History of Tibet

The Tibet Autonomous Region was established following the PRC annexation, although Tibetan independence and human rights emerged as international issues, gaining significant visibility alongside the 14th Dalai Lama in the 1980s and 1990s.

The PRC disputes these claims and points to their investments in Tibetan infrastructure, education, and industrialization as evidence that they have replaced a theocratic feudal government with a modern state.

[11] Prehistoric Iron Age hillforts and burial complexes have recently been found on the Tibetan Plateau, but the remote high altitude location makes archaeological research difficult.

[15] Nyatri Tsenpo is considered by traditional histories to have been the first king of the Yarlung dynasty, named after the river valley where its capital city was located, approximately fifty-five miles south-east from present-day Lhasa.

[18] According to various accounts, king Drigum Tsenpo (Dri-gum-brtsan-po) either challenged his clan heads to a fight,[19] or provoked his groom Longam (Lo-ngam) into a duel.

[13][20][page needed][21] In a later myth, first attested in the Maṇi bka' 'bum, the Tibetan people are the progeny of the union of the monkey Pha Trelgen Changchup Sempa and rock ogress Ma Drag Sinmo.

[31] Upon the death of Langdarma, the last emperor of a unified Tibetan empire, there was a controversy over whether he would be succeeded by his alleged heir Yumtän (Yum brtan), or by another son (or nephew) Ösung ('Od-srung; either 843–905 or 847–885).

The latter apparently maintained control over much of central Tibet for a time, and sired two sons, Trashi Tsentsän (Bkra shis brtsen brtsan) and Thrikhyiding (Khri khyi lding), also called Kyide Nyimagön (Skyid lde nyi ma mgon) in some sources.

The first documented contact between the Tibetans and the Mongols occurred when the missionary Tsang-pa Dung-khur (gTsang-pa Dung-khur-ba) and six disciples met Genghis Khan, probably on the Tangut border where he may have been taken captive, around 1221–22.

Closer contacts ensued when the Mongols successively sought to move through the Sino-Tibetan borderlands to attack the Jin dynasty and then the Southern Song, with incursions on outlying areas.

One traditional Tibetan account claims that there was a plot to invade Tibet by Genghis Khan in 1206,[39] which is considered anachronistic as there is no evidence of Mongol-Tibetan encounters prior to the military campaign in 1240.

[46] They returned to the region in 1244, when Köten delivered an ultimatum, summoning the abbot of Sakya (Kun-dga' rGyal-mtshan) to be his personal chaplain, on pains of a larger invasion were he to refuse.

By the end of the century, Western Tibet lay under the effective control of imperial officials (almost certainly Tibetans) dependent on the 'Great Administrator', while the kingdoms of Guge and Pu-ran retained their internal autonomy.

[52] The Sakya hegemony over Tibet continued into the mid-14th century, although it was challenged by a revolt of the Drikung Kagyu sect with the assistance of Duwa Khan of the Chagatai Khanate in 1285.

[57][58] Samding Dorje Phagmo The Phagmodru (Phag mo gru) myriarchy centered at Neudong (Sne'u gdong) was granted as an appanage to Hülegü in 1251.

Altan Khan, the king of the Tümed Mongols, first invited Sonam Gyatso, the head of the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism (later known as the third Dalai Lama), to Mongolia in 1569 and again in 1578, during the reign of the Tsangpa family.

Some sources claim the khan appointed Sonam Rapten as de facto administrator of civil affairs while the Dalai Lama was relegated to religious matters.

However, before leaving Tibet for China in 1652 the Dalai Lama issued a proclamation or decree to Sonam Rapten banning all such sectarian policies that had been implemented by his administration after the 1642 civil war, and ordered their reversal.

[70][non-primary source needed] According to FitzHerbert and, there was an increase in the 5th Dalai Lama's "day-to-day control of ... his government" after the deaths of Sonam Rapten and Güshi Khan in the 1650s.

[72] During the rule of the Great Fifth, two Jesuit missionaries, the German Johannes Gruber and Belgian Albert Dorville, stayed in Lhasa for two months, October and November, 1661 on their way from Peking to Portuguese Goa, in India.

[85] At multiple places such as Lhasa, Batang, Dartsendo, Lhari, Chamdo, and Litang, Green Standard Army troops were garrisoned throughout the Dzungar war.

However, according to Warren Smith, these directives were either never fully implemented, or quickly discarded, as the Qing were more interested in a symbolic gesture of authority than actual sovereignty.

Other visitors included, in 1774 a Scottish nobleman, George Bogle, who came to Shigatse to investigate trade for the British East India Company, introducing the first potatoes into Tibet.

[99] After 1792 Tibet, under Chinese influence, closed its borders to Europeans and during the 19th century only 3 Westerners, the Englishman Thomas Manning and 2 French missionaries Huc and Gabet, reached Lhasa, although a number were able to travel in the Tibetan periphery.

[citation needed] In 1914 the Tibetan government signed the Simla Accord with Britain, ceding the several small areas on the southern side of the Himalayan watershed to British India.

[125] The People's Republic of China (PRC), founded in October 1949 by the victorious Communists under the leadership of Mao Zedong, lost little time in asserting a new Chinese presence in Tibet.

[127] Despite the presence of twenty thousand Chinese soldiers in Central Tibet, the Dalai Lama's government was permitted to maintain important symbols from its de facto independence period.

This involved communist agitators designating "landlords"—sometimes arbitrarily chosen—for public humiliation in thamzing (Wylie: ‘thab-‘dzing, Lhasa dialect: [tʰʌ́msiŋ]) or "Struggle Sessions", torture, maiming, and even death.

[131] Meanwhile, in the United States, the American Society for a Free Asia, a CIA-financed front, energetically publicized the cause of Tibetan resistance, with the Dalai Lama's eldest brother, Thubten Norbu, playing an active role in that organization.

[133] Ginsburg and Mathos reached the conclusion, that "As far as can be ascertained, the great bulk of the common people of Lhasa and of the adjoining countryside failed to join in the fighting against the Chinese both when it first began and as it progressed.