TIBET’S STORY IS that of an ancient nation hurled into the twentieth century by the loss of its sovereignty, yet given a slim chance to regain its freedom and remake its identity. I came to write it as the result of a personal involvement growing over a period of eleven years. In the summer of 1973 I undertook my first trip to Asia. On arriving in New Delhi I toured a Tibetan refugee camp and afterwards visited Tibet House, a library and museum in which blown-up photos of Tibet’s great monasteries, the largest in the world, covered the walls. A week later I sat with thousands of Tibetans around an open tent on the outskirts of Katmandu, Nepal, watching a birthday celebration for their leader, the Dalai Lama. But it was not until I trekked up to the geographical, if no longer political, border of Tibet that I began to fully appreciate the country’s present-day condition. The landscape was wild, the adjacent peaks of Annapurna and Dhaulagari loomed on either hand and down the narrow trail came an equally formidable middle-aged man, a long knife hanging from his belt and a heavy rifle slung over his back. Waving like an old friend, he stopped and within a few minutes of exchanged gestures revealed that he was a Tibetan guerrilla, whose headquarters, located less than two hours north in the principality of Mustang, was still waging a fierce fight for Tibet’s freedom. Lifting his shirt, he pointed proudly to a long bayonet scar hewn across his belly and repeatedly said “Norbulingka.” Thereafter he enacted the devastating massacre which had befallen soldiers of the Tibetan resistance fighting Chinese occupation troops at the Dalai Lama’s summer palace outside of Lhasa. His barracks lay just across the seething brown waters of the Kali Gandaki river and it was clear from his spirit that despite Tibet’s present fortunes, its people by no means considered the fate of their nation sealed.
Six years later Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet, visited the United States. For much of his first American trip I accompanied the Tibetan leader to conduct a series of interviews. Following his departure I traveled to Asia once more, where I engaged in an extensive tour of the Tibetan communities in India. On a third journey, pursued over the winter of 1980–81, I continued to work with the Dalai Lama while living in the capital of the Tibetan diaspora and seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile, Dharamsala.
Research for this book was conducted primarily during the latter stay. In it, I have attempted to tell Tibet’s tale through the lives of those who have both defined and been governed by the major developments of recent history. To further illuminate the narrative, I have added a section depicting some measure of Tibetan civilization, the spiritual underpinnings of which permeate every facet of the country’s political life. Tibet’s entry into the modern world has been unsought, painful and prolonged, but in many ways inspiring as well. It is my hope that the principles of faith and forbearance that have sustained the Tibetan people through their most difficult time will convey them to a new and self-determined era in the not too distant future.
John F. Avedon
New York City