Conflict in a Buddhist Society: Tibet under the Dalai Lamas 9780824889302

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CONFLICT IN A BUDDHIST SOCIETY

CONFLICT IN A BUDDHIST SOCIETY Tibet under the Dalai Lamas

Peter Schwieger

University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu

© 2021 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 26 25 24 23 22 21    6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Schwieger, Peter, author. Title: Conflict in a Buddhist society : Tibet under the Dalai Lamas / Peter Schwieger. Description: Honolulu : University of Hawai‘i Press, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020053658 | ISBN 9780824888480 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780824889302 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9780824889326 (kindle edition) | ISBN 9780824889319 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Social conflict—China—Tibet Autonomous Region—History. | Buddhism and state—China—Tibet Autonomous Region—History. | Tibet Autonomous Region (China)—History. Classification: LCC DS785 .S334 2021 | DDC 951/.503—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020053658 University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Cover art: The four-armed Gönpo, one of the deities invoked during oath-taking (scroll painting, 20th century, possession of the author).

to Robert and Sebastian

Contents Preface  ix Tibetan Orthographic Equivalents  xiii 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Introduction  1 History and Memory  9 Domination  31 Hierarchy  59 Center, Periphery, and Boundary  77 Semantics  96 Morality and Ethics  113 Ritual  134 Law  150 War  201 Conclusion  230 Notes  241 Bibliography  293 Index  319

Preface Writing this book arose from a twofold desire: first, the desire to systematize what we know about Tibet today on a more abstract level, thus enabling a view of Tibet that takes the study of its history and culture out of its niche existence and makes it accessible for research questions of general relevance; and second, the desire to demonstrate that a theory of society with a universal claim, which understands society as a system among other systems, can be successfully applied to Tibet. The book also allowed me to look back on various areas of research in my long academic career from an innovative perspective. As an approach, I chose a question that is crucial for the maintenance of any social order: How did the society of Tibet, as it existed from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, deal with conflicts? The idea for this book has matured over many years. It was born out of a fascination with the elegance and coherence of Niklas Luhmann’s social theory. It is a theory that claims to be able to describe everything that happens with and within a society without contradiction on an abstract level in functional terms. This claim virtually demanded that the theory be applied to a society that seems as foreign and distant to us as the society of the old Tibet. I chose to focus on how social conflicts were dealt with in order to sharpen the comparative perspective on a key issue that is fundamental to social order in general and will never lose relevance. The writing of the book occupied me for many years, and this occupation was not free from conflict. Essentially, these conflicts concerned the handling of a twofold esotericism, in the original meaning of that word: firstly, a field of knowledge that, due to sources that are difficult to access in various respects, is still only open to a relatively small circle of scholars; and, secondly, a complex development of theory whose enormous potential is not apparent at first glance. Coupled with the demand to be understandable and open to connections beyond narrow disciplinary boundaries, this fact ­confronted me anew with the challenge of making acceptable compromises. As a result, Tibetan names and terms were reduced to the bare essentials. Instead of transliterating Tibetan words, which is common in specialist ix

x     Preface

circles yet hampers reading due to the reproduction of difficult consonant clusters in the Tibetan written language, the simplified transcription introduced by David Germano and Nicolas Tournadre was chosen, which is roughly based on modern pronunciation (http://www.thlib.org/reference /transliteration/#!essay=/thl/phonetics/). For the sake of consistency, it is inevitable that the spelling of Tibetan names in this book occasionally differs slightly from the spelling in other publications, including those cited here. However, this dilemma has always accompanied tibetological publications that address a broader readership. For those familiar with the Tibetan writing system, a list of the spelling equivalents according to the Wylie transliteration scheme has been added. Only for some key terms has a transliteration been added in brackets at their first occurrence for the sake of clarity. Explanations in the endnotes usually use the Wylie scheme. A coherent presentation of the social theory on which the book is based has also been reduced to the bare essentials, that is, to those aspects that are helpful for getting started with the book. The theoretical framework becomes familiar, because it accompanies the reader throughout the entire book. Rather than presenting a chronological narrative, the book cuts thematic aisles through the wealth of material that has grown enormously over the last few decades, highlighting selected aspects that are particularly relevant to answering the central question. This results in a clear structure that avoids sending the reader, disoriented, through the complex ramifications of historical developments in the period covered. It also allows readers to follow their own paths through the book. I owe the fact that I was able to tackle this project and bring it to successful completion to generous financial support, which enabled me to pursue this goal with perseverance and the necessary freedom. My thanks therefore go first and foremost to the Volkswagen Foundation and its wonderful funding initiative Opus Magnum, which promotes innovative research in the humanities and social sciences and encourages breaking new ground. Without its support this book would never have been written. I would also like to thank my colleagues in the French-German research project Social Status in the Tibetan World, which I directed together with Charles Ramble in Paris thanks to the financial support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR). The many lively discussions with these colleagues inspired me and consistently motivated me anew. The same holds true for my colleagues in the Special Research Area “Power and Rule—Premodern Configurations in

Preface     xi

a Transcultural Perspective” at Bonn University. The numerous workshops and conferences provided ample opportunity for me to present my thoughts to a critical audience for consideration across disciplinary boundaries. The manuscript of the book was initially written in German, not only because this is my mother tongue, but above all because it is the language in which Luhmann formulated his complex theory and the one in which I am familiar with it. However, from the very beginning it was my wish that the book should be accessible to a larger readership. There was therefore no question that it should be published in English. Also in this respect the twofold esotericism mentioned above was a great challenge. The struggle for the right understanding and translation of the manuscript proved to be a multistage and sometimes arduous process. I owe its success to the skills and patience of two American English experts, first Brigitte MüllerLankow and later Sarah Teetor. I am grateful to both of them for taking up the challenge. I would like to thank my colleagues who were willing to critically examine the manuscript—Gray Tuttle, who gave me valuable suggestions for improvement after reading a preliminary version, and the two anonymous readers of the University of Hawai‘i Press. Their comments have helped to make the book more accessible and guided me to avoid unnecessary excursions. Furthermore, I would like to thank Kenneth Ross Yelsey for bringing the manuscript to the attention of Stephanie Chun, the acquisitions editor of the University of Hawai‘i Press, to Stephanie Chun herself for the smooth communication and her support in bringing the manuscript to the publisher, and last but not least to UHP’s copyeditor Michael Sola and managing editor Cheryl Loe for their efforts ultimately to bring the book to print. I greatly appreciate all their contributions to our success.

Tibetan Orthographic Equivalents Amdo barché Beri Bön(po) Butön Chamdo Changkya Changlocenma Chenrezi chözhi Chugo Trashi Khyilwa Dartsedo Deden Namgyel Demo depa Dergé Do Töme Donga Tendzin Dorje Lekpa Dorje Shukden Drakma Drakyap Drakyap kyamgön Drepung Drisa Tökarma Drukpa Kagyü(pa) Drukyül dül(ba) Dungkar Lozang Trinlé dzing Ganden Ganden Podrang

A mdo bar chad Be ri Bon (po) Bu ston Chab mdo lCang skya lCang lo can ma sPyan ras gzigs chos gzhis Chu mgo bkra shis ’khyil ba Dar rtse mdo bDe ldan rnam rgyal De mo sde pa sDe dge mDo sTod smad mDo sngags bstan ’dzin rDo rje legs pa rDo rje shugs ldan Brag mar Brag g.yab Brag g.yab skyabs mgon ’Bras spungs ’Bri bza’ thod dkar ma ’Brug pa bKa’ brgyud (pa) ’Brug yul ’ dul (ba) Dung dkar Blo bzang ’phrin las ’ dzing dGa’ ldan dGa’ ldan pho brang xiii

xiv     Tibetan Orthographic Equivalents

Gazi Ga zi Gedenpa dGe ldan pa Gegyel dGe rgyal Geluk(pa) dGe lugs (pa) Gendün Chöpel dGe ’dun chos ’phel Gesar Ge sar Gomang sGo mang Gönpo mGon po Gönpo Namgyel mGon po rnam rgyal Guru Chöwang Gu ru chos dbang Gyangtse rGyal rtse Gyeltang rGyal thang gyelwa lama rgyal ba bla ma gyod gyö gyod gzhi gyözhi Gyurmé Namgyel ’Gyur med rnam rgyal Hor Hor Jamgön Mipam ’Jam mgon Mi pham Jampa Minjurling Byams pa mi ’gyur gling Jang ’Jang Jangchup-ö Byang chub ’od jedrung rje drung Jokhang Jo khang Jonang Jo nang Jowo Jo bo Kagyü bKa’ brgyud kang rkang Kanjur bKa’ gyur Karma Kagyü(pa) Karma bKa’ brgyud (pa) Kashak bKa’ shag Kham Khams khamchu kha mchu Khangchenné Khang chen nas Kongtrül Kong sprul Kündeling Kun bde gling Kyichu sKyid chu Langdarma Glang dar ma Lhakyong lHa skyong

Tibetan Orthographic Equivalents     xv

Lhasa Lhopa Lozang Jinpa lu mamo Milarepa Mipam miser Mutek Gulang Nakpo Nampar gyelwa Namri Songtsen Nangchen Nechung Ngapö(pa) Ngawang Dorje Ngawang Losang Gyatso Nöndra Tötsel Nyarong Nyingma(pa) Othang Pakpa Pakpalha Palden Lhamo Palha Pangdatsang Pashö(pa) Patrul rinpoché Pelgyi Dorje Pensang Polha(né) Pungjé nakpo Rapten Gyelpo Rasa Reting Rimé Riwoche(pa) Rolpé Dorje sadak

lHa sa lHo pa Blo bzang sbyin pa klu ma mo Mi la ras pa Mi pham mi ser Mu stegs gu lang nag po rNam par rgyal ba gNam ri srong btsan Nang chen gNas chung Nga phod (pa) Ngag dbang rdo rje Ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho bsNon sbra stod tshal Nyag rong rNying ma (pa) ’O thang ’Phags pa ’Phags pa lha dPal ldan lha mo Pha lha sPang mda’ tshang dPa’ shod (pa) dPal sprul rin po che dPal gyi rdo rje Phan bzang Pho lha (nas) Phung byed nag po Rab brtan rgyal po Ra sa Rwa sgreng Ris med Ri bo che (pa) Rol pa’i rdo rje sa bdag

xvi     Tibetan Orthographic Equivalents

Sakya(pa) Sa skya (pa) Samten Gyeltsen bSam gtan rgyal mtshan sang srang Sangyé Gyatso Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho Sengge Namgyel Seng ge rnam rgyal Sera Se ra shebam she bam Shun Shun si sri Sinpo Srin po Sönam Chömpel bSod nams chos ’phel Sönam Rapten bSod nams rab brtan Songtsen Gampo Srong btsan sgam po Taklung Kagyüpa sTag lung bKa’ brgyud pa tap ’thab rTa tshag rje drung rin po che Tatsak jedrung rinpoché Tazhik Ta zhig Terdak Lingpa gTer bdag gling pa thün mthun Tise Ti se to gto Tölung Dram sTod lung gram Trashi Lhünpo bKra shis lhun po Trisong Detsen Khri srong lde brtsan truk ’ khrug Tsang gTsang Tsangpo gTsang po Tsangyang Gyatso Tshang dbyangs rgya mtsho Tsemönling Tshe smon gling Tshelde Tshal bde Tsongkhapa Tsong kha pa tsö(pa) rtsod (pa) ’ khrug pa trukpa ’ khrug rtsod truktsö sprul sku trülku Tukje Chenpo Thugs rje chen po Tupten Gyatso Thub bstan rgya mtsho Ü dBus

Tibetan Orthographic Equivalents     xvii

Yangpachen Yarlung Yeshe Ö Yiktsang yüllha Zhamarpa Zhapkar zhidak Zhikatsé Zhikpo Lingpa zhung

Yangs pa can Yar lung Ye shes ’od Yig tshang yul lha Zhwa dmar pa Zhabs dkar gzhi bdag gZhis ka rtse Zhig po gling pa gzhung

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Only highly abstract sociological theories of a very complex nature can bring historical material to life: access to the concrete is only reached by treading the path of abstraction. —Niklas Luhmann

In the current age of globalization, social and political conflicts continue to capture our attention to a great extent. For this reason conflict research remains a research field of immense political relevance. The fundamental impulses for conflict research, particularly those concerning theory formation and the notion of conflict, are derived from sociology. The present study is founded on the firm conviction that both history and cultural studies can provide valuable contributions, whether by verifying the field of theory or by adding information on how other cultures conceptualized conflicts and developed strategies for their regulation or avoidance. It is, in fact, a truism imposed on us by the media day after day that cultures previously distant to us in every respect, with their own specific worldviews, traditions, and social characteristics, are now closer than ever before. For the fruitful coexistence of all cultures based on different worldviews within a globalized world, it does not suffice to have only shallow knowledge of other cultures, traditions, and ways of thinking; instead, a sincere effort to gain a deeper understanding of structural differences and similarities is necessary. Cultural studies are able to contribute to broader insights by preparing subject-specific research results in an interdisciplinary and understandable manner, thereby making them available for and compatible with cross-cutting discourses such as those in the social sciences. With this in mind, the present study, by way of example, 1

2     Chapter 1

shall examine how conflicts have been handled in another, generally less familiar culture and society. For such an investigation, it is especially appealing to look at societies that have not established a state of their own, but that as “closed societies” have tried to preserve their language, social order, and distinct cultural profile at the interface of different religions and territories.1 Apart from addressing this leading question, the purpose of this study is threefold: 1. For those with a particular interest in comparative studies of civilizations and global history, this study offers a sharper focus on the phenomena of Tibetan history in their social functions. The use of a theory forces us to abstract from the particular to the general, which first and foremost allows comparison, looking at the general social functions of specific historical phenomena and classifying them systematically into larger contexts. 2. To readers familiar with Tibetan and Inner Asian history and ­culture, the present study quite plainly reveals that historical findings on Tibet’s society, religion, law, and politics can be viewed as attempts to deal with social conflicts that similarly existed in other societies. Additionally, it demonstrates how a new question, coupled with the application of a comprehensive sociological theory, creates a new observer perspective, thus providing a fresh look at Tibet’s society. 3. The study also allows all those scholars primarily interested in sociological theories to verify the suitability of a theory that has a universal claim of validity, in a historical and social setting entirely different than those which were the basis for its development. It also represents a research field that has barely been incorporated into theory-based considerations. This investigation focuses on the society under the jurisdiction of the Dalai Lama and his Lhasa-based government, known as the Ganden Podrang. This polity came about in 1642 with the appointment of the Fifth Dalai Lama as Tibet’s secular and spiritual leader. The boundaries of this polity were not identical with the boundaries of Tibetan Buddhist society. The latter extended beyond the area, which was effectively controlled by the Tibetan government, and at that time included even non-Tibetan ethnic

Introduction     3

groups. The political attempt to make the territory under the jurisdiction of the Tibetan government congruent with the area of Tibetan Buddhist society had turned into a major conflict in Tibetan history. The development of this conflict is described in detail in my last book.2 Here, instead of the historical process, this book shall investigate, for the first time, the societal structures and semantics that determined how conflicts were handled in Tibet’s society as an integral part of the wider Tibetan Buddhist society. ­Consequently, it approaches the topic not from a narrative-descriptive perspective, but rather through different key concepts embedded in the guiding theory explained below. Tibet was part of the Qing Empire during the period under consideration; however, the Qing court was not the center of Tibetan Buddhist society. Therefore, how the relationship of that society with the Qing Empire can be characterized will be discussed in some detail. Thus, this analysis also adds to the general understanding of the complex nature of the Qing Empire. However, the empire in all its facets is not our topic. Society in Tibet was based on an agricultural economy with structures similar to feudalism. The land used for agriculture and raising livestock, as well as the farmers, were subject to the authority of large monasteries, the aristocracy, and the Tibetan government. Religion and politics formed a unified whole with religion having primacy over politics. Even foreign rulers of this period would justify their sovereignty over Tibet’s society by proclaiming their ambition to maintain this unity. The religion that most shaped Tibet’s society was Mahāyāna ­Buddhism. In popular portrayals, the Tibetan Bön religion as we know it today is frequently distinguished from Tibetan Buddhism and described as Tibet’s non- or pre-Buddhist religion. Indeed, this corresponds to its self-description, which sought differentiation through its own narrative of an ancient, preBuddhist origin as well as through systematization of its ideas and practices. Yet the Bön religion in its contemporary manifestation results, in fact, from intensive interaction between indigenous and ­Buddhist beliefs and practices so that it distinguishes itself from Tibet’s Buddhist schools today mostly through its asserted tradition. Not only in terms of the monastic structures and narratives, the production and organization of the literature, as well as the artistic depiction of religious contents, Bön has been largely oriented toward Buddhism. To a great extent, Bön has also adopted Buddhist semantics and practices, thereby in the long run becoming like a Buddhist religion.

4     Chapter 1

The striking features of Mahāyāna Buddhism—such as the bodhi­sattva ideal, the special appreciation and practical training of unbiased ­compassion toward all living beings, and the fundamental idea of karma and its ­inescapability—might suggest the notion that societies marked by such a philosophy of life must be primarily characterized by peaceableness and the renunciation of violence in their regulation of social conflicts. Therefore, reports of conflicts in Buddhist societies turning violent are generally perceived as especially disturbing. Yet at the same time, historical and ethnological research on Asian societies with Buddhist influences has long denied such generalizing conclusions as premature. Followers of fundamental Buddhist philosophies do not merely use these beliefs to explain the conflict potential immanent to society and the violence resulting therefrom and to deprecate it, but they also justify the use of violence under certain conditions. Violence was even included in the repertoire available to Buddhist clergy in order to enforce its interests and regulate conflicts. Hence, violence was a largely accepted measure for conflict resolution, even if not the most prominent among a whole range of nonviolent options and strategies. P To analyze a seemingly foreign and distant society, suitable theories must have a sufficiently high level of abstraction, that is, they must be primarily free of Eurocentric terms and their baggage of connotations carried from the “Occidental” history of ideas. On the other hand, to perform a nonbiased and ideology-free study, researchers must exclude all theories that are motivated by an impetus critical of society or that pursue a normative approach. Furthermore, it is vital to avoid a theoretical restriction to the conditions of modernity, because that would hinder the possibility of understanding the terms of premodern society. However, sociological approaches, as societal self-observation, integrate conflict theories with a particular focus on processes of social differentiation as seen in societies with a division of labor, no matter how they define society, which perspective on the latter they adopt, or what concept of conflict these sociological methods subsequently use.3 Undoubtedly, connecting concepts in these theories do exist for the examination of premodern societies; these include, in particular, Ralf Dahrendorf and his focus on the Herrschaftsverband (according to Dahrendorf, this is best translated as an “imperatively coordinated association”), within which conflict between the minority participating in governing and the majority being governed seems inescapable.

Introduction     5

On the other hand, Dahrendorf does not provide a comprehensive theory of social conflicts.4 For the numerous types of conflict he identifies—such as role conflicts, conflicts between peers, or conflicts in international relations—he does not provide any theoretical depth, pointing out that their theoretical rationale needs to be developed separately.5 This belongs to sociology and not to the framework of a study that makes use of sociological theories as an instrument of analysis. Therefore, to avoid becoming involved in contradictions and inconsistencies between various theories, a stringent and comprehensive theoretical basis was chosen for the present study.6 This theory will be the lens through which I hope this study gives the reader a new perspective on Tibet’s society of the era in question. The present study is based on the concept of conflict developed by Niklas Luhmann in the context of systems theory. For Luhmann, social systems are communication systems, and communication constitutes their individual elements. Society is the all-encompassing social system: it includes all other social systems and the borders of society are the borders of communication. Nowadays there is one single society, the world society. Yet in the past different societies existed, but in no way should it be assumed that past societies were hermetically closed off from each other. Luhmann does not conceive of social systems as units that are outwardly closed in all respects: “As soon as boundaries are defined sharply, elements must be attributed either to the system or the environment.”7 Social systems exist only through the distinction of system and environment. It is only through the systems’ operations that the difference between systems and the environment can develop and systems can be differentiated from the environment. “Yet relations between system and environment can exist. Thus, boundary separates elements, but not necessarily relations. It separates events, but lets causal effects pass through.”8 In this sense Luhmann characterizes social systems as closed and open at the same time. Since social systems are communication systems, Luhmann also relates social conflict to communication. Communication always includes the possibility of denial, the “communicated ‘no’ ” and this communicated contradiction is precisely what Luhmann terms conflict.9 Conflicts only emerge “if a ‘no’ is answered with an opposing ‘no’. In this event it is tempting to insist on the no and to reinforce the no on both sides with further communication. We can call this a conflict.”10 By comprehending social conflict as a commu­ nicated contradiction, Luhmann distinguishes the term from “a merely supposed, merely observed opposition. A general contradictory situation, an

6     Chapter 1

opposition of interests, or reciprocal damage (one auto rams into another) is not yet a conflict.”11 The present study focuses on social conflicts. Psychic conflicts are only addressed insofar as their social relevance or their social embeddedness is apparent in the literary sources. In the case of psychic conflicts, it also applies that they must be observable. The “observer” in this case is the ­consciousness that focuses its attention on the conflict issue. Fritz B. Simon defines conflict as including social and psychic aspects: Conflict shall be defined as a communication process (=social process) or process of thinking or feeling (=psychic process) in which a position (e.g., a wish, an action instruction, option, or impact, a viewpoint, an assessment, etc.) is negated and, in turn, this negation, is also negated. That way it comes to an oscillation between the positions, lasting sometimes longer, sometimes shorter, that negate one another without a decision being made. Such type of system of meaning denoted by a process of continued negation of negation shall be called “conflict.”12

As long as conflicts generate communication, they continue to exist as social systems. As Luhmann notes, “Conflicts are autopoietic, self-­ reproducing unities. Once they are established, one can expect them to continue rather than to end.”13 Yet they do end either when a decision is made, when a participating side sees its prospects of success fade, or when the participants simply lose interest in the conflict because other issues gain priority. Participants might also no longer have an interest in the dispute because it has lost its importance. Conflicts may also end if one or both sides no longer exist physically; communication would, therefore, come to a standstill. Conflicts are not solely started because actors see their interests adversely affected; they also need to believe they have a good chance of enforcing their interests. If the power structures did not open such opportunities for conflict, the actors would, whether they like it or not, have to accept a negative outcome. However, if the political domination secures a monopoly on violence, making its superior power to enforce law available, then decision-making power is taken away from the conflicting parties and the number of ­conflicts in society grows. In a functioning legal system, even those who do not have power or financial means but still believe they are in the right see the opportunity to obtain a favorable outcome to a conflict.14 While the

Introduction     7

establishment of regulated forms of conflict staging increases the number of conflicts, it results—on the other hand—in a considerable reduction of violence and destructive side effects. Where such social regulation is missing, where the “‘natural’ tendency for escalation and expansion” of ­conflicts is not overridden, “the conflicting parties frequently try to draw further persons, issues, resources, and action fields into the conflict in order to increase their prospects for success. Conflicts are, therefore, prone to the ‘colonization’ or ‘parasitization’ of their environment and can, in the worst case, consume and destroy the entire system from which they originate.”15 Regarding conflicts, three levels of meaning can be distinguished: The fact dimension refers to the matter in dispute; as part of the social dimension, conflicts structure the ego-alter-relation as the opposition friend/enemy; “third, conflicts finally tend not to want to end within the dimension of time and to draw again and again the past, e.g., the conflicting party’s past actions, into the present.”16 The fact dimension is not always at the heart of the conflict. The actual contentious issue may also be the social dimension, even if it is all about a subject matter. “For an outsider, it is not always easy to see through, because, in the course of their common history, the conflict parties have been developing specific codes that are not necessarily translatable to newcomers.”17 Moreover, conflicts may shift their focus over time from one dimension to another. Apart from conflicts marked by violence, societal conflicts do not only have negative connotations. By communicating contradictions, conflicts are indications that a system is reaching its limits due to inappropriate structures, thereby enabling change. P The guiding principle in writing this book is not to highlight the uniqueness, but rather the comparability of the findings from a functional point of view. This is reflected in the individual chapter headings and the abstract terminology chosen for them. The various chapters of the book are tied together in that they each function as a specific window on the central topic: conflict in Tibet’s society. At the same time, they have a more essayistic character in that each attempts to analyze one aspect of the topic according to the premises of systems theory. Even if the individual chapters can be read for themselves, they often presuppose engagement with the others. Chapter 2, “History and Memory,” approaches the topic from a largely diachronic perspective. It outlines how the system “Tibetan Buddhist society” emerged and developed by excluding itself from an unstable environment,

8     Chapter 1

how it formed and changed the system’s internal structures through its operations, and how the memory of society evolved. Chapter 3, “Domination,” forms a thematic parenthesis by showing how, in Tibet’s society, different elementary and conflictual differences were presented as a unit. Chapter  4 describes how the power relations that went hand in hand with the hierarchical structures of society minimized the chances for conflicts. The following chapter turns to the potential for conflicts in Tibet’s society in the relationship between center and periphery; in this context, the boundaries of Tibetan Buddhist society are investigated. The following three chapters enter the domain of Tibetan religion. Chapter 6, “Semantics,” addresses how conflicts were perceived and connoted in Tibetan semantics. This is immediately followed by a discussion of the close connections between conflict and morality in chapter 7, “Morality and Ethics.” Chapter 8, “Ritual,” shifts the focus to the wide repertoire of magic-ritual means that Tibetan Buddhism offers for all possible purposes, among them means for resolving conflicts. Chapter 9— focusing on law—is devoted to the societal subsystem that refers explicitly to regulation but also to enabling conflicts, and is therefore the lengthiest. Chapter 10 focuses on war as the most violent form of conflict resolution. The final chapter serves as a conclusion, summarizing the most important results of the study and relating them to the end of Tibetan Buddhist society as a closed system with the end of Ganden Podrang rule in Tibet under the Dalai Lamas.

CHAPTER 2

History and Memory

I use the term “memory” here neither in the sense of a possible return to the past nor in the sense of a store of data or information we can draw on as need be. I am talking about a function in constant but only present use that tests all incipient operations for consistency with what the system constructs as reality. —Niklas Luhmann

This chapter explores how the historical process formed the structures that created the difference between the system “Tibetan Buddhist society” and its environment, how that society observed significant events “with regard to the difference between before and after,”1 and how social memory has selected and preserved information for the regulation of subsequent processes of information processing. In answering these questions, it will also identify the main parties that have been involved in political conflicts throughout Tibet’s history. Tibetan history—as far as we know—begins with the rise of the ­Yarlung Dynasty during the first half of the seventh century. Its successive rulers created a polity that has been labeled by historians as the “Tibetan Empire,”2 the only Tibetan Empire that ever existed. It survived through the middle of the ninth century and extended, at times, not only across the entire Tibetan plateau, but over and above up to the current PakistanAfghan border area to the west, into regions of the modern Chinese provinces of Y ­ unnan and Sichuan in the southeast and east, as well as to the northern edge of the Taklamakan desert and to the grassland north of the Qinghai Lake (Kokonor), that is, into areas which at the time were of great commercial and cultural significance. 9

10     Chapter 2

The development and expansion of this ancient Tibetan Empire had— in one way or another—an impact on later Tibetan history: First, the Tibetan Empire under the Yarlung Dynasty represented a polity that for the first and only time both unified the entire Tibetan Plateau under one rule and encompassed nearly the entire population that spoke a variety of the Tibetan language. This political unit created an idea of what Tibet was for later generations. Second, there was a change from numerous small communities into a single large community with a highly stratified society which formed a center, in relation to which other areas could be perceived as peripheral during the subsequent centuries. Third, as a vast expansionary empire, it fought with Tang Dynasty China over hegemony in Inner Asia and clearly delimited Tibet as an entity independent from China—a fact that remained in later Tibetan memory. Fourth, it marked what we today know as Tibetan culture, particularly the adoption and alignment of an Indian script and religion. Consequently, Tibet’s later spiritual leaders considered and appreciated India—and not China—as their source of knowledge and inspiration.

The decisive factor for a new method of communication which began during the Yarlung Dynasty was the introduction of writing in the seventh century. Prior to this, language had been dependent on the direct presence of communication participants. A spatial and temporal expansion to a broader circle of addressees was only possible after writing had been introduced. A “sender” was then able to address potential recipients who were not directly present as well as those who were complete strangers or even posthumous ones. This had far-reaching consequences and included new possibilities for preserving and remembering. With the medium of writing, new forms developed: namely, texts, which are relatively stable even though errors in reproduction are possible. Texts may be interpreted differently, which can result in new versions. All this presumes that there is a circle of people capable of writing and reading. Also, writing changes the semantics of time. The past presence of the author seems to appear together in the reader’s present. Nevertheless, everything that has been written down for posterity is always based on selection—a choice is still made as to what should or should not be written down.

History and Memory     11

As a consequence of the communication possibilities extended by writing, during the eighth and ninth centuries cognitive and normative expectations in Tibet’s society were condensed in a particular way and stabilized in the form of expectation structures. These structures determined the common themes to which new contributions henceforth referred.3 A unitary symbolic order developed, mostly accepted by the entire society, and a collective Tibetan memory emerged through which the past gains power over the present. Once written down, even that which had been initially rejected or was considered marginal may still gain effect at a later point in time.4 The special “history of selection accomplishments, achieved by the system and maintained in their selectivity,”5 increasingly differentiated Tibet’s society as something distinct from its environment. The differentiation of a system “Tibetan Buddhist society,” which began with the emergence of the Tibetan Empire, was not undone with the end of the Yarlung Dynasty. Indeed, it even intensified in that “external ties were cut and transformed into very specific structural interconnections.”6 This means, for one, that the system “Tibetan Buddhist society” was increasingly operatively closed by excluding the environment. For another, it means that this closure did not entail breaking off all external contacts. Rather, Tibetan Buddhist society was provoked—or as Luhmann would put it “irritated”—by the environment, but these “irritations” were processed in accordance with system-internal structures, which was a highly selective process that excluded more than it included.7 After the fall of the Tibetan Empire, the community was once again fragmented into numerous small communities mostly based on clan structures, or aristocracy with limited regional authority. The entire second millennium was then characterized by a strong interlacing of politics and religion. During the tenth century, initially members of individual aristocracies began to enhance their local reputation and their influence by introducing new Buddhist teachings from North India and establishing new centers of Buddhist scholarship, ritual services, and religious worship. These centers remained closely connected with the respective aristocracies and local rulers. Various religious activities at that time sometimes give the impression of a downright race concerning the most esoteric and efficacious teachings, and even included “rediscovering” and saving Buddhist writings that allegedly had been hidden during the time of the Tibetan Empire for the good of later generations. As a result, a large variety of Buddhist schools and

12     Chapter 2

traditions emerged, which competed with each other to gain influence, students, and patrons. Also the Buddhist clergy of the time was active in shaping the historical memory of the empire period. The ability to write and read was especially widespread amongst Buddhist clergy, even after the fall of the Tibetan Empire in the middle of the ninth century, and the use of woodblock printing, which had been prevalent in Tibet since the early thirteenth century, remained limited to the reproduction of religious works.8 Printing did not become an educational medium par excellence. Therefore the clergy not only had a substantial effect on what was transmitted as the past and in which manner,9 but the clergy also controlled the choice of topics to be handed down and provided a cohesive conception of the world that functioned as an unavoidable premise for decisions. The fall of the Tibetan Empire led to a narrowing of the horizon and a desemiotization of a whole range of “world segments” that had been newly gained during the period of the Tibetan Empire.10 Memory was marked and selected exclusively according to the narrative of how Buddhism reached Tibet. In this context, the prominent Tibetan emperors of the Yarlung Dynasty were reduced to c­ ultural heroes whose only apparent aspirations were to introduce ­Buddhism into Tibet. Particularly, in their historiography, Buddhist scholars succeeded in modeling the ideal ruler as a dharmarāja and bo­ dhisattva according to the ideals of Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism, respectively, as a ruler who protects and fosters the Buddhist teaching and as a savior whose interest is solely the Buddhist teaching and the salvation of living beings. In this way, Tibetan Buddhist scholars were put in a position to provide an ideological legitimization for secular rule, regardless of whether it was Tibetan or foreign. Even later in the history of Tibet, it was only the Buddhist clergy in its respective present that decided over what constituted the past and the future, and through which narrative the identity of Tibetan Buddhist society was to be passed on. As the clergy continued mainly to control the communication structure, it created the conditions under which communications were reproduced and the unity of the system “Tibetan Buddhist society” constituted itself.11 Although there had previously been individuals in the Tibetan settlement area or on its periphery who had combined religious and political functions,12 it was the Mongol conquest of Tibet in the thirteenth century that, on a larger and systematic scale, brought members of the Buddhist clergy into positions of secular rule. The outstanding role and authority of

History and Memory     13

the spiritual leader, the guru, in Tibetan Buddhist society made him attractive as a contact partner for political leaders and enabled the Mongolian rulers to command Tibet for a little more than one hundred years with the help of selected hierarchs from amongst the Buddhist clergy. Thus, it was especially the Mongols who set a precedent for an alternative type of rule in Tibet. Henceforth, monarchy and hierocracy coexisted as competing models and options for governance within the Tibetan cultural and settlement area. Tibet’s intellectual (also religious) elite succeeded in reinterpreting these changes system-internally, thereby relating them to something that had already been identified before. In that sense, new structures emerged and were then confirmed “in that they were repeated in various situations,” allowing Tibetan Buddhist society to develop in compatibility with new environmental conditions.13 Furthermore, an interest in influencing these environmental conditions arose. From today’s perspective, the conquest of China by Khubilai Khan and the proclamation of the Yuan Dynasty at the end of 1271 would appear to have had serious consequences, as it marks—according to the official history of the People’s Republic of China—the beginning of Tibet’s alleged perpetual affiliation to China. However, any such continuous Chinese imperial rule over Tibet was not stated or claimed by either of the two subsequent dynasties. For the Tibetan elite after the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the Ming emperor only symbolically represented the center of world order, one into which Tibet had formerly been incorporated by Khubilai Khan and his successors seated on the Chinese throne during the time of the Yuan Dynasty. Unlike Korea, Japan, or Vietnam, Tibet had never been part of the Chinese world, not even under the Yuan Dynasty. Confucian beliefs and ideals had never found their way into Tibetan Buddhist society’s cultivated semantics, let alone dominated it. Nor had an admiration for China’s cultural achievements ever been a motive for acknowledging Chinese superiority. The Chinese language and script never left any traces on Tibetan culture during this period. Moreover, the Tibetans never adopted Chinese bureaucracy oriented toward scholarliness and merits with its elaborate examination system. Instead offices in government and administration were occupied mostly based on inherited social entitlement. More importantly, there was no noteworthy immigration of Han Chinese that might have become a seed for the sinicization of Tibet’s society and its institutions. In Tibet during the second millennium, it was not China but India

14     Chapter 2

that was considered the normative paragon of civilization—to be precise, Buddhist India as it had existed until the end of the twelfth century. Conversely, there was still a keen interest in the Tibetan type of ­Buddhism at the imperial court during the Ming Dynasty. But after the time of the Yongle emperor (1403–1424) at the latest, there was barely any interest in Tibetan Buddhism as an instrument of political action; Ming interest in Tibetan Buddhism focused much more on the magic-ritual practices of its Tantric teachings.14 Particular economic interests or even interests in exploiting natural resources had also never existed on the part of the Ming emperors. Only the exchange of Tibetan horses for Chinese tea had gained particular importance for a short time, when, due to a ­conflict between the Chinese Empire and the Mongols, the delivery of horses from the Inner Asian steppe was interrupted.15 Unlike during the Tang Dynasty and the Tibetan Empire of the Yarlung Dynasty, Ming China also did not feel threatened by Tibet. At that time, Tibet was politically fragmented and militarily insignificant, nor was its society comparable with those of the Asian nomads. There were great differences in economic activities and ways of life. Tibet’s economy had always been shaped by the cultivation of land and livestock breeding, with livestock breeding covering the greatest areas but farming the land occupying far more people.16 Depending on their location, people could combine cultivation with livestock breeding by creating fields on both the valley floors and mountainsides and by driving the cattle to mountain pastures. Even though the black tents of nomadic cattle breeders were the typical habitation on the vast expanses of the Tibetan grassland, most Tibetans still inhabited solid houses. Moreover, the cattle breeders and the farmers were two elements of the social stratification and together they constituted the social stratum of the dependents, that is, they were bound to their landlords, whether noble houses, monasteries, or the Tibetan government. It is, therefore, not correct to rank Tibet among the Inner Asian nomads and thus explain China’s actions toward Tibet.17 Apart from that, the example of Tibet shows that the contrast of “sinicized states” on the one hand, and nomads, on the other, cannot completely explain why, over centuries, China had hardly any military conflict with some of its neighbors, while it frequently came into armed conflict with others.18 Tibet neither belonged to the “sinicized states” nor were its economy and lifestyle primarily shaped by nomadic living. Since the fall of the Tibetan Empire in the ninth century, no more critical military actions toward China had emanated from

History and Memory     15

Tibet. Inner Tibetan developments, such as political fragmentation, contributed to that situation, but they were not the main cause. Rather, a fundamental change in the semantics and the guiding norms of Tibet’s society had restricted the possibilities of actions. This change implied that political authority and the potential for war no longer had to be united in one person and that the role of the military was increasingly subordinated to that of the clergy. As a result, little by little, more social and material resources were withdrawn from the war potential and went instead into clerical structures. Although this development left Tibet no longer a threatening neighbor of China, Tibet was nonetheless intertwined in the sinocentric network of tribute relations during the time of the Ming Dynasty. From the Tibetan perspective, there were good reasons to be involved in such relations: firstly, tribute relations provided material incentives (for the imperial court, tribute relations were a money-losing business); secondly, tribute relations opened up additional commercial options in China;19 thirdly, relations with the Ming allowed the possibility that claims to dominance and rulership in intra-Tibetan conflicts could be legitimized by receiving prestigious titles and official seals;20 and finally, tribute relations opened the prospect to Tibetan clerics of gaining a mighty and generous patron. By this time, the attempt of the Yongle emperor to reintegrate Tibet into the empire after the fall of the Yuan Dynasty had already failed.21 In regard to Tibet, subsequent Ming emperors had contented themselves with sustaining their general claim as the center of the civilized world and, as the highest authority, also legitimizing the rulers of surrounding realms and societies through the repetition of symbolic actions: the receiving of tribute, the presentation of gifts, and the awarding of titles and seals. This process of stereotypical communications had reinforced the Tibetan elite’s acknowledgment of the emperor’s symbolic superiority; he was viewed as the most powerful and wealthiest ruler at the top of an overall hierarchically ordered world. Despite this, on the part of Tibetans, the emperor was conceded neither a political nor a moral or civilizing authority over Tibetan affairs. For them, the sole question was how far the emperor’s symbolic position and ideological claim could be utilized for one’s own concerns. Between the fifteenth and seventeenth century, Tibet’s clergy was deeply entangled in the power-political conflicts of Central Tibet. Aristocratic families endeavored to control the clergy and to use their reputation, economic resources, and the social positions they offered for their

16     Chapter 2

own advantage. Conversely, the fate of the various Buddhist schools depended on mighty Tibetan noble families. Power, material support, and the aristocracy’s influence safeguarded the future of the monasteries and monastic communities. If, for example, the power of an aristocratic family diminished or the protection given turned out to be insufficient, the ­Buddhist school connected to that family came under great pressure to find new patrons and supporters. For this purpose, the clergy developed various strategies, the most important of which was finding and identifying reincarnations of prominent clerics in influential families, engaging in missionary activities among the different Mongolian groups, and establishing new patron-priest relationships with Tibetan and Mongolian regional rulers for mutual benefit. Already at that time, militant M ­ ongolian groups had invaded the Tibetan settlement areas; thus, a sort of rivalry developed among Tibet’s prominent Buddhist clerics to win over those Mongolian commanders. Members of the Sakya, Geluk, and various branches of the Kagyü school were all in some way or another active under the Mongols. The possibility that this rivalry could end in a loss of political control to foreign rulers was not reflected upon by Buddhist priests. At the time there was no differentiation between nationals and foreigners, but only between Buddhists and non-Buddhists; within the group of ­Buddhists, a distinction was made between members of one’s own tradition and those of other traditions. Such differences were much more significant than ethnic or linguistic borders. For Buddhist priests, the search for powerful patrons and supporters was a priority. They defined their relationship to secular leaders, no matter whether Tibetan or foreign, in accordance with the Buddhist religion through various concepts. First was the concept of being the recipient of offerings and the donor, hereinafter simply called priest and patron. Second, there was the concept of dharmarāja, the king who protects and supports the Buddhist religion, and the concept of the bodhisattva, the major savior of Mahāyāna Buddhism, who strives for salvation, above all for the good of all living beings, and therefore remains by his own choice in the circle of rebirth. Third was the concept of cakravartin, the good and just universal ruler who in his political actions orients himself toward the principles of Buddhist teaching. With the help of such concepts, even foreign rule over Tibet could be legitimized in the eyes of Tibetan elites and subjects. Tibetan Buddhist historians translated the relationships between prominent Tibetan priests and secular rulers largely into the concept of

History and Memory     17

priest and patron. Frequently, they referred to the relationship that was said to have existed between the Sakya hierarch Pakpa and the Mongolian ruler Khubilai Khan in the thirteenth century. As demonstrated by the critical analysis of diplomatic sources, they concealed, however, the real power conditions and enhanced the role and status of the Buddhist priest.22 This was the only way that the Buddhist narrative of Tibetan history could become a strong argument for later clerical claims to exercising political influence and power. As official documents that have been preserved and handed down prove, Pakpa and his successors were senior officials of the Yuan Empire. They resided in the imperial capital far from Tibet and acted solely upon the emperor’s explicit instructions. Nevertheless, Tibetan historians presented Pakpa as a sovereign ruler, whom Khubilai Khan had assigned to command over Central, East, and Northeast Tibet in exchange for religious instruction and consecration. Even if the pattern of priestpatron relationship passed down granted the Tibetan clergy largely independent political power, the independent status of a Tibetan hierarch hardly existed before the seventeenth century. In fact, the situation was quite the contrary: not only Khubilai Khan and his successors but also later Tibetan regional rulers were unwilling to transfer powers to the clergy. This did not by any means imply that they were hostile to the Buddhist clergy, as Tibetan historians have occasionally stated about individual rulers. The political rulers were quite ready to enter into a priest-patron relation­ship. At the same time, in this relationship they claimed political power for themselves and expected subordination, unconditional loyalty, and gratefulness on the part of the priests in exchange for protection, privileges, and material support. Around the first half of the seventeenth century, this was precisely the nature of the relationships between the rulers of the Central Tibetan province Tsang and the hierarchs of the Karma Kagyüpa and Drukpa Kagyüpa, and the relationship between the East Tibetan King of Beri and a leading priest of the Drukpa Kagyü school. The king of Beri was an ambitious regional ruler who fought to expand his territory from the Nangchen ­K ingdom in the current Chinese province of Qinghai in the north down to the borders of the Naxi Kingdom of Jang in the modern province of Yunnan in the south. In his immediate neighborhood he tolerated only political forces that were willing to submit to his rule, irrespective of whether or not these regional powers united secular and religious authority. Furthermore, the king welcomed to his dominion the spiritual leaders of various Buddhist

18     Chapter 2

schools, the Nyingma, Sakya, and Karma Kagyü schools, as well as the Bönpo—who did not consider themselves Buddhists—as long as they did not strive for a unity of religious and secular authority. The king, however, reserved the right to evaluate the clergy’s behavior critically. Nevertheless, he rewarded its loyalty with generous materialistic sponsorship. For instance, he had two copies of the Kanjur, the Tibetan form of the Buddhist canon with over one thousand writings, prepared in gold and silver script; this was, of course, an act that was also intended to enhance his—the sponsor’s—­ religious merits. Also, he took care of the protection of religious sites. He is said to have successfully enforced public order and security by taking measures against the “plague” of brigands who threatened monasteries and pilgrims at the time. In the immediate neighborhood of the king of Beri, though, segments of the Buddhist clergy were not willing to submit to the king’s claim to power; among those were the monks of the Gelukpa monastery of Chamdo. At the time, the monastery had existed for two hundred years and was headed by the fourth Pakpalha incarnation, who enjoyed ­considerable authority in the region regarding secular matters. The king’s claims to power also collided with the claims of Riwoche, a monastery of the Taklung Kagyüpa and a district where the Gazi family exercised religious and secular power. As landlords the monasteries were able, over time, to accumulate ever more property in the form of landed estates, which enabled them to become an independent power factor in the region. This was a thorn in the king’s side, and he demanded their unconditional submission to his rule. For his vassals, this also included the obligation to pay the war tax. As the king was in the position to expand his territory to the north and, above all, further to the south, he was finally able to control the important pilgrimage and trade routes between Central and East Tibet, including their commerce with China. This was an enormous economic blow, particularly for the large Gelukpa monasteries around Lhasa in Central Tibet.23 The conflict between aristocracy and clergy over the leading position in the hierarchy of Tibet’s society was also manifested in popular Tibetan narrative literature. One aspect of the Tibetan clergy, which had also played a role in the relationship between Pakpa and Khubilai Khan, becomes especially apparent: Tibetan priests frequently had a reputation for possessing extraordinary magic skills. This status was related to the teachings of Tantric Buddhism or so-called Vajrayāna Buddhism. Not only did these teachings promise methods for obtaining enlightenment quickly, but also a

History and Memory     19

wide range of powers to cope with worldly contingency, which was naturally interesting for political domination. In a tale found in the Tibetan version of the Vetala Tales,24 a young man who set out to try his luck in trading operations came upon a bewitched royal court. The king, the queen, and the members of the entire court were found dead in their seats, and even the horses and the cattle had died in their stables. Nonetheless, the young man decided to stay because there was enough food to spare in the palace. At night, six frightening monkeys showed up and circled a black crate in the middle of the room. Thanks to a magic sword, the young man was able to keep them at a distance. The scene repeated itself during the second night. On the following day, two Tantrists appeared in front of the palace gate. After they all assured each other of their good intentions, the two Tantrists explained to the young man the reason for the sudden death of the palace residents: There had been a shortage of barley in the valley ruled by the king. As a result, the king loaned barley from his silo for the population, but took as security a very precious suit of armor from the two Tantrists, from then on keeping it in the black crate in his palace. Later, the two Tantrists surrendered numerous fields to the king as ­compensation. Nevertheless, for many years the king was still not willing to return the precious armor. Finally, the protective deities of the two Tantrists were so enraged that they killed the entire court with their magic skills. The ­Tantrists convinced the young man to return the armor to them in exchange for becoming king of the valley henceforth, and entering into a patron-priest relationship with the Tantrists. Thereupon, they called together the valley’s population and presented the young man to them as the religious king (dharmarāja) and bodhisattva who came from outside. The valley’s residents immediately asked the young man to be their king from then on and offered to be his servants. Here, conflict resolution was achieved by reestablishing a fragile relationship of equal rank between the ruler and the clergy at the head of society, and this resolution was forced by the magic power of the clergy, described in this tale as the ultimate superior power. At the same time, the narrative presents the installation of an outsider in the role of ruler as a valid option. In the middle of the seventeenth century, the Buddhist Geluk school was successful in deciding the unresolved status issue of the priest-patron relationship to their favor, thanks to military aid from the western ­Mongols. For the next three hundred years, the Gelukpa secured the uncontested dominance of religion over politics and society in Tibet. In their claim to

20     Chapter 2

control, the Gelukpa cited as precedent a case found in Tibetan Buddhist historiography, according to which the Tibetan priest Pakpa created a priest-patron relationship with Khubilai in the thirteenth century, which granted the spiritual leader a far higher status as well as political power over Tibet. This concept was called “the union of religion and politics.”25 Previously, the semantic difference between religion and politics had already been vague, with political actions in society phrased in religious terminology and primarily interpreted religiously. Now the difference was erased entirely in that political actions were oriented toward religious coding—in particular to the coding of “suffering/salvation.” Thus, a very complicated form of rule was created. Up to the beginning of the eighteenth century, rule was based on a fragile Tibetan-Mongolian alliance. In the meantime, Tibetan Buddhism had taken root among the Mongols. The Mongolian aristocracy was already closely interlaced with the Tibetan Buddhist clergy by finding and identifying important reincarnated Tibetan priests among the aristocracy’s ranks. Mongolian rulers had also adopted the relationship model between Tibetan clergy and Mongolian foreign rulers as it had been passed on by Buddhist historiography. As patrons, it put them in the position to be active supporters and guardians for the—in their view—“pure” form of Buddhism. On the other hand, it also allowed them to derive claims for rule over the various Mongolian peoples. This was of significance especially for the Oirats, the western Mongols, because they were not able to refer to descent from Chinggis Khan to promote their interests. Initially, during the seventeenth century, the Buddhist school of the Gelukpa counted on the military strength of the Tumed Mongols. But after the Tumed lost power and influence in intra-Mongol conflicts, the Geluk school firmly bonded with the western Mongols. In return, the western Mongols committed themselves to Gelukpa ideas about the union of religion and political action, which demanded the direct submission of worldly issues to those of the Buddhist religion according to the Geluk school’s tradition. Tasks were divided between the two main groups of western Mongols: While the Khoshots established themselves in Tibetan settlement regions and used military strength to enforce the dominance of the Gelukpa over their political and religious rivals, the Dzungars were expected to assert the Gelukpa’s agenda among the Mongolian peoples. The agenda of the Gelukpa was very ambitious. It aimed at controlling not only all Tibetan settlement regions, including Bhutan and Ladakh, but also eventually the western and eastern Mongols, i.e., the Oirats and the

History and Memory     21

Khalkha. What the Gelukpa elite understood by control was the indisputable acknowledgment of the Dalai Lama as some kind of sacral ruler and savior, the submission of the secular to the religious sphere, the explicit supremacy of the Gelukpa over the other Buddhist schools, and the acceptance of the great monastic institutions in and around Lhasa as centers of monastic education and studies. To sustain these monastic institutions, the periphery had to contribute as well, first with material support and second by sending students on a regular basis. Even remote areas and their residents, e.g., the area of the Khalkha in the modern state of Mongolia or the Tibetan region of Gyeltang,26 renamed Shangri-La in 2001 and located in modern Yunnan Province, were taken as so-called chözhi (chos gzhis) by the Dalai Lama. Generally, this term referred to monastery properties and estates belonging to the household of reincarnations. The Gelukpa also used the term for large settlement areas and their populations to emphasize that these were part of the Gelukpa’s economic basis. Aside from that, they did indeed, in some instances, tolerate local rulers and “clerical lords” of other Buddhist schools (Sakya and Taklung Kagyü), as long as their power was regional and strictly limited, and as long as they did not challenge Gelukpa supremacy. This ruling organization based on segments of the Tibetan Buddhist clergy and the western Mongols’ military power can, however, not be described using modern concepts of state and nation. In the view of the Mongolian princes, it was an attempt to create an empire, which ultimately failed due to intra-Mongol differences and, above all, due to the Qing emperors’ competing inner-Asian ambitions. From a Tibetan viewpoint— then as now—it was an attempt to adapt the system boundaries to a changing environment and to restabilize it by integrating Mongolian peoples. For the then-elite of the Gelukpa, the conditions were met by the expansion of Tibetan Buddhism among the western Mongols. Thus, the primary delimitation of society was—in their view—pushed further in the direction of the “barbarians,”27 or, in other words, “strangers” were integrated into society. The current Dalai Lama has described this view in modern terms of citizenship and nation. According to him, Gushri Khan (1582–1655) considered himself “a Tibetan, not a foreigner. He became a citizen of Tibet. First, he came as a foreigner in order to help the Dalai Lama.”28 The government founded in 1642 is referred to as Ganden Podrang, after the Dalai Lama’s original residence at Drepung Monastery. The first Dalai Lama to head this government was the Fifth Dalai Lama Ngawang

22     Chapter 2

Losang Gyatso (1617–1682). Regarded as the sovereign of Tibet, his dominion stretched from the border with the Tibetan kingdom of Ladakh in the west, to Dartsedo, modern Kangding in today’s Chinese province of ­Sichuan, in the east. Tibet’s unification under his rule referred back to Tibetan history as it was passed down by the Buddhist clergy in two ways. First, it referred to the kingdom created by King Songtsen Gampo in the seventh century. Its visible expression was the construction of the Potala Palace on the hill near Lhasa, on which—according to tradition—a palace of the first Tibetan king was said to have stood at one time. Also, the name Potala bears reference to the mythical residence of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara and therefore represents the agenda that from here, the Dalai Lama—as his incarnation, a savior, and the sacral sovereign—was responsible for the well-being of Tibet and its residents. Second, Tibet’s unification relates to the previously mentioned priest-patron relationship said to have existed between the Tibetan priest Pakpa and Khubilai Khan in the thirteenth century and during which time the Tibetan priest was allegedly granted absolute political power over all Tibet. In line with this historical model, the autobiography of the Fifth Dalai Lama relates that following the conquest of Tibet, Gushri Khan, the commander of the ­K hoshots, granted unlimited power over Tibet to the Dalai Lama. In his chronicle, he interprets Gushri Khan’s victorious campaign through Tibet as the long-predicted purpose of a teleological history.29 In both specialist literature and historiographic accounts of the Tibetan exile government and the government of the People’s Republic of China, opinion is deeply divided on the issue of what actually happened in the midst of the seventeenth century, particularly concerning the question of who exercised power over Tibet. Whereas some are convinced that Gushri Khan, after his conquest over the adversaries of the Gelukpa in Tibet, voluntarily abdicated his political power and left the absolute religious and political leadership of Tibet to the Fifth Dalai Lama,30 others believe that at the time the Dalai Lama was considered at most the religious spiritual head, and that Gushri Khan functioned as the actual ruler in Tibet. Only by virtue of the weakness of Gushri Khan’s successors,31 or with the support of the imperial court in Beijing,32 was the Dalai Lama presumably able to expand his influence into actual government affairs. Ultimately, both positions are based on the description and interpretation of historiographic sources, especially the autobiography of the Fifth Dalai Lama, the chronicle drawn up by him, and the history written by his later

History and Memory     23

regent Sangyé Gyatso.33 The one side takes historical tradition at its word, while the other regards it somewhat skeptically. The appointment of the first regent of the new government, Sönam Chömpel alias Sönam Rapten (1595–1658), in 1642, was an event that has been likewise contradictorily discussed in specialist literature. Some assume that it was Gushri Khan who had selected and appointed the first regent as his representative for government affairs.34 Others dispute that and emphasize that the regent— in taking over administrative responsibilities—acted on behalf of the Dalai Lama and not Gushri Khan.35 At that time, the Dalai Lama was a young man, not yet twentyfive years old. By contrast, the first regent had great experience with political action. Already under the Fourth Dalai Lama, he had acted as treasurer. Above all, though, it was he who had achieved the alliance with the ­K hoshots. There is a good case to believe that the Dalai Lama was nominally in charge of appointing the regent since this also corresponds to the sub­ sequent routine. Presumably, it was the regent himself who made the very decision in close consultation with Gushri Khan. Thirty-seven years later, in 1679, the Fifth Dalai Lama briefly addressed in his certificate of appointment for the regent Sangyé Gyatso the motivation for appointing the first regent in 1642: “Since I could not be in charge of both religion and politics, depa Sönam Rapten took on the responsibility for the secular affairs.”36 This statement suggests that from the beginning the Dalai Lama had entirely backed out of the obligation to take care of the administration so as not to come into conflict with observing the rules of his monastic vows. The available sources, however, demonstrate that the Dalai Lama was in fact included in significant political decisions, among those decisions regarding warfare, for example, the invasions in Gyeltang in the southeast of the Tibetan plateau in 1674 and Ladakh in the west in 1679.37 Also, two more available diplomatic sources prove that, by issuing and sealing legal instruments, the Dalai Lama appeared as someone acting politically, even if the bulk of ongoing governmental affairs was without a doubt delegated to the regent. The decree of 1648 refers to a religious institution.38 It prohibited hunting as well as the harassment of monks at a pilgrimage site in the western part of the Central Tibetan province of Tsang. The second known document was executed by the Dalai Lama in East Tibet in 1653 while on tour to the imperial court in Beijing. It protected and confirmed the property rights of a local nomadic leader, whose family was praised as a donor of the Gelukpa and loyal to the Ganden Podrang government:

24     Chapter 2

Speech of the Dalai Lama Vajradhara: Sent to the kingdoms of the wide world in general and in particular to the seven groups of the Khalkha (Mongols), the four groups of the Oirat (Mongols), the subjects of the aristocracy and of the monasteries who live in the area of Do Töme (eastern and northeastern Tibet), and to those appointed as civil or military leaders of those who travel as soldiers or brigands, to everyone. This Gegyel (family) from upper Beri was for generations a donor for all followers of the yellow hat tradition. In particular they have great respect for the Ganden Podrang. Thus, they are worthy of being protected. Therefore, you (persons) mentioned above do nothing which results in injustice toward people, property and cattle, these three, belonging to the tribe of this chief Ngawang Dorje! I have dedicated the virtues of correct practice to complete enlightenment. Written on the 10th day of the 9th Hor month of the water snake (year) called Nampar gyelwa (1 October 1653) in Chugo Trashi Khyilwa.39

The document represents the Dalai Lama as a sovereign ruler, who in the publicatio self-confidently demands respect for his instructions, not just from his Tibetan subjects but also from the western and eastern Mongols. Of course, one must question whether there was a gap between the ideal and the reality in this case. For example, in such a publicatio the ruler would generally address all people and all kingdoms of this world without ever expecting concrete obedience to his message. The western and eastern Mongols were, however, among those people, groups, and officials included as addressees who were each requested to take notice of the document’s content and refrain from any contravention. This claim was consistent with the agenda that the Ganden Podrang government pursued even after the death of the Fifth Dalai Lama. Even though it remained a guiding principle until the end of the seventeenth century, this agenda was nonetheless at no time put entirely into effect. In both documents, the Dalai Lama acts out of his own authority. There is no reference to another, “higher standing” authority commissioning the Dalai Lama to execute documents on his behalf, as was the case with documents from Pakpa and his successors, for example.40 In other words, even prior to Gushri Khan’s death in 1655, and without formal confirmation

History and Memory     25

of his position by the Qing Emperor, the Dalai Lama was a political authority and enjoyed prestigious status in Tibet. Evidently, even Gushri Khan did not completely retire from his government affairs. However, from the time after mid-April 1642, when Gushri Khan delegated power over Tibet to the Dalai Lama “as an offering,”41 to date only a few documents without intitulatio are known that he executed and sealed together with the regent.42 From these few documents it can be concluded that the Khoshot Khan and the regent acted on the same level within the Ganden Podrang government. Surprisingly, though, it was not the Dalai Lama but the regent who adopted the role of “priest” within the priest-patron relationship. This is confirmed by a prayer of aspiration that was drawn up by the Fifth Dalai Lama and explicitly recognizes the first regent and Gushri Khan as priest and patron.43 As can be read in a document executed in 1693, this connection between the regent and the Khoshot ruler lasted as a formal priest-patron relationship through the end of the seventeenth century.44 Also, the intitulationes in the documents executed by Gushri Khan’s successors explicitly point to the fact that the Dalai Lama was the one authorizing them.45 Taken together, these indices emphasize that from the very beginning the Khoshots must have acknowledged the Fifth Dalai Lama as the religious and political head of Tibet. With this, the Gelukpa established a structure that exceeded the priest-patron relationship known from the past, with which they enforced religion’s priority over secular power. Identifiable sources bear no indication that grave conflicts occurred in the seventeenth century regarding the power balance between the Gelukpa elite and the Khoshot princes. Apparently, it was mostly the Ganden Podrang government and the Gelukpa that benefited from the tax income in Central Tibet.46 As can be read in seventeenth-century decrees, a war tax was raised as well.47 In the absence of a standing army, this tax paid for the provision of soldiers and their livelihood as well as their equipment in case of military action. These actions were carried out under the leadership of the Khoshots and served to enforce the Ganden Podrang’s authority in the periphery. It is difficult to imagine that in this ruling arrangement the Khoshot princes would have been satisfied solely with salvific assets in addition to the pastureland that they had claimed. The majority of the Khoshots were settled in the grasslands near the Kokonor or Qinghai Lake, in today’s ­Chinese province of Qinghai. From there, they exercised control, also by

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employing military force, over the vast territories of East and Northeast Tibet and profited from tribute and tax income. In doing so, they acted on the authorization of the Dalai Lama. Their decrees concerned taxes, property rights, disputes over property, privileges, and trade. Local rulers, such as the king of Dergé, were obligated to pay tribute. The close cooperation with the Khoshots, however, enabled the Ganden Podrang government to largely enforce its control in religious and religiopolitical matters in East and Northeast Tibet.48 To achieve this goal among the Mongols as well, the Gelukpa liaised closely with the Dzungars, whose intention was to establish a ­Mongolian empire in Inner Asia. They supported them in their fight to unite the ­Mongolian peoples under the leadership of the western Mongols and to commit their loyalty to the Dalai Lama and the Geluk school, as well as to the material support of the large Tibetan monasteries. The military expansion of the western Mongols in Inner Asia led to lengthy armed conflicts among the Mongols, in which eventually the Qing Empire also became entangled. The Qing emperors realized early on that Tibet and its clergy played a crucial role in combating western Mongolian aspirations to establish a large Mongolian empire in Inner Asia and instead in integrating the Mongolian peoples into their own empire. As part of this strategy, Tibet came under the control of the Qing Empire as a result of conflicts that erupted between the Tibetan Gelukpa elite and the western Mongols at the end of the seventeenth century. This conflict was provoked, first, by the Gelukpa elite’s ambitioned claim for control over the Mongolian peoples, which forced the Dzungar leader into fighting a losing battle against the Qing Empire; second, by the pretentiousness of the Tibetan regent, who kept the death of the Fifth Dalai Lama in 1682 a secret from Mongolian allies as well as from the Qing emperor, and who dictated the policies of the Ganden Podrang government on behalf of the Fifth Dalai Lama for a posthumous period of fifteen years. The regent tried to justify his fraud based on alleged instructions of the deceased Dalai Lama and the orders of an oracle. However, at the latest when the selected Sixth Dalai Lama failed to conform to the expected role of a Dalai Lama due to insufficient socialization, there was an outright breach between the regent and Gushri Khan’s descendant appointed Dharma king. Unlike the Dalai Lama, the regent could not rely on sacrality as authorization for his political actions. Furthermore, the authenticity of the Sixth Dalai Lama appointed under his aegis was called

History and Memory     27

into question by Lhapzang Khan (r. 1703–1717), the Khoshot Khan who acted as Dharma king of Tibet, and the Qing emperor. At first, the double assassination of the regent and the Dalai Lama seemed to end the conflict the easy way. Yet, with the physical elimination of one of the two major opposing parties, new frictions developed among the western Mongols. Both the Dzungars and the Khoshots living at Qinghai Lake felt overlooked in the power struggle over control of the Ganden Podrang government. As a result, it came not just to a rupture between the Dzungars and the Khoshots but also to a rift between Lhapzang Khan and his relatives settled at Qinghai Lake. Lhapzang Khan, with the backing of the Panchen Lama, the second-highest incarnation of the Gelukpa, however, held onto the priest he appointed as the “true” reincarnation of the Fifth Dalai Lama, meaning that the Khoshots at Qinghai Lake placed themselves in opposition to Lhapzang Khan by readily following the rumors that a Seventh Dalai Lama had been located. Since Lhapzang Khan lacked a sufficient power base in Central Tibet, he sought and enlisted the support of the Qing emperor. Yet even the emperor was not able to prevent the escalating ­conflict over the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation in Tibet, and above all among the Mongols. Ultimately, he intervened and had the child identified in East Tibet as the incarnation of the Sixth Dalai Lama detained at the Kumbum Monastery in the Kokonor region. The Dzungars were not willing to surrender the institution of Dalai Lama to the control of the Qing government. However, their plan to kidnap the child from Kumbum Monastery and to take him, escorted by an army, to Lhasa as the “true and only” S­ eventh Dalai Lama failed. Without such legitimization, their invasion army in Tibet lacked the clergy’s backing, and their three-year rule over Central Tibet could only be based on despotism and terror. This gave the Qing government the chance to not only present itself as Tibet’s liberator from the reign of terror but to also escort and enthrone the “true” Dalai Lama. Henceforth, the Qing emperors took on the decisive role of the most generous and highest patrons of Tibetan Buddhism. In addition, they expended an enormous effort to familiarize themselves with the semantics and communication structures of Tibetan Buddhist society and to be able to have these at their avail to control the Tibetan and Mongolian peoples. They did not just rely on military strength and increasing control of the Tibetan government to secure their power. They also strived for the prerogative of interpretation in regard to judging the purity of the various Buddhist schools’ teachings, judging moral behavior on the part of clerical

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officials in Tibet, and in regard to processual questions of how to locate and identify reincarnations. Despite adopting a critical attitude vis-à-vis the Tibetan Buddhist clergy, the Qing emperors did not question the supremacy of religion in Tibet’s society. This was especially true after attempts to govern Tibet with the help of the Tibetan aristocracy had failed in the first half of the eighteenth century. Ultimately, it was the foreign rulers’ military power that secured the supremacy of religion in all political, social, and economic matters and that put the clergy undisputedly at the head of society. For more than two hundred years, the political order, as it grew, brought Tibet’s society a period of relatively high inner stability. This was still the case when the last dynasty of China collapsed at the end of 1911, and the Tibetan ruler and his administration governed the country for a few decades independent of foreign military power. Charles Bell (1870–1945), political commissioner for Sikkim, Bhutan, and Tibet in British India between 1909 and 1919, and head of a British delegation to Lhasa, wrote in 1920: “Although Tibet is a wild, desolate region, it is on the whole governed in an orderly manner. More so than the close-packed lands of China, ravaged as these have been by banditry and other disorders. Tibet is, as the Dalai Lama calls it, ‘the field of religion.’ ”49 Tibet’s political independence was brought about by changes in the environment of Tibetan Buddhist society combined with the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s strong personality, and it was abruptly terminated from the outside by invasion in the middle of the twentieth century. Never in its history had the Buddhist clergy considered foreign influence unusual or even illegitimate as long as this influence had brought a seeming advantage in furthering the clergy’s own agenda, and as long as foreign rulers had been willing to accept and take on the social roles predetermined by the clergy. The resulting relationship of dependency was, of course, not necessarily free from conflict potential, mainly because responsibilities were not clearly separated, and claims contradicted each other. The resulting frictions had opened chances of conflicts for others, especially neighboring rulers, the aristocracy, or different groups within the clergy. The invaders of the twentieth century, though, had an ideology “in their baggage” that competed with Buddhism and that they advocated with an exclusive claim to truth and revolutionary vigor. This made it impossible for them to take on the roles designated by Buddhism within traditional Tibetan Buddhist society. Therefore, the invasion of the mid–twentieth century was equivalent to the end of the system “Tibetan Buddhist society.”

History and Memory     29

P The conflicts with which political action in second-millennium Tibet was confronted revolved mainly around opposing interests and claims to power between the aristocracy and the clergy, within the Tibetan clergy, between autochthonic and foreign rule, as well as those concerning centralist and regional ambitions. In concrete individual cases, mostly all four relations were involved in the conflicts. Particularly in political communication, that is, that which concerned the leadership of the community, there were practically no conflicts that were not closely related to religion. While cultivated semantics differentiated between secular and religious activities conceptually, in practice political communication was not separated from religion. The all-encompassing concept of the world based on religion always furnished political action with religious semantics. Since the narrative literature passed down was commonly written by the clergy, the religious semantics it contained were brought to the fore. It was mostly the Tibetan priests who selected information and decided which information should be communicated in the system “Tibetan ­Buddhist society” and in what manner. They possessed the knowledge of the script, chose the topics that mattered, and determined the conceptions of the past and the future. The clergy was able to interpret and to modify the remembered history for posterity according to the principles of its worldviews, thereby influencing later generations with directive models of political domination. The memory of Tibetan Buddhist society that they had formed recorded, in its narrative of the long-bygone and foundational past, the deeds of individual ruling personages, who as kings and cultural heroes created the primary space and laid the foundations for that which came to constitute the system “Tibetan Buddhist society” in opposition to its environment. In doing so, Buddhist historiographers likewise reinforced the impression that a stable political order would require central rulership at the head of a hierarchic stratification.50 On the one hand, in retrospect, they translated the political dependence structures established by the M ­ ongols during the Yuan Dynasty into the concept of priest and patron; on the other, they reshaped the events in their historiographic narrative in such a way that they became an argument for clerical demands to exercise political influence and political rule. It was also the priests who—as a social elite—first “understood” the information and enabled follow-up communication, both within the clerical elite and among persons of other social strata, as well as among the

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foreign rulers who had to be integrated into the social system. In this respect, the emperors of the Ming Dynasty played no part whatsoever. In Tibet, their political authority always remained low as the Tibetan side acknowledged merely a symbolic superiority of the emperor. This relationship fundamentally changed under the Qing Dynasty. Due to their intensive involvement in Inner Asian political affairs, the emperors of the Qing Dynasty developed a keen interest in controlling the Tibetan clergy. They masterfully took up the possibilities of follow-up communication offered to them by the Tibetan clergy. This enabled them to relate to earlier events stored in the collective memory of Tibetan Buddhist society in order to give meaning to their own operations. In their efforts to control the clergy, they selected the teachings of the Gelukpa as the orthodoxy that sought to preserve the Buddha’s pure doctrine. All this led to curbing other Buddhist schools’ assets, resources, and societal influence. As a result, the Qing emperors contributed significantly to the Gelukpa’s supremacy and control in all social spheres51 and thus to the stabilization of the system “Tibetan Buddhist society.”

CHAPTER 3

Domination

One hundred rivers converging under one bridge. —Tibetan Proverb

This chapter examines the complex nature of domination in Tibetan-­ Buddhist society under the jurisdiction of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government, and asks what bound together the various conflicting differences in that society. If one inquires, in the sense of Max Weber’s classic definition of Herrschaft (domination or rule),1 who had the “chance of finding obedience to a command of a specific content” in Tibet’s society during the period of the Ganden Podrang, Tibetan-language rulers’ charters serve as a first-rate source of information. Even if these documents, as normative sources observed in isolation, provide only limited information about whether and to what extent the ruler’s orders were ultimately followed, they nonetheless disclose who was authorized to issue such legal documents and how political domination was imagined. The documents reveal that during this particular era, domination in Tibet was based on a pyramidal social structure, with the Dalai Lama noticeably removed at the top, in which authority and the exercise of power was always distributed onto many other shoulders. Changes in society and its environment had the effect of fundamentally modifying and rebalancing domination so that, upon closer examination, domination at the time of the Ganden Podrang does not at all appear to have been a static entity. Yet, during the entire over-three-hundred-year history of the Ganden Podrang, it was consistently the Dalai Lama who embodied Tibet as a premodern state and who was inseparable from it. He stabilized political domination in that his person represented a number of 31

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more or less conflicting yet ultimately irreconcilable differences integrated into a unity. These included the temporal difference of before and after, the spatial difference of center and periphery, and the differences of religion and politics, morality and politics, and morality and law. Additionally, there was the social difference of top and bottom, the difference between aristocracy and clergy, and the difference between Tibetan sacral domination and foreign secular domination. The unity of all these elementary differences should be ensured by the Dalai Lama.

Temporal and Spatial Difference The temporal difference of before and after became a unity in the person of the sacral ruler, because the ruling Dalai Lama was viewed both as the reincarnation of his predecessor and as the human emanation of a timeless savior figure. It was believed that this figure of Avalokiteśvara, who had accompanied Tibet’s history from the outset, adopted time and again the role of sovereign to fulfill and to perpetuate the self-chosen mission of salvation explicitly tailored to Tibet’s society.2 Even if all ideological components of this institution already existed in Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism, it is itself an original Tibetan form of invariant creation. With this instituted figure, the ruler can be recognized as the same one as before, even if the persons representing the institution change. Seen from this angle, it is “the successful outcome of two operations [that are] difficult to reconcile: first, the ­condensation of an identity while leaving out an abundance of context-dependent features, and second, the confirmation or reaffirmation of this identity for very different situations.”3 The mission of salvation was closely linked to the transmission of traditional religious knowledge. In this light, the future was conceived above all as an extension of the past, and as a future in which the institution of the Dalai Lama affords a footing. ­Bridging of temporal difference in this way, however, did not safeguard against possible conflicts during the transitional periods from one ruler to the next. The search for and identification of the reincarnation as well as the situation when the designated role owner was still a minor were both natural weak points that regularly opened up chances for conflict in the case of differing interests. According to Luhmann, it is the unity of center and periphery and the territorialization of domination associated with it that justifies the designation “early state.”4 In terms of administration, the spatial difference of center and periphery in Tibet’s society was bridged by establishing districts and appointing district commissioners. Their numbers fluctuated in the

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course of Ganden Podrang rule. During the time of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, there were fifty-two districts, which—with a few exceptions—were each subordinated to two district commissioners, in most cases one lay official and one monk official.5 In addition, there was the semiautonomous principality of Sakya located in the western province of Central Tibet, which had been granted a special status due to its historical significance.6 On top of that, during the twentieth century, the various districts were consolidated into a total of eight provinces, which was each headed by one or two governor-generals.7 Also, the establishment of the large Central Tibetan monasteries as central locations of study for the elites of all Gelukpa monasteries, partly enforced by decree,8 functioned as a binding element that held together center and periphery. However, for the general population, it was mainly the major pilgrim sites in and around Lhasa that represented the unity of center and periphery, with the Jokhang, the oldest Buddhist temple, and the Potala, the residence of the Dalai Lama, being the most prominent. The Jokhang in the center of Lhasa houses the Buddha statue known as Jowo. The Chinese princess Wencheng is said to have brought it long ago to Lhasa as dowry for King Songtsen Gampo, the founder of the Tibetan realm, who was viewed as the emanation of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara and as one of the preincarnations of the Dalai Lama. This statue is known as the most important object of worship in Tibetan Buddhism and is seen as a historical cornerstone for the development of Buddhism in Tibet’s society. Even in the nineteenth century, the statue’s fame, which reached far into the periphery, is said to have prompted the chieftain of Nyarong, who strove for independent domination, to consider stealing it from Lhasa and bringing it to East Tibet as a tool for establishing a new center.9 It was from the Potala Palace, impressively and conspicuously located in front of the gates of old Lhasa and named after the mythical residence of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, that the physically present Avalokiteśvara fulfilled his mission of salvation for the good of Tibet. The clockwise circumambulation of both pilgrimage destinations (and many more) according to traditional Indian pilgrim practices, or just reaching them after months of marching accompanied by continuous full-body prostration, made the unity of the center and the periphery more perceptible to the senses. At the same time, the ceaseless flow of pilgrims, again and again, affirmed the city of Lhasa as the center and the Dalai Lama as Tibet’s sacral ruler.

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Finding a new Dalai Lama could also be a strategic way of binding the periphery to the center. The birth of the Sixth Dalai Lama, for example, in a region directly south of the modern border with India cemented the integration of this border area into the territory of the Ganden Podrang government, and the discovery of a number of Dalai Lamas in East Tibet in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries strengthened the connection of this region to the center. However, no structural participation of the periphery in the center’s political decision-making evolved out of this occasional practice.

Differences between Religion and Politics, Morality and Politics, and Morality and Law Ganden Podrang rule was not dependent on kinship relationships. This situation distinguished it from other forms of rule that also existed at the periphery of Tibetan Buddhist society at the time of the Ganden Podrang. In contrast, the establishment of the Ganden Podrang based its rulership on an abstract idea. In it, the prominent status of the supreme role of domination was not only legitimized by a religious-ideological construct but, furthermore, by a mission of salvation aimed at the entire society, the fulfillment of which was to be ensured by a hierocratic association. The extent to which the administrative apparatus was led by hierocracy varied significantly in the course of Ganden Podrang rule. During the first half of the eighteenth century, rulership was even only nominally based on hierocracy. Nonetheless, it is possible to speak of hierocracy for the entire period of the Ganden Podrang, because, even at that time, this principle of domination was never openly questioned as the element that unified all differences, and it remained in place in this form. Within the hierocratic organization, charismatic authority, as defined by Max Weber, was based on an institutionalized “office charisma” from the beginning of the Ganden Podrang period on. The attribution of charisma was based on the belief that the person endowed with it appeared to fulfill the fateful mission of salvation for Tibet. As charismatic authority had adopted the religiously founded character of a permanent institution, there existed established procedures for finding and identifying a successor. These included determining certain traits by which the person could be recognized, and controlled procedures—oracles, lottery, visions—from which legitimacy was derived.10 In some cases, genuine, personal charisma could additionally be a motive to accepting one’s domination. However, this did not involve a

Domination     35

detachment of domination from hierarchic structures, and at the time under investigation personal charisma was never grounds for domination in Tibet. Ngawang Lozang Gyatso, the first Dalai Lama to head the ­Ganden Podrang government, acquired his position as a young, politically inexperienced man. He developed the charisma that earned him the epithet “the Great” later in the course of his rulership. Nonetheless, a ruler’s personal charisma could support changes in the existing hierarchical structures. In the case of the Fifth Dalai Lama, personal charisma fostered the reinforcement of the social position of the Gelukpa clergy and its elite in relation to the aristocracy. Furthermore, the charisma of a ruler—as in the case of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, Tupten Gyatso—could facilitate c­ ontrol of rival claims to power within the power structure. Since political action was primarily motivated by the mission of salvation, decisions in the political system were made, for the most part, irrespective of personal motives. In this way political and religious functions were joined together in their roles. The connection was intended to ensure the ruler’s virtuousness since it was considered “a recipe for difficult situations,” a means “by which the subjects would be inclined to imitation and obedience.”11 On the one hand, this brought with it the advantage that subjects unquestionably accepted the ruler and his political decisions. On the other hand, it inevitably led to conflicts because the moral principles and virtue catalogs of Buddhism could not always, in practice, be reconciled with the requirements and means of political action. While Tibet’s sacral ruler had already tried to avoid this dilemma at the beginning of the Ganden Podrang rulership by largely delegating the business of politics to a regent, the ethical problem of who bore responsibility for political decisionmaking essentially could not be solved since domination and religion remained so closely tied: domination presupposed religion in that it was legitimized by religion. Vice versa, religion presupposed domination in that the latter was to provide religion with the best possible conditions for fulfilling its mission of salvation. Furthermore, the ruler’s religious functions and the moral principles of Buddhism, which claimed validity throughout the entire society, came into conflict with Tibetan law and the expectation of its unconditional enforcement by the political rulership. Being ready to enforce the law in any case not only implied the mere threat of force but also the willingness to use it where appropriate. The difference between morality and law could only be concealed provisionally through a narrative framing offered by

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Buddhist historiography and a general referral to the moral principles of Buddhism.12 However, since political authority was based on a sacral foundation and justified with the prospect of religious salvation, it stood beyond any doubt and could rely on just this foundation to distinguish legitimate from illegitimate violence.

Social Difference and the Difference between Aristocracy and the Clergy If society, in its order, follows a hierarchic model involving a clear power imbalance, it comes to “vertical differentiation of specific roles of domination and, therefore, to a formation of a political system above the families.”13 In the roles of domination, the authority for making decisions that are binding for the entire society become centralized. This implies that the roles of domination have the power to enforce decisions. The fact that the approval of decisions is “so to speak flatly granted beforehand” and that it is also guaranteed “that someone can decide but not what is decided,” the political system can react relatively quickly and flexibly to unforeseen events, thereby remaining compatible with a “temporally and functionally complex environment.”14 In this sense, Luhmann speaks of political domination as a political system that evolved already in “larger tribes that were aware of their ­common ancestries” and whose stage of development “through a transition to cultivation of land and livestock breeding” knew the institution of owner­ship.15 It needs to be added, however, that with such a “political system,” a complete “differentiation of a specific function system of politics,” as characterizes the modern state, does not yet exist by far.16 But, if—as Luhmann emphasizes—power without the creation of a system could not be perpetuated,17 then the differentiation of a political system must have already been put in motion in Tibet’s society of the Ganden Podrang era. Thus, the history of Ganden Podrang rule shows how, under the conditions of stratification, the society had already experimented with structural changes in order to gain control over the increased social complexity created by the differentiation of center and periphery, social stratification, and the duality of aristocracy and clergy. Though to what extent were essential criteria in Tibet’s society fulfilled so that one could speak of the formation of a political system? At the beginning of the history of the Ganden Podrang government, a concentration of power resources took place, particularly gaining control

Domination     37

over the exercise of physical violence as the essential power instrument. It enabled the establishment of a centralist domination by which the land use, tax collection, the use of the rural population’s labor, and much more could be organized from the center. How effectively this had been managed already during the first years of this government can be exemplified by the planning and construction of the Potala Palace. It is, however, both remarkable and unusual that, from the beginning of Ganden Podrang rulership to the end of the eighteenth century, the organization of warfare remained in the hands of foreign rulers, and could also still be successfully used to ­concentrate the decision-making power onto a few positions of authority within Tibet’s society. As late as the nineteenth century, the Tibetan government then unavoidably also took the organization of warfare into its own hands. Another precondition for the formation of a differentiated political system is the use of power as a medium. The point is to consider power, similar to money, as a means for still undefined purposes. The threat of physical violence may achieve so many different things that it is possible to establish an enforcement apparatus without being committed to the policy in advance that is intended to be pushed through by that. In this sense, power is a generalized potential, a generalized medium, and the increased possibilities and requirement for the internal restriction of its use is something given in a political system. Therefore, power is a political concept; the question is only whether and to what extent politics is capable of politically controlling the use of power.18

As a medium, power symbolizes the unity of the difference between obedience as the preferred alternative and sanctions as the one to be avoided. This also means the unity of the difference of actuality and potentiality. Of course, there are also other possibilities, and principally, the use of physical violence is always an option. However, if violence is in fact used, power has failed. For power to hold good, the use of physical violence as a form of sanction must remain restricted to the realm of possibility and be no more than a threat. Precisely herein lies the paradox of the medium of power.19 Furthermore, power must remain visible in some form or another in order to be successful as a medium, so that it is believed in and obeyed in advance. Above all, this occurs through offices by which power on behalf of

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the rulership is exerted. They represent “a different functionally-equivalent form of power phenomena in comparison to fighting or the mere demonstration of force. In offices political power manifests itself without the permanent need to risk its power instruments. Offices are a peaceful form of presenting and exercising power.”20 Political offices allow for the identification of power independent of situations, that is, not based on changing people, but on posts filled by changing people. By providing power under the conditions of executing a political office, offices facilitate the acceptance of decisions, even in those cases in which refusal is, at first, more likely to be expected.21 So, the function of the political office is, generally speaking, to provide “the capacity for collectively binding decisions” without predefining the content of the decisions.22 The early Ganden Podrang government of the seventeenth century already promoted the establishment of an administration with differentiated positions that were occupied by different people. While leading families from the Tibetan upper class were granted significant political influence, “the political domination was, nonetheless, stabilized, regardless of family ties.”23 It oriented itself on the difference between top and bottom, which was seen as the natural order, and depicted this difference as a unity. The division of tasks existed along the vertical axis, which was associated with unilateral, top-down command. The establishment of offices apparently began initially with the differentiation of thirteen posts as the Sakya hierarchs had done in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In fact, most of these posts had been created for carrying out various services, such as personal services for high-ranking clerics and therefore had only little to do with the actual execution of rule and administration. Hence, a number of new departments were created to which well-defined duties within the administration were assigned: general, judge, agent for crafts, chief of the department for tax revenue, warehouse manager, mayor of the capital of Lhasa, agents for fodder and firewood, merchants, messengers, tax collectors, food stocks managers, district governors, and stewards for government estates.24 Moreover, the post of minister was created, but it is unclear precisely which duties were ascribed to it at the beginning of the Ganden Podrang government. In 1681, the last regent under the Fifth Dalai Lama, Sangyé Gyatso, wrote a discourse regarding the tasks and duties of individual government officials, beginning with those of the regent himself. Concerning the ministerial post, however, the work emphasizes general skills, character traits, and moral qualifications as a prerequisite for the

Domination     39

proper exercise of duty, yet does not give an insight into the specific scope of duties and routines associated with the post. In this context, a council of ministers is mentioned as well. However, I know of no other document from that time that even suggests a council of ministers, let alone provides indications of its relevance, composition, or function.25 Following the expulsion of the Dzungars from Central Tibet, the Qing government then established a council of ministers as the highest Tibetan governmental body in Lhasa in 1721. The office of the regent as it had been created under the Fifth Dalai Lama and equipped over many years with great power, especially after his undisclosed death, was abolished. Instead, the power now lay in the hands of the council of ministers, which initially consisted of three—and quite soon five—members of the aristocracy, which was segmentally differentiated into families or noble houses. These noble houses were closely linked to different regions in Central and West Tibet. No specifically defined departments were assigned to the individual ministerial posts. Khangchenné, who represented West Tibet in the council, was to fulfill the relatively weak role of a primus inter pares. Other than that, decisions were supposed to be made jointly and rulership exercised cooperatively. The Dalai Lama, who was viewed as the indispensable and unifying institution, continued to stand at the head of this rulership, but his function was now limited mainly to representation. The swing of the pendulum toward a renewed strengthening of the Tibetan aristocracy in relation to the Buddhist clergy continued further, even after the Tibetan civil war of 1727 and 1728. However, at the instigation of the imperial court, power was now concentrated in the hands of only a single representative of the Tibetan aristocracy.26 It was not until 1751 that a largely stable double structure of aristocracy and clergy was established following repeated intervention on the part of the Qing emperor and his government. With it, the clergy’s clear supremacy was once again affirmed. With some modifications and readjustments, it lasted until the end of Ganden Podrang domination in Tibet. In this situation, the Dalai Lama was no longer only nominally the head of the Tibetan government but was equipped with higher decision-making authority. Yet up to the end of the Qing Dynasty, his power was restricted by the two permanent representatives of the emperor in Lhasa who had been installed at his side with equal authority. Their approval was, for example, required for the appointment of ministers and district commissioners.27

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After the death of the Seventh Dalai Lama in 1757, the office of regent was introduced again. The intention was to have a new type of regent, one different in function and authority from the regent acting under the Fifth Dalai Lama. Therefore, this regent was designated with a new term underlining his function as a mere deputy, and he was only to take on the post to bridge a vacancy or if the Dalai Lama was still a minor. However, the Eighth Dalai Lama’s term of office was already an exception. Since the Eighth Dalai Lama neither demonstrated a special interest in political matters nor proved to have great political skills, the emperor consented to having a regent support him during nearly his entire period of rule. Unlike the former type of regent, the new regents were chosen from a narrowly limited reservoir of high reincarnations of the Buddhist Geluk school, and the emperor made the final decision over the appointment. Only during the final phase of the Qing Dynasty did the emperor’s decision-making authority appear to have sometimes become a pure formality. The regents, as well as the sacral ruler, both shared the status of reincarnations. However, in the case of the regents, the post was not coupled with a single reincarnation line but varied between different ones. This way, a possible rivalry over the highest role of domination was to be prevented. Below the ruler, the Kashak, a four-member council of ministers that consulted and acted collectively, took care of government affairs. Three of its members came from the Central Tibetan aristocracy; the Gelukpa clergy supplied one member. The council of ministers distributed the pending tasks between the different subordinated offices and, later, accepted, checked—if necessary corrected—their reports and recommendations, and forwarded them to the ruler for a decision on further action. This key position offered the chance for the council of ministers to exert influence on the ruler’s decisions.28 In addition to the council, at the time of the Eighth Dalai Lama, the post of Chief Abbot was created.29 He was not only responsible for the Dalai Lama’s private treasury and household, but he also functioned as the link between the Dalai Lama and the so-called Yiktsang, a chancellory that was founded in 1752. The Yiktsang was in charge of all the administrative and legal concerns of Tibet’s monasteries, and its duties also included drafting the decrees issued by the Dalai Lama or the regent. Initially three, later four, secretaries were recruited from the clergy to direct.30 The Chief Abbot and the Yiktsang also guaranteed the secure custody of the Dalai Lama’s or the respective regent’s official seals. The seals were kept in a seal box, the

Domination     41

key to which was in the possession of the Chief Abbot. This seal box was in turn kept in a second box, the key to which was kept at the chancellory. The two boxes were opened only in the presence of the Chief Abbot, the four chief secretaries of the chancellory, and the Dalai Lama or the regent.31 A number of offices with special duties were subordinated to the council of ministers.32 Some of them, for instance, the Office of Foreign Affairs, were established as late as the twentieth century as a reaction to the society’s changing environment. The most important among them was the Accounting Office, whose history dates back to the early years of the ­Ganden Podrang government. From 1699, it was in charge of registering the land and livestock ownership of the estates located in the various districts, as well as calculating tax and leasing income. Furthermore, it was entrusted by the council of ministers with the task of settling legal disputes over land usage and taxes. Three lay officials directed the Accounting Office. In the 1930s, a fourth senior official was added.33 All of them were recruited from the aristocracy. At first three, and later four, younger coworkers and an archivist were subordinated to them: the latter was there to retrieve necessary documents for the other officials if need be. From 1754, the Yiktsang maintained a school for the education of monk officials. It had between forty and fifty students, about thirty of whom were recruited from monastic communities of the Gelukpa in and around Lhasa, and the remaining ones from aristocratic families. As a matter of form, these latter students had to first enter one of the three great Gelukpa monasteries near Lhasa and be registered by the Yiktsang before being accepted to the school. Usually, these were the sons of monk officials’ siblings, so that posts filled by monk officials could also be passed on within certain aristocratic families. Whether or not a student would later receive a higher position within the religious civil service depended critically on his family origin. In addition to the studies of selected classical fields of knowledge, such as the native tradition of grammar, poetry, calendrical calculations, astrology, and Sino-Tibetan divination calculation, their education included, above all, learning the different Tibetan styles of handwriting. Because the Tibetan government did not require more than about six monk officials per year, and these did not necessarily need to be graduates of that particular school, the duration of studies was not prescribed. On average, it took eight to nine years.34 The education of lay officials was the responsibility of the Accounting Office. Its officials functioned as the teachers. They taught about twenty sons of Tibetan aristocrats,35 primarily in the different Tibetan styles of

42     Chapter 3

handwriting and in arithmetic. However, necessary skills in these two fields were required upon entry, so the students had already received private instruction before beginning their education for a civil service career between the ages of thirteen and sixteen. The length of their training was not fixed but varied between one and five years. During this time, the best students were already enlisted to assist with regular work in the Accounting Office or other government offices. In connection with the Mönlam festival in the first month of the Tibetan year, around four candidates for the civil service career had to prove their skills in the presence of the cabinet ministers. Candidates found suitable were then nominated as civil servants. Afterward, they could be employed by the Tibetan government or in district administration.36 It remains unclear whether the number of monk officials in training had always outnumbered that of lay officials. Primarily in the twentieth century, however, the Ganden Podrang government evidently increased only the number of posts for monk officials.37 It is remarkable that neither the Dalai Lama nor the regent had any control over selecting the aristocratic sons for civil service education or any real decision-making power regarding their general acceptance into the service. At best, their entry into the civil service could be stalled but not ultimately prevented. Therefore, the aristocratic civil service was mostly autonomous in the recruitment of its junior staff.38 In the second half of the nineteenth century, a new political institution arose: a large assembly, which convened irregularly, consisting of leading representatives from the Gelukpa clergy and the civil service. It functioned as an advisory board for specific issues but increasingly gained influence. Especially as of 1875, it played a significant role in the selection of a new regent.39 In the twentieth century, a prime minister, a layman who acted above the level of the council of ministers, was temporarily installed. He attained his greatest importance when the Thirteenth Dalai Lama spent a few years in exile in Mongolia.40 Throughout all these modifications of the office hierarchy within the Tibetan government and administration, the position of the Dalai Lama at the top remained unaffected. In some respects, this position was akin to that of a monarch. As with a monarch, the office and person of the Dalai Lama were not distinguished from each other. Similar to a monarch, and even to a greater extent, the Dalai Lama represented supernatural powers;

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while no ruler “by grace of God,” he was still considered a direct incarnation of a supernatural savior figure. And like a monarch, but even more so, the Dalai Lama also represented the unity of all subjects. Since Tibet’s sacral ruler functioned indiscriminately as a figure of salvation for members of all social strata, his person tied together the different strata as one. In this, he by no means contributed to the dissolution of social difference but rather to its acceptance and, therefore, to the stabilization of rulership. However, the position of Dalai Lama differed from that of monarch in one crucial point. While a monarch was legitimized “by his origin, thus dynastically,”41 a Dalai Lama was legitimized by procedure. “Procedures have to be introduced with honest uncertainty about the outcome. The socalled proceduralization of legitimacy essentially means preparation for an unknown future in which opposite value judgments may get a chance.”42 The search for, location of, and identification of a Dalai Lama was an open process. While the procedure was not immune from manipulation and influence—as history has demonstrated—the deployment of different procedural elements still indicated the principal interest in an open procedure. Among these procedures were divination, the consultation of oracles, visions, the examination of several children as worthy candidates, and— last but not least—the introduction of a lottery, which was ordered by the Qianlong emperor at the end of the eighteenth century. Without a doubt, the procedure left room for strategic considerations to be taken into account in the search for a new Dalai Lama. One need only think of how the Fourth Dalai Lama was found among the Mongols or the Sixth Dalai Lama in a border region contested with Bhutan. However, this did not change the fact that the procedure, from the society’s point of view, was principally an open one. At the same time, it was tied to the assumption that the outcome of the procedure—as long as it was carried out correctly—was already a foregone conclusion from the perspective of the supratemporal savior figure of Avalokiteśvara. As of the nineteenth century, the open procedure was no longer limited solely to members of the Tibetan upper class, so the Dalai Lamas could then also be found among lower-class families. However, following the identification of a Dalai Lama in their midst, these families were endowed with large estates and became members of the upper class. Despite this marked difference between the position of monarch and that of Dalai Lama, the question arises as to whether the Tibetan office hierarchy is not also a model of hierarchy in which “the top could govern as

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though from the outside.”43 However, the explanations of Tibetan law will reveal that in Tibet’s society, the ruler could not act arbitrarily, that is, without respecting the law and its procedures, even if he was above the law himself. It was inconceivable in Tibet’s society that the sacral ruler could also be subjected to a legal procedure without his status simultaneously also being challenged. Nonetheless, after the Tibetan civil war, the Dalai Lama and his government were increasingly controlled by the representatives of the Qing emperor. While the Dalai Lama himself could not be held openly accountable, the fact that his consultants, ministers, and—before 1705 and after 1757—the regents could be made responsible was a pragmatic way out that left plenty of room for conflicts. The possibility for open dissent between the Dalai Lama and the emperor was not provided, since both were considered to be far advanced bodhisattvas who, due to their wisdom and virtue, were supposed to agree in their intentions toward the good of all living beings and the Buddhist doctrine. Therefore, decisions always had to be suggestive of mutual agreement. In this relationship, differences of opinion were hidden as much as possible, and instead consensus was assumed.

Differences between Tibetan Sacral Rulership and Foreign Secular Rulership This situation leads to the question of how the difference between Tibetan sacral rulership and foreign secular claims of domination that also included Tibet’s society could be presented as a unity. In this respect, Tibetan ­Buddhism furnished the idea of a specific relationship between the recipient of offerings and the donor, or the priest and the patron. According to this idea, legitimacy could also be granted to foreign rulers as long as they presented themselves as guardians and promoters of the Buddhist doctrine.44 This construction not only allowed a peculiar symbiosis of sacral Tibetan and foreign secular domination, but it enabled sacral domination in Tibet in the first place. The sacral domination of Tibet had been dependent on the war-making potential of foreign rulers for at least one-and-ahalf centuries. Without this resource of foreign power, such a type of domination could not possibly have been established in the seventeenth century, or have been able to assert itself in the eighteenth century. During the early period from 1642 to 1682, the military power provided by the Khoshots enabled the Fifth Dalai Lama to exercise political authority. After his death in 1682, his regent managed to concentrate power in his hands by keeping the Dalai Lama’s death secret for many

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years. However, due to competing interests and the clearly superior power potential of the Qing emperor, the religious-political agenda of the early Ganden Podrang government was doomed to failure. Rather quickly, the conflict between the Qing emperor and the ruler of the western Mongolian Dzungars—or rather their rivalry over the domination of the Mongolian peoples and the creation of an Inner Asian empire—became the deciding factor for the eventual fate of the Ganden Podrang government in Tibet. In this significant dispute, the Tibetan government more or less secretly sided with the western Mongols, which gave impetus to the emperor’s struggle for control of the Dalai Lama as a key for legitimizing domination in the eyes of the Mongols. Unlike the Ming emperors, the ambitions of the Qing emperors, who succeeded in establishing their rule in 1644, went far beyond the effective control or mere closure of the notoriously insecure Inner Asian borders of the Chinese Empire. Already since the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Manchus, who strove for acknowledgment of their priority position among the Mongolian peoples, had gotten into military conflicts and formed alliances with them. Therefore, as early as at the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, they already brought some of the Mongolian peoples with them into the Qing Empire. Their entanglement with the Mongolian world ultimately resulted in the formation of the Qing Empire as a sort of twofold empire, that is, a Chinese and an Inner Asian empire, with each based on different administrative and ideological foundations. Even the mapping of the empire at the beginning of the eighteenth century clearly divides the entire Manchu Empire into a “Chinese” and a “non-Chinese” part; this was done by using Chinese script for one part and Manchu script for the other.45 In the eighteenth century, the Mongols and the Tibetans became part of the Qing Empire, but that did not make them part of China. Also, they continued to exist as a distinctly delimited social system. Despite being part of the empire and subordinated to the Lifan Yuan, the Ministry of Outer Dependencies, Tibet was nonetheless considered tributary. But the tribute that was to be paid alternately by the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama was not registered as foreign tribute. In matters concerning the Inner Asian areas of the empire, the tribute ritual had become an instrument of domination and administration.46 All empires of some duration have justified their rule by a world-historical task, which imparted the empire with a cosmological or salvationhistorical meaning. According to Herfried Münkler, the function of such

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an imperial mission is not merely to legitimize domination, but above all to convert the self-legitimation of an empire into self-sacralization, from which “the political elites draw the conviction and energy to press on with the imperial project,” although this exceeds their limited individual horizons.47 When the Manchus created their empire through conquest, they neither brought their own imperial mission nor did they generate a new one. From the very beginning, they instead cooperated with the intellectual elites of the conquered societies. Without sticking to an overall single ideology, they skillfully used the alternatives available in order to establish their domination and the arrangement of local relationships in Inner Asia on a completely different ideological basis than in Southeast Asia and China itself. In both these areas, the intellectual elites supported the new rule by providing “perspectives and visions that [served to] justify and reinforce its exercise of power.”48 Thus, the Manchus strived to perpetuate rule in China proper as well as their relations with the more or less sinicized neighboring countries to the south and east of China based on Confucian ideology. But here they had a problem of credibility, because, due to their origin, they were viewed by the elites of these countries as belonging to the “barbaric” rather than to the “civilized” world.49 In the Inner Asian world, however, the Confucian code of “barbaric versus civilized” did not matter. Instead, the semantics of Inner Asian societies were increasingly influenced by the Tibetan form of Buddhism. Therefore, from the very beginning, the Qing emperors were concerned with learning about the forms and themes that influenced meaning and ­communication among Tibetans and Mongols. The key to be able to avail oneself of Buddhist ideology lay with Tibet’s clerical elites. Already prior to the conquest of Beijing in 1644, the Manchus had invited Tibetan clerics to their then capital at Mukden and built a Buddhist temple complex. Ingeniously, they tried to draw upon concepts of domination that, in the historiography of Tibetans and Mongols, were said to have once formed the relationship between Khubilai Khan and the clerics of the Tibetan Sakya school. For this reason, they initially had tried for the Sakyapas, yet soon realized that the clerics of the Tibetan Geluk school, who were acknowledged as reincarnated spiritual teachers, so-called trülkus, had become the more prestigious candidates for a priest-patron relationship among the Mongols.50 Control over the clerics of Tibetan Buddhism proved to be the key factor in regulating intra-Mongol conflicts as well as the Qing Empire’s

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conflicts with the western Mongols. Yet it still took an entire century before the Qing emperors succeeded in exercising this control. To this end, they invested huge material and military efforts, but the crucial factor for their acceptance was the ideological effort through which the Qing emperors attempted to legitimize their position by applying the concepts and norms of Tibetan Buddhism and place themselves at the top of Tibetan Buddhist society. The great amount of time and enormous material effort that the Qianlong emperor invested in this regard to prove his credibility to the Tibetan and Mongolian elites was particularly impressive. In the context of Tibetan Buddhism, he strived to be perceived not only as the highest donor of offerings and patron but additionally as a scholarly and moral authority. A visible expression of this conception is, for example, the scroll paintings in traditional Tibetan style that highlight the Qianlong emperor as the spiritual teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. As a scholarly authority, the emperor claimed the right to be able to judge which Tibetan Buddhist tradition should count as the pure doctrine. As a moral authority, he claimed to be judge over the behavior of the Tibetan Buddhist clerics. In this way, he avoided challenging the primacy of religion over secular matters, including politics, which had been established by the Gelukpa in Tibet. Nonetheless, the ambitious attempt of the emperor to place himself at the top of Tibetan Buddhist society as its sole head failed. Despite being portrayed in Tibet as an incarnation of one of the highest bodhisattvas in Tibetan Buddhism, the emperor was formally at best at the same level as the Dalai Lama. Also, the attempt to reduce the Dalai Lama’s authority by upgrading the position of the Panchen Lama ultimately remained unsuccessful. Of all the concepts associated with the various supernatural bodhisattvas of Tibetan Buddhism, the Avalokiteśvara concept of a savior figure guided by compassion was the most influential social force in Tibet. This explains why the Dalai Lama, as the incarnation of Avalokiteśvara, was not questioned in Tibet even when his institution and office were not occupied by charismatic personalities. The discrepancy between the absolute imperial claim to superiority, which includes both secular and religious concerns, and the claim of the Tibetan clerical leadership regarding all areas of social life was neither solved nor openly communicated as a conflict until the end of the Qing Dynasty. While Tibet’s clerical elite unresistingly submitted to the emperor’s claim of sovereignty in its communication with the imperial court, they successfully and consistently ignored it in their historiographic and hagiographic literature. Here, Tibet’s relationship with the

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Qing Empire is predominantly described as a personal priest-patron relation­ship between the Dalai Lama and the emperor characterized by the emperor’s veneration for the Dalai Lama. The Qing emperors did not reveal a Chinese Confucian face vis-à-vis Tibet but made an effort to communicate within Tibetan Buddhist society’s expectation structures. The Tibetan elites, therefore, also did not refer to the Qing emperor as the center of a world order based on a ChineseConfucian ideology. Rather, from the eighteenth century, they perceived the emperor as a person at the top of Tibetan Buddhist society’s hierarchic order. Yet in the eyes of the Tibetan elite he was not alone. Ultimately, all the efforts with which he sought to position himself as the highest authority of Tibetan Buddhist affairs were not able to change that. A number of continuously repeated symbolic actions were put in place to manifest the hierarchic order and to make it appear as natural and given. Among those actions were the award of titles and ranks to Tibetan officeholders, which correspondingly resulted in an increasing integration into the imperial structures; demotion in the case of misconduct; the enforcement of a strict protocol for diplomatic contacts with the emperor and his government; the award and ceremonial presentation of a certification document and seal for newly enthroned Dalai Lamas, Panchen Lamas, and regents; the regular sending of legations from the significant Central Tibetan Gelukpa monasteries to present gifts to the emperor; and gifts from the emperor to high-ranking representatives of the Tibetan clergy.51 In the seventeenth century, the Fifth Dalai Lama awarded titles to Mongolian chieftains in order to establish his supreme position also among the Mongolian peoples. But from the eighteenth century on, this right was reserved to the emperor. In contrast, from the very beginning of the relation­ship between the Dalai Lamas and the emperors of the Qing Dynasty, it was only the emperor who awarded titles and seals, while the Dalai Lama was always a recipient. In 1653, the Fifth Dalai Lama visited the emperor in Beijing. On his return journey, the emperor sent him a title and seal.52 By making use of this seal to issue his own charters and by also referring in his authorization formula to the emperor as a source of his authority and power, the Dalai Lama acknowledged the emperor’s supremacy. This authorization formula, however, differed from that found on the rulers’ charters of the Yuan-era Sakyapa hierarchs. Far from Tibet, the ­Sakyapa hierarchs residing in the imperial capital south of modern Beijing had, at the time, issued charters for Tibet on the explicit behalf of the

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emperor. The authorization formula was, therefore, prominently placed in the top line of the charter.53 On the charters issued by the Dalai Lama, however, the authorization formula no longer appears isolated at the very top but is instead included in the intitulatio of the document.54 In other words, it no longer grants the issuer the power to issue the documents but instead legitimizes him as the bearer of a title awarded by the emperor. Yet granting the title that appears in the intitulatio of the Dalai Lama’s charters in no way equates to the emperor’s formal right to confirm the Dalai Lama in his status as the reincarnation of his predecessor. Only after the dispute over the reincarnation of the Fifth Dalai Lama, which was closely linked to the Tibetan regent’s intrigues and to the Qing emperor’s war on the Dzungars in Inner Asia, did the emperor, in the eighteenth century, reserve the right to ceremonially convey a seal and confirmation certificate to a new Dalai Lama as early as at his enthronement. This right contradicted the Tibetan clergy’s will and its understanding of how the credibility of a reincarnation was certified solely by self-established and religiously based procedures, thus demonstrating, especially in this matter, the supremacy of religion over politics. This contradiction would continue until the end of the Qing Dynasty and even beyond. But the specific power relations did not allow this contradiction to be openly addressed as a conflict. Instead, it was dealt with by the clergy seeking to undermine the emperor’s instructions, with the emperor, in turn, devising measures through which he could nonetheless enforce his power of control. This spiral had already begun to develop at the beginning of the eighteenth century when the emperor instructed Lhapzang Khan to extradite the—in the emperor’s eyes false—Dalai Lama to Beijing, thereby putting him directly under imperial control. However, the Dalai Lama never arrived in Beijing. Although he left Lhasa in good health, he died before reaching Chinese territory. That the Dalai Lama must have been poisoned seems likely. The Gelukpa elite of the great monasteries near Lhasa, in particular, had a vested interest in preventing the extradition of the Dalai Lama and in having free rein to search for a new one.55 From the very beginning, they had resisted acknowledging the monk who was chosen and installed as the “true” Sixth Dalai Lama by Lhapzang Khan with the backing of the emperor and the Panchen Lama. Instead, they were soon on the lookout for the Seventh Dalai Lama. As the news spread that a child who was the

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reincarnation of the Sixth Dalai Lama was finally found in East Tibet, Lhapzang Khan and the emperor tried to curb the rumor by moving the Panchen Lama to attest to the reincarnation lacking authenticity. When this measure was unsuccessful, the emperor had the child detained at Kumbum Monastery near Lake Kokonor. As a result, the Tibetan clergy collaborated with the Dzungars in order to be able to bring their candidate to Lhasa and enthrone him in the Potala against the emperor’s will. As is well known, the Dzungars failed in their attempt to abduct the child. Nevertheless, the Gelukpa elite finally asserted itself: the emperor acknowledged their candidate and had him brought to Lhasa escorted by the Imperial Army. Beforehand, the new Dalai Lama was presented with a confirmation certificate and a seal. From then on, this form of acknowledgment by the emperor became an integral part of enthroning a new Dalai Lama or Panchen Lama. After the expulsion of the Dzungars, the Kangxi emperor and the Panchen Lama abandoned the Dalai Lama who had been enthroned by Lhapzang Khan. However, the emperor refused to even posthumously acknowledge the Dalai Lama Tsangyang Gyatso, who had been enthroned by the regent in December 1697. In this, the emperor openly contradicted the opinion of the Gelukpa elite, who still considered the authentic reincarnation of the Fifth Dalai Lama to be the Dalai Lama who had died under mysterious circumstances in 1706. Only his death had opened up the possibility for them to search for and choose a new Dalai Lama free from any influence. Thus, for them, the child enthroned in Lhasa was the Seventh Dalai Lama, whereas the Kangxi emperor explicitly called him the Sixth Dalai Lama in his decree as well as in the seal granted him.56 As regards the charters issued, the young Seventh Dalai Lama apparently followed the views of the emperor at first. In the meantime, at least two documents of the Seventh Dalai Lama from the years 1720 and 1721 are known, on which the stamp of the seal identifies him as the Sixth Dalai Lama.57 Soon a solution was found to mask the contradiction between the emperor’s opinion and that of the Tibetan clergy. Already in 1723, the Yongzheng emperor sent the Dalai Lama a new seal, the inscription of which did not include a count. Evidently, the Seventh Dalai Lama still used this seal at the time of the Qianlong emperor.58 When it came to issuing charters, he otherwise preferred another seal that had already been used by his predecessors and that also had no count of the reincarnations in its inscription.59

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In its hagiographic writings, however, the Tibetan clergy insisted on its own count of the reincarnations. In fact, the Seventh Dalai Lama’s biographer, the Second Changkya trülku Rolpé Dorje, who was very close to the Qianlong emperor, consequently described him in his biography written between 1758 and 1759 as the direct reincarnation of Tsangyang Gyatso. Clerics of other Buddhist schools also followed this view.60 The sources available to us so far reveal nothing about a further ongoing open dispute in this matter; both sides stuck with their respective ways of looking at things for many years. Apparently, only much later was the conflict over the correct count of reincarnations of the Dalai Lama settled without much ado. In 1780, at the time of the Eighth Dalai Lama, the Qianlong emperor officially changed the count.61 However, the conflict over control of the Tibetan institution of reincarnated spiritual teachers continued. The peak was reached at the end of the eighteenth century, when the Qianlong emperor tried to establish a controlled procedure for the selection and identification of reincarnations in the form of a lottery under the emperor’s supervision. This contradicted the clergy’s demand to carry out the search and identification of reincarnations exclusively based on religiously grounded procedures. The emperor and his administration tried to avoid an open conflict by endeavoring—in cooperation with some of the Gelukpa elite—to give the lottery procedure the appearance of a Buddhist divination ritual. But still in the nineteenth century, the Tibetan clergy was set on regaining as much control as possible over the identification procedure. This did not occur through open opposition but through persistent petitions to the emperor submitted through the ambans, the imperial representatives in Lhasa. In these petitions, the clergy requested permission to deviate from the prescribed procedure in individual cases and to rely exclusively on the traditional prophecies, oracle inquiries, and examinations. In a few cases, the emperor conceded; in others, he did not. Yet a fundamentally open dispute over the legitimacy of the lottery procedure that had been forced on the Tibetan clergy from the outside never took place.62 Such conflicts were primarily about the social dimension rather than the fact dimension.63 If both dimensions could be clearly separated, c­ onflict resolution was in principle conceivable with the goodwill of all parties involved by granting the politically weaker side extensive freedom of choice in the fact dimension yet allowing the politically dominant side to express

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its formal right of the ultimate decision in the social dimension. How such a solution worked can be illustrated by a specific case of decision-making at a lower administrative level. Since early in their rule, the Qing court had conferred the title jasak ­ ongolian on Mongolian banner chiefs and jasak lama on the heads of large M monasteries that were established as banner units, as well as on lamas who assisted a reincarnated lama in controlling the dependents working on his estates when their number exceeded eight hundred.64 In addition, a few leading lamas in Beijing and other selected places received this title.65 In the eighteenth century, the Qing court also started to confer the jasak title on Tibetan aristocrats serving in the Tibetan government. After the Qing reorganized the Tibetan government in the middle of the eighteenth century, the title of jasak lama was bestowed on the successive monk ministers who joined the Tibetan cabinet, until the beginning of the nineteenth century.66 Moreover, the title jasak lama was conferred on a few treasurers who were responsible for the management of the households of an exclusive circle of Gelukpa reincarnation lines.67 Their appointment developed into a cooperative procedure that left space for the Tibetan as well as for the imperial side to protect their respective interests. A document from the second half of the nineteenth century, originally preserved in the archives of Kündeling Monastery, reveals, for example, a complex procedure that can be divided into eight steps.68 They included not only different parties and officials, but also different modes of decision-making. Obviously, some were only formal ones based on the wish to respect the status hierarchy of all parties involved. The procedure was as follows: 1. The leading persons of the Gomang and of the Kündeling monk communities gathered when a jasak lama had either died or resigned due to age or illness. The Gomang monk community was one of the four colleges of Drepung Monastery near Lhasa and had been the traditional place for the religious studies of the successive ­Tatsak jedrung rinpoché, the head and owner of Kündeling ­Monastery. The leading persons of both monk communities together discussed possible candidates for a new appointment and then composed a list of seven or eight appropriate persons. 2. On an auspicious day, the leading persons of both communities went into the temple of the protector deities of the Gomang ­community and inserted little slips of paper with the candidates’

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names into dough balls. In the presence of the guardian deities, the balls were placed into a porcelain bowl with a handle. Then the balls were rolled around until one ball after another fell out of the bowl. A short list of three persons was created based on the order in which the balls left the bowl, ranking the candidates as number one, number two, and number three. The Tibetans were familiar with the lottery system using dough balls. This method was even included in the identification of the Fifth ­Dalai ­L ama.69 This practice was thus not inspired by the Golden Urn lottery introduced by the Qianlong emperor at the end of the eighteenth century. 3. Thereafter, the leading persons of both communities visited the Nechung Oracle, Tibet’s most important oracle, which was ­consulted on issues of political or social significance. The oracle usually confirmed the candidate who was ranked number one. 4. Then the leading officials of both communities tried to arrange for the appointment of candidate number one. They composed a report about the death or resignation of the previous jasak lama and the necessity for appointing a successor. The report was delivered to the Tibetan council of ministers, more precisely to the chief minister, and to the highest monk official in the Tibetan government. It was combined with the request to inform the two representatives of the emperor stationed in Lhasa. 5. The representatives of the emperor, the ambans, demanded the names of two candidates who were trusted by the majority of the monks of Kündeling and insisted on interviewing them in person. The name of candidate number one was given to them along with another name, which apparently was not necessarily one from the original short list. 6. Three ministers and the two selected candidates then went to the residence of the imperial representatives. While the candidates kneeled in front of them, the ambans questioned them, for example, about their previous work experience. It seems that the ambans required further evidence; thus, the Tatsak jedrung rinpoché also sent a letter of support. 7. The ambans forwarded the names of the two candidates to the emperor, apparently, together with a recommendation for candidate number one.

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8. Usually, the emperor appointed the candidate who had already been selected as number one in the original lottery. The rank and seal of a jasak lama were granted to him by order of the emperor. On this occasion, he received a gown of blue, yellow, or multi­ colored brocade at the ambans’ residence. In order to stabilize the system “Tibetan Buddhist society,” the Qing emperors and their agencies, on the one hand, supported, supervised, and certified the Gelukpa elite. On the other, they also directly intervened in the organization and affairs of the Tibetan government. Legal instruments and correspondence reveal an increasing strengthening of their control of the government in the eighteenth century. Since this has been dealt with in detail elsewhere,70 it suffices here to briefly list the most important steps. Already at the beginning of the century the Kangxi emperor encroached on the sovereign rights of the Tibetan government. Later, in the course of the Qing army’s expulsion of the Dzungars from Central Tibet in 1720, the Khoshots were deprived of their right to collect the taxes of large areas in East Tibet, which were then placed under the direct jurisdiction of the governor-generals of neighboring imperial provinces. Soon thereafter, the emperor issued an edict determining the form and leadership of the new Tibetan cabinet. Unable to cooperate harmoniously, the discord among its members resulted only a few years later in murder and civil war. In 1728, at the end of the Tibetan civil war, the Qing placed all power in the hands of a single undisputed leader of Tibetan political affairs, but from then on they deployed imperial representatives to Central Tibet in order to control the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government. In addition, the position of the Panchen Lama was strengthened in relation to the Dalai Lama, and the Dalai Lama was exiled to East Tibet for more than six years and three months. Once again, in 1751, the Qianlong emperor ordered a complete reorganization of the Tibetan government, which was carried out by a commission under the leadership of the governor-general of Sichuan Province. A detailed document recorded the various new provisions for officials. In particular, they concerned the appointment of cabinet ministers, district commissioners, leaders of specific border areas, stewards of estates, headmen, and abbots. When the office of regent was reintroduced, the Tibetan government was not given the authority to appoint the regent; similar to the appointment of the Tibetan cabinet ministers, the regent was rather appointed by the emperor on the recommendation of the Tibetan cabinet

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and the imperial representatives stationed in Lhasa. Control over the Tibetan government had last been tightened in 1793, when the Qianlong emperor issued the Twenty-Nine-Article Decree. Among other stipulations, this decree introduced the lottery for identifying prominent Tibetan reincarnations, marked the southern border, reorganized the minting of Tibetan coins, established a small standing army, regulated the TransHimalayan trade and the cross-border correspondence of the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama, further strengthened the authority of the permanent imperial representatives, and sought to improve the economic situation of the peasants living in the southern border area affected by war. P In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the areas under the political authority of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government were part of the Qing Empire.71 Yet the incorporation of Tibet into the Qing Empire cannot be described using modern notions of state nor can it be understood as an ­exploitative relationship. As is characteristic for empires in general, in the Qing Empire there was also “a scale of integration descending from center to periphery.”72 It has, therefore, been rightly stressed that “concepts of exclusive territorial sovereignty” and “sovereign equality” “have no place in historical Asia.”73 In order to continue to use the concept of “sovereignty,” its definition must be broadened. “In Inner and East Asia, polities that displayed state-like qualities regularly experienced sovereignty as a condition of ruling that was constrained by, submissive to, or overlapped with a higher authority with which those polities regularly had to deal but into which they did not disappear.”74 Unlike our modern understanding of sovereignty, “in historical Inner and East Asia, sovereignty was personal, hierarchical, and multiple. It was layered and could be shared. Sovereigns were not equal in power, stature, or status. Indeed, inequality was inherent in relations between rulers and hence in relations between polities.”75 This led to the conclusion that the concept of sovereignty should be freed from its reference to a precisely defined territory: “sovereignty—defined simply as the lawful authority of a ruler to wield power over his subjects—was tied to the person of the ruler and not to a specific territory.”76 However, it must be noted that already early on during the Qing Dynasty a development had begun that increasingly emphasized territorial aspects in domination practice. This development gradually undermined the “notion of sovereignty” as universalistic as it was held by Nurhaci (1559–1626),77 the founder of the Jurchen polity, which later was renamed

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Qing. The empire of the Ming Dynasty still to a great extent corresponded with the conception of premodern empires as described in systems theory. They are described as entities without precisely marked borders, “more or less founded in themselves, at rest in themselves, not subdued to the dynamics of external factors that are unmanageable by them.”78 Barbara Kuchler speaks of “basal” sovereignty as a presumptive “condition for the successful expansion of empires into extensive areas and for the maintenance of supremacy over long periods of time.”79 Little by little, this type of empire began to change under the Qing Dynasty; in fact, already before the traditional “legitimation ideologies” were replaced in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by “the new ‘universal’ Euro-American construct” and “interpolity relations were reorganized globally in relation to the new European paradigm of ‘international relations.’ ”80 In contrast to the Ming Empire, the Qing Empire referred in its realpolitik more and more to a territory that was marked by exact borders, though this did not yet mean that the Qing emperors had already assumed a world order or greater area order of equal political entities.81 From the imperial side, Tibet was included in the empire’s gradually emerging, territory-related domination; Tibet was regarded and treated as a polity within the boundaries of the empire. Thus, the relationship between the Qing Empire and Tibet differed completely from the one that had existed between the preceding dynasty and Tibet. Thus Nicola Di Cosmo referred not only to Xinjiang and Mongolia but also rightly to Tibet when writing: “In fact, the Qing dynasty was the first to bring all of these Inner Asian regions under the sovereignty of a central government based in China.”82 As Herfried Münkler has shown though, one is by no means forced to give up the concept of “empire” despite the gradually emerging territorial aspect of the Qing domination. Imperial structures must not necessarily be replaced by a “state order” but can overlap states.83 Exactly such a development toward an overlap of two different orders can be observed in the case of the Qing Empire. In the self-description of Tibetan Buddhist society controlled solely by the clergy, the actual existing order was disregarded in any case. Rather, until the twentieth century, internal and external power structures were predominantly perceived personally and described in regard to persons. Furthermore, in society’s description of itself, complex power structures of the actual order were reduced to a simple pyramidal hierarchy structure with a sacral ruler at the top. This visibly elevated ruler personified in the

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first place the center of a symbolic order. Indeed, this central figure did not just receive great societal attention. Real power structures had already been “docked” onto this central figure at the establishment of the Ganden Podrang in the seventeenth century, which, through the successive formation of an administrative hierarchy, gradually induced differentiation of a political system. This system was stabilized in the eighteenth century due to the military backing and material support of the Qing emperors. Through the demonstrative acceptance of the Dalai Lama at the head of the Tibetan government, they contributed to the fact that domination in Tibet was able to be based on an internally and externally accepted institution. Despite the stabilizing effect of the Qing Empire, during the entire Ganden Podrang period it was not the emperor, but solely the Dalai Lama through whom the various conflictual differences in society could be presented as a unity. His person connected the past with the present and the future, and the center with the periphery. His mission of salvation bridged the disparities between the various social strata without abolishing societal differences. Since salvation itself was beyond society, the Dalai Lama ­contributed more to the acceptance of this stratification as the natural order. The contradictions between religion and politics, morality and politics, and morality and law were also concealed on the premise of this mission of salvation. Finally, with the Dalai Lama at the top of the social hierarchy, the aristocracy could also, largely without conflict, be tied into the administrative hierarchy without compromising the clergy’s social supremacy. Furthermore, the idea of priest and patron also allowed the reconciliation of sacral Tibetan domination with the Qing emperor’s secular claims to power and the formal assignment of a place to the emperor in the hierarchy of Tibetan Buddhist society. With this approach, however, the emperor was merely assigned a place in the symbolic order: societal selfdescription reduced his role as ruler to those tasks traditionally associated with a patron of Buddhist teaching. Concomitantly, it conceived of QingTibetan relations as being located solely on a personal level, or as a personal relationship between the Dalai Lama and the emperor. In this way, the bureaucratic form of the Qing Empire and its government was masked. At the same time, the self-description based on the fiction of legal equality covered up the fact that the emperor advanced and sought to enforce a real claim to supreme authority over the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government. Not unlike the emperors of earlier dynasties, the Qing emperor viewed himself as the highest ruler next to whom there could be no second

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sun.84 Therefore, in Tibetan-language emperor’s charters addressed to Tibetan Buddhist hierarchs, for example, he used the Chinese title huangdi, “highest ruler.” With this, he was also striving to acquire the top position, not just in secular but also in religious matters. Even though the Qing emperors did not ultimately succeed in holding this position clearly and permanently within Tibetan Buddhist society, one must state that—in contrast to the image suggested by symbolic order—in terms of actual power structures, the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government were clearly subordinated to the Qing emperor. The Qing emperors not only reserved the right to interfere directly in Tibetan affairs with “robust involvements,”85 but they also allowed themselves the power to intervene in the spiritual sphere. For the spiritual ruler, however, it was impossible to interfere effectively in the political sphere of the emperor. Something akin to the Road to Canossa was, therefore, inconceivable in Tibetan Buddhist society. On principle, the real order established in the eighteenth century was also not questioned by the Tibetan elite in the following century; on the contrary, when needed, it was expressly demanded. In fact, Tibet and its government had become in the meantime less important for stabilizing Qing domination in Inner Asia. Moreover, the Qing Empire had been militarily weakened by the intrusion of imperialistic powers in China. Nevertheless, until the end of the nineteenth century, neither the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government nor the emperor and the Qing court indicated any interest at all in openly addressing the contradiction between the symbolic and the real order—knowing full well that such a conflict would jeopardize the stability of domination in Tibetan Buddhist society. Therefore, for almost two hundred years both sides were, “content to endorse the mutually satisfying construct that obscured the underlying power imbalance.”86

CHAPTER 4

Hierarchy

Mountains and rivers, elephants and horses, Wood and light rays, jewels and stones, Men and women—though each is a separate class, There is a difference between superior and inferior in each. —Sakya Pandita (1182–1251)

An investigation of the hierarchical order of Tibet’s society inherently begs the question of where and how opportunities for conflict were distributed in society. The formation of a hierarchy is an effective method for minimizing the chances for conflict. Similar to physical violence, a hierarchy weakens the hope of risking a conflict with chances of success. Hierarchical structures suggest immutability of the asymmetric distribution of power rooted within them. But like all structures, they, too, do not hold indefinitely, and are subject to change over time. Therefore, they must not only be formed distinctively, but—beyond that—they must also be confirmed and stabilized in each situation through repetition. In Tibet’s society, hierarchy manifested itself first and foremost in social stratification. It took on its form and reproduced itself constantly in social strata largely determined by birth and by stratum-bound chances for social participation and the use of economic resources. Furthermore, this hierarchy found its expression in dress codes underlining social differences, a polished etiquette within the upper class, an exhibited solemnity of the upper class at public appearances, and the finely graduated use of honorifics in the political and cultural center. It manifested itself furthermore in the ostentatious, lavish lifestyle of the aristocratic upper class compared with the rest of the population, in the higher clergy’s displays of splendor at 59

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religious ceremonies as well as the furnishings of its sacred buildings, in the strict formal adherence of Tibetan legal documents, and in many other ways. The social boundaries were largely impermeable. Even though stories about fabulous social advancement from the lower class were well liked in Tibetan popular narrative literature,1 a dependent peasant or herder could not as a rule become an aristocrat or vice versa. Though access to the clergy was in theory open to broad sections of the population and therefore indicated a higher degree of social mobility, specific groups of the lower class were excluded because they lacked the economic resources or because their occupations were viewed as unclean. Most notably, the community of monks was by no means an egalitarian body but reflected the stratified society as a whole, which dictated one’s social position based on status at birth.2 In line with social order, not everybody was equal before Tibetan law either. In criminal law, financial compensation and the degree of the penalty were determined not only by the severity of the criminal act but also by the social position of the victim. Since the fourteenth century, the law distinguished an upper, a middle, and a lower position, each of which was further classified into three subpositions. The transmitted legal texts provide only rough and fragmentary information about these different positions.3 Below the ruler were different ranks of civil servants recruited from the aristocracy and the clergy, followed by members of the aristocracy who were not in government service, and then married monks, as was typical for the so-called older school of Tibetan Buddhism. At the lowest end of the scale were those who were denied any social standing due to their unclean or humiliating occupations. The most detailed description can be found in a legislative text with sixteen chapters, which the ruler of the Central Tibetan region of Tsang had had compiled at the beginning of the seventeenth century. With reference to the ruler, the text only mentions precedents known from Tibet’s historiographic and epic literature. According to these, the assassination of the ruler had to either be compensated by paying the weight of the body in gold, or the ruler’s life was considered so precious that its value could not be assessed at all. The text reveals more concrete details when it comes to the different positions located directly beneath the ruler. The assassination of governors, leaders with more than three hundred servants, administrative civil servants at the government or district level, abbots, etc., was to be compensated with three hundred to four hundred sang (srang).4 For spiritual teachers in the monastery departments, fully ordained monks, civil servants of the government, and leaders

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with at least a hundred servants, it amounted to two hundred sang. For the horsemen belonging to the entourage of government officials, and for ­custodians of the monasteries and their departments as well as for super­ visors in charge of monastic discipline, the compensation was 140 to 150 sang, etc. In this way the value of a person’s life was assessed in accordance with his respective position—even down to blacksmiths, butchers, and beggars. For them, twenty sang were assessed, although those without a permanent residence had merely the value of a straw rope. The compensation one had to pay for them was about ten to fifteen sang or, at the most, twenty sang out of sympathy.5 In Tibet’s society, musicians and undertakers were also included in the marginalized group. The latter were tasked with dissecting bodies for the so-called celestial burial during which the mortal remains were fed to vultures.6 Such groups of people were literally marginalized; they built their own communities or lived secluded from the village community. These occupations were hereditary. A large group of the population was not considered in this list of Tibetan legislative texts at all, namely, dependent peasants and stockbreeders. Just like the land they worked on, they were property of their landlord yet were not subject to his arbitrariness. Rather, their dependency was ­composed of a web of rights and many obligations, complemented by a certain degree of welfare ensured on the part of the landlord, as prescribed by Buddhist ethics and conforming—for example—to the general guidelines of what was expected from a good ruler.7 This welfare guarantee of the landlord also included a first judicial recourse for disputes that could not be settled internally. In addition to these, there were groups not counted as part of “Tibetan Buddhist society.” The essential criterion for that was belonging to the Tibetan religion. In most cases, these other groups were merchants who themselves, or whose ancestors, came from neighboring regions; they built their communities in Lhasa. Among them were Muslims from Kashmir, Ladakh, and China as well as Hindus from Nepal.8 In the second half of the seventeenth and into the early eighteenth century, there was also a group of Armenian merchants in Lhasa.9 They all had the privilege to regulate legal cases within their community themselves, and they were also exempt from prohibitions that were in place for the Tibetan population on Buddhist holy days.10 In the case of the foreign merchants living in Tibet, one cannot speak of low-status or humiliating work because those activities

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did not at all require “the disregard of normative premises that were otherwise crucial for the social system.”11 Trading is, indeed, described in Tibetan narrative literature as an attractive possibility for acquiring esteem and prosperity.12 The wealth acquired offers the chance to practice the virtue of generosity. However, Tibetan aristocratic families lived on their estates, and trading, at least to an extent worth mentioning, did not belong to their sphere of activity. Thus, foreign merchants—due to their transregional trading connections—filled a gap in Tibet’s society. It was not until the first half of the twentieth century that a small group of Tibetan merchants, largely from East Tibet, was established in Lhasa. Of them, the most well known was the Pangdatsang family, which became successfully involved in long-distance trading.13 Still, at the time this was a new phenomenon in Tibet’s society. The Tibetan government that was installed in the middle of the seventeenth century under the leadership of the Fifth Dalai Lama adopted the rules of compensation law then in effect with only a few modifications. The government retained the division into three classes, each consisting of three subclasses, and incorporated, for example, acknowledged Buddhist scholars and teachers at monastery schools into the class directly below the ruler. There is less detailed information available on all the remaining classes.14 A hierarchy per se was perceived as given and irreplaceable. It was equivalent to a stable asymmetric distribution of power, which rendered conflicts between upper and lower hierarchy levels unlikely. The circumstance of being born into hierarchic conditions was plausible based on the concept of karma, which was generally acknowledged in Tibetan Buddhist society. Because the concept of karma, as a strict cause-effect principle, not only explained the differences in society but also recognized a qualitatively tiered ranking among the diverse forms of animals, and even postulated a stratified society for the world of deities and demons, it elevated hierarchy to a universal regulatory scheme. Although perceived as fixed and independent of time, changes in the hierarchical structure nevertheless took place. Shifts in constellations of power were decisive. As mentioned, at the semantic level these changes were mostly referred back to real or alleged precedents so that they would appear to be a repetition and restabilization of hierarchical structures that had already been established in the past. All of these changes, however, mostly affected the stratification within the upper classes. As a stratified society, the Tibetan upper and

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lower classes were strictly separated. Up to the end of the nineteenth century, a clearly defined, largely independent middle class was not visible in the historical sources. It is only in the first half of the twentieth century that indications of the formation of a small middle class, especially in the political center, appear. This class included formerly dependent people who, for a nominal annual fee, were released by their landlords so that they could work outside the estates or engage in trade. In doing so, some of them even had achieved a certain affluence. Other members of this class were people who had come to Lhasa as merchants from Tibetan settlement areas not under the jurisdiction of the Ganden Podrang. The children of such people as well as the children of former monk officials also belonged to this class. More than twenty private schools taught them necessary skills that qualified them to take on administrative tasks in monasteries, the households of reincarnated priests, or noble houses. Occasionally, they also worked for the Tibetan government without being officially admitted into the ranks of civil service.15

Lower Class The Tibetan lower class of the Ganden Podrang period was categorized into various subclasses. The majority of the lower class—and with it, the majority of the entire Tibetan population—belonged to the miser class, literally “yellow people” in Tibetan. This term was used to denote people who were dependent on a landlord and bound to his estate. Noble families, monasteries, or the Tibetan government directly could all function as a landlord. The rest of the lower class belonged to the aforementioned marginalized groups of society. Their dependency on a landlord was similar to forms of serfdom known in Europe. The dependents were only allowed to leave the land with the consent of their landlords and had to provide compensation for their lost work. The status of dependency was hereditary as well. Yet being a dependent did not necessarily signify poverty. Among the dependents, there were two strata. The upper stratum were the taxpayers, among whom there were wealthier and poorer households. They had a right to their land as long as they met their respective duties: paying their dues and taxes, and doing corvée labor. This right was hereditary, but inalienable. They paid their dues in kind or in products to their respective landlords, each bore a part of his tax burden vis-à-vis the government, and they provided services for the landlord and the government, for example, in road construction and

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transportation. In addition, a so-called monk tax was also often levied. This tax represented a privilege that was granted by decree to certain monasteries, allowing them to demand from each household in a certain area one son for the monastic community. As a rule, it was exactly specified that the second son or the middle son among three had to be sent to the monastery. A so-called war tax could also be charged. In later times, this meant that a part of the revenue from selected fields was paid to the government to finance the Tibetan army. The members of the second, lower stratum of dependents were also bound to the landlord, but they had no land usage rights and were therefore not liable for taxation. They either leased parcels of land in exchange for providing labor, or they hired themselves out as farmworkers in the fields of the taxpayers or worked as servants in the landlord’s house. The members of this class were sometimes able to have themselves released from their commitment to the landlord by paying a small annual fee in order to search for work elsewhere. The Tibetan lower class was, to a great extent, apolitical and was at most involved in leadership positions at the village level. Their task was to produce the staples of daily life and to be available for corvée labor. When the burden of taxes, corvée labor, and debts became overwhelming, debt bondage was frequently the only resort. Nevertheless, the class of t­ ax­payers had a limited possibility of settling legal disputes over land use and other obligations in court. But sometimes, in seemingly hopeless situations, a “no” was not communicated through language, but indirectly. This negation could, in turn, be negated again so that “a process of c­ontinuous negation of negation” could develop. As Luhmann emphasizes, “even nonverbal behavior can be communication, as long as a person perceives an intention to communicate and, therefore, reads a difference between communication and information into this, and reacts, in turn, by ­ communicating.”16 The possibility of communicating “no” other than by language existed in fleeing the land, and the possibility of negating this “no” consisted of issuing decrees that called for escapees to be captured and sent back to their landlords. There were times in Tibetan history—for example, following the Gorkhā wars at the end of the eighteenth century—when these conflicts assumed such proportions that they led to severe problems in agriculture and taxation. These issues, in turn, could be a reason to provide incentives for cultivating fallow land, for example, through temporary tax exemption.

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It only rarely came to violent conflicts. A German traveler who visited the farthest southeast of the Tibetan settlement area at the beginning of the twentieth century recorded that physical violence erupted due to the massive accumulation of debt among the peasant population. The unrest was caused by the ruthless way in which the monks of the local monastery came to collect the debts from the peasants. The monks were said to even have seized women and children and sold them to this end. But since the eighteenth century, this region was no longer under the jurisdiction of the Ganden Podrang but was instead under direct control of the governor of the Chinese province of Yunnan. Therefore, the unrest was quelled by the deployment of Chinese soldiers.17 Such excessive measures were probably the exception. Usually, the ordinary population felt in many ways bound to the monastery: as a place of religious worship, as provider of religious services, through family ties to members of the monastic community, and as landlord and authority for legal affairs. With religion, the clergy offered people orientation toward a goal that ultimately was located outside society. It provided plenty of occasions for creating and increasing favorable preconditions to achieve this goal of salvation. Especially for lower-class people, religion helped to make suffering and hardship more bearable by bestowing meaning to their lives. On the other hand, religion also brought people to accept the hardship in life imposed on them through their dependence on nature and a landlord without question, thereby contributing considerably to the reduction of social conflicts. With a comprehensive repertoire of magic-ritual services for everyday purposes, religion also promised the people practical help to fend off imminent danger as well as solutions for real conflicts in social life.

Aristocracy Among the numerically small Tibetan upper class, a clear chain of command existed, with the Tibetan government at the top and governors in the various provinces. Government officials were recruited from the Central Tibetan aristocracy and the Buddhist Geluk school. In some cases, the monks who acted as government officials also came from noble families.18 Frequently, posts were passed on within the same family. This was also the case with the members of government belonging to the clergy.19 In the eighteenth century, the Qing government began to confer ranks and titles to the officials of the Ganden Podrang government, thereby integrating them formally into the empire’s civil service. However, only the

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upper seven of the total nine ranks into which government officials of the Qing Empire were subdivided were used. The possibility of degrading officials that went along with the introduction of graded ranks had a disciplinary and conflict-inhibiting effect. The civil service was controlled not only by a strict hierarchy, but also by the fact that at the levels below the Dalai Lama or the regent, as a rule, both laymen and monk officials balanced out each other and shared responsibility.20 Tibet’s aristocracy was only ever a very small upper class. In 1959, after Lhasa and Central Tibet were occupied by Chinese troops, a population census revealed about two hundred noble families.21 Tibetan aristocracy itself was divided into three strata, the top consisting of a mere five families.22 A group of a little more than thirty families constituted the second stratum,23 followed by the ordinary aristocracy as the third stratum. In the first half of the eighteenth century, the Qing government of the C ­ hinese Empire then initiated the creation of a new, small stratum within the aristocracy by ennobling the father of a new Dalai Lama and granting his family extensive estates.24 The Tibetan aristocracy’s means of existence were their large estates and their cultivation by the peasant population that was bound to the land. The estates were hereditary, though they were, in principle, the ruler’s property.25 Normally, that was the Dalai Lama, but in ecclesiastical principalities and kingdoms on the periphery, the local rulers had the highest power of control. With the Qing government in Beijing exercising more and more supervision over the Tibetan government in the eighteenth century, also the Qing emperor claimed the right to directly mandate the confiscation and allocation of estates in Tibet. The ruler was able to confiscate them, but not without good reason. A good reason was, for example, if—in the view of the ruler or the government—the landlord had not correctly or sufficiently met his obligation in regard to usufruct. Vice versa, estates could also be allocated as a reward for special services. For example, in the seventeenth century the head of the aristocratic Palha family was supposed to have received the family’s estates in the Central Tibetan province of Tsang from the Fifth Dalai Lama as a reward for services rendered in the war against Bhutan.26 However, the usufructuary rights remained bound to the fulfillment of service obligations toward the government. As a general rule, the obligation consisted of assigning a male member of the family to service in the government. If a noble family had no male descendants, an adopted man or one who had married into the family was an acceptable solution.27

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In the history of the Ganden Podrang government, there were two spectacular cases in which the Qing emperor had the estates of a noble family confiscated. This measure, accompanied by draconian punishments, concluded many years of conflict. The first case concerned the family of Ngapö. After the Qing troops expelled the Dzungars from Lhasa in 1720, one member of this noble family had been admitted to the council of ministers, which had been newly established by the Qing government. The position of regent in the Tibetan government was abolished. Nominally, the Dalai Lama was still at the head of the Ganden Podrang government, but his role was largely depoliticized. The dominance of the Geluk school within Tibetan Buddhism, though, was not compromised. Initially, the council of ministers consisted of three members; later on, the number rose to five. It largely reflected the segmentary differentiation of the aristocracy: Only one member represented the Geluk school; the rest represented the interests of the different regions of Central and West Tibet. The council of ministers was headed by Khangchenné, whose position was certainly more of a primus inter pares.28 The emperor attempted to compensate the weakly defined hierarchy within the council merely by making an appeal for harmonious cooperation.29 At any rate, the cooperation was conditioned by mistrust and rivalry from the very beginning. Due to the vague distribution of power, the conflict escalated and finally reached a peak with the assassination of Khangchenné by Ngapöpa and the outbreak of the Tibetan Civil War in 1727. This war was not a rebellion against Qing sovereignty, but rather an expression of rivalry among Tibet’s aristocratic upper class. Both sides were invested in leaving no doubt about their loyalty toward the emperor and wanted to gain the emperor’s support.30 The civil war ended in the following year because the Qing Empire appeared again as a peacekeeping power in Tibet. Ngapöpa and his family were exterminated; their estates were passed on to another family, who also adopted and carried on the name linked to the Ngapö estate.31 The structure of the Tibetan government was changed once again. Instead of delegating Tibetan government affairs to the council of ministers, the Qing emperor put a single representative of the Tibetan aristocracy in charge. During the civil war, Polhané had proven his loyalty to the imperial court and was therefore given far-reaching authority to exert power. The new solution initially brought clear hierarchical structures to the Tibetan elites in power and largely prevented rivalries and conflicts until the mid–eighteenth century. Moreover, the Qing government’s repeated massive intervention

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confirmed the emperor’s superiority. However, since a regular confirmation of the dependence on the Qing emperor subsequently failed to appear for many years, the potential for conflict was finally reexplored. The conflict that Polhané’s son Gyurmé Namgyel started soon after his assumption of office in 1747 was no longer only a conflict within the Tibetan upper class, but increasingly took on the features of a rebellion against the emperor.32 In 1750, the representatives of the emperor deployed in Lhasa personally intervened and assassinated Gyurmé Namgyel. Due to the—in the view of the Qing government—abundant merits of his father as well as the proven innocence of his older brother, the entire family was not extinguished this time. The estates of the noble Polha family were confiscated but later, at least partly, returned to the family.33

Clergy The Tibetan clergy was segmented into different Buddhist schools that, with the establishment of the Ganden Podrang government in the mid– seventeenth century, were subordinated to a hierarchical regime insofar as the Geluk school alone was associated with political rule. Thus, the Geluk school had primary access to the economic and human resources of the country within the domain of the Tibetan government and in most regions of East Tibet, which were initially controlled by the Khoshots and soon thereafter by the Qing administration. While the enforcement of this hierarchy in Central Tibet occurred relatively quickly and therefore largely prevented the possibilities for conflict between the different schools, the same process dragged on much longer in the periphery and also did not lead everywhere to the hoped-for success. By establishing domination with the Dalai Lama at the top, the clergy of the Geluk school also gained the upper hand in the dispute between the aristocracy and clergy over the leading position in Tibet’s society. In the first half of the eighteenth century, the aristocracy did, once again, have a short comeback as the politically leading class, when the Manchu emperors of the Qing Dynasty restricted the Dalai Lama’s possibilities of political influence and tried to govern Tibet with the help of prominent representatives of the aristocracy. In 1751, the Tibetan government—at the instigation of the emperor—was again completely reorganized.34 This reorganization again strengthened the Dalai Lama’s position as a political leader. The government was now divided into two chambers: a council of ministers and a chamber in charge of the clergy staffed with monk civil servants.35 The monk civil

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servants belonged to the Geluk school. They were indeed committed to celibacy, but did not have an extensive monastic education. Even though they formally belonged to a particular monastery, as a rule they did not feel overly connected to it.36 Both chambers were put under the Dalai Lama’s, or the regent’s, control. Except for the period between 1862 and 1864,37 the regent was always a member of the high-ranking clergy of the Geluk school. The hierarchic relationships were overcomplicated by involving the two ambans, the Qing emperor’s representatives in Lhasa. They were placed at the side of the Tibetan ruler and had to be consulted on all important briefings and decisions.38 This did not impair the principal subordination of politics to the goals of religion and clergy; on the contrary, it strengthened the position of the Geluk school as the guardian of the orthodox doctrine and therefore its legitimization to exert power. The measures taken in 1751 unequivocally demonstrated, again, the subordination of politics to religion. By debilitating the aristocrats’ political influence and importance, these measures softened the conflict potential of two coexisting hierarchic structures within the Tibetan upper class. The aristocracy was weakened further because, over time, more and more estate property changed hands and was transferred to monasteries or households of significant reincarnations.39 Within the clergy as well, economic resources were increasingly pooled in the hands of the Geluk school. Their large monasteries as well as the households of their reincarnations accumulated rights of disposal over an entire network of far-flung estates. The transfer of land usage rights and the residents was equal to a transfer of power. As a result, it was not possible to govern Tibet as a “state” without the clergy of the Geluk school. Within its schools, the Tibetan clergy was hierarchically divided according to various criteria. Monks occupied different ranks, which were dependent on their number of vows, their level of scholarship, their religious experience obtained in practice, the functions they exercised within the monastic community, and seniority. Rank also depended on whether one had been identified as a child as a reincarnation of a spiritual teacher within an important reincarnation line. The weight of the individual criteria varied from one school to another. It was downright proverbial that, apart from this, it was one’s family background that dictated the possibility of social advancement within the clergy. Thus, with regard to spiritual teachers, the so-called lamas within the monastic community, it was said: “Spiritual teachers are mostly born as sons of wealthy people. Flowers grow mainly by the water.”40

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The rank was visible, for example, in the seating arrangement during the regular meetings of the monastic community. Through exaltation of the societal role of the spiritual teacher, the institution of reincarnated spiritual teachers, so typical in Tibetan Buddhist society, had developed by the fourteenth century. They were believed to be emanations of a supernatural bodhisattva attributed to the pure visionary sphere. In the Tibetan language, they are called trülkus. With them, the clergy had created a new social stratum within the upper class of society, and they were assigned absolute authority on the basis of their holiness.41 Trülkus were viewed as incarnations of bodhisattvas who were equipped with wisdom and compassion and who seemed ideally suited to practice their salvation activities for the good of the living beings, also through political functions. By doing so, they created the perfect environment for practicing Buddhism or the pursuit of the Buddhist way of salvation. Especially the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara and his incarnation, the Dalai Lama, were ascribed the qualities of wisdom and compassion. The term “wisdom” (Tib. shes rab, Skt. prajñā) is closely connected to the concept of salvation in Mahāyāna Buddhism and denotes the direct realization of emptiness, the true nature of all phenomena. To allow all living beings this direct realization, and thereby to free them from the circle of rebirths, is defined as the most important goal of a bodhisattva’s activities. Ultimately, political activities have also to bow to this goal. The charisma and the accentuated social position of the trülkus created and legitimized specific communication patterns, not just in Tibet, but also for Tibet’s relation­ships with its mighty neighbors. On this basis, particularly the Gelukpa understood how to convert the authority of the trülkus into political power in the seventeenth century. The efforts of the Qing Dynasty emperors in China to extend their power over the Mongols and Tibetans finally made the trülkus key figures. The resulting real power structure did, however, hardly influence the remembered history and the self-description of Tibetan Buddhist society. Tibetan history was generally conceived as a history of salvation, expedited by the ­succession of great saints and earthly incarnations of supernatural ­bodhisattvas, that is, bodhisattvas localized at the highest stages of the path of enlightenment, in an effort to create ideal conditions in Tibet for achieving the Buddhist goal of salvation. The history of struggle and c­ onflict over power and dominance was largely masked. Instead, the clerical elite presented history as a sequence of recurrent, symbolically coded actions. Until the nineteenth century, Tibetan reincarnations originated mainly from the aristocracy. Even if this meant that a combination of interests was

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represented, this circumstance ultimately contributed to conflict reduction between the clergy and the aristocracy, since the aristocracy was accorded a certain influence, and the clergy could nevertheless count on the patrons’ support.42 However, there was still potential for conflict: first, because there was rivalry within the aristocracy over the opportunities given to exert influence; second, due to competition among the different Buddhist schools concerning the chance to gain capable patrons; and finally, due to the great amount of property that the household of a reincarnation line was able to accumulate over generations. The circumstances could become overcomplicated, when important reincarnations from different Buddhist schools were “found” in the same noble house. If inheritance disputes arose, they could easily be mixed up with other conflicts and further fueled when outsiders took sides with one side or the other. The case over the inheritance of the Sixth Panchen Lama  (1738–1780), for example, is well known. During his visit to the court of the Qianlong emperor, the Panchen Lama had received generous gifts from the emperor. After the Panchen Lama’s death, a quarrel over the inheritance flared up between his two brothers. As young children, both brothers had been identified as reincarnations of important clerics. One was the treasurer of Trashi Lhünpo, monastery and seat of the Panchen Lama. The other was the Tenth Zhamarpa, who belonged to the second principal line of reincarnation of the Karma Kagyu school, which had been the opponent of the Gelukpa in the seventeenth-century conflicts over political influence and power in Tibet. This dispute became highly explosive due to the Zhamarpa’s escape to Nepal, his actions as a mediator in the struggle between Tibet and the Gorkhās, who then ruled in Nepal, and the emperor’s subsequent accusation that Zhamarpa had, in his day, encouraged the Gorkhās to invade South Tibet and loot Trashi Lhünpo M ­ onastery. In these actions, the emperor recognized failure mostly on the part of the Tibetan government and administration as well as in the Tibetan practice of finding and identifying the reincarnations. Hence, he once again intervened directly in Tibetan affairs. The emperor mandated a series of measures to further strengthen his control of the Tibetan government through the imperial representatives and, in particular, to rid the procedure for identifying reincarnations of nepotism, influence, and corruption.43 After the struggle over power and influence among the various Buddhist schools as well as between the aristocracy and clergy was ­ decided in favor of the Gelukpa, differences within the Geluk school gained

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importance. Trülkus, who took on the post of regent, remained committed to serving the interests of their respective households. The risk that these interests were put ahead of the common good was always present. In 1792, the emperor had Yangpachen Monastery, the seat of the Zhamarpa, including his entire estates, confiscated and transferred to the then-regent, the Eighth Tatsak jedrung trülku (1760–1810). With this act, the monastery was changed into a monastery of the Geluk school. However, the household of Tatsak jedrung trülku lost its new property soon after the regent’s death, and the new regent, the Seventh Demo trülku (1778–1819), became the new proprietor. Even decades later, the households of the two reincarnation lines were involved in litigation over the property rights of this monastery and its estates.44 As the example demonstrates, regency offered the opportunity to increase the property of the trülku’s household. Conversely, the conflict of interests could also become dangerous for the regent, especially when his regency was of a long duration. This was the case particularly with the second Tsemönling regent (1792–1855), who was in office for more than twenty-four years. One can only speculate as to the issue that ended his regency,45 as no informative sources are so far available. However, his case demonstrates that—unlike the Dalai Lama—regents, even if they were ­trülkus, were not unassailable in Tibet’s society. Evidently, he had made a considerable number of enemies during his time as regent. His opponents in the council of ministers stated their accusations in a letter to the emperor and effectuated the regent’s dismissal and subsequent exile to Manchuria.46 In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, claims to power and the regents’ interests repeatedly collided with other circles of the Gelukpa elite.47 Some regents resigned from their post only under pressure. Two of them died under mysterious circumstances. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Ninth Demo trülku (1855–1899) was accused of conspiring to assassinate the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, which could have allowed him to regain his position as regent. He died during his house arrest.48 The Fifth Reting trülku (1912–1947) died in prison after a failed attempt to regain the position of regent by assassinating his successor. Reting trülku had many supporters, not just in his own monastery but also in Sera, although he had otherwise acquired a bad reputation due to his immoral lifestyle and his business acumen. As a result of his arrest and death, the Reting and Sera monks were moved to open insurgency against the government. Their armed revolt could only be put down by the military.49

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Also, at times, the relationship between the Panchen Lama and the Gelukpa’s center of power in Lhasa was tense, although the Panchen Lama himself displayed far less political ambition than did the Dalai Lama and those surrounding him. Already at the beginning of the eighteenth century, during the conflict related to finding and identifying the Seventh Dalai Lama, the difference between the Gelukpa elite from the great monasteries around Lhasa and the Panchen Lama and his monastery, Trashi Lhünpo, had emerged as a political contrast. However, it should be added that the Panchen Lama had not acted as a driving force in this dispute but had willingly let himself be instrumentalized for the shared agenda of the Khoshot Khan, the de facto ruler in Tibet at the time, and the Qing emperor.50 Based on political calculation, the Kangxi and the Yongzheng emperors thereafter strengthened the Panchen Lama’s position in the eastern province of Central Tibet, thereby creating a counterweight to the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan government, and the influential monasteries near Lhasa, which they could make use of to control Tibetan affairs when needed.51 This difference finally developed into an open conflict under the Ninth Panchen Lama (1883–1937) and the Thirteenth Dalai Lama (1876–1933). During the 1910s and 1920s, the Dalai Lama endeavored to introduce administrative and technical innovations in Tibet. A visit to British India had convinced him that Tibet would be able to maintain its independence between Asia’s great powers only through innovation and reforms. One of the reform efforts was the formation of a modern army. The clergy was expected to contribute through a corresponding tax on the monasteries’ estates. The Panchen Lama was not able to meet these demands because of his monastery’s insolvency, which Fabienne Jagou hypothesizes was caused by the enormous expenses associated with the construction of a monumental golden statue of the future Buddha Maitreya.52 Despite being a plausible reason, none of the parties addressed this as a major source of conflict. Instead, the discussion focused on the legal basis associated with the request made to the Panchen Lama and his monastery. Even though the ruler’s charters that the Dalai Lama referenced were, in part, already issued at the end of the eighteenth century,53 he had Tibetan law on his side. What is more, it did not matter that the documented regulations had been ­suspended in the meantime. The Panchen Lama and his monastery felt ostensibly snubbed by the reference to old law. Since the conflict had no chance of success for the Panchen Lama in the fact dimension, he deflected the issue to the social dimension, but without structuring his relationship

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with the Dalai Lama in the form of enemy concepts. After all, the two ­conflicting parties were the highest-ranking incarnations who—according to Tibetan-Buddhist ideology—were notably protected from direct criticism by their holiness and by the wisdom attributed to them. On top of that, through many reincarnations they had also become joined in the bond of a teacher-student relationship. Nevertheless, there were accusations of responsibility and blame: the Panchen Lama held unspecified malicious advisors on the side of the Dalai Lama responsible for the conflict; in his response, the Dalai Lama also adopted a corresponding moral condemnation of some of the Panchen Lama’s subordinates.54 Under these circumstances, however, the Panchen Lama could neither risk nor win an open power struggle. Since he was also neither in a position nor willing to yield to the Dalai Lama’s and his government’s demands, the only way out was to withdraw from the conflict situation. Therefore, in December 1923, the Panchen Lama clandestinely left his monastery in Tibet. He left a letter describing his hopelessness and explaining that he had departed to prevent a difficult situation for the esteemed Dalai Lama. He added that he would attempt to meet his financial obligations from afar by collecting donations.55 He spent the rest of his life in exile in Inner Mongolia and China, where he actively supported the Chinese government’s claim to include Tibet in the “union of the five nationalities.”56 The reform attempts initiated by the Thirteenth Dalai Lama aggravated another difference within the Gelukpa and led to an open conflict, namely, the difference between the three large monasteries of Drepung, Sera, and Ganden near Lhasa, on the one hand, and the Dalai Lama and his government, on the other. From the beginning of their history, these monasteries represented the Gelukpa’s actual power base. They were home to their intellectual elite, which also determined the school’s political strategy. Even the seat of the Dalai Lama was originally at Drepung Monastery. Till today, it is not the Dalai Lama but the abbot of the oldest Gelukpa monastery, Ganden Monastery northeast of Lhasa, who is considered the successor of Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Geluk school and therefore its true head. Within the Geluk school these monasteries, which each accommodated thousands of monks, were considered a central site of Buddhist scholarship. But only a small number of them completed regular, multiyear studies of Buddhist writings with a detailed, fixed curriculum. Melvyn Goldstein only records about 10 percent for Drepung Monastery, with its  approximately ten thousand monks in the mid–twentieth century.57

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Especially in these large monastic communities, a clear hierarchy coupled with strict supervision of the monks’ discipline contributed considerably to a reduction of conflicts. This hierarchy also fashioned the monasteries into identity-establishing communities based on common interest with a huge influence on society as a whole. They had already proved their willingness to fight in the first half of the eighteenth century, when they at first actively supported the Dzungars’ invasion in the hope of bringing the “true” Dalai Lama to Lhasa.58 In the nineteenth century, the monks of Sera had used their power to free the deposed and detained second Tsemönling regent, but were ultimately unable to prevent his exile. Later, in 1871, the monks of Ganden revolted against the then-regent.59 In the first half of the twentieth century, the monasteries constituted a strong conservative element in Tibet’s society. More importantly, they were concerned with upholding their exemption from taxes and corvée labor as well as keeping their economic resources. The immense number of monks in the immediate p ­ roximity of Lhasa also represented a huge potential for physical violence. The Thirteenth Dalai Lama had to take all of this into account when he placed himself in opposition to the monasteries through his attempts at reform. In his careful efforts to reform Tibet into a modern national state, allow nonmonastic schools, and form an army based on the British model, the monasteries saw their position as a spiritual, moral, and political elite in society and their concomitant privileges being jeopardized. On top of this, a Western lifestyle, with its fashions and demands for consumer goods, began to catch on among the aristocratic upper class, and the clergy saw its traditional Buddhist values and goals being endangered. The Dalai Lama was aware that his politics was threatened by the opposition of the monasteries, especially when rumors of imminent arrests or actions by the army spread in Lhasa and caused unrest among the monks. He warned the abbots to keep the monks under control. In 1921, three custodians of the Drepung Monastery were arrested without any reason being given; two of them were also lashed and sent into exile. This led to open revolt. Scores of enraged monks of the Drepung Monastery stormed and vandalized the garden of the summer palace, where the Dalai Lama was residing at the time, and heatedly demanded to see the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama succeeded in calming the situation, but shortly thereafter, he called together troops, had Drepung surrounded, and had the ringleaders of the revolt arrested.60 However, this action did not in any way break the power of the ­conservative clergy. Instead, the clergy saw itself confirmed in its adverse

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position toward any modernism, and was able to reassert itself as the leading force following the death of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. Seen in retrospect, this was the beginning of the last hopeless attempts to defend the boundaries of the system “Tibetan Buddhist society” into the twentieth century and to prevent Tibet’s incorporation into the communication system of world society. P Tibet’s society perceived hierarchical order and social inequality as part of a comprehensive, universal order. This scheme explained both social differences and the diversity of animal life-forms. In both, the law of karma was viewed as the defining factor that regulated the position and rank of every sentient being. As a result, the hierarchical order was not generally questioned, which contributed considerably to a reduction of possible social conflicts. Furthermore, for members of the lower social strata, the chances for conflict were restrained through the clear asymmetric power structures, lack of representation, and barriers of style, etiquette, and language. Thus, the chance for objection and conflict existed de facto only for the upper social strata. Since communication in the lower social strata essentially consisted of interaction, strata-internal conflicts were usually limited to the interaction level.61 However, the range of conflicts was far more significant within the upper strata. Here, the gradation of ranks was the result of protracted confrontations that were finally decided through external pressure and in favor of the clergy of a single Buddhist school. The resulting hierarchization stabilized Tibet’s society for a considerable time. However, it could not prevent the formation of various power centers within the ­Buddhist school, which had been sustaining and supporting the state. These various power centers defended their interests in competition with one another and saw chances for conflict as opportunities to expand their power at the expense of others. Thus, it was necessary continuously to reinforce a clear hierarchy within the upper strata.

CHAPTER 5

Center, Periphery, and Boundary

The supernaturally wise divinity, the ruler Trisong Detsen, being beyond comparison with other kings of the four frontiers, by his gloriously profound intellect and his mighty helmet, from the borders of Tazhik in the upper direction and from the line of passes of the Long Shan in the lower direction all was drawn together beneath his sway and his dominion extended south, north, east and west beyond the furthest bounds. In this way, by the glory of the greatness of the dominion the whole of Tibet became great in territory and wealthy throughout. And within too, being always at peace it dwelt in happiness. —Stone pillar inscription (ca. 797)

Three questions are the focus of this chapter: What can be considered the center and the periphery of Tibetan Buddhist society? What is the nature of the relationships between them? Where were the boundaries of this society located in the past? Luhmann has applied the distinction of center and periphery in a very specific way, namely by positioning it—as a prominent form of system formation—equally alongside the segmentary, stratificatory, and functional differentiation of social systems and treating it as a dominant form of differentiation of vast territorial empires.1 However, the distinction between the center and the periphery typically develops transversally to other types of system formations and does not appear in such combinations as the dominant form of differentiation. Thus, the resulting analytical models consider it a secondary type of structure formation within segmentarily, stratificatorily, and functionally differentiated systems.2 They show, however, that within this framework the center-periphery differentiation can be 77

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useful in different ways to explain how social systems function. Thus, it is suitable, first of all, to determine with more precision the form and identity of Tibetan Buddhist society based on systems theory, before discussing the constitution of the space and its centers, peripheries, and boundaries in Tibetan Buddhist society. The designation “Tibetan Buddhist society” does not yet refer to a politically constituted community. As a social system, it did not necessarily coincide with a community integrated through consistent rule and administration and to which a precisely defined territory could be attributed during the course of its history. Tibetan Buddhist society owes its existence to a clear system-environment distinction created by specific Tibetan semantics. Clear meaning-constituted boundaries gave it a ­concise form and identity, distinguished that which belonged to the system and that which belonged to the environment, protected the semantics and the specific range of possibilities of Tibetan Buddhist society, and closed its sphere of operation to the environment. Meaning is nothing but the system’s self-produced distinctions through which the world is observed and communication takes place.3 This also includes the distinction between a system and an environment. The system made the difference between system and environment internally observable through the guiding or leading difference of inside (Tib. nang) and outside (Tib. phyi), of insiders (Tib. nang pa) and outsiders (Tib. phyi ba), or in other words, participants and nonparticipants in the communications of Tibetan Buddhist society. This self-produced difference of inside and outside, of self-reference and other-reference, is the actual boundary of Tibetan Buddhist society.4 The programs—according to Luhmann, “a complex of conditions for the correctness (and thus the social acceptability) of behavior”5 —that decided over assigning the positive or negative value of the guiding difference were written by religion. Linguistic or ethnic differences were not decisive in this respect. Since the guiding difference and programs largely structured operations in Tibetan Buddhist society and determined which actions within the system referred meaningfully to one another, they can also rightly be called the center of the social system.6 Indeed, the periphery differed from the center in that it had greater leeway to deviate, but it could not leave the structural parameters of the center without sacrificing its integration into the system “Tibetan Buddhist society.” Thus, for example, in the farthest west of the Tibetan settlement area there were Tibetanspeaking communities that, in this sense, were not considered part of

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society because their codes and programs were not based on Tibetan religion, but were largely shaped by Islam. Like all autopoietic systems, that is, systems producing the elements of which they consist themselves,7 Tibetan Buddhist society was operatively closed: In its operations, it was only capable of relating to itself, and in this self-reference, it reproduced itself exclusively based on its own operations. That being said, Tibetan Buddhist society came into contact with its environment through its periphery. As a closed system, however, it was only able to do this based on its own ways of operation and its own structures. This corresponds to the, at first glance, paradoxical description of auto­poietic systems as being closed and open at the same time. They are open because they have contact with their environment and certainly let themselves be irritated from the outside. However, they can process these ­contacts with the environment only in accordance with their own structures; in this respect the closure of the system is the precondition for its openness. In this  context, Luhmann also speaks of structural coupling to emphasize that  the perception and processing of external stimuli is only possible through the complexity-reducing structures of the system.8 These structures are always expectation structures. According to such expectation structures, for example, “outsiders” (phyi ba) either were seen as supporters of false doctrines that contradicted Buddhism, were people still to be c­onverted, or could describe those who had no real connection with the teachings of the Buddha due to their karma. Foreign rulers were either perceived as enemies or as (potential) sponsors and patrons of Buddhist teachings. Similarly, events from outside that impacted the system were interpreted in accordance with the extant system: a natural disaster was perceived as a karmarelated catastrophe, or as an expression of a nature spirit’s enragement; a Tibetan priest’s invitation or instruction to come to the court of a foreign ruler was viewed as the initiation of a priest-patron relationship (and less so as a first step toward foreign control of Tibetan Buddhist society by using the clergy). In that expectations were tied to norms, they could be maintained even beyond instances of disappointment. In systems theory, space is likewise viewed as the result of distinguishing observations; only in the course of making a distinction can space be defined. At the same time, this distinguishing observation creates its boundaries. Social systems function as observers. Therefore, space in the context of systems theory is described as a societal product, a viewpoint already held by Georg Simmel.9 According to this theory, spatial or

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territorial boundaries are just a special case of meaning-constituted boundaries. They are a special case insofar as the principle of spatial boundaries is rather an atypical way for social systems to indicate the distinction between system and environment.10 Of course, boundaries in Tibetan Buddhist society had always also been symbolized by space. In ancient texts, Tibet was described as a cool country surrounded by snow mountains, which had preserved Buddha’s teachings even after they vanished in their country of origin, India, and for whose residents the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara feels uniquely responsible. Through observation of spatial differentiation and societal uniqueness, Tibet’s society distanced itself from the surrounding societies, constructed its own unity and gave it a symbolic expression. In old stories, the imagination of the space “Tibet” and its residents found its expression in a single demoness who had been disciplined by the introduction of Buddhism. In a text from the fourteenth century, legend has it that, immediately after arriving in Central Tibet, the Chinese princess Wencheng, consort of Songtsen Gampo (ca. 605–650), founder of the Tibetan Empire, planned to build a Buddhist temple and looked for a suitable place. Through divination she came to realize: I perceive this snowy kingdom of Tibet in the form of a demoness lying on her back. I perceive this Othang-Lake as the heart-blood of the demoness. I perceive these three mountains as the bones of her heart. Because this place is directly above the heart of the demoness, it is necessary to eradicate this lake and build the temple on it.11

Moreover, she recommended building twelve more Buddhist temples in the various regions and border areas of Tibet, so that these temples, like nails, could fix the extremities and hands of the demoness. Such narratives set the pattern for opening the space through the ­construction of monasteries, stupas, and new pilgrim sites. Thus, the space was charged with meaning all the way from the center to the periphery— often in competition between different Buddhist traditions. The formation of centers, peripheries, and boundaries in Tibet’s space did not occur continuously but was dependent on changing political and religious circumstances. Even though Buddhist temples and monasteries emerged early on in Tibet and became centers of supraregional significance, many centuries of such foundations did not initiate the formation of towns

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or influential political centers. Even during the Tibetan Empire, there was no such thing as the one royal residence from which the kings ruled the empire. Instead, the ruler frequently changed residence among about thirty locations, all in Central Tibet. On top of this, there were some forty sites where the biannual council came together. According to Chinese sources, the Tibetan king moved in spring and summer to locations where sufficient water and grass were available. During winter, he stayed in fortified places but even there preferred to live in tents. It is conceivable that the various residences were located on the estates of influential noble families and clans, whose members were close to the king, serving him as ministers and advisors and making them also, so to say, into “kingmakers.” Itinerancy would have given the king the opportunity to maintain relations with the clans and aristocratic families supporting him.12 The seventh-century construction of two Buddhist temples had made Lhasa into an important site of Buddhist worship already during the time of the Tibetan Empire. Over time, the temples were further expanded with additional religious buildings and housing for the monks, but they otherwise stood largely isolated amidst the broad valley of the Kyichu, a subsidiary stream of the Tsangpo, or Brahmaputra, river. In the aforementioned identity-establishing historical narrative tradition of Tibet, one of the temples, the Jokhang, outshines all other religious buildings. Over the centuries, it came to be the major Tibetan pilgrimage site, whose attraction reached far into the periphery of Tibetan Buddhist territory and helped to bind the periphery to the center. When the Mongols again, in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, integrated large parts of Tibet under uniform rule and governed the country with the help of the hierarchs of the Buddhist Sakya school, the Sakya Monastery in western Central Tibet developed into an administrative and political center. Yet this still did not result in a town being formed. It was only in the seventeenth century that Lhasa became the political center of Tibet and developed into a town from that point on. The number of inhabitants, however, always remained modest. At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was around thirty thousand, most of whom were monks in the monasteries in and around Lhasa.13 The establishment of Lhasa as a political center and a town is associated with the growing significance of the three monastic universities of the Geluk school located around Lhasa and with the construction of the Potala as the seat of the ruler and the Tibetan government in the immediate vicinity of the

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town. The monasteries of Ganden, Drepung, and Sera had been founded by Tsongkhapa (1357–1419), the founder of the Geluk school, or his students between 1409 and 1419. By the seventeenth century, they had become centers of Buddhist scholarship and thus the principal Gelukpa centers of study for the entire Tibetan and Mongolian settlement areas. However, they also became rivals of the hitherto dominant Kagyü schools in Central Tibet, mighty landlords in the region, and the Gelukpa’s actual power base. Their expansionism brought them into conflict with the ruler of the neighboring Tsang Province, who acted as the patron of the Kagyüpa. Drepung, the first seat of the Dalai Lama, and Sera watched over the broad valley of the Kyichu from the north. Until the twentieth century, they not only exerted considerable influence on Tibetan politics, but they—with their thousands of monks—constituted a power that could intervene in political events also with physical violence. In 1645, just three years after Gushri Khan had helped the Gelukpa enforce its uncontested control over Tibet, the decision was made to build the Potala as the seat of the Dalai Lama. Situated directly east of the original town Lhasa, the Potala, built in the form of a massive fortress with steeply rising walls, stood conspicuously on a hill in the middle of the valley. The construction of the building on a site where a former palace of the Tibetan kings had allegedly once stood was an explicit reference to the glorified founding period of Tibetan Buddhist society. The Dalai Lama referred to this founding period in yet another way: while rulers of smaller Tibetan kingdoms at the edge of the Tibetan-speaking area legitimized themselves by tracing their genealogy back to the ancient Central Tibetan kings of the imperial period, the Dalai Lamas legitimized themselves by establishing a reincarnation line going back to King Songtsen Gampo, who had once unified Tibet into one territory. The first phase of construction, the erection of the so-called White Palace, was completed in less than two years. Initially planned as just the seat of the Dalai Lama, his government, and the administration, the regent Sangyé Gyatso extended the Potala in 1691 by adding the Red Palace, which was built in less than two and a half years. The centerpiece of the extension was a chapel with a twelve-meter-high stupa containing the mortal remains of the Fifth Dalai Lama. Except for the Sixth Dalai Lama, all other Dalai Lamas were later interred in this form at the Potala. With its numerous Buddhist shrines, sculptures, and paintings, the Potala is both a political and a religious symbol, signifying equally political and spiritual

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powers. Yet the building does not simply manifest a claim to centralistic control: It is also a proof of the efficiency with which centralistic structures had been imposed on Tibet already at that time and of how both resources and labor force had been controlled. That is especially true for the two Central Tibetan provinces of Ü and Tsang. Most labor was provided as a kind of tax payment by dependent peasants on the large estates of Central Tibet. During the first and second years of construction work on the Red Palace, more than 5,700 workers were employed at the site for nine and a half months of each year. They were recruited from the estates of the government, the aristocracy, and the monasteries. The burden on the landlords was distributed by taking workers for the second year from estates other than the first. Compared to the workers, the supervisors and the more than 1,500 craftspeople who had in part traveled from far away received a monthly payment in kind from the government. In order to avoid and resolve conflicts, there were not only people responsible for potential offenses among the workers and craftsmen, but also numerous monks who were supposed to ensure the work’s smooth progression by performing specific rituals. The monks were paid for these services.14 Lhasa developed into a town following the construction of the Potala, with the seventh-century Jokhang Temple as its core. Along the route on which pilgrims circled the temple, residences of the significant noble families of Central Tibet began to be built. Their members were obligated to service in the Tibetan government. Up to that time, they lived scattered in their residences on their respective estates, where they lived together with their dependent peasants. From that point on, however, the large aristocratic families lived in Lhasa most of the time and entrusted their custodians to supervise the work on their estates. This situation made it easier to control potential rivals to rule.15 Over time, Tibetan government buildings were added to these aristocratic residences and religious buildings.16 The Khoshot Khan and the representatives of the Qing emperor also had residences there at times.17 Early on, numerous merchants from various countries settled in Lhasa18 and craftspeople were also needed from the very beginning. Innumerable beggars came into the city, who were able to get by thanks to the many pilgrims. The basic meaning of the Tibetan lexeme for government, zhung (gzhung), is “center, middle,” and in general “that which is central in reference to the other.” This could be, for example, a fundamental text to which other texts refer as a commentary, a main street in relation to side streets, or

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a main entryway as opposed to side entryways. Geographically, the Tibetan government had its seat in the province Ü, the name of which, geographically speaking, also means “middle, center.” This province, together with the province of Tsang located to the west, constitutes Central Tibet. In Tsang, two towns, Zhikatsé and Gyangtse, each emerged below a mighty fortress. Next to Zhikatsé there stands the large Gelukpa monastery Trashi Lhünpo, which used to be the seat of the Panchen Lama, the second highest reincarnation in the Geluk school. In the eighteenth century, the Qing emperors politically upgraded the status of the Panchen Lama and also his monastery in order to create a counterweight to the Dalai Lama and his regent; the Chinese government has tried to use the occasional rivalry resulting from this act to advance its political goals, even up to now. Yet despite any rivalry, Lhasa has remained the incontestable political center of the country since the mid–seventeenth century. It is from there that governors were sent to the numerous districts, usually two for each district: one lay official and one monk official.19 Essentially, Central Tibet consists of the broad valley of the Tsangpo, as the upper section of the Brahmaputra is called in Tibet, and its subsidiary streams. The irrigation and a fertile soil here allow agriculture to thrive, and this is also where the large estates of the aristocracy, the clergy, and the Tibetan government were located. The vast plateau to the north, with an average altitude of over 4,000 meters, is covered by large salt lakes, desertlike regions, and extensive grassland. To the south, Central Tibet is bordered by the main ridge of the Himalayas. When the Ganden Podrang government extended its rule in the seventeenth century, the relatively sparsely populated West Tibet came under the permanent direct rule of Central Tibet. Compared to the western periphery, the conditions in the densely populated east of the Tibetan settlement area remained unstable. Previously, the Ming Empire, as a crossregional stabilizing power, had exercised a sometimes more, sometimes less strong influence on East Tibet, but this did not imply complete control of the area. Rather, East Tibetan local rulers—within the Chinese Tusi system, a system of rule through hereditary headmen of small polities in the borderlands—had been committed to protecting the borders and crossborder diplomatic missions,20 a practice typical of many premodern empires that may also result in the expansion of a society without recourse to war.21 In the seventeenth century, with the reemergence of a centralist power in  Central Tibet, the Ganden Podrang government, a second stabilizing

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power—beside the Qing Empire—surfaced that was more connected to the East Tibetan polities through historical and societal ties. Due to their shared religion and language, the East Tibetans saw Central Tibet as being much closer to themselves than their eastern neighbor China. The kings of the East Tibetan petty kingdoms traced their lineage back to the Yarlung Dynasty. Their law expressly refers to the Central Tibetan codes.22 Also, Central Tibet, with its large monasteries and famous pilgrimage sites, was always considered the religious center of all Tibet. In large parts of East Tibet, though, Central Tibetan rule was never accepted without coercion. While the Khoshots had initially exerted control over East Tibet in the name of the Ganden Podrang government, the Qing government extended its direct control over large parts of East Tibet in the eighteenth century and subordinated it to the governors of Sichuan and Yunnan. Notwithstanding, Lhasa continued to exercise influence over these regions, above all through the large Gelukpa monasteries of East Tibet. Indeed, the Tibetan regent continued to issue charters for Buddhist monasteries in East Tibet. However, the sanctio (threat of punishment) in the documents mentions not only the protective deities of the Buddhist religion and the monasteries, but now also the emperor as a punishing authority in case of contravention.23 The Qing emperor also exerted influence on East Tibet (Kham) and Northeast Tibet (Amdo) and used the clergy for his political agenda. Prominent Gelukpa priests from the periphery were appointed to the imperial court in Beijing, where they personally introduced the emperor to the Buddhist teachings of the Geluk school, composed great works of Buddhist scholarship, and supervised comprehensive translations of Buddhist texts into the Mongolian and Manchu languages. Moreover, they served as agents between the Tibetan government and the imperial court and took on diplomatic assignments for the emperor.24 In these functions, East Tibetan clerics of the Geluk school had gotten into dangerous conflicts of loyalty at the end of the seventeenth century.25 Their decision to feel primarily obligated to the Dalai Lama and his government was severely punished by the emperor; in the eighteenth century, this conflict was ultimately decided in favor of the emperor. On the other hand, residing at the imperial court in Beijing, far away from the spatial center of Tibetan Buddhist society and acting as diplomats for the emperor did not result in conflicting intellectual orientations. As scholars, they were strictly oriented with the orthodoxy established by the

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large Gelukpa monasteries around Lhasa as their spiritual center. Hence, they did not introduce an intellectual reorientation away from Tibetan Buddhist society or a noteworthy transfer of new repertoires of terms and alternative interpretations of the world. Only in exceptional cases was there a reception of certain scientific knowledge from the West26 without, however, impacting the traditional worldview as a whole. To have the Tibetan clerics stationed at the imperial court turn away from orthodoxy would not have been in accordance with the Qing emperors’ intentions, for they had themselves selected the Buddhism of the Geluk school as the pure doctrine and coupled it with their claim to domination over Tibetan Buddhist society. Aware that “the exercise of political power and of religion was not to be separated,”27 they sought to control the selfinterpretation of Tibetan Buddhist society. They did so by acting as guardians over the purity of the teaching and also by constructing new cultural centers in analogy to the Central Tibetan ones, namely, by transforming the Yonghegong Palace in Beijing into a Buddhist temple and monastery and erecting the Tibetan Buddhist architectural ensemble of the imperial summer residence in Jehol, modern Chengde, whose visual and formal language was certainly familiar to the Tibetan and Mongolian representatives of Tibetan Buddhist society whom the emperor received there.28 Thus, the cultural center of Tibetan Buddhist society, which was located in the ­political periphery of the empire, was mirrored in its political center and appropriated for imperial rule. When China was shaken by internal unrest and invasions from imperialist powers in the nineteenth century, the Ganden Podrang government succeeded in the second half of the century once again in expanding its control far to the east. The weakness of the Qing government had enabled the Tibetan government to step in, with its own troops, as the only stabilizing power during a violent regional conflict in East Tibet.29 This period also marks the spread of the so-called Rimé movement, a religious movement in East Tibet that emerged as a counterweight to the dominance of the Geluk school, which underpinned the Tibetan government. The point of origin was the region of Dergé, a petty kingdom that constituted an exception in the otherwise Gelukpa-dominated East Tibet. The monasteries of the Sakya, Kagyü, and Nyingma schools prospered under the royal family’s patronage. Moreover, one of the largest printing houses in Tibet for the block printing of religious texts was founded there. The protagonists of this religious movement emanating from Dergé advocated the

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indiscriminate acceptance of the teachings and cult practices of all Buddhist schools. Instead of differences, they emphasized what they had in common. This resulted in encyclopedic works and comprehensive collections of texts from various traditions, which then had canonic character. Also new pilgrimage sites were established as counterweights to those in and around the religious center Lhasa, without questioning their fundamental importance. The movement was indeed directed against the Central Tibetan elites, though it did not establish a sharply delineated counterculture. Nonetheless, its appeal reached all the way to the center, provoking critical reactions during the twentieth century.30 East Tibetan elites were largely excluded from political communication in the center, with the result that the relationship between East and Central Tibet was often characterized by mutual mistrust. Even in the middle of the twentieth century when the Tibetan government felt it was necessary to fight collectively against the Chinese invasion army, this mistrust undermined the common resistance. At that time, the administration of East Tibet was headed by a governor who was a member of the Central Tibetan aristocracy. The officeholder was replaced every few years,31 and he was assisted by further officials dispatched from the government in Lhasa, who also belonged to the aristocracy. Frequently the local population felt exploited by these officials of the Tibetan government who were prone to treat the East Tibetans with a sense of superiority.32 This was also true for officers and soldiers from Central Tibet who were sent to East Tibet. In the middle of the twentieth century, when the situation in East Tibet intensified dramatically and Chinese troops were about to seize Tibet forcefully, some government officials in Lhasa were fully aware that the misconduct of Central Tibetan officeholders and soldiers had contributed to the lack of loyalty among the East Tibetan population vis-à-vis the Lhasa government. A contemporary witness stated in his memoirs that some aristocrats from Lhasa had argued against arming the civil militia, citing one saying, “Formerly, many officers and soldiers of the Tibetan government have treated the dependents badly and incorrectly; if we now raise a local militia and arm them, they will revolt against the Tibetan government.”33 In the course of Tibetan history, the eastern semiperiphery and periphery were frequently hallmarked by more or less autonomous centers, some of which temporarily attained a certain degree of regional hegemony. Even in Central Tibet under the Ganden Podrang government, local centers such as Sakya und Trashi Lhünpo maintained a certain level of autonomy.

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In the development of such subcenters, in contrast to rank differences, Luhmann saw by no means an indication of societal stability.34 Similarly, Geoffrey Samuel speaks of the Tibetan region as a weak polity. In this ­context, he has—with restrictions—applied the concept of galactic polity known in reference to Southeast Asia.35 He speaks of a structure in the style of a Buddhist maṇḍala with an exemplary center that was reproduced at the lower, regional level. One must add, though, that also at a later date, such repetitions at the regional level were not always oriented toward the hierocratic model of the Ganden Podrang government, but also toward the older model of Tibetan kingship. In Tibetan culture, characteristics of the barbarian and the primitive were frequently attributed to border regions. However, precisely because of the limited possibilities for control and access, they also offered places for retreat when crises and upheavals shook the center or when the persecution of differing doctrines threatened. Thus, circumstances could occasionally reverse, and the periphery could turn into a safe haven for some, a place where that which they considered the cultural core survived. With the idea of “hidden countries” located at Tibet’s southernmost border in the ­Himalayas, a school of Tibetan Buddhism, referred to by its members as the “Old One,” even developed in its literature a concept that was supposed to protect the survival of their tradition in times of threat. The geography of Tibet suggests that, in the past, the borders of Tibet’s society were predefined by nature: high mountain ranges in the south and inhospitable high plains in the north. But a closer look reveals that, for most of history, these natural barriers certainly had not constituted impenetrable dividing lines. That the Himalayas became a closed barrier is a phenomenon of recent history. These natural barriers established border areas, but ones in which economic exchange, migration, transculturation, and acculturation happened nonetheless. As a rule, neighboring societies were usually not clearly separated from one another; rather they were connected through gradual transitions. However, the inevitable contacts taking place in the periphery that went beyond the boundaries of Tibetan Buddhist society and culture did not stimulate Tibetan Buddhist society and culture to detach from its extreme self-reference. The lack of clear-cut territorial boundaries was for a long time not at all synonymous with a higher potential for conflict. In border regions, ­flexible boundaries allowed many residents on both sides to have an economic livelihood and interlocked different societies for their mutual benefit. Frequently,

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there was also a buffer of smaller, semidependent political communities. This type of territorial boundary also always tolerated a certain degree of overlapping influence. However, in case of an imbalance of power paired with specific interests, this boundary was able to provoke expansionist ambitions and deep demographic ruptures on one side or the other. Expansionism usually did not merely result in shifting boundaries but over long periods of time left behind overlapping, large-scale spheres of influence, as is well evidenced for vast regions of East Tibet. The vaguely defined and distributed sovereign rights led to repeated eruptions of conflict in these areas. Temporary shifts in power did not just offer one side or the other the chance to risk conflict for its own benefit. In such situations local rulers as well saw chances to extend their own power at the cost of their respective neighbors. This, in turn, could provoke the intervention of supraregional stabilizing powers. There were limits to extending the communication area also to the south. As a result of the expansion of Islam, Buddhism had disappeared from northern India. While semantics marked by forms of Indian ­Buddhism were widely established in Tibet, new religious trends emerged in India under the influence of Islam and changed the semantics of Indian society. Tibet remained completely untouched by all these developments and, as a consequence, the semantics of the Indian and Tibetan societies increasingly distanced themselves from one another. The Tibetan communication area only reached up to the various polities that stretched west to east across the Himalayas, separating Tibet from the Indian subcontinent. However, in this region, the military forces of the Ganden Podrang government were also not sufficient to significantly expand the boundaries of its rule to the west and south. Bhutan, located on the southern slopes of the Himalayas, had—in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century—­ successfully fought off Tibetan military invasions and had cultivated its own form of Buddhist hierocracy independent of Tibetan influence. It largely sealed itself off from Tibet. In the Kingdom of Ladakh in the ­Western Himalayas, the Tibetan invasion of 1679 had provoked the military intervention of the Mughal Empire, then ruled by Aurangzeb (1659– 1707), which opened up possibilities for Mughal influence in Ladakh. Through the peace treaty of 1684, the Tibetan government was nonetheless able to enforce some religious-political claims in favor of the Geluk school in Ladakh, and to establish a formal relationship of dependence. As John Bray has demonstrated, both sides were able to consider this relationship of dependency a confirmation of their respective prestige.36 The Kingdom of

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Ladakh committed itself to send tribute missions to Lhasa every three years for the Tibetan New Year, and to hand over a specified set of presents to the Tibetan government. The missions were called “paying obeisance on New Year.” They did not just visit the Tibetan government, but also the large Gelukpa monasteries around Lhasa, where they delivered presents. As they were granted the privilege to make use of the population’s corvée labor for transport along the road, they also benefited from the opportunity by trading extensively. Conversely, Tibet sent an annual delegation, a government-declared trade mission, to Ladakh. The mission was not only involved in trading, but also presented gifts to the King of Ladakh and the most important monasteries. This mission also had the right to use the population’s services on both sides of the border to transport goods. The structures established by this ritualized communication enabled the Tibetan government to view itself as an authority in the center of a Buddhist world that it had shaped. “Authority” was limited to the Ganden Podrang’s moral and religious, rather than political, claim to leadership, with the Dalai Lama at the top. The Dalai Lama did, however, hold political influence in that he was a mediator, acknowledged by all sides, in the case of internal conflicts within the Kingdom of Ladakh.37 This type of authority did not change after Tibet was integrated into the Qing Empire in the eighteenth century. The tribute missions from Ladakh to Lhasa continued even after Ladakh had become part of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, which belonged to British India, in the mid–nineteenth century. They created structures that were not exclusive and could, in many ways, overlap with other, similar structures. For example, the Kingdom of Ladakh also had a symbolic relationship of dependency with the Indian Mughal Empire since the seventeenth century, while at the same time being itself the center of smaller regional kingdoms in the Western Himalayas. Already in the eighth century, the Tibetan Empire under the Yarlung Dynasty had concluded treaties over the definition of borders with the ­Chinese Empire under the Tang Dynasty.38 And in 1684, after a hapless war against the Kingdom of Ladakh, the young Ganden Podrang government also agreed to a formally arranged treaty that defined the border between the two territories.39 However, the line of the border was only specified by indicating geographical features, in one case by mentioning the course of a river. Toward the end of the seventeenth century, border c­ onflicts in Inner Asia triggered a development in which vaguely defined political boundaries were increasingly replaced by precisely defined borderlines.

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The Jesuits who served the Kangxi emperor (r. 1661–1722) had a decisive impact on this development. They had already been influential in the negotiation of the contract finalized between the Russian tsardom and the Qing Empire in the Siberian town of Nerchinsk in September 1689, which defined the border between these two empires in the Amur region.40 However, even this border agreement lacked precision, since there was no cartographic record of the border. The exact borderline was only established through several agreements in 1727.41 In the end it was the Jesuits who carried out the systematic cartography of the Qing Empire on behalf of the Kangxi emperor. The series of maps that was initially exhibited to the emperor in 1718 and the revised versions that were presented in 1721 included Tibet.42 Borders and territories were now clearly defined by the grid lines of latitude and longitude. Kangxi’s successors, Yongzheng and Qianlong, went a step further in creating maps in European style and also had areas beyond the borders of the empire charted.43 But this exclusive knowledge, along with its increased rationalization of rule, was limited to the Qing court; there was no significant presence of it in Central Tibet. After the Gorkhās invaded the southern Tibetan border areas between 1788 and 1792 and were conquered by a vast Qing army, it was again the Qing administration that fixed Tibet’s southern border by installing border markers. The introduction of regular inspections of the Tibetan-Nepalese border, coupled with the regulation and limitation of frontier traffic, as well as the strict control of the Dalai Lama’s diplomatic correspondence with southern neighbors, increasingly isolated Tibet to the south.44 In 1834, the Dogra rulers of Jammu incorporated the Kingdom of Ladakh, but their subsequent attempt at expanding their rule into Tibetan territory failed. In 1842, an agreement was made between the Dogras and the Ganden Podrang government, which, however, simply confirmed the existing border without defining the exact borderline.45 Between 1816 and 1886, the British made into their protectorates the entire chain of polities on the southern slopes of the Himalayas, from ­Kashmir and Ladakh in the west to Assam in the east. In 1846 and 1847, two British commissions endeavored to define the borderline between Tibet and Ladakh more precisely. They failed due to mistrust on the part of the Tibetans.46 By 1864, in the Great Trigonometric Survey of India, they made sure that the territories of Kashmir and Ladakh, as well as the border regions west of Nepal, were surveyed.47 In their ambitious enterprise to chart the entire subcontinent, the British also did not stop at the Tibetan border,

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although this was largely closed in the nineteenth century. In their effort to gather geographical information about the region beyond the Himalayas, after 1863 the British began to instruct native residents of the Tibetan border regions in surveying technology and sent them into Tibet disguised as pilgrims.48 The fact that the British interest was going beyond the area they controlled was mainly based on concerns about the further expansion of the Russian Empire to Turkestan, Afghanistan, and Tibet. At the beginning of the twentieth century, British fears culminated in the Younghusband expedition (named after its leader), which, in 1903 and 1904 battled its way from India through to Lhasa with ruthless military force.49 The Tibetan ruling elite was entirely blind to the abstract conceptualization of territory projected on the Tibetan areas from outside. Later in the twentieth century—in a world that viewed itself increasingly as a community of nation-states—this oversight would not remain without consequences for Tibet’s independence as a politically constituted community. Territory was still not conceived abstractly in Tibet. The general perception, also in the minds of the ruling elite, was that the land was inseparable from its people. Anyone who was subordinated to Tibetan law, who lived as a dependent under a Tibetan landlord, who was counted among the Tibetan monk communities, or who practiced Tibetan religion was considered to be residing within Tibetan borders. In systems theory, Luhmann describes the fundamental form of premodern empires “as a quasi-natural byproduct of the expansion of communication possibilities.” The lack of precisely defined boundaries is therefore inherent to the form of an empire: “Instead of borders, we find horizons that determine what can be attained and vary accordingly. An empire is thus the meaning horizon of communications, of the communications of bureaucratic elites, who assume their empire to be unique and accept spatial boundaries, if at all, only as temporary limitations to their factual sphere of influence.”50 This description corresponds to the fundamental imperial claim made in China by the different successive dynasties according to the concept of tianxia (“everything under the heavens”). This c­ oncept does not differentiate between the world and the dominion that is actually controlled.51 Also the territory of the Tibetan Ganden Podrang government initially had no clearly defined boundaries in space. Instead, the government was situated in the center of a communication sphere extending even beyond its own language area. It was surrounded by concentrically ordered spheres of tiered and contested possibilities for influence, whose

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reach was essentially limited—besides the available military capacities— by the expansion of Tibetan Buddhism. In Tibet’s society of that era, the rudimentary formation of a bureaucratic elite was already taking place, which is verified unequivocally by the extensive, preserved administrative records of the Tibetan government. Yet the proximity to the Qing Empire, which was expanding into Inner Asia, derailed the Tibetan attempt to form its own independent polity based on “borrowed” Mongolian capacities for warfare and orthodoxy defined by the Tibetan Buddhist Geluk school. Luhmann views such societies as “exceptions with far-reaching consequences for semantic innovation.” Referring to societies of ancient Greece and Israel, he states that “deviation from the typicality of empire apparently sufficed to enable a high degree of self-critical semantics to develop— in Israel in the form of prophecy, in Greece in the form of a novel, writing-bound pursuit of knowledge, and in both cases in the form, not tied to established positions, of second-order observation: of observation of observation.”52 A writing-bound pursuit of knowledge and the logical reflection associated with that was a key foundation of monastic culture in Tibet as well. However, this pursuit of knowledge had been inherited from India in earlier times and was directed more toward the past and less toward the future. In the past—the golden age of historical Buddhism—knowledge was provided once and for all, and this just had to be passed on, undisturbedly and continuously, and be elucidated by further new ­commentaries. Criticism was oriented toward this knowledge, and only this knowledge qualified somebody to criticize. How self-critical semantics in the form of a second-order observation was possible within these narrow limits can be illustrated by the figure of the mad saint, a figure in the tradition of the Indian siddhas.53 Not only did they indicate a certain extent of conflict-readiness but they also revealed the contingency of social boundaries through their distance. However, the tragic destiny of the unorthodox thinker Gendün ­Chöpel (1903‒1951), who was surprisingly open-minded by Tibetan standards of the time, makes it clear that up to the very end of Ganden Podrang rule in Tibet little room was left for profound semantic innovations.54 For this reason Tibet’s society was poorly prepared for the “catastrophe,” namely the radical change of the form of social differentiation, which occurred as a result of the Chinese government’s occupation in the middle of the twentieth century.55

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P When speaking of the system “Tibetan Buddhist society,” we primarily address the communication system based on specific Tibetan Buddhist semantics. This communication system made the difference between system and environment observable internally through the guiding difference of participants and nonparticipants in the society’s communication. Moral values and norms that adhered to an idealized image of the culture embodied the guiding difference. The programs that determined the attribution of positive or negative value of this guiding difference were created by religion. The guiding difference and programs controlled the operations of Tibetan Buddhist society, which produced and reproduced the expectation structures, thereby ensuring the closure of the system. The structures determined which actions within the system referred meaningfully to each other. Since the guiding difference and programs functioned as the operative core of the social system, they can be called its center, even if the self-produced differences of inside and outside, of self-reference and other-reference, constituted at the same time the actual boundary of society. While the center largely remained self-referential, contacts to neighboring social systems inevitably emerged in the periphery. Structural couplings ensured that, nonetheless, the operational closure of the system was not abandoned: the perception and processing of external stimuli were only possible through the complexity-reducing structures of the system. The periphery could not ignore the structural requirements of the center without simultaneously exiting the system “Tibetan Buddhist society.” The identity and autonomous development of the system were protected by its boundaries, more precisely, its meaning-constituted boundaries. These reflected the system’s reality and showed the differences to nonsystem processes, structures, and codes. The sharpness of the distinction gave Tibetan Buddhist society a clear form and determined what was viewed as “own” and what as “foreign,” thereby enabling society’s selfreflection, which manifested in the claim of being the sole keeper of Indian Buddhist heritage. The degree of diffusion, that is, of integrating non­system achievements into the society, always remained low. Only in exceptional cases were achievements observed in the environment selected and accepted into the system as useful, and then only if no structural changes were to be feared as a result of them. In contrast, greater efforts were made concerning

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expansion: the endeavor to integrate Mongolian tribes into the society was, above all, an attempt to stabilize the own social system.56 In the context of systems theory, space is described as a societal product; the spatial boundaries are therefore just a particular case of meaningconstituted boundaries. Initially, the rule of the Tibetan Ganden Podrang government had no clearly defined spatial boundaries. Instead, the government was located in the center of a communication area that extended beyond its language area. In principle, its spatial range was confined by the expansion of Tibetan Buddhism. The spatial center and physical boundaries were established only relatively late, whereby the society’s spatial boundaries were mostly set from outside by the social systems belonging to the system’s environment. Even though communication in the upper social strata of society was by no means limited to interaction,57 as correspondence and books could bridge the spatial distance of center and periphery, the periphery still largely remained excluded from the political communication in the center. Conversely, the center did not succeed in exercising a sustained, undeniable dominance over the spatial periphery. Especially in the eastern areas, the degree of their dependence on the Lhasa government could fluctuate considerably. Frequently, it existed only in a soft form or only nominally, and occasional military interventions showed no sustained impact. The same applied to the Qing imperial structures, which overlay the regional structures in East Tibet more or less strongly depending on the interest and strength of the empire at the time. In any respect, the relationship between center and periphery remained conflictual. The periphery thus maintained a greater potential for deviations. Also, the overlapping political spheres of influence consistently opened chances to risk regional conflicts. Yet in the periphery, the center largely retained a moral and religious authority that could be used for settling regional conflicts.

CHAPTER 6

Semantics

The ambition of religious coding appears to move in the direction of juxtaposing every distinction that can be used in observation (recognition, imagination, action, etc.) with its counter value of transcendence. Thus, formulas are used such as “everything is ultimately emptiness” or “everything ultimately has to be accepted as God’s will.” —Niklas Luhmann

In exploring the semantics of Tibetan Buddhist society, the main focus is on the question of how conflict was conceived and connoted in society. As stated in the previous chapter, the distinction of Tibetan Buddhist society is based primarily on the specific Tibetan semantics. ­Luhmann uses the term “semantics” to denote the meaning that has been extracted and generalized from the concrete contents of communication and that a society carries prepared, mostly independent of the situation, to be thematized again in communication. If a certain meaningful form is chosen as the communication theme, the unrealized forms remain as possibilities for future follow-up communication. The repertoire of possible themes is what Luhmann calls “culture.” Even though it is very large and more possibilities are constantly evolving, the repertoire remains limited nonetheless. This horizon is structure-forming in that it dictates what can be expected in communication and what cannot. The semantics are stored in the language and its terms and, generally, in ­cultural constructions.1 Language, in particular, provides the forms in which meaning is processed, typed, generalized, and preserved as the semantics of a society. Such meaningful forms offer, on the one hand, a repertoire of possibilities for 96

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conflicts. On the other hand, they also provide premises that determine how conflicts are assessed in a society. At a general, unreflected level, semantics includes “loosely coupled splinters of meaning (words, for example),” which “are available en masse and serve as a medial substrate. In the process of semantic selection that assumes these splinters, they are coupled into fixed forms (perceivable things and comprehensible statements).”2 When looking at the “words” within these medial substrates that are used in the Tibetan language in reference to conflicts, one finds that these are mostly word formations (derivations, compositions) based on the verbs truk (’ khrug) and tsö (rtsod) as well as on the negation of the verb thün (mthun). The word truk means “being out of order, being in revolt, or perturbed.” The verb is not linked to an agent, that is, it does not indicate an occurrence controlled by a subject. In contrast, the verb tsö refers to an occurrence that is controllable by a subject; it means “to argue with words, to contend, to dispute.” The derived verbal noun tsöpa (rtsod pa), accordingly, can be translated as “fight, dispute”; trukpa (’ khrug pa) and tsöpa are combined into the compound noun truktsö, which generally denotes a “fight, argument, c­ onflict.” The negation of the verb thün (mthun), “to agree, to be in harmony, to be in accordance with,” frequently describes conflict situations in diplomatic sources. Similar to truk, the verb has a normative connotation in this context. It indicates that something has fallen out of balance and that order, as it should be, has been lost. Bitter “quarrels” and “disputes” and, more specifically, “legal disputes” are denoted with the lexemes gyö (gyod), gyözhi (gyod gzhi), and khamchu (kha mchu). Both in social documents and religious-ritual texts, the term barché (bar chad) turns up in connection with social conflicts; it means “obstacle, obstruction, hindrance” and signifies that the normal course of things has been interrupted. As such, obstacles need to be removed to clear the path. The verbs tap (’thab) and dzing (’ dzing) both mean “to argue, to quarrel, to fight,” and their derivations principally point to a real, observable dispute of a verbal, physical, or armed nature. All the terms mentioned have a negative connotation and already indicate a thoroughly negative view of social conflict in Tibetan Buddhist society. Semantics also become condensed, beyond particular words, into “names or terms, sayings, situational definitions and formulas, proverbs and tales for saving communication worth preserving for reuse.”3 Proverbs, for example, demonstrate that conflict was viewed as a phenomenon to be

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expected in every societal system, just as reconciliation is principally possible everywhere: Quarrels exist even in the land of the gods. Conciliation exists even in the land of the flesh-eating demon.4

That a legal dispute may not necessarily be a matter of truth was also known in Tibet: A lawsuit is filed with money. Truth is not required.5

The communication that arguing spells trouble was worth preserving in proverb: When one argues, nothing good comes. If you beg, no delicacy comes.6

However, peaceful togetherness is something worth striving for: For the happiness of the country, harmonious and trusting relationships between people are required.7

Cultivated Semantics The meaning processed in semantics can be processed a second time at a metalevel, or so-called cultivated semantics. Here, the cultural knowledge is reflected and selected to be part of tradition. Moreover, the knowledge is integrated into a simplifying and easily understandable self-description of the social system, which allows one to speak of the social system as a unity and to understand past events as history. In Tibet, religion—as a specific structure of expectation—was the central medium with which the world was observed; its interpretation of being was accepted by the entire society. Also, religion integrated the different strata of society and provided a religious meaning for social inequality. Religion was furthermore the criterion that determined who were viewed as members of society and who were not. On the one hand, common features beyond religious boundaries8 were covered up this way; on the other hand, this criterion offered the possibility of belonging that superseded ethnic and linguistic boundaries, as was the

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case, for example, when Mongolian groups were integrated into society. In that it was not strictly separated from a nonreligious environment, religion largely controlled the selection of what could be meaningfully communicated in Tibetan Buddhist society. At the same time, religion—through monasticism or figures such as the hermit or the “mad” saint—distanced itself from society by offering possibilities to exit society.9 Religion has the function to contrast the observable world with something unobservable and to represent this distinction as a unit. This distinction of the observable and the unobservable, of immanence and transcendence, makes up the code of religion. The world then becomes distinguishable “if we juxtapose it with something else—whether the one God or nothingness. We can then make the non-world side of this distinction symbolic so as to signal its incomprehensibility. That would appear to suffice for presupposing the world itself in the mode of the observable.”10 By considering the world from the nonobservable side, religion succeeds in explaining the phenomena of the world and in describing contingency11 as something necessary. Regarding transcendence, ­ Luhmann speaks of “duplicating what is present, attainable, and familiar into a different realm of meaning.”12 Transcendence means crossing a boundary into a “counterworld,” into the “unattainable,” into a “second world.” In Buddhism, transcendence does not exist as a person who observes people in their imperfections; nor do people in the context of Buddhism observe how a transcendent God might observe them.13 Nevertheless, in the course of the history of Buddhism, the problem was also discussed of how transcendence, as the “beyond” of the world, could be one side of the differentiation and at the same time the transcendence of all differentiation, including that of transcendence and immanence. The answer to this in Mahāyāna Buddhism—and how it was also spread in Tibet—is the ­concept of emptiness, śūnyatā, in which any distinction is removed and, therefore, in which nirvāṇa, the extinguishing, and saṃsāra, the world of the cycle of rebirths, are one.14 The concept of a “twofold truth” (Skt. satya­ dvaya), a conventional truth and a “truth in the highest sense,” allowed distinctions to be recognized and simultaneously viewed as ultimately nonexistent.15 As will be seen, it was exactly this concept that led to moral conflicts and sharp dogmatic debates. Because—from the viewpoint of absolute truth—there is no becoming or passing away, no duality in any form whatsoever, and thus no subject standing in opposition to an object, there is, from this perspective, also

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nobody who needs to be redeemed, because redemption has basically always existed. This must be realized, and not only with one’s intellect but through the intuitive, immediate insight into the emptiness of all phenomena and through the experience of being one with absolute reality. A lack of insight will lead to a misconception of reality as a world consisting of subjects outfitted with an unchangeable self or soul and objects possessing their own nature. Ignorance is the first of twelve links with which rebirth in the illusionary circle of births in Buddhism is explained as dependent origination.16 As one of the three primary poisons, ignorance, together with greed and hate, appears under the term “delusion.” The three poisons are not just viewed as the root of all conflicts but also as the reason why we are caught in the beginningless cycle of rebirths: they perpetuate the wheel of rebirth. Greed, hate, and delusion, as symbolized by a bird—usually a rooster—a snake, and a pig, respectively, appear on the hub of the wheel of rebirth. This image can be seen on countless Tibetan scroll paintings and in the entry spaces of Tibetan Buddhist temples. The outer ring of the wheel, which is held by Yama, the god of the dead, contains scenes and pictures symbolizing the twelve-link conditional nexus. Through contact with its environment, the sensory organs of our physical form generate sensations: pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral ones. In our minds, those are processed and pieced together to become uniform images. Such images cause the mental and volitional formations, that is, interests, intentions, longings, etc., which, in the broadest sense, precede action. Out of the awareness of an (illusionary) object arises consciousness, a being conscious of the world and itself, thus a dualistic mind that, as a subject, imagines and contrasts itself with an object. The so-called five aggregates (Skt. skandha)—form, sensations, perceptions, mental and volitional formations, and consciousness—together constitute a person. They are empty of a permanent self. Neither by themselves nor together do they last beyond death.17 The coming together of these aggregates and the emergence of a mind operating in dualistic categories such as subject/object, friend/enemy, my/ your, good/bad, right/wrong, and beautiful/ugly, ultimately explains the development of conflicts. Thus, the principal avenue for resolving conflicts is to overcome our ignorance of the nature of reality, and not just with our mind but also with deep insight into the empty nature of all phenomena. Reflection and analytical thinking are, however, necessary steps toward such an insight.

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Buddhism teaches that the three primary poisons—greed, hate, and delusion—ultimately resulting from a misconception of reality, as well as all other afflictions (Skt. kleśa) that cloud the mind,18 hold all sentient beings captive in an endless cycle of birth, aging, illness, and death. If they motivate a being to commit harmful actions, the consequence is rebirth into a lower realm of existence. Here, the intention behind the act is pivotal, not the action itself.19 The link between the different existences is neither a “soul” nor another immutable entity. Dependent origination alone, conditionality, links the consecutive births.20 Buddhist philosophy—also as it was taught in the large Tibetan monasteries—views consciousness as a state of a dualistic mind. The mind denotes the entire process of thinking and perceiving. Consciousness appears as the third link in the chain of the twelve links of dependent origination. It is subdivided into a consciousness that encloses the karmic disposition for rebirth and a consciousness that makes up the first moment of the new existence, in which the seed of karma has been brought to fruition.21 Continuity is compared with a flame wandering from lamp to lamp.22 The very popular Buddhist rebirth narratives, which were composed for didactic reasons, suggest, however, that consciousness wanders as an entity from birth to birth. The notion of spiritual leaders elaborated in Tibet, who are considered emanations of fully enlightened figures of salvation and who again and again intentionally take on a human existence after their deaths for the good of the sentient beings, conveys the idea of a person who travels from existence to existence. The present Dalai Lama has reported in an interview that, in his early childhood, he was confronted with this widespread perception in Tibet’s society.23 But he explains his connection with his pre-existences more cautiously: If someone asks me whether I am the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, then I answer, without hesitation, yes. This does not mean I am the same being as the previous Dalai Lama. Some Dalai Lamas are a manifestation of Manjushri. Some are a manifestation of Chenrizi. Chenrizi is the manifestation of compassion. Manjushri is the manifestation of wisdom. I have a special connection with the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and the Fifth Dalai Lama. I have felt some kind of karmic relations or connections even with the Buddha. I feel I can say I have some kind of connection with the previous Dalai Lamas, some of the previous masters, with Chenrizi, even with the Buddha.24

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Spiritual teachers identified as reincarnations greatly shaped Tibetan ­Buddhist society and politics through their reputation and authority. The legal consequence of identifying persons as members of a continuous chain of rebirths was the establishment of households that were able to accumulate huge fortunes over the course of generations. Their social influence and great prosperity in turn not only imbued the position of reincarnated spiritual teachers with high status in the competition among different Buddhist schools but also made them attractive to Tibetan noble families and Mongolian princes who strove to put members of their own families into these positions. Consequently, political conflicts were inevitable and even led to military conflicts. In cultivated semantics, conflicts were not perceived as indications for necessary social change or adaptation but as negative effects of people’s moral wrongdoings and as a sign of a general decline rooted in cosmological cycles. The primary reason for this perception is a worldview adopted with the late Buddhist doctrinal system of the Kālacakra Tantra from India. According to this worldview, an initial perfect, golden era is always followed anew by four consecutive eras of different yet extremely large time intervals. At the moment, we are in the last of these four eras, the kaliyuga or “era of strife.”25 According to such notions, Buddhism distinguishes two different prospects for salvation from pain and suffering: first, the prospect of temporary salvation through a better rebirth within the cycle of births; and second, the prospect of ultimate salvation through transcending any duality by becoming aware of the oneness with the absolute.26 It was ­Geoffrey Samuel who introduced for these two prospects of salvation the terms “Karma Orientation” and “Bodhi Orientation” and added to them “Pragmatic Orientation” as a third central term. With this third notion, he points out that Tibetan Buddhism also had an immensely rich selection of world-focused services to face the imponderables, risks, and coincidences of life.27 Buddhism first came to Tibet from the seventh to the ninth century CE. In Tibetan historiography, this period is referred to as the “early spreading” of Buddhist teachings. This was the time of the Tibetan Empire’s formation, when the entire Tibetan plateau was united under one dominion for the first time. At times, its territory reached even far beyond that. Buddhism was widespread at that time: it prospered not only along Tibet’s southern borders but also in the north and northeast alongside the so-called Silk Route and in Tang Dynasty China. Buddhism, its monasteries, and its scholarliness were promoted by the political leadership everywhere. Buddhism was

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associated with the accomplishments of a superior culture, in particular, writing, literature, and art as well as the elites who propagated these accomplishments. In this milieu, Buddhism was systematically introduced to Tibet in the eighth century as a strategic decision from above. Buddhism promised semantics that matched the higher level of societal complexity of an empire. In contrast to the older, mostly segmentarily differentiated clan society, the society of the Tibetan Empire was highly stratified and characterized by a clear distinction between center and periphery. We can assume that establishing the new religion was part of a strategy to stabilize the newly developed centralist and hierarchical structures of the Tibetan Empire. This meant clearly defining for all subjects what was valid as orthodoxy and what should be suppressed as heterodoxy. In the eighth and ninth centuries under royal patronage, the first Tibetan monastery was founded, teams of IndianTibetan translators were put to work, and a uniform Buddhist terminology was established through the creation of a comprehensive Sanskrit-Tibetan dictionary. The court was suspicious of the esoteric doctrines of Buddhist Tantrism, particularly the Mahāyoga tantras. Tantrism was primarily practiced and passed on secretly within small communities. A typical feature was the transgression of social norms. The translation of Indian tantras was ­controlled by the royal court, and their practice limited to a small circle of the Tibetan upper class. In India, the tantras were also means to equip the ruler with magical power and ritual authority. This same motivation may have led the royal court in Tibet to allow its practice to a limited extent.28 As a religious trend, Tantrism had inspired all religions of India at that time, Hinduism as well as Jainism and Buddhism. In Buddhism, its practices were summarized in the Vajrayāna, the so-called Diamond Vehicle. The Vajrayāna represents the last great Buddhist teaching system evolving on Indian ground. With the decline of the Gupta Empire in the fifth and sixth centuries and the resulting fragmentation of India, the movement gained social influence. Here, Ronald Davidson sees a close causal connection in that he describes the rise of esoteric Buddhism in early medieval India as an immediate reaction to the “feudalization” of Indian society.29 He outlines a development that later—after the fall of the kingdom and under similar conditions—would be repeated in Tibet. Within Indian Buddhism, Tantrism reached its peak with the emergence of the Mahāyoga tantras in the second half of the eighth century. These texts propagate the violation of social norms as a radical and fast method to achieve enlightenment. This included living and practicing in cemeteries,

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rubbing the body with cremation ashes, sexual intercourse with lower-class women, and—in rare cases—ritualized killings, that is, human sacrifice.30 The sexualized language of the tantras is drastic at times.31 On an individual basis, it is difficult to say where the line is between merely symbolic rhetoric and actually carrying out the acts described. But it was at any rate fluid. As the critical voices reveal, practitioners of sexual yoga practices tested them out to varying extents.32 In the Mahāyoga tantras, sexualized language was complemented by a language of violence. Here as well, no sharp line was drawn between merely visualized and actually performed violence. This language of violence in Mahāyoga tantras can be traced back to the Rudra myth. The struggle between its two protagonists, the wrathful Vajrapāṇi—a figure who progressed from a prominent nature spirit to a central buddha or bodhi­ sattva33 —and the demon Rudra, actually a deity of ancient origin and a name used in Hinduism for the God Śiva, reflects the severe confrontation between Buddhist Tantrics and Hindu Shaivists about the superiority of one’s own tradition over the demonized tradition of the other.34 The fall of the Tibetan Kingdom in the ninth century resulted in the dissolution of Tibet’s centralist structures, and society again differentiated itself predominantly into segments of regionally limited clan rulers. But that was in no way the end of Buddhism in Tibet, even though the monastic communities, the main carriers of Buddhism and its scholarship, vanished from Central Tibet due to lack of financial support and privilege from the royal court. Without a central power watching over the “pure” doctrine, there was the opportunity for heterodox trends to develop. Because the Tibetan script was introduced during the royal period, these trends were not bound to interaction systems and could develop into strong alternative traditions, which influenced communication in Tibet throughout its entire history. Buddhist yogins and ritual priests who offered their services to local communities continued to exist. It was inevitable that they also incorporated non-Buddhist, magical ideas and practices into their services, giving them a Buddhist veneer.35 Still, we can assume that the prestigious Buddhist ideas, concepts, and practices—thanks to the earlier support of the royal court—had, in the meantime, become a part of many religious experts’ semantics and habits. In order to maintain access to the changed reality, the “semantics guiding experiencing and acting” had to adapt to the lower level of social complexity.36 Now, semantics could no longer be enforced from the top down by one ruler and the relatively small upper class associated with him, nor could it be upheld by a monastic

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intellectual elite. Semantics could only fulfill its guiding function if it became directly and extensively rooted in the population. This also meant that the carriers of Buddhism could no longer primarily turn to the aristocratic and intellectual elite but were compelled on a much larger scale to offer strategies for coping with conflicts and contingencies to a population whose existence was dependent on an agricultural way of life. In turn, such offers continued to secure a modest livelihood for the religious experts. This was the beginning of the real success story of Buddhism in Tibet: the profound conversion of the society into a society in which the space of meaningful possibilities was controlled by a Buddhist worldview. Especially rituals “as forms of communication staged in relation to perception”37 and their interpretative mythical narratives now served to stabilize social conditions and people’s relationships to their natural surroundings as well as to mitigate conflicts.38 Religious experts supplied rituals and their associated myths as a magical means of solving social conflicts and likewise coping with contingencies, such as the capricious deities and spirits disguised as unpredictable natural forces with which the average population of Tibet was constantly confronted.39 Local religious experts, freed from the control imposed on them by the restrictions of centralist rule, used the compatibility of the rituals and narratives of the Mahāyoga tantras with pre-Buddhist animistic practices and ideas to deeply root the esoteric form of Buddhism in Tibet’s society.40 Like shamans, yogins also work with altered states of consciousness. In Mahāyoga rituals, the yogin evokes himself as a mighty deity through whom he also has the ability to exert force. In the Tibetans’ world, there was a multitude of local deities and spirits waiting to be ­subjugated and controlled. For this, Tantrism offered potent ritual tools, which included the use of violence, albeit usually within merely imaginative acts. Especially the Rudra myth prescribed the pattern for the narratives that explain the rationale and procedure for ritually subjugating and engaging the worldly deities and demons, as well as placing them on the edges of the Buddhist maṇḍala as Buddhist protective deities.41 Either autochthonous deities associated with the local topography were identified with Indian deities, or local deities were reinvented as equivalents of such Indian deities, who had already played a role in the submission of the Indian pantheon by esoteric Buddhism.42 The submission and integration of local deities still left room for them to be worshipped. There were, indeed, voices that c­ ondemned this practice or considered it, at best, to be purely a waste of time.43 Nevertheless, it seems that this very fact facilitated

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the extensive conversion of the Tibetan population. Above all, it was compatible schemata of perception and action that enabled Buddhism in the special form of the Mahāyoga tantras to connect with the expectation structures of society. They formed the prerequisite for Buddhism in Tibet to find a social need for its services and to establish itself as a practice for dealing with contingencies. It was mainly these services that safeguarded the survival of Buddhism during the so-called dark era of Tibetan history. The ritual subjugation of the numerous local deities and their associated narratives changed Tibetan space into a Buddhist space by marking the landscape with countless holy sites. Analogous to the Rudra myth, Tantric rhetoric in Tibet also worked with the demonization of the adversaries of Buddhism along with those to be converted and their respective territories. The Tibetan term used for “to convert” as well as for “to subjugate” is dül (’ dul), literally “to tame,” “to discipline.” The verbal noun dülwa (’ dul ba) is also the Tibetan word for monastic discipline, Sanskrit vinaya, the canonical collection of monastic rules. Not just the people and their deities but the entire territory, including its residents, was to be disciplined. From the twelfth century, the image of Tibet as a demoness lying on her back, who had to be tamed through the construction of Buddhist temples over her heart and on her extremities, became popular. In its imagery this perception also closely followed the Indian Rudra myth.44 The historical core is rather scant concerning the figure of Tibet’s great magician and conqueror of the demons, yet the Tibetan landscape and religion today cannot be imagined without his omnipresence. Padmasam­ bhava is supposed to have come to Tibet from Uḍḍiyāna in the eighth century. Usually, this country is associated with the Swat Valley in modern Pakistan,45 a region where esoteric Buddhism was once widespread. Nonetheless, it was not until after the collapse of the Tibetan Empire that he became aggrandized as a powerful magician, a second Buddha, and one of the most important teachers of the eighth-century Tibetan king who was responsible for the systematic introduction of Buddhism to Tibet. Elaborate biographies of him emerged in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries,46 revealing that the Padmasambhava cult had become the heart and unifying tie of the so-called old school (Nyingma) of Tibetan ­Buddhism, which formed in response to the new Buddhist schools. Additionally, Padmasambhava acted as a historical reference by which all those traditions and particularly ritual practices for which no clear, continuing traditional line could otherwise be presented, were legitimized. This also

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concerned the texts and practices attributed to the Mahāyoga doctrine. In contrast to the old school, the new schools that had emerged since the tenth century in the wake of the second diffusion of Buddhism from India received the support of large parts of the aristocratic upper class. These wealthy patrons not only helped the new schools build a new infrastructure of temples and monasteries, but they also remained bound to their respective supporters through family ties. From the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, the country’s fate was predominantly controlled by Mongolian invaders. While the supporters of the old school responded largely with somber prophecies and attempts at magical ritual defense against demonized enemies,47 the representatives of the new schools cooperated with the Mongols to their mutual benefit. As a consequence, in the Tibetan territory reunified by an external diktat, it was the representatives of the new Buddhist schools—first the Sakyapa and later the Gelukpa—who gained both political power and religious dominance, which allowed them to define what was to be considered orthodoxy and what heterodoxy. Yet in the seventeenth century, in the course of their conflict with political enemies and representatives of other Buddhist schools, the Gelukpa also adopted concepts, rhetoric, and rituals of violent subjugation that had found their way into Tibetan Buddhism particularly through the Mahāyoga tradition of the old Buddhist school.48 They still kept this rhetoric even after their political power had been stabilized.49 Nonetheless, the Gelukpa curriculum was primarily based on the Indian Mahāyāna sutras, that is, fundamental discourses ascribed to the Buddha. Tantras, which are also traced back to the Buddha, took up less space; as fundamental texts of esoteric Buddhism they were to be taught only to a selected group of students. Even more than the Gelukpa, since the seventeenth century it was foreign rulers—first the western Mongols and later the emperors of the Qing Dynasty in China—who, in accordance with centralistic governance, rigorously tried to enforce the Buddhism of the Geluk school as orthodoxy in Tibet. This school emphasized monastic discipline, the stages of the path to enlightenment, and the restrictive practice of tantras.

Dogmatics Tibetan Buddhism developed a strong dogmatic tradition in order to stabilize the particular cultivated semantics determined by religion in Tibet and to protect it against criticism. “In the widest sense of the word, we conceive

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dogmatics as the sum of all those intellectual concepts with which the basic material of religious experiences and situation-related interpretations are examined, functionally processed, checked for errors, and systematized. Sociologically, the term also refers to a level of differentiation and self-­ direction of the religious system as a subsystem of society.”50 Furthermore, through their dogmatics, religions “try to orient for their mode of selection (both negative and positive selection) toward existing dogmas. According to the major religious faiths, these can only be clarified but not changed.”51 Luhmann sees in dogmatic self-direction a higher complexity and “intellectual flexibility” demanded from the religious system in reaction to societal development.52 The control occurs through self-description. A self-description, however, “reproduces not only its texts but also what is, discreetly or openly, opposed to them.”53 With this, self-description always continues to carry that which should be excluded. In the area of Tibetan Buddhist dogmatics, that is, the correct presentation and interpretation of the Buddhist doctrine and its paths to salvation, the cultivated semantics of the Tibetan tradition is marked by an intense polemic. Though this concerned, first and foremost, conflicts within elitist circles of scholars, the dispute over orthodoxy—the pure heritage of religious doctrines—had far-reaching societal consequences including violent conflicts and the suppression of traditions considered corrupted. The history of this polemic in Tibet is as old as the history of ­Buddhism in Tibet itself and dates back to the initial phase. It is therefore no wonder that history itself became the subject of intense polemic, and the question of which party was victorious in history and why provoked drastically different answers depending on the perspective, but always simplistic ones. David Snellgrove summarized the dispute over the correct presentation of Tibet’s conversion as follows: Not surprisingly perhaps the later Buddhist historians of Tibet, whether “orthodox” followers of Śākyamuni Buddha, less “orthodox” followers of the Second Buddha Padmasambhava or the heterodox followers of gShen-rab, all conceive the story of the conversion of Tibet in the stark tones of black and white, and indeed the whole history of the period is reinterpreted in religious terms. Thus Buddhists are persecuted by wicked Bonpos, as they later come to be called, and in their turn the suffering Bonpos are driven forth from the land. Next those who hold to Indian Buddhist traditions find themselves threatened by other B ­ uddhists who

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hold to Chinese traditions. Then King Khri Srong-lde-brtsan convokes a council, so that both parties may state their views. According to the later accounts of the “orthodox” Tibetan historians the Indian party is completely victorious and the Chinese party is driven out, but not before they have taken foul revenge by murdering the leading Indian protagonist and provoking the chief Tibetan supporter to suicide. However, their victory is short-lived, for within forty years or so evil Glang-dar-ma murders his virtuous brother and seizing the throne, sets himself the immediate task of totally eradicating ­Buddhism from the land. Likewise the later Bonpos have their own story of cruel persecution, but in their case the evil persecutor is King Khri Srong-lde-brtsan who has been falsely subverted to Indian teachings.54

The debate between representatives of Indian Buddhism and those of ­Chinese Buddhism—in the historical tradition condensed into a single, critical event—revolved especially around the correct way of achieving Buddhahood. More precisely, it focused on the question of whether the path to enlightenment was a gradual, step-by-step process or whether spontaneous enlightenment was also possible and, above all, if this was in line with the Buddha’s teaching.55 According to Tibetan historiography, the way this question was answered at the time demonstrates an argumentation schema that ran through the entire history of Tibetan Buddhism in regard to assessing Buddhist doctrines. Aspects of content were not so critical for this assessment. Instead, the focus lay first on the premise that the B ­ uddhist teachings were a complete and eternally valid, closed corpus, and second, on the question of whether or not an Indian origin can be proven for a specific teaching. Indeed, the fact that Indian writings could also certainly have been of doubtful origin was not further considered. The argumentation in this context was frequently of a rather simple nature. For example, in the second half of the seventeenth century, Terdak Lingpa, a prominent cleric of the Old Buddhist school, was challenged by a representative of the newer schools. The latter contested the authenticity of one of the fundamental tantras of the old school because there was no Sanskrit at the beginning of the text. He therefore challenged Terdak Lingpa by asking whether this lack meant that the text was originally composed in the Tibetan language. Terdak Lingpa denied the other’s skepticism by referring to generally acknowledged sutra texts of the Tibetan canon that also did not begin with Sanskrit language as evidence of their authenticity.56

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An orthodoxy established on this basis did not remain uncontested and, throughout history, was continuously challenged by Buddhists who, irrespective of this orthodoxy, still studied and practiced traditions whose origins were highly contested.57 Moreover, such heterodox and eclectic tendencies were not restricted to individual cases but became strong traditions that could be faced with enormous political and economic repression depending on the region and time period. Conflicts over the content of Buddhist teaching as well as the authenticity of Buddhist traditions could be decided—though occasionally and regionally—by involving political power, yet still remained as fuel for possible future disputes. The extent and thematic diversification of the Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna Buddhist writings that Tibet’s Buddhist scholars accepted as long as their Indian origin was attested were not only vast, but had also been written over a long period and in light of different situations. This fact faced dogmatics in Tibet with the challenge to synthesize all the different religious experiences and teachings, including the numerous Indian commentaries that also were incorporated into the Tibetan canon as authoritative writings, and to integrate these into a closed body of doctrine, free of self-­contradictions. Among the new Buddhist schools, occasionally intense controversies arose over the interpretation of fundamental terms and c­ oncepts in Buddhist doctrine. A well-known example is the seventeenth­-century dispute over the correct interpretation of the doctrine of the ­Buddha nature inherent in all sentient beings, which led to the closure or forced conversion of all monasteries of the Jonang school in C ­ entral Tibet by the Fifth Dalai Lama. Religious and political motives always coalesce in such radical steps for conflict regulation. Yet cultivated forms of dispute also developed. Within Buddhist literature, a new text genre developed that focused exclusively on the falsification of other viewpoints.58 However, in Tibetan history dogmatic conflicts over the “pure” doctrines repeatedly merged with political ones and resulted in religiouspolitical restrictions and sanctions, including the closure and forced conversion of monasteries of oppositionist schools. Since all Buddhist traditions of Tibet were ultimately carried on by monastic communities— which were to a great extent economically dependent on the local population, and the local population satisfied its religious needs through the local monasteries—the impact of repression and compulsory measures always went far beyond the monasteries themselves and affected the population of laypersons connected to them.

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But a complete picture of the relationships between the different ­ uddhist traditions in Tibet is not possible without also mentioning the B numerous examples of open, unbiased exchange of religious doctrines, initiations, and practices.59 It was out of such an attitude that in East Tibet in the nineteenth century the aforementioned eclectic Rimé movement encompassing different traditions grew. Such an eclecticism was able, however, to unleash vehement and militant countermovements directed by a recollection of a(n) (alleged) pure doctrine. This possibility is vividly illustrated by the militant schismatic movement that emerged in the twentieth century as a reaction to such tendencies; in its demarcation, it invoked visions of the protective deity Dorje Shukden and some followers did not even shy away from murder as a means of confrontation.60 P The abovementioned terms and ideas, such as “emptiness,” “karma,” “afflictions,” “rebirth,” “era of strife,” “demons” or “evil spirits,” “insiders” for Buddhists and “outsiders” for non-Buddhists, or “taming, disciplining” were part of the semantic repertoire, which was readily available to be activated for communication. They provided orientation and controlled which communication issues Tibet’s society was receptive to and to which ones it was not. They also colored the perception of conflicts. Social conflicts were mostly perceived as negative impacts of people’s morally wrong behaviors. Conflicts affecting the entire society were seen as signs of a general decline rooted in cosmological cycles. The terms and ideas used were part of the religiously based interpretation of the world. Efforts were made to stabilize their selection in the form of dogma. Although scholars argued over finer points of the correct interpretation of the writings, the majority of society blindly trusted in the “experts’ knowledge.” For them, life remained by and large predestined. Deviations from that which was to be expected cognitively were interpreted as the fruits of positive or negative karma accumulated in the present life or past existences. Their conception of the world provided sufficient information for such interpretations. Except for the elites, there were usually few decision-making problems in the course of people’s lives and therefore hardly any psychic conflicts. The Tibetan Buddhist explanation of the world—combined with hierarchy and morality—ensured that for the individual, there was not much room left

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for personal decisions, and role expectations were mostly predefined. Life had to be lived without having to make big decisions. There was a low degree of complexity since decision programs conflicted with each other only in rare cases, for example, if legal programs collided with moral principles.

CHAPTER 7

Morality and Ethics

The king who properly arranges his troops using the strategies just mentioned may kill or wound his opponents, but this constitutes only a minor moral fault, and there is no certainty that he will have to experience karmic retribution for it. Why is this so? It is because the motivation force behind his action was unwavering compassion. —Jamgön Mipam (1846–1912), The Just King

Conflict and morality frequently coalesce. This is true for both psychic and social conflicts. In cases of conflict, thought and communication are inclined toward moralizing, thereby complicating conflict resolution. Since moral judgments jeopardize the esteem of the person as a whole, they quickly lead to “an over-commitment of all participants,” which results in tenacious and aggressive conflicts.1 Morality does not have its roots in religion, but religion engages morality in seeking contact with “socially acceptable distinctions.”2 According to Luhmann, religion does that by adding a second, moral code to the code of immanence/transcendence: the binary schema of “good” and “evil or bad.” In theistic religions, transcendence becomes personalized, and the “good” is explained as wanted by God.3 The other side is occupied by humans with all their inadequacies. It is characterized by sin, by the freedom to do evil, by a lack of insight.”4 The difference between “good” and “evil or bad” is tied to the difference between “salvation” and “suffering or 113

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damnation” and thus allows religion to influence society. Such a solution in which the code of good/bad is attributed one-to-one with the code of transcendence/immanence is impossible in Buddhism. Yet by linking moral codes to the concept of karma, Buddhism succeeds in answering the question of the “religious meaning” in the mundane difference between good and bad behavior—even considering the fact that “happiness and suffering do not appear to be distributed according to moral criteria.”5 However, the moral coding in Buddhism is a distinction that is solely attributed to the immanent side. Transcendency in Mahāyāna Buddhism, the emptiness, remains beyond all distinctions. In it, all distinctions are ultimately abolished, also the distinction of “good” and “bad.” Good behavior in a moral sense alone does not, therefore, ultimately lead to final salvation, but at best to a better rebirth, meaning, to optimal preconditions for moving along the path to salvation. However, morality also serves to explain both the different forms of existence within the cycle of rebirths and social stratification. Since Buddhism generally explained the hierarchical order as a karmic ­consequence of morally judged actions and the intentions behind them— whether in one’s present existence or a preceding existence—and thereby justified the preference for good, it contributed to stabilizing social stratification without having to claim the volition of a transcendent deity, like in monotheistic religions.6 According to Luhmann, all morality ultimately refers “to the question whether and under what conditions human beings esteem or disdain one another.”7 He therefore defines “the morality of a social system as the totality of the conditions for deciding the bestowal of esteem or disdain within the system.”8 When a communication conveys which viewpoints and actions of a person are estimable and which are not, we are dealing with moral communication.9 According to this definition, esteem and disdain solely refer to human beings, but for Tibetan Buddhist society this is too narrow an interpretation in two ways. First, the societal boundaries were not delimited from an animistically conceived natural world. Second, ­Buddhism, much more than Christianity, also esteems non–human beings. In Christianity, non–human beings are considered fellow creatures that are associated with human beings—the “crown of creation”—and are at best placed in their custody; but the Christian offer of salvation does not apply to them. By contrast, in Buddhism, non–human beings are always regarded as possible life-forms of oneself in a past or future existence. The major difference is that they equally require salvation. This explains the request for

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indiscriminate empathy toward all sentient beings frequently found in Tibetan Buddhist texts. Particularly in the context of the bodhisattva ideal propagated by Mahāyāna, indiscriminate empathy was elevated to the main virtue. It generally excluded all actions that could harm living beings. A bodhisattva is guided by compassion for all beings and commits himself by his vows to tread the path of salvation for the good of all living beings and not to enter into nirvāṇa before all beings are liberated from the cycle of rebirth.10 The bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, “the lord who looks at the world,” is the personification of compassion par excellence. In Tibet, he is frequently invoked under the name of Tukje Chenpo, “great compassion.” His popularity in Tibet was established early on through historiographic works that were augmented by legendary narratives written by Tibetan clerics. The following passage of a text from the fourteenth century illustrates Avalokiteśvara’s exceptional commitment to Tibet: [Avalokiteśvara] had placed the six classes [of beings, i.e., gods, demigods, human beings, animals, hungry ghosts, and hell-beings] of the three realms [desire, form, and formlessness] and the difficult-to-­ discipline sentient beings of the Snowy Land by various means in a state of happiness. Very exhausted, therefore, he remained balanced in the meditation which is the relaxation in the natural state of the mind. However, when he gazed down again from the summit of Mount Potala, only about one hundredth of the sentient beings of the Snowy Land had been placed in the state of happiness. By not thinking [of that one percent], he became extremely desperate. Just at the moment when the desire for inner peace arose, by the power of a former aspirational prayer his head was split into ten pieces and his body was broken into one thousand pieces. Because he prayed to the Buddha Amitābha, Buddha Amitābha appeared in an instant. With his hands he bound the fragments of the head and the body of the Exalted One into a bundle and spoke as follows: All phenomena are conditional. They rest firmly on the root of motivation. Whatever aspirational prayer11 you make, it will be fulfilled accordingly. Through the power of any aspirational prayer you will be highly praised by all the buddhas.

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By this truth,12 [your aspiration] is definitely fulfilled at the same moment. Son of a noble family! Do not be unhappy! Your head which had been split into ten pieces, I have turned into ten faces. The ten faces are the ten perfections. Together with Amitābha above them, I have blessed you with eleven faces. As the eleventh [face] Amitābha sits on your head. Homage and praise to the venerable Avalokiteśvara, who extensively performs the activities of pacifying, increasing, controlling and destroying.13 Your body, which has fallen into a thousand pieces like the petals of a lotus, I have blessed with a thousand arms. The thousand arms are a thousand universal monarchs. The palms of the thousand hands I have blessed with a thousand eyes. The thousand eyes are the Thousand Buddhas of the good eon. Homage to the venerable Avalokiteśvara, who shows what [is appropriate] for disciplining whomever. You are the one who is highly praised by the Thousand Buddhas. The Victorious One [i.e., the Buddha] has prophesied that you will discipline the [barbaric] border land. Homage to the venerable Avalokiteśvara! After [Amitābha] had spoken thus, [Avalokiteśvara] showed numerous manifestations of his body to discipline the sentient beings of the Snowy Land. Thereby he caused the maturation and liberation of all sentient beings.14

This text passage demonstrates that in order “to discipline” motivated solely by compassion and altruism,15 violent and tough measures—like “controlling and destroying” enemies and malevolent demons—were not ruled out as appropriate means in some circumstances. Such measures were in particular part of Tantric Buddhism’s ritual practices. Whether and under which conditions they accorded with the Buddhist principles of nonviolence and compassion led time and again to conflicts within Tibetan Buddhism.

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Through his regular manifestations, Avalokiteśvara is also physically present in Tibetan history and society. To this day, the Tibetan king ­Songtsen Gampo, who first formed the country into a political unity in the seventh century, is considered a manifestation of Avalokiteśvara. The same text that describes the immense impact of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara in impressive images, especially with regard to Tibet’s society, also explains how this impact for the good of Tibet can be perceived differently depending on one’s level of understanding: A ray of light radiated from [Avalokiteśvara’s] heart center, struck the Kingdom of the Snowy Land, and filled the whole Snowy Land of Tibet with light. The [place] Nöndra Tötsel was also filled with light, as was the palace Jampa Minjurling and the king Namri Songtsen. Then the light gathered and entered the womb of Drisa Tökarma, king Namri Songtsen’s consort. Auspicious signs permeated all directions. When nine months and ten days had passed, she gave birth to a particularly exalted son in the female fire-ox year in the palace Jampa Minjurling: someone on whose head the Buddha Amitābha was sitting, whose hands and feet were marked with the [Dharma-]wheel and whose hair was black-blue in color. The buddhas blessed him, the bodhisattvas made auspicious pronouncements, the gods dropped a rain of flowers and also the earth shook in the six directions [including up and down]. In this regard, there were three different perceptions: In the perception of the Buddhas of the Ten Directions [including the four intermediate directions and up and down], it was as though in this borderland a lamp had been lighted in the darkness, since the exalted Avalokiteśvara, supported by the power of his former aspirational prayer, [now] leads the sentient beings of the Snowy Land of Tibet to maturity and salvation. That’s how they gazed at the precious continent. In the perception of the bodhisattvas of the Ten Stages [of the path to enlightenment], the exalted Avalokiteśvara had manifested himself as king to lead the sentient beings of the snow-capped borderland to the [Buddhist] religion. They had the perception that through taming whomever with whatever means, he caused the welfare of the sentient beings.

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In the perception of the common black[-headed] people, it was perceived that a son with a wonderful and incomparable countenance had been born to the king.16

This narrative portrays the ruler as an enlightened being, thereby immunizing him against criticism. The Dalai Lamas as well are described as manifestations of Avalokiteśvara, which is why they are committed, to a special degree, to compassion as a guiding principle. At the same time, through the enumeration of a succession of preincarnations, they are directly associated with King Songtsen Gampo and the foundation of the Tibetan Empire, thus legitimizing political rule. This way, the institution of the Dalai Lamas in the seventeenth century could become the engine for a reunification of Tibet, and was able to take on an unchallenged position at the top of Tibet’s society. A savior figure like the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara can be conceived as the representation of a specific idea of perfection. He personifies a moral standard in society by standing for someone who has perfect compassion, which cannot be outperformed; he points out the alternative to hate and enmity, yet also to indifference. Furthermore, the figure of Avalokiteśvara generalizes all forms and cases of compassion, combining them into an ideal. This figure allows compassion to be put in relation to a universally compatible standard, by which each concrete compassion can be measured and distinguished from another. Depending on the situation, one could refer to this relation for legitimation or criticism. Hence, compassion became a virtue to which people related and esteemed one another. In ­communication, referring to Avalokiteśvara was meant to “claim or call for perfection and thereby exclude contingency.”17 Perfection was claimed when a person, like the Dalai Lama, was presented and recognized as the incarnation of Avalokiteśvara. Thus, in his person, the perfection of ­compassion became at once tangible in society. The virtue of compassion is part of the sophisticated ethics with which Buddhism underpins morality. These ethics contain detailed lists of virtues and nonvirtues as well as a comprehensive repertoire of traditional narratives providing vivid descriptions of role models for good behavior. For higher aspirations, the virtue catalogs were complimented by a sophisticated distinction between intention and acting. This distinction could be used when greater self-control was demanded to counteract a lapse toward a merely superficial abidance by moral principles. At the same time, it also

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offered conflictual leeway for the interpretation and justification of acts that were categorized at first glance as morally reprehensible. The moral principles of Buddhism that became fixed relatively early on—for example, in rules three to five of the Eightfold Noble Path18 or in the enumeration of ten nonvirtues to be avoided19 —applied mostly to humans. These principles existed to serve as guidelines for one’s action and behavior on the way to salvation. Among the different forms of existence in the cycle of rebirths, humans stand out as being exceptionally competent in treading the path to salvation. In Tibetan narrative literature, however, animals play significant roles as actors. In fables, the function of animals is confined to embodying human stereotypes. Fairy tale–like narratives, though, teach that animals should be treated with respect and that they will also show respect in response. Particularly in traditional Buddhist narratives on rebirths, animals not only function as a projection surface for human characteristics but exist as living beings that are indeed attributed the capability of having moral sensitivity and are therefore, like humans, also subordinated to the causality of karma. In essence, and not only for the coding of good/bad, no societal limits were set. The explanations and reflections regarding morality that ­Buddhism provided also referred to the entire society. Nonetheless, the universal claim to validity motivated the Tibetan upper class only to a limited extent when it came to respecting members of the lower class. The strata-oriented assessment of human life in Tibetan compensation law, for example, points to the fact that morality in practice predominantly regulated esteem and disdain within the respective strata boundaries.20 In Tibetan literature, morality is frequently a topic in didactic narratives and Buddhist educational and meditation texts. Morality usually prescribes a pattern of action without problematizing it any further and shows quite plainly, in simple examples, the positive karmic consequences of moral actions or the negative impacts of immoral actions.21 Any real moral dilemma or real “mental distress” is hardly ever addressed since the karmically graduated severity of actions suggests, in principle, that the deeds could be weighed by pure calculation in the case of psychic ­conflict. Should a psychic conflict caused by competing moral standards ever exceptionally be the focus of a narrative, the structure of the wondrous, fairy tale–like plot changes the emphasis. To ease the moral burden on the protagonist, who is believed to act in an exemplary manner, the solution is externalized.

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The tale of the honest horse herder found in the Tales of the Corpse offers such a simply structured example. The Tales of the Corpse belongs to a popular corpus of folktales in Tibet attributed to the Indian Buddhist scholar Nāgārjuna (ca. 150–ca. 250 CE). Although the narrative framework of a demon residing in a corpse and telling stories (Skt. vetala) is of Indian origin, it also served as a vessel for autochthonic narratives in Tibet. To this day, these individual tales enjoy popularity in Tibet and have therefore also been passed on in folk memory. The tale of the honest horse herder can be quickly summed up: A king invites the king of a neighboring kingdom to a drinking party. They sit together and tell each other of the extraordinary wealth they possess. The neighboring king brags about his favorite horse and praises its excellent qualities. Proudly, he also notes his horse herder would never lie even if asked to do so. The host takes this as an occasion for a bet that will put the horse herder to the test. Should he lie, the neighboring king will lose half of his kingdom to the host. If he does not lie, the challenger will have to surrender half of his kingdom to the neighboring king. The challenger then sends his beautiful daughter to the neighboring king’s horse herder. Under a pretext, she urges him to offer her shelter for the night. On the following day, she continues to stay and does not go home. Eventually, the herder falls in love with the king’s daughter. One day, she pretends to be ill, telling him there is only a single remedy that would make her healthy again. After some simulated hesitation and his insisting, she finally mentions the remedy: Only if he kills his king’s favorite horse and feeds her the meat will she make a full recovery. The horse herder comes to the conclusion that the princess’ life ranks higher than that of the horse. With a heavy heart, he is prepared to kill the king’s favorite horse. Depending on the version of the tale, the herder either kills the horse, or the clever horse makes it easy on the herder: being aware of his dilemma, it dies out of sheer compassion without the herder’s help, sparing him the moral dilemma. He prepares the meat and feeds it to her.22 Immediately, she feels better. When the horse herder leaves to look after his horses, she takes the dead horse’s head and goes back home. The horse herder stays behind, baffled. Again, he sees himself in a dilemma. Without the girl, he would hardly be able to prove the truth. Should he, nonetheless, go to the king and tell him the truth, or would he be better off to contrive a plausible story? In order to arrive at a decision, he chooses to simulate the situation beforehand. He constructs a pile of stones, places a hat on top, steps back a bit, and bows to it as though

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he were facing the king. First taking on the king’s role, he says, “Welcome, honest horse herder! How is my horse doing?” Then, he changes roles and answers, “Your Majesty, your horse was stolen.” At that, the pile of stones collapses. The herder builds it up again and repeats the situation. This time, he claims the horse became bogged down and died. The pile of stones collapses a second time. On the third attempt the horse herder tells the truth. This time the pile of stones does not collapse. As a consequence, the horse herder decides to tell the king the truth. The king is delighted and rewards him plentifully. In the end, the horse herder even becomes king himself. So the herder in this story sees himself as being confronted with not one but two dilemmas. The first one revolves around the question of whose life ranks higher, that of the king’s daughter or that of the horse. With either act, the herder would have to face bad karmic results. Here, he makes a clear decision by valuing human life more. The herder’s second internal conflict involves the question of whether he should tell the king the truth or whether it would be wiser to invent a credible story. Evidently, this is the more difficult decision for the herder. He therefore externalizes it, which stylizes morality as an objective force that itself is capable of conveying clarity. The idea of truth as an effective magical force also plays a role as it is a force already known in ancient India and it appears as well in ritual practices of Tibetan Buddhism.23 In conclusion, even in difficult conditions, morality—as an objective authority— offers clear guidelines for action and in the end automatically provides adequate positive consequences, so that a real psychic conflict is fundamentally not possible. The situation in real life, of course, would not be as simple as in folktales and legends. In real life, moral standards sometimes conflict with one another and with issues of practical life. Already Indian Mahāyāna literature on the ethics of the bodhisattva contains reflections on the moral justification of essentially reprehensible acts, such as killing living beings. Ultimately, it is not the act itself that determines the karmic consequences but the basic convictions with which it is performed. For example, should the overall well-being of living beings require killing out of compassion, it might even be prescribed by the bodhisattva vows.24 But such an act would only be justified in extremely exceptional circumstances. It should also never occur for selfish reasons, and that decision is left to every single person. Tradition maintained precedents as clear guidelines for such situations. In Tibetan historiography, the recorded “tyrannicide” of the Tibetan

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king Langdarma, who was styled as the enemy of Buddhist doctrine, is well known. According to Tibetan historiography, not only did the king’s killer, the Buddhist monk Pelgyi Dorje, avert damage to the Buddhist doctrine and living beings, but he also protected the king from the accumulation of further nonvirtuous karma. Precisely this second reason justified the homicide and was never seriously challenged in Tibetan literature.25 Early on, the tale of King Langdarma’s homicide was interpreted in the context of “liberation through killing.”26 Under this heading, the ritualized killing of living beings was a general theme in Mahāyoga tantras of esoteric Buddhism.27 Here too, one’s altruistic, pure attitude counts as a precondition. The goal must be to “liberate” the victim. An anecdote on the encounter of Tilopa and Nāropa, two famous Indian representatives of Buddhist Tantrism in the eleventh century, illustrates this attitude. The anecdote was told in the nineteenth century by Patrul Rinpoché (1808–1887), a well-known representative of the so-called old school of Tibetan Buddhism: When Nāropa met his teacher Tilopa for the first time, Tilopa was sitting next to a tub of fish; some were still alive, whereas others were already dead. Tilopa took one fish at a time, grilled it over the fire, and put it in his mouth while snapping his fingers each time. Patrul comments on this behavior as follows: Tilopa was not killing those fish just because he was hungry and could find nothing else to eat. Fish are completely ignorant of what to do and what not to do, creatures with much bad karma, and Tilopa had the power to free them. By eating their flesh, he was making a link with their consciousness, which he could then transfer to a pure Buddhaland [that is to say: to a place that provides perfect conditions for attaining enlightenment].28

A similar story is passed down in the biography of Guru Chöwang (1212– 1270), a famous yogin and treasure finder of the old school tradition. One day, he was asked by his student to demonstrate his magic skills of killing. Without hesitating, he complied with the request and, by magic, killed a rabbit that happened to come running up. Yet, immediately after that, he “liberated” the consciousness of the rabbit from the cycle of rebirths by attaching a special amulet as well as through the imagined offering of personal religious merits. Guru Chöwang explained to his student that one could, in theory,

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proceed the same way with a human, though human life would be difficult to obtain and therefore especially precious. Thus, magic should not even be applied against an enemy. Instead, one should practice compassion against him. This is the reason why he would not teach anyone this technique.29 Although it would now hardly be possible to prove whether ritual killings of humans actually took place in the context of Tantric Buddhism in India or whether the rituals described were just symbolic magical actions using effigies as substitutes, traditional polemic from Tibet at least suggests that—in the period between the fall of the Tibetan Empire and the reestablishment of monastic Buddhism in the tenth century—ritual killing was practiced by individual groups.30 However, this method for “liberating” (i.e., for attaining Buddhahood), did not find broad acceptance or application in Tibet. After all, Buddhism denounces the killings of living beings as a serious offense. However, such ideas basically provided ideologically conformed justifications for the use of violence against dissidents and enemies. The rhetorics and the imagination of violence survived within Mahāyoga magic-ritual practice and could always be further employed for the demonization of parties in conflict with each other. From its introduction in Tibet, the Buddhist prohibition against killing conflicted with the widespread practice of slaughtering and sacrificing animals. Well into the first half of the ninth century, the last phase of the Tibetan imperial period, animal sacrifices were part of oath-taking in Tibetan legal practice.31 Many rituals of the Tibetan Buddhist old school indicate a previous bloody history. Frequently blood plays a central role as a magical, effective substance or as a sacrificial offering, for instance, in rituals for defense against diseases and epidemic plagues. Such occurrences were viewed as weapons of a specific class of female deities, the so-called mamos.32 To defend themselves from diseases and plagues, people had to subdue and satisfy these deities, for which the blood of black animals was, evidently, especially suitable. For example, a manual for a ritual addressed to the mamos, says that Tibet’s famous yogin Milarepa (1052–1139) reprimanded all those who practiced such rituals, because at his time it was common to slaughter a black sheep for this purpose.33 Sacrifices of meat and blood were part of many rituals of Tantric Buddhism. Meat, blood, and bones were sacrificed as symbols of the three poisons: greed, hate, and delusion.34 How these offerings were procured is not explained in the ritual instructions. The use of such substances in Tantric Buddhist rituals stands in sharp contrast to prominent clerics’ harsh condemnation of animal sacrifice throughout Tibetan history.

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Animal sacrifice, as is common in the context of animistic conceptions of the world, was viewed as barbaric and, therefore, considered a characteristic of communities on the spatial periphery of Tibetan Buddhist society. Clerics who visited these “peripheral areas” claimed credit for discouraging these populations from practicing animal sacrifice.35 As Patrul Rinpoché emphasized, being hungry was not a justification for killing living beings even in Tantric Buddhism. In principle, the prohibition against killing animals posed a fundamental dilemma for Tibetans. Due to the ecology on the plateau with its limited possibilities for the cultivation of field crops, the long and harsh winters, as well as a mostly nomadic way of life in many regions, among other factors, the population consumed a lot of meat, and slaughtering farm animals was part of their everyday routines. Even Buddhism in Tibet could not change that practice. In many Buddhist monasteries, meat was generally accepted as a basic food. A somewhat mechanical understanding of karma seems to have existed (and still exists) within the Tibetan population, which clears the moral sense. As long as one only eats the meat, but does not kill the animals providing the meat, one does not have to worry about possible karmic consequences. Those who professionally slaughtered animals had a bad reputation in society, which is why in urban environments slaughtering was gladly left to Muslims. People who could not escape slaughtering animals themselves felt burdened by heavy guilt. In this case, they made an intensive and timeconsuming effort to compensate their moral guilt by performing virtuous actions and various religious exercises. At the level of “sophisticated semantics,” meat consumption in Tibet was only rarely discussed in detail. Early Buddhism already had condemned the butcher’s trade as a wrong means of subsistence, similar to hunting, fishing, and the art of warfare. At the same time, Buddhism did not generally call for the abandonment of meat consumption.36 Meat consumption was only brought up in some Mahāyāna texts. It is mostly the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra37 and Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra38 that discuss the incompatibility of meat consumption and the bodhisattva vows in more detail. Although these texts had been translated into Tibetan early on and were later integrated into the Tibetan canon, they did not unleash a broad debate among the Tibetan clergy. A few individual authors elaborated on the topic, but without deriving a greater social mission from it. The Buddhist scholar Zhapkar (1781–1851), who came from the nomadic area of Amdo and combined the teachings of the Nyingmapa and Gelukpa in his works

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and practice, is one of these exceptions. In his autobiography, he mentions that already as a child, he was disgusted by the slaughter of sheep. It was not only compassion for the slaughtered animals and the suffering inflicted on them, but also the horrible karmic consequences for the butchers that caused his detestation and his promise to avoid such acts. Instead, he occasionally bought animals to save them from slaughter, a practice considered virtuous in Tibetan Buddhism and that is still prevalent to this day. Later in life, he took vows to abandon meat consumption altogether.39 His efforts to convince others to adopt such an attitude were remarkable. Hence, in his writings he addressed the contradiction between meat consumption and the Buddhist ideal of not killing. Most notably, he thought meat consumption to be incompatible with the bodhisattva vows. In accordance with the ideal of scholarship in Tibetan Buddhism, Zhapkar attached great importance to reinforcing his viewpoint with detailed references to canonic texts, in particular the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra and the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, as well as to statements of prominent Tibetan Buddhist scholars. The arguments in favor of abandoning meat consumption quoted by Zhapkar are not just of a moral nature. Reasons of health are also presented as support. The arguments can be summarized as follows: 1. There is no living being that—during the unending cycle of rebirths—has not been at least once one’s own father and one’s own mother and one’s own sibling, relative, and friend. At some point, they all have proven to us their kindness and their tender care. 2. The sight of butchers, fishermen, and hunters already provokes the fear of death in animals, because they recognize these people by their smell. Under no circumstances should a bodhisattva become a source of horror. 3. Through eating meat and through the panic caused by the meateater among many living beings, someone who has taken the bodhi­ sattva vows discredits the doctrine of the Buddha. 4. The smell of meat does not differ at all from the smell of a corpse. Similarly, the smell of roasted meat does not differ from the smell emanating from cremation. 5. Meat-eaters have rotten, foul-smelling breath. They suffer from restless sleep and nightmares and become the victims of demons. They are prone to rage and fear. They excessively indulge in eating, are unable to digest their food properly, and frequently become ill.

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6. Butchers, hunters, and fishermen will never develop the necessary virtue of compassion for all living beings. 7. Beings that devour one another will be reborn either as meat-eaters, foul-smelling animals or ghosts. 8. Meat consumption destroys the attitude of having great compassion for all living beings. Without such compassion, the decision to attain enlightenment for the good of all beings will remain poor. 9. The consumption of meat and blood causes a strong smell that attracts demons who thrive on smells. Such demons take away the vital energy. 10. All phenomena emerge in interdependence with one another. Such a relationship of mutual interdependence also exists between meateaters and those who kill animals. Meat-eaters are the cause and pretense for animal slaughter. Therefore, the fruit of karma from slaughtering animals will ripen not only on the part of the butchers, but also on the meat-eaters.40 Especially the last point was repeatedly emphasized by Zhapkar.41 Referring to the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, Zhapkar quotes only one instance in which the ­consumption of meat may potentially be acceptable—for example, for medical reasons:42 It must be the meat of animals, which one did not kill oneself, whose killing one did not initiate, and whose killing one did not witness. Yet for a bodhisattva practicing compassion, even the consumption of such meat was prohibited.43 Zhapkar also dismisses as foolish shenanigans the attitude that one could compensate for the karmically negative act of killing by showing compassion after the fact and reciting mantras for the good of the animals.44 Such scruples and their growing reflections by some individuals had obviously not triggered a broad campaign, especially not within circles of the Buddhist clergy. The Tibetan population’s way of living, including that of the monks, was heavily dependent on livestock production.45 When clerics called upon the people to stop consuming meat, the accusation of a double standard was not far away, as the following saying proves: It’s the lama who says: “Don’t eat meat!” It’s the lama who eats the largest piece.46

With a few exceptions, the clergy largely turned a blind eye to the actual moral dilemma of meat consumption. It largely stuck to literal compliance

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with the prohibition against killing and additionally avoided even coming into contact with the impure occupation of slaughtering. Slaughtering within the monastery was banned.47 In regard to hunting, the scruples mentioned above were addressed by Tibetan clerics to a much greater extent. From its very beginning, ­Buddhism had included hunting and fishing as sources of livelihood that were incompatible with the doctrines of the Buddha.48 As a practical consequence in Tibet, for example, hunting was banned in some areas belonging to monasteries. Moreover, decrees were issued by the Ganden Podrang government and previous regional governments that prohibited hunting and fishing in certain locations considered holy, or during certain times. Only wolves were exempt from the ban, because they posed a significant threat to the livestock herds.49 Yet at the same time, the negative moral assessment of hunting stood alongside a high societal appreciation of wild animal products, especially fur and the secretion of the musk deer. On the lists of gifts that were presented to households of reincarnated Tibetan priests on various occasions, the large number of wild animal furs sticks out. Obviously, even among high-ranking priests, the conviction was widespread that only the person who performs the act of killing animals would ultimately have to endure the karmic consequences, whereas those who generated demand for products made of killed animals in the first place would be spared. Similar internal conflicts caused by morality inevitably occurred for Buddhist priests who ascended to positions of political rule. Even more than the religious legitimization of political domination, the combination of spiritual and political authority in one person forced the ruler to act according to norms that did not originate from the realm of political action. Exercising political rule in practice was indeed difficult to reconcile with the Buddhist commandment of nonviolence and monastic vows. This ­contradiction was augmented still further when the ruler was also the incarnation of a supernatural bodhisattva who personified the virtue of compassion and to whom holiness was attributed. The Fifth Dalai Lama had been well aware of this dilemma50 because he was the first Dalai Lama also to hold political power. He saw the answer in appointing a regent, but this was not a real solution since, as its nominal head, the Dalai Lama remained responsible for his government’s politics and continued to participate directly in decisions, such as military campaigns.51 In light of the government’s intimate commitment to Buddhism, Tibetan criminal law is quite astonishing, since—with its draconian corporal

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punishment and cruel methods for finding the truth—it appears not to have been affected at all by Buddhist principles of nonviolence and compassion. Even if the ideal of a good Buddhist ruler52 contradicted all that, violence was obviously indispensable to law enforcement. Therefore, the ethical guidelines for the good and just king written within the context of Indian and Tibetan Mahāyāna Buddhism, on the one hand, describe the ruler as being influenced by compassion for humans and animals. On the other hand, for the sake of public welfare, he has the power to punish wrongdoers with harsh, deterrent sanctions.53 José Cabezón emphasized that the advice for the king drafted by the East Tibetan scholar Mipam, upon the request of a prince of the royal dynasty of Dergé at the end of the nineteenth century, describes the king in Tibetan Buddhist society not as divine and infallible, but as someone who needs to be educated. In this context, Cabezón refers to Foucault’s thesis that, in the case of a king considered to be divine, his word is equivalent to law and that he would, therefore, have to see every crime committed as a personal attack on himself. Still, Cabezón goes one step further by concluding “that the severity of punishment in a monarchical tradition is in direct proportion to the perceived divinity, power, and infallibility of the sovereign.”54 As the last consequence, this would also apply to the Dalai Lama as a sacral ruler. However, such a correlation is not recognizable. Without doubt, the rather cruel punishments of Tibetan criminal law, including the death penalty, were equally legitimate in the East Tibetan kingdom of Dergé, as well as under the rule and within the jurisdiction of the Ganden Podrang and the Dalai Lamas.55 These punishments necessarily placed the Buddhist rulers, and particularly clerics acting as sacral rulers, into moral conflicts, since the commandment of all-embracing compassion even toward “truly evil people”56 always remained a needle in the side of the ruler well into the last phase of Ganden Podrang rule. It served as a reminder of the moral issue posed by harsh methods of law enforcement without the government ultimately being able to solve this contradiction. A similar dilemma occurred with the reinforcement of political power by the Tibetan clergy. In Buddhism, the art of warfare was also not viewed as an honest way of life. Hate toward the enemy was said to lead to rebirth in a painful existence.57 In the case of an unavoidable war, Indian sources of Mahāyāna Buddhism insisted that the motive for the Buddhist ruler should be compassion instead of hate.58 While the Ganden Podrang government, with the support of the Buddhist Geluk school, had taken up the cause of the unity of religion and politics,59 the use of warlike methods

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to  enforce the government’s agenda could not be discounted. To resolve this moral dilemma, the government resorted particularly to the schema of the Indian Rudra myth, as it had been passed on by the old school of Tibetan Buddhism within the framework of Mahāyoga, and represented the leader of the Mongolian Khoshots as an emanation of the wrathful bodhisattva Vajrapāṇi, who had already before appeared in India to subordinate the demonized enemies of Buddhism.60 Even if sophisticated semantics tended mainly to determine the moral severity of an action based on the underlying mental attitude and not on the purely mechanical effect of the action, the morality of society seems to have been widely unaffected by such reflections. Here, and apparently also in large circles of the clergy, a strictly mechanical understanding predominated. Frequently, it was less the damage and suffering inflicted on other beings than the expected negative consequences of the offender’s actions that were given priority, be it an accumulation of negative karma, diseases, or any other misfortune. To counteract such negative ramifications, religion offered not just a repertoire of religious exercises and prayers, but also magical activities. By doing so, religion did not just consolidate the mechanical understanding of morality: it even viewed the negative features of actions as being almost of substantial nature, from which people were able to redeem themselves through appropriate ways.

Monastic Discipline The institution of monkhood is essential for Buddhism. Except for the socalled dark era of Tibetan history between the mid-ninth and the end of the tenth century, monasticism was the dominant pillar of Buddhism in society. Already at the beginning of Buddhism, the “community” of monks (Skt. saṃgha) along with the Buddha himself and his doctrine (Skt. dharma) constituted the so-called Three Jewels. In principle, it created not only a space for rigorous adherence to the rules of a way of life that was entirely oriented toward the spiritual goal of salvation; the saṃgha also developed further into a place of Buddhist scholarship, a guardian of tradition, a center of religious practice also for the general population, and a provider of various religious services. With the new Buddhist schools emerging from the end of the tenth century on (i.e., at the beginning of the later spread of Buddhism in Tibet), monkhood was reestablished in Tibet. The initiative and support for monk communities mostly stemmed from the West Tibetan kings. In monastic

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studies, the main focus was again on the rational side of Buddhism. This went hand in hand with a new appreciation of the practice of gradual progression toward enlightenment as well as a recentering to the strict moral rules of monastic life. This development culminated in the first half of the fifteenth century with the foundation of significant monasteries in Central Tibet. These monasteries can be traced back to the activities of the reformer Tsongkhapa (1357–1419) and became the origin of today’s most prominent school of Tibetan Buddhism. Its supporters are called Gelukpa, “those who follow the system of virtues,” or Gedenpa, “the virtuous.” The strict morality of monasticism included celibacy, which was rather difficult to bring in line with some practices of esoteric Buddhism. Nonetheless, even the Gelukpa did not entirely exclude esoteric Buddhism from their curriculum and practice. The Mahāyoga excesses associated with the language of ritual killing had already been stopped in 990 by the West Tibetan King Yeshe Ö (947‒1024), who issued a decree against these practices.61 In the course of the second dissemination of Buddhism in Tibet, these disappeared from Buddhist practice. The yoga practice called “(sexual) union” (Tib. sbyor ba), in which the yogin exercises with a real female partner, was also difficult to reconcile with a monk’s rules of conduct. While such practices are performed by members of the old school of Tibetan Buddhism to the present day,62 in the Geluk school, sexualized forms of Vajrayāna Buddhism “mostly” remained limited to the language and meditative visualizations in the “highest yoga” (anuttarayoga) and to pictorial representations of the sexual union of male and female meditation deities that symbolize the ­connection between method and wisdom.63 In addition, practicing the “highest yoga” was also reserved only for a narrow circle of advanced adepts. One must say “mostly” though since the Anuttarayoga tantras, which were readily passed on by the Geluk school, principally do not exclude the possibility of a real female yoga partner in order to arouse sexual desire.64 The comprehensive monastic rules for the correct way of life and harmonious cohabitation of the monks were summed up early in the Vinayapiṭaka, or Basket of Discipline. Different traditions evolved, one of which eventually became the foundation for monastic life in Tibet. In addition to these overall binding monastic rules, special regulations ­concerning the adherence to monastic discipline were drawn up individually for each and every monastery all over Tibet. These extensive bodies of rules regulated the visits of laypeople and their behavior in the monastery and its vicinity, the monks’ way of living, their relationship to laypeople,

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the gifts offered, and conflicts within monastic communities, though to a much lesser degree conflicts between the monastic communities of different Buddhist schools. Settling a dispute violently or arguing, in particular vis-à-vis supervisors charged with maintaining discipline or chant masters, as well as stirring up discord among the monks, was punished.65 The monastic communities of the various Buddhist schools, which due to the large numbers of monasteries and monks shaped premodern Tibetan Buddhist society to a great extent, can be described in terms of systems theory as corporations: As communities, in contrast to organiza­ tions66 evolving most notably in functionally differentiated societies, they affect the entire person, not “only parts of his behaviors, only one role among others.”67 Conflicts based on irreconcilable expectations of different roles taken on by the same person (interrole conflicts) are therefore unlikely. At best, they may occur in exceptional circumstances, for instance, if a monk is active outside his monastic community and takes on additional roles, for instance, simultaneously functioning as a political ruler or traveling on duty to trade or to collect donations for his monastery. Problems arose if in these situations monks lined their own pockets or even sold the donated gifts for profit—evidently not an uncommon practice that was sometimes denounced in Tibetan sources.68 The abuse of material contributions for religious purposes was given a special term (Tib. dkor sgrib); it was viewed as being particularly morally reprehensible and as having grave consequences for one’s karma. Mighty and scary deities were installed for the protection of such donations.69 Folktales illustrating Buddhist ethics also include drastic descriptions of the karmic consequences of such immoral actions. In the well-known Tibetan collection of Buddhist narratives Sutra of the Wise and the Foolish, the Buddha tells his disciples of a monk who stole a donation that was meant for the monastic community and, as a consequence, he was reborn as a newt in a disgusting cesspool.70 Cases where different expectations are raised in relation to the same role are a different matter: the question as to which behavior is expected from a monk generally or in a unique situation may quickly lead to an intrapersonal conflict. The clergy demanded the leadership of Tibetan Buddhist society for itself because, from its viewpoint, the welfare of the country and its residents and the creation of favorable preconditions for treading the Buddhist path to enlightenment were dependent on the clergy’s religious services. These included the possibilities for religious worship and the accumulation

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of religious merit. Even foreign rulers, such as the Manchu emperors of the Qing Dynasty in China, concurred with that outlook when expanding their supremacy over Tibet. In turn, the rulers expected the clergy, and especially its leading representatives, to serve as role models for a morally correct way of life. P What Luhmann generally stated about premodern cultures also applies to Tibetan Buddhist society; he wrote that “the worldly order is extensively understood in legal/moral terms: being itself is treated according to merit and guilt, reward and punishment, and conversely, the moral order at the same time appears as a rule for long-term successful action; it is not only a good thing, but it is also advisable to adhere to it.”71 Morality was supported by the Buddhist religion, which, as a result, did not just confirm its universal legitimacy but also explained the general hierarchical order as a karmic consequence of morally valued actions and intended acts. Thus, it contributed to the stabilization of social stratification. In particular Gelukpa monasticism, which was committed to strict monastic rules, was assigned a role model function in terms of the morally correct conduct. Public misbehavior, as well as the moral relativism practiced by esoteric Buddhism—such as the sexual yoga practices found in the Mahāyoga system of the old school of Buddhism, which violated social norms, or the public behavior of the “mad” yogins of the Kagyü school72— jeopardized common order. Therefore, the Qing emperors disapproved of both. At times, in fact, the emperor harbored a suspicion that moral mis­ behavior was a result of moral relativism.73 In Tibetan Buddhist society—including broad circles of the clergy—a mechanical understanding of morality prevailed, according to which each action was associated with clearly identifiable consequences, and which assessed the moral quality of actions mostly through their effects. In case different moral norms were incompatible, simply structured narratives insinuated that a clear evaluation, which virtually excluded psychic conflicts, could be possible. Since such incompatibilities could not be excluded in real life—and general human weakness had to be considered—Tibetan Buddhism offered its worshippers all kinds of ways out and compensations through a wide range of religious exercises and services. Such simple solutions were not acceptable on the level of cultivated semantics. Here, at best, sophisticated Buddhist moral reflections offered relief. On the one hand, they posed greater demands to an individual’s self-control by determining

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that the moral weight of action should not be based just on the effects of action, but on the intention and the underlying attitude. In other words, they demanded an internalization of moral expectations. On the other hand, they also opened up a conflictual scope for more sophisticated excuses, by which actions classified at first sight as morally reprehensible could be justified.74

CHAPTER 8

Ritual

Due to his merit and the power of the protector deities that support him, he always wears the armor of protection. Armed with the weapons of fierce spells and curses, the lion among men is victorious over all lands. —Jamgön Mipam (1846–1912), The Just King

What significance did religious-magical rituals have for the solution of social conflicts in the Tibetan-Buddhist society? In Tibetan Buddhist literature, there are numerous manuals on how to perform rituals for all purposes, including settling different types of ­conflict. Luhmann attributed the excessive use of rituals more to early stages of societal development and conversely viewed dogmatics as “successor institutions for rituals at a higher level” in that it allows for a partial deritualization of religion.1 In rituals, the implied risk of negation is ­controlled through “deverbalization, rhythmitization, body involvement, and stereotyping,” while dogmatics controls this risk through “negation bans which are preferably explained but at least secured in the corpus of dogmatics by consistency and coherence.”2 According to Luhmann, in the early stages of societal development, the function of religion to confront the observable world with an unobservable one and treat the two as a unity was not yet “conveyed through risky interpretative achievements.” Instead, rituals alone carried religion. They were provided for “the tabooing of weak points in social order, of transitions, of hybridizations, of the unclassifiable, and of anomalies.”3 Even if dogmatics is assigned great importance in Tibetan Buddhism, one cannot assert that its unfolding went hand in hand with a noteworthy 134

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deritualization of the religious system. While there are gradual differences between the various schools in this respect, rituals played a major role in all schools. Essentially, there are two reasons for this: first, the great importance that Buddhism ascribes to practical religious training programs; second, the dependence on religious services that are often oriented toward everyday life and the worldly needs of the population. Even if rituals may point to older forms of religious communication, they and their perception-based performance remain essential for highly differentiated religious systems: Religion, like art, lives so far as it is performed, i.e., in so far as its rituals are “going concerns.” If you wish to spay or geld religion, first remove its rituals, its generative and regenerative processes. For religion is not a cognitive system, a set of dogmas, alone, it is meaningful experience and experienced meaning.4

Therefore, in addition to scholarship and meditation techniques, all schools of Tibetan Buddhism also preserve an extensive ritual practice. This is, above all, a technique that has to be learned and requires precision in its performance. As techniques, rituals may principally serve different purposes and fulfill various functions.5 The rituals of Tibetan Buddhism are comprised of a comprehensive, yet limited repertoire of constantly recurring basic elements, which can be varied and modified according to purpose and tradition. To a large extent, they are not just addressed to monks. Laypeople may also commission the performance of rituals; they then bear the cost by providing the required substances and donating tea and a small amount of money to the participating monks. In this way, rituals represent a vital element in expanding Buddhism from a monastic religion to a religion for society at large. Just like the fundamental religious doctrines and the instructions for meditation, the instructions for performing rituals are also passed on in writing. The significance that this type of text is accorded varies in the respective corpus of each individual Buddhist school. The new and the old schools differ most clearly from one another in this respect. Especially in the so-called treasure literature of the old school (i.e., texts that are said to have been written in a glorified past and hidden for the good of later generations), the instructions for performing rituals relevant to everyday life play a significant role. Corresponding to a schema already developed in the

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Indian Mahāyoga tantras,6 the magic-ritual performances are usually categorized into four classes. First, there are performances to pacify malevolent ghosts, illnesses, human and animal epidemics, black magic, and evils of all kinds. Second are those for the augmentation and prosperity of assets, harvest, livestock, reputation, wisdom, vital energy, offspring, religious merits, etc. Third are those for achieving a range of power and control over people, demons, food, assets, territories, and resources of all kinds. Fourth are those for destroying enemies and malevolent demons. In the large collection of treasure texts compiled in the nineteenth century, these four kinds of performances are preceded by yet another class, namely preventative action for protection from hail, frost, poison, illnesses, enemies, thieves and robbers, weapons, demons, etc.7 Of course, the treasure literature also ­contains instructions for achieving the highest form of enlightenment, but instructions for everyday life preponderate. All these practices are also explained as a contribution to creating favorable conditions for treading the path of salvation. However, their concrete objectives highlight how much the old school of Tibetan Buddhism saw its social mission predominantly in mitigating the insecurity and jeopardy of everyday life, a task that could not be fulfilled by highly complex interpretations.8 In this respect, the old school of Tibetan Buddhism distinctly sets itself apart from the new schools, though indicating great closeness to the Tibetan Bön religion. The Bönpo, too, attach great value to ritual practices that serve pragmatic goals. Rituals are structures that restrict the possibility of communication and are oriented toward repeatability. For the observer, rituals are a paradox: on the one hand, they are about communication, namely, ceremonial and essential communication;9 while on the other hand, Luhmann emphasizes “that ritual is not performed as communication at all.” He, therefore, speaks of “communication-avoidance communication.”10 In systems theory, communication is conceived as a synthesis of three selections. A  “sender” chooses some information that is not found in the “environment” but information that is only produced by isolating it from a horizon of meaning, thus distinguishing it from everything else. To pass on the information, the “sender” must give it a form, choosing a specific behavior. Many possibilities are available for this. The third selection is chosen by the “recipient” by observing something that he understands to be a transmission of information (i.e., an utterance). Understanding—from the perspective of systems theory—means nothing more than that the “recipient” realizes the difference between the utterance and the information, thereby

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ascribing meaning to the utterance regardless of whether or not the “recipient” understands the “sender’s” intention correctly. In that case, communication exists, and its continuation is possible. According to Luhmann, the ritual “does not differentiate between utterance and information but provides information only about itself and correctness of performance.”11 Actions, their sequence, and the language used are schematized in a ritual. In this way, rituals are available laid out in a fixed form and, if needed, can be performed unreflected and always in the same fashion. Thus, the risks and uncertainties inherent in each communication are controlled, and fears and doubts are suppressed.12 Systems theory sharply distinguishes between psychic systems and social systems. Both systems are operationally closed, yet “structurally coupled”—in other words, mutually dependent upon one another. Both operate in their own way: psychic systems think, while social systems communicate. No information exchange takes place between the various psychic systems. In communication, a human being is simply addressed as a communicative point of reference. Luhmann uses the term “person” for this concept.13 Nevertheless, social systems require psychic systems in that they can only be stimulated by consciousness.14 Just as the organism affects the consciousness without thinking itself, the consciousness affects the social system without communicating itself.15 If this description is applied to Tibetan Buddhist ritual, one has on the psychic level the ritual priest’s precisely prescribed imagination sequences, whereas on the social level communication takes place in the form of gestures, mimicked expressions, recitations, and speech acts that are similarly precisely predetermined. As described, however, communication requires not just a “sender” but also at least one “recipient” who is also coupled to a psychic system. From the observer’s perspective, such a “recipient” cannot be discerned. Indeed, during the performance of a Tibetan Buddhist ritual, other “persons” beside the ritual priest are usually also present, but the ritual is not addressed to them. Furthermore, there are rituals that downright require secret performance in order to be effective.16 Most rituals appeal to “persons” who are invisible except in the imagination: deities, spirits, and the deceased. According to Tibetan Buddhism, they do not belong to a transcendent world but to this world. “Magic relies on the simple distinction between visible and invisible things in the same world. It expresses the richness of nature, which extends beyond the visible.”17 Especially the presence of spirits is to always be expected. Although invisible, they interact

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with humans and show their goodwill or their wrath, which is why they are particularly the subject of rituals: they need to be pacified, subordinated, or even destroyed. Thus, “magic offers the possibility of parallelizing familiar causalities in the unfamiliar through practices that are in turn available as familiar.”18 As deities and spirits are part of the same world, they are also subject to the cycle of death and rebirth and belong to the illusionary world of saṃsāra. According to Buddhist views, they are therefore at most subtly distinguished from the living beings of the visible world. From the perspective of absolute reality, both are nonexistent but merely a construct of the discerning consciousness. Ritual priests take advantage of this play of consciousness. They themselves are not the “persons” who “communicate” with the deities and spirits. Instead, they evoke themselves as powerful deities or the cultural hero and magician Padmasambhava, in order to equip themselves with their power to regulate “conflicts” with personified natural forces. Thereby they are able to cure illness in people and livestock; protect crops from the threat of hail and frost; reduce the danger of lightning, earthquakes, and flooding; and even resolve disputes in the community. In Tibetan Buddhist society, all these phenomena could be conceived as a communicated “no” of a “person” and therefore provoke follow-up ­communications. In Tibetan Buddhist society, religion claims to have power over the anthropomorphized natural forces, which makes it possible to subject them to one’s own will. These arbitrary, erratic, vulnerable, and easily manipulated actors who “symbolize the way human life is exposed to an environment with uncontrollable effects,” can be attributed, according to Luhmann, to archaic forms of religion.19 However, Buddhism in Tibet had not simply eliminated animism or downgraded it to a mere folk belief; it had coherently integrated it into its own religious system. It belongs to the domain of Tibetan Buddhism that Geoffrey Samuel has called “the pragmatic orientation of Buddhism.”20 Animism does not contradict karma, the moral law of causality. “Only because human behavior is bad and only because humans have a corresponding karma, deities and demons can bring people crop damage, illness and epidemics, etc.”21 Thus, natural phenomena and their impact on the community are ultimately read—just like events in history and society—as a sign of the virtuous behavior of living beings or their moral decline. “The ritual in Tibetan Buddhism includes this level of interpretation by, for instance, embracing rites of purification and confession of sins, taking refuge and dedication of merit.”22

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In Tibet, severe and protracted conflicts were considered indices signifying that the entire social system—comprising the world of the visible and the invisible—is disturbed. The Tibetan term trukpa (’ khrug pa) refers to disorder of all kinds—for example, upheaval, turmoil, dispute, and war as well as shocks and disturbances in the people’s natural environment. Such phenomena were usually attributed to the negative influence of a multitude of local deities, demons, and spirits of the invisible world. Tibetan ­Buddhism offered two profoundly different possibilities to respond to this influence. It is recommended to those who have chosen the bodhisattva’s path to view demons and their influence—and adverse circumstances in general—as a stimulus to practice the Buddhist doctrine and ultimately as something overall positive.23 Alongside this, Tibetan Buddhism also offers an abundance of magic-ritual possibilities to subordinate and even exterminate demons. This option was aimed not just at yogins wanting to eliminate disturbing influences in their meditative practice but also at the lay population, which saw itself as being exposed to the manifold influences of local ghosts and demons. At first sight, the community of these entities appears to be unmanageably vast. Even if each of these beings has a different origin that is more or less archaic, something like a taxonomy developed that classified the numerous local deities and spirits into different categories and subcategories. What connects the entities of a category in each case were their stories of origin, the features of their external appearance, and specifics of their scope and mode of action. For instance, there is a large group of animalheaded si (sri) demons, for which a common story of origin is told.24 The si demons are, again, categorized into numerous subgroups; among those were the si for weapons, the si for upheaval, and the si for disasters and catastrophes.25 Curbing them requires the performance of very specific rituals. The hallmarks of the specific demon’s activity are described in the form of a prophecy at the beginning of the ritual instructions that were written specially to vanquish these demons: In the age of decline, many previously unknown kinds of weapons spread. As a result, people’s characters change, and they get a kick out of upheaval. Finally, extreme catastrophes happen to oneself and others, to everyone. At [all] periods of time, whether years, months, days, or [different] times of the day, the nasty si rise up again and again. Above, the deities quarrel; in the middle, people quarrel; and below, the

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lu quarrel.26 At the moment when all countries are close to being depopulated, those who have their mind oriented toward enlightenment and taken the Tantric vows shall put forth an effort to have a Tantrist apply these [ritual] activities for those times in which the si [responsible] for weapons, upheavals, and catastrophes spread!27

Religious-magic rituals offer the opportunity to exert influence on the world of the invisible—the world of spirits and demons. The question as to why rituals are always effective is answered by narratives, which in their schema follow the Indian myth of Rudra’s subordination by Vajrapāṇi.28 Numerous stories tell of how Padmasambhava or other saints of the tradition made Tibet accessible for Buddhism by subduing the country’s deities and spirits and committing them by oath to be guardians of the religion.29 The ritual instructions explicitly make reference to these narratives. In the colophon of the abovementioned ritual instruction, it says: Formerly, in Nepal, the harm bringer Pungjé nakpo together with his retinue, entered into humans. [As a result,] they produced 1,008 different kinds of weapons. For three years, months-long quarrels broke out. The entire country was afflicted by decline. At the time, the master Vasudhara composed this [instruction] by which the power of weapons was broken, the disputes dried up like water, and the entire country attained happiness just like the realm of the gods.30

The evidence of a precedent makes considering alternative solutions superfluous. Rituals are effective because they functioned well in the past and are available as a firmly established tool for the future. According to Victor Turner, social conflicts take place in a “social drama” that can be divided into four phases: first, the breach of social life ruled by norms; second, a resulting crisis that threatens to divide the ­community; third, ritualized action of the legal, religious, and military kind to cope with the crisis; and fourth, conflict settlement or acknowledgment of the violation.31 This schema mostly applies to how conflicts are dealt with in the context of Tibetan rituals. Here, as well, a violation of norms is assumed to be the origin of the conflict. Yet the system “society” involves the socialized forces of nature; they are the ones irritated by the disturbance of order and cause illness and disaster as a reaction to it. A ritual represents a means for reestablishing order. The order itself is presented

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as primarily hierarchical, whereby a violation against a prevailing order and the conflict arising thereof are not assessed negatively in all cases. Even the introduction of Buddhism in Tibet represented a break with the hitherto effective order that needed to be dealt with ritually.32 In Tibetan Buddhism, the supply of rituals for coping with crises of all kinds is considerable. Crises are usually conceived as a communicated “no” that was then attributed to a “person.”33 Common to all rituals is that they contain at their core an evocation of Padmasambhava or a powerful deity around which preparative and concluding ritual performances were grouped. All sorts of non-Buddhist practices may have been incorporated into Tibetan rituals—as seems likely, for instance, in the case of the to (gto) rituals performed to defend against evil34 —but their magical core is based on the philosophy of emptiness developed in Mahāyāna Buddhism. If the yogin understands and experiences the whole world of appearances as empty and if he controls the process of generating the appearances out of the emptiness he has the possibility of the production, control and practice of divine powers. The key point for this is the seed syllable of the deity in which all its power is concentrated. Visualisation and recitation of this mantra are therefore able to arouse this power. Instead of the ordinary body, the ordinary speech, the ordinary mind of the yogin now body, speech and mind of the deity are acting.35

It is this tight interlocking of Buddhist philosophy and meditation practice with magical beliefs that is characteristic for the pragmatic, “worldly related” side of Tibetan Buddhism. Not only diseases and natural catastrophes can be attributed to anthropomorphic agents in nature. If, for example, there are conflicts in monastic communities36 or there is an impending war, the world of the invisible is always involved. How such involvement was conceived is described by the former minister of the Tibetan exile government, Donga Tendzin, in his memoirs.37 In 1947, his father had been appointed ­commander of the bodyguard of the newly posted governor-general for East Tibet. Therefore, the entire family, with its staff, moved to the East Tibetan town of Chamdo. In October 1950, a year after the Chinese ­Communist Party had taken power, their troops invaded East Tibet. In Chamdo, the Chinese troops’ advance made itself known not just in the news or all sorts of rumors but also through a war of deities. This is at least

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how the people in Chamdo interpreted the massive earthquake that shook the town at the end of August 1950. The quake had lasted for about fifteen minutes and was followed by several weaker aftershocks. About twenty minutes after the earthquake, a boom like cannon fire resonated from one of the surrounding mountains, which was answered from the opposite side with “shelling” that sounded like Tibetan cannons and guns. The deities fought with each other this way for about five minutes, as Donga Tendzin recalls in his memoirs. Veterans were said to have immediately remembered similar events happening in the past. In 1909, when the Tibetans in East Tibet fought against Zhao Erfeng’s soldiers, a gun battle had taken place as well between the Tibetan guardian deities and the Chinese demons. The fact that the parallel world of the invisible interacts with the world of the visible opens up magic-ritual opportunities for exerting influence. Especially the treasure literature of the old school of Tibetan Buddhism contains many ritual instructions for averting war and defending against hostile powers. For example, the treasure-finder Zhikpo Lingpa (1584– 1643), who lived in Central Tibet during a time of warlike unrest, “recovered” an entire cycle of instructions with twenty-five different methods to defend against war.38 According to a prophecy quoted in one of the texts, these practices were supposed to be particularly necessary during the time beginning five hundred years after the Buddha’s death, in which Tibet was beset by the army of a Turkic group.39 This reference explains dispute and conflict as contingent upon the cosmological course of time. Accordingly, Buddhism and its dissemination are also embedded in the great cycle of arising and passing, as is characteristic of Indian cosmology. Analogous to this belief, Mahāyāna Buddhism developed the idea that the Buddhist doctrine would also experience a gradual decline over the course of three large intervals before a new buddha would appear in a new era and set the wheels of doctrine in motion again. It was only in the first great period lasting five hundred years after the Buddha’s death that sentient beings would have all three options, namely, to encounter the Buddhist teachings, to practice them, and to achieve enlightenment. Thereafter the gradual decline of ­Buddhist teachings and practice would begin. The conviction of living in such a time of decline was underpinned by the perception of living in an era of dispute. All these ideas had already been developed in India long before Buddhism came to Tibet and were adopted in Tibet without modifying the dates. They then surfaced as topoi in Tibetan Buddhist texts, above all, in many texts belonging to Tibetan treasure literature.

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The methods of defending against war mentioned in Zhikpo Lingpa’s instructions cover a range of means: supplication prayers to various addressees via the magically effective recitation of special mantras; the application of magically effective substances; influencing and controlling the elements; the evocation of certain, particularly powerful guardian deities; the magical capture of attacking military troops; the ritual sealing of mountains and valleys leading to Tibet; hiding the country from the enemy by installing magically effective boundary markers; the installation of ghost traps; burning the hostile warlord’s effigy in fire offerings; and hurling sacrificial cakes as weapons against the enemies. For Tibetan rituals, the correct power of imagination that allows people to have control over the invisible parallel world and so exert the desired influence on events in the visible world is crucial. A more detailed look at the abovementioned ritual for defending against war by hurling sacrificial cakes,40 for example, reveals that the ritual instruction primarily consists of directions for correct imagination: The ritual priest imagines the sacrificial cakes as weapons for the personal guardian deity whom he evokes when performing the ritual. He pictures the enemies’ guardian deities sitting in a dungeon. By flinging the sacrificial cakes at them, the priest then destroys their entire power and strength. Some become stiff and immobile, others faint; none is capable of moving forward or backward. His own guardian spirits eat their flesh, drink their blood, devour their hearts, or tie up their legs and hands. It is said that if one has conquered the guardian spirits of one’s enemies in this way, the subsequent fight against these human enemies will be free of obstruction. An important method of defending against dangers was hiding magically potent drawings that had been inscribed with magic formulas and invocations. For example, the drawing of a penis contains, besides the mantra symbols, a written demand to the deity Mutek Gulang Nakpo to throw the violence of hostile armies back upon them.41 In Tibet’s society, the Tantrists of the old school were credited with having special expertise in performing magic rituals for primarily worldly purposes. Even the followers of the other Buddhist schools did not challenge their effectiveness. Thus, the rituals for defending against war were not considered to be of any lesser significance than military actions. Priests and rulers hardly differed in this conviction. Already in the thirteenth century, Mongolian rulers allegedly trusted Tibetan priests’ magical skills.42 When a large army of Khoshots turned up unexpectedly in Central Tibet in 1635, the performance of such rituals was among the first reactions of

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Magic drawing to defend against enemy armies. Block print from the text collection Rin chen gter mdzod.

the Tibetan priests. The Tantrists of the old school were said to have ­compelled frightening deities into their service, who inflicted the M ­ ongolian military commander with a disease that made him lose his sanity.43 Moreover, in the seventeenth century, when supporters of the Geluk school were fighting for political power and religious-political supremacy in Tibet and under the Mongols, the Fifth Dalai Lama also tried to influence the military action through the performance of magic rituals.44 The basis for such conduct is always the assumption that the world of the invisible interacts with the world of the visible and that the imagination makes it possible to influence this interaction. Therefore, this religious-magic worldview generally accepted in Tibetan Buddhist society also affects the regulation of all possible conflicts: military and legal conflicts as well as more or less transient conflictual episodes in interaction systems such as family, neighborhood, or monk community. For example, a concise ritual, at the core of which is the self-evocation of a particular form of Mañjuśrī, the bodhi­ sattva of wisdom, is supposed to guarantee superiority in debates and c­ ontests of eloquence.45 Another ritual, in which one also evokes oneself as the bodhi­ sattva Mañjuśrī, helps one to gain power over others, their lives, their religious achievements, their material assets, their attractive physical appearance, their strengths, and their magical skills. In this, one also imagines that mantra syllables visualized at different places on one’s body emanate something resembling iron hooks, which forcefully bring about all these things.46

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Magic drawing to defeat enemies. Block print from the text collection Rin chen gter mdzod.

Magically potent, often circular drawings inscribed with mantra syllables and evocations serve a similar purpose.47 The two circular illustrations are framed by a frog lying on its back. In addition to mantra syllables with magic properties, they each display the incantation: “May I be victorious over all enemies!” On one of the illustrations, the incantation is written with syllables in inverted order. These illustrations are supposed to be drawn, respectively, on a black and on a white flat river stone, which one had found on the opposite banks of a river. Below the image of a bound enemy, the request “May all enemies and obstructors who are hostile to me be conquered!” should be written along with mantra syllables. This drawing is placed between the two river stones, which are then tied together with a strand of hair from a widow and threads in five colors. During the subsequent meditation, the stones should be pressed under one’s left knee. This is followed by the self-evocation as the guardian deity and the exactly prescribed imagined actions and mantra recitation. Yet another example is a small image of an enemy that should be affixed to an arrowhead. At the location of his heart one marks the enemy’s ancestry and name, adding curses and demands to the wrathful deity at the center of this practice: “Life, religious merits, glory and the assets of the enemy and his entire entourage, may they all perish! Destroy the hostile troops! Send them back! Tie them up! Smash them! May the power of all malicious thought dry up!”48 The violence applied as part of the ritual is—at least since the later spread of Buddhism in Tibet—not physical violence; instead it is limited to language and imagination, which is attributed magical force in the ritual.49 Nonetheless, the belief in effectively exerting violence in this way was widespread in Tibet and not bound to the followers of any particular Buddhist school. In the imagination, the performance of violence is envisioned

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Magic drawing for the destruction of enemies. Block print from the text collection Rin chen gter mdzod.

realistically and in detail. Additionally, the relevant literature provides numerous deities whose fearsome appearance and names often already indicate their purpose. To kill an enemy, one could, for instance, make use of the black “murder goddess,” also referred to as the “black slaughterwoman.” She is said to be a non-Buddhist goddess who dwells in a gruesome cemetery from which, during the day, the smoke of cremations veil heaven and earth, and at night, the blazing flames of the pyre are seen. She lives on meat and blood and kills seven people every day. The location for performing the ritual to deploy this goddess to kill an enemy had to be carefully selected: for instance, a cave resembling a vagina, or a cemetery overgrown by a thicket, similar to the jungle on the southern face of the Himalayas, or a very lonely place. The ritual should also be performed in a wrathful state of mind. Meat and blood are provided as a sacrificial offering to the goddess. The enemy is represented by a drawing, on which the names of the enemy and his family are inscribed on the location of the heart. For the actual ritual, one visualizes oneself as one’s own guardian deity. It is only this way that one is thought to have enough power to incite the goddess to perform her murderous act. One imagines that the black murder goddess can kill the enemy unhampered. Magic formulas are recited, accompanied by the repeated demand, “Kill!” Success is guaranteed if this is done for seven days: the enemy suddenly spits blood and dies. To conclude the ritual, the enemy’s effigy is burned.50 The demons and enemies that are magically forced into an effigy can be annihilated in different ways. In this regard, there are no limits to the power of imagination. They can be cooked, fried, roasted,51 or fed to dogs.52 Even in this most radical form of magic-ritual performance, ultimately, conflict resolution is sought in the physical extinction of the opponent.

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Magic-ritual methods were deployed not only to emerge as the winner of a dispute but also to turn discord into harmony.53 However, the exact opposite was also an option: ritual performances aimed at fomenting strife—even though such an act was expressly denounced as one of the classic ten nonvirtues in Buddhist doctrine.54 The intention could be of a very profane nature; for example, one drew a particular circular amulet on paper and then hid it under the threshold of a house to cause discord between the married couple of the house.55 Similar practices could cause the king and the minister to have a falling out or bring about dissention between a spiritual teacher and his student.56 Belief in the magic power of amulets was generally widespread. Such an amulet, drawn on paper, was even the crucial corpus delicti in a legal case at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century, in which a former prime minister of the Tibetan government had been accused of attempting to assassinate the Thirteenth Dalai Lama with the help of malicious deities.57 In Tibetan Buddhist society, the perception prevailed that the natural environment and the elements—earth, water, fire, and air—exert influence on humans: “The world, the external receptacle, exerts influence on what ‘is contained in the receptacle,’ namely, on all living beings.”58 Tibetan geomancy, therefore, offers a rich catalog of landscape formations with very concrete information about their respective impacts on people when buildings are erected there. If such natural advice is ignored, when constructing a dwelling, for example, there is a risk of dispute within the family or the larger community. To give an example: regarding the shape of the sky when seen from the valley floor, it is said that “if it looks like a broken egg, the residents in the area quarrel; if it looks like the point of a lance, [the residents] are hostile due to gossip; if it looks like a torn sleeve, the relatives quarrel.”59 Landscape information may also indicate the residences and paths of spirits and local deities. If at all possible, no building should be erected in such a place.60 Also, extreme caution must be taken when digging into the earth. The ground is inhabited by sadak, the “spirits of the earth,” of which Toché is the most famous. During the year, he changes his position in the earth.61 If one digs into his back, the ritual priest loses his life. If one digs into his head, the family dies. Only by digging into his belly is one’s goal achieved.62 To build a temple, a palace, or a fort, elaborate and complicated ritual precautions are necessary, which can only be performed by experts.63 The zhidak, “lords of the ground,” or the yüllha, “territorial deities,” are similar to the sadak. Sometimes, the terms zhidak and yüllha are used

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synonymously; sometimes, they are distinguished and the yüllha are categorized higher in the deities’ hierarchy.64 Frequently, these local deities are identified with the famous mountains of a region. They are responsible for the fertility and well-being of a narrowly defined region and should be capable of abating illness, famine, unrest, and conflict in the region. Usually, they are said to be already committed by oath as guardians of Buddhism and taken into its service, yet they still demand regular attention in the form of offerings. If the latter fails to materialize, the deities become agitated and threaten to revoke their loyalty.65 With particular rituals, a “fortress” can be built for the zhidak so that they stay in the region, ensuring its prosperity. In the treasure literature of the old school, instructions for the performance of such rituals with which local deities can be made subservient are generally attributed to Padmasambhava, who is said to have left them specifically in order to keep Tibet free of all kinds of chaos and agitation.66 The planet deities are equally influential and equally ambivalent in their characters. Their leader is the frightening Rāhula, a deity of Indian origin.67 So that he fulfills his protective function, he must be regularly satisfied with sacrificial offerings. With this, he can also be bound to the ritual priest and asked to perform destructive acts. This all happens while the ritual priest evokes himself as a specific form of Padmasambhava. Both sides make a deal. In a ritual called Complete victory over all enemies or Swirling sea of blood, the ritual priest recites the words, “If I do not violate my obligations, you, too, do not violate yours! We both do not wish to violate our obligations.” The text promises that he who does violate his obligation will be doomed to the bottom level of hell. The services expected by Rāhula can then be formulated very directly: “Kill the abhorrent enemies! Discipline the obstructors who cause harm! Throw all adverse conditions and obstructions back [onto their originators]!”68 P Numerous examples of magical rituals of this kind are described among the Tibetan Buddhist ritual manuals. Their significance, magnitude, and variety clearly testify that the ritual heritage of Indian tantras had fallen on fertile ground in Tibet. This made it possible to integrate the Tibetans’ animist worldview, and their actions that accordingly focused on this world, into the pragmatic orientation of Buddhism. This reinforced the belief that through powerful magic rituals, opponents in conflicts could be appeased, influenced, or even robbed of their freedom of reaction and that social conflicts could be regulated in this way, including those with the

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anthropomorphized powers of nature. The foundation for this conviction is the assumption that the world of the invisible interacts with the world of the visible and that it is possible to influence this interaction. Tibetans sought out this chance to regulate all sorts of conflicts: those of great societal concern as well as more or less transient conflict episodes on the interaction level. In critical and conflict-laden situations, the rituals sustained by religion come as an unquestionable, self-evident communication largely eliminating reflexibility.69 Other elements take the place of reflexibility, such as the reference to a successful precedent, the precise and stereo­ typically defined procedure, the performative character of speech, and the mimetic character of the actions referring to familiar social behavior. This being the case, rituals convey the idea of expressing a naturally given social order that involves both the visible and invisible worlds.

CHAPTER 9

Law

A dam before the flood comes. —Tibetan saying

Law fulfills a necessary function in every society; there is no society without law.1 Its function “is to ensure that societal communications operate according to expectations formulated on the basis of norms, that is expectations on how things ought to be.”2 According to Luhmann, “Law is formed in anticipation of possible conflict. This focus on conflict extracts from the enormous number of everyday expectations that have been formed those that prove successful when conflict arises. This prospect of proving successful is associated with the normativity of expectations and brought under the schematism of legal and illegal, thus into a complete universe in which there are only two values, which mutually exclude each other.”3 Law has the function to stabilize normative expectations. This means that law is about adhering to specific expectations, regardless of whether they are met in each case, regardless of the specific conditions of the particular case, and regardless of who experiences those situations.4 As Luhmann notes, “Law makes it possible to know which expectations will meet with social approval and which not.”5 This understanding of law is reflected in a Tibetan proverb: “When a law binds [people], [it binds] hundreds. When a rope binds [people], [it binds] a single one.”6 The central question posed in this chapter is: To what extent had Tibet’s society, in addition to the generalization of normative expectations, already developed a subsystem specialized on conflict resolution, that is, a subsystem with autonomous procedures organized according to legal principles? Whereas morality operates with the code good/bad and thereby refers to the whole person since conditions are articulated, or often only implied, 150

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in which the alter and the ego hold each other in esteem or disdain, law operates based on the binary distinction of legality/illegality and only refers to behavior without using it to come to a conclusion about esteem or disdain. Nevertheless, throughout history, there have been frequent attempts to link law to morality, by demanding either that law be founded with the help of moral norms or that law should at least comply with moral standards.7 Now, in light of the close ties between religion and politics in Tibet, one would think that the codified Tibetan law would have been a sacral law whose instatement was primarily motivated by the need for a religious assessment of living conditions and was therefore also aligned with the moral principles of Tibetan Buddhism. Although Tibetan tradition claims that the law has Buddhist roots, the history and content of Tibetan law nonetheless show no influence of Buddhist moral principles, whether on the legal norms formulated in the law code, on the threats of punishment specified for enforcing those legal norms, or on the methods used in legal procedures.8 The question of how strictly the precept of nonviolence was to be observed in the realm of political domination had already been discussed sporadically in Indian sources of Mahāyāna Buddhism from the first half of the first millennium. Some were prone to ethical fundamentalism; others discouraged the ruler from showing excessive compassion and made an effort to justify the use of violence in war or in criminal law. Yet torture was sometimes indeed accepted as a means in legal procedures, and while prison, beating, banishment, and the confiscation of assets could be viewed as necessary penalties, mutilation and execution were fundamentally rejected as a penalty.9 Both were, however, part of the Tibetan penal system, even if executions were only seldom carried out. The cruelty of the punishments inflicted in the scope of Tibetan criminal law has its parallels in the torments described in Buddhist literature and art that await all those who, due to their bad karma, are reborn in the hell realm.10 The same rigor was attributed to karma and the law. For example, at the end of the nineteenth century, the Buddhist scholar Mipam emphasized that just like karma, the law could not be changed by anybody and that it applied to everyone to the same extent.11 As a general moral demand before the law, equality, on the other hand, contradicted the legal provisions of Tibetan law, which determined punishment and compensation

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The tortures in hell as represented in the wheel of rebirth. Detail of a wall painting, Pensang Monastery, Sikkim, painted in 2008.

based on the victim’s social status.12 Nonetheless, karma and judicial practice coincided in one principle: morally reprehensible behavior just like illegal actions should be prevented by frightful deterrents. While one could rely on the automatically functioning force of karma in the first case, in the second case the legislative authority took punishment into its own hands. By doing so, he ignored the dilemma that he and the members of the executive inevitably accumulated bad karma by imposing and carrying out cruel punishments and had to expect appropriate retribution for their deeds. Already, the kings of the Yarlung Dynasty in the eighth and ninth centuries—who were responsible for the systematic introduction of ­Buddhism in Tibet and who, according to the historiography molded by Buddhism, ruled as bodhisattvas entirely in line with religious law—had de facto not simply suspended older legal concepts incompatible with ­Buddhism. So, for example, when the Tibetan-Chinese peace treaty of 821/822, which was engraved on a stone stele in Lhasa at the end of the Yarlung Dynasty, was solemnly confirmed by oath, bloody animal sacrifices were still c­ onducted to strengthen the contract.13 Tibetan law even in

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later times showed little consideration for Buddhist moral principles. In the legal codes compiled between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, the area of criminal law did not forgo either the threat of violence, including graduated corporal punishment up to various forms of mutilation, or the threat of capital punishment for very severe offenses.14 Furthermore, torture was an accepted means of ascertaining the truth in court.15 At the beginning of the twentieth century, Charles Bell (1870– 1945) had still observed the following: In addition to fines and imprisonment, floggings are frequent, not only of people after they have been convicted of an offence, but also of accused persons, and indeed witnesses, during the course of the trial. For serious offences, use is made of the pillory as well as of the cangue, which latter is a heavy square wooden board around the neck. Iron fetters are fastened on the legs of murderers and inveterate burglars. For very serious or repeated offences, such as murder, violent robbery, repeated thefts, or serious forgery, the hand may be cut off at the wrist, the nose sliced off, or even the eyes gouged out, the last more likely for some heinous political crime.16

Such punishments and methods of finding the truth obviously ran ­contrary to the Buddhist principles of nonviolence and compassion. Many rulers were aware of this contradiction. Charles Bell writes about the Thirteenth Dalai Lama (1876–1933): Though murder in Tibet is not uncommon, the Dalai Lama abolished capital punishment, except for an attempt to poison himself, or other serious crime against religion, such as a crime occurring only once in every five or ten years. Until the time of his flight to India, while the ideals of youth were still strong within him, the Dalai Lama, as he himself informed me, allowed no capital punishment in any circumstances. Later on, however, as he became more and more immersed in the difficulties of administration, he found that capital punishment was occasionally unavoidable.17

Despite the irreconcilability of Buddhist morality and Tibetan criminal law, it was at least believed essential to maintain the facade that legal norms derived from Buddhist moral principles, thereby making it appear that

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these norms were subordinated to the virtue catalog of Buddhist ethics and concealing the contingency of the law’s binding character. Therefore, the Tibetan legal codes were equipped with a preamble and an epilogue that refer to Buddhist moral principles as a general orientation for Tibetan law; name the founder of the Tibetan Empire as the alleged originator of the laws, ascribing a religious motivation to the establishment of Tibetan law; and construct an ultimately Indian origin of Tibetan law.18 This framing, however, changed nothing about the fact that obviously, in the domain of Tibetan law, morality innately had no sovereign power. Only laws, decrees, legal decisions, and contracts, but not moral principles, constituted the program that determined the attribution to the code values “lawful” and “unlawful.” If, however, there was a lack of means to enforce the law, morality had to step into the breach. Thus, the enforceability of the law was dependent on the existence of central domination and the possibility of using physical violence as a sanction. Furthermore, it stood in relation to the spatial, administrative, and societal reach of jurisdiction. The function of law needs to be distinguished from its achievements. As a normative structure of society, law organizes human behavior by giving both conforming and deviating behaviors a meaning.19 Meaning is the medium by which the world is observed. It is “the unity of the distinction between actuality and potentiality”20 because it not only refers to what is currently selected but also to the possibilities rejected. Thus, these possibilities are always included and do not simply disappear after a certain selection.21 Further achievements of law are behavior control—the creation of a situation in which the members of society behave according to the regulations of law—and conflict resolution. Function and achievements are distinguished only in the course of the differentiation of a legal system, that is, in the evolution of law.22 Even if it was not a completely differentiated functional system of society, Tibetan law had already differentiated some fundamental components of a legal system. At the time of the Ganden Podrang government, the law was characterized by a coexistence of statutes based on tradition and practically relevant legal acts documented in a multitude of charters and documents. At the time, codified law existed in a collection comprising initially twelve and later thirteen acts that had been compiled by the regent in the seventeenth century based on an older collection.23 A regulated law-making procedure by which new laws could be passed as a reaction to social requirements did not exist. The tradition-based collection of laws stood alongside law that emerged out of

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practical requirements. The latter comprised the law evidenced in rulers’ charters, the law recognized in legal decisions and judicial settlements, and the law attested in private documents, which nevertheless explicitly refer to the institution of the court.24 In civil law, judicial practice was largely oriented not toward codified law but rather referred to the law attested in charters. The statutes formulated regulations for civil servants and judges, determined penal regulations, and regulated compensation for victims25 and recompense in cases when riding animals and beasts of burden or provisions were confiscated for official journeys. Furthermore, they contained instructions for the performance of ordeals and private-law instructions related to marriage and family disputes as well as divorce and conflicts associated with lending livestock and beasts of burden.26 By contrast, legal enactment through charters was mostly used for granting and confirming property rights and privileges to the rich and powerful of Tibet’s society. In the ­conferring of privileges and property rights, the reasons for the grant were mentioned, which could be done in a quite general form, such as an unspecified note about a relatively long history of loyalty toward the Geluk school.27 While these claims were inheritable, they only remained valid as long as the obligation to render certain services associated with the property rights and privileges granted were fulfilled. Therefore, the privileges, once granted, required repeated confirmation, above all when there was a change of ruler.28 The law in Tibet was, therefore, primarily “the law attested in the good rulers’ charters.”29 The main purpose of the charters was to prevent legal disputes over land usage, taxes, and the delivery of services. Numerous charters expressed that in more or less similar formulations: Given that nobody is allowed to, for example, commit fraud and abuse of power, and that unjustified legal documents must not be requested or issued, one should let [the owner of the diploma] live in peace.30 Given that I granted this comprehensive charter, you, the abovementioned, should not commit any sort of contestation and nuisance that leads to harm and wrongdoing, but commit only what amounts to benefit. Thus, you should let Rapten Gyelpo, his family, and his descendants dispose of the legal documents peacefully as long as they live.31

Such admonitions in the dispositio of Tibetan charters did not in any way prevent frequent outbreaks of conflicts over the use of land and the

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associated obligations. But these conflicts were settled in court, and it was the charters that handed the courts clear rules for making the decision under which claims were lawful or unlawful. When claims could not be sufficiently substantiated by presenting charters, Tibetan law offered the chance to risk a conflict successfully. Therefore, Tibetan monasteries and noble houses made an effort to pass on charters with unequivocally attested legal claims to future generations in case of possible legal disputes. Eighteenth-­century biographies testify how even powerful Tibetan aristocrats in their old age were increasingly concerned about appropriately ensuring claims for their descendants.32 In Tibetan Buddhist society, the ruler was viewed as the guardian of the law. It was his responsibility to enforce law and order. The statutes— traditionally attributed to the so-called Dharma kings, that is, those kings of the Yarlung Dynasty who were particularly committed to Buddhist ­religion—were in principle valid independent of the respective ruler. In his words of advice to the king, Mipam writes: Do not contravene any of the edicts issued by former Dharma kings. When righteous royal laws are later changed, the authority of the king’s own word diminishes.33

Mipam emphasizes that the statutes apply to everyone and are therefore in principle above the ruler and binding for him as well, so that he can credibly function as the highest judge.34 Hence, Cabezón concludes: “The laws are not, therefore, whatever the king decrees; rather, they are a pre-existent ethical code.”35 But as we have seen, no ethical code based on moral distinctions was established in the regulations and rules of the traditional Tibetan legal codes. In this respect, worldly Tibetan law differed substantially from religious law. In fact, it was precisely this distinction that, in Tibet’s society, fulfilled one of the prerequisites for the development of functionally understood law. However, the ruler in Tibet’s society by no means confined himself only to preserving the law ascribed to the Dharma kings. By issuing and confirming charters, he permanently created new law. To enforce the law, he offered his power. The ruler himself was beyond the law. Though he was principally bound to it, apart from the moral demand that he also had to abide by the law, Tibet’s society did not have independent courts that would

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have been able to hold him accountable. The lack of such an institution cannot be equated with domination marked by arbitrariness. As the sacral and sacrosanct ruler, his legitimization at the time of the Ganden Podrang government was not a legal but a religious and moral one. He was under the obligation of Mahāyāna Buddhism’s programs of morality and salvation. Below the level of the ruler, though, power was linked to the schema of legality/illegality in large parts of the society, even if it was—as we have seen—by no means always in line with the code of morality. One can therefore indeed speak of a technicalization of power in Tibet. If it happens that the power-code is linked with the binary schematism of legality/illegality and this link is made universally relevant, there are wide-ranging consequences for the degree to which power is technicalized, i.e. its availability made relatively context-free. In situations in which none of the participants, from their own power resources, definitely has power over the others, it is then still possible to refer to an existing power differential, based on a distant power-holder and mediated through law. The person who in that situation is in the right then has the power also to mobilize power.36

Instead of the direct use of physical violence, at this point symbolic power suffices in order to motivate the ego to accept a meaningful proposition, for example, to accept a specific legal norm or legal decision—also beyond that moment, that particular situation and that place. As Luhmann explains, “Violence gains a law-making function only by the fact that it is used as a possibility which is not used.”37 But as a communication medium, power has to be secured by superior physical violence.38 The linking of the power- and legal schematism in Tibet’s society is visible especially in the privileges and property rights of the upper class as attested by charters. This already suggests the functional differentiation of a legal system, insofar as procedures and—on a more modest scale— offices were in place to make decisions over disputes. Luhmann considered the institutionalization of court procedures as the pivotal achievement of premodern “high cultures” for the development of law.39 He defines procedures as “short-term and pre-constituted social systems with the special function of achieving binding decisions.”40 In proceedings, “arguments were no longer made exclusively ad hoc and ad hominem.”41 To a

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great extent, the decisions were now made during the proceeding itself and were oriented toward normative behavioral expectations, independent of questions of power or c­ onsensus.42 The “reflexivity that runs on proceedings” allows law to evolve into an autopoietic system, that is, a system that can constitute and maintain itself.43 Magical elements— above all oaths and ordeals—could still be incorporated into the procedure as before. Through consistent procedures, Tibetan legal terminology was also standardized as well as the conventions, formulae and external characteristics of petitions, legal decisions, and court deeds of arrangement. Since the opposing parties took on the roles of plaintiff and defendant within the procedure, the only issue at stake was whether the matter in question was legal or illegal. Whether a person should be esteemed or disdained was not judged. Moreover, the orientation toward precedent cases led to the development of uniform ideas of public order. Yet steps toward abstraction, which would have paved the way for formulating dogmatic guiding principles and coining basic abstract legal terms, were largely still lacking. Furthermore, the existing legal norms were not subject to further fundamental and systematic elaboration so that they could be developed into legal theory. The adumbrative differentiation of Tibetan law into a legal system did not mean that the different social strata were treated equally. This is clearly manifested in Tibetan compensation law, which regulated compensatory damages in the case of murder, manslaughter, injury, and theft. The damages to be paid depended not only on the offense but also on the victim’s social rank.44 The inequality of the social strata before the law stands in direct contravention to the compassion cultivated in Buddhist practice that ­ should guide one’s actions indiscriminately toward all sentient beings. As a rule this contradiction was not even openly addressed by Buddhist scholars. Based on Buddhist moral ideas, Mipam, for example, demanded from the good ruler that the law apply equally to all people, irrespective of a person’s social rank.45 In this, he completely ignored the fact that the traditional laws precisely did not permit this equality. Both the Ganden Podrang government and the kings of Dergé in East Tibet referred to these laws. In his demand for equality before the law, Mipam lacked consistency in still another respect: he explained in great detail and with reference to classic texts of Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism why the group of people that he

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belonged to should be granted a privileged position before the law. This privilege should apply to anyone wearing the monastic robe, regardless of whether or not he was knowledgeable in Buddhist writings, abided strictly by the monk’s discipline, or had committed a severe or minor offense. Only the community of monks should judge his behavior, and even the king should not be able to impose punishments. Only when the monk’s community was not able to reach a consensus should the king impose upon the monastic community a verdict oriented on the Buddha’s words.46 But even religion itself stabilized social differences with the idea of a hierarchical order contingent on karma. Thus, the clergy too reinforced the lower class in its undoubted acceptance of subordination to the upper class. Accordingly, in the first half of the thirteenth century, Sakya Pandita wrote in his famous verses on worldly wisdom: Even if the sovereign is full of hate, Serve him with pleasure. Even if the feet slip, They are [nevertheless] supported by the ground.47

As Luhmann notes, “The differentiating out of procedures as relatively autonomous interaction systems which are capable of making decisions presumes a differentiating out of political rule. The presence of a third party, which is definitely more powerful than the parties in dispute, guarantees the freedom of independent decision-making.”48 “Legitimate force arises to combat illegitimate force.”49 Since, in Tibet, the ruler was also the highest legal authority, violence was to a great extent controlled politically and could be employed to enforce the law. Therefore, Tibetan private ­contracts frequently named the ruler as the addressee to whom a legal case was presented for decision: “the superior one of the two systems (i.e., the secular and the religious system), the precious lord over the law.”50 For example, before he had taken all his monastic vows, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama still dealt with criminal law cases himself; evidently this was no longer compatible with his vows afterward.51 However, in accordance with the legal function of political domination, as Luhmann describes it, the political ruler in Tibet was “basically and primarily a director of procedures— not necessarily a judge himself or the judge’s manager.”52 Direct addressees in matters of civil law were, therefore, the council of ministers, the regent, and at the district level the district commissioners acting as governors.53

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Some legal cases could also be presented to the ambans, the representatives of the emperor in Lhasa. Lower-level officials belonging to the upper class were often first to deal concretely with legal cases.54 The cases could be delegated to various governmental departments, sometimes even regardless of the kinds of tasks with which they were otherwise entrusted.55 However, there were also fixed areas of responsibility: for example, conflicts over land usage and taxes were relegated to the Accounting Office of the Tibetan government. But the political center also had courts with a fixed staff of officials and personnel. The oldest of these had already been established at the foot of the Potala Palace in 1675, during the lifetime of the Fifth Dalai Lama, by the thenregent Lozang Jinpa (in office 1675‒1679).56 Initially, it was only responsible for a strictly limited area in the immediate proximity of the Potala.57 In the first half of the eighteenth century, it also seemed to have been responsible for legal matters in the growing city of Lhasa.58 Then, after a court for the city of Lhasa had been established, it remained in charge of the area below the Potala and additionally heard the legal cases of eighteen district estates in the surroundings.59 The two courts were not only tasked with judicial matters but also the collection of taxes. The City Court, for example, collected the so-called beer tax from about ninety households that had permission to sell beer in the city area. Furthermore, the court was in charge of maintaining peace and public order within the city. Both courts had their own police forces at their disposal. Another office existed in Lhasa that was also entrusted with public legal concerns in the city. The main task of the treasury office of Lhasa was to protect the central temple, the Jokhang, from fire and theft. When the Dalai Lama came into the town, it also had to provide for the sacrificial offerings and maintaining the Dalai Lama. It was also responsible for any matter having to do with water and construction in the city, in other words, everything that touched the spirits living in the ground, the so-called lords of the land, or the ground. This office dealt with legal disputes that ­concerned the construction or expansion of buildings, the installation or repair of sewage lines, the construction of toilets, etc.60 This also explains why, in 1958, this office was handling a legal dispute in Lhasa about which an informant told Rebecca French in great detail: the core of this conflict from the very last phase of the Ganden Podrang, when the soldiers and cadres of the ­People’s Republic of China had de facto already taken over power in Lhasa, was the installation of a foul-smelling toilet and the question of drainage.61

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Lastly, there was still another court in Lhasa that was largely in charge of murder cases. Unlike other courts, its jurisdiction was not local but covered the entire area of Central Tibet. As with all verdicts of great significance, its decisions also had to be approved by the ruler, the regent, or the council of ministers.62 Approval was given by imprinting a seal stamp onto the submitted document. This court—said to have been founded already in 1710, at the time of the Seventh Dalai Lama—also had a number of additional tasks. It collected from the various districts the money for the socalled New Year’s gifts and the so-called oracle tax from the oracles. Moreover, it was obligated to keep a record of all jewelry that was offered to the objects of worship in the Jokhang Temple.63 Which circumstances usually led to a formal trial? The Tibetan historian Dungkar Lozang Trinlé (1927–1997) offered a concise answer: “Should even a mediator in a significant dispute be unable to mediate between the two parties, it was necessary to submit a petition in court.”64 In other words, first, a court concerned itself only with larger lawsuits, usually meaning long-lasting cases, in which extrajudicial attempts of conflict settlement had previously failed. In simple terms, this expresses a wellknown Tibetan proverb: “When dried shit [stored for use as fuel] is carried away by the water, the government will not send boats.”65 Second, the court did not pursue cases but only became active in reaction to a submitted petition. A general preference in Tibet’s society for out-of-court conflict settlement was confirmed by a survey that Rebecca French undertook among Tibetans in exile. Their informants associated a whole list of unpleasant accompanying factors with trials in Tibet: the damaged reputation of the family, visibility of the dispute in the community, lack of flexibility and chances for compromise, damage to social harmony, strict procedure, higher costs, and the risks of physical punishment. French extracted from her interviews a complex procedural structure for trials, which could be divided into as many as forty-four successive steps. The procedure, albeit largely formalized, had apparently not been secured in writing anywhere. At the end of a hearing, the court composed a legal decision that was first presented to the parties for their opinion. If one or both parties rejected the draft, the court was entitled to pass the case on to a higher authority. Thus Tibetan civil law in principle also offered the possibility of appealing a verdict to a higher level.66 French reports that, on the one hand, it was common—and indeed almost expected—that the parties visit the officials acting as judges at home

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and bring them gifts; but, on the other hand, any gifts, beyond the ceremonial scarf common in Tibetan etiquette, were in principle punishable. Nonetheless, French’s informants did not consider such gifts to be a kind of bribery, but rather an indication of respect, as long as their value was within reason. Neither did they believe that judges entered into a commitment visà-vis the giver by accepting such gifts.67 With regard to farmers and nomad stockbreeders, the respective landlord functioned in most cases as a judge, except in legal disputes between farmers or stockbreeders of different landlords. However, the landlord only interfered in conflicts among his dependents when they could not be settled internally, for example, by mediation within the village community. Ordinarily other groups as well, such as merchants, craftspeople, and beggars, settled their conflicts themselves internally. The application of physical violence was most common in the context of the criminal law. Even if the judge aligned penalties with the guidelines of the Tibetan legal code, he nonetheless had wide discretion over which physical punishment should be applied in each individual case, based on the offense. In criminal law, the legal code listed only possible penalties, without grading according to the severity of a crime. If the criticism expressed in the Twenty-Nine-Article Decree issued by the Qianlong emperor at the end of the seventeenth century is to be believed, cabinet ministers and mayors of Lhasa who acted as judges had been using this circumstance as an opportunity for self-enrichment. Article twenty-five of the decree therefore required that future sentences be weighted in relation to the seriousness of the offense. However, no measures are known that would have ensured the subsequent enforcement of this requirement.68 In civil law, the payment of a set penalty was usually agreed upon in the case of noncompliance with a contractual obligation.69 The law’s limitation of acceptable means in the case of conflict—above all, that the conflicting parties are prohibited from using physical violence—is one of the two forms of conditioning conflicts as social systems. Conditioning means “establishing conditions under which connections between elements are produced or not.”70 This leads to an increased complexity of conflict systems: if the use of violence is excluded, other means take its place to refine the conflict system. The second form of conditioning consists in increasing insecurity: law introduces the unreliability of expectations into the conflict system and creates “possibilities for structure formation, new contingencies, new chances

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of selection.” As long as it is only the conflicting parties who face each other, the expectations are relatively clear: the parties do not expect anything good of each other. But including an initially nonpartisan third party opens up a perspective for them to either convince the third party of their own viewpoint with arguments, or at least to concede without losing face.71 The political power was responsible for enforcing the law, to which end coercive means were available. “What is more, political power itself can be subject to the law, so that it can assert its own means of coercion only if it is in the right.”72 Secondary coding in no way equates power and law or powerlessness and illegality; it means solely that the two codes power/powerlessness and legality/illegality are put in relation to one another. Therefore, it is in principle possible that even the highest ruler is in the wrong and the lowest subordinate is in the right. The highest ruler is no longer morally good per se, even if he is still expected not to do wrong.73 This step toward the submission of the highest ruler of society—at least nominally— to the law never took place in Tibet. As the incarnation of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, his moral goodness was not in question. Criticism of the highest ruler was only possible by doubting the authenticity of his status as reincarnation or through accusations against his advisors.74

Out-of-Court Settlement The conflicts addressed in the Tibetan sources are of two kinds. The first are conflicts within the upper class, such as conflicts among members of the aristocracy and the clergy or conflicts between aristocracy and clergy or between upper-class persons from different regions. The second type, of which the sources also supply numerous examples, are conflicts among farmers and nomad stockbreeders who gained the usage of farmland and pastures in exchange for fees and services. Legal disputes in Tibet revolved around usufruct of land, the water supply, paying taxes and dues, doing corvée labor, or achieving high social position. Conflicts within monastic communities were an exception. Here, their own rules and structures for decision-making, specifically established by the clergy, were applicable. They were fixed in writing in the guidelines for complying with monastic discipline and enforced by a disciplinarian appointed for a set tenure.75 Occasionally, the record itself was the result of a ­concrete conflict settlement. In the mid–nineteenth century, Kongtrül (1813–1899), a spiritual teacher of the Karma Kagyü school, was tasked with settling a dispute in

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one of the school’s monasteries. The monastery was located in one of East Tibet’s various small kingdoms. In this dispute, the monastic community and the monastery’s highest cleric stood in opposition to one another. The mediator’s biography emphasizes the explosive nature of the mission by referring to a similar intraclerical conflict that had happened in the region in which all mediation efforts had failed, resulting in the murder of a highranking cleric. The mediator began by questioning the monks in the monastery c­ oncerned, and then also incorporated the local ruler by having him prepare the actual mediation. Mediation resulted in the composition of monastic guidelines by which the mediator sought to prevent future c­ onflicts within the monastic community. Kongtrül had discovered that the conflict had its origin in the fact that evidently, at the time, some monks had entered the ­monastery solely for the sake of having a secure way to live.76 The strong hierarchization of Tibet’s society, with its asymmetric distribution of power, discouraged lower-class people from risking conflict with members of the upper class. Independent of their educational differences and knowledge of legal options, merely the fact that the landlords had far-reaching legal authority over their dependent farmers and stockbreeders, including their families, largely prevented such conflicts. Besides, article three of the Ganden Podrang government legal code states—without referring to specific circumstances—“If a dependent person argues with his landlord, he shall be arrested.”77 However, ethnographic studies among Tibetan refugees have revealed that, in principle, dependents had recourse to appeal legal decisions made by their landlord to the central government in Lhasa.78 Such a case is unheard of among the legal documents so far accessible. However, in the legal documents extensively produced by the Tibetan legal system, conflicts among members of the uppermost stratum of the lower class, the so-called taxpayers, are frequently discussed. As far as can be seen, the conflicting parties belonged to different landlords. The complex web of paying fees, land usage rights, and services to be rendered that this social stratum had to bear was based on a rather rigid and c­ onflict-laden distribution of burden. Thus, it was unable to react flexibly to changes such as bad harvests or rural depopulation. Conflicts within this social stratum naturally had a direct impact on the respective landlords’ economic interests. Conflicts within the lowest social strata are not focused on in Tibetan legal documents. According to contemporary witnesses from the last phase of the Ganden Podrang government, their members settled conflicts

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primarily themselves under the guidance of their own leaders.79 The few indications collected from informants suggest that, at this social level—just like in communal life in the villages—conflict regulation was less about finding out the truth and predominantly geared toward reestablishing social harmony.80 The attitude toward handling social conflicts at the local level can still be observed in Ladakh, for example, up to the present day.81 Especially where centralistic structures had not already, no longer, or not been sufficiently established, broad areas of everyday life were excluded from legal regulations. In these situations, conflict regulation did not necessarily refer to formal law, but frequently resorted to out-of-court procedures of dispute mediation at both the local and transregional level. Such procedures aimed at consensus and did not contribute to the further development of the law, because they contradicted the clear binary coding of legality and illegality. Usually, prominent Tibetan clerics took on the role of mediator. They had a reputation for scholarliness, were considered to be committed to the Buddhist ideals of altruism and compassion, and were regarded as having integrity.82 Moreover, extraordinary magic-ritual skills were ascribed to them. They lived mostly in monastic communities, separate from the rest of the population, and were therefore more likely to function as a neutral third party. Today, still, in many Tibetan settlement areas, the local population attributes a particular competence for regulating social conflicts to Buddhist clerics. Fernanda Pirie summarizes this relationship in Golok, a nomad area in Northeast Tibet, as follows: “They have the greatest respect for their lamas, regarding them as endowed with the status, oratorical skills and charisma both to enjoin the dangerous demons to grant them strength and also to tame the defiant attitudes of angry protagonists caught up in a round of vengeful aggression.”83 The settlement of disputes belonged to the topoi of Tibetan clerics’ biographies. The exact cause of the conflict and the details of the settlement agreement frequently remained unmentioned. But the procedure of dispute settlement was described in more detail, as it underlined once more the respective cleric’s specific skills, and illustrated his high social position. The biography of the First Drakyap kyamgön (1572‒1638/1639), founder of the ecclesiastical principality of Drakyap in East Tibet, provides an example. In more or less detail, it describes three settlement procedures from the first half of the seventeenth century, namely, from the years directly prior to the foundation of the Tibetan central government in Lhasa and a time when the segmentarily differentiated upper class of East Tibet was involved

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in violent disputes among itself. In each case, the procedure described consisted of a number of elements. It always started with a dispute between members of the upper class, lords over neighboring land and the population belonging to it. One case involved monasteries that functioned as landlords in the region. In each case, the dispute is described as very intense: There were many dead, and the local population was severely affected. In one case, it is indicated that the dispute had already infected its environment: “Since nobody was available to mediate in the conflict, it was like cows or water were running unattended into the pastures.”84 Accentuating the seriousness of the dispute enhanced the cleric’s subsequent achievement. He did not actively intervene himself; rather his mediation was requested: “If you, precious (master), went up to them, you could certainly settle this conflict. If you were to settle the dispute, it would be more meritorious than having held a hundred religious events like the one you have held today.”85 It remains unclear if the initiative was taken on behalf of the ­conflicting parties or if it was undertaken solely by an affected third party. At any rate, the procedure that followed already required considerable willingness on the part of both parties. It was solely the decision of the conflicting parties, first, to become involved in the procedure offered by the cleric, and second, to accept the settlement agreement at the end. The cleric could neither force the opponents to participate in the procedure nor settle the conflict. He only had moral-religious leverage at his disposal and no political power that would have allowed him to assert his will. Detailed preparation was necessary for the mediation. Either the cleric summoned several gatherings with all parties involved in the ­conflict, or he consulted the conflicting parties successively. In the most precisely described case in the biography, he spent one month with each party. During that time, he questioned those who had something to say on the matter and also offered the general public religious instruction; by preaching about the causes and fruit of karma, he showed all quite plainly what the consequences of morally reprehensible actions are beyond death. This usually was done by narrating extreme examples that served as a deterrent. The aim of the sermons was to bring all participants to reason, and by creating a public to increase the pressure for conflict regulation. On the other hand, they also had a propagandistic side effect, motivating members of the local population to take their vows as monks or nuns. Moreover, nomads were encouraged to refrain from hunting, which was considered wrong in ­Buddhism and to entrust their hunting dogs to the

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monks. The mediation preparations also included extensive gifts that the clerics offered to both conflicting parties in equal shares. The bereaved received ceremonial scarfs and magic protective knots. As far as the mediation was concerned, the biography announced its success and, in one case, described how the legal transaction was completed. The cleric had the two conflicting parties walk underneath a band of knotted-together black silk scarves. In the case of a breach of c­ ontract, the parties agreed to cede, as a contractual penalty, a certain number of cattle and horses to the population and monasteries of the region. As proof of the completed legal transaction, the mediation agreement was fixed in writing and certified by the cleric’s seal. Both sides received a copy.86 Without a doubt, the role of the cleric as a neutral third party in this conflict mediation can be interpreted as a consequence of his general mission of salvation: acting altruistically for the benefit of the Buddhist doctrine and sentient beings. Nonetheless, this role does not necessarily imply that he functioned in his arbitration without personal interest or did not have in mind the interests of his Buddhist school, his monastery, or his household. At the time of the First Drakyap kyamgön, the question of which Buddhist school should have regional supremacy had not yet been decided. In fact, the third mediation procedure mentioned in the bio­graphy insinuates that it was also about converting monasteries of other schools into Gelukpa monasteries.87 A motivation was also always creating or strengthening relationships to patrons because it was their support that secured the economic foundation of the monasteries. Frequently, the clergy itself was party to regional conflicts. Around the mid–nineteenth century, for instance, when political power in East Tibet was again fragmented and parts of the segmented upper class tried using armed force to resolve disputes among themselves, the aforementioned cleric Kongtrül was en route unexpectedly pursued by an adversary of his home monastery who threatened his life for being a member of his monastery.88 In some circumstances, the mandate for conflict mediation could therefore pose great risks for the mediator himself. The danger was increased in cases where hidden personal interests were involved, meaning all interests of the mediator that exceeded mere conflict regulation. When such interests were revealed or accusations made, the mediator could be made responsible for possible negative consequences of the mediation procedure and the mediation agreement.

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With the establishment of the Ganden Podrang government and the increasing differentiation of a legal system, the social importance of out-ofcourt mediation procedures under the leadership of prominent clerics decreased in the territory under the jurisdiction of the Ganden Podrang. As a result, the development in that territory took a seemingly different direction than in the Tibetan and ethnically mixed areas, which, as of the eighteenth century, were under the direct administration of Qing officers. Out-of-court mediation procedures still had a high social value for regulating conflicts, although the Qing established in these areas a standardized law within a pluralistic colonial legal system. In 1734, for example, at the command of the Yongzheng emperor a “Tibetan Code” that was based on a legal code of the Khoshot Mongols and consisted of sixty-eight articles was recorded and translated into Tibetan for the area of Amdo. The plan to suspend this “Tibetan Code” after an interim period and to apply domestic Chinese law also to the Tibetan population living in Amdo turned out to be unrealistic, as both the local Qing officers and the Tibetan population gradually became convinced that Tibetan legal matters should be governed by the Tibetan Code. Therefore, the law code that had been explicitly introduced by the Yongzheng emperor as “Tibetan law” continued to be used in Amdo as the basis for crime and conflict regulation among the Tibetans. More particularly, the Qing administration considered the Tibetan Code a means of containing the protracted feuds among Tibetans and Mongols. Qing officers reserved the right to decide directly over severe crime as well as over social conflicts that—frequently through the use of violence—increasingly “colonized” their environment, thereby finding more fuel for the conflict. The Qing officers in Amdo had, in fact, considerable discretion in regard to whom and under which conditions they applied the code and the extent of their claim to jurisdiction. Many times they left conflict regulation to out-of-court mediation procedures headed by local figures, especially prominent clerics who were not close to any of the ­conflicting parties. They also tolerated that larger Gelukpa monasteries in the region passed on their own legal codes with which they regulated the behavior of laypeople and monks and that they maintained their own archives, which provided documents of past legal decisions for use in future similar cases. However, this did not keep the Qing from being drawn into more massive conflicts, when—as can be observed quite commonly— mediation processes failed at the local level, or when it seemed appropriate to a conflicting party to involve the Qing authorities.89

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To a certain extent, the mediation procedure remained a well-tried means for regulating conflicts also in areas under Ganden Podrang rule. Most notably, this applied to disputes within the monks’ communities. It was also important as a means of settling conflicts between different polities that lay outside the Tibetan government’s actual jurisdiction but were nevertheless within its sphere of influence. In such an environment, efforts to settle conflicts could turn out to be extremely dangerous for the mediator. At the end of the seventeenth century, for example, the Kangxi emperor requested that the Tibetan regent send a mediator to regulate the conflict that had been simmering for some time between the western and eastern Mongols. Both groups were not only followers of Tibetan Buddhism, but supported the Dalai Lama and the Geluk school in particular. Both sides, therefore, accepted a Gelukpa cleric and representative of the Dalai Lama as a mediator. In this matter, the Tibetan regent did indeed have a personal interest,90 which he hid just as he had hidden the death of the Fifth Dalai Lama years prior. His personal interest entailed definite partisanship for the leader of the western Mongols. The decision to accept this mediation mission despite such preconditions exposed the mediator whom he had instructed and sent to great danger. As is well known, the endeavor was a complete disaster for the regent and ended with the emperor’s demand to extradite the mediator to Beijing. That the mediator came away without severe punishment was due to the fact that the emperor saw him ultimately as an instrument that could still be of use in his future Tibet policy. By contrast, another high-ranking Tibetan Buddhist cleric who had been involved in the same matter as an envoy under the direct command of the emperor was much worse off. Caught in a conflict of loyalties between, on the one hand, the Dalai Lama—or more precisely the Tibetan regent as his representative—and the emperor on the other, he eventually decided in favor of the agenda of the Tibetan government, betraying the emperor by taking the side of the western Mongols. He was punished later by the emperor by being condemned to a particularly cruel form of execution.91 Also the Tenth Zhamarpa’s mediation to end the conflict between the Gorkhās and the Tibetan government at the end of the eighteenth century turned out to be quite dangerous. The Qianlong emperor later accused him of collaboration with the Gorkhās, alleging greed as a motive because he, as the brother of the deceased Panchen Lama, had wanted to get rich from the latter’s material inheritance. Therefore, even after his death, the emperor still demanded that the Gorkhās extradite his wife and entourage.92

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Luhmann distinguishes—in particular with regard to modern, functionally differentiated society—between risk and danger.93 With risk, possible negative incidents are interpreted and observed as a consequence of a personal decision. One takes a risk. In the case of danger, however, possible negative incidents are not attributed to personal decisions but to the environment. One is subjected to dangers. Nowadays, we are used to attributing what happens largely to decisions, and therefore assess decisions from the viewpoint of risk. This even applies to the assessment of natural disasters, where damages are normally assessed by determining whether or not specific security standards were abided by and sufficient precautions were taken to protect against possible disasters. As already mentioned, in Tibetan Buddhist society negatively assessed incidents were, in contrast, usually not ascribed to personal decisions, but instead seen as the karmic effects of morally wrong actions. Moreover, an extensive arsenal of magic-ritual performances was available to cope with contingency. On top of this, “decisions” of great significance were regularly made with the inclusion of divination, consulting oracles, dreams, and prophecies, etc., and were hence depersonalized. This mostly applied to the Tibetan Buddhist clergy and the representatives of the Ganden Podrang government, though not to the Qing emperor. In the incidents revolving around the conflict with the western Mongols, he indeed saw the consequences of the Tibetan regent’s political decisions. However, not every mediation procedure that was performed on behalf of or under direct participation of the Ganden Podrang government on the interpolity94 level was associated with such dangers for the mediator or ended in such disaster. An example of a successful mediation procedure occurred from 1752 to 1753, for which the Seventh Dalai Lama (1708– 1757) sent a mediator to Ladakh. A comprehensive mediation document has survived, offering considerable information on the procedure and the final agreement.95 Since the peace treaty of 1684, Ladakh was in a formal relationship of dependence with the Tibetan government, just as it also was in a similar formal relationship with the Indian Mughal Empire.96 However, Ladakh and Tibet were much more closely tied especailly due to their shared religion. The war between Tibet and Ladakh in the second half of the seventeenth century had sensitized the Tibetan government to the danger of Islamization of the Buddhist kingdom. Thus—as clearly expressed during the lengthy mediation procedures97—it had a great interest in stable conditions in Ladakh. In the first half of the eighteenth century, the

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kingdom split due to dynastic claims, which were justified in the entitlement of the son of the king of Ladakh’s second wife to an inheritance. However, subsequently, in the royal palace of Leh, Ladakh’s capital, neither the division nor its consequences were accepted, and soon a severe conflict ignited between the kingdoms. When the conflicting parties in Ladakh finally asked the Dalai Lama to send a mediator, the conflict had already “colonized” its environment to a large extent, since more and more topics, resources, persons, rumors, and morally justified accusations had been drawn into the conflict. Once the mediator arrived, he was surprisingly confronted with the task of resolving a total of four interwoven conflicts: first, the core conflict between the two kingdoms; second, a conflict with the sons of the former chief minister of Ladakh, who had been disempowered for misconduct and who was head of one of the leading families of the country, over his pardon and restoration of the family property; third, a conflict over the succession to the throne at the king’s residence in Leh— the king was not mentally fit to fulfill his tasks and therefore should be moved to resign; and fourth, a conflict over impeding Kashmiri merchants in Ladakh and the threat of involving Kashmir, which belonged to the Mughal Empire, in the entire conflict.98 From the perspective of conflict research, such thematic diversification of conflicts is not uncommon: The “conflict may so offer an opportunity to include open questions of the mutual relationship, helping to settle them at the same time.”99 The regulation of all these conflicts, each with a complex prior history, turned out to be rather difficult. The mediator’s stay in Ladakh therefore stretched to over one year. Upon the request of the conflicting parties, the Dalai Lama appointed a renowned cleric from faraway East Tibet as the mediator. He belonged to the old school of ­Buddhism, which was hardly present in Ladakh. Consequently, this mediator seemed ideally suited to avoid a resurgence of the old rivalry between the Drukpa Kagyü and the Geluk schools in Ladakh. During the mediation process, he resided in a monastery close to the Tibetan border. He patiently managed to guarantee security on site so that all participants were ready and willing to come to the negotiation venue. Without the possibility of threatening physical violence, the mediator had to rely solely on his strategic competence, which led to a comprehensive settlement agreement in the end. The agreement, which regulated all the disputed issues, was sworn by all parties involved, and the extensive contractual text was sealed by all participants and witnesses. During the negotiations, the

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mediator had strictly avoided judging any of the conflicting parties. Moreover, he made a constant effort to integrate in the resolution all participants who were even rudimentarily involved in the conflict. As in other cases as well, distributing gifts among the conflicting parties belonged to the procedure; however, they were not the only recipients, as people of neighboring small kingdoms as well as the governor of Kashmir were also included. These gifts came partly from the cleric’s personal property and partly from the Tibetan government. The latter had regularly sent couriers on horseback with letters and gifts to the negotiation venue. The mediation ­agreement settled territorial claims, grazing rights, tax obligations of subordinated chieftains, questions of succession to the throne, rights and scope of authority of a smaller vassal king, and passport and travel regulations for envoys to and from Kashmir as well as for traveling merchants. Furthermore, it admonished ministers and elders to serve the king honestly and responsibly, the members of the extended royal family to have mutual respect, and all participants to avoid chicanery toward supporters of Islam; disputes and wars were generally to be avoided since they would ultimately damage Buddhist doctrine. At the beginning of the negotiations, the mediator also arranged the resignation of the king of Ladakh in favor of his minor son and the appointment of his half brother, a high-ranking reincarnated cleric, as his legal guardian. The mediator even looked into the matter when one of the conflicting parties raised moral accusations, although this had nothing to do with the original conflict. During the mediation, the high-ranking reincarnation and half brother of the resigned king of Ladakh, who lived in Hemis ­Monastery, had repeatedly been accused of not having kept his monastic vows. He did not deny the allegations but nevertheless felt deeply affected. In his own defense, the half brother of the king pointed out that this was nothing unusual, that he had confessed his failure to his spiritual teacher, and that, after all, other members of the royal family had violated their vows after entering the monastery without ever being reprimanded for it. However, the cleric vehemently denied allegations that he had ambitions to be together with the queen, his half brother’s spouse. The morally reprehensible aspect was not so much that two brothers would share one spouse, which conformed with the practice of polyandry widespread in Ladakh. His behavior was reprehensible because he had breached his monastic vows. Quite pragmatically, the mediator suggested two options: the cleric should either repeat his monastic vows or share the spouse with his brother.

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This briefly detailed example illustrates with how much persistence and meticulousness mediation procedures in Tibetan Buddhist society could be performed in places where political power was not available to help enforce the law. It becomes utterly clear that mediation was not about finding the truth and determining who is in the right and who is not. As a motto of his negotiation strategy, the mediator quoted a Tibetan proverb: “Great harmony is better than a great feast.”100 With this fundamental mindset, he was less eager to enforce traditional legal claims than to stabilize the existing power relations even in a situation where they no longer complied with the traditional concepts of Ladakh’s royal domination.101 He made an effort to explore the options regarding the parties’ willingness to find consensus and to achieve executable compromises that would enable social togetherness even in the future. He consistently avoided reductionism of the procedure down to the opposites of legality versus illegality. It stands to reason that the Tibetan ruler and his government chose mediation as the method of conflict regulation beyond the borders of their jurisdiction in cases when self-interests were affected or the conflicting parties were considered formally dependent due to shared religion or past ­contractual obligations. This was true in particular when no sufficient military power was available. However, even within the jurisdiction of the Ganden Podrang, regulating disputes in court was not obligatory, even if it concerned Tibetan law. The only precondition was the parties’ fundamental willingness to come to an amicable arrangement. Procedures conducted on this basis as well as settlements fixed in private contracts received their own term in Tibetan, dumtra (’ dum khra).102 The Tibetan government and administration endorsed them. Even at the beginning of the twentieth century, such a procedure had been selected to regulate a legal dispute between farmers directly subordinated to the government and stockbreeders belonging to a monastery in the southwest of Tibet.103 The dispute was over grazing rights and the obligations involved. As the document emphasizes, generations of farmers and nomads in the region had previously kept a “harmonious relationship with an exceptionally perfect interaction between each other.” Apparently, the harmony was disturbed because the traditional order, whereby “the nomads settled in the upper valley locations and the farmers in the lower ones, had been changing.” Two mediators led the procedure: first, a cleric of the region respected for his reincarnation status; and second, a man whose name presumably refers to a noble house, whose estate was located farther east, and whose members had been in the

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service of the government in Lhasa for generations.104 The document, however, does not mention that the government appointed the mediators or that the conflicting parties themselves had requested mediation. However, the settlement contract initially does refer to the priest-patron relationship between the emperor and the Dalai Lama as well as to the Dalai Lama as Tibet’s spiritual and worldly ruler. Likewise, it concludes with contractual penalties that in the case of breach of contract would have to be paid to the “precious lord over the law,” in other words, to the ruler as the highest judge, or to “the treasury.” To substantiate their claims in the course of the procedure, the conflicting parties refer to their rights attested in charters and other documents. Furthermore, the mediation considers relevant legal decisions that had been issued by the district administration. Thus, it is evident that the mediation procedure was oriented toward the law of the Ganden Podrang administration, but was not taken to court. The contract and the additional remarks were therefore confirmed by the stamps of only the conflicting parties, and not by an official authority at the district or government level.

Court Settlement If a society generally prefers mediation procedures to unequivocal legal decisions for conflict regulation, it is rather unlikely to develop a differentiated legal system. As Luhmann explains: “Politically the preference here was for compromise, the unity of society being described as harmony and not as difference. From this perspective, law remains a technical last resort for hard cases but it is not further differentiated to become a functioning system in its own right. Its priorities are in the areas of criminal law and of the organizational and administrative law of the ruling bureaucracy.”105 Luhmann mostly viewed the Far Eastern traditions as a pattern for “a morality of mere harmonization of legality and illegality and the devaluation of this difference as a dispute.”106 A similar statement had already been made regarding Tibetan law: “Rather than insisting on procedures, Tibetan law emphasized the importance of social harmony, moral and religious values such as truthfulness, peace of mind, etc. They also stressed the importance of conciliation, and the relevance of religious doctrines such as the law of karma to legal decisions.”107 Tibetan law under the Ganden Podrang government indeed encouraged risking court procedures within the borders of its jurisdiction. This is testified by the multitude of cases documented by court settlements and

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legal decisions. Usually, the courts did not pursue cases on their own but reacted to petitions and complaints. This is also true in cases where the landlord served as the judge settling disputes among his dependents. As already noted, the basic principle was that disputes should be resolved internally if possible, as is expressed by a Tibetan proverb: “The snake’s knot has to be resolved by the snake itself.”108 Only if attempts to settle the case internally failed was the landlord called to act as judge. In criminal cases, it was the task of the victim to apprehend the offender and bring him before the landlord.109 In Tibetan law, disputes were frequently pursued with great persistence. Some Tibetan legal documents dedicate lengthy passages to the description of a previous procedure. From such documents, it appears that individual cases could stretch over years due to the possibility of appeal. It remains uncontestable that the Tibetan law endeavored to achieve a settlement in many legal cases. However, the documented procedures from the period of Ganden Podrang rule show that, at the time, the frequency of court settlement agreements was not solely based on general striving for harmony; it was simply that many legal cases often could not be decided according to the schematism of legality versus illegality even after the relevant documents had been presented. If legal relationships could be clearly proven by presenting the respective documents, then explicit legal decisions were issued: “Judgements generally confirmed only legal relationships evidenced by documents that had been interfered with from some side. . . . Settlements mostly regulated legal questions that seemed not to be clearly decidable based on the presented charters and private contracts, or through the consideration of factual findings based on customary law.”110 Furthermore, clear legal decisions were also preferably issued when only one party had brought a legal complaint.111 Much like the aforementioned out-of-court settlement documents, court settlement agreements were also characterized by an in-depth description of the case history and the conclusion of the legal act.112 While, in the first type, the mediator led the procedure from the very beginning with the objective of reaching a compromise, in court settlements, both parties still saw at the beginning the chance of being declared right. Also, the officials responsible for the respective case still acted on the assumption that the truth could be found out. Therefore, the general conclusion that, in Tibetan law of the Ganden Podrang government, preference was given to mediation rather than a court sentence113 is not correct. The extensive

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presentation of case histories in the out-of-court settlement documents demonstrates that everything feasible was done and all relevant details were considered, thereby underpinning the solidity of the agreement achieved. In court settlement documents, however, the detailed descriptions explain why there was a compromise rather than an explicit court sentence at the end of the procedure. This motif stands out distinctly in a settlement document from 1861 that provides in-depth information about the tedious procedure.114 The case documented in this settlement is remarkable in three ways. First, the conflicting parties who brought the case before the court did not belong to the upper class; dependent tax farmers on two estates in Southwest Tibet— a monastic estate and an estate directly subordinated to the government— stood in conflict with one another. Second, it was not necessarily possible for the court to enforce a compromise between the two parties; they had the option to reject the compromise reached jointly or individually, and the final settlement agreement was only legally effective if both parties agreed. Third, the conflicting parties had the option to bring the case directly to the offices in Lhasa, thereby bypassing the district administration, which had initially been in charge and was authorized to issue a final legal decision in the case. The subject of the conflict was grazing rights or, more specifically, the question of whether the government farmers were entitled to charge the monastery farmers a fee to use certain grazing land that had previously been jointly used by both conflicting parties. The dispute had already escalated to criminal actions on both sides, for which both parties were sanctioned with financial penalties. The monks were actively engaged in the conflict on the side of the monastery farmers. The legal dispute was submitted to the council of ministers in Lhasa, which delegated it to the government’s Accounting Office. The document recording the settlement finally achieved and accepted by all parties was, however, then confirmed with the seal of the council of ministers. A settlement initially prepared by the Accounting Office had been rejected by the monastery because the terms of the settlement supposedly did not accord with the content of the ruler’s charters in possession of the monastery. As a result, the officers in Lhasa did not feel able to settle the issue and returned the case to the district administration. There, they tried to achieve clarity through an on-site inspection of the locality and by questioning elders concerning customary law practices. However, since a full clarification of the legal status was not possible,

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the conclusion was drawn that the conflict could only be solved through a settlement. Shortly before an agreement was reached, the government farmers revoked their necessary willingness to compromise, which shifted conflict regulation once again back to the officials in Lhasa. This time the regent, as the legal guardian of the underage Dalai Lama, stepped in personally and entrusted the case to the regional military commander and the Dalai Lama’s head chamberlain. They also saw themselves confronted with a complicated mesh of customary law usage of the contended grazing land and mutual fee obligations related to it. Even a renewed analysis of the legal status based on the legal documents presented and considerations of customary law practices did not lead to a final clarification of the exact property rights to the grazing land. Therefore, the final settlement was only supposed to confirm the existing mutual fee obligations. But this was like going around in circles, because already at the beginning of the procedure there had been insufficient evidence regarding the legality of the government farmers’ demand for a usage fee for the grazing land based on customary law. At this impasse, the regent hoped finally to be able to push both sides to a resolution by radically making the complex situation into a simple binary decision: either neither of the conflicting parties would be allowed to use the land in the future, or a dice oracle was to determine which party was in the right. Confronted with such a decision, the government farmers argued for a decision using the dice oracle. In contrast, the monastery farmers preferred to completely relinquish usage of the pasture, because then the demand for a usage fee would be dropped, leading to a greater economic disadvantage for their opponents. Given this new stalemate, a member of the Tibetan council of ministers who had run out of patience enforced a final, irrevocable regulation according to which the farmers of the monastery should be exempt from the usage fee. By issuing and sealing the document, this decision finally obtained legal effect. The detailed description of this case illustrates the far-reaching autonomy of Tibetan court procedures as interaction systems capable of making decisions. However, the officials entrusted with adjudication in this case emphasize in the settlement agreement that the conflicting parties’ morally reprehensible motive—“to win and beat the others”—as well as their lack of respect toward the ruler and his law should have actually required an ascertainment of the truth by arresting and interrogating both parties under torture. It was solely respect for the founder of the monastery and the sacredness of it, coupled with the difficult economic situation of the

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government farmers living in a border region, that led them to abstain from such measures. On the one hand, this commentary demonstrates that moral considerations on the part of the court were not used to justify the verdict, but were at least mentioned, so that the verdict appeared to be lenient.115 On the other hand, it stresses that even in matters of civil law, torture was indeed viewed as a possible method in legal procedures. In comparison, the aforementioned quarrel between neighbors in 1958 over the construction of a toilet in Lhasa City, described by Rebecca French in her book on Tibetan law, was quite different.116 The only information on this case comes through oral narration, but not any legal documents or other written sources. The procedure was exceptionally lengthy and offered the conflicting parties ample opportunity to let their dispute escalate during the procedure to the point where the outbreak of violent clashes seemed imminent and could only be stopped by deploying police forces. Only after both sides had agreed to a settlement could the procedure be ended. Two settlement drafts written up by the judge had been rejected, one by each of the parties. This case could have hardly been solved according to Tibetan law other than through a settlement. Evidently, neither party had any legal documents whatsoever that would have been relevant in this conflict. And apparently no ordinances or precise building regulations existed that could have served as a basis for decision-making. One of the two parties only mentioned a general provision demanding the installation of a toilet in all houses in Lhasa. Thus, this case reveals most of all that in Tibetan civil law, practice-oriented legislation, differentiated legal provisions, and transparent rules for decision-making were lacking up to the end of the Ganden Podrang period.

Unequivocal Legality/Illegality Decisions Even if in Tibetan law conflicts were frequently regulated by court settlement because the body of evidence presented in documents and charters was insufficient, Tibetan courts strove first to reinstate legal certainty and certainty of expectations through clear verdicts on the legality and illegality of conflicting claims. A legal decision could be documented in two different forms: as a relatively brief notation at the top of the submitted petition, or as a separate charter, which usually also contained a precise case history. Since the comment was noted above the actual text in the first case, it was designated the “beginning note.”117 However, even such charters issued by the Dalai Lama, the regent, or the council of ministers were

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comprehensive enough to briefly summarize in a narratio the circumstances that led to the legal disposal. The petitions submitted in a legal dispute described in detail the reasons for and case history of the complaint from each party’s respective view. They always referred to previous charters and public ordinances, and relevant previous charters were submitted together with the petition as evidence. Examples of such petitions are found in cases where monasteries and district commissioners were up against each other as quarreling parties. The petitions were brought by the monasteries, which lodged a complaint against the district administration’s demands for services and fees. Petitions and charters from the first half of the nineteenth century provide detailed information about some of these cases.118 For instance, public ordinances appear as reasons for conflict when they ­successively restricted a monastery’s attested privileges—such as crossborder trade with Nepal. Some complaints also reveal that district officials tried to become rich at the expense of a monastery. If the petition seemed justified to the recipient based on the information and evidence given, it was often accepted fully on the restrictive condition that the details provided were true. The recipient of the complaint did not necessarily have to entirely agree with or reject it, but instead examined the request in detail so that a petition could be granted only with restrictions. A final decree issued in such a case meant by no means an end to the conflict. The opposing side also had the option to submit a petition that, as a consequence, could lead to a correction of the decree already granted. Past closed cases could also be reopened, when, for example, officeholders changed, and the complainant saw this change as a new opportunity for risking conflict. In this way, some procedures stretched over a longer period without coming to a final conclusion. As far as can be seen, no preferential treatment of district officials who stood in government service can be identified in the decrees issued in reaction to legal disputes between monasteries and district commissioners. At the same time, the treatment of such legal disputes also did not reveal any preferential treatment toward the monasteries, especially the Gelukpa ones, as might be assumed due to the close ties between the Buddhist Geluk school and Tibet’s government. In one legal dispute, for example, the general moral explanation of a Gelukpa monastery’s demand for a tax ­exemption—that, unlike with laypeople, their income ultimately served religious purposes and thus was for the benefit of all—was expressly

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rejected. Only past tax exemptions and property rights attested by charters were recognized.119 They were granted not in reaction to petitions, “but were allowed by the ruler himself after the advocacy of high-ranking officials and clerics because of special merits.”120 Furthermore, no overall preferential treatment of monasteries can be identified in legal disputes between monasteries and noble houses. In a decree issued by the Tibetan government in 1858 on the unjustified seizure of estates belonging to a Tibetan noble house by the great Gelukpa monastery Sera, it says: “Byes college of Sera . . . had claimed the land as their own religious estate and occupied the field. . . . Although this is a very bad act, like the act of demons disguised as human . . . we will forgive the monastery’s crime at this time.”121 All in all, essential features for the independence of legal procedures already existed in Tibetan law. This can be seen as early as in the general guidelines that the regent Sangyé Gyatso had formulated, in 1651, in article five of his treatise on the tasks and obligations of officials for all those who were appointed to investigate and issue decisions in legal disputes. They are requested to take note of the opponents’ statements in a nonpartisan way, pose accurate questions, and confront each party with the opposing party’s statements. In reaching their verdict, they are obligated to let themselves be guided solely by the distinction between truth and untruth. “However, if they are keen on material rewards and tend in their judgment toward one of the two parties, although exactly knowing the truth from the untruth,” they are threatened with what is written in the “Sutra of the Wise and the Foolish”: “Since the judge had committed a lie, he was reborn as a living being in great hell and experienced all sorts of suffering. And even after he had been liberated from hell, he was, in five hundred births, reborn as a lump of flesh without any sensory organs.”122 For a larger circle of society—albeit not for all its members—court procedures indeed offered the chance to risk a conflict. As the aforementioned detailed example of a court settlement document demonstrates, this segment of society also included the uppermost stratum of the further differentiated Tibetan lower class. Even if this stratum contributed more than the others to securing the economic foundations of the entire society, it could, apart from a few exceptions, by no means be considered prosperous. This also applied to the group of farmers from sparse West Tibet who, in the first half of the nineteenth century, filed a complaint by officially submitting a petition to the Tibetan regent.123 This group had been granted

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the right to harvest salt from the great salt lakes of the Tibetan plateau in spring and autumn and to sell it in the south. Until the Chinese occupation in the mid–twentieth century and the closure of the Tibetan border in the south, the regular transport and sale of salt to Nepal had been a central element of cross-border trade in West Tibet, offering the local population an additional possibility for income. The complaint was filed against a group of nomads from Changtang, the adjacent high plateau in the north. It was justified by reference to earlier rulers’ charters. The nomads considered the salt lake to be their property and demanded a fee for the salt harvest and for the interim use of their pastures by the pack animals. The salt harvesters had already previously filed a successful complaint with the Tenth Dalai Lama against this practice, but the nomads had continued to make their demands. The regent again confirmed the correctness of the salt harvesters and even committed the nomads to protect the harvesters from the threat of robbers in that region. This legal case illustrates once again that the Tibetan legal system during the Ganden Podrang period created a number of opportunities for conflict for the stratum of farmers and stockbreeders who were obligated to render taxes and services.

Legal Cases Decided by the Ambans In the petitions and legal decisions discussed here, one occasional eyecatching idiosyncrasy points to a feature of Ganden Podrang domination since the mid–eighteenth century: The quotation of previous charters sometimes refers, in a general form, to common Chinese and Tibetan charters. The background for this was especially the regulations developed for the reorganization of the Tibetan government by a commission under the aegis of the Manchu governor-general of the Chinese province of Sichuan on behalf of the Qianlong emperor, which were put into effect in 1751.124 These regulations stipulated, among other things, that in essential matters the ministers should follow the instructions of the Dalai Lama and the emperor’s two high officials in Lhasa, the ambans. In fact, from then, the ambans also appear as authors of charters in Tibet. In the case of official journeys in Tibet, the charters issued by the ambans regulated the rights and obligations of the imperial officials and soldiers and the local Tibetan officials cooperating with them, as well as the burden on the local population in the form of transport services and ­taxes.125 Since the ambans paid special attention to communications with the imperial court, the regulation of conflicts affecting the travel routes

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could fall within their responsibility. As they lacked familiarity with the local conditions and the existing complex structure of obligations and tax exemptions, they had to rely on cooperation with the Tibetan government. How this cooperation functioned in a case of conflict regulation is illustrated by a legal document that was jointly issued in January 1771 by the two ambans, both Manchus, residing in Lhasa at the time. Manggulai was in his fourth year in office in Lhasa of a total six years; his colleague Changzai was in his third and last year of office.126 The legal document exists as a copy originally kept in the archive of the Gelukpa monastery Kündeling in Lhasa, and is today among the holdings of the Tibet Autonomous Region archives. Kündeling was established after the Gorkhā war at the end of the eighteenth century and was the residence of the reincarnation line of the Tatsak jedrung rinpoché, which later placed the regent at the head of the Tibetan government for altogether more than thirty years.127 At the time this document was issued, this reincarnation line still had its residence at Pashö Monastery in East Tibet,128 which is one of the conflicting parties to whom the ambans’ legal document is addressed. The other party is Riwoche Monastery in East Tibet. It belonged to the school of the Taklung Kagyüpa, which, after the establishment of the Ganden Podrang government under the Fifth Dalai Lama, knew how to come to terms with the new domination.129 A third, smaller landlord was also involved in the dispute. Presumably, this was a monastery of the old school of Tibetan Buddhism.130 While this monastery did not appear as a party in this conflict, the final regulation of the conflict was substantially at its expense. The contentious issue was transport and other services that had to be provided for travelers in possession of official travel documents by the estates located along the road to Chamdo and farther on toward ­Sichuan. The services were corvée labor provided by the farmers and stockbreeders and their pack and riding animals. The provision of farmers and stockbreeders was a great economic burden for the owners of estates along important travel routes. They accordingly had a great interest in keeping the burden as low as possible. When a road separated the estates of two different landlords from each other, splitting the transport obligations easily became the subject of serious conflict. In the case at hand, Pashö Monastery was not only burdened by the requested transport services; its highest-ranking cleric, Tatsak jedrung rinpoché, was also apparently entitled to use the services himself. In 1758, the Seventh Tatsak jedrung rinpoché had been appointed by the emperor as abbot of the

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Yonghegong Monastery in Beijing. He passed away in the same year. In 1764, his reincarnation was found and identified at the age of four. According to the commentary in the legal document, it was apparently assumed that he should come to Beijing later as well. The road from Lhasa by way of Chamdo to Chengdu in Sichuan was not only the most important trade route to China, but it was also frequently used by couriers and official delegations between Lhasa and the imperial court in Beijing. Coming from Lhasa, about a hundred kilometers before the road reached the East Tibetan town of Chamdo, it passed through an area where it separated estates of Pashö Monastery in the south and Riwoche Monastery in the north. The reincarnations at the head of both monasteries had been bestowed the status of qutuqtu by the Qing emperor, a title with which the emperor honored only a relatively small elite of high-ranking reincarnations.131 The legal document conveys the impression that the two qutuqtus were clerics of the Yellow Hats, that is, members of the Geluk school, but this was not the case. Because Riwoche Monastery had offered the passing Qing army help in the expulsion of the Dzungars from Tibet, its reincarnation had been expressly praised by the Yongzheng emperor as a supporter of the Geluk school, sponsored by the Qing Empire, and honored with a title and a seal.132 This also entailed privileges and a certain protection of property rights. But now that both monasteries were arguing about the division of the requested transport services by referring to such privileges allocated to each, they no longer met their obligations. The leaders of both sides—presumably the monasteries’ treasurers—were summoned to Lhasa to present the ambans with the charters granted to them in the past. Thereupon the representatives of Pashö Monastery presented a so-called shebam (she bam) document that had been issued by the Dalai Lama. This type of rulers’ charter served as the initial grant of important privileges in connection with the power of disposition over land and its peasant population.133 However, after closer examination, the claim that the document presented exempted the Tatsak jedrung rinpoché, the highest cleric and owner of Pashö Monastery, from taxation was, in fact, found to be unsubstantiated. It was also emphasized that the monasteries were in possession of charters from the Lifan Yuan, the Ministry of Outer Dependencies located in Beijing. As the ambans were not capable of making a decision even after examining the documents, they delegated the matter to the then-regent, the Demo qutuqtu (in office 1757‒1777),134 and two ministers of the Tibetan government. They

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reached a decision that the ambans took as the basis of the legal document under discussion. The calendar day on this legal document is not easy to read; presumably, it was the fifth day, which would correspond to January 20, 1771.135 The content of the legal document granted by Manggulai and C ­ hangzai, the holders of the Office for Tibetan Affairs, sent at the emperor’s direction: When both the Riwochepa and Pashö[pa] argued about the [corvée labor] tax regarding the important road [from Lhasa to Sichuan], the leaders of the two parties were summoned. When the people who brought the respective land ownership documents had arrived in Lhasa, the two of us, Manggulai and Changzai, scrutinized them. Way back when the [Seventh] jedrung qutuqtu had come to China, it is said that he was granted a shebam charter by the precious Dalai Lama. It said that taxes had been reduced for the jedrung traveling back and forth from China. And even in the Lifan Yuan’s rulers’ charter, it said “It is not allowed, for example, that, between the death of the jedrung and the enthronization of his reincarnation, people of other groups make false accusations and nuisances and come to agreements regarding land and pastures.” We both, Manggulai and Changzai, have carefully examined that: in the respective charters of the Lifan Yuan and the Tibetan land ownership documents, there is—no matter for how long—no tax exemption at all! [We] have checked [the diplomas] one more time: Since the jedrung came to the throne, an extended period had elapsed. If one, therefore, implements the [corvée labor] tax, considering what is written in the charters of the Lifan Yuan, one shows the emperor one’s gratitude. However, because the Riwochepa and the Pashöpa reported that they possessed charters of the Lifan Yuan, they did not implement the corvée labor tax. Therefore, the case was reported [to us]. Thus, [they] hoped that the serfs of the three locations of Tacham Yeru would come [to provide the services]. This would [indeed] match the locality. Apart

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from that, Riwoche and Pashö are equal insofar as they have a qutuqtu each [at their top]. As a favor of the emperor, [the qutuqtus] were granted charters and golden seals. In this respect, they are high lamas of the Yellow Hat sect. While it is, therefore, time to implement the [corvée labor] taxes by mutually considering [the obligation] and showing the emperor gratitude, you, however, have addressed reproaches to one another concerning the corvée labor tax. Thereupon, [the matter] was passed on to us, Manggulai and Changzai. Yet, there are no archived records about how you both have implemented the corvée labor tax in the past. Therefore, we have delegated the matter to the Demo qutuqtu and two ministers, asking them to make a decision. Accordingly, the Demo qutuqtu and the ministers have now handed down a verdict. The verdict says: If in the future, up to thirty horses and hundred [sic]136 pack animals are required, the [serfs] belonging to the three villages [of Tacham] will convey two-thirds of the transport. In case of a higher demand, three-quarters will be accomplished by the Riwochepa and one-­ quarter by the Pashöpa. No matter which volume the [corvée labor] tax has, one should always respect the government’s judicial decrees provided with a seal. The area where the transport is [to be carried out] is specified in the government’s judicial decrees. If, therefore, from the border or from here eastbound corvée services are required, two-thirds will be provided by the serfs belonging to the three villages as in the past—as long as there are no more than thirty horses and one hundred and fifty pack animals. If more corvée service is required than that, three-quarters will conveyed by the Riwochepa and onequarter by the Pashöpa. It was also decided that, before the jedrung comes to China, as a tax o­ bligation everything such as hay, firewood, and provisions for the ­overnight stay will be provided as requested [in each case]. After [the conflicting parties] have received matching sealed [documents], the various [people] belonging to our jurisdiction must respect them, however long that may be. Anybody who defies the abovementioned words must, according to what was agreed upon in the settlement, pay one hundred and fifty gold-sang. This applies to the first defiant party; the second defiant party after that must pay half of that amount.

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Accordingly, the two of us, Manggulai and Changzai, have been asked for [the issuance of the present legal document]. After you had asked for a settlement granted by the government, we conducted a precise investigation. Just as in cases of tax payment in money or in causa fixed in your mutually matching sealed documents, do not start a dispute [over corvée labor] in the future. If you abide by this, you can ask the emperor for grace. For this, you and Samten Gyeltsen, the treasurer of Riwoche, have been given this legal document. In the future, therefore, carry out the corvée labor reliably—for example, regarding the number of larger or smaller tax [payments] and the areas through which the loads are carried—within the borders specified in the government’s judicial decrees. If [this instruction] is ignored by defying it, a financial penalty compliant with the settlement will be levied for breach of the agreement. Make sure that it will be observed! [Written] on the 5th [?] day of the 12th month of the 30th year of Lhakyong [Qianlong].137

Involving the ambans in Tibetan legal acts was part of the emperor’s plan to subordinate the Tibetan government and administration to imperial law. This effort notably found expression in the introduction of a lottery for identifying Tibetan Buddhist reincarnations in 1793, a procedure that promised decisions free from interference through manipulation, bias, and corruption.138

Law and the World of the Invisible In a society in which the invisible world was seen as tightly interwoven with the visible world, one could easily come into conflict with beings from the invisible world. When such a conflict was believed to exist and was identified, it could be named in legal documents as a reasonable cause for regulation. Such an example is found in a rulers’ charter from 1675 that bears a red imprint of a seal of the Fifth Dalai Lama with a Chinese inscription.139 The recipient of the charter was the noble house of Changlocenma, named after its ancestral seat in the Central Tibetan province of Tsang. The confirmation commentary from 1682 on the lower end of the document was sealed with the black seal stamp of the regent Sanggyé Gyatso bearing an inscription in the Tibetan Pakpa script.140 The document records that disturbances by malevolent demons required the noble family

Charter of the Fifth Dalai Lama from 1675. Digitized Tibetan Archives Bonn: Kundeling Archives, ID 1679.

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to exchange its estate for another. The term “demon” is not to be understood here as a metaphor. It does not refer to a concrete human conflicting partner; such a person is not mentioned at any point in the document. This by no means rules out that the disturbances in this case did not also include social conflicts of the visible world. In any case, it was not unusual in Tibetan Buddhist society that spirits and local deities were also made responsible for social conflicts in the visible world. The Dalai Lama’s charter on this case reads as follows: Sent to all those living under the sun, the laypersons, monks, the higher and the ordinary people, and in particular to the Mongols, Tibetans, Hor,141 and nomads, the district commissioners and administrative officials, the estate managers of Shun and Tshelde, to the senior officers for civil and military affairs, to those that collect taxes and appoint duties, to the village headmen, and the people, to all. It was said that the Changlocenma family had to change their place due to disturbances caused by malevolent demons. Accordingly, the family had everything—the farmland, the houses together with the domestics, the old and new [property]—rendered to the government. As a substitute, the estate that was previously owned by the gyelwa lama [of the Karma Kagyü school] from Tölung Dram was transferred to them; [this means] the larger and smaller [property] including the associated land, the park surrounded by a fence of willow trees, the leased fields tilled for personal use, and the income from the poll tax; [furthermore], the property of pastures, waters, and forests on mountains and in valleys, etc., as is evident from the supplementary land-tenure documents. Going out for the regular performance of religious ceremonies, the fees for the repulsion of hail and for watering, the stations for transport services, the collection of fodder and firewood [for travelers on official missions], whatever there may have been [in terms of obligations] in the past, and the war tax of 17 kang (rkang)142 for the estate and its subjects were [so far] paid by the lay officials from Tölung [and must be kept on as a commitment]. Without additional burdens, for instance, more or less extensive services and dues, I have issued [hereby] a land ownership document as a clear result. Without you, the abovementioned, higher and ordinary people, no matter who, ever doing anything that results in a difficult-to-bear annoyance, for example, contestation, self-enrich-

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ment, false proof of origin of some land [property], new burdens by something that did not exist in the past, let them and their children and descendants peacefully keep their charters as long as the age lasts! It was so written at the great Potala Palace on the salutary ninth calendar day in the first half of the fifth Hor month in the Female WoodHare year called Sinpo [June 2, 1675]. Confirmation commentary: On the content of the above-issued diploma, whatever it may be, I have issued a confirmation document serving as support on the 25th calendar day of the 12th month in the Iron-Bird [year, February 2, 1682].143

Even if, in Tibetan Buddhist society, beings of the invisible world were presumed to be conflicting partners or originators of social conflicts in the visible world, and, therefore, also represented grounds for issuing legal documents, they nonetheless never appeared directly as a conflicting partner or defendant. That might be explained, on the one hand, by the fact that they were not available for an immediate communication suitable for a court procedure, but instead gave only religious experts decipherable clues by means of visions, omens, oracles, natural phenomena of all kinds, etc. On the other hand, the beings’ powers were imagined to be so vast that they could not possibly be controlled by physical violence and worldly power but could be subdued solely by religious experts under threat or use of magicritual violence. Nonetheless, in many respects, the assumed parallel world was of great significance for Tibetan jurisprudence, as well as for out-ofcourt settlement procedures. It could, for example, provide information about the success or failure of settlement efforts or assist in finding the truth in cases when contradicting statements were offered by the conflicting partners. Clerics acting as mediators in disputes used visions of deities and omens to estimate the prospects of their mediation efforts and receive encouragement for their actions.144 The world of the invisible could also be included in court procedures. In criminal or civil law procedures, for example, an ordeal in the form of a precisely prescribed ritual could replace argumentation and reasoning and be elevated to the highest nonpartisan authority. Just like procedures organized according to legal principles, ordeals also made sure that the conflicting parties did not decide themselves. Admittedly, the procedure lacked autonomy, because “in fact not even society as a whole presumes the

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right to be able to decide. The decision is part of the magically and religiously founded way of life. The power of persuasion and the legitimacy of a decision are dependent on the certainty of belief without any alternatives.”145 The ordeal made use of different methods determined in every detail. Common methods were submerging the hand in scalding oil or water in order to retrieve a stone or placing a hot stone on the palm of the hand, under the assumption that an innocent person would withstand the ordeal uninjured. Also less brutal means, such as decision-making by casting dice, were used.146 Prior to the procedure, an assertoric oath was required with which the plaintiff or defendant designated mighty protective and clairvoyant deities as witnesses for his telling the truth. The deities were, furthermore, called as a punishing authority in case of false testimony. A few especially fearsome deities, seen as predestined for carrying out harsh and punishing tasks, were preferred for oath-taking and could be supplemented by local deities. Outside the Tibetan legal system, they were usually evoked in rituals for magic defense and destruction.147 Thus, for oath-taking one resorted to a power that was not provided by the ruler. Paolo Prodi has made attempts to determine what—from an anthropo­ logical perspective and independent of the situation—commonly constitutes the nature of an oath. With reference to Henri Lévy-Bruhl, he identified two “invocations” as the “ahistorical and immobile nucleus of the oath-event.” First, he refers to the “invocation of the deity as witness and guarantor of truth/credibility of the statement or the obligation/­ promise to carry out a certain action or to maintain a certain behavior in the future.” Second, he refers to the “invocation with which an individual enters into a relationship with the group to which he belongs (or with which groups enter into a relationship with each other) whereby the individual jeopardizes his own physical and mental life based on a mutual belief that belongs to the sphere of metapolitics.”148 In his investigation, it is not so much the “ahistorical and immobile nucleus of the oath-event” that interests Prodi but rather the analysis of the changes to which the institution of the oath had been subordinated at the interface of politics and religion—more precisely, the sacral—in the course of Western history. That being the case, it is not surprising that he opposes Luhmann’s remark that only the function of the oath had changed in society but that the oath as an institution had remained the same.149 Luhmann described the oath as a transition from archaic cultures to “high cultures of law”:

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The four-armed Gönpo, one of the deities invoked during oath-taking. Scroll painting, twentieth century, possession of the author.

At the outset, the oath is nothing other than the removal of the violent fight about law to the level of magic—not addressed to the judge who finds the truth by aid of one or the other proof and decides on law—but addressed to the opponent who is to be defeated. There is no decision made about the oath at all; it decides itself, and this not in the way of a judgement but in the way of direct effectiveness: in the form-dependent release of magical violence by engaging one’s person. The oath is a legal proof because that was already the case with physical violence which it replaces. However, the oath, as opposed to physical violence, offers better prospects of transformation into an instrument of procedural truthseeking legal judgement. Thus it can lead to later high cultures of law retaining its continuity and identity as institution, but changing its meaning and function.150

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Prodi tells a story of the secularization of the oath and, therefore, at the same time, the secularization of politics. Such a narrative of the desacralization of the oath and politics does not apply in the case of Tibet. Although the function of the oath in Tibet’s society had changed over time, the oath as an institution had not lost its sacral character. Giorgio Agamben, who, as opposed to Prodi, is less interested in the historical origin of the oath than in the “philosophical archeology of the oath,”151 has challenged the assumption that “the force and efficacy of the oath” emanate from a magic, religious sphere in which man originally existed as a sort of a homo religiosus.152 Instead, he sees in the oath “a remnant of a stage (or, rather, the co-originality of a structure) in which the connection between words and things is not of a semantico-denotative type but performative.”153 As much as any other performative statement, the utterance of the oath formula would, therefore, already have “the force of actualizing what is said” itself.154 The actual context of the oath would not have been a magic, religious one, but a more comprehensive institution, such as the Romans termed fides: trust, fidelity, reliability, credibility.155 If, however, the language of oath-taking has the power to bring about what it expresses, why are deities then necessary when swearing an oath? As emphasized above with reference to the oath in Tibet’s society—and seemingly also in correspondence with the general view—deities fulfill two tasks for oath-taking: on the one hand, they act as witnesses; on the other hand, as a conditional curse, they are supposed to threaten punishment of those who violate their oaths. Agamben speaks of a “twofold form of the curse”: Usually, a curse is manifested as a blessing, while only in the case of perjury does it show itself as a curse. Both possibilities are “constitutively copresent” in the oath,156 which also applies to the oath in Tibet’s society. These two functions are addressed in the oath-taking described below, for example, which finalized the mediation of a conflict between two kingdoms in Ladakh. Both functions must not be explicitly mentioned in each case, but they are still always implied. While Agamben grants that the (conditional) curse “necessarily accompanies the oath but is not identical to it,” unlike other authors, he does not see the essence of the oath in the curse.157 Consequently, the deities’ testimonies would remain an essential determining feature. However, according to Agamben, the testimony talked about here is not testimony in the commonly accepted sense of the word: “It concerns not the verification

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of a fact or an event but the very signifying power of language.”158 ­Agamben therefore calls into question that the oath is about an affirmation to which the deity’s testimony is added. The “god invoked in the oath is not properly the witness of the assertion or the imprecation: he represents, he is the very event of the language in which words and things are indissolubly linked.” He adds that “the name of the god is only the seal of this force of logos—or, in the case in which it falls into perjury, of the malediction that has been brought into being.”159 However, reducing the oath to the original performative experience of “veridiction” blurs the distinction between different forms of performatives, such as oath and promises. Consequently, Agamben writes: “Every naming, every act of speech is, in this sense, an oath, in which the logos (the speaker in the logos) pledges to fulfil his word, swears on his truthfulness, on the correspondence between words and things that is realized in it.”160 With such an analysis, however, the differences between promise and oath are reduced to negligibilities and render the terms unusable for our purposes. This is not to deny that a more archaic stage could possibly have existed once “in which the connection between words and things is not of a semantico-denotative type but performative,” and that could be described as “a structure antecedent to (or contemporaneous with) the distinction between sense and denotation.”161 Thus, as will be discussed, with the recitation of so-called words of truth, magic-ritual practices of veridiction have also survived in Tibetan. It may well be the case that the oath—like all performative statements—is a remnant of such an archaic stage, and that only after the loss of the fundamental experience of the word as “veridiction” and the emergence of perjury and lie did magic, religion, and law originate from the attempt again “to tie speech to things and to bind, by means of curses and anathemas, speaking subjects to the veritative power of their speech.”162 It can also not be excluded that the names of the deities typically occurring in conjunction with the oath-taking were, in their “originary core,” nothing other than “the very name of the activity and the situation.”163 However, this does not change the fact that the available Tibetan language sources for the historical time studied clearly differentiate an oath from a promise, insofar that, unlike a normal promise, an oath is rooted in the sacral as the true guarantor of its power and effectiveness. In Tibetan law, oaths are encountered also in their promissory function, that is, not as a proof, but as a means to secure obligations for the future, as a special form of promise, by which one sought to exclude that expectations

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might not be fulfilled. In the Tibetan language, the oath in both its functions—the assertoric and the promissory—is also denominated with one term.164 What the two functions have in common is that they refer to the world of the invisible and their mighty deities. They are the ones—and not, for instance, a force ascribed to language itself—that should guarantee the truth and the effectiveness of the oath. This premise functioned in Tibet’s society largely because the belief in such deities and their potency was part of a fundamental consensus. Yet there was no absolute certainty, because religion in Tibet not only provided concepts of mighty deities, but also offered magic ritual “loopholes” so that one could, nonetheless, escape the terrible consequences of breaking oaths. These included, for example, repeating a recitation of certain mantra syllables with magical properties, or swallowing scraps on which such syllables are written.165 The oldest extant Tibetan documents—the charters and treaties of the eighth and ninth centuries inscribed on stone pillars—already testify in retrospect, like a notitia, to oath-taking as the actual legal act and, therefore, also to the entrenchment of legal obligation thus created in the invisible world.166 The stele erected in Samye Monastery during the last quarter of the eighth century records an oath by which the continued survival of early Buddhist temples and Buddhist practice in Tibet was to be guaranteed: It shall be ensured that the religious objects for the Three Jewels [the Buddha, his doctrine, and his community] established in the temples of Rasa [later Lhasa] and Drakma, etc., and the practice of Buddha’s religion will never be abandoned or destroyed! Make sure that the articles provided for that will neither be reduced nor diminished! From now on, in each generation, the ruler, fathers and sons, shall commit themselves to this! In order that the oath on this will never be removed or changed, the deities who are beyond this world, as well as the mundane deities and non–human beings, all of them, were requested as witnesses, and the ruler, father and son, and [his] ministers, all of them, have so sworn. A detailed document of the disposition exists separately.167

As another stele inscription proves, the inscription’s demand that the oath be renewed in each ruler’s generation was complied with at least once at the beginning of the ninth century.168 This underlines that one expected that the oath itself, at most, was binding for the person who took it; one did not

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believe that its binding force was easily transferable to his descendants. At any rate, it was required to repeat the oath-taking. Taking an oath to ensure the permanent existence of the Buddhist teachings served as a model insofar as later the West Tibetan king Yeshe Ö (ca. 959‒1036) once again resorted to such action. In this case, too, future generations were expressly ­commanded to renew the oath.169 It is known from more recent Tibetan history that individual people functioning as leaders were able to take an oath on behalf of a group of people as long as the members of the group had agreed beforehand.170 There is no evidence in Tibetan law that an oath could be taken and was believed to result in an obligation throughout various existences. In the area of religion, such an idea was not at all unreasonable. It was expected that the bodhisattva vows should preserve their self-obligatory effect beyond death, from rebirth to rebirth.171 Within law, however, the oath was only directly binding for those who took it and for those in whose names it was taken and who distinctly agreed to it. Even the mightiest deities of the invisible world initially only had to keep watch over compliance with the oaths already taken and not that the oath was being repeated by other people in the future. The example from the early days of Tibetan legal history, nonetheless, demonstrates that law created by oath held an insistent claim to eternal validity, even if this attempt almost has something despairing about it in light of the Buddhist attitude on the impermanence of all phenomena. Ultimately, the participants were aware of the fact that even oaths could not offer an absolute warranty, no matter how one tried to substantiate them. On the occasion of the last Tibetan-Chinese peace treaty from 821/822, animal sacrifices were still performed to strengthen the force of the oath even if this was irreconcilable with Buddhist ethics.172 Even at a much later time, animal sacrifice was still possible in the Tibetan periphery if an agreement included not only Buddhists but also representatives of non-Tibetan communities with animistic beliefs. One such example is the arrangement made by representatives of various groups under the king of Sikkim’s jurisdiction in 1876 over immigration, the regulation of disputes within and between different ethnic communities, corvée labor obligations, the commitments of dependents to the lordship, and issues of criminal law. The members of the Lhopa and Lepcha ethnic groups sacrificed animals as part of their oath-taking, pouring the blood over a particular stone specifically designated for that purpose.173 Yet such cases were an exception. Usually one abstained from such bloody means. Nevertheless, it was still viewed as necessary to uphold the oath with all sorts of

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accompanying measures. The 1753 settlement document from Ladakh, previously addressed, describes an entire arsenal of such measures. Socalled words of truth were recited together with prayers of aspiration so that the power of the spoken truth would guarantee the wishes’ fulfillment. We are dealing here with magic conceptions that date far back to pre-Buddhist India and beyond.174 As was already the case in the Tibetan-Chinese peace treaty, the Three Jewels, among others, served as witnesses. In this, the Buddhist doctrine was also ascribed personal features.175 However, the task of punishing perjury was taken over by numerous deities that also had been called to testify. Furthermore, they were there to protect those who kept their oaths. The ceremony, performed in front of statues of local deities, included general prayers for the well-being of sentient beings and the flourishing of the Buddhist doctrine. Monks from different monasteries asked the protective deities of their respective tradition for support. During the recitation of the oath formula, the participants held statues of the protective deities and sacrificial cakes above their heads. Ultimately, all these measures only committed those who had taken the oath themselves, meaning that the demand that the agreement should be eternally valid remained a wish. Correspondingly, the claim expressed at the end of the contract text has the following wording: “May that which was accomplished as a wheel for fortune and salvation remain forever!”176 Even without a compelling force, the descendants could, of course, decide to take on their ancestors’ obligation made by oath in a mission for an “eternally” valid legal act. Such an attitude is proven by the fact that later ruler generations repeated the oath, not only as previously mentioned during the Yarlung Dynasty. There are also much later examples from the Tibetan kingdom of Ladakh. In the second half of the seventeenth century, King Deden Namgyel (reign 1642‒1691) issued a charter confirming the monastic claim to property that his father, King Sengge Namgyel (reign 1616‒1623, 1624‒1642), originally felt obligated to grant due to an oath that he had taken jointly with a cleric of the Drukpa Kagyü school. The wording of this oath suggests eternal validity, meaning validity beyond the death of the two oath-takers: As long as the great Snow Mountain Tise does not melt, and as long as the Lake Manasarovar does not dry out, [we], priest and patron, will unite [our] well-being to one common well-being and mutually do the [right acts] for the other’s concerns and refraining from [wrong acts]!177

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“Eternal” validity in this case was only conceivable if priest and patron were not at the time viewed as concretely acting persons but as an attribution scheme for function holders. The oath, as a person-oriented instrument, ultimately could not achieve such a balancing act between individual and supraindividual commitment. Thus, in the preserved charters from Ladakh and Sikkim, the claim for eternal legal validity178 in connection with oath-taking was mostly abandoned. Especially the incorporation of Central Tibet into the Mongol domain in the thirteenth century brought lasting changes to the character of Tibetan-language charters. Henceforth, the rulers’ charter no longer merely recorded a previously completed legal act but, as a dispositive document, in the sense of a charta, constituted law itself. With this, the “transcendental anchoring” of legal acts expressed by the oath disappeared at the same time. Thus, the numerous preserved charters of the Ganden Podrang government, beginning from the mid–seventeenth century, also have the form of the charta. They do not testify to a preceding legal decision; instead, the ruler created the legal disposition only by issuing the charter. As an instrument of legal decisions, they had, therefore, a value of their own.179 In this way the oath had not been completely excluded from Tibetan law. It could remain the actual legal act in treaties whose scope of application went far beyond the jurisdiction of the Central Tibetan government. The treaty that was intended to settle the dispute between Tibet and the Gorkhās in 1789, for example, was concluded by oath-taking, for which a number of Tibetan Buddhist and Hindu deities were called to witness.180 Furthermore, the oath as a means of finding the truth still belonged to the ritual of ordeals. Ordeals had always been undisputed in Tibetan court procedures. They were regulated in great detail in article nine of the Tibetan law code valid during the Ganden Podrang period.181 Ordeals were also conducted in the Tibetan settlement areas outside the jurisdiction of the Tibetan government. For example, a preserved legal document from Spiti, in the modern Indian federal state of Himachal Pradesh, from the first half of the eighteenth century proves that, upon request of both conflicting parties, an ordeal using “oil and iron” was used to decide a disputed allocation of land.182 Finally, in private law, the oath could still constitute the very legal act and thereby ensure its binding force in the invisible world. In a few instances, oaths were a method of enhancing the binding force of obligation contracts and compensating for their insufficient enforceability. In

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such declarations, a person or a group of people committed themselves to another person or group. Frequently, the reasons were disputable issues such as land usage, repayment of loans, provision of services, payments of taxes and dues, maintenance of temples, or other local conflicts of various kinds. Like any other contract, obligation contracts were based on the promise that those committing would, in the future, abide by the agreement. In some cases, the promise needed to be additionally reinforced through oath-taking, though no particular subject matter made it advisable to swear an additional oath. For instance, a known case was about the use of pastureland,183 a problem that in other situations was also settled without oath-taking. It has been observed in connection with Tibetan private documents, in particular, that they frequently contain references to moral and religious duties and commitments. From this it has been concluded that “it is as if the purpose of these documents is to emphasize the moral and religious duties of all parties and to present them as the basis for the arrangements set out. . . . This reality is, at the very least, equated with a sense that people and social relations are part of a wider moral and religious world, which is the basis of the legal obligations delineated in these documents.”184 It certainly goes too far to claim that the actual purpose of these legal documents is such a general moral and religious embedding of legal obligations. Accordingly, the broad-brush conclusion that “the Tibetans did not think in terms of enforceable rules and obligations”185 is overblown. The numerous testified legal disputes, the great significance ascribed to documents in Tibetan law, and the large volume of legal documents carefully stored in case of possible later contestation offer sufficient evidence that “Tibetans” also thought “in terms of enforceable rules and obligations.” The reference to general moral and religious obligations is a clear expression of the attempt to bind law to morality and religion. Nonetheless, such efforts alone do not make Tibetan law a sacral law. Obligation contracts were usually private law agreements. In a few exceptions, obligation contracts under oath could also be required and applied in the context of public law, specifically in cases perceived as serious, in order to create a binding commitment of persons and groups of persons to the Tibetan government. A public ordinance from 1814 mentions such a case. After the revolt of a local population on the southern border with Bhutan had been quelled and the ringleaders harshly punished, the different local groups submitted a written declaration under oath to the minister who had been sent as

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a representative of the Tibetan government. In this statement, they committed themselves to follow the Tibetan government’s instructions from then on, as demanded in the public ordinance.186 With this, the power structure that had been temporarily challenged was reestablished and fixed for the future. P The beginning of the chapter emphasized that behavior control and ­conflict resolution are significant accomplishments of law. If, in a society, the differentiation of a legal system emerges in which conflicts can be carried out even without direct interactions, the society’s potential for conflict increases by facilitating refusal in cases of conflict. A substantial part of deliberations on law in Tibetan Buddhist society at the time of the Ganden Podrang, therefore, has been dedicated to the question as to what extent this was already a differentiated subsystem, instead of—as is sometimes alleged—a morality that solely boils down to the “harmonization of right or wrong and the devaluation of this difference as a dispute.”187 We noticed that even under the Ganden Podrang government, large parts of the society still settled disputes by out-of-court agreement in order to reestablish social harmony. However, there is also ample evidence that independent procedures were conducted for the purpose of clearly distinguishing legal and illegal; these mainly concerned the Tibetan upper strata and the class of taxpayers. Longer-lasting social conflicts with a broad social impact only occurred between members of the upper class. Therefore, their regulation by law provided stability for the entire society. Since the law enables sufficient opportunities for conflict, indeed almost encourages the initiation of conflict, it allows society to reproduce its “immune system.”188 To what extent this process was already underway in Tibet under the ­Ganden Podrang government is evidenced not only by the production of a comprehensive body of documents—rulers’ charters and decrees, legal decisions, petitions and appeals, contracts, declarations of obligation, debt instruments, deeds of transfer, receipts and records—but also by the fact that all these legal sources were carefully preserved and kept as evidence so that the legitimacy of one’s claims could be proven in case of possible ­conflict. In civil law cases, what was considered legal or illegal was decided predominantly by examining the documents presented by both parties and the privileges, property rights, and obligations attested therein. If the documents supplied were not sufficient to make a decision, common law aspects could also be considered. However, in civil law procedures one did not resort

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to abstract legal norms fixed in legal codes. Likewise, moral evaluations in legal decisions, court settlements, and decrees did not function as grounds for judgment. If they were ever addressed in legal documents, it was to mark the unwanted behavior as something with which a person placed himself outside the common order and its commonly shared values and norms. Tibetan law of that era was independent of religion and morality in its procedures, and was uniquely and exclusively controlled by the system’s code of legal and illegal. Political rule supported the autonomy of the law. It made the freedom of independent decision-making possible by revoking the ­conflicting parties’ control over their readiness to use physical violence while simultaneously keeping in its own hands the option of violence as leverage if legal decisions were not observed. That Tibetan law of that era had already developed autonomous procedures can be juxtaposed by deficits indicating that it was not yet a wholly differentiated subsystem. Even though the general orientation toward precedents for legal decisions contributed to the development of general ideas of order and the numerous legal sources show a significant degree of conceptual consistency, a systematic conceptual-­ classificatory appraisal of applicable law and the self-description of law as a decision-producing system were lacking.189 The world of the invisible was still an issue in Tibetan law—albeit to a lesser extent than it had been prior to the establishment of Ganden Podrang rule or outside its jurisdiction. Incorporating the world of the invisible into the procedure of finding truth and establishing who was right also ensured that decisions were made without physical violence being used by the participants directly involved. Here, however, it was not about autonomous procedures organized according to legal principles but about those which sought decisions in the context of the magical-religious order.

CHAPTER 10

War

When there is proper leadership and skill, the gods lend their support and the battle is won. —Jamgön Mipam (1846–1912), The Just King

Under what conditions was war chosen as a violent form of conflict resolution in Tibet under the Dalai Lamas and what resources were available for such a form of conflict resolution? As in other societies, in Tibet’s society of the Ganden Podrang era there were reasons for war, experiences with war, and interpretations of war conveyed by the society’s specific worldview. Despite viewing the type of warfare as dependent upon the type of society,1 as Barbara Kuchler’s social theory studies on war suggest, the rough schema of three types of societies—namely, the segmentarily, stratificatorily, and functionally differentiated societies—does not suffice on its own to explain distinctive Tibetan features. In terms of its attitude toward war and the localization of war potential, Tibet’s society differs considerably from other stratified societies. Fritz Simon has defined war as the most extreme form of social ­conflict because war involves “the mutual attempt to extinguish the existence of the participating parties,” whereby existence might be conceived as “the perhaps mere ideal, economic, moral, etc., existence.”2 Elsewhere he writes, “Wars are struggles for the preservation of identity, be it the personal, group, or national identity, etc.; losing a war equates the loss of one’s own existence. It would be the social equivalent to the individual’s physical death.”3 Indeed, in Tibet’s society, physical destruction of the respective opponent existed as a form of conflict resolution at the interaction level— namely, in a face-to-face situation. One need only think of the assassination 201

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of the head of the government by his fellow cabinet members in the first council of ministers in 1727 or the assassination of the Tibetan ruler by the representatives of the Qing emperor residing in Lhasa in 1750. By narrowing down the term “war” for the purpose of this analysis and ignoring the metaphoric use suggested by Simon4 —such as economic war, propaganda war, marital war—the aforementioned assassinations can, at best, be viewed as a reason for war or revolt in Tibet’s society, notwithstanding the fact that the interaction conflicts between the individuals had been solved by the assassination in the first place. Throughout Tibetan history, the physical destruction of the opponent was not an explicitly declared goal of Tibetan warfare, and this was especially true following the establishment of Ganden Podrang rule. Such a goal would have been a flagrant violation of Buddhist ethics and its ­commitment to nonviolence as a positive moral value. However, not only ethical issues played a role in this, since total annihilation was never the goal even in other respects. And defeat was not in all cases tantamount to the complete loss of existence, however that may be understood. Rather, the intention may well have been to limit the opponent’s economic basis of existence. The use of armed force was not to extinguish the opponents but to subject them to one’s own will. The goals were, for example, to enforce the dominance of one’s own Buddhist school: to transform, selectively or regionally, monasteries of other Buddhist schools into those of one’s own school, to have one’s own monasteries benefit and prosper from the gained economic and human resources, or to subordinate the periphery to the jurisdiction of the center. Therefore, wars were of an instrumental nature in Tibet’s society under the Ganden Podrang, even if this did not apply to all wars in the spatial periphery of society. The Nyarong war discussed below took on existential features in that it tended increasingly to affect the existence of the warring parties5 —though not in the sense that this war was constructing a new ethnic, national, or religious community6 but in that it progressively raised war itself to the sole basis of existence. That warfare most likely implied killing people was condoned also by the Ganden Podrang in its wars, and killing during acts of war was not punished under Tibetan criminal law. The term “war” is used here in exactly this sense. As Barbara Kuchler puts it, war can be understood as “collective and organized fighting during which violence is exerted and human beings are killed without this being considered homicide. In other words, wars are situations with the legitimate, socially sanctioned killing of

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human beings.”7 It can be added that “war, if not necessarily being a symmetric event, is at least a bilateral event, shaped by a reciprocal use of violence.”8 Since the symmetry of this relationship is not a crucial criterion, honor is not necessarily implied as a cause or motive.9 In fact, this value did not compellingly play a role in the case of Tibetan wars. Of course, ­concepts of honor also existed in Tibet’s society. They can be found in the Tibetan Gesar epic, which was especially popular in East Tibet and to a lesser extent in the utmost west, and in its usually oral narrations on the hero’s war adventures. Therefore, particularly in East Tibet, perceptions of honor could exert influence on issues of warfare. Yet, honor was not part of the Buddhist catalogs of virtues. Neither honor nor heroism in battle nor even the detailed description of acts of war played a role in Tibetan ­Buddhist historiography. Although religion did not promote the glorification of war in Tibet, during the establishment and consolidation of G ­ anden Podrang rule religious concerns nonetheless contributed considerably to the outbreak of wars. Wars of expansion and looting campaigns originating from Tibetan territory and moving outside the boundaries of Tibetan Buddhist society took place only during the two centuries of the Yarlung Dynasty, when the Tibetan Empire expanded to become a great Inner Asian empire. The expansion of power beyond the Tibetan settlement area, the control of Inner Asian trade routes associated with the absorption of goods traffic and the prosperity accumulated in oasis towns, forcing smaller neighboring kingdoms into a vassal status, and raids into the empire of the Chinese Tang Dynasty, as well as contract and marriage diplomacy, were part of a well-calculated political strategy of the Tibetan kings. At times, the Tibetan king himself rode into battle as a warrior king at the head of his troops.10 With the second spread of Buddhism to Tibet during the tenth century, this kind of warfare vanished from Tibet’s society. First, the fragmentation of political power in Tibet—and associated with that, the new dominance of the segmentary differentiation of society—prevented the development of significant military capacities. This situation also implied a clear asymmetric distribution of power in favor of neighboring territorial empires that discouraged any large-scale Tibetan endeavors to expand. Second, the spread of Buddhism and its deep-rootedness throughout Tibet’s society as a whole ensured that, ethically, a negative moral value was attributed to soldiering and that control of human and material resources was becoming more and more concentrated in the clergy. Thus, a warrior-aristocracy was unable to

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emerge in Tibet’s society. This development did not change also in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, and afterward in the seventeenth century, when Tibet’s society was again integrated into a unified dominion with distinctive social stratification. Therefore, no considerably large, specialized military personnel in the form of warrior aristocrats or soldiers in a standing army11 ever took form, which is something that Barbara Kuchler has emphasized as being characteristic for the war potential of stratified societies. Apart from a small military troop in the first half of the eighteenth century that the then-aristocratic leader of Tibet established under the protectorate of the Qing emperor,12 army-building efforts under the Ganden Podrang were limited to the first half of the twentieth century. As is well known, they encountered vehement resistance from influential circles of Tibetan clergy.13 Its fundamental Buddhist stance prevented the Tibetan government from striving after power and domination for its own sake. Power and domination had to be in the service of religion. In terms of religion, too much worldly power could even be considered detrimental. A Tibetan expressed this belief to Charles Bell with the following words: “Rich and powerful countries can hardly avoid sinning. In their power they take possession of other countries by fighting and killing the inhabitants of those countries in battle. Thus, taking lives, they commit great sins. We always say that in a powerful country religion goes down.”14 Evidently, the Buddhist premises of Ganden Podrang domination did not encourage the development of an aggressive and expansionist attitude toward the surroundings of Tibet’s society. Yet this stance in no way precluded wars within Tibet’s society. Wars were principally unwanted and understood as a karmic-related evil of an era in decline. They were either perceived as the disturbance of an initially harmonious order or they were supposed to reestablish such an order. In general rhetoric, war was described as an irrevocable evil of the degenerate age. Popular eschatological ideas in Tibet such as, for example, the Kālacakra Tantra inherited from India, describe the myth of a hidden country named Shambhala and predict a battle between enemies and supporters of Buddhist teachings.15 With this, they implied that violent confrontations with opponents of one’s religious doctrine would be inevitable. Wars were in part forced upon Tibet’s society from outside. The last time that Tibet’s society was almost entirely in the role of victim was during the invasion of the People’s Liberation Army of the People’s Republic of China in the mid–twentieth century, under the guise of Marxist rhetoric.

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The army of the King of Shambhala fighting the enemies of Buddhism. Detail of a wall painting, Trashi Lhunpo Monastery, painted in 2006.

Tibet’s continuing occupation and colonization16 has been presented by China to this day as a liberation of the Tibetan lower social strata from exploitation and subjugation and the alleged uninterrupted affiliation of Tibet to Chinese dominion since the thirteenth century. Yet it was this invasion that simultaneously ended the system “Tibetan Buddhist society.” However, an exclusive victim role cannot be attributed so clearly to Tibet’s society in every case, since in some confrontations collaboration played a not so insignificant role. Also, with few exceptions, wars were characterized by the fact that the conflicting parties considered their own actions to be reactions to their opponents’ preceding actions.17 Furthermore, and despite the negative moral connotations, war also served as means of enforcing one’s own standpoints and claims within Tibetan Buddhist society. Beginning with the dissolution of Yuan-Sakya domination in the mid–­ fourteenth century,18 the aristocracy and clergy were always involved in ­conflicts of interest in Central Tibet that were fought with warlike methods. Time and again, monks too actively participated in fighting action. If a ruler was faced with the decision of whether or not to use military force to achieve his goals, the first maxim was to avoid war and prefer peace

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if possible.19 Yet, if he preferred the option of war, religion also provided sufficient legitimating semantics. The simplest of these was the stereotypical demonization of the respective conflict partner; in other words, the stereotyped insinuation that the conflict partner’s actions, including his possible military success, could be attributed to the influence of demonic powers. In contrast, one’s own successes were attributed to the support from the powerful protective deities of the religion. Since the interaction at the nonhuman level of demons and protective deities was viewed as the actual crucial one, during internal Tibetan confrontations both sides quite frequently concentrated on performing magically effective rituals alongside their combat operations. In fact, skills of that kind and the supposed success of magic practices, such as illnesses or the unexpected death of a ­conflict partner, are highlighted with praise when acts of war are mentioned in hagiographic and historiographic sources. Wars within Tibet’s society were exclusively internal wars of the upper class, even if one aspect of the ruler’s legitimation was also the protection of the entire population.20 The participation of the lower class in wars was limited to its role as victim or to providing the resources required for warfare. Even though the limited military capacities of the upper class in Tibet’s society were used in fighting wars, in many cases they were not sufficient to achieve lasting military success. Particularly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the critical war potential was thus not located with the ruling class of Tibet’s society, as was common in stratified societies. The Tibetan clergy was able to become a dominating societal factor in Tibet notably because it could rely on the military capabilities of neighboring rulers to enforce its interests, thereby creating a unique form of domination that differed from that of other stratified societies. With this, it also created structures of dependence that have been abetting foreign claims to domination until this very day. As we have seen, hierocracy as a model of rule was shaped not only by the expansion of Mongolian domination into Tibet in the thirteenth century but also by Tibetan Buddhist historio­ graphy with its specific interpretation and ideological contextualization of that event.21 Subsequently and by referring to historical precedence, the initiative to involve foreign rulers and warlords primarily emanated from circles of the Tibetan clergy. Also, it was possible in Tibet that war—similar to other forms of ­violence—could replace verbal communication at a certain level of escalation. Instead of a conflict focused on a specific matter, one can then speak

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of a power conflict; in the first case, the confrontation is oriented toward (supposedly) better arguments; in the latter, it is geared toward a (seemingly) superior position of power.22 A power conflict was preceded by the evaluation of the other side as an enemy or the representative of “dangerous” heterodox doctrines. Wars usually resulted in a change of the power relations in place. Only on rare occasions did a test of power end in the confirmation of an already existing power structure. A power conflict settled with military force was economically profitable for the conqueror. In this, Tibet’s society did not differ from other stratified societies.23 Yet this correlation did not necessarily apply to a foreign warlord who provided his military capacities to regulate intra-Tibetan conflicts. While the Khoshots, who had significantly contributed to the Gelukpa’s victory over their opponents, were able to use East Tibet’s economic resources for a few decades as a result, the Qing emperors’ costly military commitment in Tibet was from a financial point of view by and large a losing deal. The rationale behind their engagement is revealed only when the entire Inner Asian perspective of the Qing emperors is taken into account.24 The Tibetan population was too small and the economic productivity of Tibet’s society too insufficient to have produced notable surpluses for the taking, beyond intrasocietal taxation and the merely symbolic form of tribute payments. In contrast to today’s Chinese government, the exploitation of Tibet’s natural resources and the relocation of non-Tibetan population groups into traditional Tibetan settlement areas were for the Qing government at that time not an option due to Tibet’s extreme geographical location, inadequate infrastructure, and lack of technical means. A classification of the various wars during the time of the Ganden Podrang government can fundamentally be differentiated into invasions— wars fought against Tibet’s society from the outside—and wars fought within Tibet’s society. Invasions comprised predatory attacks to exert (supposedly justified) material claims, territorial expansionist ambitions, attempts to expand economic and political influence, and attempts at occupation. The initiative for warfare was taken outside Tibet, but invasions could occur either with or without the collaboration of parts of the Tibetan upper class. Intrasocietal wars were based on the segmentary differentiation of the upper class: either the aristocracy’s territorial fragmentation, the division of the clergy into different schools, or a combination of the two. Even if the initiative and cause for warfare were localized within Tibet’s society in the

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case of internal wars, internal wars were mostly fought with the inclusion of non-Tibetan troops or were concluded by them.

Religious Wars Intrasocietal wars that were begun on initiative of the clergy occurred only during the first phase of Ganden Podrang domination. They can be justifiably described as religious wars since the motive for warfare was of a sectarian nature. In 1642, the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism succeeded in concluding the intra-Tibetan power struggle in its favor by attracting the military support of the Khoshot Mongols. The then-treasurer—and later, first regent—of the Fifth Dalai Lama seemed to be the driving force behind this maneuver. Although the autobiography of the Fifth Dalai Lama gives the impression that he only reluctantly followed this policy, he was party to it from early on. For example, from the very beginning he had rituals for the destruction of the enemy performed to support the campaign.25 When the regent finally reached the conclusion that the war had gone too far and the time for arbitration had perhaps come, it was the Dalai Lama who insisted on continuing military actions.26 For the rest of the seventeenth century, the Gelukpa repeatedly used Mongolian-Tibetan troops under Mongolian commanders to consolidate their power in Tibet’s society and to expand it into the periphery, particularly against Bhutan in the south, Ladakh in the west, and Gyeltang in the southeast of the Tibetan settlement area. The actual fighting was usually only of short duration, whereas it was entirely possible that the dispute was carried on over several years. All these wars were a continuation of the fights between different ­Buddhist schools over gaining supremacy, or even over gaining supreme rule itself. In the late fifteenth century, confrontations between the aristocratic leaders of the two Central Tibetan provinces had already taken place. From the very beginning, the Buddhist schools that were closely linked with the aristocracy were involved in these sometimes violent confrontations. On the one side was the Geluk school, which—through the successful foundation of large monasteries near Lhasa alone—was developing into an increasingly strong political factor, and on the other side were two branches of the Kagyü school, the Karma Kagyüpa and the Drukpa Kagyüpa. Circumstances were further complicated by a schism within the Drukpa Kagyüpa that was not sparked by doctrinal questions but the dispute between two noble houses over which one of their respective candidates should be acknowledged as the legitimate reincarnation of the fourth

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hierarch of the school, who had passed away in 1592. One of the two candidates lacked the support of the ruler of Tsang, who largely dominated the politics of Central Tibet at the time. Nonetheless, this candidate’s supporters did not renounce their claims but had to flee prosecution by escaping over the Himalayas to the south. From then on, there were two reincarnation lines that claimed to place the legitimate hierarchs at the head of the Drukpa Kagyüpa. The branch of the Drukpa Kagyü school that had fled to the south found support there among local aristocratic houses that had initially emigrated from Tibet. With their help, in 1616, they founded the core of the political structure known today as Bhutan. The literal translation of its Tibetan name, Drukyül, “dragon-land,” is misleading; rather, it is the “country of the Druk(pa Kagyüpa),” named after the since then “state-supporting” Buddhist school. While the reincarnation of the fourth Drukpa hierarch who had escaped from Tibet was not recognized in his home country, and was therefore also denied title to the monasteries and estates of the school, he succeeded in uniting the worldly and spiritual reign south of the Himalayas. For more than one hundred years, Bhutan’s founder and his successors were able to defend their rulership in numerous wars against Tibet, before the Central Tibetan government finally came to terms with the existence of a broadly similar polity in their immediate neighborhood. Already prior to the foundation of the Tibetan Ganden Podrang government in 1642, the new hierocracy in Bhutan had efficiently repelled three invasions by the ruler of Tsang.27 Only two years after a similar form of rulership headed by the Dalai Lama had been established in Tibet, the first of five Mongolian-Tibetan invasions that the Ganden Podrang government would launch into Bhutan in the seventeenth century took place. The Tibetan government considered the foundation of a new polity that pushed a rival Buddhist school to the top of the social hierarchy to be an immediate threat to its own claim to power and domination. This feeling of being threatened must have been enormous, because, although one defeat was followed by another, the government in Lhasa persisted in fighting the opponent at the southern border of its territory with military force. The impassibility of the H ­ imalayas and the heat in the southern valleys were just as responsible for the defeat as bad preparation, self-exaltation, strategic mistakes, and disputes within the military leadership. On the other hand, there were factors that fostered the invasions. Above all, the Tibetan government was able to use disputes within Bhutan’s upper class in its own

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interest, and such collaboration always encouraged the Tibetan government to risk conflict. However, the 1679 peace treaty put a preliminary end to hostile conflicts between the two Tibetan Buddhist hierocracies. In all these wars, the clergy had played a significant role on both sides: ­Buddhist hierarchs were at the top of both hostile polities, and with the help of universally feared magic, they also tried to exert direct influence on the course of the war and inflict damage on the opponent’s life and limb. And after each defeat, the arbitrations mediated by prominent clergymen were negotiated and recorded in contracts. However, the tensions between the two hierocracies persisted below the surface. In the first half of the eighteenth century, in 1714 and 1730, two more ultimately useless wars followed. However, in these cases it was no longer the elite of the Tibetan clergy who decided to invade but instead the worldly rulers in Lhasa, who at that time were de facto at the head of the government. The cause of these actions was controversial Bhutanese interference in the border territories as well as requests from Bhutan for assistance in internal confrontations among the upper class. Yet the feeling of still having a score to settle also seems to have played a role. Overall, the Tibetan-Bhutanese wars had a lasting effect, primarily in Bhutan. Today, they are an essential part of the identity-establishing foundational history of Bhutan.28 The wars against Bhutan were not the only ones pursued by the young Ganden Podrang government in the seventeenth century to expand its domination within the Tibetan settlement areas. The defeat of a revolt in the southeast periphery in 1674 derived from a similar motivation. The Tibetan area of Gyeltang is located in today’s Chinese province of Yunnan and was officially renamed Shangri-La by the government of the People’s Republic of China in 2001 with the aim of boosting tourism.29 For a ­considerable part of its history, it was controlled by the kings of the nonTibetan Naxi Kingdom whose capital was Lijiang. Following the conquest of Yunnan by the Qing general Wu Sangui in 1659, the kingdom was subordinated to the supreme authority of the Qing Empire. Wu Sangui ultimately deprived the Naxi king of power. He left the area of Gyeltang to the Khoshot Mongols, who were moving from Kokonor in the modern province of Qinghai further and further toward Southeast Tibet. Everywhere they went, they acted as patrons of the Tibetan Buddhist Geluk school and collected taxes from the local population. By avoiding confrontation with the Mongols, Wu Sangui was able to reserve his military forces for his forthcoming rebellion against the Qing emperor. Even before this uprising,

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an open revolt of the population against the Khoshots and the Gelukpa had erupted in Gyeltang in December 1673. Until then, of the different ­Buddhist schools the Karma Kagyüpa had dominated the area of Gyeltang thanks to the patronage of the Naxi kings. Moreover, after the Gelukpa had taken power in Central Tibet, the Naxi king had provided refuge to the highest hierarch of the Karma Kagyüpa for several years. Before the Khoshots came to the area, the Gelukpa had not had their own monasteries in Gyeltang. Local monasteries of the Karma Kagyüpa, together with local officials of the disempowered Naxi king, organized resistance against the new supreme authority that the Gelukpa, in cooperation with the ­K hoshots, had also tried to establish in far-off Gyeltang. It was the Fifth Dalai Lama himself who, in 1674, arranged the deployment of Mongol troops under the command of a Khoshot prince from Kokonor to put down this revolt. A Tibetan militia led into the battle by a Gelukpa cleric from the neighboring area of Muli, served as reinforcement. After the Mongol-Tibetan troops’ victory over the rebels, the Gelukpa erected a large monastery on the ruins of the most extensive Karma Kagyü monastery in Gyeltang and thereby strengthened their supremacy, which still prevails in the region today. Subsequently, decrees issued in Lhasa ordered that the local material resources be primarily available for use of the Gelukpa and that students be regularly sent to Central Tibet’s large monastic universities for education.30 At the beginning of 1679, the Ganden Podrang government had temporarily ended hostilities toward Bhutan with a peace treaty. Still in the same year, it incited war against the Tibetan kingdom of Ladakh on the western periphery. Several accusations were adduced as casus belli: preferential treatment of the Drukpa Kagyüpa, oppression of the Gelukpa by the royal house of Ladakh, and raids into the western border regions of G ­ anden Podrang dominion launched by local population groups belonging to the Kingdom of Ladakh’s jurisdiction. It was the Fifth Dalai Lama who decided to go to war. Particularly during the first two years of the war, the Mongol-Tibetan troops were able to achieve military success. But as the situation seemed hopeless for the Ladakhis, they approached the Mughal governor of Kashmir for help. In return for their victory against the Tibetan invaders, finally reached in 1683 with the governor’s support, Ladakh had to commit itself to regular tribute payments and grant Kashmiri traders a monopoly on the wool trade, which was greatly significant for pashmina production in Kashmir. The most alarming result for the Tibetan government was, however, the forced conversion of the king of Ladakh to Islam.

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At the time, rulership in Lhasa was in the hands of a regent. The Fifth Dalai Lama had died the year before, yet his death was kept secret for many years. In light of the imminent change of the hitherto Buddhist Kingdom of Ladakh into a polity shaped by Islam, sectarian motives for war were finally sidelined. The regent assigned the task of mediating to the top hierarch of the northern Drukpa Kagyüpa. Following the schism of the Drukpa Kagyüpa, the northern branch had come to an arrangement with the Ganden Podrang and could therefore still dispose over its monasteries and estates in Tibet. In addition, this branch of the school was also well established in Ladakh and had significant influence on the royal house. Finally, in 1684, a peace treaty was concluded between the king of Ladakh and the Tibetan government. Essential elements of this treaty were that the king of Ladakh return to Buddhism and uphold an obligation to protect Buddhism thereafter. In addition, the treaty contained detailed rules on trade that mainly confirmed the Kashmiri merchants’ monopoly on the export of wool. It was also determined that Ladakh had to pay tribute to Lhasa every three years. After the war, the Tibetan government reinforced its presence in the western border region by stationing a district governor and erecting a new Gelukpa monastery there.31 For the rest of the century, the Tibetan Gelukpa elite, under the rulership of the Tibetan regent, actively promoted the Dzungars’ power political ambitions and military efforts in their conflict with the eastern Mongols and the Qing Empire.32 While Gelukpa military engagement had limited sustainable success, it laid the foundation for the relatively stable, more than three-hundred-year-long reign of the Ganden Podrang and the dominant position of the Geluk school in Tibet’s society. The hierarchy established by the Gelukpa among the Buddhist schools, with the Geluk school at the top, in Central Tibet and large parts of the Tibetan settlement areas in the seventeenth century was never seriously challenged. During the entire consolidation phase of the Ganden Podrang government, more united the conflicting parties in violent intra-Tibetan confrontations than divided them. All were adherents of Tibetan Buddhism. All belonged to the upper class. If they did not belong to the Buddhist clergy, they were at least closely affiliated to the clergy as patrons of a particular school of Tibetan Buddhism. Because the opponents had a great deal in common, small differences had to be exaggerated and subject-oriented communication had to be replaced by accusative communication in order to legitimize violent confrontation. The Gelukpa made the distinction

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between “pure” and “impure” Buddhist teachings into their guiding difference. This reason was explicitly cited in decrees to justify their claim to societal supremacy and their primary use of economic resources.33

Invasions and Civil Wars The far-reaching involvement of the Gelukpa elite in Inner Asian confrontations led to the incursion of the Dzungars in 1717. They defeated Central Tibet’s outnumbered Mongol-Tibetan troops and carried out a massacre in Lhasa. The Khoshot Khan, who had been the absolute ruler in Central Tibet since the assassination of the Tibetan regent, was killed in action, and the Dzungars established a three-year reign of terror.34 The Dzungars’ interest in Tibet, just like that of the Qing emperors, was not so much based on expanding their dominion into Tibetan territory or opening up new economic resources but was rather aimed at controlling the religious and political influences of the Tibetan Geluk school and their hierarchs on the Mongol peoples of Inner Asia. The Dzungars’ invasion was actively supported by a large proportion of the Gelukpa, since they hoped that the invaders would bring the “true” Dalai Lama to Lhasa. When this hope was not fulfilled, it was the Tibetan aristocracy that partly collaborated with the occupiers. Other parts of the aristocracy, particularly those from the western areas, opposed them. After three years, a Qing army repulsed the  Dzungars and bolstered the candidate preferred by a majority of the Gelukpa for the position of Dalai Lama to enthronement. By doing so, the Qing army was able to present itself as liberator instead of invader. Nonetheless, this event marks the beginning of the Qing emperors’ increasing control over Tibetan affairs. It also encouraged a development beginning at the onset of the eighteenth century in which more and more areas in the east, northeast, and southeast of the Tibetan settlement area came under direct Qing administration. Although the Dalai Lama officially remained at the top of Tibet’s society, the emperor transferred the real political power into the hands of a cabinet of ministers consisting of members of the Tibetan aristocracy.35 Given that the government was led by a primus inter pares, friction within the government soon arose along the segmentary differentiation of the aristocracy. This culminated in the assassination of the head of the government by a fellow cabinet politician and the subsequent outbreak of civil war from 1727 to 1728. The representatives of the aristocracy from the eastern regions of Central Tibet stood in opposition to those from the western part of the

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Tibetan territory. In this conflict, the Dalai Lama and his father sided with the eastern aristocracy. According to a letter that one of the opponents wrote to the Qing emperor in 1727, it was mainly the civil population in Central Tibet’s eastern province that had been severely affected by the battles.36 Neither of the two sides in this conflict opposed the Qing emperor. On the contrary, during the conflict both sides eagerly sought the emperor’s approval for their actions in connection with efforts to discredit their opponents at the imperial court. In the end, the leader of the western part managed to win the emperor’s support. With his military victory in the civil war, he was ahead of the advancing Qing army but at once left the sentencing of his opponents and the reorganization of the Tibetan government to the imperial envoys. The political influence and power of the Dalai Lama were further curtailed, and governance was placed solely in the hands of the victor. When, as late as the mid–eighteenth century, the son and successor of the latter neared rebellion against the emperor, the emperor put an end to the attempt to govern Tibet with the help of the aristocracy and instead focused again on the model of hierocracy as the form of domination in Tibet. Since the political and societal influence of the Tibetan aristocracy had once again been curtailed to the benefit of the clergy, the potential for wars in Central Tibet remained extremely limited until the end of the ­Ganden Podrang government. Even though in the first half of the twentieth century spontaneous violent revolts occurred within the Gelukpa clergy, they were put down before they could develop into warlike unrest.37 Nonetheless, invasions and the question of how to react to them still irritated the Tibetan elite from time to time. In the eighteenth century, the Qing Empire had established itself as a regulatory factor in Tibet’s society and as guarantor for the integrity of the Ganden Podrang government. The emperor was perceived as the patron of the Gelukpa and its government; thus, he counted as the supreme military commander. This position included the task of organizing the external defense of Tibetan territory and providing the required military capacities when necessary. This ­concerned above all the southern and western borders, since to the north and east Tibetan territory bordered provinces administered by governors of the Qing government following the Qing Empire’s final destruction of the Inner Asian Dzungar realm in the mid–eighteenth century. At the end of the century, the Qing emperor fulfilled his allocated role in Tibet’s society as supreme commander and defender of the Tibetan borders. Of course,

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the emperor was also simultaneously defending imperial borders and spheres of influence. For Tibet, the conditions beyond the southern border had radically changed at the time. In the Kathmandu valley, the reign of the three Malla kingdoms had been superseded by the Gorkhā kingdom in 1768. Unlike their predecessors, the Gorkhās pursued an expansionist policy, and thus created the territorial foundation of the modern state of Nepal. These expansionist ambitions were also directed against Tibetan territory. The reason for war was a burdensome legacy from the time of the Malla kings, which the Gorkhās had not been willing to assume. Since the time of the Fifth Dalai Lama, the Tibetan government had sent hacksilver to Nepal to have coins minted from it. In the eighteenth century, the Malla kings began admixing more and more base metals to the coins in order to increase their profit margin. By the mid–eighteenth century, the coins contained only 50 percent pure silver. After having assumed power, the Gorkhās initially increased the silver content again but requested that the Tibetan government exchange two old coins for one new one. The Tibetan government declined. Although there was a temporary agreement to continue minting coins of inferior quality for Tibetan internal transactions, the quarrel ­continued to smolder. Nepalese troops finally invaded Tibetan territory in 1788 to lend weight to their requests.38 The Tibetans were ill-prepared for this invasion. Though three thousand Qing soldiers arrived in Lhasa in 1789, their commanding officers held back the troops for fear of imminent defeat. Perforce, the Tibetan government agreed to the conditions of a peace treaty that was largely dictated by the Gorkhās. The treaty was negotiated and certified by representatives of the Gorkhās, the Tibetan government, and the monasteries of the Panchen Lama and the Sakyapa near the border. During the negotiations, the Tenth Zhamarpa (1742–1792)—a hierarch of the Karma Kagyü school, second to the Karmapa—assumed the role of mediator and was seated at the head of the table with all the negotiators sitting across from each ­other.39 The representatives of the Qing emperor residing in Tibet are not mentioned as participants in the treaty, nor was the text submitted to the emperor beforehand. The Qing emperor was merely added to the list of Buddhist and Hindu deities who were supposed to act as witness to the treaty. Furthermore, the emperor was not informed of the humiliating details specified in the peace treaty directly after it was concluded. Instead, the Qing officers and the emperor’s representatives stationed in Lhasa sent

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him news regarding the allegedly successful recapture of previously lost border regions. When the Tibetan government later defaulted on the high tribute payments agreed in the peace treaty, the quarrels continued and led to another invasion in 1791 and the plundering of Trashi Lhünpo, the large monastery and residence of the Panchen Lama. Finally, the Qianlong emperor sent a more than seventeen-thousand-man army to Tibet, and even over the Himalayas further down to the gates of Kathmandu to exact a new peace treaty, which obligated, among other things, the Gorkhās to pay tribute to the imperial court every five years.40 Like all previous wars and unrest of the eighteenth century, the first Gorkhā war in Tibetan history also resulted in the Qing government’s further tightening control over the Tibetan government and administration. The fact that the Tenth Zhamarpa was accused of collaboration affirmed the Qing emperor in his critical attitude toward the Tibetan Buddhist reincarnation system and its selection procedure, which led to the introduction of a lottery system for identifying high-ranking Buddhist reincarnations.41 However, in the nineteenth century, the Qing emperors’ power and possibilities for influence incrementally waned in light of new internal and external threats. As a result, the Tibetan government was entirely on its own when the Dogra invaded Tibet in 1841. The Dogras were Rajputs from Jammu in northern India. Gulab Singh, a Rajput prince and vassal of the Sikh kingdom of Punjab, had become rāja of Jammu in 1822 and founded the Dogra Dynasty. Gulab Singh had ambitions to bring the lucrative wool trade with Ladakh and West Tibet under his control. In 1834, his general, wazir Zorawar Singh, and his troops invaded Ladakh and rendered the Tibetan kingdom of Ladakh tributary. After having broken the last resistance in 1839, he turned west in the same year and brought Baltistan, now located in the modern state of Pakistan, under his suzerainty. Like with the Gorkhās before, the existence of the Dogras represented a new entity in the environment of Tibetan Buddhist society, which challenged the hitherto existing crosssystem power relations and brought about unpredictability and unreliability of expectations. If there were doubts regarding the power advantage of the other side, war was an obvious remedy to clarify the open question of power. Encouraged by his success, Zorawar Singh began his campaign against West Tibet in April 1841. In August, he conquered Tsaparang, the former residence of the West Tibetan kings, with five thousand soldiers— Dogras, Ladakhis, and Baltis. Three months later, however, he stood

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outnumbered by the Tibetan army. The Tibetan government had put together a ten-thousand-man army under the auspices of the regent—without any support from imperial troops. Yet the Tibetans had another ally: the decisive battle began on December 14, 1841, in the middle of winter, at 4,500 meters altitude. The Dogras were ill-prepared for the unfavorable climatic conditions. The battle lasted for three days. Zorawar Singh was killed in action. The Dogra army was virtually annihilated—most of its soldiers were killed in action; others died crossing the passes due to the cold temperatures. The defeat of the Dogras encouraged the Ladakhis to launch a revolt in Leh, the capital of Ladakh. For this, they also received a modest amount of Tibetan support. But in the end the revolt was crushed by new troops, and the Dogras cemented their dominance over Ladakh as well as ­Baltistan. In September 1842, a peace treaty between Tibet and the Dogras was concluded in Leh. In it, Tibet acknowledged the Dogras as legitimate rulers over Ladakh, while the Dogras abandoned their territorial claims in West Tibet. Both sides explicitly accepted the border as it had existed before the war.42 According to Simon, “Wars are waged only between clearly delimited autopoietic systems (be it nations, states, organizations, tribes, ‘peoples,’ gangs, or individuals) that communicate with one another and that are bound by a history of communication and interaction. He who knows nothing about the other will not start a war with him.”43 Tibet’s society, however, did not share a noteworthy history of communication with the Dogras, who had appeared in the Tibetan environment just a few years earlier. Mainly because the Dogras were not well informed about Tibet’s society or the climate and geographic conditions of West Tibet, they risked war in order to test the power relations. Just as with the Gorkhās, no long mutual history of communication had preceded the outbreak of a violent confrontation. Mutual knowledge of the enemy was therefore also fairly limited in that case. Things were different during the second Gorkhā invasion from 1854 to 1856. The Tibetan government had to combat this invasion as well without the support of Qing troops. As a pretext for war, the Gorkhās cited the Tibetan government’s harassment of their tribute mission returning from Beijing for the allegedly unauthorized possession of opium. ­Nepalese troops once again occupied border areas to force Tibet into making territorial and commercial concessions. Although using its own

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soldiers the Tibetan government was able to stop the Gorkhās, in the subsequent peace treaty the government was forced to grant Nepal trade privileges and the right to station a permanent representative in Lhasa who was accorded jurisdiction over the resident Nepalese merchants. This institution would remain until the mid–twentieth century.44

War of Intervention The military weakness of the Qing government came to light even more blatantly a few years later, prior to and during the so-called Nyarong war in East Tibet. In the mid–nineteenth century, the society of East Tibet was primarily segmentarily differentiated. It consisted of numerous rather small polities, none of which had an actual dominating influence on its neighbors. In a political sense, the polities differed in how they were organized; there were small kingdoms whose kings legitimized themselves through ancient genealogy, communities ruled by Buddhist clerics, and nomadic areas controlled by tribal chiefs. While the western part of East Tibet was subordinated under Central Tibet’s rule, the eastern parts were subordinated to bordering Chinese provinces. However, at the time, the control exerted by provincial governors over the Tibetan areas was mostly nominal and hardly interfered with their internal structures. This situation enabled the rise and military expansion of Gönpo Namgyel, a clan leader whose family for generations had ruled a small nomad area located east of the upper reaches of the Mekong river. Thanks to the work of Yudru Tsomu, we are relatively well informed about the details of his rise and fall.45 Gönpo Namgyel’s homeland was the upper Nyarong, a valley at three thousand meters altitude, located far away from East Tibet’s larger trade centers. Up to today, the primary means of living is livestock farming. The climate is rough and unexpected weather phenomena, such as sudden frost and hailstorms, occur frequently. As in other remote areas of East and Northeast Tibet in the past, in Nyarong banditry and raids were generally considered suitable possibilities to eke out one’s meager livelihood. The community was held together mostly by family ties and loyalty founded on the interaction level that favored fidelity toward strong, charismatic leaders. In Nyarong, cultivated semantics were primarily shaped by Buddhism and the Buddhisized Bön religion, though religion and its ethics reshaped morality to a much lesser extent here than in Central Tibet. Values such as loyalty, honor, fearlessness, courage, and bravery in fighting and war had not been ousted by the Buddhist catalog of virtues. Instead, they substantially

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determined the esteem or disregard paid to a person. That is why personal retaliation, even a vendetta, was considered a fundamental right. But Gönpo Namgyel preferred payments of blood money instead of vendettas, first, because the number of men capable of fighting would not be unnecessarily reduced, and second, because he generally strived to stimulate population growth in his territory. He, for example, encouraged an abundance of children and put an end to the traditional practice of fraternal polyandry. He created his own rules for raids and military expeditions. Under the threat of penalty, he prohibited his followers from robbing or attacking women. He also banned small thefts. Furthermore, he tried to prevent officers from defecting under threat of capital punishment or displacement of their families. Under no circumstances were horses or rifles allowed to fall into the hands of the enemy. Booty always had to be shared, and fallen comrades were never to be left behind. In Nyarong, no one Buddhist school ever prevailed over the others, nor did the clergy have political power. Rather it was in the hands of the clan leader. In his position toward religion, Gönpo Namgyel displayed some parallels to that of the East Tibetan king of Beri46 in the first half of the seventeenth century. Although his opponents demonized him and depicted him as an enemy of the Buddhist religion, he was, in fact, not at all anti-Buddhist. He did not challenge fundamental religious concepts, such as karma, rebirth, and the benefit of collecting religious merits. Also, he invited clerics, supported the performance of religious ceremonies, and trusted the magic capabilities of Buddhist Tantrists. Yet he maintained a critical attitude toward the clergy. Like the king of Beri, he explicitly reprimanded those among them who were focused only on material possessions. He clearly separated concerns of power and domination from religion and subordinated religion to rule. If representatives of the clergy stood in the way of his striving for power, he did not hesitate to take action against individual clerics or entire monastic communities with ruthless violence. Nevertheless, all the men who joined his raiding campaigns and defended his family received the promise under oath that he and his family would protect them. Gönpo Namgyel justified his first military expeditions as a reaction to past actions. In the second decade of the nineteenth century, the Qing government took part of the territory of Gönpo Namgyel’s father by military force and divided it between neighboring local rulers. Under the pretense of wanting to regain this territory, the son undertook his first raids.

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He facilitated the militarization of the polity through targeted measures: These impacted taxation, the obligation of individual households to provide specifically prescribed weapons as well as provisions, and carrying out military exercises and competitions as well as honoring exceptional achievements in these areas. This way, he kept his people in a constant state of readiness for war. As combat operations expanded, increasingly more of the population became directly involved in war-related activities: Women had to stand on guard or were deployed as spies; younger monks were forced to participate in the fighting, whereas older monks had to watch over hostages and monitor transport routes. Almost no one was able to still behave neutrally. All those who did not participate in one way or the other were in danger of becoming victims, because this war was dependent on ever new prey and further raids. Thus, the Nyarong war in East Tibet developed into an autopoietic system that reproduced itself solely through permanent destruction of other systems in its environment and by exploiting these systems’ resources.47 Even Gönpo Namgyel himself was only able to secure his power by constantly achieving new military successes. The old clan structures continued to lose their significance for ­sustaining his power and were replaced by personal charisma, the spoils of war that were divided among the soldiers, and rewards for successful acts of war. These expectation structures kept his followers committed to him, and in this respect Gönpo Namgyel can indeed be compared with the warlords of contemporary wars.48 The various East Tibetan local rulers had little military strength of their own to oppose Gönpo Namgyel’s troops. Therefore, they approached the governor-general of Sichuan with an insistent request for support. In response, he prepared a coordinated campaign against the chieftain of Nyarong in 1848, which involved almost all the remaining East Tibetan local rulers. In 1849, additional Qing troops were sent from Sichuan. Despite such a formidable military effort, Gönpo Namgyel could not be defeated. On the contrary, by using the skillful military tactic of mostly avoiding open-field battles, and due to the climate and geographic conditions, which were unusually difficult for the Qing soldiers, he finally achieved victory. There were further unfavorable factors on the side of the Qing and East Tibetan allies. The empress’ death, for example, sparked turmoil among the Chinese soldiers over whether they would continue to receive their pay. Since the soldiers of the remaining East Tibetan local rulers were extremely undisciplined and maltreated the civil population by

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raiding and raping, they were not welcomed as liberators in Nyarong. Ultimately, the Qing troops had to withdraw. In the subsequent negotiations, the governor-general of Sichuan agreed to all Gönpo Namgyel’s demands regarding the acknowledgment of his territories and territorial borders. In the end, the governor-general was only anxious to hide his defeat from the imperial court and to transform it into a complete victory. His detailed report, in which he described Gönpo Namgyel’s alleged subordination, was believed, and he was praised for his great merits. On the governor-general’s recommendation, Gönpo Namgyel was even awarded an official rank and received the respective insignia. After that, Gönpo Namgyel first tracked down all those whom he accused of treason and lack of loyalty. Then he continued his military campaigns, raiding and pillaging, and steadily incorporated further areas into his territory. By this time, he was preceded by his reputation as an unconquerable war hero. In Tibetan culture, invincibility was ­considered a supernatural quality that, in the case of hostile powers, was ascribed to the influence of demons and could be beaten only with the help of powerful protective deities of the religion. Therefore, in a fabulously fairy tale–like oral tradition written down one hundred years after the abovementioned events, this supernatural level was depicted as the actual interaction level.49 Finally, there were ever more signs that Gönpo Namgyel was on the brink of forcing his way into areas that were directly controlled by either the Qing or the Central Tibetan government. Moreover, Gönpo Namgyel took a stand against monks who continued to go to Central Tibetan monasteries for studies and pilgrims who continued to visit the holy sites in Central Tibet. Once again East Tibetan local rulers sought help from the Qing court as well as the Central Tibetan government to assist them in the fight against Gönpo Namgyel’s ongoing aggressive expansion. But at the time the Qing’s military capacities were to a large extent committed to combating the Taiping rebels in the south of China. The Central Tibetan government, however, felt that their immediate interests were in jeopardy and reacted. In 1863, it sent an army of thirteen thousand militiamen to Nyarong, which did not arrive at the banks of the upper reaches of the Yangtse river until a year later. In 1865, the Central Tibetan government’s troops were able to defeat Gönpo Namgyel, not least due to the active support of East Tibet’s population, which he had terrorized. Although the Qing border officials subsequently made an effort to represent the events in

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an entirely different light at court, the participation of their soldiers in this victory was in fact low. The pivotal military forces had been sent by the government in Lhasa. If the sources are to be believed, the victory was, in the end, a stage-ready spectacle on honor, deceit, and betrayal. According to them, the commander of the Central Tibetan troops had, under oath, assured the chieftain of Nyarong and his sons of negotiations if they released their hostages and voluntarily left the besieged fort. If they accepted the conditions of capitulation dictated, they would not face danger to life or limb. These conditions stipulated that officials of the Central Tibetan government would assume the highest authority from the local chiefs, and that their possessions were to be transferred to the three large Gelukpa monasteries near Lhasa. Furthermore, Gönpo Namgyel’s oldest son and his family were supposed to relocate to Central Tibet, where the government would provide him an estate in the countryside. However, the negotiations and the assurances turned out to be a mere deceptive maneuver to bring the chieftain of Nyarong to surrender. After Gönpo Namgyel had released the hostages and sent his son and son-in-law to the opponents’ camp for negotiations, the commander had them arrested. Since they were not willing to lure the chieftain out of the palace, he had them brutally assassinated. After the fort burned down, no trace of the chieftain was ever found. Subsequently, rumors circulated as to whether Gönpo Namgyel had died or had survived and was hiding somewhere secretly. In the collective memory of East Tibet, the chieftain of Nyarong continues to be remembered as a courageous and honorable war hero, above all as someone who stood by his word, which distinguished him from the commander of the Central Tibetan troops. For Gönpo Namgyel and his ideas about honesty, it was irreconcilable that a man would not keep his word given under oath. Before he sent his son and son-in-law into the enemy’s camp, he is said to have assured them: “Surely as a dog will never eat iron, a man will never go back on his oath.”50 After the victory over Gönpo Namgyel, the Central Tibetan government installed a governor-general in Nyarong. Due to the suppression of the Taiping insurgency, the Qing court in Beijing was unable to fulfill payment obligations to Lhasa for having defeated Gönpo Namgyel in an area under their authority after having paid not even half of the costs accrued by the Central Tibetan government for the military campaign. The area of Nyarong had, from the Qing perspective, in the past turned out to be too remote to allow Beijing effective control of the local conditions. Therefore, at the beginning of 1866, the Qing court voluntarily handed Nyarong over

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to the jurisdiction of the Central Tibetan government as a reward for pacifying the region. The Central Tibetan government also expanded its influence quickly over other areas of East Tibet. Previously, the king of Dergé and five more, directly neighboring local rulers had already pledged their loyalty in a written agreement. In the case of Dergé, Lhasa even succeeded in exerting effective control over the local government. Still, in 1866, the newly appointed Tibetan governor-general issued a comprehensive ten-point decree for the Kingdom of Dergé, specifying in particular that henceforth the government of Lhasa would nominate the ministers and treasurer of Dergé. In many areas of East Tibet, Lhasa became involved in their affairs to an extent not known since at least the beginning of the eighteenth century, which caused new conflicts in three ways. First, the governor-general met with the dissatisfaction of local rulers due to his collecting taxes and demanding corvée labor. The fact that he became involved in trading and utilized nonpaid benefits for the transport of goods was perceived as an abuse of office and caused discontent. Second, the East Tibetan rulers were not just keen on preserving maximum independence, but they also drew the governor-general into their internal quarrels. Whenever he supported the demands of one side, the other side often looked to the closest Qing authorities for support. Third, the Qing authorities soon viewed Lhasa’s growing influence in East Tibet with suspicion, leading to an increasingly tense relationship between the Tibetan government and the imperial court. From the Qing perspective, the Tibetan governor-general’s jurisdiction was limited to Nyarong. Therefore, the Qing viewed his direct involvement in the internal quarrels of East Tibet as a transgression of his authority. Disturbed by Russian and British advances into Asia, the Qing also focused increasingly on proving their own territorial claims more explicitly than before. But it took until 1911, at the end of the Qing Empire, for the governor-general of Sichuan to enforce, with military power, the direct control and administration of East Tibet through Chinese officials.

Tibet’s Collision with the Offshoots of British Imperialism A phenomenon that is mentioned time and again in connection with Tibet’s history in the nineteenth century is the veritable isolation of the country to strangers. European travelers, especially, noted this and ­conveyed the image of a closed country. Yet it is not correct to trace this phenomenon back only to the surveillance of the southern border, as

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foreseen by the Qing a­ dministration in the treaty of 1793. In fact, it was the Tibetan administration itself and its own policy that accelerated Tibet’s isolation. The border guards were ordered to prevent foreigners from entering the country and severely punished those who accommodated illegal foreigners.51 Tibet’s seclusion was less a reaction to the invasions at its southern and western borders that had occurred since the end of the eighteenth century; these invasions were spatially and temporally limited and, therefore, had no significant influence on the existing social boundaries. Instead, its isolation was primarily based on the extreme selfreference of the ruling clerical elite. With its cultivated semantics, its orientation toward a glorified past, and the idea of society merely being a stepping-stone for achieving the goal of salvation outside its society, its relationship to the world differed in the meantime substantially from the one prevailing in its social environment. Thus, the environment was perceived more and more as threatening. Such a policy of seclusion collided with the notion of free trade and unimpeded travel, as advocated by some European powers at the time, with Great Britain leading the way. After the mid–nineteenth century, the British used diplomatic channels via Beijing to strive unsuccessfully for Tibet to open up trade relations, before they finally realized that the Qing Empire no longer had authority over Tibetan affairs. In 1893, agreements over trade relations with Tibet had been signed, but since no Tibetan representative had participated in the negotiations, the contracts never took effect. The British were unsettled by the hermetic seclusiveness of Tibet largely for one particular reason that lay outside Tibet and was, at the time, probably not even present in the minds of the rulers in Lhasa. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Russian czardom had already expanded by way of Siberia all the way to China’s borders. In the nineteenth century, Great Britain increasingly perceived Russian expansion into Asia as a threat to its own interests. For about the eighty years leading up to World War I, a prevailing mood that had been labeled “Russophobia” dominated Great Britain’s political life.52 The British-Afghan wars, which were Great Britain’s attempt to halt the Russian advance toward the south, arose from this phobia. Nonetheless, the Russian Empire successively incorporated additional Central Asian areas during the nineteenth century. In the second half of the century, Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara, all of Turkmenistan, and finally, in 1895, the Pamirs fell under Russian domination. Given this Russian expansion, the British were very much interested in diplomatic

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exchange with Tibet in order to counteract any possible Russian influence there. The British were especially startled when the activities of Agvan Dorjiev (1854‒1938), a Buriatian-Mongolian monk from Lake Baikal, became public. He had come to Tibet for the first time in 1873. Later he took up residence in Drepung Monastery to pursue his studies and became an esteemed scholar and a tutor of the Dalai Lama. In the beginning, he apparently had no official backing from or any communication with the Russian Empire. On a visit to Russia, though, he was noticed and in September 1900 was even received by Czar Nicholas II (1868‒1918). Subsequently, he became instrumental in establishing Russian-Tibetan relations. The diplomatic activities between Russia and Tibet were openly commented on in the Russian press.53 In addition, there were stories over secret treaties between Russia and China and between Russia and Tibet. All this news worried the British authorities. Whereas India was open for trade with Tibet, Tibet had closed itself off. This left considerable room for speculation and rumor and fanned British fears of unrest at their Himalayan border. According to the British, the matter could only be clarified with a delegation to Lhasa. If the delegation was met with refusal, a demonstration of military force would clear the way. Thus, in 1903 and 1904, the infamous expedition headed by Lieutenant-Colonel Francis Edward Younghusband (1863–1942) made its way to Lhasa.54 Without having been able to open official negotiations, the expedition disregarded Tibetan sovereign rights and entered Tibet by force. The Tibetans were poorly prepared for a fight against modern, well-equipped troops. And as in the religious wars of the seventeenth century, they still trusted the traditional magical defense rituals of the religious specialists more than any military skills.55 When Tibetan troops tried to obstruct their progress, Younghusband tried in vain to get the Tibetan general to clear the way. Because the British wanted to relieve the Tibetans of their weapons, the Tibetans attacked, mainly with swords. The British opened fire, and ten minutes later around three hundred Tibetan soldiers lay dead on the ground. Then the mission advanced still further to Gyangtse, where another 180 Tibetans fell in battle. Again, no one appeared for negotiations. Whereas the British sent back some of their troops, the Tibetans gathered new ones. After another three hundred Tibetan soldiers were killed during a confrontation in Gyangtse, the resistance broke down. The Tibetan government realized that negotiations were inevitable. But by the time the British reached Lhasa, the Dalai Lama and his consultant Dorjiev had

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already escaped toward Outer Mongolia. Without the Dalai Lama, the ministers were at a loss as to what to do. However, he had left the abbot of the Ganden Monastery to act as his representative in his absence. It was with him that an Anglo-Tibetan agreement was negotiated in September 1904. Afterward, to the surprise of the Tibetans, the British delegation retreated to India. The Anglo-Tibetan treaty defined the border between Sikkim and Tibet. It also opened trade markets to be managed by local British residents in Tibet. The settlement additionally contained arrangements for new trade regulations and clauses about excluding other foreign powers from exerting political influence in Tibet. Finally, a compensation payment to the British was agreed upon. The Chumbi Valley was supposed to remain under British occupation until the compensation was paid in full and the markets opened. Younghusband had not obtained the signatures of the ambans for the treaty. However, the British had no intention of influencing Sino-Tibetan relations, and thus protracted Sino-British negotiations followed in Kolkata and Beijing, which ended in a bilateral agreement in 1906. Although the agreement did not concede to the Qing Empire’s push for acknowledgment of its supremacy over Tibet, the treaty of 1904 was in fact changed to the Qing’s benefit. It recognized that China was not considered a foreign power—whose influence generally was to be excluded—and that China was held responsible for Tibet’s integrity. The Tibetans themselves were neither consulted on this nor informed of it. The same also holds true for the Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1907, in which reference was made to the British recognition of Chinese rights in Tibet and the British also committed themselves to negotiate with Tibet only via the Beijing government and not to send representatives to Lhasa. At the time, the British viewed Tibet as a sort of buffer between Russia and India. No one considered that, one day, such a buffer would be necessary between India and China.56 During the final years of the Qing Dynasty, the government in Beijing had begun to take actions against its loss of authority in Tibet. The empire’s new administrative measures along the eastern Tibetan border led to violent insurgencies on the part of the Tibetans. By 1911, and with great military force, the Qing had brought the eastern Tibetan border areas under a control tighter than anything seen before. Any direct official ­contact between the British and the Tibetans was forbidden. The agreements specifically concerning trade markets in Tibet were not put into operation, and yet the British did nothing to intervene.

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In 1908, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama took up an invitation to Beijing instead of returning to Lhasa. While there, he learned that the Chinese had unseated him and were already searching for a new Dalai Lama in East Tibet. But when this news led to an uprising in Lhasa, the Dalai Lama was allowed to keep his position and returned to Tibet in 1909. As it became clear that the imperial troops planned to advance from East Tibet into Central Tibet, the Dalai Lama turned to the British and other foreign powers to stop this forward march. The British raised protest in Beijing, but the Qing government assured them that the troops were only being sent to supervise the trade routes, as has been agreed upon in the trade agreements. Two thousand soldiers from China arrived in Lhasa in February 1910. This was the first invasion from China to face broad opposition from the Tibetan population. The Dalai Lama fled to India and the imperial court dethroned him once again. The British government ultimately concluded that by sending soldiers to Tibet, the Qing were only implementing their supremacy over Tibet. But when the Beijing government again realized that cooperation with the Tibetans was impossible without the Dalai Lama, they endeavored to make the Dalai Lama return. The Dalai Lama declared to the British that his previous relationship to the emperor had ended with the invasion and that Tibet would no longer recognize Chinese supremacy.57

The Violent End of Tibetan Buddhist Society After the end of the Qing Dynasty and the Chinese soldiers’ withdrawal from Lhasa in 1912, skirmishes repeatedly erupted between Tibetan and Chinese troops in Tibet’s eastern border areas, which shifted the border between the areas controlled by China and those controlled by the Tibetan government multiple times.58 In October 1950, a year after the communists under Mao Zedong had come to power in China, the People’s Liberation Army began their forced conquest of Tibet. As it was, the Tibetan government had little power to oppose a tightly organized, battle-hardened, and numerically vastly larger invasion army. Nonetheless, the defense efforts were additionally undermined by a number of factors, above all, by gross misjudgments of a ­conflictual partner that had just appeared in the environment of Tibetan Buddhist society and that was difficult to assess within Tibetan semantics. Additional factors included the incompetence of the ruling officials, grave differences within the Tibetan leadership and within the clerical and aristocratic elite, the lack of trust between Central Tibetan commanders and East

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Tibetan militia leaders, and also occasional collaboration of Tibetan clerics with the Chinese communists. After only three  weeks, the Tibetan resistance in East Tibet collapsed. Except for a few minor skirmishes, the Chinese invaders were able to seize East Tibet without a fight. In Beijing in 1951, the communist leadership in China dictated to a delegation of the Tibetan government the conditions for an end of military operations in the so-called Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet. The signing took place under enormous pressure. Most notably, the Tibetan delegation was blatantly threatened and told that refusal would result in a forced “liberation” rather than in a peaceful one. Furthermore, the Tibetan delegates were given no chance to bring their own ideas into the paper, let alone to conduct detailed consultation with their government regarding the various points in the agreement. Nevertheless, in the same year, Chinese soldiers invaded Lhasa.59 The defeat of the Tibetan uprising in 1959, the flight of the Dalai Lama and a large part of the Tibetan elite into exile in India, the vast destruction of Tibet’s material culture, a reorganization of intrasocietal structures, foreign rulership, and associated demographic changes put a sudden end to the system “Tibetan Buddhist society” as a whole. P Within Tibet’s society, internal wars were based on the upper class’ segmentary differentiation. Essentially, it has been assumed that with this segmentary differentiation “the entire upper class—again differentiated by age and gender roles—is entrusted with active warfare tasks: a warrior nobility exists, in which every man is a fighter.”60 For Tibet’s society, this was true only for short periods and in exceptional cases. The East Tibetan area of Nyarong in the nineteenth century provides a good example of this. The civil war in Tibet from 1727 to 1728 also showed a tendency to include the entire upper class in the operations of warfare; nevertheless, the emergence of a distinct warrior nobility is not evident in this context. The deep-rootedness of Buddhism in Tibet’s society ensured that war and the art of warfare were accorded a negative moral value and that human and material resources were increasingly placed at the disposal of the clergy. As a result, no influential warrior nobility could develop in Tibet in the long term. Nonetheless, within the Tibetan upper class, war served as a means of asserting one’s own views and claims. War was mainly chosen as a form of conflict resolution in Tibet’s society to ensure that the—allegedly—“pure” Buddhist teachings prevail over the “impure” and at the same time to

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enforce the priority of religion over politics. It goes without saying that this was linked to the pursuit of primary control over human and economic resources. Moreover, the dominant worldview strengthened the conviction that violent confrontations with opponents of one’s religious doctrine would be inevitable. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, own views and claims of the Tibetan elite were enforced particularly with the help of foreign rulers’ military capabilities. The Tibetan clergy, which supported the “state,” had delegated the tasks of warfare to foreign rulers. The clergy was able to become the dominant political factor largely thanks to this assistance. It was only in the nineteenth century when foreign rulers no longer took up this task assigned to them by the Tibetan clergy, and internal wars as well as defense against invasions had to be organized and waged without foreign military capabilities, that the Ganden Podrang government was— involuntarily—progressively pushed into the role of a sovereign state by becoming responsible “for all problems in a delimited territory, the solution of which requires concentrated political power.”61 This development strengthened the ability to launch military interventions into the periphery, by which it could be more firmly tied to the center again. Any further ambitions for waging external wars—such as to subjugate or to “civilize” “barbarians”—are not discernible.

CHAPTER 11

Conclusion

A medicine for a hundred years and a poison at the point of death. —Tibetan proverb

Tibet’s society under the Dalai Lamas was a primarily stratificatorily differentiated society. The Buddhist clergy dominated its upper class. The clergy’s outstanding role in society was founded on its religious-ideological legitimization, its control over the means of salvation, and the offer of magic-ritual services for coping with contingency. To assert its claim to regulating all living conditions vis-à-vis the aristocracy or competing members within the Tibetan clergy, the representatives of the clergy did not use their own war-making potential. Instead, this decisive potential was supplied by foreign rulers. In return, foreign rulers (Khoshot Khans) were either granted special privileges and integrated into the upper class of society in order to participate in domination, or they (Dzungar Khans and Qing emperors) received legitimization of their claim to rule over Inner Asian communities shaped by Buddhism along with solid support for their domination from the clerical structures and a semantics that justified social differences. Through privileges such as exemptions from tax payments and corvée labor and, above all, by disposing of land and its inhabitants as the most important means of production, the power of the “state-supporting” Buddhist school was further strengthened. A clear hierarchy, embedded in the concept of karma as a universal regulatory scheme and associated with a distinct power imbalance, narrowed the possibilities for conflict in Tibetan Buddhist society. That was particularly the case in the mid–eighteenth century, after the differentiation of social strata and, far beyond that, also the segmentary differentiation of the aristocratic 230

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upper class and clergy was incorporated into a definite hierarchical structure that was reflected in the hierarchy of political offices. Particularly the clergy, based on its religious-ideological legitimization and the moral qualifications ascribed to it, was now entitled to dispose of the concentration and utilization of resources. But the Tibetan clergy had never been a monolithic bloc. Even after one Tibetan Buddhist school had emerged as distinctly superior among the various others, new conflicts over the use of resources and the preservation of privileges developed within that school, too. In their relations with Tibet, the Qing emperors sought to facilitate acceptance of their claim to supremacy and to prevent conflicts to the greatest extent possible by legitimizing the position of the emperor in the context of Tibetan Buddhism. Although the status question of priest-versus-patron was never truly resolved in the relationship between the Dalai Lama and the Qing emperor—and in principle remained conflictual up to the end of the Qing Dynasty—a clear imbalance of power and the emperor’s stabilization of Tibetan societal structure also ensured that here no direct conflict would occur between the two. But it was not only the emperors’ familiarity with Tibetan Buddhist semantics and the clear distribution of power established in the eighteenth century that contributed to conflict avoidance. Where it was possible to separate the fact and social dimensions, conflicts could also be avoided by allowing the Tibetan side to decide the matter de facto, while formally conceding the right of ultimate decisionmaking to the emperor. There is no doubt that from the eighteenth century onwards the emperor subordinated the Tibetan government and its administration to imperial law by strengthening the role of the imperial representatives in Lhasa, by appointing and accrediting members of the Tibetan government and leading Tibetan officials through the award of imperial ranks and titles, and by introducing a lottery to identify high reincarnations. However, these measures barely affected Tibetan case law, which continued to follow self-established legal procedures. In contrast to the Qing emperors, the inheritors of the Chinese Empire ignored Tibetan Buddhist society’s system-internal semantic constructions. The fact that they instead derived modern national claims for sovereignty from the traditional relationships between the Dalai Lama and the Qing emperor paved the way for open conflict. Soon after the Chinese government had been taken over by the communists under the leadership of Mao Zedong (1893–1976), the conflict finally escalated into the Chinese government’s pursuit to destroy the system “Tibetan Buddhist society.”

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The elites in East Tibet were largely excluded from the political communication in the center. Yet over long periods of time, the center’s authority in the periphery frequently existed only nominally. The result was that semiautonomous polities far away from the center strove as much as possible to expand their autonomy and to achieve regional supremacy. At the same time, they turned to one of the two hegemonic powers as a stabilizing force when the opportunity presented itself. The relationship between periphery and center continued to be marked by mutual distrust. The periphery felt that it was exploited by the center; the center, for its part, tended to encounter the periphery with a sense of superiority. Without exception, the semantics of Tibetan Buddhist society ­connoted conflicts negatively and provided justification for the suppression of conflicts. Conflicts were not perceived as indications of necessary societal changes or adaptations but rather as the negative consequences of people’s morally bad behavior and as signs of a general decline rooted in cosmological cycles. Thus, ethics was assigned a critical position in the assessment of conflicts. Moreover, in order to leave no doubt about the primacy of religion in all areas of life, even mere contradictions between different social expectation structures were largely disguised instead of using them to warn in time of possible conflicts. The nonviolence demanded by Buddhist ethics, as well as the call for unconditional compassion for all living beings, was, in many situations, difficult to reconcile with the practical arrangements of everyday life in Tibet’s society. This was even more the case for political domination in Tibet, because it united religion and politics and subordinated political action to the principles and objectives of religion. Psychic conflicts caused by morals were almost inevitable for Buddhist clerics who ascended to positions of rule. Much more than a mere religious legitimization of political rulership, the combination of spiritual and secular domination in one person forced the ruler to accept norms that did not originate in the domain of political action. This irreconcilability further increased when a ruler endowed with sacredness was also said to be an incarnation of a supernatural bodhisattva who embodied the perfection of compassion. In practice, the dilemma could also not be resolved by semantic constructions that determined the moral significance of an action more based on the mental attitude of the actor rather than based, merely mechanically, on the effect of an action. This therefore did not rule out violent and tough measures as suitable means for “disciplining” living beings, as long as the motivation

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was pure compassion and altruism. The question as to whether violence in its imaginative, rhetorical, or at times possibly physical form—also as part of the ritual practice of Tantric Buddhism—was reconcilable with Buddhist principles of nonviolence and compassion led again and again to ­conflicts within Tibetan Buddhism and between its various movements. The vast majority of Tibetan Buddhist society remained unaffected by these subtle and fastidious debates. The focus lay not so much on the damage inflicted upon the other living being and its resulting suffering, but instead on the expected negative consequences for the offender due to his actions, whether the accumulation of negative karma, disease, or any other mishap. Religion countered the prospect of such negative consequences with a rich supply of religious exercises and services. Included among such services were elaborate magic-ritual performances for any conceivable purpose. Their aim was to rule out the implied risk of negation inherent in every meaning. By turning specially to entities of the invisible world, the services indirectly sought to influence the world of the visible. Their range of objectives encompassed social conflicts since it was understood that the invisible world was involved in such cases. It was thought that through such magic-ritual performances one could rob ­conflicting parties of their freedom of reaction and so solve social conflicts. The conflict-adverse morality of Tibetan Buddhist society did not mean that there was no readiness for conflict. While the semantics and the moral principles shaped by Buddhism were clearly not in favor of conflicts and tried to suppress them, the size and complexity of the society under the Dalai Lamas forced the opening of opportunities for conflict through the law. Instead of suppressing conflicts, the legal order under the Dalai Lamas actually led to an increase in social conflicts. However, when compared with Tibetan communities outside the jurisdiction of the Central Tibetan government and with communities that existed prior to its establishment, conflict regulation through law showed itself to be much more effective in preventing and restricting the use of conflict-related violence than the mediation of the clergy, which relied primarily on moral appeals for its success. This legal order made social conflicts much more bearable for society. Tibetan law gave the upper social classes, as well as the taxpayers, irrespective of power, prestige, and personal influence, ample chances to risk a conflict. That these chances were used is proven by comprehensive source material. Legal conflicts were always about determining right and wrong in the matter being heard in court. Morality did not play a decisive role in

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this. Although the Tibetan clergy sought to give the law a religious-moral legitimization, or even in individual cases demanded an ideal law in the sense of justice, Tibetan law was, notwithstanding, not bound to moral standards. In fact, Tibetan criminal law was even diametrically opposed to the Buddhist moral principles of Tibetan Buddhist society. This irreconcilability of the two could provoke psychic conflicts, especially in the minds of Tibet’s sacral rulers. Full-time court officers existed only in the political center. Experienced officials who were otherwise charged with doing tasks for the government or district administration frequently took on court assignments for the duration of a procedure. Judges were also not the ultimate and highest decision makers. They led the investigations, prepared decisions and drafted legal decisions and judicial settlement agreements, and then presented them to the council of ministers, the regent, or the Dalai Lama for approval. In wide sections of society, conflicts were settled mostly through outof-court mediation. Unlike a court procedure, mediation did not follow the postulate of determining legality and illegality but was primarily aimed at the restoration of social harmony and of functional cooperation within the local community. Above all, Tibet lacked a legislation that provided laws in step with practice that could react to social requirements and changing circumstances. The tradition-based Tibetan legal code carried great authority, but its limited general guidelines did not offer many decision-making premises for the courts in civil law cases and did not make it possible for judges to resolve court cases based on the interpretation of individual laws. Thus, it comes as no surprise that in decisions on civil matters, the Tibetan code of law, as a normative frame of reference, is not even mentioned. However, Tibetan law was already familiar with instituting procedures in which judges, regardless of moral principles, tried to regulate ­conflicts by making a clear decision about legality or illegality of the case heard in court. The decision-making premises were provided by the law attested in charters. With this law, it was largely possible to neutralize personal preferences in the decision-making process1 and to come to decisions independently of the given power constellations. Moreover, it encouraged risking conflicts in that the ruler’s political power stood behind it. Even though the highest ruler himself was beyond the law, the governmental and administrative bodies were bound to the chartered rights and could therefore not decide arbitrarily. The resolution of legal disputes between monasteries and district offices, for example, documents the substantial

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independence of the decision-making processes regardless of their proximity or distance to the rulership. At the beginning of a court procedure, the decision was open and it was made in the course of the procedure based on the documents presented. If these documents were not sufficient, customary law could also be considered. Only if a clear verdict was not possible despite all efforts would the court suggest a settlement deal that was acceptable to all parties. The abovementioned examples show that the frequency of in-court settlements is not an indication that the Tibetan legal system lacked interest in clearly distinguishing legality and illegality; instead, they reveal above all shortcomings in the decision-making programs. Even if judgments in Tibetan civil law were not made merely by a general reference to abstract moral values, there was often still a lack of rules for decision-making with clearly formulated conditions of use. If legal claims were explicitly attested in documents, the court would decide according to the binary schematism of legal and illegal. Tibetan religion had provided legitimization constructs that could justify the use of violence. Precedent cases passed on in literature specified the conditions of its use. In practice, complicated circumstances were often grossly simplified by demonizing the conflicting party so that demonization served as a kind of “master key” for the justification of violence. Thus it was made possible to justify the conduct of war as a means of enforcing one’s own viewpoints and claims despite its negative moral connotations. In Tibet’s society, wars were used as a means of subordinating the opponent to one’s own will. Wars were also waged between different schools of Tibetan Buddhism for this same purpose. The high probability of killing people was knowingly accepted, and killing in the course of acts of war was not a matter of Tibetan criminal law. In most wars, foreign rulers provided the significant war potential, while hardly any considerable war potential existed in Tibet’s society itself. The structures of dependency created by these relations would later, after the end of the Qing Empire, become the foundation for legitimizing Chinese claims of sovereignty over Tibet. However, in the nineteenth century, the empire’s weakness, paired with a shift of its political priorities, forced the Tibetan government to wage its wars on its own. In this, the Qing Empire ceded a fundamental aspect of sovereignty without the Tibetan government having even sought it. This shift promoted the development of the Tibetan government toward having complete responsibility for its territory as well as Tibet’s development in the direction of a politically sovereign

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territorial state. The reforms launched by the Thirteenth Dalai Lama finally brought Tibet, in the first half of the twentieth century, very close to becoming such a state. The three-year exile of the Dalai Lama in North India from 1910 to 1913 and his many discussions with Charles Bell (1870– 1945), a British diplomat based in Sikkim, had familiarized him with Western concepts of politics, administration, and society, and had given him an idea of the conditions under which Tibet’s society could progress in a changing world. However, after his death, the reforms he had initiated failed as a result of the clergy’s resistance and its lack of willingness to innovate. The concepts of state and nation remained foreign to the clergy, which was not willing to tolerate functionally differentiated subsystems divorced from religion, such as an army or an educational system.2 The political order created, or rather conceived, by the Fifth Dalai Lama had been very far from such ideas. Domination mostly served the mission of salvation. Therefore, it was self-evident that priority was given to supporting religious institutions and financing religious services and that the clergy benefited most from the distribution of resources and the ruler’s attention. This did not mean that caring for the welfare of the lower classes was not an issue, but it was conceived differently: it was care aimed at creating positive conditions to collect good karma and to tread the path toward salvation. Under this premise, societal problems and conflicts were only understood as a matter for political action when they interfered with the fulfillment of this mission. In this sense, the creation of peace, as a state of harmonic, nonviolent togetherness and the absence of dispute and war, was also the task of domination, though not its greatest goal, and it had no value in itself. Indeed, as a means of enforcing religious superiority in society, war even appeared justified. Peace created the opportunity to live well in accordance with religion. Since domination was subordinated to religion and understood its task mostly as a mission of salvation, the area of domination was not primarily defined by a territory but by its inhabitants. This also explains why the Tibetan government’s claims to domination repeatedly went far beyond the territory amenable to its jurisdiction and could apply more or less to all groups of people practicing Tibetan Buddhism. It was primarily due to the environment of Tibetan Buddhist society that this form of domination was slowly supplanted by the territorial state in the nineteenth century. In the first half of the twentieth century, the change in the self-description of the political system that this caused was met with strong opposition, tellingly mostly from the ranks of the clergy.

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Once established, the Ganden Podrang domination headed by the Dalai Lama enjoyed far-reaching protection from rivalry because of its sacrality. The ruler and the state were indistinguishable. The ruler could not be challenged without the entire political order being challenged at the same time. Nonetheless, the domination had its weak points, which opened up opportunities for conflict. These conflicts concerned, above all, the succession procedure, the relationship of center and periphery, the consideration of foreign claims to power, and the inclusion of the aristocracy. The latter was largely eliminated as a source of conflict from the mid–­eighteenth century. The ruler himself, as a sacral ruler, was a good ruler per se and could not be criticized for his level of virtue. This was particularly evident in the case of the Sixth Dalai Lama. He was not principally doubted within Tibet’s society, even though his lifestyle did not correspond to the general expectations of his role. Doubts were cast from outside, from the emperor and from Mongol circles. In this respect, his “immoral” behavior certainly provided fuel for conflict. However, even the emperor did not call sacral domination fundamentally into question, as its political-administrative capacity for order seemed indispensable. The downfall of Ganden Podrang domination and the abrupt end of the system “Tibetan Buddhist society” was ultimately not caused by the suppression and exploitation of the lower classes and revolts it triggered. Rather, the end was prompted solely by an outside force. Nonetheless, essential preconditions had been created within the society that allowed this to happen. Like every operationally closed system, Tibetan Buddhist society also created a boundary to its environment through its operations. In order to be compatible with the greater complexity of the system’s environment, ritualizations and religion-based semantic constructions translated external uncertainties into an internal schematism that could hardly be varied, but allowed a more or less sweeping treatment of the environment.3 The flip side was that many environmental events were ignored as presumably irrelevant to the system “Tibetan Buddhist society.” Thus, the structural premises for observing this environment were insufficient to permit an early enough warning of changes in and conflicts with the environment. In systems theory, observation is defined as indicating something by means of a distinction. That which is not indicated by distinction is unobservable and remains invisible for the observing system. Specific characteristics explain why newly circulating semantic creations in the environment—for example, state, nation,

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and classless society—and the distinctions associated with them remained hidden from Tibetan observation for too long: First, the absolute ideological fixedness in societal self-observation and self-description; second, the conviction of the clerical elite that it knew everything better based on the traditional worldview that claimed to be unalterable truth; and third, a societal orientation that until the end placed its focus particularly on the past. Together they prevented these developments from irritating the Tibetan clerical elite and making it perceive these new creations as a trigger of far-reaching dynamics. Consequently, it escaped Tibetan Buddhist society for all too long that in its environment in the meantime the political system had become segmented into modern states, that Tibetan Buddhist society was now observed by such states, and that states had become internationally the most important a­ ddressees of political communication. It also escaped Tibetan Buddhist society that, following the developments in Europe, societies in its environment were focusing on an open future with promises of progress rather than on a glorified past. Above all, though, Tibetan Buddhist society was not able to observe how other observers saw Tibetan Buddhist society based on their own meaning premises and distinctions. Thus, the chances for relativization and correction of their own observations through secondorder observations were denied in Tibetan Buddhist society.4 While its semantics, exclusively marked by Buddhism even toward the end, discussed the relativeness of all phenomena, exposed all distinction as a ­construct, and thereby created distance to so-called reality, a blind spot had precisely prevented this insight from being applied to Tibetan Buddhist society itself and that its own societal observation, as a construct, was also rendered up for criticism. Criticism—as emphasized by Georg Kneer and Armin Nassehi—in sociology signifies three things: first, “exposure of incomprehensible and latent structures”; second, “unfolding of alternatives for societal development”; and third, “clarification of situations of societal endangerment or social pathologies.”5 Without the possibility for criticism in this sense, stratification—as the dominant form of building social structure—remained set in stone. With very few, ultimately failed exceptions—notably among these is, above all, Gendün Chöpel6 —criticism in Tibetan Buddhist society remained confined to moral misconduct among the Tibetan elite and was never directed against social conditions as such. Although first signs of differentiating functional subsystems clearly existed in Tibet’s society, it missed out on

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initiating a change in the primary forms of social differentiation. Hence, Tibet’s society was neither adapted to a changing environment in which no old-style mighty ruler functioning as a patron for Tibetan Buddhism was to be found nor was it prepared for incremental integration into the developing world society as a state.

Notes Chapter 1. Introduction Epigraph. Niklas Luhmann, Love as Passion: The Codification of Intimacy, trans. Jeremy Gaines and Doris L. Jones (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986), 9. 1 The term “culture” is still used in a somewhat vague sense at this point. What exactly is meant by culture in the context of the present study will be clarified elsewhere; see chapter 6. 2 Peter Schwieger, The Dalai Lama and the Emperor of China: A Political History of the Tibetan Institution of Reincarnation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015), 50–145. 3 Thorsten Bonacker, “Sozialwissenschaftliche Konflikttheorien—Einleitung und Überblick,” in Sozialwissenschaftliche Konflikttheorien: Eine Einführung, ed. Thorsten Bonacker (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2008), 16. 4 For a “reconstruction” of Dahrendorf’s conflict theory see Jörn Lamla, “Die Konflikttheorie als Gesellschaftstheorie,” in Sozialwissenschaftliche Konflikttheorien: Eine Einführung, ed. Thorsten Bonacker (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2008), 207–229; see also Klaus Lankenau and Gunter E. Zimmermann, “Konflikt, sozialer,” in Grundbegriffe der Soziologie, ed. Bernhard Schäfers (Opladen: Leske + Budrich: Grundbegriffe, 1998, 5th ed.), 182–185. 5 Lamla, “Konflikttheorie als Gesellschaftstheorie,” 211–212. 6 Especially when theoretical foundations are applied to historical findings, such a pragmatic approach seemed advisable to me. A similar explanation was also given by Lewis A. Coser in order to justify the focus of his conflict theoretical thoughts on Georg Simmel’s study about dispute: “It seemed more convenient, for purposes of exposition, to follow an author with a consistent general orientation rather than to shift between writers whose orientations may be divergent.” Lewis A. Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict: An Examination of Social Conflict and Its Use in Empirical Sociological Research (New York: Free Press, 1964), 30. 7 Niklas Luhmann, Social Systems, trans. John Bednarz Jr. with Dirk Baecker (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 28. 8 Ibid., 28–29. 9 Ibid., 388–389; see also 362, 394. 241

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10 Niklas Luhmann, Law as a Social System, trans. Klaus A. Ziegert, ed. Fatima Kastner, Richard Nobles, David Schiff, and Rosamund Ziegert (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 476. 11 Luhmann, Social Systems, 389. 12 Fritz B. Simon, Einführung in die Systemtheorie des Konflikts (Heidelberg: CarlAuer Verlag, 2015, 3rd ed.), 11; see also 13, 14. 13 Luhmann, Social Systems, 394. 14 Cf. Luhmann, Social Systems, 392; Niklas Luhmann, Ausdifferenzierung des Rechts: Beiträge zur Rechtssoziologie und Rechtstheorie (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1981), 104. 15 Barbara Kuchler, Kriege: Eine Gesellschaftstheorie gewaltsamer Konflikte (Frankfurt/ New York: Campus Verlag, 2013), 169–170. 16 Thorsten Bonacker, “Die Konflikttheorie der autopoietischen Systemtheorie,” in Sozialwissenschaftliche Konflikttheorien: Eine Einführung, ed. Thorsten Bonacker (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2008), 275. See also Luhmann, Social Systems, 76, 77–78, 80; Luhmann, Ausdifferenzierung des Rechts, 100. 17 Simon, Systemtheorie des Konflikts, 49. Chapter 2. History and Memory Epigraph. Niklas Luhmann, Theory of Society, vol. 1, trans. Rhodes Barrett (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012), 349 1 Luhmann, Theory of Society, vol. 1, 346. 2 See in particular Christopher I. Beckwith, The Tibetan Empire in Central Asia: A History of the Struggle for Great Power among Tibetans, Turks, Arabs, and Chinese during the Early Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987). 3 See Luhmann, Social Systems, 155. 4 Luhmann, Theory of Society, vol. 1, 152–157, 163–166. 5 Niklas Luhmann, Soziologische Aufklärung, vol. 2: Aufsätze zur Theorie der Gesellschaft (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1975), 26. 6 Niklas Luhmann, Die Politik der Gesellschaft, ed. André Kieserling (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2000), 18. 7 See Luhmann, Die Politik der Gesellschaft, 20, 374. 8 For the oldest woodblock printing see David P. Jackson, “The Earliest Prints of Tsong-kha-pa’s Works: The Old Dga’-ldan Editions,” in Reflections on Tibetan Culture: Essays in Memory of Turrell V. Wylie, Studies in Asian Thought and Religion vol. 12, ed. Lawrence Epstein and Richard F. Sherburne (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990), 107–116; Franz-Karl Ehrhard, Early Buddhist Block Prints from Mang-Yul Gung-Thang (Lumbini, Nepal: Lumbini International Research Institute, 2000).

Notes to Pages 12–14     243

9 Peter Schwieger, “History as Myth: On the Appropriation of the Past in Tibetan Culture,” in The Tibetan History Reader, ed. Gray Tuttle and Kurtis R. Schaeffer (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), 64–85. 10 World segments cannot only be “rediscovered” by society in its course of history, or “made available” through semiotic systems and codes, as well as be added to the already known world segments; they can also slip back again into the realm of the unknown. Roland Posner has referred to this process as the semiotization and desemiotization of world segments (Roland Posner, “Kultursemiotik,” in Konzepte der Kulturwissenschaften: Theoretische Grundlagen—Ansätze—Perspektiven, ed. Ansgar Nünning and Vera Nünning (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 2003), 58–59. 11 This is precisely what Luhmann describes with the term autopoiesis. Cf. Claudio Baraldi, Giancarlo Corsi, and Elena Esposito, GLU: Glossar zu Niklas Luhmanns Theorie sozialer Systeme (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997), 29–33; Luhmann, Theory of Society, vol. 1, 32–39. 12 For the prominent case of the West Tibetan king Jangchup Ö (984–1078) see Roberto Vitali, The Kingdoms of Gu.ge Pu.hrang: According to mNga’.ris rgyal.rabs by Gu.ge mkhan.chen Ngag.dbang grags.pa (Dharamsala: Tho.ling gtsug.lag khang lo. gcig.stong ‘khor.ba’i rjes.dran.mdzad sgoi’i go.sgrig tshogs. chung, 1996), 212, 296–297. It seems that also in the multiethnic tribal confederation of Tsongkha, which in the eleventh and twelfth centuries was located in the northeastern region of the modern Chinese province of Qinghai, many of the chiefs wore the monk’s robe. See Bianca Horlemann, Aufstieg und Niedergang der Tsong-kha-Stammeskonföderation im 11./12. Jahrhundert an der Schnittstelle von Tibet, China und Zentralasien (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2004), 171–172. On a smaller scale, there were cases of a combination of political and religious leadership functions in one person also in Central Tibet. See for instance Carl S. Yamamoto, Vision and Violence: Lama Zhang and the Politics of Charisma in Twelfth-Century Tibet (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 175–212, 266–268. 13 See Frank Buskotte, Resonanzen für Geschichte: Niklas Luhmanns Systemtheorie aus geschichtswissenschaftlicher Perspektive (Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2006), 149. 14 See Shen Weirong, “Tantric Buddhism in Ming China,” in Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Tibet, ed. Charles D. Orzech, Henrik H. Sørensen, and Richard K. Payne (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 550–560. 15 Elliot Sperling, “Early Ming Policy toward Tibet: An Examination of the Proposition That the Early Ming Emperors Adopted a ‘Divide and Rule’ Policy toward Tibet,” (PhD diss., Indiana University, Bloomington, 1983), 202–217. 16 Rolf A. Stein, Tibetan Civilization, trans. J. E. Stapleton Driver (London: Faber and Faber, 1972), 23, 29–30, 109–125.

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17 This so happened, for example, as noted in David C. Kang, East Asia Before the West: Five Centuries of Trade and Tribute (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 88, 142. Compare also the summarized characterization of nomads in ibid., 144. It does not apply to Tibet. 18 Ibid., 85–93. 19 Ibid., 114, 138; Ji-Young Lee, China’s Hegemony: Four Hundred Years of East Asian Domination (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), 35–36. 20 Peter Schwieger, “Significance of Ming Titles Conferred Upon the Phag mo gru Rulers: A Reevaluation of Chinese-Tibetan Relation During the Ming Dynasty,” in The Earth Ox Papers: Proceedings of the International Seminar on Tibetan and Himalayan Studies, ed. Roberto Vitali (Dharamsala: LTWA, 2010, Tibet Journal 34, no. 3 & 4/35, no. 1 & 2): 313–328. Mentioned as a general aspect of Chinese tribute relations in Lee, China’s Hegemony, 71. 21 Dieter Schuh, “Wie ist die Einladung des fünften Karma-pa an den chinesischen Kaiserhof als Fortführung der Tibet-Politik der MongolenKhane zu verstehen?” in Altaica Collecta. Berichte und Vorträge der XVII. Permanent International Altaistic Conference, 3–8. Juni 1974 in Bonn/Bad Honnef, ed. Walther Heissig (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1976), 209– 244; Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 21–22. 22 See, in particular, Dieter Schuh, Erlasse und Sendschreiben mongolischer Herrscher für tibetische Geistliche. Ein Beitrag zur Kenntnis der Urkunden des tibetischen Mittelalters und ihrer Diplomatik (Sankt Augustin: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag, 1977). 23 Peter Schwieger, “Towards a Biography of Don-yod rdo-rje, King of Be-ri,” in Studia Tibetica et Mongolica (Festschrift Manfred Taube), ed. Helmut Eimer, Michael Hahn, Maria Schetelich, and Peter Wyzlic (Swisttal-Odendorf: Indica et Tibetica Verlag, 1999), 247–260; Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 40, 47–48, 65. 24 Bde skyid bzang po, ed., Ro sgrung. Dpal mgon ’phags pa klu sgrub kyis mdzad pa’ i ro langs gser ’gyur gyi chos sgrung gcig pa rgyas par phye ba (Lhasa: Bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang, 2000), 103–112. The English translation of a differing and shorter version has been published by Yeshi Dhondup: The Story of the Golden Corpse, translated by Yeshi Dhondup (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 2009), 79–82. 25 More precisely, the Tibetan term srid, which has been translated here as “politics” stands for secular affairs compared to the issues of religion. 26 Sems kyi nyi zla rdzong mi dmangs srid gzhung gi khun sdod don gcod khang, ed., rGyal thang gi lo rgyus yig tshags dpyad gzhi phyogs bsgrigs (Kunming: Yun nan mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2003), no. 012. 27 See Ṅag-dBaṅ Blo-bZaṅ rGya-mTSHo, The Song of the Queen of Spring, or, A History of Tibet, revised translation by Zahiruddin Ahmad. Śata-Piṭaka

Notes to Pages 21–23     245

Series, vol. 623 (New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture and Aditya Prakashan, 2008), 151. 28 Thomas Laird, The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama (New York: Grove Press, 2006), 162. 29 Ṅag-dBaṅ Blo-bZaṅ rGya-mTSHo, History of Tibet, 149–154. 30 Zahiruddin Ahmad, Sino-Tibetan Relations in the Seventeenth Century (Roma: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1970), 134; Samten G. Karmay, The Illusive Play: The Autobiography of the Fifth Dalai Lama, trans. Samten G. Karmay (Chicago: Serindia Publications, 2014), 4; Tsepon W. D. Shakabpa, Tibet: A Political History, 2nd ed. (New York: Potala Publications, [1967] 1984), 111; One Hundred Thousand Moons: An Advanced Political History of Tibet, trans. and annotated by Derek F. Maher (Leiden: Brill, 2010), vol. 1, 347–348; Central Tibetan Administration, “Tibetans Mark 360 Years of Gaden Phodrang” (Dharamsala: Department of Information & International Relations, 2002), http://tibet.net/2002/02 /tibetans-mark-360-years-of-gaden-phodrang/ (consulted August 27, 2016); Dung-dkar blo-bzang ’phrin-las, The Merging of Religious and Secular Rule in Tibet, trans. Chen Guansheng (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1991), 69; Chab spel Tshe brtan phun tshogs and Nor brang o rgyan, eds., Bod kyi lo rgyus rigs rim g.yu yi phreng ba, vol. bar cha (vol. 2) (Lhasa: Bod ljongs bod yig dpe rnying dpe skrun khang, 1990), 571–572. 31 Luciano Petech, China and Tibet in the Early XVIIIth Century: History of the Establishment of the Chinese Protectorate in Tibet (Leiden: Brill, 1972), 8‒9. With this, Petech follows Tucci, who emphasizes that the Gelukpa had only nominally taken control over Tibet and that Tibet had lost its independence back then: Giuseppe Tucci, Tibetan Painted Scrolls, 2 vols. (Roma: Libreria dello Stato, 1949), 66. 32 Chen Qingying, The System of the Dalai Lama Reincarnation (Beijing: China Intercontinental Press, 2005), 39, 56; Zheng Shan, ed., A History of Development of Tibet (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2001), 188. 33 The corresponding text passages are quoted in more detail in Ahmad, SinoTibetan Relations, 130–140. 34 Tucci, Tibetan Painted Scrolls, 67, followed by Petech, China and Tibet, 8; Luciano Petech, “The Dalai Lamas and Regents of Tibet: A Chronological Study,” T’oung Pao, 2nd ser. 47, no. 3/5 (1959): 378; Chen Qingying, Tibetan History (Beijing: China Intercontinental Press, 2003), 53. 35 Karmay, The Illusive Play, 4; Shakabpa, Tibet, 111. 36 Hugh Richardson, “The Fifth Dalai Lama’s Decree Appointing Sangs-rgyas rgya-mtsho as Regent,” in Hugh Richardson, High Peaks, Pure Earth. Collected Writings on Tibetan History and Culture, ed. Michael Aris (London: Serindia, 1998), 442, 444; Marylin M. Rhie and Robert A. F. Thurman,

246     Notes to Pages 23–25

A Shrine for Tibet: The Alice S. Kandell Collection (New York: Tibet House US, 2009), 283, 285. Cf. also Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 51–61. 37 Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 65–70. 38 Dieter Schuh, Grundlagen tibetischer Siegelkunde. Eine Untersuchung über tibetische Siegelaufschriften in ’Phags-pa-Schrift. Monumenta Tibetica Historica, vol. III/5 (Sankt Augustin: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag, 1981), 316–322: no. XXXIII. 39 For the Tibetan text, see Lho bstan ’dzin nyi ma, Bod mdo khams nang chen dge ’brong yul gyi snod bcud lugs gnyis kyi byung ba brjod pa’ i deb ther gangs chab lci zla’ i zegs ma. Mdo khams dge ’brong lo rgyus (Lanzhou: Kan su’u mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2012), 6, 253. 40 Schuh, Grundlagen tibetischer Siegelkunde, 341–345, no. XXXVII; Karl-Heinz Everding, Herrscherurkunden aus der Zeit des mongolischen Großreiches für tibetische Adelshäuser, Geistliche und Klöster, part 1: Diplomata Mongolica. Mittelmongolische Urkunden in ’Phags pa-Schrift. Edition, Übersetzung, Analyse, part 2: Diplomata Tibetica. Die vierzehn Urkunden für die Tausendschaft Mus. Mit einer Studie zur historischen Entwicklung des Mus chu-Tales im westlichen gTsang in der Zeit des 12.–15. Jahrhunderts (Halle, Saale: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, 2006); Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 8–9. 41 See Ahmad, Sino-Tibetan Relations, 131–138; Karmay, The Illusive Play, 166. Ṅag-dBaṅ Blo-bZaṅ rGya-mTSHo, History of Tibet, 153, only talks about the fact that on this day Gushri Khan became king of Tibet. The date was calculated by Ahmad as April 13 (Ahmad, Sino-Tibetan Relations, 134, 137) and elsewhere as April 14 (Ṅag-dBaṅ Blo-bZaṅ rGya-mTSHo, History of Tibet, 153); according to my calculation it should be April 15. 42 For such a document executed on March 26, 1649, see Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 55. Another two documents—only extant in a transliterated version— can be found in Rdo sbis Tshe ring rgyal and Rdo sbis Tshe ring rdo rje, eds., Bod kyi khrims srol skor gyi lo rgyus yig tshags phyogs sgrig: gzhung yig phyogs sgrig (Lhasa: Bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang, 2016), 152–153, 155–156. Unfortunately, the editions do not clearly set apart the comments added to the document later from the original document text. Another document from 1643, which was only passed on in different copies, was edited and translated by Christoph Cüppers, “Ein Erlaß des Königs Gushri Khan aus dem Jahre 1643,” Zentralasiatische Studien 40, 2011: 165–173. 43 Ibid., 166. 44 Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 57–58. 45 Ibid., 56. 46 According to Chen, Gushri Khan “ordered that taxes be imposed on the Kam areas to support the offices and soldiers of Qinghai, while the Dalai

Notes to Pages 25–32     247

and the Panchen Lama were supported by the taxes levied on the people of U-tsang, thus giving financial privileges to the monasteries of the Gelug Sect.” Chen, Tibetan History, 53. 47 See, for example, the translation of such a document executed in 1675, in chapter 9. 48 Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 128–130, 134–136. Peter Schwieger, “On the Exercise of Jurisdiction in Southeast-Tibet after the Rise of the Ganden Phodrang Government,” in Social Regulation: Case Studies from Tibetan History, ed. Jeannine Bischoff and Saul Mullard (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 126–150. 49 Sir Charles Bell, Portrait of a Dalai Lama: The Life and Times of the Great Thirteenth, rev. ed. (London: Wisdom Publications, [1946] 1987), 178. 50 Luhmann quite similarly references, for example, the kings of old Mesopotamia, representing “the invention of specific-political centralism” in social memory (Luhmann, Die Politik der Gesellschaft, 176–177). 51 Detlef Pollack, a sociologist of religion, advocated the thesis that the papacy’s claims to supremacy in the European Middle Ages, “to dominate all social spheres,” can be found—in such radical fashion—only in Western Christianity. “In other cultures, for example, in China or India, but also in Islamic countries and Japan, there was no centralized religious power authority striving for the control of society and the individuals, even up to the individuals’ hearts.” However, a comparably radical power claim is well evidenced in Tibetan culture, thus, from a cultural area that was not in contact with the Occident. In contrast to European history, here the clergy’s claim for supremacy and control prevailed at the end of a century-long struggle between religion and politics. Detlef Pollack, Religion und gesellschaftliche Differenzierung (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 114, 142. Chapter 3. Domination Epigraph. Peter Richardus, “Selected Tibetan Proverbs,” Tibet Journal 14, no. 3 (1989): 55–71, here 62: chu brgya zam pa gcig tu ’ dus pa. Cf. Acharya Sangye T. Naga and Tsepak Rigzin, Tibetan Quadrisyllabics, Phrases and Idioms (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1994), 92; Zhang Yisun et al., Bod rgya tshig mdzod chen mo. Zang han da cidian (­Beijing: Mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1998), 799. 1 Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 53. This book privileges “domination” and occasionally “rule” as a translation for Herrschaft. 2 See Schwieger, “History as Myth,” 74–78.

248     Notes to Pages 32–38

3 Luhmann, Die Politik der Gesellschaft, 66. 4 Niklas Luhmann, Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik. Studien zur Wissenssoziologie der modernen Gesellschaft, vol. 3 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1989), 145–146. See also 109–112. Later, however, he preferred to speak of the state only if a society already used this term for the selfdesignation of its political order. See Luhmann, Die Politik der Gesellschaft, 190. It should be noted that, for example, a more open definition of the term has also been proposed for use in medieval studies. In this sense, a “state” would be an “organization of human society within a more or less fixed area in which the ruler or governing body more or less successfully controls the legitimate use of physical force.” Susan Reynolds, “The Historiography of the Medieval State,” in Companion to Historiography, ed. Michael Bentley (London: Routledge, 1997), 117–138, here 118. 5 Luciano Petech, Aristocracy and Government in Tibet, 1728–1959 (Roma: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1973), 12–13. 6 Samuel summarizes the discussion in the secondary literature over the political status of the Sakya at the time of the Ganden Podrang: Geoffrey Samuel, Civilized Shamans: Buddhism in Tibetan Societies (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993), 55–59. 7 Tshe ring don grub and O rgyan chos ’phel, eds., Bod ljongs spyi bshad, 2 vols. (Lhasa: Bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang, 1991), 669–672. 8 Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 166–170. 9 Yudru Tsomu, The Rise of Gönpo Namgyel in Kham: The Blind Warrior of Nyarong (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015), 187–188. 10 The concepts of “hierocratic organization” and “charismatic domination” follow Weber, Economy and Society, 246–247. 11 Luhmann, Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik, vol. 3, 104. 12 See chapter 9. 13 Niklas Luhmann, Politische Soziologie, ed. André Kieserling (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2015), 58. 14 Ibid., 62–64. 15 Ibid., 58. 16 Luhmann, Die Politik der Gesellschaft, 55. 17 Ibid., 69. 18 Ibid., 56. 19 Baraldi, Corsi, and Esposito, GLU, 113–115. See also Luhmann, Die Politik der Gesellschaft, 35. 20 Luhmann, Die Politik der Gesellschaft, 91. 21 Ibid., 59‒60. See also 38, 52. 22 Ibid., 86. 23 Luhmann, Politische Soziologie, 59.

Notes to Pages 38–42     249

24 Dung dkar Blo bzang ’phrin las, Bod kyi chos srid zung ’brel skor bshad pa, Mkhas dbang dung dkar blo bzang ’phrin las kyi gsung bum, vol. Nga. (Beijing: Mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2004), 73, 101. 25 Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho, “Blang dor gsal bar ston pa’i drang thig dwangs shel me long nyer gcig pa,” in Bod kyi khrims srol skor gyi lo rgyus yig tshags phyogs sgrig: gzhung yig phyogs sgrig, ed. Rdo sbis Tshe ring rgyal and Rdo sbis Tshe ring rdo rje (Lhasa: Bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang, 2016), 388–392. 26 See chapter 4. 27 See Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 147–158. 28 Goldstein, “Tibetan Political System,” 173–180. 29 Dung dkar Blo bzang ’phrin las, Dung dkar tshig mdzod chen mo (Beijing: Krung go’i bod rig pa dpe skrun khang, 2002), 1305. 30 Bshad sgra Dga’ ldan dpal ’byor, Chab tshom ’Chi med rgyal po, and Sreg shing Blo bzang don grub, “De snga’i bod sa gnas srid gzhung gi srid ’dzin sgrig gzhi,” in Bod kyi lo rgyus rig gnas dpyad gzhi’ i rgyu cha bdams bsgrigs, vol. 13, ed. Padma skal bzang and Blo bzang tshe brtan (Lhasa: Bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang, 1991), 1–101, here 25–26; Dung dkar, Dung dkar tshig mdzod, 1853. 31 Schuh, Grundlagen tibetischer Siegelkunde, 16. 32 For a list of offices, see Goldstein, “Tibetan Political System,” 172; Tshe ring don grub and O rgyan chos ’phel, Bod ljongs spyi bshad, 667. 33 Gling dpon Padma skal bzang, De snga’ i bod sa gnas srid gzhung gi gzhung yig thog gi tha snyad spyod srol dang ’brel yod phyogs bsdus gsal ’grel (Beijing: Mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2011), 162; Bshad sgra Dga’ ldan dpal ’byor et al., “De snga’i bod,” 45. 34 Gling dpon Padma skal bzang, De snga’ i bod, 166. Rdo rje tshe brtan, Bod ljongs kyi slob gso (Beijing: Krung go’i bod kyi shes rig dpe skrun khang, 1995), 82–85. See also Goldstein, “Tibetan Political System,” 155–158. 35 When Charles Bell visited the Accounting Office in 1920, he only encountered six students. They all were instructed in the same room in which the office staff attended to their business. Charles Bell, Portrait of a Dalai Lama, 185. 36 Dung dkar, Dung dkar tshig mdzod, 1675–1676; Gling dpon Padma skal bzang, De snga’ i bod, 161–164; Rdo rje tshe brtan, Bod ljongs kyi slob gso, 77–82. 37 Melvyn C. Goldstein, A History of Modern Tibet, 1913–1951: The Demise of the Lamaist State (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt Ltd., 1989), 8. 38 Goldstein, “Tibetan Political System,” 151–152. 39 Ibid., 166, 188–192; Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 199. For the origin of this institution see Shakabpa, One Hundred Thousand Moons,

250     Notes to Pages 42–50

604–605. Bell also reports on the work of this assembly in the first half of the twentieth century. Bell, Portrait of a Dalai Lama, 165–169. 40 Goldstein, “Tibetan Political System,” 183–184. 41 Luhmann, Die Politik der Gesellschaft, 74. 42 Ibid., 124. 43 Ibid., 84–85. 44 See chapter 2. 45 Laura Hostetler, Qing Colonial Enterprise: Ethnography and Cartography in Early Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 75. 46 Ning Chia, “The Li-fan Yuan in the Early Ch’ing Dynasty” (PhD thesis, Johns Hopkins University, 1991), 165, 178, 193; Nicola Di Cosmo, “Qing Colonial Administration in Inner Asia,” International History Review 20, no. 2 (June 1998): 290. 47 Herfried Münkler, Empires: The Logic of World Domination from Ancient Rome to the United States, trans. Patrick Camiller (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007), 84. 48 Münkler, Empires, 85. 49 Lee, China’s Hegemony, 136–145. 50 Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 31–35, 40–41. For the institution of the trülku see chapter 4. 51 For the regularly occurring delegations sent by the Central Tibetan Geluk monasteries to the imperial court, see Peter Schwieger, “Some Remarks on the Nature and Terminology of Gift Exchange between Tibetan Hierarchs and the Qing Emperor,” in Commerce and Communities: Social Status and the Exchange of Goods in Tibetan Societies, ed. Jeannine Bischoff and Alice Travers (Berlin: EB-Verlag, 2018), 33–38; Rdo sbis Tshe ring rdo rje, Deng rabs bod skad tshig mdzod (Lhasa: Bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang, 2016), 1323. 52 Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 61–64. 53 For examples, see Sgrolkar, Xiao Huaiyuan, Vodzer, et al., A Collection of Historical Archives of Tibet. Xizang lishi dang’an huicui. Bod kyi lo rgyus yig tshags gces bsdus (Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1995), nos. 8, 10, 11, 12. 54 See, for instance, Schuh, Grundlagen tibetischer Siegelkunde, no. XXXII; Rhie and Thurman, A Shrine for Tibet, 282–283. 55 See Borjigidai Oyunbilig (Wuyun Bili Ge), “Eine mandschurische Throneingabe zum Tod des sechsten Dalai Lama,” Zentralasiatische Studien 40 (2012): 252–256. 56 Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 118–125. 57  Digitized Tibetan Archives Bonn: LTWA, ID 950, https://dtab.crossasia.org; Qinghai Sheng Bowuguan (Qinghai Minzu Bowuguan), Hehuang cangzhen: Zang chuan fojiao wenwu juan (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2012), no. 134.

Notes to Pages 50–52     251

58 Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 125–127. For a picture of a seal, see Sgrolkar et al., Historical Archives of Tibet, no. 71. Imprints of the seal can be found in Digitized Tibetan Archives Bonn: Kundeling Archives, ID 1460, a document from 1756, as well as ID 1109, a document from 1730, https:// dtab.crossasia.org. Due to an incorrect classification of the seal and incorrect dating of the charter in the archive, I mistakenly attributed the lastmentioned charter to the Fifth Dalai Lama (Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 58–59). 59 For pictures of imprints of this seal, see Digitized Tibetan Archives Bonn: Kundeling Archives, ID 1165, 1629, 1684, 2260, 2292; Schuh, Grundlagen tibetischer Siegelkunde, no. XXXV. See also 5–7. 60 Lcang skya Rol pa’i rdo rje (1717–1786), Rgyal dbang sku phreng rim byon gyi mdzad rnam/ sku phreng bdun pa blo bzang bskal bzang rgya mtsho’ i rnam thar, 2 vols. (biography of the Seventh Dalai Lama) (Beijing: Krung go’i bod rig pa dpe skrun khang, 2010), 1:10, 27. The Nyingmapa lama Katokpa Tsewang Norbu (1698–1755), in the treaty between the kingdoms of Lhadak and Purik, drafted in 1753, also explicitly calls the Dalai Lama the Seventh: Peter Schwieger, Teilung und Reintegration des Königreichs von Ladakh im 18. Jahrhundert. Der Staatsvertrag zwischen Ladakh und Purig aus dem Jahr 1753 (Bonn: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag, 1999), 106, 183. 61 Chen, System of the Dalai Lama Reincarnation, 55. 62 Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 176–198. I would also like to refer the reader to the recently published book by Max Oidtmann, Forging the Golden Urn: The Qing Empire and the Politics of Reincarnation in Tibet (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018). 63 For an explanation of the terms “social dimension” and “fact dimension” in accordance with Luhmann’s systems theory, see chapter 1. 64 Evelyn S. Rawski, The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 254–255. Before the Manchus modified and used the office of the jasak for their own purposes, jasaks were not at the head of a banner but were subordinated to a Mongol khan. See Hiroki Oka, “Extension of Control over the Mongols,” in Sacred Mandates: Asian International Relations Since Chinggis Khan, ed. Timothy Brook, Michael van Walt van Praag, and Miek Boltjes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018), 134–139, here 135, 138. The banners were military and administrative units established by the Manchus during the Qing Dynasty. Each banner was headed by a chief or commander. The most in-depth study on the banner system is: Mark C. Elliott: The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001). On the integration of the Mongols into the banner system see ibid., 72‒75.

252     Notes to Pages 52–55

65 Gray Tuttle, Tibetan Buddhists in the Making of Modern China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 22–23. 66 Petech, Aristocracy and Government in Tibet, 220–222, 231–234. 67 These were the treasurers of the Panchen Lama, the Demo qutuqtu, the Tatsak qutuqtu, and the Tsemönling qutuqtu. It should be noted that in the twentieth century, after the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Tibetan government assumed the right to confer the title of jasak lama, and then awarded it to a wider circle of treasurers. 68  Digitized Tibetan Archives Bonn: Kundeling Archives, ID 175. Other documents confirm that as a rule two names were given to the emperor so that he in principle had a choice. 69 Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 39. 70 Ibid., 113–114, 127–164. See also Petech, China and Tibet, 155–157; Sgrolkar et al., Historical Archives of Tibet, no. 50. 71 Recently, the applicability of the “European concept of empire . . . to the forms of layered rule that existed in Inner and East Asia” has been doubted. Instead, the Mongolian term yeke ulus, the Chinese term da guo, and the Manchurian term amban gurun were translated as “Great State.” And this English translation—one of several possible translations of the terms, which are only vaguely defined in the source languages—was recommended as an “indigenous Asian term.” As will be seen, in the present context the term “empire” is used as a theory-based term. In the first place, we are referring here to its definition and use in systems theory. This definition is largely in sync with the one specified by Herfried Münkler within the scope of empire research (Münkler, Empires, 1–17). The special meaning of the concept described by the term “Great State” has been traced back to Chinggis Khan. It has been stated that it thereafter “became the concept that later rulers aspired to reproduce. It included direct rule, indirect rule, and vassalage. It could entail a variety of hierarchical relationships of the powerful—acting as Great Khan, Son of Heaven, or chakravartin—with lesser rulers, who may or may not have considered themselves as being ‘within’ or ‘without’ the Great State but who did recognize a closer or looser relationship with its ruler.” This description can be easily subsumed under the interpretation of “empire” underlying this study and adds no elements that would not be in accordance with it. Quotations from Timothy Brook, Michael van Walt van Praag, and Miek Boltjes, “The Great Reinterpretation,” in Sacred Mandates: Asian International Relations Since Chinggis Khan, ed. Timothy Brook, Michael van Walt van Praag, and Miek Boltjes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018), 191–196, here 191. 72 Münkler, Empires, 5.

Notes to Pages 55–60     253

73 Timothy Brook, Michael van Walt van Praag, and Miek Boltjes, “Sovereignty in Asia before the Modern Era,” in Sacred Mandates: Asian International Relations Since Chinggis Khan, ed. Timothy Brook, Michael van Walt van Praag, and Miek Boltjes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018), 15–19, here 15. 74 Ibid., 16. 75 Ibid., 191. 76 Ibid., 15. 77 Nicola Di Cosmo, “State Formation and Legitimation,” in Sacred Mandates: Asian International Relations since Chinggis Khan, ed. Timothy Brook, Michael van Walt van Praag, and Miek Boltjes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018), 125–132, here 132. 78 Barbara Kuchler, Kriege: Eine Gesellschaftstheorie gewaltsamer Konflikte (Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 2013), 157. See also Münkler, Empires, viii; see also chapter 5. 79 Kuchler, Kriege, 157. 80 Quotations from Timothy Brook, Michael van Walt van Praag, and Miek Boltjes, “The New Paradigm of International Relations,” in Sacred Mandates: Asian International Relations Since Chinggis Khan, ed. Timothy Brook, Michael van Walt van Praag, and Miek Boltjes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018), 157–159, here 158, 157. 81 See Peter C. Perdue, China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005), 172. 82 Di Cosmo, “Qing Colonial Administration,” 288–289. 83 Münkler, Empires, 6. 84 See Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 165. 85 Matthew T. Kapstein, “Imperial Directives in the Language of chö-yön,” in Sacred Mandates: Asian International Relations since Chinggis Khan, ed. Timothy Brook, Michael van Walt van Praag, and Miek Boltjes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018), 116–122, here 118. 86 Kapstein, “Imperial Directives,” 122. Chapter 4. Hierarchy Epigraph. For the Tibetan text see Sa-skya Paṇḍita Kun-dga’-rgyal-mtshan, Sa skya Legs bshad: Die Strophen zur Lebensklugheit von Sa skya Paṇḍita Kun dga’ rgyal mtshan (1182–1251), ed. Helmut Eimer (Wien: Arbeitskreis für tibetische und buddhistische Studien, 2014), 129. 1 See, for example, the two stories summarized in chapters 2 and 7. 2 Berthe Jansen, The Monastery Rules: Buddhist Monastic Organization in PreModern Tibet (Oakland: University of California Press, 2018), 44–56, 58–64.

254     Notes to Pages 60–61

3 In particular, four legal texts constitute the legal tradition: a fifteen-chapter text dating from the fourteenth century, a sixteen-chapter text from the first half of the seventeenth century, and two texts from the middle of the seventeenth century, one in twelve chapters and one in thirteen. See: Bsod nams tshe ring, ed., Snga rabs bod kyi srid khrims (Beijing: Mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2004), 130–256. The listed specifications for the individual strata by Sarat Chandra Das, The Government of Tibet, appendix with new pagination to Narrative of a Journey to Lhasa in 1881–82 (Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press, 1885), 23, and Rebecca R. French, The Golden Yoke: The Legal Cosmology of Buddhist Tibet (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995), 114, correspond only roughly to the legal texts and cannot be reconstructed in detail based on sources. The most accurate overview can still be found in Jin Hui, Ren Yinong, and Ma Naihui, eds., Social History of Tibet, China: Documented and Illustrated (Beijing: China Intercontinental Press, 1995), 55. See also Christoph Cüppers, “Tibetisches Kompensationsrecht (stong’jal),” in Tibet-Encyclopaedia, ed. Dieter Schuh et al., http://www.tibet -encyclopaedia.de. Consulted December 20, 2017. 4 In Tibetan legal codes the term sang appears as a payment unit for penalties. What was to be used as a means of payment—grain or silver, for example— is not prescribed in the texts. 5 Bsod nams tshe ring, Snga rabs bod, 196–200. There is no evidence that women also belonged to the lowest category, as mentioned by Jin, Ren, and Ma, Social History of Tibet, China, 55, or even hermaphrodites, as shown by French, The Golden Yoke, 114. 6 Margaret Gouin, Tibetan Rituals of Death: Buddhist Funerary Practices (London: Routledge, 2010). 7 José Ignacio Cabezón in Jamgön Mipham, The Just King: The Tibetan Buddhist Classic on Leading an Ethical Life, trans. José Ignacio Cabezón (Boulder, CO: Snow Lion, 2017), xviii. 8 Abu Bakr Amir-uddin Nadwi, Tibet and Tibetan Muslims, trans. Paramanda Sharma (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 2004), 50–53; José Ignacio Cabezón, “Islam in the Tibetan Culture Sphere,” in Islam in Tibet & Tibetan Caravans, ed. Gray Henri (Louisville: Fons Vitae, 1997), 17, 23; Diana Lange, “A Short History of Muslims and Islam in Central Tibet,” Orient. German Journal for Politics, Economics and Culture in the Middle East 4/2010: 65–73; Hugh Richardson, “Foreigners in Tibet,” in Hugh Richardson, High Peaks, Pure Earth: Collected Writings on Tibetan History and Culture, ed. Michael Aris (London: Serindia, 1998), 409–419. 9 Sebouh Aslanian, From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean: The Global Trade Networks of Armenian Merchants from New Julfa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 52–54; Hugh Richardson, “Armenians in India

Notes to Pages 61–66     255

and Tibet,” in Hugh Richardson, High Peaks, Pure Earth: Collected Writings on Tibetan History and Culture, ed. Michael Aris (London: Serindia, 1998), 462–467. 10 Nadwi, Tibet and Tibetan Muslims, 54–55; Peter Schwieger, “A Forbidden Nepalese-Tibetan Love Affair,” in Nepalica-Tibetica, Festgabe for Christoph Cüppers, ed. Franz-Karl Ehrhard and Petra Maurer, vol. 2 (Andiast: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, 2013), 185–190. 11 Rudolf Stichweh, “Die Begegnung mit Fremden und die Selbstbeobachtung von Gesellschaften,” in Die Begegnung mit Fremden und das Geschichtsbewußtsein, ed. Judith Becker and Bettina Braun (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012), 20. 12 See, for example, the story summarized in chapter 2. 13 Carole McGranahan, “Arrested Histories: Between Empire and Exile in 20th Century Tibet” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2001), 126–137. 14 Bsod nams tshe ring, Snga rabs bod, 242. 15 To what extent one can speak of a middle class in Tibet’s society in the first half of the twentieth century has been discussed by Alice Travers: “How Should We Define Social Status? The Study of ‘Intermediate Groups’ in Central Tibet (1895–1959),” in Tibetans who Escaped the Historian’s Net: Studies in the Social History of Tibetan Societies, ed. Charles Ramble, Peter Schwieger, and Alice Travers (Kathmandu: Vajra Books, 2013), 141–159. In particular, information in studies on private schools in Lhasa provided useful information. 16 Luhmann, Soziologische Aufklärung, vol. 6, 196. 17 A. Genschow, Unter Chinesen und Tibetanern (Rostock: C. J. E. Volckmann, 1905), 337–338. 18 Alice Travers, “The Careers of the Noble Officials of the Ganden Phodrang (1895–1959): Organisation and Hereditary Divisions within the Service of State,” in Revisiting Tibetan Culture and History: Proceedings of the Second International Seminar of Young Tibetologists, Paris, 2009, ed. Tim Myatt, Kalsang Norbu Gurung, Nicola Schneider, and Alice Travers (Paris: Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines, 28, October 2011), 158. 19 See Melvyn C. Goldstein, A History of Modern Tibet, 1913–1951: The Demise of the Lamaist State (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt Ltd., 1989), 6–10; Travers, “Noble Officials,” 168–171. 20 Pedro Carrasco, Land and Polity in Tibet (Seattle: University of Washington Press, [1912] 1959), 82; H. S. Brunnert and V. V. Hagelstrom, Present Day Political Organization of China, trans. A. Beltchenko, rev. ed. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2007), 469–475. 21 Goldstein, History of Modern Tibet, 6; Ma Lihua, Old Lhasa: A Sacred City (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 2003), 52.

256     Notes to Pages 66–71

22 Petech, Aristocracy and Government in Tibet, 50–87; Tsering Yangdzom, The Aristocratic Families in Tibetan History: 1900–1951 (Beijing: China Intercontinental Press, 2006), 25–41. 23 Petech, Aristocracy and Government in Tibet, 88–199; Yangdzom, Aristocratic Families, 27 (of the introduction), 42–46. In contrast, slightly different: Travers, “Noble Officials,” 157–159, who relies on a databank with interviews, biographies, and British archival material that she established. 24 Petech, Aristocracy and Government in Tibet, 22, 33–34; Yangdzom, Aristocratic Families, 8. 25 Carrasco, Land and Polity, 209; Matthew T. Kapstein, The Tibetans (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 176; Stein, Tibetan Civilization, 128. 26 Dorje Wangdu Phalha, Genealogie, Geschichte & Geschicke des Hauses Phalha (Rikon, Zürich: Klösterliches Tibet-Institut, 2004), 18–19. 27 Yangdzom, Aristocratic Families, 21–22. For examples of how people married into families, see Petech, Aristocracy and Government in Tibet, 79, 149. 28 Petech, China and Tibet, 78–79; Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 125. 29 See Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 140–141. 30 Petech, China and Tibet, 113–121; Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 141–143. 31 Petech, Aristocracy and Government in Tibet, 100. 32 Petech, China and Tibet, 198–219; Petech, Aristocracy and Government in Tibet, 50, 53–55. 33 Petech, Aristocracy and Government in Tibet, 212; cf. Petech, China and Tibet, 228. 34 Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 151–158. 35 Petech, Aristocracy and Government in Tibet, 7–14; Schuh, Grundlagen tibetischer Siegelkunde, 36–39. 36 Goldstein, History of Modern Tibet, 8–10. 37 For the respective regency, see Petech, Aristocracy and Government in Tibet, 173–180. 38 Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 146–158. 39 Melvyn C. Goldstein, “The Circulation of Estates in Tibet: Reincarnation, Land, and Politics,” Journal of Asian Studies 32, no. 3 (1973): 451; Petech, Aristocracy and Government in Tibet, 160. 40 Lhamo Pemba, Bod kyi gtam dpe. Tibetan Proverbs (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1996), 135: bla ma phal cher phyug po’ i bu la’ khrungs// me tog phal cher chu ’gro’ i ’gram nas skyes//. 41 See Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 9–31. 42 See ibid., 183–184. 43 Ibid., 175–198; Yuri Komatsubara, “A Study of the Treaty of the First TibetGorkha War of 1789,” in Social Regulation: Case Studies from Tibetan

Notes to Pages 72–77     257

History, ed. Jeannine Bischoff and Saul Mullard (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 181–196. 44 Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 177–182. 45 Shakabpa, One Hundred Thousand Moons, 587–589. 46 Petech, “Dalai Lamas and Regents,” 23‒24. 47 Ibid., 25–29. 48 Goldstein, History of Modern Tibet, 43. 49 Ibid., 464–521. 50 Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 119–121. 51 See ibid., 120–123, 143–145. 52 Fabienne Jagou, The Ninth Panchen Lama (1883–1937): A Life at the Crossroads of Sino-Tibetan Relations, trans. Rebecca Bisset Buechel (Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient; Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2011), 186. See also 31, 45–46, 48. 53 Ibid., 31, 35, 38–39, 50–51. 54 Ibid., 50–51. 55 Ibid., 23. 56 Ibid., 84‒91. 57 Melvyn C. Goldstein, “Tibetan Buddhism and Mass Monasticism,” consulted December 22, 2017 at https://case.edu/affil/tibet/tibetanMonks /documents/Tibetan_Buddhism_and_Mass_Monasticism.pdf, 10. 58 Petech, China and Tibet, 34, 40–41, 44, 46. 59 Petech, “Dalai Lamas and Regents,” 24, 26–27. 60 Goldstein, History of Modern Tibet, 89–110. 61 Luhmann restricts the term “interaction” to communication between those physically present, respectively, communication participants who mutually perceive themselves and who, on the basis thereof, conceive of their respective behavior as a message in communication. Chapter 5. Center, Periphery, and Boundary Epigraph. The translation follows Hugh E. Richardson, A Corpus of Early Tibetan Inscriptions (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1985), 38–41. For a slightly different phrasing cf. Lewis Doney, “Emperor, Dharmaraja, Bodhi­sattva? Inscriptions from the Reign of Khri Srong lde brtsan,” in Current Issues and Progress in Tibetan Studies, ed. Tsuguhito Takeuchi et al. (Kobe, Japan: Kobe City University of Foreign Studies, 2013), 74. For an edition see Kazushi Iwao, Nathan Hill, and Tsuguhito Takeuchi, eds., Old Tibetan Inscriptions, Old Tibetan Documents Online Monograph Series II (Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 2009), 13–14. 1 Luhmann, Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik, vol. 3, 145–147; Theory of Society, vol. 2, 42–50.

258     Notes to Pages 77–81

2 Frank Buskotte, Resonanzen für Geschichte: Niklas Luhmanns Systemtheorie aus geschichtswissenschaftlicher Perspektive (Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2006), 85‒86, 155; Becht, Geng, and Hirschfeld, “Zentrum und Peripherie,” 171–210, apply the distinction to functional systems. Kuchler, Kriege, 16, views it as a subordinate type of stratificatory differentiation. 3 Baraldi, Corsi, and Esposito, GLU, 171; Luhmann, Theory of Society, vol. 1, 22. 4 See Luhmann, Theory of Society, vol. 1, 38–39. 5 Luhmann, Social Systems, 317. 6 In this way, Becht, Geng, and Hirschfeld, “Zentrum und Peripherie,” 179, have conceptualized the “center” with regard to functional systems of a functionally differentiated society; but in the same way, center and periphery can also be meaningfully distinguished in social systems in general. 7 Luhmann adopted the term autopoiesis from the biologist Humberto Maturana (born in 1928), who had constructed it from the Greek autos, “self,” and poiesis, “making, production, creation.” For Luhmann’s concept of autopoiesis see Luhmann, Theory of Society, vol. 1, 32–35; Baraldi, Corsi, and Esposito, GLU, 29–33; Georg Kneer and Armin Nassehi, Niklas Luhmanns Theorie sozialer Systeme: Eine Einführung, 4th ed. (Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink, 2000), 50–56. 8 See for instance Luhmann, Theory of Society, vol. 1, 49–68. 9 Marc Redepenning and Jan Lorenz Wilhelm, “Raumforschung mit luhmannscher Systemtheorie,” in Theorien in der Raum- und Stadtforschung: Einführungen, ed. Jürgen Oßenbrügge and Anne Voeglpohl (Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, 2014), 317–319; Georg Simmel, Soziologie: Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1908), 460–526. 10 Luhmann, Social Systems, 194–195. 11 Sa skya Bsod nams rgyal mtshan, Rgyal rabs gsal ba’ i me long (Beijing: Mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1981), 132. The myth itself dates back to at least the twelfth century. See Michael Aris, Bhutan: The Early History of a Himalayan Kingdom (Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd., 1980), 8–33. 12 Guntram Hazod, “The Kyichu Region in the Period of the Tibetan Empire,” in Tibet and Her Neighbours: A History, ed. Alex McKay (London: Edition Hansjörg Mayer, 2003), 37. See also Helga Uebach, “Königliche Residenzen und Orte der Reichsversammlung im 7. und 8. Jahrhundert. Ein Beitrag zu den Ortsnamen der Königlichen Annalen Tibets,” in Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the 4th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Schloss Hohenkammer— Munich 1985, ed. Helga Uebach and Jampa L. Panglung (München: Kommission für Zentralasiatische Studien, Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1988), 514.

Notes to Pages 81–84     259

13 For this hitherto underresearched early history of Lhasa and the legends of its beginning, see Anne-Marie Blondeau and Yonten Gyatso, “Lhasa, Legend and History,” in Lhasa in the Seventeenth Century: The Capital of the Dalai Lamas, ed. Françoise Pommaret (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 15–38. See also Roberto Vitali, “lHa sa’s Hectic Years ca. 975–1160,” in On a Day of a Month of the Fire Bird Year: Festschrift for Peter Schwieger on occasion of his 65th birthday, ed. Jeannine Bischoff, Petra Maurer, and Charles Ramble (Lumbini: Lumbini International Research Institute, 2020), 853–871. 14 Sde srid Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho (1653–1705), Mchod sdong ’ dzam gling rgyan gcig gi dkar chag (Mchod sdong ’ dzam gling rgyan gcig rten gtsug lag khang dang bcas pa’ i dkar chag thar gling rgya mtshor bgrod pa’ i gru rdzings byin rlabs kyi bang mdzod) (Lhasa: Bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang, 1990), 237–238. This work is the basis for a detailed lecture about the construction of the Potala: Peter Schwieger, “Rule and Labour in Tibet: Constructing the Red Palace of the Potala,” in The Power of Wealth. Economy and Social Status in Pre-Modern Tibetan Communities, ed. Lucia Galli and Kalsang Norbu Gurung, 216–240 (Paris: Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines 57, January 2021). 15 As a general strategy see Luhmann, Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik, vol. 3, 74. 16 Ippolito Desideri, Mission to Tibet: The Extraordinary Eighteenth-Century Account of Father Ippolito Desideri, S.J., trans. Michael J. Sweet, ed. Lenard Zwilling (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2010), 231, 697 n. 651. 17 Knud Larsen and Amund Sinding-Larsen, The Lhasa Atlas: Traditional Tibetan Architecture and Townscape (London: Serindia, 2001), 134; André Alexander, John Harrison, and Pimpim de Azevedo, eds., Lhasa Old City, vol. 2: A Clear Lamp Illuminating the Significance and Origin of Historic Buildings (Berlin: Tibet Heritage Fund, 1999), 45. 18 Desideri, Mission to Tibet, 229. 19 Carrasco, Land and Polity in Tibet, 82; Brunnert and Hagelstrom, Present Day Political Organization of China, 81. Petech, Aristocracy and Government in Tibet, 12, gives the number of districts as fifty-two, but adds the principality of the Sakya abbots as a specific administrative unit. 20 Foon Ming Liew, The Treatises on Military Affairs of the Ming Dynastic History (1368–1644), 2 vols. (Hamburg: Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens, 1998), vol. 1, 68–69; Peter Schwieger, “A Document of Chinese Diplomatic Relations with East Tibet during the Ming Dynasty,” in Tibetstudien: Festschrift für Dieter Schuh zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Petra Maurer and Peter Schwieger (Bonn: Bier’sche Verlagsanstalt, 2007), 211. 21 See Kuchler, Kriege, 370–371.

260     Notes to Pages 85–89

22 Peter Schwieger, “Criminal Law and Corporal Punishment in Tibet,” in Secular Law and Order in the Tibetan Highland, ed. Dieter Schuh (Andiast: IITBS, 2015), 153. 23 Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 166–170. 24 Ibid., 80, 146–147, 158, 160, 164–165. 25 Ibid., 83–84, 114–115. 26 Lobsang Yongdan draws attention to such a notable exception in the eighteenth century when the astronomical works of the Jesuits at the Qing court had an impact on Tibetan calendar-making in Northeast Tibet: Lobsang Yongdan, “The Translation of European Astronomical Works into Tibetan in the Early Eighteenth Century,” Inner Asia 17 (2015): 175–198; Lobsang Yongdan, “A Scholarly Imprint: How Tibetan Astronomers Brought Jesuit Astronomy to Tibet,” East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine 45 (2017): 91–117. 27 Luhmann, Theory of Society, vol. 2, 48. 28 For a list of the various efforts made by the Qing emperors in this regard, as well as relevant references, see Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 164– 165. Imperial edicts reveal how the emperors interpreted their role as guardians of the purity of the Buddhist doctrine in the eighteenth century. They saw it as their task to publicly honor and praise the keepers of pure doctrine by awarding titles and seals, but exhort them, if necessary, to a correct and exemplary conduct. For examples see ibid., 120, 166. How this orthodoxy was understood by the Gelukpa elite in Tibet is shown in a decree issued by the Tibetan regent in 1773 (ibid., 166–170). 29 See chapter 10. 30 Georges Dreyfus, “The Shuk-Den Affair: Origins of a Controversy,” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 21, no. 2 (1999): 251–255; Matthew T. Kapstein, Tibetan Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 44. 31 Tsering Shakya, The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet since 1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 14. 32 Goldstein, History of Modern Tibet, 640. 33 Rdo gcod Dkon mchog bstan dar, Khrag gi mig chu: Rdo gcod dkon mchog bstan dar gyi mi tshe’ i myong tshor (printed in India, no place and publisher given, 2002), 62–63. 34 Luhmann, Theory of Society, vol. 2, 43. 35 Samuel, Civilized Shamans, 62–63. For the basic essay on the term see Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah, “The Galactic Polity in Southeast Asia,” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 3, no. 3 (2013): 503–534, https://www .journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.14318/hau3.3.033. 36 John Bray, “Ladakh’s Lo phyag Missions to Lhasa: Gift Exchange, Diplomatic Ritual, and the Politics of Ambiguity,” in Commerce and

Notes to Pages 90–92     261

Communities: Social Status and the Exchange of Goods in Tibetan Societies, ed. Jeannine Bischoff and Alice Travers (Berlin: EB-Verlag, 2018), 21–56. 37 See chapter 9. 38 Yihong Pan, “The Sino-Tibetan Treaties in the Tang Dynasty,” T’oung Pao, 2nd ser. 78 (1992): 127–128, 131, 136, 138–142, 147; Yihong Pan, “Marriage Alliances and Chinese Princesses in International Politics from Han to T’ang,” Asia Major, 3rd ser. 10.1/2 (1997): 248, 250; Howard Wechsler, “The Founding of T’ang Dynasty: Kao-tsu,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 3: Sui and T’ang China, ed. Denis Twitchett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 153. 39 Luciano Petech, The Kingdom of Ladakh, c. 950–1842 A.D. (Roma: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1977), 77–78. 40 Perdue, China Marches West, 167–168, 170–171. 41 Michael Weiers, Geschichte der Mongolen (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 2004), 201. 42 Walter Fuchs, Der Jesuiten-Atlas der Kanghsi-Zeit, seine Entstehungsgeschichte nebst Namensindices für die Karten der Mandjurei, Mongolei, Ostturkestan und Tibet, mit Wiedergabe der Jesuiten-Karten in Originalgrösse. Monumenta Serica. Monograph Series IV (Peking: Fu-Jen-Universität, 1943). Cf. Petech, China and Tibet, 130. 43 Laura Hostetler, “Early Modern Mapping at the Qing Court: Survey Maps from the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong Reign Periods,” in Chinese History in Geographical Perspective, ed. Yongtao Du and Jeff Kyong-McClain (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013), 15–32. See also Hostetler, Qing Colonial Enterprise, 4, 74. 44 Sabine Dabringhaus, Das Qing-Imperium als Vision und Wirklichkeit: Tibet in Laufbahn und Schriften des Song Yun (1752–1835) (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1994), 188; Peter Schwieger, “Ein Paradebeispiel tibetischer Diplomatie im Dienste der Qing-Herrschaft: Ein Kanzleischreiben des 8. Dalai Lama und sein Entstehungszusammenhang,” Zentralasiatische Studien 34 (2005): 155–178. 45 Petech, Aristocracy and Government in Tibet, 147–148; Shakabpa, Tibet, 327. 46 Alastair Lamb, The China-India Border: The Origins of the Disputed Boundaries (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), 25, 33–39, 64–69, 122–126. 47 Clements R. Markham, A Memoir on the Indian Surveys, 2nd ed. (London: W. H. Allen & Co., 1878), 132. 48 John MacGregor, Tibet: A Chronicle of Exploration (London: Routledge/Kegan Paul, 1970), 256–277. 49 Charles Allen, Duel in the Snows: The True Story of the Younghusband Mission to Lhasa (London: John Murray, 2004). 50 Luhmann, Theory of Society, vol. 2, 46.

262     Notes to Pages 92–98

51 Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer, China: Vielvölkerreich und Einheitsstaat (München: C.H. Beck, 1997), 55, 59–60. 52 Luhmann, Theory of Society, vol. 2, 49. 53 See chapter 7, note 72. 54 Irmgard Mengele, Gedun Choephel: A Biography of the 20th Century Tibetan Scholar (Dharamsala, India: Library of Tibetan Works & Archives, 1999); Elke Hessel, Die Welt hat mich trunken gemacht: Die Lebensgeschichte des Amdo Gendün Chöpel (Berlin: Theseus, 2000). 55 Luhmann, Theory of Society, vol. 2, 49, attests this shortcoming to the societies of ancient Greece and Israel. For the concept of “catastrophe” in systems theory, see ibid., 15. 56 For the terms “diffusion” and “expansion” in the context of systems theory, see Niklas Luhmann, Systemtheorie der Gesellschaft, ed. Johannes F. K. Schmidt and André Kieserling (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2017), 372–373. 57 See chapter 4, note 60. Chapter 6. Semantics Epigraph. Niklas Luhmann, A Systems Theory of Religion, trans. David A. Brenner with Adrian Hermann (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013), 89. In the quotation I have replaced the misleading term “nothingness” with the term “emptiness,” which not only is the more appropriate translation of the German word Leere used by Luhmann himself but is also the correct equivalent for the Buddhist Sanskrit term śūnyatā. The term denotes that all phenomena have no self and are thus empty of an intrinsic or independent existence. Cf. Niklas Luhmann, Die Religion der Gesellschaft, ed. André Kieserling (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 2000), 126. 1 For the terms semantics and meaning see Luhmann, Theory of Society, vol. 2, 180–183; Luhmann, Social Systems, 163; Luhmann, Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik, 18–19; Baraldi, Corsi, and Esposito, GLU, 168–169; Kneer and Nassehi, Niklas Luhmanns Theorie sozialer Systeme, 119–121. 2 Luhmann, Systems Theory of Religion, 11. 3 Luhmann, Theory of Society, vol. 2, 32. 4 Pemba, Tibetan Proverbs, 32: ’ khrugs pa lha yi yul du’ang yod// ’ dum pa srin po’ i yul du’ang yod//. The Tibetan term for “quarrel” is here the noun trukpa (see above). Note that here as well as below my translation of the proverb differs from Pemba’s version. 5 Ibid., 16: kha mchu dngul gyis rgyag pa la// bden pa dgos yag mi ’ dug//. 6 Ibid., 175: ’ dzing na yag po mi yong// slong na zhim po mi yong//. 7 Acharya Sangye T. Naga and Tsepak Rigzin, Tibetan Quadrisyllabics, Phrases and Idioms (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1994), 114: lung pa’i bde skyid kyi ched du mi rnams mthun lam dam gtsang dgos pa yin/.

Notes to Pages 98–101     263

8 Rudolf Stichweh, “Die Begegnung mit Fremden,” 18, 25. 9 See Luhmann, Systems Theory of Religion, 235–236, 257. 10 Ibid., 37. 11 For the term “contingency,” see Luhmann, Social Systems, 106. 12 Luhmann, Systems Theory of Religion, 55. 13 For the positions of immanence and transcendency in theistic religions, see ibid., 75–76. 14 For the relationship between nirvāṇa/saṃsāra and śūnyatā in Mahāyāna Buddhism, see, for example, the excellent summary based on Indian sources, in Hans W. Schumann, Handbuch Buddhismus: Die zentralen Lehren: Ursprung und Gegenwart (Munich: Diederichs, 2008), 170–213. 15 For the concept of the twofold truth according to Madhyāmika philosophy and its interpretation in the Tibetan Geluk tradition, see Guy Newland, The Two Truths (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 1992). See also Helmut Tauscher, Die Lehre von den zwei Wirklichkeiten in Tsoṅ kha pas Madhyamaka-Werken. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde, vol. 36 (Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universität Wien, 1995). 16 See, for example, Schumann, Handbuch Buddhismus, 66–70, 195–198; Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, The Dalai Lama at Harvard: Lectures on the Buddhist Path to Peace, trans. and ed. Jeffrey Hopkins (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 1988), 84–90. The twelve branches of dependentorigination are (1) ignorance, (2) compositional action, (3) consciousness, (4) name and form, (5) the six sense spheres (corresponding to eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind), (6) contact, (7) feelings, (8) craving, (9) attachment, (10) existence, (11) birth, (12) old age and death. 17 A clear description can be found in the Heart Sutra. See Schumann, Handbuch Buddhismus, 184–186. 18 For a list of six basic and twenty secondary afflictions see, for example, Jeffrey Hopkins, Meditation on Emptiness (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1996), 255–266; Tenzin Gyatso, Dalai Lama at Harvard, 77–80. 19 See Schumann, Handbuch Buddhismus, 60–62. See also Tenzin Gyatso, Dalai Lama at Harvard, 58–61. 20 See Schumann, Handbuch Buddhismus, 196–198; see also 66–71. 21 See Hopkins, Meditation on Emptiness, 278–279. 22 Schumann, Handbuch Buddhismus, 18. 23 Laird, The Story of Tibet, 271. 24 Ibid., 23. See also 24–25. The Dalai Lama is considered to be the incarnation of bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara. In Tibetan the name is usually given in the abbreviated form Chenrezi.

264     Notes to Pages 102–105

25 Dieter Schuh, “Weltzeitalter (dus-bzhi) der tibetischen Zeitrechnung,” in Tibet-Encyclopaedia, ed. Dieter Schuh et al., http://www.tibetencyclopaedia.de (Andiast: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, 2011). Consulted December 20, 2017. 26 See Niklas Luhmann, Funktion der Religion (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1977), 155. According to Luhmann, nirvāṇa is only negatively outlined. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, however, positive descriptions can also be found. See Schumann, Handbuch Buddhismus, 212–213. 27 Samuel, Civilized Shamans, 176–243. 28 Jacob P. Dalton, The Taming of the Demons: Violence and Liberation in Tibetan Buddhism (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011), 56‒57; Steven Weinberger, “The Yoga Tantras and the Social Context of Their Transmission to Tibet,” Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal 23 (2010): 146–150. An example of the royal court’s interest in selected tantra cults is the Tibetan royal dynasty’s interest in the Vairocana cult documented, for example, through the architecture and original furnishings of Samyé Monastery: Matthew T. Kapstein, The Assimilation of Buddhism: Conversion, Contestation, and Memory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 60–61; Ronald M. Davidson, Tibetan Renaissance: Tantric Buddhism in the Rebirth of Tibetan Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 64–65; Samuel, Civilized Shamans, 466. 29 Ronald M. Davidson, Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History of the Tantric Movement (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 2. 30 Dalton, Taming of the Demons, 29, 33. 31 See Davidson, Indian Esoteric Buddhism, 248–249, 318–322. 32 Ibid., 327–330. 33 David Snellgrove, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism: Indian Buddhists and Their Tibetan Successors (London: Serindia, 1987), 59–60, 129, 134–141, 221 n. 167. 34 Dalton, Taming of the Demons, 11, 36. See, in particular, Robert Mayer, “The Figure of Maheśara/Rudra in the rÑiṅ-ma-pa Tantric Tradition,” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 21, no. 2 (1998): 273–275. 35 This, for example, included the ideas and ritual practices revolving around the la (bla), a sort of soul that can leave the body even during one’s lifetime, thereby causing illness. 36 Luhmann, Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik, 22. See also Baraldi, Corsi, and Esposito, GLU, 170. 37 Luhmann, Systems Theory of Religion, 134. 38 See Gunter Gebauer and Christoph Wulf, Spiel—Ritual—Geste: Mimetisches Handeln in der sozialen Welt (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1998), 142, 155. 39 For the conditions in which magic is used in Buddhism, the justification particularly of black magic in Tibetan Buddhism, and its place in

Notes to Pages 105–107     265

Mahāyoga, see Peter Schwieger, “Black Magic in Tibetan Buddhism,” in Historical and Philological Studies of China’s Western Regions, no. 3, ed. Shen Weirong (Beijing: Science Press, 2010), 175–178. 40 Dalton, Taming of the Demons, 57; Samuel, Civilized Shamans, 8. 41 Dalton, Taming of the Demons, 64, 66, 73–74. See in particular Mayer, “Maheśara/Rudra,” 282–305. 42 Dalton, Taming of the Demons, 12, 69, 72, 75, cites as an example the seven mother goddesses (saptamātṛkā) who had already been successfully integrated into Vajrapāṇi’s entourage by Indian Tantric Buddhism. Cf. Davidson, Indian Esoteric Buddhism, 300–301, 333. 43 Dalton, Taming of the Demons, 58–59. 44 Ibid., 113–117. 45 Z. B. János Harmatta and B. A. Litvinsky, “Tokharistan and Gandhara under Western Türk Rule (650–750),” in History of Civilizations of Central Asia, vol. 3: The Crossroads of Civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750, ed. B. A. Litvinsky (Paris: UNESCO, 1996), 381. 46 Anne-Marie Blondeau, “Analysis of the Biographies of Padmasambhava According to Tibetan Tradition: Classification of Sources,” in Tibetan Studies in Honour of Hugh Richardson, ed. Michael Aris and Aung San Suu Kyi (Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1980), 45–52; Lewis Doney, The Zangs gling ma: The First Padmasambhava Biography. Two Exemplars of Its Earliest Attested Recension. Monumenta Tibetica Historica sec. II, vol. 3 (Andiast: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, 2014). Cf. Dan Martin, Tibetan Histories: A Bibliography of Tibetan-Language Historical Works (London: Serindia, 1997), nos. 20, 84, 87. 47 A collection of the respective textual testimonies can be found in Dalton, Taming of the Demons, 127–136. 48 See ibid., 17, 141–142. 49 Diplomatic sources show that this rhetoric regarding the conquest of demons was still present in the circles of the political Gelukpa elite even after the Fifth Dalai Lama and into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Still in the second half of the eighteenth century, the Mongolian military leader Gushri Khan was identified with Vajrapāṇi, the wrathful conqueror of Rudra. See Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 167. In a general ordinance from the first half of the nineteenth century, a group of insurgents was labeled as demons. See Peter Schwieger, “A Beautifully Illuminated Document with an Ugly Content: A Public Ordinance Illustrating the Application of Tibet’s Criminal Law,” in Tibetan Manuscripts and Early Printed Books: An Introduction and Guide, ed. Matthew T. Kapstein (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, forthcoming).

266     Notes to Pages 108–111

50 Luhmann, Funktion der Religion, 126. 51 Ibid., 191. 52 Luhmann, Funktion der Religion, 126. 53 Luhmann, Systems Theory of Religion, 257. 54 Snellgrove, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, 426 55 See ibid., 429–450. Important secondary literature on this topic can be found in Kapstein, Assimilation of Buddhism, 220 n. 71. For the content of the debate, see in particular David Seyfort Ruegg, Buddha Nature Mind and the Problem of Gradualism in a Comparative Perspective: On the Transmission and Reception of Buddhism in India and Tibet. Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1989). The article by Sam van Schaik on the statements of two Nyingmapa scholars from the eighteenth century regarding this controversy is very interesting within this context: “The Great Perfection and the Chinese Monk: Nyingmapa Defenses of Hashang Mahāyāna” (https://earlytibet.com/about/hashang-mahayana/), updated version of the article that originally appeared in Buddhist Studies Review 20.2 (2003): 189–204. 56 Peter Schwieger, Tibetische Handschriften und Blockdrucke, part 9: Die Werksammlungen Kun-tu bzan-po’ i dgons-pa zan-thal, Ka-dag ran-byun ransar und mKha’-’gro gsan-ba ye-ses-kyi rgyud (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1985), lii. 57 See Kapstein, Assimilation of Buddhism, 127–128. 58 For examples see Klaus-Dieter Mathes, “Tibetische Interpretationen der Buddhanatur im Vergleich,” in Buddhismus in Geschichte und Gegenwart, vol. 9: Facetten des Buddhismus—gibt es einen gemeinsamen Kern? (Hamburg: Universität Hamburg, Asien-Afrika-Institut, Abteilung für Kultur und Geschichte Indiens und Tibets, 2004), 105–118; Klaus-Dieter Mathes, “The Gzhan Stong Model of Reality—Some More Material on Its Origin, Transmission, and Interpretation,” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, 34, no. 1–2 (2011/2012): 187–223. José Ignacio Cabezón and Geshe Lobsang Dargyay, Freedom from Extremes: Gorampa’s “Distinguishing the Views” and the Polemics of Emptiness (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2007); Markus Viehbeck, “The Case of ’Ju Mi pham (1846–1912) and Dpa’ ris Rab gsal (1840–1912): A Study in Dgag lan Debate” (PhD diss., Universität Wien, 2012). See also Donald S. Lopez, “Polemical Literature (dGag lan),” in Tibetan Literature: Studies in Genre, ed. José Ignacio Cabezón and Roger R. Jackson (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 1996), 217–228. 59 Kapstein, Assimilation of Buddhism, 119.

Notes to Pages 111–119     267

60 Raimondo Bultrini, The Dalai Lama and the King Demon: Tracking a Triple Murder Mystery Through the Mists of Time (New York: Tibet House US, 2013). Chapter 7. Morality and Ethics Epigraph. Jamgön Mipham, The Just King: The Tibetan Buddhist Classic on Leading an Ethical Life, trans. José Ignacio Cabezón (Boulder, CO: Snow Lion, 2017), 70–71. 1 Niklas Luhmann, Paradigm Lost: Über die ethische Reflexion der Moral (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1990), 26. See also Kneer and Nassehi, Niklas Luhmanns Theorie sozialer Systeme, 180–185. 2 Luhmann, Systems Theory of Religion, 69. 3 Ibid., 67. 4 Ibid., 75. 5 Ibid., 66. 6 Cf. Kneer and Nassehi, Luhmanns Theorie, 128–129; Luhmann, Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantikt, vol. 1, 132–133. 7 Luhmann, Social Systems, 235. 8 Ibid., 236. 9 Kneer and Nassehi, Luhmanns Theorie, 179–180. 10 For the bodhisattva ideal of Mahāyāna, see Schumann, Handbuch Buddhismus, 93–94. 11 For the genre of the supplication prayer and its “automatic” effectiveness, see Peter Schwieger, Ein tibetisches Wunschgebet um Wiedergeburt in der Sukhāvatī (St. Augustin: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag, 1978), 15–27. 12 Ibid. 13 See chapter 8. 14 For the Tibetan, text see Sa skya Bsod nams rgyal mtshan, Rgyal rabs gsal, 40–41. 15 For the term “disciplination,” see chapter 6. 16 For the Tibetan text, see Bsod nams rgyal mtshan, Rgyal rabs, 63–64. 17 Niklas Luhmann, Kontingenz und Recht, ed. Johannes F. K. Schmidt (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2013), 158, applies this to the perfection concept of justice. The train of thought behind the relationship between compassion and Avalokiteśvara was developed here as an analogy to Luhmann’s consideration of the relationship between law and justice (ibid., 154–158); in turn, this was suggested by Kenneth Burke, The Rhetoric of Religion: Studies in Logology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961). 18 Correct speech, correct behavior, correct subsistence. See, for instance, Schumann, Handbuch Buddhismus, 91–97.

268     Notes to Pages 119–122

19 They are (1) killing, (2) taking what has not been given, (3) sexual misconduct, (4) lying, (5) divisive talk, (6) harsh words, (7) gossiping, (8) covetousness, (9) ill-will, (10) wrong views. 20 See chapter 4. 21 See, for instance, the narrative about the animal in the cesspool mentioned further below. 22 Cf. Dhondup, The Story of the Golden Corpse, 39–44; Sandra Benson, Tales of the Golden Corpse: Tibetan Folktales (Northampton, MA: Interlink Books, 2007), 195–200; Jampa Kalsang Phukhang and Peter Schwieger, Erzählgut aus A-mdo und Brag-g.yab (St. Augustin: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag, 1982), 101‒102, 141–142. The story shows different variants in its further course as well. Benson’s version frees the story of nearly all internal conflict. 23 See Schwieger, Wiedergeburt in der Sukhāvatī, 16–23. 24 Lambert Schmitthausen, “Zur Frage, ob ein Bodhisattva unter bestimmten Voraussetzungen in einer neutralen Geisteshaltung (avyākṛta-citta) töten darf,” in Indica et Tibetica: Festschrift für Michael Hahn, ed. Konrad Klaus and Jens-Uwe Hartmann (Wien: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, 2007), 423–440; Klaus-Dieter Mathes, “Formen der Gewalt und des Gewaltverzichts in den Lebensgeschichten der Mahāsiddhas und Lamas,” in Buddhismus in Geschichte und Gegenwart, vol. 10: Gewalt und Gewaltlosigkeit (Hamburg: Universität Hamburg, Asien-Afrika-Institut, Abteilung für Kultur und Geschichte Indiens und Tibets, 2006), 271–272; Dalton, The Taming of the Demons, 24–28; Dreyfus, “The Shuk-Den Affair,” 265–267. 25 It is doubtful that the story really happened this way. For the moral question, however, it is crucial that it takes a prominent position in Tibetan historiography. For Jens Schlieter the reason for this is unmistakable: “The purpose of the legend is hardly questionable, namely to present and legitimize a violent mode of conflict resolution.” Jens Schlieter, “Compassionate Killing or Conflict Resolution? The Murder of King Langdarma according to Tibetan Buddhist Sources,” in Buddhism and Violence, ed. Michael Zimmermann (Lumbini: Lumbini International Research Institute, 2006), 152. 26 On this, see Carmen Meinert, “Between the Profane and the Sacred? On the Context of the Rite of ‘Liberation’ (sgrol ba),” in Buddhism and Violence, ed. Michael Zimmermann (Lumbini: Lumbini International Research Institute, 2006), 101–102. 27 Cathy Cantwell, “To Meditate upon Consciousness as vajra: Ritual ‘Killing and Liberation’ in the rNying-ma-pa Tradition,” in Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the 7th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Graz 1995, ed. Helmut Krasser, Michael Torsten Much, Ernst

Notes to Pages 122–125     269

Steinkellner, and Helmut Tauscher (Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1997), 107–118. 28 Rdza Dpal sprul (1808–1887), Snying thig sngon ’gro’ i khrid yig: Kun bzang bla ma’ i zhal lung (Chengdu: Si khron mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1989), 231. I am closely following the translation in Patrul Rinpoche, Words of My Perfect Teacher: A Complete Translation of a Classic Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism, trans. Padmakara Translation Group, rev. ed. (Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press, [1994] 1998), 146. 29 Dudjom Rinpoche, The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism: Its Fundamentals and History, 2 vols., trans. and ed. Gyurme Dorje with Matthew T. Kapstein (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1991), 767. 30 Cf. Dalton, Taming of the Demons, 3–4, 97–99, 105‒106; Weinberger, “The Yoga Tantras,” 154‒155, refers to Butön’s example of the eighteen monk robbers, but adds that such reports were written from the perspective of those who understood the Buddhism that they represented as a correction of preceding degeneration. 31 See chapter 9. 32 See René de Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Oracles and Demons of Tibet: The Cult and Iconography of the Tibetan Protective Deities (Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1975), 269–273. 33 Schwieger, Tibetische Handschriften, part 13, no. 1775. 34 Ibid., part 10, no. 436: 9r. 35 A fine example of such a cleric who visited Sikkim in the seventeenth century is delivered by Marlene Erschbamer, “Taming of Supernatural Entities and Animal Sacrifice: The Synthesis of Buddhism and Shamanistic Traditions in Northern Sikkim (India),” Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines [online], vol. 50 (2019), http://journals.openedition.org/emscat /3915; DOI: 10.4000/emscat.3915. 36 See Schumann, Handbuch Buddhismus, 95–96. 37 Kosho Yamamoto, trans., The Mahayana Mahaparinirvanasutra: A Complete Translation from the Classical Chinese in 3 Volumes, annotated and with full glossary, index and concordance by Kosho Yamamoto (Ube: Karinbunko, 1973–1975). 38 Daisetz T. Suzuki, The Lankavatara Sutra: A Mahayana Text, trans. from Sanskrit (London: Routledge, 1932); Karl-Heinz Golzio, LankavataraSutra. Die makellose Wahrheit erschauen. Die Lehre von der höchsten Bewußtheit und absoluten Erkenntnis, trans. from Sanskrit (München: O. W. Barth, 1996). 39 Shabkar, Food of Bodhisattvas: Buddhist Teachings on Abstaining from Meat, trans. Padmakara Translation Group (New Delhi: Shechen Publications, 2008), 11–12 (translator’s introduction).

270     Notes to Pages 126–128

40 Ibid., 47–96. 41 Ibid., 78, 100–101, 102, 123. 42 Ibid., 123. 43 Ibid., 75. 44 Ibid., 109. 45 When Laurence Austine Waddell (1854–1938) accompanied the British military expedition to Lhasa in 1903 and 1904, he noticed a slaughterhouse near Drepung Monastery, which supplied the monastery’s nine thousand monks daily with meat. L. Austine Waddell, Lhasa and Its Mysteries: With a Record of the Expedition of 1903–1904 (London: John Murray, 1905), 327. According to the Japanese monk Ekai Kawaguchi, the same slaughterhouse was also responsible for the daily supply of meat to the Dalai Lama. Ekai Kawaguchi, Three Years in Tibet (Madras: Theosophist Office, 1909), 286. 46 Pemba, Bod kyi gtam dpe. Tibetan Proverbs, 196. 47 See, for instance, Jansen, The Monastery Rules, 154–155; Peter Schwieger and Loden S. Dagyab, Die ersten dGe-lugs-pa-Hierarchen von Brag-g.yab (1572– 1692). Monumenta Tibetica Historica, vol. II/2 (Bonn: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag, 1989), 36. 48 Schumann, Handbuch Buddhismus, 95. 49 Toni Huber, “Territorial Control by ‘Sealing’ (rgya sdom-pa)—A ReligioPolitical Practice in Tibet,” Zentralasiatische Studien 33 (2004): 127–152. For a declaration of obligation based on such a general ordinance for the protection of animals and the environment from the first half of the twentieth century, see Hanna Schneider, Tibetische Handschriften und Blockdrucke, part 17: Tibetische Urkunden aus Südwesttibet (sPo-rong, Ding-ri und Shel-dkar), vol. 2. VOHD XI, 17 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2012), no. 29. For examples of hunting bans, see also Jansen, The Monastery Rules, 153–155; Dieter Schuh and J. K. Phukhang, Urkunden und Sendschreiben aus Zentraltibet, Ladakh und Zanskar. Monumenta Tibetica Historica III, 4 (St. Augustin: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag, 1979), nos. XL, XC; Schwieger and Dagyab, dGe-lugs-pa-Hierarchen, 36. 50 According to an interview, the present Fourteenth Dalai Lama evidently also views this conflict with which the Fifth Dalai Lama was confronted at the time as principally unsolvable: Laird, The Story of Tibet, 162. 51 Peter Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 65–70. 52 Cf., for example, the episode that Dalton cites from a travel report on India written by the Chinese monk Faxian in the fifth century: Dalton, Taming of the Demons, 98. 53 See, for example, Mipham, The Just King, 186. 54 José Ignacio Cabezón in ibid., xiii–xvi; cit. xvi. 55 Schwieger, “Criminal Law,” 145–158. For Derge, see 153–156.

Notes to Pages 128–131     271

56 Mipham, The Just King, 125. 57 Schumann, Handbuch Buddhismus, 95. 58 See the example quoted by Zimmermann and Jenkins from the Satyakaparivarta: Michael Zimmermann, “Only a Fool Becomes a King: Buddhist Stances on Punishment,” in Buddhism and Violence, ed. Michael Zimmermann (Lumbini: Lumbini International Research Institute, 2006), 237; Stephen Jenkins, “Making Merit through Warfare According to the Ārya-Bodhisattva-gocara-upāyaviṣaya-vikurvaṇa-nirdeśa Sūtra,” in Buddhist Warfare, ed. Michael Jerryson and Mark Juergensmeyer (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 68. 59 See in that regard Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 49–70. 60 See chapter 6; Dalton, Taming of the Demons, 17, 141. 61 Dalton, Taming of the Demons, 97f, 104–107. 62 See, for example, Sarah H. Jacoby, Love and Liberation: Autobiographical Writings of the Tibetan Buddhist Visionary Sera Khandro (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015). 63 With regard to integrating Tantric doctrines and practices, the reestablishment of the monkhood during the later introduction of Buddhism from India was confronted with the same problems that Buddhist monasteries were facing during the late phase of Buddhism in India. This consisted of bringing the extreme tantra practices into accordance with the strict moral rules of the vinaya by opposing a literal interpretation of the tantras. See Weinberger, “The Yoga Tantras,” 158–161. Aleksandra Wenta draws attention to the translator Jñānākara, who was one of the eleventh-century clerics under the patronage of the West Tibetan royal family, who were anxious to establish something like an “orthodoxy of tantric practice” with the later dissemination of Buddhism in Tibet by trying to distinguish it from heretical, unethical tantra practices. See Aleksandra Wenta, “The Making of Tantric Orthodoxy in the Eleventh Century Indo-Tibetan World: Jñānākara’s Mantrāvatāra,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 46, no. 3 (2018): 505–551. 64 Daniel Cozort, Highest Yoga Tantra (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 1986), 46, 129. 65 On the translation of such an ordinance regarding the adherence to monastic discipline from the first half of the seventeenth century, see Schwieger and Dagyab, dGe-lugs-pa-Hierarchen, 34–37. See also Jansen, The Monastery Rules, 153–161. 66 For the term “organization,” see Niklas Luhmann, Soziologische Aufklärung, vol. 2: Aufsätze zur Theorie der Gesellschaft (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1975), 12–13; Luhmann, Theory of Society, 141–154. 67 Luhmann, Theory of Society, vol. 2, 142; see 146–147.

272     Notes to Pages 131–136

68 Schwieger, “Towards a Biography of Don-yod rdo-rje,” 250–251; Jansen, The Monastery Rules, 101–105. 69 Best known is the deity Pehar (Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Oracles and Demons, 103, 448). However, there were also other deities who functioned as guardians of monastic estates (dkor srung). See, for example, Schwieger, Tibetische Handschriften, part 12, no. 1516. 70 Isaac Jacob Schmidt (1779–1847), Der Weise und der Tor: Buddhistische Legenden aus Tibet (Hanau: Müller & Kiepenheuer, 1978), 320–323. 71 Niklas Luhmann, A Sociological Theory of Law, trans. Elizabeth King-Utz and Martin Albrow, ed. Martin Albrow, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, [1985] 2014), 143. 72 For the type of the “mad” yogin see John Ardussi and Lawrence Epstein, “The Saintly Madmen in Tibet,” in Himalayan Anthropology: The Indo-Tibetan Interface, ed. James Fisher (The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1978), 327–337; Keith Dowman, trans., The Divine Madman: The Sublime Life and Songs of Drukpa Kunley (Varanasi: Pilgrims Publishing, 2000); Andreas Kretschmar, ’Brug pa kun legs: Das wundersame Leben eines verrückten Heiligen (St. Augustin: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag, 1981); Stefan Larsson, Crazy for Wisdom: The Making of a Mad Yogin in Fifteenth-Century Tibet (Leiden: Brill, 2012); David Michael DiValerio, The Holy Madmen of Tibet (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). 73 See, for example, Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 112, 138, 166. Especially for the Sixth Dalai Lama’s behavior and the emperor’s reaction, see 106, 109. 74 See Luhmann, Theory of Society, vol. 2, 277. Chapter 8. Ritual Epigraph. Mipham, Just King, 202. 1 Luhmann, Funktion der Religion, 8–87. 2 Ibid., 86–87. 3 Ibid., 80–81. 4 Victor Turner, From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play. Performance Studies Series, vol. 1 (New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1982), 86. 5 See in detail Stephan Beyer, The Cult of Tārā: Magic and Ritual in Tibet (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 245–359. 6 Initially, only three classes were distinguished, later four. See Dalton, Taming of the Demons, 30, 32; Davidson, Tibetan Renaissance, 35. 7 The collection is called Rin chen gter mdzod. A closer look at the texts in the Mahāyoga section of the collection reveals that other subchapters of the section also contain a great number of the ritual instructions counting

Notes to Pages 136–139     273

toward the pragmatic orientation of Tibetan Buddhism. See the descriptions in Schwieger, Handschriften und Blockdrucke, parts 10–13, as well as KarlHeinz Everding, Tibetische Handschriften und Blockdrucke, part 14 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2008). For an overview see Saadet Arslan, Tibetische Handschriften und Blockdrucke, part 15 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2016), xx–xxiv. 8 Peter Schwieger, “Collecting and Arranging the gTer ma Tradition: Kong sprul’s Great Treasury of the Hidden Teachings,” in Edition, éditions: l’ écrit au Tibet, évolution et devenir, ed. A. Chayet, C. Scherrer-Schaub, F. Robin, and J.-L. Achard (München: Indus Verlag, 2010), 321–335. 9 Luhmann, Funktion der Religion, 81; Luhmann, Systems Theory of Religion, 134–135. 10 Luhmann, Theory of Society, vol. 1, 141. 11 Ibid., 141. 12 Luhmann, Social Systems, 425. 13 See ibid., 85, 109. 14 Luhmann, Theory of Society, vol. 1, 49–68. 15 Niklas Luhmann, “Wie ist Bewußtsein an Kommunikation beteiligt?” in Niklas Luhmann, Aufsätze und Reden, ed. Oliver Jahraus (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2001), 122–123; Christian Schuldt, Systemtheorie, rev. ed. (Hamburg: CEP Europäische Verlagsanstalt, [2003] 2012), 32; Kneer and Nassehi, Niklas Luhmanns Theorie sozialer Systeme, 69–70. 16 For an example see Schwieger, “Black Magic,” 182. 17 Luhmann, Systems Theory of Religion, 59. 18 Luhmann, Theory of Society, vol. 2, trans. Rhodes Barrett (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013), 34; cf. Luhmann, Systems Theory of Religion, 183–184. 19 Luhmann, Systems Theory of Religion, 60. 20 Samuel, Civilized Shamans, 176. 21 Peter Schwieger, “Zur Konstruktion von Sinn und Bedeutung in der tibetischen Kultur,” in Was ist Kulturwissenschaft? Zehn Antworten aus den »Kleinen Fächern«, ed. Stephan Conermann (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2012), 289. 22 Ibid. 23 Pabongka Rinpoche (1878–1941), Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand: A Concise Discourse on the Path to Enlightenment, trans. Michael Richards, ed. Trijang Rinpoche (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1991), 605; cf. the slightly deviating translation in: Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in Our Hands, vol. 3: The Ultimate Goals, trans. Sermey Khensur Lobsang Tharchin and Artemus B. Engle, ed. Yongzin Trijang Rinpoche Losang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso (Howell, NJ: Mahayana Sutra and Tantra Press, 2001), 176.

274     Notes to Pages 139–143

24 Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Oracles and Demons, 300–303. 25 mtshon sri, ’ khrugs sri, and phung sri. 26 The lu (klu, Skt. nāga) is a class of spirits dwelling underground and preferring water as their habitation. The term is frequently translated as serpent spirits. 27 Schwieger, Handschriften und Blockdrucke, part 13, no. 1587.2: 2v. 28 See chapter 6. 29 John Vincent Bellezza, Divine Dyads: Ancient Civilization in Tibet (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works & Archives, 1997), 25‒29; Hildegard Diemberger, “The Horseman in Red: On Sacred Mountains of La stod lho (Southern Tibet),” in Tibetan Mountain Deities: Their Cults and Representations, ed. Anne-Marie Blondeau (Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1998), 47; Francoise Pommaret, “On Local and Mountain Deities in Bhutan,” in Reflections of the Mountain: Essays on the History and Social Meaning of the Mountain Cult in Tibet and the Himalaya, ed. Anne-Marie Blondeau and Ernst Steinkellner (Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1996), 53. It should be mentioned that, according to tradition, not all Tibetan Buddhist guardian deities initally were Tibetan deities. Some deities are said to have followed Padmasambhava to Tibet. See Schwieger, Handschriften und Blockdrucke, part 12, xlviii–lii. 30 Schwieger, Handschriften und Blockdrucke, part 13, no. 1587.2: 4v. 31 Turner, From Ritual to Theatre, 68–69, 92. 32 See chapter 5. 33 See Kneer and Nassehi, Luhmanns Theorie, 86–87. 34 Shen-yu Lin, Mi pham’s Systematisierung von gTo-Ritualen (Halle, Saale: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, 2005), 56. 35 Schwieger, “Black Magic,” 178. 36 Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 13–14. 37 Bka’ zur Mdo sngags bstan ’dzin, Bshul ring mi tshe’ i byung rabs gnad bsdus. Oral History, vol. 16 (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 2002), 263–266. 38 Schwieger, Handschriften und Blockdrucke, part 13, nos. 1826–1830. 39 The name du ru ga or tu ru ka in the Tibetan language originally refers to the Turkic people of the Qarluq in the eighth century and was later also applied to other Central Asian Turkic peoples. See Helmut Hoffmann, “Die Qarluq in der tibetischen Literatur,” Oriens 3, no. 2 (1950): 190–208. See also Petra Maurer and Johannes Schneider, Wörterbuch der tibetischen Schriftsprache, 25th fascicle (München: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2014), 14–15. 40 Schwieger, Handschriften und Blockdrucke, part 13, no. 1826.5.

Notes to Pages 143–148     275

41 Ibid., no. 1716.7c. “Regarding Mutek Gulang Nakpo (Mu stegs gu lang nag po)”; cf. Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Oracles and Demons, 282. 42 Shen Weirong “Magic Power, Sorcery, and Evil Spirits: The Image of Tibetan Monks in Chinese Literature during the Yuan Dynasty,” in The Relationship Between Religion and State (chos srid zung ’brel) in Traditional Tibet, ed. Christoph Cüppers (Lumbini: Lumbini International Research Institute, 2004), 203–207; Pema Tsering, “Rñiṅ ma pa Lamas am Yüan-Kaiserhof,” in Proceedings of the Csoma de Körös Memorial Symposium, ed. Louis Ligeti (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1978), 520–521. 43 Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 42–45; Karmay, Illusive Play, 121–123, 128. 44 Dalton, Taming of the Demons, 141–142. As emphasized by the present Dalai Lama, the regent of the Fifth Dalai Lama allegedly instigated putting a curse on the king of Tsang. Later he had regrets about it. See Laird, Story of Tibet, 158. 45 Schwieger, Handschriften und Blockdrucke, part 11, no. 597.13. 46 Ibid., no. 597.5. 47 Everding, Handschriften und Blockdrucke, part 14, no. 2289. 48 Schwieger, Handschriften und Blockdrucke, part 13, nos. 1716.5a, 1717.7b. 49 See Schwieger, “Black Magic,” 172–173. 50 Schwieger, Handschriften und Blockdrucke, part 12, no. 1490. 51 Ibid., part 11, no. 1018.2. 52 Ibid., part 13, no. 1716.5b. 53 Mi pham ’Jam dbyangs Rnam par rgyal ba, Las sna tshogs, 208–209; Schwieger, Handschriften und Blockdrucke, part 13, no. 1716.4i. 54 See, for example, Patrul, Words of My Perfect Teacher, 108. 55 Schwieger, Handschriften und Blockdrucke, part 13, no. 1716.22. 56 Ibid., part 12, xlvi–xlvii, no. 1503.6. 57 Kawaguchi, Three Years in Tibet, 374–387. 58 Maurer, Die Grundlagen der tibetischen Geomantie dargestellt anhand des 32. Kapitels des Vaiḍūrya dkar po von sde srid Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho (1653– 1705) (Halle, Saale: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, 2009), 104. 59 Ibid., 178–179; see also 175, 176, 180, 197, 201. 60 Ibid., 177. 61 Schwieger, “Sinn und Bedeutung,” 284–285. 62 Christa Klaus, Schutz vor Naturgefahren: Tibetische Texte aus dem Rin chen gter mdzod (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1985), 176. 63 Maurer, Grundlagen der tibetischen Geomantie, 269‒311, in particular, 278– 286, 309–311. 64 The mountain Amyes Machen in Amdo is identified both as zhidak and yüllha. See Katia Buffetrille, “The Great Pilgrimage of A-myes rma-chen:

276     Notes to Pages 148–151

Written Tradition, Living Realities,” in Mandala and Landscape, ed. A. W. MacDonald (New Delhi: D. K. Printworld, 1997), 75–132; Katia Buffetrille, “Reflections on Pilgrimages to Sacred Mountains, Lakes and Caves,” in Pilgrimage in Tibet, ed. Alex McKay (Richmond: Curzon, 1998), 18–34, 24. On the other hand, with regard to Ladakh, Martin A. Mills reports that zhidak and yüllha are to be distinguished. See Martin A. Mills, Identity, Ritual and State in Tibetan Buddhism: The Foundations of Authority in Gelukpa Monasticism (London: Routledge, 2003), 186. 65 Such a danger is described by Martin A. Mills in his field research in Ladakh: Mills, Identity, Ritual and State, 296–297. 66 Schwieger, Handschriften und Blockdrucke, part 13, no. 1737. The Tibetan term is ’ khrug pa. See chapter 6. 67 For a description see Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Oracles and Demons, 259–262. 68 Schwieger, Handschriften und Blockdrucke, part 12, no. 1492. 69 Luhmann, Funktion der Religion, 613–614. Chapter 9. Law Epigraph. Acharya Sangye T. Naga and Tsepak Rigzin, Tibetan Quadri­syllabics, Phrases and Idioms (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1994), 93: chu ma yong gong nas rags/. 1 Luhmann, Sociological Theory of Law, 83. 2 Michael King and Chris Thornhill, Niklas Luhmann’s Theory of Politics and Law (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 53. 3 Luhmann, Social Systems, 374. 4 Luhmann, Kontingenz und Recht, 83–85. 5 Niklas Luhmann, Law, 148. 6 Lhamo Pemba, Bod kyi gtam dpe. Tibetan Proverbs (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1996), 29: khrims kyis bsdams na brgya dang// thag pas bsdams na gcig//. 7 Luhmann, Kontingenz und Recht, 140. 8 That there is a discrepancy between the claimed rootedness of law in Buddhist morality and the content of the law codes is not a new finding. See Dieter Schuh, “Recht und Gesetz in Tibet,” in Tibetan and Buddhist Studies: Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Alexander Csoma de Kőrős, ed. Louis Ligeti (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1984), 299, 300; Leonard W. J. van der Kuijp, “The Yoke Is on the Reader: A Recent Study of Tibetan Jurisprudence,” Central Asian Journal 43 (1999): 288. 9 See Zimmermann, “Only a Fool,” 218–222, 228, 231–235; Jenkins, “Making Merit,” 64. 10 See, for example, the elaborate description of the various hells in Pakpa’s Shes bya rab gsal, English translation: Constance Hoog, Prince Jiṅ-gim’s Textbook

Notes to Pages 151–156     277

of Tibetan Buddhism: The Śes-bya rab-gsal (Jñāna-prakāśa) by ’Phags-pa Blogros rgyal-mtshan dPal-bzaṅ-po of the Sa-skya-pa, translated and annotated (Leiden: Brill, 1983), 23–27. 11 Mipham, The Just King, 184. See also 114. 12 It is, therefore, also not correct to say that in this respect there is a difference from the Buddhist societies in Southeast Asia. See Cabezón in Mipham, The Just King, 114 n. 4. 13 Hugh E. Richardson, A Corpus, 107, 126‒127. 14 Schwieger, “Criminal Law,” 292. 15 Schuh, “Recht und Gesetz,” 292. 16 Bell, Portrait of a Dalai Lama, 178. 17 Ibid., 179. 18 Bsod nams tshe ring, Snga rabs bod, 132–147, 162‒163, 165–179, 219, 223– 232, 255–256. See Schuh, “Recht und Gesetz,” 298–301. About the fact that the codification of the Tibetan law did not occur under King Songtsen Gampo, the founder of the Tibetan Kingdom, but only after his death, see Géza Uray, “The Narrative of Legislation and Organisation of the mKhaspa’ i dga’-ston: The Origins Concerning Sroṅ-brcan sgam-po as First Legislator and Organisator of Tibet,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 26.1 (1972): 11–68. 19 Luhmann, Sociological Theory of Law, 83. 20 Baraldi, Corsi, and Esposito, GLU, 171‒172; Luhmann, Theory of Society, vol. 1, 21. 21 Ibid., 20–21. 22 Luhmann, Law as a Social System, 167–171. 23 Christoph Cüppers, “Tibetische Gesetzbücher (khrims-yig),” in TibetEncyclopaedia, ed. Dieter Schuh et al., http://www.tibet-encyclopaedia.de (Andiast: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, 2011). Consulted December 20, 2017. 24 Schuh, “Recht und Gesetz,” 305–306. 25 See Cüppers, “Tibetisches Kompensationsrecht (stong-’jal).” 26 Bsod nams tshe ring, Snga rabs bod, 223–256. 27 See the document from 1653 translated in chapter 2. 28 Schuh, “Recht und Gesetz,” 307–311. 29 Ibid., 307. 30 Schuh, Grundlagen tibetischer Siegelkunde, no. V. 31 Ibid., no. IX. 32 Kensaku Okawa, “A Study of gTan tshigs: A Genre of Land Tenure Document and Its Implication in Tibetan Social History,” in Social Regulation: Case Studies from Tibetan History, ed. Jeannine Bischoff and Saul Mullard (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 204‒205.

278     Notes to Pages 156–159

33 Mipham, The Just King, 37. 34 Ibid., 177, 193. For the king as the “custodian” of the law, see ibid., 185. 35 Cabezón in Mipham, The Just King, XVI. 36 Luhmann, Trust and Power, ed. Christian Morgner and Michael King (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2017), 155–156. 37 Luhmann, Kontingenz und Recht, 94. 38 Luhmann, Theory of Society, vol. 1, 289. Luhmann views power as a symbolically generalized communication medium. These are special media that in certain functional areas are conducive to the creation of incentives for accepting suggestions for selections. As Luhmann writes, “We would like to call ‘symbolically generalized’ the media that use generalizations to symbolize the nexus between selection and motivation, that is, represent it as a unity. Important examples are: truth, love, property/money, power/law; and also, in rudimentary form, religious belief, art, and, today, standardized ‘basic values.’ In all these cases this—in a very different way and for very different interactive constellations—is a matter of conditioning the selection of communication so that it also works as a means of motivation, that is, so that it can adequately secure acceptance of the proposed selection.” Luhmann, Social Systems, 161. 39 Luhmann, Sociological Theory of Law, 133. 40 Ibid., 111. 41 Luhmann, Law, 248. 42 Luhmann, Sociological Theory of Law, 133. 43 Luhmann, Law, 208. 44 See chapter 4. 45 Mipham, The Just King, 184–185, 193. 46 Ibid., 187–192. The regulation of disputes among monks’ communities is addressed in detail further below in this chapter 47 For the Tibetan text, see Sa-skya Paṇḍita Kun-dga’-rgyal-mtshan, Sa skya Legs bshad: Die Strophen zur Lebensklugheit von Sa skya Paṇḍita Kun dga’ rgyal mtshan (1182–1251), ed. Helmut Eimer (Wien: Arbeitskreis für tibetische und buddhistische Studien, 2014), 145. 48 Luhmann, Sociological Theory of Law, 134. 49 Luhmann, Theory of Society, vol. 1, 281. 50  Lugs gnyis gong ma khrims bdag rin po che. Schwieger, “A Forbidden NepaleseTibetan Love Affair,” 187. See also Dieter Schuh, “Zum Entstehungsprozeß von Urkunden in den tibetischen Herrscherkanzleien,” in Contributions on Tibetan Language, History and Culture, vol. 1, ed. Ernst Steinkellner and Helmut Tauscher (Wien: Arbeitskreis für tibetische und buddhistische Studien, 1983), 318. 51 Bell, Portrait of a Dalai Lama, 179. 52 Luhmann, Sociological Theory of Law, 134.

Notes to Pages 159–163     279

53 Schuh, “Entstehungsprozeß von Urkunden,” 303–304. 54 Ibid., 305. 55 Tshe ring don grub and O rgyan chos ’phel, eds., Bod ljongs spyi bshad, 2 vols. (Lhasa: Bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang, 1991), 715; French, The Golden Yoke, 265. 56 Dung dkar Blo bzang ’phrin las, Dung dkar tshig mdzod, 1783‒1784; Gling dpon Padma skal bzang, De snga’ i bod, 175. The court was named Zhölpa Lekhung (Zhol pa las khungs) after its location. 57 So Dung dkar, Dung dkar tshig mdzod, 1783. 58 Ibid., 1247. 59 Ibid., 1783; Gling dpon Padma skal bzang, De snga’ i bod, 175. Up to the mid– twentieth century, the Potala was located outside Lhasa City. The court responsible for Lhasa City was the sNang rtse shag las khungs. Its exact founding date is unknown. 60 The name of the office was lHa sa gnyer tshang las khungs. Gling dpon Padma skal bzang, De snga’ i bod, 197‒198; Rdo sbis Tshe ring rdo rje, Deng rabs bod skad, 2240; Dung dkar, Dung dkar tshig mdzod, 2168. 61 French, The Golden Yoke, 278–288. See also further below in this chapter. 62 Ibid. 63 Tshe ring don grub and O rgyan chos ’phel, Bod ljongs spyi bshad, 715; Dung dkar, Dung dkar tshig mdzod, 2008; Rdo sbis Tshe ring rdo rje, Deng rabs bod skad, 2060. The name of the court was bSher khang las khungs or bSher dpang las khungs. See also French, The Golden Yoke, 291–305. French calls this court the “High Court of Tibet,” a name having no equivalence in Tibetan. The Tibetan name simply means “court” or “court office.” 64 Dung dkar, Dung dkar tshig mdzod, 288: phan tshun bar rtsod gleng chen po thug par bar ’ dum byed mkhan gyis kyang bsdums ma thub par khrims khang du zhu gtugs bya dgos byung ba/. 65 Pemba, Tibetan Proverbs, 10: skyag pa skam po chus khyer kyang// sde pa gzhung gis ko ba mi gtong//. 66 French, The Golden Yoke, 122–126. 67 Ibid., 123, 239. 68 Sgrolkar et al., A Collection of Historical Archives, no. 50 (article twenty-five). See also Schwieger, “Criminal Law,” 157. 69 For examples see Hanna Schneider, Tibetische Handschriften, nos. 29, 60. 70 Luhmann, Social Systems, 394. See also 23. 71 Ibid., 395–396. 72 Luhmann, Theory of Society, vol. 1, 213. 73 See Luhmann, Trust and Power, 160–161. 74 Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 108–111, 162–164.

280     Notes to Pages 163–167

75 Jansen, The Monastery Rules, 159–162; Schwieger and Dagyab, Die ersten dGelugs-pa-Hierarchen, 34–37. For the role of the disciplinarian in Tibetan monasteries, see Berthe Jansen, “The Disciplinarian (dge skos/ dge bskos/ chos khrims pa/ zhal ngo) in Tibetan Monasteries: His Role and His Rules,” Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines 37 (2016): 145–161. 76 Dieter Schuh, Tibetische Handschriften und Blockdrucke, part 6 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1976), XLVIII–L, text description no. 161.1. 77 Bsod nams tshe ring, Snga rabs bod, 235: ’bangs kyis dpon la ’ dzings na bzung bkyigs/. 78 Melvyn C. Goldstein, “The Balance between Centralization and Decentralization in the Traditional Tibetan Political System: An Essay on the Nature of Tibetan Political Macro-Structure,” Central Asiatic Journal 15, no. 3 (1971): 177. 79 According to the information that Rebecca French received from a former court officer in Lhasa: French, The Golden Yoke, 111–112, 116. 80 See, for example, Charles W. Cassinelli and Robert B. Ekvall, A Tibetan Principality: The Political System of Sa sKya (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1969), 66; Goldstein, “An Anthropological Study,” 93–94. 81 According to the field research in Fernanda Pirie, Peace and Conflict in Ladakh: The Construction of a Fragile Web of Order (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 199. 82 With special focus on Bon sources, Charles Ramble points to another qualification that could make a priest appear as a suitable mediator: He was perceived as the one “who restores peace between warring groups of non– human beings.” This priest, however, is—as Ramble emphasizes—“not the tantric practitioner, who subjugates demons and forces them to do his bidding.” Similar to a legal mediator, he “is not more powerful than the disputing parties,” but could only convince them with arguments to accept mediation. See Charles Ramble, “The Legal Foundations of Tibetan Religious Thought,” in Reason and Lives in Buddhist Traditions: Studies in Honor of Matthew Kapstein, ed. Dan Arnold, Cécile Ducher, and PierreJulien Harter (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2019), 35–51. 83 Fernanda Pirie, “Violence and Opposition among the Nomads of Amdo: Expectations of Leadership and Religious Authority,” in Conflict and Social Order in Tibet and Inner Asia, ed. Fernanda Pirie and Toni Huber (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 237. 84 Schwieger and Dagyab, dGe-lugs-pa-Hierarchen, 41–42. 85 Ibid. 86 Ibid., 41–47. Stein, Tibetan Civilization, 146–147, lists briefly a few other cases that took place between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries. 87 Schwieger and Dagyab, dGe-lugs-pa-Hierarchen, 45–47. 88 Schuh, Tibetische Handschriften, part 6, L–LI.

Notes to Pages 168–173     281

89 The establishment of a colonial pluralistic legal order in Amdo that, in the end, contributed to the reinforcement of a distinct “Tibetan world” in Amdo has been studied in depth by Max Oidtmann, “Between Patron and Priest: Amdo Tibet under Qing Rule, 1792–1911” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2013), 404–554. 90 See Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 71–111. 91 For a more specific description of both cases, see ibid., 80–84. 92 Shakabpa, Tibet, 156–167; One Hundred Thousand Moons, vol. 1, 507–546; Franz-Karl Ehrhard, “The Biography of sMan-bsgom Chos-rje Kun-dga’ dpal-ldan (1735–1804) as a Source for the Sino-Nepalese War,” in Pramāṇakīrtiḥ. Papers Dedicated to Ernst Steinkellner, ed. Birgit Kellner, Helmut Krasser, Horst Lasic, Michael T. Much, and Helmut Tauscher (Wien: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, 2007), 115– 133; Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 175–177. 93 Cf. the brief explanations in Baraldi, Corsi, and Esposito, GLU, 160–162; Kneer and Nassehi, Niklas Luhmanns Theorie sozialer Systeme, 167–177; in more detail, Niklas Luhmann, Soziologie des Risikos (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1991); “Risiko und Gefahr,” in Niklas Luhmann, Soziologische Aufklärung, vol. 5: Konstruktivistische Perspektiven (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1990), 131–169. 94 To avoid associations with modern concepts of “international relations,” I prefer the term “interpolity relations,” thereby following the advice of Timothy Brook, Michael van Walt van Praag, and Miek Boltjes, “The Past in Asia’s Present,” in Sacred Mandates: Asian International Relations Since Chinggis Khan, ed. Timothy Brook, Michael van Walt van Praag, and Miek Boltjes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018), 2–5, here 3. 95 Peter Schwieger, Teilung und Reintegration des Königreichs von Ladakh im 18. Jahrhundert. Der Staatsvertrag zwischen Ladakh und Purig aus dem Jahr 1753 (Bonn: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag, 1999). The following description summarizes the translation of the text and detailed analysis of the conflict presented there. 96 See chapter 5. 97 Schwieger, Ladakh im 18. Jahrhundert, 77, 82. 98 For a geographical overview on the complex facts, see ibid., 31–32. 99 Niklas Luhmann, Ausdifferenzierung des Rechts: Beiträge zur Rechtssoziologie und Rechtstheorie (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1981), 111. 100 Schwieger, Ladakh im 18. Jahrhundert, 76, 144, 227. 101 Ibid., 87. 102 For the meaning of this term, see Gling dpon Padma skal bzang, De snga’ i bod, 135.

282     Notes to Pages 173–180

103 The following presentation is based on the edition and translation of a transcription of a charter published by Hanna Schneider: Schneider, Tibetische Urkunden, no. 107. 104 The name bKras khang is a short version for bKra shis khang gsar. A noble family with this name had been in the government’s employ since the time of the Fifth Dalai Lama. Petech, Aristocracy and Government, 105–110. 105 Luhmann, Law, 174–175. 106 Luhmann, Kontingenz und Recht, 87. 107 Georges Dreyfus, “Law, State and Polity in Tibet,” Journal of the International Association for Buddhist Studies, 18, no. 1 (1995): 136. 108 Naga and Tsepak Rigzin, Tibetan Quadrisyllabics, 160–161. 109 Goldstein, “Centralization and Decentralization,” 175. 110 Schuh, “Recht und Gesetz,” 306. 111 Schuh, “Entstehungsprozeß von Urkunden,” 319. 112 Ibid., 303. 113 Pirie, Peace and Conflict in Ladakh, 157, 158. 114 The following summary is based on the translation and detailed analysis of the document presented by Dieter Schuh: Schuh, Grundlagen tibetischer Siegelkunde, no. XXX; “Entstehungsprozeß von Urkunden,” 305–309. The document deals with two legal cases, of which only the first is summarized here. 115 Such an endeavor can also be detected in the legal dispute between a Tibetan noble house and Sera Monastery mentioned further below. 116 French, The Golden Yoke, 278–288. 117 For the types of these rulers’ charters, see Schuh, “Entstehungsprozeß von Urkunden,” 319–321. 118 I am referring mainly to document nos. XX, XXIV, XXV, XXVI, and XXVII analyzed and translated in Schuh, Grundlagen tibetischer Siegelkunde. 119 Ibid., no. XXV. 120 Ibid. 121 Okawa, “Study of gTan tshigs,” 206. 122 Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho, “Blang dor gsal,” 395–398. The text can also be found in Bsod nams tshe ring, Snga rabs bod, 257–324. I am grateful to Christoph Cüppers, who provided me with a critical edition of the relevant passage together with a German translation. He is currently preparing a publication including a critical edition and translation of the entire text. In Kapstein, The Tibetans, 191, a translation of the summary of article five can be found. It is unlikely that the summary was written by Sangyé Gyatso himself. The publisher Bsod nams tshe ring puts it as follows: “This legal code appears to be [a text] free of salient features, such as profoundness and intelligibility. That someone like desi Sangyé Gyatso, who is extremely adept in both religion and politics, has written such a legal code, is hard to

Notes to Pages 180–184     283

believe.” Bsod nams tshe ring, Snga rabs bod, 331. For a translation of Sangyé Gyatso’s story from the “Sutra of the Wise and the Foolish,” see Schmidt, Der Weise und der Tor, 116–121. 123 The case is described in a document published and translated in Schuh, Grundlagen tibetischer Siegelkunde, no. XXVII. 124 For the background and translation of the regulation, comprising a total of thirteen articles, see Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 146–159. The authority of the ambans was later once more strengthened by the imperial Twenty-Nine-Article Decree issued in 1793. 125 This is, for example, described in detail in a public ordinance issued by one of the ambans in 1818: Dieter Schuh, Tibetische Handschriften und Blockdrucke, part 8 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1981), no. 6. 126 Josef Kolmaš, “The Ambans and Assistant Ambans of Tibet (1727–1912): Some Statistical Observations,” in Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the 6th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies. Fagernes 1992, ed. Per Kvaerne, 2 vols. (Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture, 1994), 1:462. 127 For the origin of the reincarnation line of the Tatsak trülku, see Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 25. The conflict described here took place during the time of the eighth incarnation Yeshe Lozang Tenpé Gönpo (1760–1810), who functioned as regent twice. For information about his person see ibid., 160–164, 171–175, 178–180. 128 Ibid., 25. 129 Ibid., 128–129. 130 The name appears as rTa cham g.yas ru in the document. In other documents (Digitized Tibetan Archives Bonn: Kundeling Archives, ID 1075, 1346, 2600) it turns up with different spellings: sTag cham g.yas ru and sTag gsham. Presumably, these are spelling variants for sTag sham, the name of the monastery of the treasure finder Nus ldan rdo rje. It was located in the region near the route toward Chamdo and had been established in the second half of the seventeenth century. See Dudjom, The Nyingma School, 460. 131 See Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 35–36. 132 Ibid., 131–132. 133 Schuh, “Entstehungsprozeß von Urkunden,” 321–322. 134 For information related to him, see Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 159–161. 135 In the document, the names of the two ambans are written initially as sMangs t’a shing and Gra t’a shin in Tibetan; later in the text, they were abbreviated to T’a und Shin. In the translation presented here, the Manchu equivalents of Manggulai and Changzai were uniformly used instead of the Tibetan names.

284     Notes to Pages 185–192

136 Evidently, this must be a mistake on the copyist’s part due to an ellipsis. Further below, it refers to hundred and fifty pack animals. 137 The legal document is part of the collection of Digitized Tibetan Archives Bonn: Kundeling Archives, ID 1292. 138 Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 186–192, in particular, 191. See also Oidtmann, Forging the Golden Urn. 139 For more information on this seal, see Schuh, Grundlagen tibetischer Siegelkunde, 13. 140 Another imprint of this seal can be found on a document issued by Sangyé Gatso in 1680. See Digitized Tibetan Archives Bonn: Kundeling Archives, ID 1451. 141 Over the course of history, the term “Hor” was applied to different peoples. During the period of the Ganden Podrang government, it referred to specific nomad groups living on the northern plateau as well as groups residing in Amdo, the northeast of the Tibetan settlement area. 142 Kang (rkang) was a unit for measuring farmland. It was based on the yield capacity of the soil and not on the surface area of the field. 143 Digitized Tibetan Archives Bonn: Kundeling Archives, ID 1679. 144 For an example, see Schwieger and Dagyab, dGe-lugs-pa-Hierarchen, 44–45. 145 Niklas Luhmann, Legitimation durch Verfahren (Neuwied-Berlin: Luchterhand, 1969), 60. 146 For an overview on the different methods, see Schuh, “Recht und Gesetz,” 292–295. French has collected some narratives about the conduct of ordeals: French, The Golden Yoke, 130–135. 147 Prominent in this regard were the four- and the six-armed Gönpo (mGon po) and his consort, the goddess Remati (dMag zor gyi rgyal mo Remati), a form of the popular female deity Palden Lhamo (dPal ldan lha mo), sometimes supplemented by Dorje Lekpa (dam can rDo rje legs pa). To these central figures are added—often only by way of a mere general reference— the respective local deities. For Tibetan texts describing rituals for evocating the four- or six-armed Gönpo see Schwieger, Tibetische Handschriften und Blockdrucke, part 12, nos. 1439, 1444, 1448 (1–2), 1450, 1451. For rituals around the evocation of Remati see, for instance, ibid., no. 1482 (1–11). 148 Paolo Prodi, Das Sakrament der Herrschaft: Der politische Eid in der Verfassungsgeschichte des Okzidents (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1997), 20. 149 Ibid., 414. 150 Luhmann, Sociological Theory of Law, 88. 151 Giorgio Agamben, The Sacrament of Language: An Archaeology of the Oath (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011), 2. 152 Ibid., 12. 153 Ibid., 55.

Notes to Pages 192–194     285

1 54 Ibid., 63. 155 Ibid., 23, 65. 156 Ibid., 36. 157 Ibid., 31. 158 Ibid., 33. 159 Ibid., 46; see also 33, 57–58. In an informative article based on Bon documents from Tibetans living in a rather egalitarian community in Nepal, Charles Ramble recently pointed to a third mechanism possibly involved in oath-taking or the declaration of truth: “Neither does the utterance of the truth have any intrinsic power, nor does it have the ability to coerce the gods who are present into implementing it.” The gods are only invoked to witness that the procedure is carried out correctly. For Ramble, all three types could be valid in Tibet at different times and in different places. Thus, there is no single answer to this issue. Ramble, “Legal Foundations,” 35–51. 160 Agamben, The Sacrament of Language, 46. 161 Ibid., 55. 162 Ibid., 58. 163 Ibid., 46. 164 The Tibetan term addressed here is mna’. Already in the earliest Tibetan written documents of the eighth century CE, the stele inscriptions mentioned further below, the term is used in the sense of “oath.” Even in later texts, it apparently is also used only in this sense. The Tibetan-Chinese dictionary by Zhang et al., Bod rgya tshig mdzod, lists its meaning as rten gsum sogs dpang du btsugs nas dam bcas pa/ “commitment taken before a witness such as the Three Jewels.” It seems to be essential that the witnesses are sacral guarantors. While the older Tibetan-English dictionaries by Heinrich A. Jäschke, A Tibetan-English Dictionary, with Special Reference to the Prevailing Dialects: To Which Is Added an English-Tibetan Vocabulary (London: Secretary of State for India in Council, 1881), and Sarat Chandra Das, Tibetan-English Dictionary with Sanskrit Synonyms (Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Book Depot, 1902), list the term only in the sense of “oath”; the more recent dictionaries also list the term as “pledge” and “vow,” for example, Melvyn C. Goldstein, The New Tibetan-English Dictionary of Modern Tibetan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). It should be noted, though, that in Tibetan other terms for “commitments” taken on by monks and practitioners within Buddhism were coined as equivalents to the respective Sanskrit terms (saṃvara, samaya): sdom pa, dam tshig. The meaning of the term mna’ also differs from the lexemes for “promise or claim,” khas len pa, literally speaking, “taking/ accepting with/by the mouth,” and “curse,” dmod pa. During the Tibetan Empire, the term bro seemed to have been widely used as a synonym for mna’. See, for

286     Notes to Pages 194–196

example, Brandon Dotson, “Divination and Law in the Tibetan Empire: The Role of Dice in the Legislation of Loans, Interest, Marital Law and Troop Conscription,” in Contributions to the Cultural History of Early Tibet, ed. Matthew T. Kapstein and Brandon Dotson (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 10–11; Michael L. Walter, Buddhism and Empire: The Political and Religious Culture of Early Tibet (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 11–12. The term mna’ is not documented in the Mahāvyutpatti, the Sanskrit-Tibetan dictionary from the early ninth century. Only the derivation mna’ ma, the Tibetan lexeme of “bride” is specified as an equivalent of Sanskrit vadhū. The etymology of the word mna’ is unclear. (If one may speculate, it could be worthwhile to think about the origin of an old verb for “to say,” as it seems to have been preserved in the expression na re used to introduce direct speech. Regarding this, Jäschke, Tibetan-English Dictionary, 300, had already referred to a corresponding verb in Kinnauri. According to oral communication by Charles Ramble, we find, for example, the verb /nā/ in the Tibetan dialect of Mustang instead of the common Tibetan verb zer, “to say.”) 165 Mi pham ’Jam dbyangs Rnam par rgyal ba, Las sna tshogs, 49–50. Walter, Buddhism and Empire, 181, mentions a similar method that is described in a text by Karma Chags med (seventeenth century). 166 See Dieter Schuh, “Ergebnisse und Aspekte tibetischer Urkundenforschung,” in Proceedings of the Csoma de Kőrős Memorial Symposium: Held at Mátrafüred, Hungary, 24–30 September 1976, ed. Louis Ligeti (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1978), 422–424. 167 The translation follows closely Richardson, Early Tibetan Inscriptions, 27–30. For an edition of the Tibetan text see Iwao et al., Old Tibetan Inscriptions, 11–12. 168 Richardson, Early Tibetan Inscriptions, 72–81. 169 See Vitali, The Kingdoms of Gu.ge Pu.hrang, 56, 193–194. 170 French, The Golden Yoke, 132. 171 See chapter 7. 172 Richardson, Early Tibetan Inscriptions, 106–143, here in particular 126–127. 173 Saul Mullard, “Regulating Sikkimese Society: The Fifteen-Clause Domestic Settlement (nang ’ dum) of 1878,” in Social Regulation: Case Studies from Tibetan History, ed. Jeannine Bischoff and Saul Mullard (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 40–41. 174 Schwieger, Ein tibetisches Wunschgebet, 16–22. 175 That brings to mind folkloric ideas of the Three Jewels known from oral narrative literature in Tibet. In a fairy tale, a visitant, an old man, claiming to be a reincarnation of the Three Jewels, appears to a shepherd who had a profound adoration for the Three Jewels. See Phukhang and Schwieger, Erzählgut aus A-mdo und Brag-g.yab, 185. 176 Schwieger, Ladakh im 18. Jahrhundert, 247–250.

Notes to Pages 196–203     287

177 Dieter Schuh, “Frühe Beziehungen zwischen dem ladakhischen Herrscherhaus und der südlichen ‘Brug-pa-Schule,” in Archiv für Zentralasiatische Geschichtsforschung, Heft 2 (St. Augustin: VGH Wissnschaftsverlag, 1983), 22–23. 178 For a list of relevant wordings see Schuh, “Recht und Gesetz,” 308–309. 179 See Schuh, “Urkundenforschung,” 423–425. 180 See Yuri Komatsubara, “A Study of the Treaty,” 186–189, 192. 181 Bsod nams tshe ring, Snga rabs bod, 246–251. 182 Dieter Schuh, Herrschaft, örtliche Verwaltung und Demographie des äußersten Westens des tibetischen Hochlandes: Rechtsdokumente aus Purig und Spiti, part 2: Spiti (Andiast: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, 2016), 155–158. 183 Schneider, Tibetische Urkunden, no. 65. 184 Fernanda Pirie, “State, Law, and Morality in Traditional Tibet,” in Social Regulation: Case Studies from Tibetan History, ed. Jeannine Bischoff and Saul Mullard (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 242. 185 Ibid. 186 For an edition, translation, and analysis of the public ordinance, see Schwieger, “A Beautifully Illuminated Document.” 187 Luhmann, Kontingenz und Recht, 87. 188 See Luhmann, Social Systems, 394–395. 189 For legal theory as a reflection theory of law, see Luhmann, Sociological Theory of Law, 286–288; Luhmann, Kontingenz und Recht, 22–23. Chapter 10. War Epigraph. Jamgön Mipham, The Just King: The Tibetan Buddhist Classic on Leading an Ethical Life, trans. José Ignacio Cabezón (Boulder, CO: Snow Lion, 2017), 70. 1 Barbara Kuchler, Kriege, 10. 2 Fritz B. Simon, Systemtheorie des Konflikts, 46. 3 Fritz B. Simon, Tödliche Konflikte: Zur Selbstorganisation privater und öffentlicher Kriege, 2nd ed. (Heidelberg: Carl-Auer Verlag, 2004, 280. 4 Ibid., 17–22. 5 Krzysztof C. Matuszek, Der Krieg als autopoietisches System (Wiesbaden: Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag and VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2007), 36. 6 Ibid., 37. 7 Kuchler, Kriege, 19. 8 Ibid., 26. Translation of the author. 9 Simon, Tödliche Konflikte, 24–25, 281, concludes from such a request of symmetry that in case of war the issue would also have to be about honor.

288     Notes to Pages 203–207

10 See Beckwith, Tibetan Empire, 62–64; Pan Yihong, Son of Heaven and Heavenly Qaghan: Sui-Tang China and its Neighbors (Bellingham: Western Washington University, 1997), 245–247. 11 Kuchler, Kriege, 32, 41, 58, 293. 12 Petech, China and Tibet, 249–251. 13 See chapter 4. 14 Bell, Portrait of a Dalai Lama, 159. 15 Edwin Bernbaum, The Way to Shambhala: A Search for the Mythical Kingdom beyond the Himalayas (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1980). 16 Osterhammel defines colonization as “a relationship of domination between collectives in which fundamental decisions about the colonized people’s living are made and enforced by a culturally different minority of colonial rulers who are hardly willing to adapt. External interests primarily determine these decisions. In modern times, therefore, justification doctrines related to mission ideologies, which are based on the colonial rulers’ convictions of their own cultural superiority, are conjoined.” Jürgen Osterhammel, Kolonialismus: Geschichte, Formen, Folgen, 3rd ed. (München: C. H. Beck, 2001), 21. According to Osterhammel, China’s policy regarding Tibet belongs to the most obvious cases of “colonial domination” in the 1990s: “Based on historically doubtful claims, China practices in Tibet a virtually perfect colonial policy, including the invasion of settlers and mission ideology justification.” Ibid., 122–123. 17 Simon highlights this as a probable interaction pattern in the course of the disputes: Simon, Tödliche Konflikte, 28. 18 Petech, Central Tibet, 103–119. 19 See, for example, Mipam’s advice for the king: Mipam, The Just King, 69. Here, Mipam follows a code of conduct, as it had already been drawn up in Indian sources of Mahāyāna Buddhism. See Jenkins, “Making Merit,” 66‒67. 20 Kuchler, Kriege, 50–51, generally emphasizes this as a possible semantics of justification in the case of internal wars within the upper class. 21 See chapter 2. 22 Here, I resort to Heinz Messmer’s four-step escalation model of conflicts that he developed based on conversation analyses. He starts with conflict episodes, most not discussed in more detail, continues with conflicts of subject matters oriented toward real topics, then with relationship conflicts involving blaming and attributions of responsibility, eventually ending in power struggles following the enemy/friend scheme and easily leading to the use of violence. Conflict episodes are transient events hardly worth mentioning; therefore, finding them in historical sources is rare. Conflicts of subject matters and relationships are only rarely verifiable as sequential conflict stages in historical findings since fact and social dimensions usually

Notes to Pages 207–215     289

coexist in documented cases and are therefore only systematically distinguishable. Nonetheless, the worsening of conflicts to a friend/enemy scheme, indicated by Messmer’s term “power conflict,” draws attention to the fact that conflicts frequently develop in escalation stages, which can be distinguished easily in historical sources. Heinz Messmer, Der soziale Konflikt: Kommunikative Emergenz und systemische Reproduktion (Stuttgart: Lucius & Lucius, 2003). 23 See Kuchler, Kriege, 164. 24 See chapter 2. 25 Karmay, The Illusive Play, 149–151; Ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho, Ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho’i rnam thar, 3 vols. (Lhasa: Bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang, 1989), vol. 1, 195–197. 26 Karmay, The Illusive Play, 156‒157; Ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho, Rnam thar, vol. 1, 203–204. 27 Ardussi, “Bhutan before the British,” 208–224; Karma Phuntsho, The History of Bhutan (Noida, UP: Random House India, 2013), 218–220, 228–229, 232–237. 28 Ardussi, “Bhutan before the British,” 230–327, 431–453; Karma Phuntsho, History of Bhutan, 239–242, 244–247, 261–263, 267–271, 309–310, 320–323. 29 Peter Schwieger, “Dynamic of Shangri-La, or Turning the Prayer Wheel for the Protection of the Multiethnic Society,” in Études tibétaines en l ’honneur d ’Anne Chayet, ed. Jean-Luc Achard, 269–278 (Genéve: Librairie Droz S.A., 2010). 30 Peter Schwieger, “The Long Arm of the Fifth Dalai Lama: Influence and Power of the Fifth Dalai Lama in Southeast Tibet,” in Buddhist Himalaya: Studies in Religion, History and Culture, vol. 1: Tibet and the Himalaya, ed. Alex McKay and Anna Balikci-Denjongpa, 239–257 (Gangtok, Sikkim: Namgyal Institute of Tibetology, 2011), 250; Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 169. 31 Petech, Kingdom of Ladakh, 70–80. 32 Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 72–84. 33 See, for example, the translation of a decree issued by the then-Tibetan regent in 1773: Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 166–170. 34 For this see also Petech, China and Tibet, 32–65. 35 See chapter 3. 36 Schuh, Grundlagen tibetischer Siegelkunde, no. X. 37 See chapter 4. 38 Karl Gabrisch, Geld aus Tibet: Sammlung Dr. Karl Gabrich (Winterthur: Stadt Winterthur & Tibet-Institut Rikon, 1990), 19–21; Komatsubara, “First Tibet-Gorkha War,” 182–183.

290     Notes to Pages 215–225

39 For an English translation of the Chinese version of the text of the treaty, see Komatsubara, “First Tibet-Gorkha War,” 188–193. For the seating plan see 184. 40 See Leo E. Rose, Nepal: Strategy for Survival (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), 23–74; Shakabpa, One Hundred Thousand Moons, vol. 1, 507–546; Ya Hanzhang, Biographies of the Tibetan Spiritual Leaders Panchen Erdenis (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1994), 158–169; Ludwig F. Stiller, The Rise of the House of Gurkha: A Study on the Unification of Nepal, 1768–1816 (Kathmandu: Ratna Pustak Bhandar, 1973), 192–214; Rishikesh Shaha, Modern Nepal: A Political History, 1769–1955, 2 vols. (New Delhi: Manohar, 2001), vol. 1, 53–72. 41 Schwieger, Dalai Lama and Emperor, 175–177, 182–186, 189–190. See also chapter 3. 42 Petech, Kingdom of Ladakh, 138–152. 43 Simon, Tödliche Konflikte, 248. 44 Rose, Nepal, 108–118; Shaha, Modern Nepal, vol. 1, 245. 45 Tsomu, The Rise of Gönpo Namgyel. 46 See chapter 2. 47 See Matuszek, Krieg als autopoietisches System, 53. 48 See ibid., 34, 40. 49 Rudolf Kaschewsky and Pema Tsering, “Die Niederschlagung des Empörers von Ñag-roṅ und andere Reminiszenzen des dPal-sprul Rin-po-čhe,” Zentralasiatische Studien 7 (1973): 452, 457–458. 50 Yudru Tsomu, Gönpo Namgyel, 203. 51 Isrun Engelhardt, “The Closing of the Gates: Tibetan-European Relations at the End of the Eighteenth Century,” in Tibet, Past and Present. Tibetan Studies 1. PIATS 2000: Proceedings of the Ninth Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Leiden 2000, ed. Henk Blezer (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 227, 242–44. 52 Lawrence James, Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India, 2nd ed. (London: Abacus, 1998), 88–89, 389–390. 53 Tatiana Shaumian, Tibet: The Great Game and Tsarist Russia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 21‒63. See also Thubten J. Norbu and Dan Martin, “Dorjiev: Memoirs of a Tibetan Diplomat,” Hokke-Bunka Kenkyû (Journal of the Institute for the Comprehensive Study of the Lotus Sûtra), no. 17, 1–105 (Tokyo: Rissho University, 1991); Jampa Samten and Nikolay Tsyrempilov, eds., From Tibet Confidentially: Secret Correspondence of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama to Agvan Dorzhiev, 1911–1925 (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works & Archives, 2011). 54 Hugh Richardson, Tibet & Its History, 2nd ed., revised (Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 1984), 72–90. For the detailed story of the British expedition to

Notes to Pages 225–238     291

Tibet, see Charles Allen, Duel in the Snows: The True Story of the Younghusband Mission to Lhasa (London: John Murray, 2004). 55 Allen, Duel in the Snows, 54–55. 56 Richardson, Tibet & Its History, 91–97, 268–271. 57 Ibid., 97–100. 58 Eric Teichman, Travels of a Consular Official in Eastern Tibet: Together with a History of the Relations between China, Tibet and India, rev. ed. (Varanasi: Pilgrims Publishing, [1922] 2000), 38, 41–46; Goldstein, A History of Modern Tibet, 68–84. 59 Shakya, Dragon in the Land of Snows, 52–71, 89–91; Dawa Norbu, China’s Tibet Policy (Richmond, UK: Curzon, 2001), 197, 200, 208. 60 Kuchler, Kriege, 32. 61 Luhmann, Politik der Gesellschaft, 77. Chapter 11. Conclusion Epigraph. Acharya Sangye T. Naga and Tsepak Rigzin, Tibetan Quadri­syllabics, Phrases and Idioms (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1994), 229: lo brgya sman dang ’chi khar dug. 1 For the necessity of neutralizing such preferences as a precondition for differentiated decision-making processes, see Luhmann, Kontingenz und Recht, 194. 2 Goldstein, A History of Modern Tibet, 89–138, 172–174. 3 See Luhmann, Social Systems, 185. 4 Cf. Kneer and Nassehi, Luhmanns Theorie, 101–104. 5 Ibid., 188. 6 See chapter 5, note 54.

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Index political, 15, 36, 127; punishing, 190; of the Qing Empire, 224, 226; regional, 11, 18; of reincarnations, 70, 102; religious, 17–18, 90, 95; ritual, 103; scholarly, 47; secular, 17–18; spiritual and political, 127 autopoiesis, 6, 79, 158, 217, 220, 258n7 Avalokiteśvara: commitment to Tibet, 80, 115–117; and the Dalai Lama, 22, 32–33, 47, 70, 118, 163; as personification of compassion, 70, 118; and Potala, 33, 115; as savior figure, 43, 47, 118; and Songtsen Gampo, 33, 117–118

Accounting Office (rtsis khang), 41–42, 160, 176, 249n35 Agamben, Giorgio, 192–193 ambans. See imperial representatives Amdo, 85, 124, 168 aristocracy: and civil war, 67, 213–214; and clergy, 15–16, 18, 29, 35, 68, 208–209, 230; collaboration with occupiers, 213; estates of, 62, 65–66, 84; and government, 39–42, 60, 68, 87, 213; as landlords, 3; lifestyle of, 75; Mongolian, 20; political influence of, 68–69, 214; and reincarnations, 70–71; residences in Lhasa, 83; and revival of Buddhism, 11, 107; strata of, 66; warrior aristocracy, 203– 204; weakening, 69 assassination: attempt of, 72, 147; of the Dalai Lama, 27; of head of government, 67, 201–202, 213; of regent, 27, 213; of ruler, 60, 68, 202; treachery and, 222 Aurangzeb (r. 1659–1707), 89 authority: for appointing regent, 54; charismatic, 34; decision-making, 36–37, 39–40; of the Dalai Lama, 24–25, 44, 47, 55; in East Tibet, 222–223; emperor as source of, 48, 85; of guru, 12–13; highest, 48, 57, 210–211; of imperial representatives, 55; legal, 65, 152, 159, 161, 164; of Ming emperors, 30; moral, 15, 47, 90, 95; in periphery, 25, 232;

Bell, Charles (1870–1945), 28, 153, 204, 236, 249n35, 250n39 Beri, 17–18, 24, 219 Bhutan, 20, 43, 66, 89, 198, 208–211 binary coding: civilized/barbaric (Confucian code), 46; good/bad (moral code), 113–114, 119, 150; immanence/transcendence (religious code), 99, 113–114; legality/ illegality (legal code), 150–151, 156–158, 163, 165, 178, 199–200, 234–235; obedience/sanctions (power code), 37; power/powerless (political code), 163; suffering/ salvation (religious code), 20, 113–114 bodhisattva: the Dalai Lama as, 44; emperor as, 44, 47; ethics of, 121; 319

320     Index

ideal of, 4, 16, 115; path of, 139; ruler as, 12, 19, 152, 163; supernatural, 47, 70, 127, 232; vows of, 121, 124–126, 195. See also Avalokiteśvara; Mañjuśrī Boltjes, Miek, 252n71, 281n94 Bön(po), 3, 18, 108–109, 136, 218 Bray, John, 89 British India, 28, 73, 90–92, 224–227 Brook, Timothy, 252n71, 281n94 Cabezón, José, 128, 156 cakravartin, 16 Chamdo, 18, 141–142, 182–183 Changkya trülku Rolpé Dorje, Second, 51 charisma, 34–35, 70, 220 Chengde, 86 China: commercial relations with, 15, 18; versus India, 10, 13–14; Khubilai Khan’s conquest of, 13; and sinicized neighbors, 14, 46; tribute relations with, 15, 45. See also People’s Republic of China; Qing Empire; Tang Dynasty Chinggis Khan, 20, 252n71 circle of rebirth, 16, 70, 99‒101, 114‒115, 119, 138 civil law, 159, 161–162, 178, 199; and codified law, 155; and moral values, 235; and ordeals, 189; and torture, 178 clergy: controlling communication structure, 12; and foreign rulers, 28, 50, 206, 229; at head of society, 28, 39, 47, 57, 68, 131, 206; and historiography, 17, 20, 22, 29, 70, 115; magic power of, 19; and meat consumption, 124, 126; as mediator, 164–172, 189; and Mongols, 20–21, 26–27; and

morality, 18, 27, 47, 128, 132, 232; as party in conflicts, 167; and political power, 12–13, 128; and secular rule, 18–19; segmentation of, 68, 207; serving the government, 40; and violence, 4, 214; and wars, 210–211. See also aristocracy; Geluk(pa); monasteries; priestpatron; Qing emperor(s) closure of system, 79, 94 coding. See binary coding compassion: toward all living beings, 4, 115, 126, 128, 158, 232; and bodhisattva practice, 115, 126; and Buddhist ruler, 113, 127–128, 151; and criminal law, 153; and killing, 121–123; perfection of, 118, 132; and use of violence, 116, 232–233. See also Avalokiteśvara compensation, 60–62, 119, 151–152, 155, 158 complexity-reducing structures, 56, 79, 94 conflict (selection): colonization of its environment, 7, 166, 168, 171; over corvée labor, 182–186; definition of, 5–7; dogmatic, 110; fact dimension of, 7, 51, 73, 288n22; and image of Buddhism, 4; of interests, 72; interrole, 23, 127–128, 131; over land usage, 160, 176; within lowest strata, 164–165; of loyalty, 85, 169; within monastic communities, 131, 141, 163–164; and morality, 35, 99, 113, 127, 233; and non-verbal communication, 64; perception of, 102, 111, 142, 232; over power, 15, 70–71, 206–207; psychic, 6, 111, 119, 121, 132, 232; readiness for, 93, 233; reduction of, 75–76; over reincarnation, 27, 73; root of, 100;

Index     321

between ruler and clergy, 19; social dimension, 7, 51–52, 73, 231, 288n22; as social system, 6, 162; between taxpayers, 64, 164, 233; time dimension of, 7; and violation of norms, 140–141. See also magic; mediation; Mongols; Qing Empire; violence. conflicting differences, 31–32, 57, 95 Confucianism, 13, 46, 48 contingency: of law’s binding character, 154; and magic, 170, 230; and religion, 99, 105–106; of social boundaries, 93 corvée labor, 63–64; beneficiary from, 90, 223; disputes over, 163, 182–186; exemption from, 75, 230 Coser, Lewis A., 241n6 council of ministers (Kashak), 40–42; conflict within, 67, 72, 202; established 1721, 39; and matters of law, 159, 161, 176–178, 234 court(s): autonomy of procedures, 177; and conflict regulation, 156, 173–174; and moral considerations, 178, 200; and ordeals, 197; in political center, 160–161, 234; procedures of, 157, 235; reacting to petitions, 175; and ruler, 157; and settlement agreements, 175–176; and torture, 153; and world of the invisible, 189 criminal law: and Buddhism, 127, 153, 234; cruel punishments of, 128, 151, 153, 162; and the Dalai Lama, 159; in line with social order, 60 criticism: of clergy, 18, 28, 216, 219; dogmatics to protect against, 107; and ruler, 118, 163, 237; and societal observation, 238 culture: definition of, 96; Tibetan culture, 10, 13

Dahrendorf, Ralf, 4–5 Dalai Lama(s): certification of, 48–50; charisma of, 35; charter(s) of, 24, 49, 183‒184, 188; connection with Songtsen Gampo, 82; emperor’s control of, 44–45, 54, 57–58, 91; the Dzungars’ efforts to control, 27; Eighth (1758–1804), 40, 51; exile of, 42, 54, 228, 236; Fourteenth (b. 1935), 21, 101, 228; Fourth (1589–1617), 43; as head of government, 57, 67; as incarnation of Avalokiteśvara, 22, 33, 47, 70, 118; legitimized by procedure, 43; and Panchen Lama, 73–74, 84; as political leader, 68, 127; relations with the emperor, 48, 57, 174, 231; as sacral ruler, 33, 128; seal for, 48, 50; as sender of mediator, 90, 169, 171; as sovereign ruler, 24; Tenth (1816–1837), 181; at top of society, 31, 42, 57, 118, 213; as unifying institution, 32, 34, 39, 43, 57. See also Fifth Dalai Lama; Potala; Seventh Dalai Lama; Sixth Dalai Lama; Thirteenth Dalai Lama Dartsedo, 22 Davidson, Ronald, 103 Deden Namgyel (r. 1642‒1694), 196 deities: as cause of conflicts, 188; fights among, 139, 141‒142; instrumental in conflict regulation, 19, 138, 143‒147, 206; and oathtaking, 190‒197; as punishing authorities, 85, 190; subjugating, 105‒106, 140 Demo trülku: Fourth (1757‒1777), 183, 185; Ninth (1855‒1899), 72; Seventh (1778‒1819), 72 demoness: Tibet as, 80, 106

322     Index

demonization of conflict partners, 123, 206; and justification of violence, 235; in power conflict, 219; in religious rivalries, 104, 106, 129; in war, 107 Dergé, 26, 86, 128, 158, 223 dharmarāja, 12, 16, 19 Di Cosmo, Nicola, 56 discipline: monastic (vinaya), 61, 75, 107, 130‒131, 159, 163; term for, 106 disciplining: and Avalokiteśvara, 115‒116; living beings, 232; obstructors, 148; people of Tibet, 115, 116; Tibet as demoness, 80 distinction(s): between intention and acting, 118; between members and outsiders, 16, 78, 111; between observable and unobservable world, 134; between “pure” and “impure” Buddhist teachings, 213, 228; socially acceptable, 113; of system and environment, 5, 78, 80, 94; between truth and untruth, 180; used in observations, 79, 237; between visible and invisible, 137. See also binary coding Dogras, 91, 216‒217 Donga Tendzin, 141‒142 Dorje Shukden, 111 Dorjiev, Agvan (1854‒1938), 225 Drakyap, 165, 167 Drepung Monastery, 21, 52, 74‒75, 82, 225, 270n45 Drukpa Kagyü(pa), 17, 171, 196, 208‒209, 211‒212 Dungkar Lozang Trinlé (1927–1997), 161 Dzungars: and the Gelukpa, 20, 26, 50, 75, 212‒213; expulsion of, 38, 50, 67, 213; and the Qing Empire, 26, 45, 49, 214; and struggle for the Dalai Lama, 27

eastern Mongols (Khalkha), 20‒21, 24, 169, 212 empire: concept of, 55‒56, 77, 92, 252n71 emptiness, 70, 96, 99‒100, 114, 141 environment: changing, 21, 28, 31, 41; conflict system and, 7, 166, 168, 171, 227; system and, 5; Tibetan Buddhist society and, 11, 29, 78‒79, 94‒95, 216‒217, 236‒239. See also social system esteem and disdain, 113‒114, 118‒119, 151, 158 expectation structures, 11, 48, 79, 94, 98, 232 Fifth Dalai Lama (1617‒1682), 21‒26; acknowledgment as ruler, 25, 44; appointing regent, 23, 127; appointment as ruler, 2, 21‒22; awarding titles to Mongolian chieftains, 48; charisma of, 35; charter of, 24, 186‒189; death of, 26; and Jonang school, 110; and military actions, 23, 144, 208, 211; mortal remains of, 82; political order of, 236; reincarnation of, 27, 49‒50; visit to Beijing, 48 Foucault, Michel, 128 French, Rebecca R., 160‒162, 178 functional differentiation, 77, 154, 157, 201, 236, 238 future: conceptions of 12, 29, 32; connected with past and present, 57; focusing on, 238 Ganden Monastery, 74‒75, 82, 226 Ganden Podrang (Central Tibetan government): agenda of, 24, 45, 129; and Bhutan, 209‒211; boundaries of, 92, 95; and concept of rule, 34;

Index     323

the Dalai Lama as head of, 21, 35, 57, 67, 237; and the Dogras, 217; early years of, 21, 36‒38, 57, 83; and East Tibet, 86‒87, 221‒223, 227; end of, 228, 237; and the Gorkhās, 169, 215‒218; and Gushri Khan, 25; and the Khoshots, 25‒27, 85, 208, 210‒211; and Ladakh, 89‒91, 170, 211‒212; as landlord, 14, 63, 176‒178; law of, 127‒128, 154, 174‒175, 199; law code of, 164, 197; military forces of, 64, 89, 204, 214, 229; offices in, 13, 38‒42, 160; and the Qing, 27, 39, 44, 52, 54‒55, 58, 65‒68, 214; and regent, 23, 25‒26 Geluk(pa): and aristocracy, 35, 68, 71; and council of ministers, 40; founder of, 74, 82; in Gyeltang, 211; at imperial court, 85‒86; and Ladakh, 211; monasteries around Lhasa, 18, 33, 41, 48‒49, 74, 81‒82; and Mongols, 16, 20, 22, 26, 208, 210, 213; and monk officials, 41; name, 130; and orthodoxy, 69, 85‒86, 93, 107; and regents, 40, 56; and struggle over the Dalai Lama, 50; supremacy over rivals, 21, 30, 212. See also priest-patron relationship; union of religion and politics Gendün Chöpel (1903‒1951), 93, 238 Gesar epic, 203 Goldstein, Melvyn C., 74 Golok, 165 Gomang monk community, 52 Gönpo, 191, 284n147 Gönpo Namgyel, 218‒222 Gorkhās, 71, 91, 169, 97, 215‒218 Great Britain, 224 guiding difference, 78, 94, 213 Gulab Singh (1792‒1857), 216

Guru Chöwang (1212–1270), 122 Gushri Khan (r. 1642‒1655), 21‒26, 82, 246n46 Gyangtse, 84, 225 Gyeltang, 21, 23, 208, 210‒211 Gyurmé Namgyel, 68 Hemis Monastery, 172 heterodoxy, 103‒104, 107, 110, 207 hierocracy, 13, 34, 89, 209‒210, 214 Hinduism, 103‒104 historiography: concealing difference between morality and law, 35‒36; modeling the priest-patron relationship, 20, 29, 46; modeling the ruler, 12, 29, 152; narrating “tyrannicide,” 121‒122 honor and heroism, 203, 218, 222 imperial representatives (ambans): and appointment of jasak lama, 53‒54; assassinating Gyurmé Namgyel, 68; and communication with the emperor, 51; controlling the Dalai Lama and government, 54‒55, 71, 231; hearing legal cases, 181‒186 India: as source of Buddhism, 11, 80, 94, 102‒103, 107‒110, 142, 148; as source of knowledge, 10, 13‒14, 93, 106. See also British India interaction system(s), 104, 144, 159, 177, 257n61 interpolity relations, 56, 170, 281n94 invisible world: and conflicts, 186, 189; and court procedures, 189; influence of, 139‒141, 233; interaction with, 137‒138, 142‒144, 149; and oath, 194‒195, 197; and procedure of finding truth, 200 irritation by environment, 11, 79, 238 Islam, 79, 89, 170, 172, 211‒212

324     Index

Jagou, Fabienne, 73 jasak lama, 52‒54, 252n67 Jehol, 86 Jesuits, 91, 260n26 Jokhang, 33, 81, 83, 160‒161 Jonang school, 110 judge(s): and bribery, 161‒162; drafting decisions and settlement, 178, 238; and guidelines of legal code, 155, 162, 234; highest, 156, 159, 174; landlord as, 162, 175; and non-partisanship, 180 Jurchen, 55 Kagyü(pa), 16, 82, 86, 132, 208. See also Drukpa Kagyü(pa); Karma Kagyü(pa); Taklung Kagyü(pa) Kālacakra Tantra, 102, 204 kaliyuga, 102 Kangxi emperor (r. 1661–1722), 50, 73, 91, 169 karma: and animism, 138; causality of, 119, 166; and hierarchical order, 62, 159, 230; inescapability of, 4; karma orientation, 102; and law, 76, 151‒152, 174; linked to morality, 114; mechanical understanding of, 124; and natural disaster, 79; negative, 111, 122, 129, 233; and rebirth 101; of slaughtering animals, 126 Karma Kagyü(pa): in Gyeltang, 211; hierarch of, 71, 188, 215; in opposition to the Gelukpa, 208; and secular ruler, 17‒18 Kashmir, 61, 90‒91, 171‒172, 211‒212 Kathmandu, 215‒216 Kawaguchi, Ekai (1866‒1945), 270n45 Khalkha. See eastern Mongols Khangchenné, 39, 67

Khoshots: in Amdo, 25, 57, 168; in Central Tibet, 22, 144, 213; and the Dalai Lama, 25‒26, 44; and the Dzungars, 20, 27; in East Tibet, 54, 68, 85, 210‒211, 246n46; strengthening the Gelukpa, 20, 23, 207‒208 Khoshot Khan: as de facto ruler, 73, 213; and regent, 25; and residence in Lhasa, 83. See also Gushri Khan; Lhapzang Khan Khubilai Khan (r. 1260‒1294), 13, 17‒18, 20, 22, 46 killing: of animals, 122‒127; liberation through, 122; moral justification for, 121, 124; as nonvirtue, 268n19; out of compassion, 121; ritual, 104, 123, 130; in war, 202, 204, 235 Kneer, Georg, 238 Kokonor (Qinghai Lake), 9, 25, 27, 50, 210‒211 Kongtrül (1813–1899), 163‒164, 167 Kuchler, Barbara, 56, 201‒202, 204 Kumbum Monastery, 27, 50 Kündeling Monastery, 52‒53, 182 Kyichu (river), 81‒82 Ladakh: and agenda of the Gelukpa, 20; conflicts in, 165; conquered by the Dogras, 91, 216‒217; mediation in, 170‒173, 192, 196; oath-taking in, 196‒197; Tibetan invasion in, 23, 89, 208, 211; treaty with, 90, 212; tribute missions from, 90 Langdarma, King (d. 842), 109, 122 Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, 124‒126 legal code(s) (Tibetan code of law): of Amdo, 168; and court procedures, 153‒154, 162, 164, 197, 234

Index     325

legal system: and conflict staging, 6‒7, 157; creating opportunities for conflicts, 6‒7, 181, 199; documents produced by, 164; and equality before the law; 158; versus preferences for mediation, 174; shortcomings of, 235 legality/illegality. See binary coding Lévy-Bruhl, Henri, 190 Lhapzang Khan (r. 1703‒1717), 27, 49‒50 Lhasa (selection): British mission to, 28, 92; courts in, 160‒161; development into town, 83; expulsion of the Dzungars from, 67; mayor of, 38, 162; merchants in, 61‒63; pilgrim sites in, 33, 81; as place for conflict regulation, 176‒177; as political center, 81, 84; as religious center, 33, 87; seat of government, 39, 87. See also Potala Lifan Yuan, 45, 183‒184 lottery as selection procedure, 34; introduced by the emperor, 43, 51, 55, 186, 216, 231; using dough balls, 53‒54 lower class: and conflicts, 164; participation in wars, 206; question of exploitation, 237; and religion, 65, 159; social mobility of, 60; stratification of, 63; strictly separated, 62; welfare of, 236 Lozang Jinpa, regent (in office 1675‒1679), 160 Luhmann, Niklas: as basis for this study, 5‒6; on center and periphery, 32, 77; on court procedures, 157; on dogmatics, 108; on domination, 36, 159; on Far Eastern traditions, 174; on law, 150; on morality, 113‒114; on oaths, 190‒191; on premodern

cultures, 132; on premodern empires, 92; on non-verbal communication, 64; on risk and danger, 170; on rituals, 134, 136‒137; on semantics, 96; on transcendence, 99, 113. See also systems theory mad saint (siddha), 93 magic: in conflict resolution, 19, 105, 134, 138, 140, 145–147, 148, 233; for defense, 107, 143, 190; for killing, 19, 122‒123, 145‒148; practices of veridiction, 121, 193, 196; in rituals, 137‒138; skills of clerics, 18‒19, 122, 143, 165; in war, 142‒144, 206, 210, 225 Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, 124‒125 Mahāyoga tantras: compatibility with animistic practices, 105; and four classes of rituals, 136; and ritual killing, 122, 130; and violation of social norms, 103, 132; and violence, 104, 107, 123 Malla kingdoms, 215 Manchu(s), 45‒46 Mañjuśrī, 101, 144 Mao Zedong (1893–1976), 227, 231 meaning: definition of, 78; as medium, 154 meat consumption, 124‒126 mediation: between polities, 169‒173; procedures of, 164‒168, 174; and truth finding, 173 mediator(s), 161; clerics predestined as, 165, 280n82; exposed to great danger, 71, 167, 169; interests of, 167; in interpolity conflicts, 169‒173, 215; in monastic disputes, 164 Messmer, Heinz, 288n22

326     Index

Milarepa (1052–1139), 123 Ming-Tibet relations, 13‒15, 30, 45, 84 Mipam, Jamgön (1846–1912), 128, 151, 156, 158 monasteries (selection): and aristocracy, 16, 69; bans on hunting and slaughtering, 127; as centers of study, 33, 101; as conservative element in society, 75; controlling periphery through, 211‒212; conversion of, 72, 110, 167, 202; of East Tibet, 18, 85‒86, 164; as the Gelukpa’s power base, 73‒74; involved in conflicts, 166‒167, 176‒177, 179‒180, 182‒183; as landlords, 14, 18, 24, 63, 166; and local population, 65, 110; rules for, 130‒131, 168 Mongols (selection): activities of Tibetan clerics among, 16; conquest of Tibet, 12‒13, 81; the Gelukpa’s agenda among, 26; and the priestpatron relationship, 16‒17, 20, 27, 46; providing military capacities, 208‒211; and Qing emperors, 21, 26‒27, 45, 70, 213. See also Dzungars; eastern Mongols; Khoshots; Oirats; Tumed Mongols Mughal Empire, 89‒90, 170‒171, 211 Mukden, 46 Münkler, Herfried, 45, 56, 252n71 Nāgārjuna, 120 Nāropa, 122 Nassehi, Armin, 236 Naxi Kingdom, 17, 210‒211 Nechung Oracle, 53 Nepal, 71, 91, 179, 181, 215, 218 Nerchinsk, 91 Ngapöpa, 67

Nicholas II, Czar (1868‒1918), 225 nonviolence, 116, 127‒128, 151, 153, 202, 232‒233 Nurhaci (1559–1626), 53 Nyarong, 218‒223, 228 Nyingma(pa) (old school of Buddhism), 18, 86, 106‒107, 123‒124, 132 oath: and animal sacrifices, 123, 152, 195; assertoric, 190, 194; binding force of, 194‒197; committing deities by, 140, 148; and honor, 222; and ordeals, 197; participation of deities, 190, 192‒194, 196‒197; in private law, 197‒198; promissory, 193‒194 obligation contract(s), 197‒198 observation: through distinction, 78‒80, 94, 96, 99, 237‒238; second-order, 93, 238 Oidtmann, Max, 281n89 Oirats, 20, 24 oracle(s), 26, 34, 43, 51, 53, 170 ordeals, 155, 158, 189‒190, 197 orthodoxy. See Geluk(pa), and orthodoxy Osterhammel, Jürgen, 288n16 Padmasambhava, 106, 108, 138, 140‒141, 148 Pakapalha, 18 Pakpa (1235‒1280), 17‒18, 20, 22, 24 Palha family, 66 Panchen Lama(s): as counterweight to the Dalai Lama, 47, 54, 84; Fifth (1663‒1737) and Lhapzang Khan, 27, 49‒50; Ninth (1883–1937) and Thirteenth Dalai Lama, 73‒74; Sixth (1738‒1780) and quarrel over inheritance, 61

Index     327

Pashö Monastery, 182‒185 past: controlled by clergy, 12, 29; glorified, 93, 135, 224, 238; past presence, 10; power over present, 11; providing precedents, 62, 140, 168. See also future patron-priest relationship. See priestpatron relationship Patrul Rinpoché (1808–1887), 122, 124 Pelgyi Dorje, 122 penalty: contractual, 167, 174; in criminal law, 60, 151, 162; death, 128; financial, 176, 186, 254n4; threat of, 219. See also punishment People’s Liberation Army, 204, 227 People’s Republic of China, 13, 22, 204, 210 Pirie, Fernanda, 165 polemic, 108, 123 Polhané (1689‒1747), 67‒68 political system, 36‒37, 57 politics: and the Dalai Lama, 23, 35, 75, 127; and religion, 19‒20, 49, 69, 228, 232, 247n51 Pollack, Detlef, 247n51 Potala: and Avalokiteśvara, 33, 115; construction of, 37, 82; and Lhasa, 81, 83; as reference to past, 24; as residence of the Dalai Lama, 50 power: and aristocracy, 67, 213; asymmetric distribution of, 59, 62, 76, 164, 203; centers of, 76; clerical claims to, 17‒18, 20, 22, 25, 69, 209; conflict(s) over, 15, 27, 70‒71, 74, 206‒207; of the Dalai Lama, 25, 39, 48, 127, 214; of decisionmaking, 6, 37, 42; of the emperor, 27, 45, 49, 57‒58, 216, 231; to enforce law, 156, 163, 173; fragmentation of, 203; the

Gelukpa’s base of, 74, 82; in interpolity relations, 216‒217; of language, 193; magic, 19, 103, 146–147; as a medium, 37, 157, 278n38; military, 21, 28, 44, 173; and offices, 38; perpetuation of, 36; of regent, 39; and reincarnations, 70; in service of religion, 204; symbolic, 157; technicalization of, 157; of truth, 195‒196; and violence, 37 priest-patron relationship: defining relations to rulers, 16, 44, 79; and Ganden Podrang, 25; as a legal relationship, 196‒197; in narrative literature, 19; and the Qing emperor, 48, 57, 174; referring to historical precedent, 17, 20, 22, 29; and reincarnations, 46; status of priest versus patron, 231 procedure(s): autonomous legal, 150, 180, 199‒200; court procedures, 174, 177, 180, 197, 235; definition of, 157‒158; for finding successor, 34, 43, 49, 51‒53, 71, 216; law-making, 154; for mediation, 165‒174 Prodi, Paolo, 190, 192 programs, 78‒79, 94, 112, 154, 235; definition of, 78 psychic systems, 137 punishment: corporal, 127‒128, 153, 161‒162; cruelty of, 151‒152; by the emperor, 87, 169; threat of, 85, 151, 192, 219. See also criminal law; penalty Qianlong emperor (r. 1736‒1795): and the first Gorkhā war, 169, 216; and the Panchen Lama, 71; and reorganization of government, 54, 181; as scholarly and moral

328     Index

authority, 47; and selection procedure for reincarnations, 43, 51; and Twenty-Nine-Article Decree, 55, 162 Qing emperor(s) (selection): attitude toward clergy, 28, 216; and authority of the Dalai Lama, 24‒25; as authority on moral behavior, 47, 132; control over Tibetan affairs, 40, 66‒69, 213‒214; and the Dalai Lama, 44, 48‒49, 54, 58, 227, 231; diplomatic assignments for, 89, 169; and enthronement of the Dalai Lama, 48‒50, 213; inner-Asian ambitions of, 21, 26, 45; and Lhapzang Khan, 27, 49‒50; military commitment in Tibet, 207, 214, 216; and the Panchen Lama, 84; and semantics of Tibetan Buddhist society, 27, 46‒48, 231; stabilizing Tibetan Buddhist society, 57; superiority of, 45, 47‒48, 57, 68, 231. See also Kangxi emperor; Qianlong emperor; Yongzheng emperor Qing Empire: borders of, 56, 90‒91; and the Dzungars, 26, 46‒47, 212, 214; final years of, 224, 235; as peacekeeping power, 67, 214; Tibet as part of, 3, 26, 45, 55, 90. See also empire Qinghai, 17, 25, 210 Qinghai Lake. See Kokonor Ramble, Charles, 280n82, 285n159, 285n164 regent: abolishment of, 39, 67; appointment of, 54; assassination of, 27, 72, 213; and the Dalai Lama, 23, 35, 127; intrigues of, 26, 44‒45, 49, 169, 212; as legal authority, 159,

161, 177‒178, 180‒181, 186; and Khoshot Khan, 25, 208; reincarnations as, 40, 72; reintroduction of office, 40, 54. See also Demo trülku; Lozang Jinpa; Reting trülku; Sangyé Gyatso; Sönam Chömpel; Tatsak jedrung trülku; Tsemönling regent reincarnation(s) (trülku): as candidates for priest-patron relationships, 46; concept of, 70; household of, 21, 52, 69, 71‒72; identifying, 51, 55, 186, 216; legitimizing rule, 118; as strategy to find patrons, 16 religious system, 108, 135, 138 Remati, 284n147 Reting trülku, Fifth (1912–1947), 72 Rimé movement, 86, 111 risk and danger, 170 Riwoche Monastery, 18, 182‒186 Rudra, 104‒106, 129, 140 ruler(s): beyond law, 156‒157, 163; charisma of, 35; and clergy, 16‒17, 19, 132; control over land, 66; as enlightened being, 118; foreign, 28‒30, 37, 44, 132, 206, 229‒230; guidelines for, 61, 151, 205; highest, 57‒58; as highest legal authority, 159, 174; ideal, 12, 128, 158; and law, 156; Mongolian, 13, 16‒17, 20, 143; regional, 17, 26, 82, 84, 220‒221, 223; religious function of, 35, 57; sacral, 21‒22, 32‒33, 35‒36, 43‒44, 128, 237; universal, 16; virtuousness of, 35. See also Dalai Lama; union of religion and politics Russian Empire, 91‒92, 223‒225 Sakya(pa), 21, 107, 215; in Dergé, 86; Manchus and, 46; and Mongols, 16‒17, 48, 81; principality of, 33, 87

Index     329

Sakya Pandita (1182–1251), 159 salvation: and bodhisattva(s), 12, 16, 70, 115; favorable conditions of, 65, 70, 136, 236; figure(s) of, 43, 101; and history, 70; as justification for political authority, 36; mission of, 32‒35, 57, 117, 167, 236; and morality, 119, 157; of non–human beings, 114; and society, 224; and suffering, 20, 113; temporary, 102; ultimate, 102, 114 saṃsāra, 99, 138 Samuel, Geoffrey, 88, 102, 138 Samye Monastery, 194 Sangyé Gyatso (1653‒1705): appointment as regent, 23; as author, 23, 38, 180, 282n122; and death of Fifth Dalai Lama, 26‒27, 44‒45, 212; enlarging Potala, 82; sealing document, 186 Schlieter, Jens, 268n25 Schneider, Hanna, 282n103 Schuh, Dieter, 276n8, 282n114, 283n123 segmentary differentiation: of aristocracy, 39, 67; of clergy, 68; of clan society,103; in East Tibet, 165, 167, 218; and military capacities, 203; and wars, 207, 213, 228 self-description of society, 56‒57, 70, 98, 108, 238 self-reference, 78‒79, 88, 94, 224 Sengge Namgyel (r. 1616‒1642), 196 Sera Monastery, 72, 74‒75, 82, 180 Seventeen Point Agreement, 228 Seventh Dalai Lama (1708‒1757): and civil war, 214; conflict about, 27, 49‒51, 73; death of, 40; and mediation in Ladakh 170 Shambhala, 204‒205 Sichuan, 54, 85, 181‒184, 220‒221, 223

Sikkim, 28, 195, 197, 226, 236 Simmel, Georg, 79, 241n6 Simon, Fritz B., 6, 201‒202, 217 Sixth Dalai Lama (1683‒1706): alternative count, 50; conflict over, 26‒27, 237; region of birth, 34, 43; reincarnation of, 50; rival candidate, 49 Snellgrove, David, 108 social harmony, 161, 165, 173‒175, 199, 234 social system(s): boundaries of, 80, 95; closed and open, 5, 79; complexity-reducing structures of, 79, 94; conflicts as, 6, 162; defined as communication system, 5; differentiation of, 77; morality of, 114; operatively closed; procedures as, 157; versus psychic system, 137; self-description of, 98. See also autopoiesis; environment; legal system; Tibetan Buddhist society Sönam Chömpel alias Sönam Rapten (1595–1658), 23, 208 Songtsen Gampo (ca. 605–650), 22, 80, 82, 117‒118 sovereignty, concept of, 55‒56 Spiti, 197 state: concepts of, 21, 55, 236, 248n4; and the Drukpa Kagyü school, 209; the early state, 32; and the Geluk school, 69, 76, 230; modern, 36, 75, 238‒239; nation-states, 92; premodern, 31; ruler and, 237; sinicized states, 14; sovereign state, 229; state order, 56; territorial state, 236 stratification: as dominant differentiation form, 59, 238; stabilization of, 57, 114, 132; within

330     Index

upper classes, 62; and war potential, 203‒204 subsystem(s), 238; army as, 236; educational system as, 236; law as, 150, 199‒200; religious system as, 108 symbolic order, 11, 57‒58 systems theory: as basis for this study, 5, 7 Taklung Kagyü(pa), 18, 21, 182 Tang Dynasty, 10, 14, 90, 102, 203 Tatsak jedrung trülku, 52, 182; Eighth (1760–1810), 72, 283n127; Seventh (1708‒1758), 182‒183 taxes: and Accounting Office, 41; courts tasked with collection of, 160‒161; disputes over, 41, 155, 160; in East Tibet, 26, 54, 210, 223, 246; exemption from, 64, 75, 179‒180, 182‒184; for war, 18, 25. See also corvée labor taxpayers, 63‒64, 164, 199, 233 Terdak Lingpa (1646‒1714), 109 Thirteenth Dalai Lama (1876–1933): attempted murder of, 72, 147; charisma of, 35; and criminal law, 153, 159; and Agvan Dorjiev, 225; exile in India, 227; exile in Mongolia, 42, 225‒226; and Fourteenth Dalai Lama, 101; invitation to Beijing, 227; and Ninth Panchen Lama, 73; and political independence, 28; and reform attempts, 74‒75, 236 three poisons, 100, 123 Tibetan Buddhist society: boundaries of, 2‒3, 76, 78, 80, 88, 237; and Buddhist clergy, 12, 29‒30, 131; center of, 3, 86; criterion for belonging to, 61, 98; criticism in,

238; development of, 11, 13; end of, 28, 205, 228, 231; form and identity of, 78, 94–95; guiding difference and programs of, 78, 94; integration of foreign rulers, 30, 230; integration of Mongols, 21, 94, 99; periphery of, 34, 79, 94, 124; and Qing emperors, 27, 47‒48, 54, 57‒58; self-description of, 56, 70, 86; semantics of, 94, 96, 99 Tibetan Empire: borders of, 90; fall of, 12, 106, 123; its impact on later history, 9‒11, 102‒103; Lhasa during the time of, 81; and wars, 203 Tibetan government. See Ganden Podrang Tilopa, 122 torture, 151‒153, 177‒178 Trashi Lhünpo Monastery, 71, 73, 84, 87, 216 treasure literature, 135‒136, 142, 148 tribute: paid to and from Kathmandu 216‒217; paid to the Khoshots, 26; paid from Ladakh, 90, 211‒212; paid to the Ming court, 15; paid to the Qing court, 45, 207 Trisong Detsen (Khri Srong-lde-btsan) (r. 757‒797?), 77, 109 trülku. See reincarnation(s) truth: and conflict regulation, 165, 173; in legal cases, 98, 175, 180; as magical force, 116, 120‒121, 193‒194, 196; methods for finding, 128, 153, 177, 189‒191, 197, 200; twofold, 99 Tsang province, 17, 23, 60, 66, 82‒84, 209 Tsangyang Gyatso. See Sixth Dalai Lama Tsaparang, 216

Index     331

Tsemönling regent, second (1792– 1855), 72, 75 Tsongkhapa (1357–1419), 74, 82, 130 Tumed Mongols, 20 Turner, Victor, 140 Tusi system, 84 twelve links of dependent origination, 101, 263n16 Twenty-Nine-Article Decree, 55, 162 Ü province, 84 Uḍḍiyāna, 106 union of religion and politics, 3, 19‒20, 128, 232 Vajrapāṇi, 104, 129, 140, 265n49 Vajrayāna Buddhism, 18, 103, 110, 130 van Praag, Michael van Walt, 252n71, 281n94 vinaya. See discipline violence: conflict and, 65, 86, 108, 131, 166, 168; and criminal law, 162; disciplining, 116; imaginative, 105, 123, 145–146; justification of, 123, 151, 212, 235; language of, 104, 146; and law enforcement, 128, 154, 157, 159; legitimate versus illegitimate, 36; as measure for conflict resolution, 4, 268n25; monopoly on, 6, 162, 200; as part of war, 202‒203; potential for, 75, 82; as power instrument, 37; reduction of, 7; ritual, 107, 145–146, 189; threat of, 153, 171 visions: as part of controlled procedures, 34, 43, 189 Waddell, Laurence A. (1854–1938), 270n45 war potential, 15, 201, 204, 206, 235

Weber, Max, 31, 34 Weinberger, Steven, 271n63 Wencheng, Princess, 31, 80 Wenta, Aleksandra, 271n63 western Mongols, 19‒21, 26‒27, 45, 47, 169‒170. See also Oirats; Dzungars; Khoshots wisdom: of bodhisattva, 44, 70, 74; bodhisattva of, 101, 144 world society, 5, 76, 239 Wu Sangui, 210 Yangpachen Monastery, 72 Yarlung Dynasty: and Buddhism, 152, 156; emperors as cultural heroes, 12; empire of, 10; end of, 11; and later genealogical ties, 85; new methods of communication, 10; rise of, 9; and wars, 203 Yeshe Ö (947‒1024), 130, 195 Yiktsang chancellory, 40‒41 Yongdan, Lobsang, 260n26 Yonghegong Monastery, 86, 183 Yongle emperor (r. 1403–1424), 14‒15 Yongzheng emperor (r. 1723‒1735), 50, 73, 91, 168, 183 Younghusband, Francis E. (1863‒1942), 92, 225‒226 Yuan Dynasty, 13‒15, 29 Yuan Empire, 17 Yudru Tsomu, 218 Yunnan, 65, 85, 210 Zhamarpa, Tenth (1742–1792), 71‒72, 169, 215‒216 Zhao Erfeng (1845‒1911), 142 Zhapkar (1781–1851), 124‒126 Zhikatsé, 84 Zhikpo Lingpa (1584–1643), 142‒143 Zorawar Singh (1784‒1841), 216‒217

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Peter Schwieger is professor emeritus of Tibetology at the University of Bonn and a member of the steering committee of the Union Catalogue of Oriental Manuscripts in German Collections. His research covers the history, literature, and language of Tibet. He is the author of The Dalai Lama and the Emperor of China and Handbuch zur Grammatik der klassischen tibetischen Schriftsprache.