Priest and patron relationship

[1] During the 1913 Simla Conference, the 13th Dalai Lama's negotiators cited the priest and patron relationship to explain the lack of any clearly demarcated boundary between Tibet and the rest of China (ie.

Hence, the highest authority in Tibet was the administrator of the Sakya who deferred to the abbot in religious matters.

[4] Western historians such as Melvyn Goldstein, Elliot Sperling, and Jaques Gernet have described Tibet during the Yuan and Qing dynasties as a protectorate, vassal state, tributary, or something similar,[5] and made clear about the subordination of Tibet to the Yuan and Qing emperors,[6][7] although the de facto independent Tibetan government (1912–1951) and Tibetan exiles promote the status of independent nation with only a patron and priest relationship and the idea that the political subordination to the Yuan and Qing emperors was a misunderstanding.

[8][6] According to Elliot Sperling, an expert on the history of Tibet and Tibetan–Chinese relations at Indiana University, the Tibetan concept of a "priest–patron" religious relationship governing Sino-Tibetan relations to the exclusion of concrete political subordination is itself a "rather recent construction" and unsubstantiated.

Instead, the patron and priest relationship coexisted with Tibet's political subordination to the Yuan and Qing dynasties.