Tibet’s history has been a heady mixture of invasion and intrigue, of soaring religious debate and of reincarnation, miracles and murders, all taking place under the backdrop of one of the world’s most extreme environments. If one event has defined Tibet, it has been the nation’s remarkable transformation from warring expansionist empire to non-violent Buddhist nation. Running alongside Tibet’s history has been its knotty, intertwined relationship with its giant neighbour China.
The origins of the Tibetan people are not clearly known. Today Chinese historians claim the Tibetan people originally migrated from the present-day areas of the Qīnghǎi–Gānsù plains and were descended from people known as Qiang. Although there is evidence of westward migration, it is not possible to trace a single origin of the Tibetan people.
The Tibetan people have their own mythic stories explaining their origins. According to legend, the earth was covered in a vast sea; eventually the water receded and land appeared in the present-day Tsetang area in central Tibet. In a curious paralleling of evolution theory, the first humans were descendants of the union between a monkey and ogress (later identified as the emanations of Chenresig, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, and the goddess Drolma). The half-simian offspring eventually evolved into six families known as Se, Mu, Dong, Tong, Wra and Dru, who became the six clans of the Tibetan people.
As early myths of the origin of the Tibetan people suggest, the Yarlung Valley was the cradle of central Tibetan civilisation. The early Yarlung kings, although glorified in legend, were probably no more than chieftains whose domains extended not much further than the Yarlung Valley itself. A reconstruction of Tibet’s first fortress, Yumbulagang, can still be seen in the Yarlung Valley, and it is here that the 28th king of Tibet is said to have received Tibet’s first Buddhist scriptures in the 5th century AD, when they fell from heaven onto the roof of Yumbulagang.
By the 6th century the Yarlung kings, through conquest and alliances, had made significant headway in unifying much of central Tibet. Namri Songtsen (c 570–619), the 32nd Tibetan king, continued this trend and extended Tibetan influence into inner Asia, defeating the Qiang tribes on China’s borders. But the true flowering of Tibet as an important regional power came about with the accession to rule of Namri Songtsen’s son, Songtsen Gampo (r 629–49).
Under Songtsen Gampo the armies of Tibet ranged as far afield as northern India and threatened even the great Tang dynasty in China. Both Nepal and China reacted to the Tibetan incursions by reluctantly agreeing to alliances through marriage. Princess Wencheng, Songtsen Gampo’s Chinese bride, and Princess Bhrikuti, his Nepali bride, became important historical figures, as it was through their influence that Buddhism first gained royal patronage and a foothold on the Tibetan plateau.
Contact with the Chinese led to the introduction of astronomy and medicine, while a delegation sent to India brought back the basis for a Tibetan script. It was used in the first translations of Buddhist scriptures, in drafting a code of law and in writing the first histories of Tibet.
For two centuries after the reign of Songtsen Gampo, Tibet continued to grow in power and influence. By the time of King Trisong Detsen’s reign (r 755–97), Tibetan influence extended over Turkestan (modern-day Xīnjiāng), northern Pakistan, Nepal and India. In China, Tibetan armies conquered Gānsù and Sìchuān and gained brief control over the Silk Road, including the great Buddhist cave complex of Dūnhuáng.
The slippery notion of Shangri-la has been captivating foreigners for over 80 years now, but mention the phrase to a Tibetan and you’ll likely get little more than a blank stare. The origins of Shangri-la lie in James Hilton’s novel Lost Horizon, a post-WWI fable of a lost Himalayan utopia, where people live in harmony and never age. Hilton’s inspiration may well have been National Geographic articles on the remote kingdom of Muli in Kham, and may have even adapted the idea from Tibetan tradition.
Tibetan texts talk of Shambhala, a hidden land to the north whose king will eventually intervene to stop the world destroying itself. The notion of Shangri-la also bears strong similarities to the Tibetan tradition of baeyul, hidden lands visible only to the pure of heart that act as refuges in times of great crisis. Tibetan Buddhism also refers directly to various heavenly lands, from the Western Paradise of Ganden to Guru Rinpoche’s paradise of Zangtok Pelri.
Whatever the origins, Shangri-la is firmly lodged in the Western psyche. The name has been adopted as a hotel chain and even as a US presidential retreat. In 2001 the Chinese county of Zhōngdiàn upped the ante by renaming itself ‘Shanggelila’ to boost local tourism. Shangri-la is probably best filed under ‘M’ for the mythologising of Tibet, on the shelf in between levitating monks and yetis.
By the time Buddhism arrived in Tibet during the reign of Songtsen Gampo, it had already flourished for around 1100 years and had become the principal faith of all Tibet’s neighbouring countries. But it was slow to take hold in Tibet.
Early Indian missionaries, such as the famous Shantarakshita, faced great hostility from the Bön-dominated court. The influence of Songtsen Gampo’s Buddhist Chinese and Nepali wives was almost certainly limited to the royal court, and priests of the time were probably Indian and Chinese, not Tibetan.
It was not until King Trisong Detsen’s reign that Buddhism began to take root. Trisong Detsen was responsible for founding Samye Monastery, the first institution to carry out the crucial systematic translation of Buddhist scriptures and the training of Tibetan monks.
Contention over the path that Buddhism was to take in Tibet culminated in the Great Debate of Samye, in which King Trisong Detsen is said to have adjudicated in favour of Indian teachers over the Chan (Zen) approach of Chinese advocates. There was, however, considerable opposition to this institutionalised, clerical form of Buddhism, largely from supporters of the Bön faith. The next Tibetan king, Tritsug Detsen Ralpachen, was assassinated by his brother, Langdharma, who launched an attack on Buddhism. In 842 Langdharma was himself assassinated – by a Buddhist monk – and the Tibetan state soon collapsed into a number of warring principalities. In the confusion that followed, support for Buddhism dwindled and clerical monastic Buddhism experienced a 150-year hiatus.
Overwhelmed initially by local power struggles, Buddhism gradually began to exert its influence again. As the tide of Buddhist faith receded in India, Nepal and China, Tibet slowly emerged as the most devoutly Buddhist nation in the world. Never again was Tibet to rise to arms.
The so-called second diffusion of Buddhism corresponded with two developments. First, Tibetan teachers who had taken refuge in Kham, to the east, returned to central Tibet in the late 10th century and established new monasteries. The second great catalyst was the arrival of two figures in far western Tibet: the Bengali Buddhist scholar Atisha (Jowo-je in Tibetan; 982–1054), whom the kings of Guge in far western Tibet invited to Tibet in the mid-11th century; and the great translator Rinchen Zangpo (958–1055), who after travelling to India brought back Buddhist texts and founded dozens of monasteries in the far west. Travellers can still get a sense of the glory years of the kingdom of Guge at the spectacular site of Tsaparang and at Thöling Monastery.
Back in central Tibet disciples of Atisha, chiefly Dromtönpa, were instrumental in establishing the Kadampa order and such early monasteries as Reting.
With the assassination of Tritsug Detsen Ralpachen and the collapse of a central Tibetan state, Tibet’s contacts with China withered. By the time the Tang dynasty collapsed in 907, China had already recovered almost all the territory it had previously lost to the Tibetans. Throughout the Song dynasty (960–1276) the two nations had virtually no contact with each other, and Tibet’s sole foreign contacts were with its southern Buddhist neighbours.
This was all to change when Chinggis (Genghis) Khaan launched a series of conquests in 1206 that led to a vast Mongol empire that straddled Central Asia and China. By 1239 the Mongols started to send raiding parties onto the Tibetan plateau. Numerous monasteries were razed and the Mongols almost reached Lhasa, before turning back.
Tibetan accounts have it that returning Mongol troops related the spiritual eminence of the Tibetan lamas to Godan Khan, grandson of Chinggis Khaan and ruler of the Kokonor region (which means ‘Blue Sea’ in Mongolian) in modern-day Qīnghǎi. In response Godan summoned Sakya Pandita, the head of Sakya Monastery, to his court. The outcome of this meeting was the beginning of a blurry priest-patron (cho-yon) relationship that has come to dog the definitions of Tibetan independence and its relationship to China. Tibetan Buddhism became the state religion of the Mongol empire in east Asia, and the head Sakya lama became its spiritual leader, a position that also entailed temporal authority over Tibet. The Sakyapa ascendancy lasted less than 100 years but its ties to the Mongol Yuan dynasty was to have profound effects on Tibet’s future.
A Sino-Tibetan treaty was signed in 822 during the reign of King Tritsug Detsen Ralpachen (r 817–35), heralding an era in which ‘Tibetans shall be happy in Tibet and Chinese shall be happy in China’. It was immortalised in stone on three steles: one in Lhasa, outside the Jokhang; one in the Chinese capital of Chang’an; and one on the border of Tibet and China. Only the Lhasa stele still stands, in Barkhor Square.
Signatories to the treaty swore that ‘…the whole region to the east…being the country of Great China and the whole region to the west being assuredly that of the country of Great Tibet, from either side of that frontier there shall be no warfare, no hostile invasions, and no seizure of territory…’.
Certain Chinese claims on Tibet have looked to the Mongol Yuan dynasty overlordship of the high plateau, and the priest-patron relationship existing at the time, as setting a precedent for Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. The Yuan dynasty may have claimed sovereignty over Tibet, yet this ‘Chinese’ dynasty was itself governed by the invading Mongols and their ruler Kublai Khan. Pro-independence supporters state that this is like India claiming sovereignty over Myanmar (Burma) because both were ruled by the British.
In reality, Tibetan submission was offered to the Mongols before they conquered China and it ended when the Mongols fell from power in that country. When the Mongol empire disintegrated, both China and Tibet regained their independence. Due to the initial weakness of the Ming dynasty, Sino-Tibetan relations effectively took on the form of exchanges of diplomatic courtesies by two independent governments.
The Tibetans undertook to remove all traces of the Mongol administration, drawing on the traditions of the former Yarlung kings. Officials were required to dress in the manner of the former royal court, a revised version of King Songtsen Gampo’s code of law was enacted, a new taxation system was enforced, and scrolls depicting the glories of the Yarlung dynasty were commissioned. The movement was a declaration of Tibet’s independence from foreign interference and a search for national identity.
In 1374 a young man named Lobsang, later known as Tsongkhapa, set out from his home near Kokonor in Amdo to central Tibet, where he undertook training with all the major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. By the time he was 25 he had already gained a reputation as a teacher and a writer.
Tsongkhapa established a monastery at Ganden, near Lhasa, where he refined his thinking, steering clear of political intrigue, and espousing doctrinal purity and monastic discipline. Although it seems unlikely that Tsongkhapa intended to found another school of Buddhism, his teachings attracted many disciples, who found his return to the original teachings of Atisha an exciting alternative to the politically tainted Sakyapa and Kagyupa orders. Tsongkhapa’s movement became known as the Gelugpa (Virtuous) order, which today remains the dominant school in Tibet.
By the time of the third reincarnated head of the Gelugpa, Sonam Gyatso (1543–88), the Mongols began to take a renewed interest in Tibet’s new and increasingly powerful order. In a move that mirrored the 13th-century Sakyapa entrance into the political arena, Sonam Gyatso accepted an invitation to meet with Altyn Khan near Kokonor in 1578. At the meeting, Sonam Gyatso received the title of dalai, meaning ‘ocean’, and implying ‘ocean of wisdom’. The title was retrospectively bestowed on his previous two reincarnations, and so Sonam Gyatso became the third Dalai Lama.
Their relationship with the Mongols marked the Gelugpa’s entry into the turbulent waters of worldly affairs. It is no surprise that the Tsang kings and the Karmapa of Tsurphu Monastery saw this Gelugpa-Mongol alliance as a direct threat to their power. Bickering ensued, and in 1611 the Tsang king attacked Drepung and Sera Monasteries as the country slid into civil war. The fourth (Mongolian) Dalai Lama fled central Tibet and died at the age of 25 in 1616.
A successor to the fourth Dalai Lama was soon discovered, and the boy was brought to Lhasa, again under Mongol escort. In the meantime, Mongol intervention in Tibetan affairs continued in the guise of support for the embattled Gelugpa order.
Unlike the Sakya-Mongol domination of Tibet, under which the head Sakya lama was required to reside in the Mongol court, the fifth Dalai Lama was able to rule from within Tibet. With the backing of the Mongol Gushri Khan, all of Tibet was pacified by 1656, and the Dalai Lama’s control ranged from Mt Kailash in the west to Kham in the east. Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso, the fifth Dalai Lama, had become both the spiritual and temporal sovereign of a unified Tibet.
The fifth Dalai Lama is remembered as having ushered in a great new age for Tibet. He made a tour of Tibet’s monasteries, and although he stripped most Kadampa monasteries – his chief rivals for power – of their riches, he allowed them to re-establish. A new flurry of monastic construction began, the major achievement being Labrang Monastery (in what is now Gānsù province). In Lhasa, work began on a fitting residence for the head of the Tibetan state: the Potala.
With the death of the fifth Dalai Lama in 1682, the weakness of reincarnation as a system of succession became apparent. The Tibetan government was confronted with the prospect of finding his reincarnation and then waiting 18 years until the boy came of age. The great personal prestige and authority of the fifth Dalai Lama had played no small part in holding together a newly unified Tibet. The Dalai Lama’s regent decided to shroud the Dalai Lama’s death in secrecy, announcing that the fifth lama had entered a long period of meditation (over 10 years!).
In 1695 the secret was leaked and the regent was forced to hastily enthrone the sixth Dalai Lama, a boy of his own choosing. The choice was an unfortunate one and could not have come at a worse time.
Tibet’s dealings with the new Qing government went awry from the start. Kangxi, the second Qing emperor, took offence when the death of the fifth Dalai Lama was concealed from him. At the same time, an ambitious Mongol prince named Lhabzang Khan came to the conclusion that earlier Mongol leaders had taken too much of a back-seat position in their relations with the Tibetans and appealed to Emperor Kangxi for support. It was granted and, in 1705, Mongol forces descended on Lhasa, deposing the sixth Dalai Lama. Depending on your source, he either died at Lithang (where he was probably murdered), or he lived to a ripe old age in Amdo. The seventh Dalai Lama was subsequently found in Lithang, fulfilling a famous poem written by the sixth.
In 1717 the Dzungar Mongols from Central Asia attacked and occupied Lhasa for three years, killing Lhabzang Khan and deposing the seventh Dalai Lama. The resulting confusion in Tibet was the opportunity for which Emperor Kangxi had been waiting. He responded by sending a military expedition to Lhasa. The Chinese troops drove out the Dzungar Mongols and were received by the Tibetans as liberators. They were unlikely to have been received any other way: with them, they brought the seventh Dalai Lama, who had been languishing in Kumbum Monastery under Chinese ‘protection’.
Emperor Kangxi wasted no time in declaring Tibet a protectorate of China. Two Chinese representatives, known as ambans (a Manchurian word), were installed at Lhasa, along with a garrison of Chinese troops. It was just a beginning, leading to two centuries of Manchu overlordship and serving as a historical precedent for the communist takeover nearly 250 years later.
Thangtong Gyalpo (1385–1464) was Tibet’s Renaissance man par excellence. Nyingmapa yogi, treasure finder, engineer, medic and inventor of Tibetan opera, Thangtong formed a song-and-dance troupe of seven sisters to raise money for his other passion, bridge building. He eventually built 108 bridges in Tibet, the most famous of which was over the Yarlung Tsangpo near modern-day Chushul. Thangtong is often depicted in monastery murals with long white hair and a beard, and is usually holding a section of chain links from one of his bridges.
The seventh Dalai Lama ruled until his death in 1757. However, at this point it became clear that another ruler would have to be appointed until the next Dalai Lama reached adulthood. The post of regent (gyeltshab) was created.
It is perhaps a poor reflection on the spiritual attainment of the lamas appointed as regents that few were willing to relinquish the reins once they were in the saddle. In the 120 years between the death of the seventh Dalai Lama and the adulthood of the 13th, actual power was wielded by the Dalai Lamas for only seven years. Three of them died very young and under suspicious circumstances. Only the eighth Dalai Lama survived into his adulthood, living a quiet, contemplative life until the age of 45.
There are thought to be several thousand trulku (also spelt tulku; ‘incarnate lamas’) in Tibet. The abbots of many monasteries are trulku, and thus abbotship can be traced back through a lineage of rebirths to the original founder of a monastery. The honorific rinpoche, meaning ‘very precious’, is a mark of respect and does not necessarily imply that the holder is a trulku. The Chinese use the confused translation ‘Living Buddha’ for trulku.
A trulku can also be a manifestation of a bodhisattva that repeatedly expresses itself through a series of rebirths. The most famous manifestation of a deity is, of course, the Dalai Lama lineage. The Dalai Lamas are manifestations of Chenresig (Avalokiteshvara), the Bodhisattva of Compassion. The Panchen Lama is a manifestation of Jampelyang (Manjushri), the Bodhisattva of Insight. There is no exclusivity in such a manifestation: Tsongkhapa, founder of the Gelugpa order, was also a manifestation of Jampelyang (Manjushri), as traditionally were the abbots of Sakya Monastery.
Lamas approaching death often leave behind clues pointing to the location of their reincarnation. Potential reincarnations are often further tested by being required to pick out the former lama’s possessions from a collection of objects. Disputes over trulku status are not uncommon. A family’s fortunes are likely to drastically improve if an incarnate lama is discovered among the children; this creates an incentive for fraud.
It is possible to see in the trulku system a substitute for the system of hereditary power (as in Western royal lineages) in a society where, historically, many of the major players were celibate and unable to produce their own heirs. Not that celibacy was exclusively the case. The abbots of Sakya took wives to produce their own trulku reincarnations, and it is not uncommon for rural trulkus to do the same.
The major flaw in the system is the time needed for the reincarnation to reach adulthood. Regents have traditionally been appointed to run the country during the minority of a Dalai Lama but this tradition takes on an added dimension under modern political circumstances. The current Dalai Lama has made it clear that he will not be reincarnated in Chinese-occupied Tibet and may even be the last Dalai Lama.
Early contact between Britain and Tibet commenced with a mission to Shigatse headed by a Scotsman, George Bogle, in 1774. Bogle soon ingratiated himself with the Panchen Lama – to the extent of marrying one of his sisters. With the death of the third Panchen Lama in 1780 and the ban on foreign contact that came after the Gurkha invasion of Tibet in 1788, Britain lost all official contact with Tibet.
Meanwhile, Britain watched nervously as the Russian empire swallowed up Central Asia, pushing its borders 1000km further towards India. The reported arrival of Russian ‘adviser’ Agvan Dorjieff in Lhasa exacerbated fears that Russia had military designs on British India, the ‘jewel in the crown’ of the empire.
When Dorjieff led an envoy from the Dalai Lama to Tsar Nicholas II in 1898, 1900 and 1901, and when British intelligence confirmed that Lhasa had received Russian missions (while similar British advances had been refused), the Raj broke into a cold sweat. There was even wild conjecture that the tsar was poised to convert to Buddhism.
It was against this background that Russophobe Lord Curzon, viceroy of India, decided to nip Russian designs in the bud. In late 1903, a British military expedition led by Colonel Francis Younghusband entered Tibet via Sikkim. After several months waiting for a Tibetan delegation, the British moved on to Lhasa, where it was discovered that the Dalai Lama had fled to Mongolia with Dorjieff. However, an Anglo-Tibetan convention was signed following negotiations with Tri Rinpoche, the abbot of Ganden whom the Dalai Lama had appointed as regent in his absence. British forces withdrew after spending just two months in Lhasa.
The missing link in the Anglo-Tibetan accord was a Manchu signature. In effect, the accord implied that Tibet was a sovereign power and therefore had the right to make treaties of its own. The Manchus objected and, in 1906, the British signed a second accord with the Manchus, one that recognised China’s suzerainty over Tibet. In 1910, with the Manchu Qing dynasty teetering on collapse, the Manchus made good on the accord and invaded Tibet, forcing the Dalai Lama once again into flight – this time into the arms of the British in India.
In 1911 a revolution finally toppled the decadent Qing dynasty in China, and by the end of 1912 the last of the occupying Manchu forces were escorted out of Tibet. In January 1913 the 13th Dalai Lama returned to Lhasa from Sikkim.
In reply to overtures from the government of the new Chinese republic, the Dalai Lama replied that he was uninterested in ranks bestowed by the Chinese and that he was assuming temporal and spiritual leadership of his country.
Tibetans have since read this reply as a formal declaration of independence. As for the Chinese, they chose to ignore it, reporting that the Dalai Lama had responded with a letter expressing his great love for the motherland. Whatever the case, Tibet was to enjoy 30 years free of interference from China. What is more, Tibet was suddenly presented with an opportunity to create a state that was ready to rise to the challenge of the modern world. The opportunity foundered on Tibet’s entrenched theocratic institutions, and Tibetan independence was a short-lived affair.
Tsangyang Gyatso (1683–1706), the young man from Tawang (in modern-day India) chosen as the sixth Dalai Lama, was, shall we say, unconventional. A sensual youth with long hair and a penchant for erotic verse, he soon proved himself to be far more interested in wine and women than meditation and study. He refused to take his final vows as a monk and he would often sneak out of the Potala at night to raise hell in the inns and brothels of Lhasa, under the pseudonym Norsang Wangpo. A resident Jesuit monk described him as a ‘dissolute youth’ and ‘quite depraved’, noting that ‘no good-looking person of either sex was safe from his unbridled licentiousness’.
During the period of his flight to India, the 13th Dalai Lama had become friends with Sir Charles Bell, a Tibetan scholar and political officer in Sikkim. The relationship was to initiate a warming in Anglo-Tibetan affairs and to see the British playing an increasingly important role as mediators between Tibet and China.
In 1920 Bell was dispatched on a mission to Lhasa, where he renewed his friendship with the Dalai Lama. It was agreed that the British would supply the Tibetans with modern arms, providing they agreed to use them only for self-defence. Tibetan military officers were trained in Gyantse and India, and a telegraph line was set up linking Lhasa and Shigatse. Other developments included the construction of a small hydroelectric station near Lhasa and the establishment of an English school at Gyantse. Four Tibetan boys were even sent to public school at Rugby in England. At the invitation of the Dalai Lama, British experts conducted geological surveys of parts of Tibet with a view to gauging mining potential.
It is highly likely that the 13th Dalai Lama’s trips away from his country had made him realise that it was imperative that Tibet begin to modernise. At the same time he must also have been aware that the road to modernisation was fraught with obstacles, foremost of which was the entrenched Tibetan social order.
Since the rise of the Gelugpa order, Tibet had been ruled as a (some would say feudal) theocracy. Monks, particularly those in the huge monastic complexes of Drepung and Sera in Lhasa, were accustomed to a high degree of influence in the Tibetan government. And the attempts to modernise were met with intense opposition.
Before too long, the 13th Dalai Lama’s innovations fell victim to a conservative backlash. Newly trained Tibetan officers were reassigned to nonmilitary jobs, causing a rapid deterioration of military discipline; a newly established police force was left to its own devices and soon became ineffective; the English school at Gyantse was closed down; and a mail service set up by the British was stopped.
However, Tibet’s brief period of independence was troubled by more than just an inability to modernise. Conflict sprang up between the Panchen Lama and the Dalai Lama over the autonomy of Tashilhunpo Monastery and its estates. The Panchen Lama, after appealing to the British to mediate, fled to China, where he stayed for 14 years until his death.
In 1933 the 13th Dalai Lama died, leaving the running of the country to the regent of Reting. The present (14th) Dalai Lama was discovered in Amdo but was brought to Lhasa only after the local Chinese commander had been paid off with a huge ‘fee’ of 300,000 Chinese dollars. The boy was renamed Tenzin Gyatso and he was installed as the Dalai Lama on 22 February 1940, aged 4½.
In 1947 an attempted coup d’état, known as the Reting Conspiracy, rocked Lhasa. Lhasa came close to civil war, with 200 monks killed in gunfights at Sera Monastery. Reting Rinpoche was thrown into jail for his part in the rebellion and was later found dead in his cell, though it remains unclear whether he was set up or not.
It was not a good time for Tibet to be weakened by internal disputes. By 1949 the Chinese Nationalist government had fled to Taiwan and Mao Zedong and his Red Army had taken control of China. Big changes were looming.
Unknown to the Tibetans, the communist takeover of China was to open what is probably the saddest chapter in Tibetan history. The ensuing Chinese ‘liberation’ of Tibet eventually led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Tibetans, an assault on the Tibetan traditional way of life, the flight of the Dalai Lama to India and the destruction of almost every historical structure on the plateau. The chief culprits were Chinese ethnic chauvinism and an epidemic of social anarchy known as the Cultural Revolution.
On 7 October 1950, just a year after the communist takeover of China, 40,000 battle-hardened Chinese troops attacked central Tibet from six different directions. The Tibetan army, a poorly equipped force of around 4000 men, stood little chance of resisting, and any attempt at defence soon collapsed. In Lhasa, the Tibetan government reacted by enthroning the 15-year-old 14th Dalai Lama, an action that brought jubilation and dancing on the streets but did little to protect Tibet from advancing Chinese troops.
Presented with a seemingly hopeless situation, the Dalai Lama dispatched a mission to Běijīng with orders that it refer all decisions to Lhasa. As it turned out, there were no decisions to be made. The Chinese had already drafted an agreement. The Tibetans had two choices: sign on the dotted line or face further military action.
The 17-point Agreement on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet promised a one-country-two-systems structure much like that offered later to Hong Kong and Macau, but provided little in the way of guarantees. The Tibetan delegates protested that they were unauthorised to sign such an agreement but were strongarmed and the agreement was ratified.
Initially, the Chinese occupation of central Tibet was carried out in an orderly way, with few obvious changes or reforms, but tensions inevitably mounted. The presence of 8000 Chinese troops in Lhasa (doubling the city’s population) soon affected food stores and gave rise to high inflation. Rumours of political indoctrination, massacres and attacks on monasteries in Kham (far eastern Tibet) slowly began to filter back to Lhasa.
In 1956 uprisings broke out in eastern Tibet in reaction to enforced land reform, and in 1957 and 1958 protests and armed guerrilla revolt spread to central Tibet (with covert CIA assistance). With a heavy heart, the Dalai Lama returned to Lhasa in March 1957 from a trip to India to celebrate the 2500th anniversary of the birth of the Buddha. It seemed inevitable that Tibet would explode in revolt and equally inevitable that it would be suppressed by China.
The Tibetan New Year of 1959, like all the New Year celebrations before it, attracted huge crowds to Lhasa, doubling the city’s population. In addition to the standard festival activities, the Chinese had added a highlight of their own – a performance by a Chinese dance group at the Lhasa military base. The invitation to the Dalai Lama came in the form of a thinly veiled command. The Dalai Lama, wishing to avoid offence, accepted.
As preparations for the performance drew near, however, the Dalai Lama’s security chief was surprised to hear that the Dalai Lama was expected to attend in secrecy and without his customary contingent of 25 bodyguards. Despite the Dalai Lama’s agreement to these conditions, news of them soon leaked, and in no time simmering frustration at Chinese rule came to the boil among the crowds on the streets. It seemed obvious to the Tibetans that the Chinese were about to kidnap the Dalai Lama. A huge crowd (witnesses claim 30,000 people) gathered around the Norbulingka (the Dalai Lama’s summer palace) and swore to protect him with their lives.
The Dalai Lama had no choice but to cancel his appointment at the military base. In the meantime, the crowds on the streets were swollen by Tibetan soldiers, who changed out of their People’s Liberation Army (PLA) uniforms and started to hand out weapons. A group of government ministers announced that the 17-point agreement was null and void, and that Tibet renounced the authority of China.
The Dalai Lama was powerless to intervene, managing only to pen some conciliatory letters to the Chinese as his people prepared for battle on Lhasa’s streets. In a last-ditch effort to prevent bloodshed, the Dalai Lama even offered himself to the Chinese. The reply came in the sound of two mortar shells exploding in the gardens of the Norbulingka. The attack made it obvious that the only option remaining to the Dalai Lama was flight (a measure the Nechung oracle agreed with). On 17 March he left the Norbulingka disguised as a soldier and surrounded by Khampa body-guards; 14 days later he was in India. The Dalai Lama was 24 years old.
With both the Chinese and the Tibetans unaware of the Dalai Lama’s departure, tensions continued to mount in Lhasa. On 20 March Chinese troops began to shell the Norbulingka and the crowds surrounding it, killing hundreds of people. Artillery bombed the Potala, Sera Monastery and the medical college on Chagpo Ri. Tibetans armed with petrol bombs were picked off by Chinese snipers, and when a crowd of 10,000 Tibetans retreated into the sacred precincts of the Jokhang, that too was bombed. It is thought that after three days of violence, hundreds of Tibetans lay dead in Lhasa’s streets. Some estimates put the numbers of those killed far higher.
In spring 1950, Chamdo in eastern Tibet was in real trouble. Although pockets of resistance remained at Derge and Markham, the communist Chinese had taken control of most of Kham without a fight. Chinese armies were quickly tightening the noose around Tibet, moving in from Xīnjiāng and Xikang (now Sìchuān) provinces in a pincer movement masterminded by, among others, Deng Xiaoping.
The first skirmish between Chinese and Tibetan troops took place in May 1950 when the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) attacked Dengo on the Dri-chu (Yangzi River). Then on 7 October 1950 the PLA moved in earnest, as 40,000 troops crossed the Dri-chu and attacked Chamdo from three directions: Jyekundo to the north, Derge to the east and Markham to the south.
As panic swept through Chamdo, the city responded to the military threat in characteristic Tibetan fashion – with a frenzy of prayer and religious ritual. When the local Tibetan leader radioed the Tibetan government in Lhasa to warn of the Chinese invasion, he was coolly told that the government members couldn’t be disturbed because they were ‘on a picnic’. To this the Chamdo radio operator is said to have replied ‘skyag pa’i gling kha!’, or ‘shit on your picnic!’. It was to be an inauspicious last ever communication between the Chamdo and Lhasa branches of the Tibetan government.
The city was evacuated but the PLA was one step ahead. Chinese leaders knew that speed was of the essence (the Chinese described the military operation as ‘like a tiger trying to catch a fly’) and had already cut the Tibetans off by taking Riwoche. The Tibetans surrendered without a shot on 19 October. The Tibetan troops were disarmed, given lectures on the benefits of socialism, then given money and sent home. The British radio operator Robert Ford, who was based in Chamdo, was less lucky. He was arrested, subjected to thought reform and held in jail for five years. It was the beginning of the end of an independent Tibet.
The Chinese quickly consolidated their quelling of the Lhasa uprising by taking control of all the high passes between Tibet and India and disarming the Khampa guerrillas. As the Chinese themselves put it, they were liberating Tibet from reactionary forces, freeing serfs from the yoke of monastic oppression and ushering in a new equitable socialist society, whether the Tibetans liked it or not.
The Chinese abolished the Tibetan government and set about reordering Tibetan society in accordance with their Marxist principles. The monks and the aristocrats were put to work on menial jobs and subjected to violent ideological struggle sessions, known as thamzing, which sometimes resulted in death. A ferment of class struggle was whipped up and former feudal exploiters – towards some of whom Tibet’s poor may have harboured genuine resentment – were subjected to cruel punishments.
The Chinese also turned their attention to Tibet’s several thousand ‘feudal’ monasteries, lhakhangs (chapels) and shrines. Tibetans were refused permission to donate food to the monasteries, and monks were compelled to join struggle sessions, discard their robes and marry. Monasteries were stripped of their riches, Buddhist scriptures were burnt and used as toilet paper. The wholesale destruction of Tibet’s monastic heritage began in earnest.
Notable in this litany of disasters was the Chinese decision to alter Tibetan farming practices, as part of an economic ‘Great Leap Forward’. Instead of barley, the Tibetan staple, farmers were instructed to grow wheat and rice. Tibetans protested that these crops were unsuited to Tibet’s high altitude. They were right, and mass starvation resulted. It is estimated that by late 1961, 70,000 Tibetans had died or were dying of starvation. Across China it is estimated that up to 35 million people died.
By September 1961 even the Chinese-groomed Panchen Lama began to have a change of heart. He presented Mao Zedong with a 70,000-character report on the hardships his people were suffering and also requested, among other things, religious freedom and an end to the sacking of Tibetan monasteries. Four years later he was to disappear into a high-security prison for a 14-year stay. Many more would soon join him.
Among the writings of Mao Zedong is a piece entitled ‘On Going Too Far’. It is a subject on which he was particularly well qualified to write. What started as a power struggle between Mao and Liu Shaoqi in 1965 had morphed by August 1966 into the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, an anarchic movement that was to shake China to its core, trample its traditions underfoot, cause countless deaths and turn the running of the country over to rival mobs of Red Guards. All of China suffered in Mao’s bold experiment in creating a new socialist paradise, but Tibet suffered more than most.
The first Red Guards arrived in Lhasa in July 1966. Two months later, the first rally was organised and Chinese-educated Tibetan youths raided the Jokhang, smashing statues and burning thangkas. It was the beginning of the large-scale destruction of virtually every religious monument in Tibet, and was carried out in the spirit of destroying the ‘Four Olds’: old thinking, old culture, old habits and old customs. Images of Chairman Mao were plastered over those of Buddha, as Buddhist mantras were replaced by communist slogans. The Buddha himself was accused of being a ‘reactionary’.
Tibetan farmers were forced to collectivise into communes and were told what to grow and when to grow it. Anyone who objected was arrested and subjected to struggle sessions, during which Tibetans were forced to denounce the Dalai Lama as a parasite and traitor.
By the time of Mao’s death in 1976 even the Chinese had begun to realise that their rule in Tibet had taken a wrong turn. Mao’s chosen successor, Hua Guofeng, decided to soften the government’s line on Tibet and called for a revival of Tibetan customs. In mid-1977 China announced that it would welcome the return of the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan refugees, and shortly afterwards the Panchen Lama was released from 14 years of imprisonment.
The Tibetan government-in-exile received cautiously the invitation to return to Tibet, and the Dalai Lama suggested that he be allowed to send a fact-finding mission to Tibet first. To the surprise of all involved, the Chinese agreed. As the Dalai Lama remarked in his autobiography, Freedom in Exile, it seemed that the Chinese were of the opinion that the mission members would find such happiness in their homeland that ‘they would see no point in remaining in exile’. In fact, the results of the mission were so damning that the Dalai Lama decided not to publish them. Nevertheless, two more missions followed. They claimed up to 1.2 million deaths (one in six Tibetans, according to the disputed report), the destruction of 6254 monasteries and nunneries (also disputed), the absorption of two-thirds of Tibet into China, 100,000 Tibetans in labour camps and extensive deforestation.
In China, Hua Guofeng’s short-lived political ascendancy had been eclipsed by Deng Xiaoping’s rise to power. In 1980 Deng sent Hu Yaobang on a Chinese fact-finding mission that coincided with the visits of those sent by the Tibetan government-in-exile. Hu’s conclusions, while not as damning as those of the Tibetans, painted a grim picture of life on the roof of the world. A six-point plan to improve the living conditions and freedoms of the Tibetans was drawn up, taxes were dropped for two years and limited private enterprise was allowed. The Jokhang was reopened for two days a month in 1978; the Potala opened in 1980. As in the rest of China, the government embarked on a program of extended personal and economic freedoms in concert with authoritarian one-party rule.
The early 1980s saw the return of limited religious freedoms. Monasteries that had not been reduced to piles of rubble began to reopen and some religious artefacts were returned to Tibet from China.
Importantly, there was also a relaxation of the Chinese proscription on pilgrimage. Pictures of the Dalai Lama began to reappear on the streets of Lhasa. Talks aimed at bringing the Dalai Lama back into the ambit of Chinese influence continued, but with little result. Tibet, according to the Chinese government, became the ‘front line of the struggle against splittism’, a line that continues to be the official government position to this day.
In 1986 a new influx of foreigners arrived in Tibet, with the Chinese beginning to loosen restrictions on tourism. The trickle of tour groups and individual travellers soon became a flood. For the first time since the Chinese takeover, visitors from the West were given the opportunity to see the results of Chinese rule in Tibet.
When in September 1987 a group of 30 monks from Sera Monastery began circumambulating the Jokhang and crying out ‘Independence for Tibet’ and ‘Long live his Holiness the Dalai Lama’, their ranks were swollen by bystanders and arrests followed. Four days later, another group of monks repeated their actions, this time brandishing Tibetan flags. The monks were beaten and arrested. With Western tourists looking on, a crowd of 2000 to 3000 angry Tibetans gathered. Police vehicles were overturned and Chinese police began firing on the crowd.
The Chinese response was swift. Communications with the outside world were broken but this failed to prevent further protests in the following months. The Mönlam festival of March 1988 saw shooting in the streets of Lhasa, and that December a Dutch traveller was shot in the shoulder; 18 Tibetans died and 150 were wounded in the disturbances.
By the mid-1970s the Dalai Lama had become a prominent international figure, working tirelessly from his government-in-exile in Dharamsala to make the world more aware of his people’s plight. In 1987 he addressed the US Congress and outlined a five-point peace plan.
The plan called for Tibet to be established as a ‘zone of peace’; for the policy of Han immigration to Tibet to be abandoned; for a return to basic human rights and democratic freedoms; for the protection of Tibet’s natural heritage and an end to the dumping of nuclear waste on the high plateau; and for joint discussions between the Chinese and the Tibetans on the future of Tibet. The Chinese denounced the plan as an example of ‘splittism’. They gave the same response when, a year later, the Dalai Lama elaborated on the speech before the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, dropping demands for full independence in favour of a form of autonomy and offering the Chinese the right to govern Tibet’s foreign and military affairs.
On 5 March 1989, three months before the student demonstrations in Běijīng’s Tiān’ānmén Square, Lhasa erupted in the largest anti-Chinese demonstration since 1959. Běijīng reacted strongly, declaring martial law in Tibet, which lasted for more than a year. Despairing elements in the exiled Tibetan community began to talk of the need to take up arms. It was an option that the Dalai Lama had consistently opposed. His efforts to achieve peace and freedom for his people were recognised on 4 October 1989, when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
In January 1989, after denouncing the Communist Party’s policies in Tibet and while visiting Tashilhunpo, the traditional seat of all the Panchen Lamas, the 10th Panchen Lama died, triggering a succession crisis that remains unresolved. The Dalai Lama identified the 11th Panchen Lama in 1995, whereupon the Chinese authorities detained the boy and his family (who have not been seen since) and orchestrated the choice of their own preferred candidate. The Chinese began to toughen their policy towards the Dalai Lama and launched the anti–Dalai Lama campaign inside Tibet, compelling all government officials and monks to denounce the Dalai Lama.
The Chinese authorities believe that one of the reasons for continuing separatist sentiments and opposition is Tibet’s lack of integration with China. The solution since the mid-1980s has been to encourage Han immigration to the high plateau, a policy already successfully carried out in Xīnjiāng, Inner Mongolia and Qīnghǎi. As Běijīng attempts to shift the economic gains of the east coast to its underdeveloped hinterland, hundreds of thousands of Han Chinese have taken advantage of attractive salaries and interest-free loans to ‘modernise’ the backward province of Tibet. By the end of the millennium Tibetans were facing the fastest and deepest-reaching changes in their history.
28,000 BC
The Tibetan plateau is covered in ice. It’s cold. Very cold. But there are people living there. Tools, stone blades and hunting instruments are in use in Chupsang, 85km from Lhasa.
300 BC
Throughout the plateau people are building stone dwellings and producing fine pottery; petroglyphs indicate that Buddhism may have started to spread by this time.
c 600
Nyatri Tsenpo, the first king of Tibet, founds the Yarlung dynasty and unifies the people and the land; according to legend he is responsible for the first building in Tibet.
608
The first mission is sent to the court of Chinese Emperor Yangdi. This brings Tibet in direct contact with China and sees increasing Tibetan interest in the frontier of China.
629
Namri Songtsen is assassinated and his son, Songtsen Gampo, aged 13, inherits the throne. He will be regarded as the founder of the Tibetan empire and a cultural hero for the Tibetan people.
640s
Songtsen Gampo marries Chinese Princess Wencheng and Nepalese Princess Bhrikuti. They are credited with bringing Buddhism, silk weaving and new methods of agriculture to Tibet.
7th century
The Tibetan empire stretches to include north Pakistan and the Silk Road cities of Khotan and Dūnhuáng.
763
Trisong Detsen attacks the Chinese capital Chang’an (Xī’ān) after a Chinese tribute of 50,000 bolts of silk is late.
790s
Samye’s Great Debate takes place, as Tibet chooses between the Indian and Chinese schools of Buddhist teachings.
822
The Sino-Tibetan treaty is signed, defining China’s and Tibet’s boundaries on largely Tibetan terms. The bilingual inscription of the treaty is erected on a stele outside the Jokhang.
842
Monk Lhalung Palgye Dorje assassinates anti-Buddhist king Langdharma in disguise. The event is still commemorated by the Black Hat Dance performed during monastic festivals.
996
Thöling Monastery is founded in far western Tibet and becomes the main centre of Buddhist activities in Tibet, translating large numbers of Buddhist texts from Kashmir.
1073
The Khon family, which traces its lineage from the nobility of the Yarlung dynasty, founds the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism. The family remains the hereditary head of Sakya tradition to this day.
1110–1193
The first Karmapa introduces the concept of reincarnation, which eventually spreads to other schools of Tibetan Buddhism and to the institution of the Dalai Lamas.
1201
Sakya Pandita (1182–1251) travels to India, studying under Indian gurus. He becomes a great religious and cultural figure, creating a Tibetan literary tradition inspired by Sanskrit poetry.
1249
Sakya Pandita becomes the spiritual advisor to Godon Khan and converts the Mongols to Buddhism. Godon invests Sakya Pandita as the secular ruler of Tibet.
1260
Kublai Khan appoints Phagpa as an imperial preceptor. This ushers in what the Tibetans call the priest–patron relationship between Mongol khans, later Chinese emperors and Tibetan lamas.
1268
The first census of central Tibet counts some 40,000 households. Basic taxation and a new administrative system is established in Tibet.
1290
Kublai Khan’s army supports the Sakya and destroys the main centres of the Kagyud school. With the death of Kublai Khan in 1294, the power of the Sakya school begins to wane.
1357–1419
Tsongkhapa establishes himself as a reformer, founds the reformist Gelugpa school, writes the influential Lamrin Chenpo and introduces the popular Mönlam festival.
1368
The Mongol Yuan dynasty in China ends, and the Ming dynasty begins. This coincides with the final demise of Sakya rule in Tibet.
1565
The kings of Tsang became secular rulers of Tibet from Shigatse. Spiritual authority at this time is vested in the Karmapa, head of a Kagyupa suborder at Tsurphu Monastery.
1578
Mongolian Altyn (Altan) Khan converts to Buddhism and bestows the title ‘Dalai Lama’ to Sonam Gyatso, who becomes the third Dalai Lama (the first two are honoured retroactively).
1601
The Mongolian great-grandson of Altyn Khan is recognised by the Panchen Lama as the fourth Dalai Lama. This establishes the tradition of the Dalai Lamas being recognised by the Panchen.
1624
Jesuits open their first mission at Tsaparang in far western Tibet after an epic journey across the Himalaya from bases in Goa.
1640–42
Mongolian Gushri Khan executes the King of Tsang and hands over religious and secular power to the fifth Dalai Lama. Lhasa becomes the capital and construction begins on the Potala.
1652
The Manchu Emperor Shunzhi invites the fifth Dalai Lama to China; to mark the occasion the Yellow Temple is built on the outskirts of Běijīng.
1695
Completion of Potala Palace. The death of the fifth Dalai Lama is announced the following year, though in reality he had died 15 years previously.
1706
Lhabzang Khan’s army marches into Lhasa, deposes (and likely poisons) the sixth Dalai Lama and installs Yeshi Gyatso, who is not accepted by Tibetans as a Dalai Lama.
1716–21
Italian priest Ippolito Desideri travels to the Guge kingdom and Lhasa, where he lives for five years, trying to convert Tibetans to Catholicism. He is the first Westerner to see Mt Kailash.
1724
The Manchu Qing dynasty appoints a resident Chinese amban (official) to run Tibet.
1774
Scotsman George Bogle, aged 27, travels to Tibet to investigate the opening of trade and spends the winter at Tashilhunpo Monastery in Shigatse.
1788
Chinese troops expel Nepali invaders from Tibet. Three years later the Nepali troops return and are beaten back again.
1879
The 13th Dalai Lama is enthroned. In 1895 he takes his final ordination and becomes the secular and spiritual ruler of Tibet.
1893
Tibet cedes Sikkim and opens the Chumbi Valley to trade with British India.
1904
The British mobilise over 8000 soldiers and launch an invasion of Tibet from the Sikkim frontier. The ill-equipped Tibetan army is no match. The 13th Dalai Lama escapes to Mongolia.
1907
Britain and Russia acknowledge Chinese suzerainty over Tibet in a resolution of Great Game tensions.
1909
The 13th Dalai Lama returns to Lhasa after an absence of five years.
1910
Chinese resident in Tibet Zhao Erfeng attempts to re-establish Qing authority and storms Lhasa. The Dalai Lama escapes again, this time to India. On his return he declares Tibet independent.
1913
The Simla Convention between Britain, China and Tibet is held in India. The main agenda for the conference is to delimit and define the boundary between Tibet and China.
1923
A clash with Lhasa sends the Panchen Lama into exile in China. This is to have disastrous consequences for Tibet: he comes under Chinese influence and never returns.
1933
The 13th Dalai Lama dies, and secular authority is passed to Reting Rinpoche, who rules as regent until 1947. He is an eminent Gelugpa Lama, but young and inexperienced in state affairs.
1935
Birth of the present and 14th Dalai Lama in Taktser village, Amdo, just outside Xīníng in present Qīnghǎi; his younger and older brothers are also trulkus (reincarnated lamas).
1950
China attacks Chamdo; the Tibetan army is greatly outnumbered and defeat is swift. The Tibetan government in Lhasa reacts by enthroning the 15-year-old 14th Dalai Lama. There is jubilation in the streets.
1950
El Salvador sponsors a UN motion to condemn Chinese aggression in Tibet. Britain and India, traditional friends of Tibet, convince the UN not to debate the issue.
1951
The 17-point agreement is signed by the Governor of Kham, acknowledging Tibet’s autonomy as a part of the People’s Republic of China. Chairman Mao’s first remark is ‘Welcome back to the motherland’.
1954
In 1954 the Dalai Lama spends almost a year in Běijīng, where, amid cordial discussions with Mao Zedong, he is told that ‘religion is poison’.
1955
Xikang province is absorbed into Sìchuān province, eating up a large chunk of the traditional Tibetan province of Kham.
1956
Rebellions break out in monasteries in Kham (modern-day western Sìchuān). The siege of Lithang rebellion lasts 67 days and ends in aerial bombardment of the monastery.
late 1950s
The Khampas found the resistance group Four Rivers, Six Ranges. The Tibetan exile groups in India make contact with the CIA; Tibetans are sent for training to the Pacific island of Saipan.
1962
The Indo-Chinese war ends in defeat for India, but territorial disputes over Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin continue to this day between the two rising giants.
1964
Three years after writing a 70,000-character petition, accusing China of committing genocide, the Panchen Lama is arrested and charged with instigating rebellion.
1965
The Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) is formally brought into being on 1 September with much fanfare and Chinese talk of happy Tibetans fighting back tears of gratitude at becoming one with the great motherland.
1967–76
The Cultural Revolution sweeps China and Tibet. Ideological frenzy results in the destruction of monasteries, shrines and libraries and the imprisonment of thousands of Tibetans.
1975
The last CIA-funded Tibetan guerrilla bases in Mustang, northern Nepal, are closed down, bringing an end to armed rebellion and CIA involvement in the Tibetan resistance movement.
1979–85
China enters a period of liberalisation and reform and limited religious freedoms are restored in Tibet. Out of a pre-1950 total of around 2000 monasteries, only 45 are reopened.
1982
A three-person team sent to Běijīng from Dharamsala is told Tibet is part of China and that the Dalai Lama would be given a desk job in Běijīng on his return. By 1983 talks had broken down.
1987–89
Pro-independence demonstrations take place in Lhasa; the response is violent, several tourists are injured and martial law is declared.
1989
The Dalai Lama’s efforts to achieve peace and freedom for his people are recognised when he is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
2006
Western climbers on Mt Cho Oyu film Chinese border guards shooting unarmed nuns as they flee China over the Nangpa-la to Nepal.
2006
The 4310m Nathu-la pass with Sikkim opens to local traders for the first time in 44 years, hinting at warmer ties between India and China.
2007
The Chinese government passes a new law requiring all incarnate lamas to be approved by the government, part of an attempt to increase political control over Tibet’s religious hierarchy.
2008
In the run-up to the Olympic Games in Běijīng, the worst riots for 20 years hit Lhasa, southern Gānsù and western Sìchuān; 19 people are killed and thousands are arrested.
2008
The British government recognises China’s direct rule over Tibet for the first time, shifting the language from ‘suzerainty’ to ‘sovereignty’.
2010
A huge 6.9-scale earthquake devastates the Tibetan town of Jyekundo (Yùshù) in Amdo (southeast Qīnghǎi), killing over 1700 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless.
2011
Dalai Lama cedes political control as head of the Tibetan government-in-exile to former Harvard academic and lawyer Lobsang Sangay.
2012
Two Tibetans set themselves on fire in the Barkhor Circuit, joining the more than 150 Tibetans who have committed self-immolation since 2011 in protest against Chinese rule.