridge so that boundary would be a clear natural feature, although it is true that Tibet did lose some land as a result.

Finally, I would say that there is entirely too much focus in the article on Tibet's status relative to China. Tibet had its own internal history, relations with India, Mongolia, and so forth. To write history this way projects a modern controversy back to an earlier period when the issue was not of great concern.

--Peter Kauffner

The McMahon line is indeed very generous to British India, and the fact that it lies along a natural geographical boundary is quite irrelevant. The Rhine is a clear geographical border, and yet were the Rhineland to become French territory I do not think one can argue that it is not very generous to France.

And in no way could the the treaties be considered legal. Great Britain recognises Chinese suzerainty over Tibet throughout that period (and indeed the Tibetan themselves were ambivalent about the matter, not out of loyalty to a non-existent Chinese central government, but as a useful backdrop if the negotiating conditions became too unfavourable), as such these treaties may at best be considered local agreements, and not treaties under international law. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.69.94.113 (talk • contribs) 19:57, 3 December 2005.

One difference between the McMahon Line and your Rhineland example is that there was no defined boundary between Tibet and India before the McMahon Line was drawn. Another difference is that no major population center was affected by the line.

If the Simla Convention was just a "local agreement," it would not have been published in Aitchison's _Treaties_. I don't see any basis for saying that it is not legal treaty other than that you don't want it to be a legal treaty.

As far as what Tibetan opinion was, they considered themselves independent from 1913-51 -- I have already quoted from the Dalai Lama's declaration to that effect. Melvyn C. Goldstein's _A History of Modern Tibet_ has translations of numerous documents from the Tibetan official archive to support this. Perhaps you are relying on reports of Tibetan opinion produced by the Chinese nationalists, but such reports are obviously less reliable than documents produced by the Tibetan government itself.

"Suzerainty" is an ill-defined concept, but it is not the same as soveriegnty. The British foriegn minister stated that Tibet "enjoyed de facto independence" in an official letter to the Chinese foriegn minister in 1943 (also in Goldstein). So Chinese suzeraintly and Tibetan independence were apparently compatable concepts, at least in the official British mind.Kauffner 09:50, 22 February 2006 (UTC)Kauffner

In the official letter mentioned above the complete sentence should read: "Since the Chinese Revolution of 1911, when Chinese forces were withdrawn from Tibet, Tibet has enjoyed de facto independence." Lhasa's status as 'independence' was due to the withdrawal of the Imperial troops instead of any Chinese renouncement of sovereignty over the region. Difference exists between "complete independence" and "de facto independence" which many other parts of China enjoyed through out the ROC years (when the new Republic was torn by civil war and demoralized by the Japanese).

Moreover, UK's intention and difficulties in the Simla conference can be seen in British Government's letter to the Simla negotiator in 1915 and in the Foreign Office report ("Tibet and the Question of Chinese Suzerainty") dated April 1943:

"The Government of India have read with interest your summary of the advantages gained by Tibet and ourselves under the Simla Convention, but that interest is necessarily purely academic since the Simla Convention has not been signed by the Chinese Government or accepted by the Russian Government and is, therefore, for the present invalid. It is true that by the secret Anglo-Tibetan Declaration, which recognized the Convention as binding on Great Britain and Tibet, certain advantages under the Convention have been obtained by both parties, but no useful purpose can be gained at present by an examination of those respective advantages. The fact remains that the negotiations conducted last year in Simla broke down simply and solely, because the Government of India attempted to secure for Tibet greater advantages than the Chinese Government were prepared to concede, and the fact that China has persisted in her refusal to sign the Convention can only be regarded as an indication that both the Government of India and the Tibetan Plenipotentiary, Lonchen Shatra, were unduly anxious to secure the best terms they could for Tibet." [India Office Record, 1915]

"In order to give effective support to Tibet's claim to complete independence, we should, I submit abandon our previous willingness to acknowledge China's suzerain rights. We are perfectly free to do so because our previous offers to make this admission were contingent on an agreement involving mutual concessions [i.e., the Simla Convention], which we were never able to get. A further reason for discarding our previous attitude towards Chinese suzerainty is that it hampers our freedom to make treaties with the Tibetans themselves. In the matter of the Indo-Tibetan frontier, for instance, the agreement reached in 1914 has not proved satisfactory in practice and the Government of India would like to conclude a new and more binding agreement with Lhasa...But so long as we continue to recognise the overlordship of China it will be difficult to assert the validity of an agreement with the vassal State as against the objections of the suzerain in such an important international matter as a frontier." [India Office Record, 1943]

Regarding UK's position on the Convention's validity, it is worth noting that the Simla Convention and its appended Anglo-Tibetan agreement did not appear in the original 1929 edition of Aitchison's Treaties since the unratified convention was not a valid international treaty and the Anglo-Tibetan agreement was secret:

"The original 1929 volume...not only leaves out the texts of the McMahon Line notes and the Simla Convention, but also states that the Simla Conference produced no valid agreement" [A. Lamb, "The Mcmahon Line", p546]

"The 1929 edition was withdrawn by a British Indian official, Olaf Caroe, in 1938, and a new edition was issued that included the Simla Convention and the McMahon-Shatra notes (but not the Anglo-Tibetan agreement or the McMahon Line map)" [W. Smith, "Tibetan Nation", p201]

Summarizing the above mentioned, British position on the validity of the Convention seems quite unclear from 1915 to 1938. Besides, even the Tibetan representatives were independence-minded and wished to declare independence, China's ratification was so compulsory that Tibet was only regarded as "autonomous" in the Simla conference thus had no independent treaty-concluding power:

"The Tibetans, indeed, might have wished to do so; and their opening statement at the Simla Conference could well be construed as such a declaration; but by agreement, on 3 July 1914, to abide by the terms of the draft Simla Convention, even though unsigned by China, they acknowledged Chinese suzerainty (Article 2) and the fact that 'Tibet forms part of Chinese territory'(Note I). This last admission, which Indian commentators have tended to overlook, is probably of crucial importance in any legalistic attempt to evaluate Tibetan treaty-making power. Take the case of the McMahon Line. Could Tibet, whatever her status, alienate Tibetan, and hence by the definition in Note I, Chinese territory without first obtaining Chinese consent? The British acquisition of Tawang immediately raises this question, to which, in all probability, an impartial tribunal would give the answer 'No'. A prominent American international lawyer, writing in 1941, gave this definition of the post-Simla Conference status of Tibet: 'De jure Tibet is still part of China with a high degree of autonomy, but de facto it enjoys independence in close relations with Great Britain.'" [Lamb, pp567-568]

"Between 1914 and 1950 it was not easy to challenge Chinese suzerainty, even though the Chinese had not signed the Convention. Finally, by refusing to sign, the Chinese had escaped according any recognition to the validity of either the 1914 trade regulations or the McMahon Line." [ibid, pp528-529]

Interestingly, the Simla texts rather show that Chinese suzerainty and forming part of China were two compatible concepts.

Regarding the McMahon Line, according to A. Lamb's book mentioned above, maps published before the Simla Conference, both official and semiofficial, had defined Indo-Tibetan boundaries (eastern section) which have similarities with ROC/PRC's current claims:

North East Frontier of India, 1911
North East Frontier of India, 1910
Map of China, published by War Office, 1908
Tibet and the Surrounding Regions, Royal Geographical Society, 1906

Lamb further noted that all these maps "show boundaries in the Assam Himalayas following very different alignments from the McMahon Line. None include the Tawang Tract within India, and the War Office map GSGS no. 2631a shows the old Outer Line foothill boundary. It cannot be maintained, after a careful study of British maps of the period 1904-1914, that the McMahon Line had become a cartographical feature before the Simla Conference." [ibid, p547]

-- MainBody 08:51, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removal from further reading

The following was removed from further reading without explanation:

Yeshe De Project. 1986. ANCIENT TIBET: Research Materials from The Yeshe De Project. Dharma Publishing. Berkeley. ISBN 0-89800-146-3

Any basis for this? Fred Bauder 10:44, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

I removed it, and I could have sworn that I defended it, I also removed Rebecca French's book. The reason is because they are both unreliable. Anyone is welcome to read them, and then read the books I have recommended and tell me otherwise. --Nathan hill 13:12, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ah yes, here is my discussion, it is from the Tibet page. [4] --Nathan hill 13:18, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of another paragraph from renewed Chinese Rule

I have removed this paragraph:

The ninth Panchen Lama got the power granted by the Emperor when the 13th Dalai Lama fled to India. When the Dalai came back Panchen had to go to Qinghai. After the Chinese army went into Tibet, he asked and got approval of the government to come back to Tibet but died en route. According to Buddhism, the tenth Panchen was then reincarnated.

The English is so garbbled as to be practically unintelligible. What does it mean to 'get the power' did he get it from the Qing Emperor. What is this paragraph doing in a section on the 1950s. Panchen is not a last name "Panchen had to go to". And most ridiculous 'according to Buddhism' according to whoes Buddhism exactly, this would be like saying 'according to Christianity Cardinal Ratzinger is the spiritual heir to John Paul II.'

[edit] Speculation on the Years in this Article

Why don't any of the years in this article have any indication if they are BC or AD (or BCE or CE)?

AD/CE are not used only BC/BCE used in articles. If there isn't anything then it is assumed under by the readers to happened in AD. ITs wikipedia policy and common unwritten policy on the net. 12.220.47.145 18:39, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] I HAVE A QUESTION!!!!

FROM THE ARTICLE: The government of the PRC says that the population of Tibet in 1737 was about 8 million, and that due to the backward rule of the local theocracy, there was rapid decrease in the next two hundred years and the population in 1959 was only about 1.19 million. Today, the population of Greater Tibet is 7.3 million, of which 5 million is ethnic Tibetan, according to the 2000 census.

is it possible to go from 1.2 million to 5 million Tibetans in just 40 years???

someone plz do the math here, i don't understand this.

it's is true Jakken 18:11, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

The population figures are indeed odd. "the population in 1959 was only about 1.19 million."; two paragraphs above, "according to Chinese census there was a population of 2.8 million in 1953, but only 2.5 million in 1964 in Tibet proper." It's not clear from the text which of these figures refer to Greater Tibet, and which to the Xizang area. Mark ¹ 19:12, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

The 1.2 million figure is for the area that now Tibet Autonomous Region. The 2.8 million and 5 million figures are for ethnic Tibetans in China.

The 1737 census counted households. I suppose the 8 million figure assumes very large households.

Xizang is just the Chinese name for Tibet.

Here is a little chart:

          All Ethnic Tibetans    Central Tibet (TAR)

   1268          1.0                    --
   1737                                0.316 (monks)
                                       0.127 (lay families)
   1900          1.0                    --  
   1953          2.776                1.274
   1964          2.501                1.251
   1982          3.870                1.892
   1990          4.593                2.196
   1995            --                 2.389

KauffnerKauffner

[edit] The Mongols and the Sakya (Sa-skya) school

This section seems very confusing. I was trying to put a link in it to the Sakya but found the whole section impenetrable. Is it just me? Billlion 20:57, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed passage

I removed this sentence from the article about the future of the DL institution in the RRC: "Under the lamaist tradition, however, the Panchen Lama has the duty of verifying the Dalai Lama's reincarnation and the reincarnation must be confirmed by the Vase lot, so the choice of a new Dalai Lama within Tibet will be verified by the PRC's choice of the Panchen Lama.", because 1) editors should be aware that "lamaist" is considered insulting and should not be used; 2) the relevant traditions are rather complicated, and neither the Panchen Lama nor the "Vase lot" (sic.) has been used in every instance when a new Dalai Lama was recognised; 3) it would be very ironic (which is not to say it won't happen) if the PRC government insisted that their Panchen Lama be involved in selecting the next Dalai Lama, since they famously denied that the Dalai Lama needed to be involved in selecting the Panchen Lama; 4) on the other hand, it was the current Dalai Lama who insisted that Dalai and Panchen should choose each other; however, the person he chose is now a political prisoner, as opposed to the one the PRC would presumably be using to search for the next Dalai Lama; and 5) it's not clear what the Vase necessarily has to do with politics either way, because the government-in-exile could have their own lot drawing just as well as the PRC could. - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 00:41, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Phonetic spellings

For reasons of style, I'd like to start moving towards eliminating Wylie transliterations in the primary English forms used in this article. We will still have the Wylie spellings, but they will appear in parentheses or in the article on the person/place in question, and possibly both. Note that even Wylie himself, in the article where he introduces his system, assumes that it will be used only parenthetically when writing for a non-specialist audience. Now, the question is, which phonetic or quasi-phonetic spelling we should use for a given word. I don't advocate one system for all cases; rather, the first step should be to find out if there is a spelling that has become customary. If there are several similar spellings, which, taken together, are predominant, then I suggest we choose among them. In some cases, if no clear choice presents itself, we might also wish to consider which spelling best reflects pronunciation for an English reader. As far as pronunciation is concerned, the default seems to go by the pronunciation used in Lhasa; however, this is, I'd say, by no means a hard-and-fast rule. If someone can provide some kind of information on how the word is pronounced in some more relevant location, we certainly can take that into account.

While I don't want to get into adding putative phonetic spellings willy-nilly without deliberation, please keep in mind that a given spelling is never set in stone and it can be adjusted later.

List of Wylie spellings currently used in the article, as of April 27, 2006, with suggested phonetic spellings:

Dri-gum-brtsan-po: Drigum Tsenpo
Lo-ngam
Rgya-nag
Rgya-gar
Stag-rtse: Taktsé
Phying-ba
Phyongs-rgyas
Stag-bu snya-gzigs
Dgu-gri Zing-po-rje
Myang Mang-po-rje Zhang-shang
Sum pa
Mgar-srong-rtsan
‘A zha
Mkha’s sregs
Sad-mar-kar
Lig-myi-rhya
Khri-mang-slon
Khri-mang-slon-rtsan
Khri-ma-lod
Khri-'dus-srong-rtsan
Mgar
Mgar Bstan snyas ldom bu
Mgar Khri ‘bring btsan brod
mkhos chen po
Sum-ru
‘Ol-byag
Bri-chu
‘Jang
Gling: "Ling" seems to be the consensus phonetic spelling of gLing
Yo-ti Chu-bzangs
rMa-sgrom
rMa-chu
Rgyal-gtsug-ru
Khri-lde-gtsug-brtsan: I'm leaning towards "Tridé Tsugtsen" or "Chide Zuzain", which is the most standard PRC Tibetan transcription that I've found in use. My copy of Historical Status of China's Tibet has "Tride Zhotsan", but this is seems confusingly irregular.
Mes-Agtshom: I'm not sure, but it looks to be an erroneous Wylie spelling. Since this name is just an alias for Khri-lde-gtsug-brtsan, I suggest we remove it from the article altogether. - Nat Krause^(Talk!)
Lha Bal-pho
Pong Lag-rang Lha Bal-pho
rgyal sa nas phab
‘Dron ma lon
Lang
‘Bal
Stag sgra Klu khong
Srong lde brtsan: presumably "Song Detsen"?

A few of these shorter ones might not need to changed at all if the phonetic version is very similar. Some of them appear in direct quotes from other authors, in which case, rather than changing the main text, I suggest adding phonetic spellings in [square brackets]. Also, in a few cases, we probably don't need another spelling, since there is an English equivalent, e.g. rMa-chu is the Yellow River, and mkhos chen po already appears in parenthesis following "administrative organization".

Please edit the above list to suggest the best spelling and give a short rationale for that suggestion. - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 22:34, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestions

Dri-gum-brtsan-po: Drigum Tsänpo
Lo-ngam : Longam
Rgya-nag : Gyanag
Rgya-gar : Gyagar
Stag-rtse : Tagtse
Phying-ba : Chingwa
Phyongs-rgyas : Chonggyä
Stag-bu snya-gzigs : Tagbu Nyazig
Dgu-gri Zing-po-rje : Gudri Zingpoje
Myang Mang-po-rje Zhang-shang : Myang Mangpoje
Sum pa : Sumpa
Mgar-srong-rtsan : Gar Songtsän
‘A zha : Azha
Mkha’s sregs : Khäsreg
Sad-mar-kar : Sämakar
Lig-myi-rhya : Ligmyirhya (a Zhangzhung and not Tibetan name)
Khri-mang-slon : Thri Manglön
Khri-mang-slon-rtsan : Thri Manglöntsän
Khri-ma-lod : Khrimalöd
Khri-'dus-srong-rtsan : Khri Dusongtsän
Mgar : Gar
Mgar Bstan snyas ldom bu : Gar Tännyädombu
Mgar Khri ‘bring btsan brod : Gar Khridringtändröd
mkhos chen po : khös chenpo
Sum-ru : Sumru
‘Ol-byag : Öljag
Bri-chu : Drichu
‘Jang : Jang
Gling: Ling
Yo-ti Chu-bzangs : Yoti Chupzang
rMa-sgrom : Madrom (The Wylie should be Rma-sgrom)
rMa-chu : Machu (The Wylie should be Rma-chu)
Rgyal-gtsug-ru : Gyältsugru
Khri-lde-gtsug-brtsan: Thri Detsugtsän
Mes-Agtshom : (This is not a Wylie transliteration)
Lha Bal-pho : Lha Balpo
Pong Lag-rang Lha Bal-pho : Pong Lagrang Lha Balpo
rgyal sa nas phab : (this is a sentence I think it would be weird to give it a phonetic transcription)
‘Dron ma lon : Dronmalön
Lang : Lang
‘Bal : Bal
Stag sgra Klu khong : Tagdra Lukong
Srong lde brtsan: Song Detsän

These are in the Tournadre System.

[edit] Comments

Thanks for these suggestions. It seems to me that it would be somewhat desireable to have a some consistency in the spellings of the names of the kings of Tibet, because they seem to have had some common elements over time. I've noticed that, for the more commonly-known kings whose names have customary English spellings (i.e. Trisong Detsen), "khri" is usually rendered "tri" and "brtsan" is usually rendered "tsen". This happens to correspond with the THDL Simplified Phonetic Transcription[5] which was, in fact, proposed by Nicolas Tournadre himself, so I propose to spell the names of Tibetan kings using the THDL system. The custom also seems to be making the names of kings two bisyllabic words. Thus, Drigum Tsenpo, Trimang Löntsen (aka Trimanglön?), Tridu Songtsen, Tridé Tsugtsen, and Song Detsen.

I also wanted to clarify a few points about the above Tournadre System spellings. It looks like khri is being rendered as "thri" in some places but as "khri" in others. Is this correct? Also, shouldn't there be some consonants which are elided after ä, ö, and ü? My impression is that d and s are not pronounced after these vowels; a lot of sources also imply that r and l are elided as well, although, if other sources say they are pronounced, I am comfortable leaving them in on the grounds of conservatism. - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 01:06, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reply to Comments

In the Tournadre system Khri should be Thri and never Khri. s and d are always allided. Some speakers pronouns -r and -l and some do not. The loss of these consonants leads to compensitory lengthening of the vowel in Lhasa dialect. In the strict phonological transcription used in Tournadre's textbook he marks this with the sign :, but I beleive he recommends in his system meant for a general audience they be left as -r and -l and that is certainly what I would recommend too.

To note one detail-- when there is an -e- in Wylie it is left -e- in the Tournadre system. When the vowel changes because of a following -d, -n, -l, or -s it receives an umlaut. Thus brtsan (which is also spelled rtsan and btsan) whould be transliterated tsän and not tsen in the Tournadre system. In fact in Lhasa dialect -e- is the IPA sound -e- and -ä- is the IPA sound marked with an epsilon, which in German is also written ä.

Although following this convention would sometimes replace more common spellings (e.g. Milaräpa) I think it is worth it for consistency and acurancy, and would never lead to confusion.

[edit] See also

[edit] History between 8th and 12th centuries

This portion of Tibetan history is missing. Tibetan empire broke up in 842. How did this happen, and what happened after that? deeptrivia (talk) 03:46, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

The article is incomplete with regard to that subject, that's for sure. Perhaps we should add some kind of note pointing out to readers that there is a section yet to be written. - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 06:00, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion via comments in article

I haven't been watching closely enough to see when and how it happened, but we now have a lot of discussion taking place via comments in the article. This is not good. Please, everyone, keep discussion on the talk page and information for readers in the article. Henry ^Flower 13:24, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Defacto/Dejure

It's not my theory as having no status internationally doesn't necessarily mean 'not independent'. Anyway, without China's acknowledgement and/or signature, any document relating to Tibet territorial status is meaningless. For example, GOI recognized that

"...the Simla Convention has not been signed by the Chinese Government or accepted by the Russian Government and is, therefore, for the present invalid."[quoted from Goldstein, p80]

UK Foreign Office's whitepaper 'Tibet and the Question of Chinese Suzerainty'(1943) also admitted:

"so long as we continue to recognise the overlordship of China it will be difficult to assert the validity of an agreement with the vassal State as against the objections of the suzerain in such an important international matter as a frontier."[quoted from Goldstein, p399]

I don't think Britain was that powerful to alter Tibet's status by simply publishing some meaningless documents whose validity was even doubted by themselves. :-) 219.79.166.129 02:29, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Where are you going with this? You're going to fill up article with quotes about de facto and de jure and such like legalism? Why stop with italicizing? They can bolded, given exclamation points, or perhaps flashing red lights. Lamb is just a secondary source and there are already primary source quotations on the same subject.Kauffner 12:33, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

~~I will add details of the "primary source" within 24H. BTW,~~ I would like to warn that removing well-sourced contents is highly disrespectful on Wikipedia. And both Britons and Americans are on equal footing making comments on Tibet's status. On WIKI, viewpoints from both [PRO] and [CON] sides should be presented and treated equally.

I also remind you that you are one of the editors who frequently used sources by M. C. Goldsteins, an AMERICAN Tibetologist. :-> As the article mentioned Tibet's international status and relation with China, for neutrality it's appropriate quoting Tibetologist and international law sources from different countries. So, please, stop pushing third-rate political POV on wikipedia! - 219.79.166.20 02:56, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Details for the primary sources added202.40.137.202 04:47, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Expansion request

This article currently says absolutely nothing about Tibetan history between 764 and 1239. Even a very brief overview of events during that time would be very helpful.—Nat Krause^(Talk!) 22:57, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History_of_Tibet#The_Tibetan_Empire

Was Tibet ever declared an "empire"? Maybe only in old tibetan chronichles? Just out of curiosity. Thank you! 87.5.214.130 20:10, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

In the eighth century there were three polities which vied for control of Central Asia, one based in Changan, another in Lhasa, and another in Bagdad. Since all three were multiethnic and had various vassel states it seems appropriate to call them "empires". I am not aware of an old Tibetan term for 'empire'. It is worth noting however that the Tibetan name for the ruler of Tibet tsänpo (rtsan-po) is only used of him (like Japanese Tenno) and the Chinese emperor is called rgya rje 'lord of China' in the Old Tibetan Annals, a term lower than 'king' Rgyal-po. The rulers of the Turgis, the Nanzhao ('Jang) and the Tuyuhun (Azha) all pay tribute. It seems quite appropriate to call Tibet an empire. C. Beckwith makes a long argument about this in the preface to his book 'The Tibetan Empire in Central Asia' (Princeton).

Thank you very much for explaination and references. [the guy who posed the question 82.60.136.182 10:12, 27 September 2006 (UTC)]

[edit] User:Kauffner's edits

I just read your edit summary. Please let me clarify as I myself speak both Cantonese and Mandarin:

[1] Chinese term for "Han Chinese" is two-character HanRen (漢人) or HanZu (漢族) (or see the article's "introduction" if you can read Chinese), basically it's one single ethnic group
[2] Chinese term for "Chinese" is 3-character ZhongGuoRen (中國人) or 4-character Zhonghua Minzu (中華民族), which is a multi-racial term
[3] Han or Han-Chinese is the formal english term. See the "China-Ethnic Groups" entry in the CIA factbook
[4] Therefore, unquestionably the "Nihao Hello" analogy doesn't work

Thanks! - 210.0.204.29 07:07, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree. "Han Chinese" is the established term, like it or not.--Niohe 12:59, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

"Han Chinese" is Chinese English and a propagandistic phrase. If you want to distinguish people of Chinese ethnic background from people who are Chinese only by citizenship, you can say "ethnic Chinese." Native speakers in a English-speaking country would never refer local residents as "Han Chinese," regardless of their citizenship or background. It's a phrase coined with same intention as "Chinese Taipei" and "China's Tibet." I suppose it's just a matter of time before Beijing starts calling Tibet "Chinese Lhasa." There is no phrase equivalent to "Han Chinese" for any other nationality. No one says "Deutsch German" or "Magyar Hungarian." Kauffner 13:21, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

At least from a unificationist perspective, the term Chinese includes all ethnic groups residing within the boundaries of China. The subtitle of simply "Chinese expelled" will create nothing but POV. "Han Chinese expelled" is neutral enough no matter how you define the status of Tibet: part of China or not.--219.79.26.131 02:17, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

As common sense, if the term is really "(Chinese?) propagandistic" as you claim, then it wouldn't appear on those CIA factbooks. "Chinese" is widely regarded as a multi-racial term, just like the term Americans by which we have "White Americans", "Hispanic Americans", "Afro-/African/Black Americans"...etc 219.73.8.77 17:05, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

In short, you can be a Chinese without being a Han --219.79.121.55 11:33, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

To say "Han Chinese" implies that Tibetans are Chinese as well and is therefore POV. It is not even technically correct since many of army officers were Manchu. More to the point, it is jarring to use a phrase of recent coinage to describe people who lived 100 years ago. In any case, I have changed it to "Chinese army" -- I hope bypassing this issue.Kauffner 17:28, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't "Han Chinese" just refer to Mandarin speakers? Are Min speakers also Han?

Min or Mandarin speaker wouldn't make any difference since both languages are considered to be forms of Hanyu. Logically, a Han should be a person whose native language is Hanyu. But it is actually a lot more complicated than this. For example, is not always a question of language -- depending on the context, the speaker can be referring to race or nationality. Another issue is that Beijing recognizes 50+ "minority nationalities" in somewhat the same way as the US government recognizes Indian tribes. Although most of these speak Hanyu, they are not classified as Han.Kauffner 17:28, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 10-point note

This material from the article:

However, in 1934, following the Dalai Lama's death, China sent a "condolence mission" to Lhasa headed by General Huang Musong, the Tibetan government wroted a ten-point note presented to Huang's Mission, saying: "In dealing with external affairs, Tibet shall remain an integral part of the territory of China"

(with the latter section referenced to "Goldstein, 1989, p. 239") seems quite misleading. In addtion to its comma splice structure, it seems to imply that this quotation from the ten-point note was a statement of fact. Howver, it was actually part of a proposal made during negotations with Huang, quite similar in principle to the Simla Convention, by which Tibet would accept Chinese sovereignty in exchange for territorial concessions and extensive promises of autonomy. It was never put into practice; it was just a proposal. This should be rewritten for clarity or simply removed from the article.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 19:02, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The original Tibetan version of this note has been lost. A Chinese version was produced by a translator serving with the Huang mission. The translation from Chinese to English was done much later by a pro-KMT historian (Li Tieh-tseng). IMO, the editor who added this material is attaching undue significance to the single word "remain" given that there were two opportunities for a partisan translator to insert an extraneous word.

Goldstein's book includes several documents from the Tibetan archive that the give the official Tibetan point of view on the soveriegnty issue. We don't have to rely on second hand sources when primary sources are available. If Lhasa had really thought that Tibet was a part of China, why didn't Huang go home with an actual agreement in hand instead of just a questionable translation of a proposal? Someone who has access to academic library should look at this article. Kauffner 16:13, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Um....I just read Goldstein's book and found that the said Ten-point was Kashag's reply to Huang's Mission proposals issued earlier. Goldstein also notes that the British officials in India also acknowledged this, in Goldsteins's word, "Offer of Subordination to China". So there is no big difference between the Tibetan and the Chinese editions. I'm not surprised by this Tibetan 10-point "part of China" statement because in the yr of 1934 Tibet was under the leadership of Reting Rimpoche, a well-known pro-Han leader, and exactly twenty yrs earlier the Tibetans had already de facto declared subordination in the Simla Convention, whose Appendix states that "Tibet forms part of Chinese territory"(Appendix, Simla Convention, 1914), Lochen Shatra's signature attached.

Even if Li T.T. was pro-KMT(so was the Tibetan Regent in the early 1930s), comparing both Li T.T. and Goldstein's accounts, and you will find the two translations are different in wordings. Goldstein claims that his translation also referenced to Krung Chuntsun's "Hong mu'o sung bod du bskyod pa'i gnas tshul dngos bkod pa", obviously a Tibetan sources.

Generally, Goldstein's translation is NPOV.

-MainBody 11:19, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] South Asia Side Bar

I don't really think the South Asia side bar is appropriate. It is true that much of the Tibetan cultural region is now in the hands of India and Pakistan, but much more of it is in the hands of the PRC. Most of the dynasties (practically all) had nothing to do with Tibetan history. A much better case could be made for the Chinese history side bar, or if thee is a Central Asia one that would be better still. Truth be told I am not a fan of such side bars because they imply a historical continuity between different political entities where usually one does not exist. Tibetologist 09:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed section

I removed a section again, which had reappeared with no explanation. It is a problematic paragraph calling Burmese Burman, suggesting that there can be such a thing as prehistoric peasants, mentioning the apparantly irrelevant fct of word order in Burese and Tibetan, and making uncited physiological claims which it associates with sociological phenomena. Until it is cleaned up, make sensible and cited there i no need for it. Tibetologist 22:36, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Asian History Maps showing Tibetan borders

Someone removed the map of Asia in 700 AD, even though that map includes the borders of Tibet in that year. Please restore it. The only other map in the article, the [Image:World_820.png], is good but it shows incorrect borders for Tibet. (eg: Nan Zhao and Bengal were both free from Tibetan rule after 794 AD, and Tibet ruled the Tarim Basin and parts of Afghanistan, including Kabul until 812 or 815 AD).

The [Image:Asia_700ad.jpg] map shows Tibetan borders around their first height. I have another map, [Image:Asia_800ad.jpg], which shows the borders at another high point in Tibetan history. Both of these maps portray the extent of Tibet's borders in relation to the Arab, Chinese, and Turkish borders, lands subjucated by the Tibetans, and other peoples who interacted with Tibet.

Plus the article is large enough that it can (and should) have several maps, without cluttering the article. The map thumbnails are small enough to fit comfortably into the article, and provide more information about Tibet's borders, its neighbors, and other nations that interacted with Tibet. One map is a start, but this article needs at least 3 because of its long history. And it can handle it easily. Please restore the map. Respectfully, Thomas Lessman (talk) 03:21, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Historical map of Tibet

Is this the one that you mean?

or this?

Mattisse 22:19, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Is the Dalai Lama a political and religious leader or just a religious leader

I have a problem with this statement "The Dalai Lama, leader of the Tibetan people who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, is widely respected as a religious leader, and is received by some governments as such."

The Dalai Lama is representing the Tibetan people in the secret official talks with Beijing that makes him a political figure. He is, of course, also a religious leader. To reflect this fact the article should point out that he is both a political and religious leader. The statement pointed out above is therefore false.

what is your opinion on this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Littlebutterfly (talk • contribs) 23:57, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The statement says that he is both a political and religious leader, which he is. Therefore it's accurate. During the Tibetan Empire the political and religious leadership were separate. Under the Mongols, the Sakya Lamas were given political leadership. Lamas have had the political leadership of Tibet ever since. Longchenpa (talk) 04:39, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Since he is a political leader, how about changing the existing statement to this “The Dalai Lama who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 is the political and religious leader of the Tibetan people”? I cut out the part that says he “is widely respected as a religious leader, and is received by some governments as such.” --Littlebutterfly (talk) 04:59, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

You cut out the fact that he's widely respected? Are you saying that he's not widely respected? Longchenpa (talk) 09:44, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Noting his Nobel Prize implies that he is respected. How about this ““The Dalai Lama who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 is the political and religious leader of the Tibetan people and is received by some governments as such.” --Littlebutterfly (talk) 03:27, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

What is the point of changing it in the first place? I see two changes in each version you've proposed. One: removing the word "respected." Are you saying he's not respected? Second: minimizing the number of countries that receive him as a political/religious leader to "some." Are you saying that only a few countries receive him? Longchenpa (talk) 17:37, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Someone removed it as being too detailed. It is important to the history of the Tibetan government in exile--and I discovered the government in exile was not even mentioned. I've remedied that with a new section and moved this quote there. I agree the quote was vague so I've added more specifics. Longchenpa (talk) 01:45, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mongol Discrimination

"The Han Chinese was discriminated against that the Mongol Khubilai employed only Tibetans, Uyghurs, and other non-Chinese foreigners to rule over the majority—-the Han Chinese" reads like an opinion and is not really in accord with early Chinese history texts. Can you support this statement? Longchenpa (talk) 09:51, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

1st, I think the word "foreigner" may be inappropriate here.
2nd, I think it is correct to speak of discrimination of Han Chinese in the Yuan dynasty, or of preferential treatment given to Uighurs and Central Asians - even Marco Polo claimed to have been appointed province governor!
3rd, I think the word "only" maybe wrong here. He preferred Central Asians, but I don't think they did not employ any Han Chinese at all. Not unless I see a citation for that claim, anyway. Yaan (talk) 14:01, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

The Yuen dynasty was a Mongolian dynasty and the Han-Chinese--those being conquered suffered. This is not an opinion but a fact. I agree with Yaan on those changes. How about this “"The Han Chinese was discriminated against that the Mongol Khubilai employed mainly the non-Han Chinese—the Tibetans, Uyghurs, etc, to rule over the majority—-the Han Chinese.” --Littlebutterfly (talk) 03:34, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm asking you to support this interpretation with historical documentation. Open a history book that has been peer reviewed by scholars. Don't change something that is from a well-regarded history text on China with an opinion. Longchenpa (talk) 17:28, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] This is a poorly word article.

I can't understand anything the article is saying. it feel like it is edited by school children. can someone who is more capable in english vetted the grammar!

like what is this suppose to mean?

The Chinese built highways that reached Lhasa, and which then extended the Indian, Nepalese and Pakistani borders.

missing a "to"? the meaning is completely different don't you think? Akinkhoo (talk) 14:40, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Hard to do a thorough smoothing of the language while people are still making broad changes. Longchenpa (talk) 17:44, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article has not been carefully edited

In the section under "Khoshud, Dzungars, and Manchu" mention is made of the 6th Dalai Lama and his lifestyle, and a little story is offered which explains the origin of the Tibetan stick-out-the-tongue greeting. Then, in the next section on the "18th & 19th centuries", this same material is repeated again as if it were new. Perhaps there are more such problems; the article is a little too chaotic as it stands. Jakob37 (talk) 09:53, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tibet and India, late 700 and 800 AD

Concerns have been raised over the Tibetan Empire borders depicted in the East-Hem maps for 700 and 800 AD. Specifically regarding whether Tibet ruled large sections of northern India, including Kamarupa, Bengal, and the Gangetic plains. There are unfortunately few sources covering relations between medieval Tibet and India. Bengal and Assam are also lacking reliable sources for that time period.

Some of my sources regarding Tibet's expansion into Bengal and India:

1. Google Book's "History of Tibet" makes several mentions of Nepal as a Tibetan vassal, and also says that India's Pala Empire under Dharmapala accepted Tibetan overlordship. (Page 54)

2. The wiki-article, History of Tibet also mentions Tibetan military power extending to Bengal, in the section about Ralpacan (815-838 AD).

3. Huhai.net has a [map of Asia in 750 AD] that shows Tibet ruling Kamarupa, Bengal, and Pala.

Tibet appears to have been rather active along their southern borders. We know Tibet subjugated Nanzhao twice (from 680-703, then from 750-794 AD). Nepal under the Licchavis was apparently subjugated also. This was about the same time as the collapse of the Pyu city-states in Burma, the end of the Varman Dynasty and the beginning of the Mlechchha dynasty in Kamarupa. It's possible Tibet also subjugated part of northern India. It may not have been an actual conquest; it could have been raids for plunder or marriage alliances.

(This is also being discussed on Talk:Kamarupa (History) and History of Tibet. I've posted this here to get more input. Any assistance is appreciated! I need to find out more information before I can correct the maps, if they are incorrect. Thomas Lessman (talk) 06:20, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tibet Feudalism slavery issue vs China occupation

I am surprised the articles mentioned Chinese government occupation of Tibet, but failed to mentioned slavery in place of Tibet government before 1959. Even the United State of America will not hesitate to mentioned the civil war that that end the slavery. Yes, China government are not all evils on the occupation part, but neither Dalai Lama are saint, for the roles of maintaining the slavery under his feudalism ruling. source : Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sltan (talk • contribs) 08:48, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Serfdom is not the same as slavery. And any good Marxist should be able to tell you that! I personally find it sad that no Chinese ever thanked the Russians and Japanese for all the nice railways they built, but I guess it is because people always tend to bitch instead of seeing the positive!

More seriously though, I think it would indeed be worth to include some words on the structure of Tibetan society in the early 20th century, and I know that Goldstein discusses it briefly in his Modern History of Tibet. Care to go to the library? Yaan (talk) 17:27, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article completely avoids mentioning the relations and character of society under the monks.

The article lacks information about society of Tibet, the brutal serfdom imposed on common people, punishment and torture practiced by the despotic feudal rulers.--Molobo (talk) 03:01, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Plese give actual historical evidence for any such system. I'm checking Beckwith but I'm not finding anything of the kind. There is Chinese propaganda to that effect but it lacks supporting evidence and isn't credible. Longchenpa (talk) 06:45, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Feudalism is never nice (except for the land owners), and, as mentioned, Goldstein mentions briefly how much land was owned by whom, how many taxes serfs had to pay and how many days they would have to work for their lords etc. Maybe you could just try and look it up?

Probably Tibet is not the only colony-like area in which anachronistic structures were preserved. This makes this propaganda thing a bit ironic - If we'd accept that Tibet was part of China before 1911, should not China also earn part of the blame for the long persistence of a feudal order? Yaan (talk) 11:29, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Inclusion of Tibet pre-1911 is iffy. Definitely Tibet was included under the Yuan, but I can't consider the Mongols Chinese. Rather the Mongols were overlords over both Tibet and China. As for considering Tibet as part of China under the Qing, according to Schirokaur Quianlong sent armies into Tibet to establish the Dalai Lama as ruler, with a Qing resident and a garrison. But no further effort was made to integrate Tibet into the Chinese empire.

As for Beckwith, yeah, he's not of any help on latter Tibet. I thought I had Goldstein but what I have is Richardson. Hmm. I must have returned Goldstein to the library.

I'm cautious of blithe sweeping comparisions between Asian countries and Europe. China's former land use policy is often called "feudal" with "serfs" but that characterization is inaccurate. I suspect the same goes for Tibet. Longchenpa (talk) 22:22, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Goldstein's papers on serfdom are available for download on his homepage. In my opinion his argument that Tibet had serfdom in the early 20th century is very good from a legal perspective, i.e. everyone except lords had to have a lord. But these ords could often be corporate bodies including villages, this was also true in medieval europe I think but is certainly not what one thinks of by 'serfdom' or 'feudalism'. Goldstein's findings are of course only relevant for the early 20th century. Otherwise research on Tibetan society is not very developed. In any case none of this should be discussed in this article which is about political history. The question of whether Tibet was a nice place to live or not before 1959 has no bearing on the fact of China's invasion or its legal or ethical status. Tibetologist (talk) 00:05, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

The article is named "History of Tibet", so IMHO it should include some social history as well. If volunteers can be found, anyway. Yaan (talk) 11:57, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be hard to write about Tibetan social history without doing your own research which is not allowed. Tibetologist (talk) 14:35, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll check out Goldstein's webpage, thank you. I'm still leery of the careless misapplication of the label "serfdom" but I can be convinced. My understanding is it still wouldn't apply to the monastic system as that more or less stood in for Tibet's educational system and acted as a means of social mobility for bright students (note the poaching of Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye first from the Nyingma, and then the fake tulku title described in his Nam Thar to prevent his being further poached by the Gelug). Longchenpa (talk) 16:57, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

You are right that one should not confuse monastacism and feudalism. Monasteries did allow for some social mobility. Such upward mobility was however rare. The point Goldstein was making was a legal one. Now a days most countries have a notion that all citizens are legally equal, and the only organizations that can legally constraint their life, movement and property are the government. In Tibet in the early 20th century each miser (commoner, serf, as you please) had to have a lord, if you had no lord you had no legal rights, your lord could tell you where to go, where to live, and could sell you. Sounds much like slavery or serfdom. On the other hand you could work out negociated degrees of freedom and in certain cases could appeal to the Lhasa government directly if your lord did something illegal. Lords included nobel families, monasteries, and villages. Anyone could buck his lord by becoming a monk. Monks were (sort of) exempt from this system. Serfs paid corvee and taxes to their lords, lords did it directly to the government. Some have argued that the miser are not serfs because the lords had similar obligations vis-avis the government, But to me that seems to be a great reason for calling them serfs, since in medieval european feudalism the situation was similar. Nobel families had to each give up one son to civil service, pay taxes etc. But they occupied a different legal category than the miser, and had legal power over them including of life and death. Tibetologist (talk) 17:46, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

My concern with Goldstein is that he was writing at a time when most Asia scholars defined a feudal society based on socio-political relationships (corvee, etc.) while ignoring land use policy. When it comes to the Tang Dynasty, the label of "feudal" is misapplied, according to Ebrey, because the individuals owned their own land. During the Song Dynasty you see less individual ownership due to economics, and the shifted to a sharecropper-type arrangement.

In eastern Tibet, Kham and Amdo, the land was owned by extended families. That's in Grunfeld, I believe. The way inheritance worked in western Tibet is that the house and land was owned and passed on through the maternal line while the other assets were passed on through the paternal line, again divided up by extended family rather than a feudal system of land ownership.

Democracy of course is a very new idea and didn't exist in either China or Tibet. But land use in China and Tibet is distinctly different from medieval feudal Europe. I'm not sure if another scholar has extended the new understandings of dynastic China into the field of Tibet. Longchenpa (talk) 17:51, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] First appearance in recorded history

Chinese speakers, can we get a character and maybe etymology for 'Fa'? Alexwoods (talk) 18:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] text repeated twice verbatim

There are at least three paragraphs that are repeated twice. The first begins with "The Dzungars invaded Tibet in 1717...", and they appear in two different sections. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.190.209.172 (talk) 17:47, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I have united these two sections, but it still needs some smoothing out. Tibetologist (talk) 16:10, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Schirokauer?

There are two citations from Schirokauer, but I cannot find what book they are from. I need this information. DonSlice 16:52, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What is this meant to mean?

"Tibet split from Burma circa 500". Does it mean the languages split? Does it mean in 500BCE? It seems like nonsense?Billlion (talk) 20:38, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it means both of those things and is nonsense. Tibetologist (talk) 22:25, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] There is a LOT of unsourced statements in this article.

Anyone else notice that there are twenty-five completely unsourced statements in this article? And then there are at least a dozen that ask for clarification. Anyone think we should remove some of the older ones (especially those not made by a long-standing Wikipedia member)? This article needs some serious cleanup. Find as many sources as you can, because what isn't sourced by the end of the week (Sunday, April 20th), goes. I'm posting this to get some answers, not to hurt anyone. Thanks! Paladin Hammer (talk) 04:41, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll try to rise to the challenge. --Gimme danger (talk) 05:08, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I've put out a call to the other longterm editors of this article as well. This is bad timing to eliminate statements from this article and I'd like to ask you to hold off. Because of the unrest in Tibet the Tibet editors are swamped. Longchenpa (talk) 14:40, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Lately, I have been reading lots of articles about this issue and found several ones that confirm some statements in this article. I'll add the citations if I find the appropriate statements that back them up. Feel free to verify any of them.--Madgirl 15 (talk) 22:41, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Parenti

I am removing the reference to Parenti's article as he is not a reliable historian. For more discussion on these topics (including Parenti's unreliability) see: Talk:Dalai Lama/Archive 1. John Hill (talk) 23:40, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Question Why is Parenti not a usable source? From the discussion on the Archive, it seems that the idea is that he is unreliable because he based his writing on Maoist sources. Am I understanding this correctly? --Gimme danger (talk) 23:52, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Reply: Parenti is not only biased but is a completely unreliable historian. For just one example of his woeful lack of knowledge of Tibetan history, Parenti claims in his article that: "In the thirteenth century, Emperor Kublai Khan created the first Grand Lama, who was to preside over all the other lamas as might a pope over his bishops." This is, predictably, totally confused - he has not only given an incorrect date (some 300 years out!) but mistakes Kublai Khan for Altun Khan. In fact, the title "Dalai Lama" was first used by the Mongolian ruler Altan Khan for Sonam Gyatso in 1578. I could go on and on - but there seems little point. Two such gross errors of fact in one sentence should make it very clear just how unreliable he is. John Hill (talk) 00:00, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'm finding it difficult to discern to between "unreliable" and "just plain wrong" sources here. The fact that I only believe half of them makes me concerned about injecting my bias into the article and question my ability to distinguish. But we certainly have no obligation to insert actual factual errors (Thank goodness!). --Gimme danger (talk) 00:07, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I do not think he is necessarily confusing anyone. He may just be referring to Phagspa. Yaan (talk) 10:29, 21 April 2008 (UTC) P.S. the following section does sound somewhat more confused, though:

Several centuries later, the Emperor of China sent an army into Tibet to support the Grand Lama, an ambitious 25-year-old man, who then gave himself the title of Dalai (Ocean) Lama, ruler of all Tibet.

His two previous lama “incarnations” were then retroactively recognized as his predecessors, thereby transforming the 1st Dalai Lama into the 3rd Dalai Lama. This 1st (or 3rd) Dalai Lama seized monasteries that did not belong to his sect, and is believed to have destroyed Buddhist writings that conflicted with his claim to divinity. The Dalai Lama who succeeded him pursued a sybaritic life, enjoying many mistresses, partying with friends, and acting in other ways deemed unfitting for an incarnate deity. For these transgressions he was murdered by his priests.

This seems as if he is confusing Altan Khan's trip to Köke Nor with some military operation to Tibet ordered by some Chinese emperor (plus maybe the 4th Dalai Lama with the 6th). And of course if we accept that he took the title in 1578, then the 3rd Dalai Lama would have been 35 already. Yaan (talk) 10:51, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Slaves or serfs?

I have just removed the reference to the Chinese supposedly abolishing "slavery" in Tibet. The reason is that, while there was previously a feudal system which included "serfs" (as in China), there was no organised system of "slavery" as it is generally understood today.

"Scholars actively debate whether it is accuate to use words like feudal and serf in the Tibetan context. The peasants paid various taxes, both in kind and in corvée labor, to the government, to monasteries, and to local nobles, but did that make all the peasants serfs? And if so, how many were serfs?

In the opinion of one scholar, Tom Grunfeld, author of The Making of Modern Tibet, reliable documentation about the numbers of Tibetans who were serfs before 1950 does not exist. . . . When forced to make an informed guess on this subject, Grunfeld gives some credence to the Chinese claims, made in 1959, that 60 percent of the population were serfs, not 95 percent, as the Chinese widely claim today. But when we look at that number, we find that half of the 60 percent were landowning peasants who paid taxes in labor and kind to the government, a monastery, or nobles. That leaves only 30 percent who might be classified as landless serfs, indentured to aristocratic families, a monastery or the government. But the 30 percent who were monks were not bonded to anyone. Nomads, who made up 20 percent of the population, were often free of all government control. Unfortunately, discussion of this subject is handicapped by the lack of solid data. Furthermore, in some provinces, such as Kham and Amdo, many peasants had no lord at all. These easterners resented any attempt by the aristocrats of Central Tibet to impose their domination in the east. The complex reality of the socio-economic structure prior to the invasion—which differed in various regions throughout Tibet—is not a subject about which anyone can accurately make gross generalizations.

Curiously, China told Lhasa that the purpose of its takeover was to "liberate" the Tibetans from imperialist forces. There was no mention of liberating serfs. On the contrary, China promised it would preserve the existing social order: the Seventeen-point Agreement makes that clear. It was only after the Dalai Lama fled his country, in 1959, that China began to collectivize the land and execute landlords, as it "liberated the serfs" in Central Tibet. It is an inconvenient fact of history that Beijing worked with Tibetan nobles, during the first nine years after the takeover, to preserve aristocratic rights over serfs and that China prevented the Dalai Lama from initiating reforms during this time. China's first motivation was to occupy Tibet, not to change it.

During the 1940s, travelers who passed through both China and Tibet reported that Tibetan peasants were far richer than their Chinese counterparts were. Tibetans had a level of immunity from famine, while poverty and starvation were common in China." Laird, Thomas (2006). The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama, pp. 317-319. Grove Press, New York. ISBN 978-0-8021-1827-1.

I hope this sheds some light on a very cloudy and contentious subject - one that Tibetans and Chinese frequently strongly disagree about. In fairness, I should add to the final point about the poverty and starvation amongst Chinese peasants during the 1940s that the situation may well have been largely due to the fact that China was at the time devastated by the war with Japan and the civil war. John Hill (talk) 03:13, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

And you're showing one reference to counter the reference I placed. That's fine. I won't argue the "serf" is not "slavery" issue. However, the statement mentioned each event as separate:

In conjunction with land reform, the Chinese government also abolished slavery and the Tibetan serfdom system of unpaid labor.

It did not say that by abolishing serfdom they abolished slavery. But now you deleted the word altogether and so the fact that this is disputed is not even hinted at in the article. Maybe this fact should be included instead of it being eliminated from the article altogether.

On the issue of serfdom, it should be at least mentioned that it was abolished at some point because it did exist. I'll list here a number of sources that mention this but this is only stuff I've read or merely browsed. I'm sure others could contribute more. I'll leave it up you or them or you to find the appropriate source to link the statement to since I think others may be more familiar with the subject than I am. I have only just started reading about this since a few days ago.

But the fact that serfdom existed and was abolished at some point is not debated and should not be listed as "citation needed".

http://www.china.org.cn/e-white/tibet/

http://www.index-china.com/index-english/Tibet-s.html

http://www.tibetinfor.com.cn/tibetzt/tibet50-en/background/doc/old_01.htm

http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article16744

http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/faq/tibet.html

Several articles from People's Daily Online http://english.people.com.cn/90002/93607/93800/6395279.html; http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90785/6394257.html; http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/6395275.html; http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/6391451.html

This link includes several articles on the subject: http://www.case.edu/affil/tibet/tibetanSociety/social.htm

http://www.encyclopedia.com/beta/doc/1G1-54099131.html

I also found several other links to articles from The Washington Post, Newsweek, China Daily and Xinhua but cannot access them since they require subscription fees.--Madgirl 15 (talk) 07:20, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Dear "Madgirl 15": I have never tried to deny that the PRC legally abolished serfdom in Tibet - they also did this in China proper. This, in itself, was a very commendable action, but they way they went about enforcing their new laws - such as killing landlords - seems very brutal and unnecessary to me.

I removed the reference you originally gave because Parenti is an unreliable source (please see my note above illustrating this) and then removed the word "slavery" because it did not seem to be justified under the circumstances. Serfdom certainly did exist in the old Tibet but I know of no evidence that organised buying and selling of human beings took place there so, while the Chinese may have passed laws prohibiting it, it does seem a hollow claim that they "abolished" a practice when there is no evidence that it existed. To say they "prohibited" slavery in Tibet it is fine - to say they "abolished" it sounds like propaganda to me. John Hill (talk) 23:47, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, see, stating things such as "'abolished' a practice when there is no evidence that it existed" is contradictory everything I have read and what you just said. If someone passes a law that prohibits something, isn't that making the practice of that something illegal or putting an end to it? Wasn't putting an end to slavery what through a law what the Emancipation Proclamation was? Of course, it did not mean that the practice of slavery ended there, since people still practiced it, simply illegally since there was a law that prohibited. Am I wrong?

I've never read anywhere that they killed landlord. If they did, which I'm not saying I'm skeptical of it because I'm not trying to defend anyone here, then there must've been a reason behind it. Just one that is not justifiable in the eyes of, say, a court of law. Why not write that, instead of simply "they killed landlords", "they killed landlords in a way that was unjust"?

Also, as to the word propaganda... why resort to this word to justify not placing the word "abolish"? Political systems work through propaganda. While it is true that propaganda usually never suggest truthfulness, one can't always say it is always used to suggest something negative. The only time when propaganda is never given a negative connotation or not even perceived as such is when it fits with accepted believes and dispositions of those who receive the propaganda. This is why I don't think that your suggestion of the word "abolished" being removed is justifiable. In order to achieve a neutral tone, all perspectives should be exposed whether some agree with them and others don't since it is not a matter of agreement but more of exposing the facts.--Madgirl 15 (talk) 04:14, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

As to reaching a consensus on this matter... perhaps the appropriate reference should be selected and a more careful choice of words should be employed to achieve the neutral tone.

(Perhaps omitting the part of "in conjunction with land reform" since this is already previously mentioned.)

In conjunction with land reform, the Chinese government also abolished the Tibetan serfdom system of unpaid labor

Changing the above into this:

The Chinese government, in conjunction with the local government of Tibet, signed an agreement that ended the Tibetan serfdom system of unpaid labor.

I find this citation problematic. It points to the top level of a website with a lot of links on it. When I search the page for "agreement" or "government", I find nothing. I would not call that a citation that permits verification of the claim. Also, the language construction is awkward - more clear to say, "The Chinese and Tibetan governments signed an agreement...." Also, the content is vague. What agreement was this, when and where was it signed? Bertport (talk) 19:29, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

The citation currently on this sentence is not a citation at all. The claim ought to be supported by one of the articles directly.Gimme danger (talk) 21:54, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Well then since no one can find a good source to back this statement up, why is it still here? To be clear about this, there WAS an agreement (known as the 17 point agreement), but it says nothing about slavery or serfdom. So why is this stated at all if there is nothing that verifies it accuracy?

I think the section simply needs to be written again since no reliable sources will probably ever be found to back these statements up, unless the sources I listed above are evaluated by someone other then me and be deemed reliable sources. All the links that mention that the Chinese government ended serfdom or that slavery or serfdom ended in Tibet, but they are from Chinese websites which will probably be deemed unreliable. I've read most of them and, in my judgment, many sound biased but the ones that sound most reliable and less biased are the ones from People's Daily Online. However, I've heard in other talk pages people argue the impartiality of similar pages such as Xinhua, and the perception there is on Chinese media in general, so that makes citing statements using these sources very difficult. Perhaps, someone could verify these sources so that the section can actually be improved, since it would be moot to edit the article if the sources used will always be found unacceptable by others.--Madgirl 15 (talk) 02:27, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] erdene zuu not the first monastery in mongolia?

Could this be more a question of interpretation than one of right vs. wrong? Though I am not sure, I don't think there are any surviving monasteries in Mongolia today that are older than Erdene Zuu (those built by Altan Khan are, of course, in Inner Mongolia). I guess it is rather hard to rule out that monasteries may have existed in the 13/14th century or under the Uighurs, but is there any positive evidence? At least it should be mentioned how exactly the claim "Erdene Zuu was the first" is wrong. Yaan (talk) 17:32, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Is it the "oldest extant monastery in Mongolia"? That would by my suggestion for wording. --Gimme danger (talk) 17:53, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I guess I'll just ask John Hill what exactly is wrong. Yaan (talk) 17:56, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi to you both. I think the problem here is that we are talking about two different things. I, following Laird's account, was referring to "Greater Mongolia" (to coin a term) - not the present state of Mongolia. The concept of "Inner Mongolia" would have been meaningless at the time of the 3rd Dalai Lama. The first monastery built in "Greater Mongolia" was the Thegchen Chonkhor, built by Altan Khan at Hohhot in what is now "Inner Mongolia", which has been absorbed by China.

"Altan Khan had Thegchen Chonkhor, Mongolia's first monastery, built [in Koko Khotan - Altan's capital - now Hohhot] and a massive program of translating Tibetan texts into Mongolian was commenced. Within 50 years most Mongols had become Buddhist, with tens of thousands of monks, who were members of the Gelug order, loyal to the Dalai Lama.^[1]

I have adjusted the text to reflect this confusion. I hope you find it acceptable. If not, please let me know - I am happy to discuss it further if you wish. Cheers, John Hill (talk) 22:52, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Just some nagging, I think the sentence is a bit long now. "first Monastery among the Khalkha" or something like that would be OK for me. Though maybe not for the general reader. I don't really think the division between the Tümed (plus some other tribes that were under Altan Khan's (more or less) direct rule?) and the Khalkha was meaningless in the 1580s, although I'll admit I know rather little about the Mongol factions during that period. Regards, Yaan (talk) 09:48, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] History of Tibet

I have just deleted the very long and unnecessarily repetitious section on the history of Tibet in the general article on Tibet and am now attempting to merge the info into History of Tibet removing duplication while trying to retain all properly referenced information not already in the History of Tibet article. This merging process has been recommended since December 2007.

I am also adding new material where it seems appropriate. I will do my best to be fair and thorough but, unfortunately, I am very pressed for time so I would be very grateful if knowledgeable persons would check the changes and excuse me for any oversights or mistakes. I will try to do some more work on this over the next couple of days. Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 11:18, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merging text from Tibet article. Help requested!

I have completed moving the historical text over from the general article on Tibet. There was (and still remains) a lot of duplication and I have done my best to quickly begin the merging process, do some editing, make some additions, etc., etc., etc. I, unfortunately have run out of time (I am leaving on an overseas trip to celebrate my mother's 94th birthday!) in a few days) but I think the article still needs considerable polishing. All help from fair-inded, good-hearted people is requested to really bring this article up to feature article standard - as I think it could and should be.

As the accounts of recent Tibetan history vary so completely it is extremely difficult to be both accurate and fair - to present a good, accurate encyclopedia article that is inclusive. Let's try to do it! John Hill (talk) 10:39, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image copyright problem with Image:DalaiLama-13 lg.jpg

The image Image:DalaiLama-13 lg.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --19:29, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Did oppressive “feudal serfdom” exist in Tibet before the Chinese arrived?

This is a very controversial and complex subject so I have rewritten the section on it in the article itself. However, because some readers will likely be unsatisfied with my brief summary, I thought I should give more evidence here and have, therefore, decided to quote fairly extensively from Robert Barnett’s careful and (I believe) balanced examination of the evidence:

“Melvyn Goldstein, an American anthropologist who carried out research within Tibet into pre-1959 social relations, concluded that most Tibetans before 1959 were bound by written documents to the land on which they were based and to the lord who owned that land, and so he argued that they could be described as “serfs” (Goldstein 1986, 1988). Most Western scholars accept that this was broadly the case, but query the extensiveness of the practice and the politics behind the terms used to describe it. . . . W. M. Coleman (1998) has pointed out that in practice the Tibetans had more autonomy than appears in the written documents, and that Tibetans could equally well be described simply as peasants with particular kinds of debts and taxation responsibilities, rather than using a politically and morally loaded term such as “serf.” Other scholars have noted that such social categories, Marxist or otherwise, are in any case rooted in European history and do not match the social system of pre-1951 Tibet, let alone the very different arrangements found among the people of eastern Tibet.

These scholars do not disagree with the Chinese claims that Tibet had a particular form of social relations that differed from those later found in democratic and Communist countries. What is contested is whether later scholars or politicians should use terms that imply a value judgment about the moral qualities of these relations. This is a matter of intense dispute because the Chinese claim about serfdom, on the surface a factual account of social relations, in fact depends for its effects on its linkage to two other elements which are highly contestable–feudalism and extreme oppression. It is taken for granted that these are inseparable from serfdom. A conscious effort of the intellect is required to recall that one does not follow from the other.

There is no question that Tibet was an extremely poor society for most of its members, or that the poorest were the most likely to exploitation and abuse. This was true of most sectors of any society in Asia and elsewhere until recently, including China, and is still true today in many areas. So even if it was agreed that serfdom and feudalism existed in Tibet, this would be little different except in technicalities from conditions in any other “premodern” peasant society, including most of China at that time. The power of the Chinese argument therefore lies in its implication that serfdom, and with it feudalism, is inseparable from extreme abuse.

Evidence to support this linkage has not been found by scholars other than those close to Chinese government circles. Goldstein, for example, notes that although the system was based on serfdom, it was not necessarily feudal, and he refutes any automatic link with extreme abuse. “I have tried to indicate that the use of the term ‘serfdom’ for Tibet does not imply that lords tortured and otherwise grossly mistreated their serfs. . . . There is no theoretical reason why serfdom should be inexorably linked to such abuses,” he writes, noting that extreme maltreatment was unlikely since it would have been against the interests of the landowners, who needed the peasants to provide labor (1988: 64-65).

There seems to be limited evidence of the systematic savagery described by Chinese writers, at least since the late nineteenth century. There was a famous case of mutilation as a punishment in 1924, but the officials involved were themselves punished by the 13th Dalai Lama for this action, he had banned all such punishments in a proclamation in 1913 (Goldstein 1989: 123-26, 61). A case of judicial eye gouging in 1934 as a punishment for treason was clearly exceptional, since no one living knew how to carry it out (Goldstein 1989: 208-9). On the other hand, there are hundreds of reports, many of them firsthand accounts of Tibetan political prisoners being severely tortured in Chinese prisons during the early 1990s, as well as almost ninety cases of suspicious deaths in custody (see, e.g. TCHRD 2005), none of which have been independently investigated.” From: ”What were the conditions regarding human rights in Tibet before democratic reform?” By Robert Barnett in: Authenticating Tibet: Answers to China’s 100 Questions, pp. 81-83. Eds. Anne-Marie Blondeau and Katia Buffetrille. (2008). University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-24464-1 (cloth); ISBN 978-0-520-24928-8 (paper). Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 21:01, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Very nice. The bibliography of this piece would be amazingly useful for expanding Serfdom in Tibet if the AfD results in a keep. Damned finals though. Too much Wikipedia and not enough time. Gimme danger (talk) 21:58, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

The tone and content are very good. However, this topic being as contentious as it is, I would recommend more meticulous citations, to scrupulously avoid being subsequently tagged as original research. Tibet during the Ming Dynasty is a good model to study for a thorough examination of a contentious topic, that holds up well to Wikipedia policies. Bertport (talk) 18:42, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Additional comments: Thanks for your comments. I am travelling at the moment and do not have access to all my books and notes so it is difficult for me to add much at this time. I have added another reference to Laird on the main page (see the entry under "Slaves or serfs?" above on this page for the quote from his book).

The full references mentioned in the quote from Blondeau and Buffertrille above are:

Goldstein, Melvyn C. 1986. "Re-examining Choice, Dependancy and Command in the Tibetan Social System-'Tax Appendages' and Other Landless Serfs." Tibet Journal 11, 4:79-112.

Goldstein, Melvyn C. 1988. "On the Nature of Tibetan Peasantry." Tibet Journal 13, 1:61-65.

Goldstein, Melvyn C. 1989. A History of Modern Tibet: The Demise of the Lamaist State, 1913-1951. Berkely, Calif.

Coleman, William M. (1998). Writing Tibetan History: The Discourses of Feudalism and Serfdom in Chinese and Western Historiography. Ann Arbour, Mich.

TCHRD (Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, [6]) 2005. "Tibetan Prisoner Serving Life Sentence Dies in Prison." February 4. Dharamsala. [7].

There is more I could quote from Blondeau and Buffertrille and more references. If you need them let me know, and I will enter them when I can get the opportunity (which may not be for some time). Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 03:58, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

You might also appreciate this paper, which critiques a view of a single system in Tibet and some of Goldstein's points in particular: Samuel, Geoffrey Tibet as a Stateless Society and Some Islamic Parallels The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 41, No. 2 (Feb., 1982), pp. 215-229

Mostly he provides evidence that there was not a single economic or political system, even as one was closer to Lhasa. In there you'll also find this quote, for example, "It may well be that here, as elsewhere, the natural tendency to view Tibet in terms either of medieval European feudalism or the centralized states of East or South-East Asia may be distorting our perception of the true nature of the Tibetan system. (p.226)" - Owlmonkey (talk) 04:20, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

It easy to show that not every scholar agrees with Melvyn Goldstein. To use him only, or only those who agree with him, as a source is POV, and the views of others such as Michael Parenti, in his paper Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth [8], are needed to give balance to what you have written. (NB: I have not read the entire article, so if the balancing sources are actually there, and I have just missed them, I am sorry if I have reached a wrong conclusion about lack of balance.) Malcolm Schosha (talk) 12:11, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

You're probably right: there probably are a wider range of expert opinions that should be reflected. However, I'm sure you will agree that NPOV does not require marginal opinions to be given as much weight as more widely-respected opinions are. We can only determine which is which by relying on reputable, reliable sources for information, and Michael Parenti is not that when it comes to Tibetan history.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 00:14, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Michael Parenti is an historian and political scientist who has published twenty books. His WP article mentions issues of class and power as one of his areas of interest [9], which certainly qualifies him as a source on issues of feudalism. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 01:23, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

As has been demonstrated to you many times, Michael Parenti's work is unreliable and factually inaccurate. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 01:26, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Parenti is a notable figure in the discussion, and should be included. The article can also include other scholars' critical evaluations of his reliability and accuracy. Bertport (talk) 01:43, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Even if marginal, his scholarly input still exists, and should be mentioned. However, he shouldn't be given the same total volume of textual space as let's say, ten other scholars of a different or opposing view. Parenti's described position should be brief like any other's and buttressed by those who share the same or similar opinion (how many of them that can be found, that is). I doubt Goldstein and Parenti are the only leading scholars on this issue.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:01, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

In what sense is Parenti a notable figure in this discussion? By what standard is he one of the leading scholars on this issue?—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 02:36, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

He is notable in that, whenever this topic comes up, his name comes up. For that reason, he should be addressed, even if the main purpose of bringing him up is to show that his writing has been dismissed by other scholars. (Either way, all content gets cited - the Parenti content, and the dismissal content.) Bertport (talk) 04:29, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

That doesn't make any sense. Why would you knowingly include false information if you intended to disprove it anyway? What encyclopedic value does that have? There is nothing that says all viewpoints must be held equal and, in fact, this is a keystone provision in WP:FRINGE. This is not an article about Michael Parenti or his poor grasp of the facts, those things can be relegated to his biography. This is an encyclopedic article about Tibet and it should include only reliable, academic and factually accurate sources. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 07:16, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but Parenti is certainly not the only scholar who promotes these views, correct? I never said give him the spotlight and the podium. Rather, if there are several others propagating a similar view, he should be mentioned alongside them, as well as by scholars who bother to refute him, which means that he is significant enough if he is mentioned by other scholars.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:41, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I would like to take John Hill's work above and incorporate it into Serfdom in Tibet. It seems the main reason this topic merits attention is its political potency, not its historical soundness. And so, it should not occupy a lot of turf in History of Tibet. The situation resembles that of Intelligent Design, which has no value as a scientific theory, and thus deserves little if any mention in Evolution, but does merit close examination as a political/religious controversy, and thus gets extensive treatment in its own article. Bertport (talk) 05:37, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I would advocate this approach as well. This kind of framing may make it easier to incorporate disparate viewpoints into the Serfdom in Tibet article. Gimme danger (talk) 05:44, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Additional notes

When I was copying in the long notes from Robert Barnett above - I left some of the first paragraph out partly because I didn't think they were necessary to the argument, and partly to shorten my task of copying it all down. This omitted section is indicated by the string of dots between "Most Western scholars accept that this was broadly the case, but query the extensiveness of the practice and the politics behind the terms used to describe it. . . ." and "W. M. Coleman (1998). . . ."

I see now that, as this argument seems particularly intense, I should have included them - so, here they are now:

"Franz Michael and Beatrice Miller argued that the less loaded words "commoner" or "subject" are more accurate than the word "serf," partly because of ample evidence that a large number of Tibetans were able to moderate their obligations to their lords by paying off some of their dues, and so could move from place to place. Tibet also had a functioning legal system to which they could appeal in some cases (Miller 1987, 1988; Michael 1986, 1987). Dieter Schuh (1988) showed that those who might technically be called "serfs" were in fact relatively prosperous-the majority were often poorer, but in many cases they were not "bound to the land" and so were not technically"serfs." Girija Saklani (1978) argued that the feudal-type institutions in Tibetan society were counterbalanced by factors that reflected "the principle of cohesion and collectivity" rather than of a rigid hieararchy." Ibid., pp. 81-82.

Refs:

Michael, Franz. 1986. "Tibetan Traditional Polity and Its Potential for Modernisation." Tibet Journal 11, 4: 70-78.

Miller, Beatrice D. 1987. "A Response to Goldstein's 'Re-examining Choice, Dependency and Command in the Tibetan Social System,' " Tibet Journal 12, 2: 65-67.

Schuh, Dieter. 1988. Das Archiv des Klosters bKra-shis-bsam-gtan-gling von sKyid-grong. Bonn.

Saklani, Girija. 1978. "The Hierarchical Pattern of Tibetan Society." Tibet Journal 3, 4: 27-33.

I hope this helps to make this cloudy situation somewhat clearer. I think I should add here that Tibetan society, like every other society, was by no means perfect but was probably no worse overall in terms of personal rights and opportunities at the time than surrounding countries, including China. This situation, I believe, generally continues, and, in spite of huge spending by the PRC in Tibet in recent years, little of the money and few of the advantages are going to ethnic Tibetans - and most to recent immigrants from China proper. Tibetans really are suffering from severe discrimination and destruction of their culture. However, without letting the Chinese off the hook, this is in no way to say that China is at all unusual in such treatment of conquered indigenous peoples. I believe it is most unfair of those of us from countries such as Australia, Canada, the U.S., Brazil, or the previous European colonial powers, to pretend that we have done any better or been any more humane than the Chinese government. While it is important to keep up pressure on the Chinese to substantially improve conditions for, and their treatment of, the Tibetans - this must be also balanced with the recognition that our own countries have just as much to answer for and we should all be working equally hard for protecting human rights and freedoms world-wide - including in our own back yards.

Now, unfortunately, I will have to leave this discussion for over the next few weeks as I will be travelling and only occasionally will have the opportunity to look in on it. I can only hope everyone will try to be civil and respectful and that the article will finally present a truthful and balanced picture. Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 06:13, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Conflict of interest

It is clear from the current discussion that some editors of this article are so devoted to the cause of Tibet, and to Tibetan Buddhism, that a conflict of interest prevents objective editing. I am not so naive as to believe that such editors will step back when issues that are critical of what they hold so close to their heart arise, because my observation has shown that such editors hang on tenaciously and are motivated by their beliefs. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that such conflict of interest editing is contrary to Wikipedia policies, and consequently results in articles that are a best POV, and at worst just billboards promoting a cause. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 14:58, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I object to you implying that I am not objective. Please reread my second last paragraph above and be aware that I have been exposing human rights abuses of indigenous peoples in Canada, the U.S. and Australia since at least 1963. I have spent much of my life trying to expose, prevent and reverse the effects of some of those dreadful abuses. I in no way condone such exploitation and maltreatment past or present in Tibet (and they certainly did occur in "old Tibet") but I do believe they should be dealt with factually and in context and without an overlay of strident, self-serving propaganda. At the same time I believe that China should not be singled out as if it is the sole or most extreme abuser of human rights and freedoms in the world today - unfortunately, it certainly has lots of contenders in this field. Yours, John Hill (talk) 15:55, 3 June 2008 (UTC) Yours, John Hill (talk) 15:55, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Do you deny that the problem of conflict of interest exists here, and some related articles? Malcolm Schosha (talk) 16:03, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Dear Malcolm. No, but I don't believe the problems cannot be resolved - assuming goodwill and a committment to the truth on all sides. Similar situations of opposing views appear regularly on the Wikipedia's pages. It is up to us to try to resolve them fairly. John Hill (talk) 16:10, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

You wrote: "assuming goodwill and a committment to the truth...". John, I wish that is what I was seeing. But I do expect to see exactly that when (if) the Messiah comes. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 16:22, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, I tend to agree with you to some extent (especially as I find myself wasting precious time searching through articles on a daily basis looking for vandalism, prejudice and bias) but the alternative is just to give up. I think I'll stick with the Wikipedia, at least for a while longer, and see if this grand experiment in cooperative editing can work after all (it is really quite incredible, I believe, how much has been achieved so far in spite of the many foibles of human nature and some really mean and nasty forces out there in the ether). Cheers, John Hill (talk) 16:41, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Are you kidding me? It's about as bad for "Tibet-centric editors" to edit Tibetan articles as it is for a Jewish person insisting on including Jewish sources. This is completely ridiculous and I strongly object. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 19:56, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Now, if the Dalai Lama assembled ten subordinate lamas to sit around and edit wikipedia to make it favorable to one of their positions, then that would be an obvious conflict of interest. But you think that the same applies to these editors here? Who have no collaboration or affiliation with lobbyists or associations but merely an affinity for Tibet? I don't think you're making a very good case, Malcolm Schosha.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:02, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

There are some editors who are so psychologically and spiritually invested in the cause of Tibet, and in Tibetan Buddhism; that, when they are involved in issues (apparently) critical of Tibet and its theocratic government, conflict of interest can easily become a serious problem. I have observed this problem in action, and although I have worded this in terms of Tibet and Buddhism, it can be a problem when issues sensitive to Jews arise in Jewish topic articles, for Christians, for members of the Theosophical Society, and many other groups when some editors are so psychologically invested in a group or cause that they can not accept critical elements, and do all in their power (including edit warring) to block what they see as harmful to their beloved cause. It is quite understandable, and I do not condemn them, but they do sometimes make problems and block efforts to write balanced articles. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 20:35, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

And you, the arbiter of objectivity, can tell us then who these fiends are that hold these conflicts and who should be forbidden from editing the articles and subjects they associate so closely with. We could forbid all impassioned parties from editing any articles for which they show even the slightest concern and ban anyone who expresses a passing interest in all but the most banal of subjects. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 00:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Malcolm Schosha, this operates under the assumption that you personally know these editors and the depth to which they are invested "psychologically and spiritually" in whitewashing Tibetan history for the sake of benefiting some big cause. That's quite an accusation, and it really goes against Wikipedia's guideline of Good Faith. My 2 cents on the matter.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 01:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Cumulus Clouds writes that I want to be an "arbiter of objectivity", and that I want users "forbidden from editing". PericlesofAthens writes that I have made an "accusation" that is contrary to assuming "good faith". Please. Where did I say that an editor here should be "forbidden from editing"? And I have not "accused" editors of something other than human nature.

What I wrote above is "It is clear from the current discussion that some editors of this article are so devoted to the cause of Tibet, and to Tibetan Buddhism, that a conflict of interest prevents objective editing." I think that is correct, and I am sorry if that comes as unwelcome news. But there are also editors here who, even though devoted to the cause of Free Tibet, are also quite capable of understanding, and writing, a balanced Wikipedia article. I rather hope that those users will act to limit the edit warring inclinations of other editors who believe that it is necessary to block the evil efforts of Malcolm Schosha, and all others, who want to say some critical things about beautiful and virtuous Tibet. Wikipedia is filled with articles that are nothing more than billboards praising some movement, group or leader because they have decided that is more important than Wikipedia rules to write balanced article. In most of those cases the situation is hopeless. Perhaps it is hopeless here too...but I thought perhaps it was not. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 11:43, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

This entire line of thought is little more than an ad hominem attack. I see nothing specific to this article being addressed here at all. This insulting but otherwise vague and irrelevant opinion is duly noted. Longchenpa (talk) 13:44, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

It is a criticism, not an attack (you need to learn the difference); and it is not an ad hominem (you need to learn more about logic before trying to use logical terminology) because it discusses an editing problem, and does not try to discredit any individual (God forbid!).

By the way, this discussion applies particularly to the Serfdom in Tibet article, but discussion got moved here by another editor. I have done no editing on this article, and have no intention of doing so. Nevertheless, what I have said certainly applies here too. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 14:26, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Word to the wise, arguing that you're not attacking people by attacking someone else isn't really going to help your point. You should probably give up here because you're really not doing yourself any favors. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 00:31, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. I suppose the vagueness (attacking a general undefined group of editors) is the reason you don't consider this ad hominem? That doesn't change it from being an attack, and switching your target to attack me is the same tactic. You're still attacking individuals and not addressing the facts. Longchenpa (talk) 21:47, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Cumulus Clouds, if you think I have violated WP:CIVILITY I invite you to take it to the Administrators Notice Board [10]. But, in my view, you need to develop the ability to distinguish between a criticism, that is related to the editing of the article; and a gratuitous attack on a person. As your your saying to me "you're really not doing yourself any favors", thanks for your generous concern about my well being. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 11:33, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I guess I'm just really politely trying to ask you to stop posting here. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 15:47, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Cumulus Clouds wrote: "I guess I'm just really politely trying to ask you to stop posting here". This request of Cumulus Clouds' seems in violation of WP:OWN, and this user seems to have assumed authority to decide which editors are allowed, and which are not. The attempt to block even the discussion of dissenting, or minority, views apparently justifies my point that there are editors here who are in conflict of interest. This request (demand) that Cumulus Clouds has made to me is unacceptable; and all the more so because I have been careful to remain civil, have not in any way disrupted the editing of the article, and have focused only on points that I consider important for an article that is neutral. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 17:04, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

No, for the duration of this entire conversation, you have been rather vague and so far careful to avoid bringing up a specific issue in the article that has led you to believe that there is a conflict of interest. You mentioned "Free Tibet" and Tibetan Buddhism, but you didn't provide any specific examples or links to edits that would suggest the article is unbalanced. Once you do that, then this conversation will have some substance worth discussing.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:15, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

This discussion comes as a direct continuation of "Did oppressive “feudal serfdom” exist in Tibet before the Chinese arrived?" [11] which was moved here by user John Hill from the talk page of the Serfdom in Tibet article [12] (That article is now a complete mess, and needs a lot of work to improve it.) Malcolm Schosha (talk) 18:03, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

??? Do you have a point? Cumulus Clouds (talk) 20:33, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with PericlesofAthens. So far you have been vague and I can see nothing pertaining to this article. Longchenpa (talk) 21:46, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah. As it works out Malcolm Schosha is a sockpuppet account and has been blocked indefinitely: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Malcolm_Schosha Longchenpa (talk) 06:12, 7 June 2008 (UTC)