Tibetans who Escaped the Historian’s Net: Studies in the Social History of Tibetan Societies

Charles Ramble, Peter Schwieger, Alice Travers (eds)

Tibetans
who Escaped
VAJRA Publications the Historian’s Net
Studies in the Social History of
ISBN 978-9937-623-10-0
Tibetan Societies
 CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ........................................................................... vii

Introduction ......................................................................................... 1

JEANNINE BISCHOFF—Right There but Still Unnoticed:

Information on dGa’ ldan pho brang Mi ser
from Archival Material Published in German(y)................................. 9

KALSANG NORBU GURUNG—The Role of the Ambans

in the Dalai Lama Government According
to the Ten-Point Edict........................................................................ 27

FABIENNE JAGOU—In Search of the Tibetan Translators

within the Manchu Empire: An Attempt to Go
from the Global to the Local............................................................... 41

LIU YUXUAN—On the Edition, Structure, and

Authorship of the Weizang Tongzhi.................................................. 53

CHRISTOPH CÜPPERS—Sde srid Sangs rgyas

rgya mtsho’s Short Remarks on Ordeals in his
Guidelines for Government Officials ............................................... 79

PETER SCHWIEGER—An Almost Forgotten

dGe lugs pa Incarnation Line as Manorial Lord
in bKra shis ljongs, Central Tibet .................................................... 89

BERTHE JANSEN—How to Tame a Wild

Monastic Elephant: Drepung Monastery
According to the Great Fifth..............................................................111

ALICE TRAVERS—How Should we Define Social

Status? The Study of “Intermediate Groups”
in Central Tibet (1895–1959)............................................................ 141
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS

FERNANDA PIRIE—Who Were the Tibetan Lawmakers?....................161

SAUL MULLARD—Recapturing Runaways, or

Administraton through Contract: The 1830 Covenant
(Gan rgya) on Kotapa Tax Exiles and
Sikkimese Border Regions............................................................... 179

ASTRID HOVDEN—Reflections on Recruitment

and Ritual Economy in Three Himalayan
Village Monasteries ........................................................................ 209

CHARLES RAMBLE—Hidden Himalayan Transcripts:

Strategies of Social Opposition in
Mustang (Nepal), 19th–20th Centuries............................................... 231

Notes on Contributors....................................................................... 253

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This volume is the first in a series of collected papers representing the

results of the research project “The Social History of Tibetan Societies.
17th–20th Centuries”. The project, which is due to run from March 2012
to February 2015, is funded by France’s National Research Agency
(ANR) and the German Research Council (DFG). The host institutions
in France are the Centre de Recherche sur les Civilisations de l’Asie
Orientale (CRCAO, UMR 8155) and the École Pratique des Hautes
Études (EPHE); and in Germany, the Department of Mongolian and
Tibetan Studies, Institute for Oriental and Asian Studies (IOA), Bonn
University.
The editors wish to thank Kemi Tsewang Gurung for preparing the
layout of the present volume, and Monica Strinu for the cover design.
Cover photo by Evan Yorke Nepean, September–December 1936,
Frederick Spencer Chapman Collection. From The Tibet Album.
“Tibetan porters and muleteers” 05 Dec. 2006. The Pitt Rivers
Museum. Accessed 12 Nov. 2013 <http://tibet.prm.ox.ac.uk/
photo_1998.131.204.html>
 INTRODUCTION

What was even more exciting was the street-level nature of much of the
material [in the “Mutiny papers”]... petitions, complaints and requests
from the ordinary citizens of Delhi—potters and courtesans, sweetmeat-
makers and over-worked water carriers—exactly the sort of people who
usually escape the historian’s net.

William Dalrymple, The Last Moghul

While a great deal of research remains to be done in all areas of Tibetan

civilisation, certain domains have naturally received more attention
than others. It requires the most cursory examination of any of the stan-
dard dictionaries to see that entries related to Buddhism, for example,
vastly outnumber those belonging to such fields as divination, farming,
law and administration. And yet it is surely the case that these activities
have exercised the great majority of the Tibetan population far more
than the arcana of high religion.
Subjects such as these have by no means been completely ignored by
scholarship, but the number of researchers who have engaged with
them—notwithstanding the considerable importance of some of their
publications—remains very small indeed. This is the case with the field
with which we are particularly concerned here: social history. Although
that designation itself has featured in very few works related to Tibetan
societies, there are nevertheless a number of landmark studies on
aspects of this discipline that provide a foundation of prior research on
which we can build, and that feature repeatedly in the bibliographies of
the contributions in this volume; the door is already open, and the pur-
pose of this collection is to push it further ajar.
The social study of Tibetan-speaking communities has traditionally
been the province of anthropologists, rather than historians. Where a
diachronic perspective is adopted, it is usually based on oral tradition,
or on the type of quasi-historical written accounts that are themselves
substantially indebted to legend. As in the case of similar studies in
other parts of the world, a social history of Tibetan regions must neces-
sarily make use of local archival material or other documents. Scholarly
research on this genre of Tibetan literature is still in its infancy. The
2 INTRODUCTION

importance of documents, where they have been accessible, for under-

standing how national institutions operated at a local level is illustrated
by, say, Schuh’s landmark study of monastic recruitment and revenues
in Kyirong (Schuh 1988). Among other things, cases of this sort give an
idea of the considerable local variation that existed in the operation of
systems too often regarded as homogeneous. Contemporary documen-
tary literature has also proved invaluable in shedding light on the local
manifestations of the Tibetan empire (7th to 9th centuries) in its north-
ern hinterland, as the work of Takeuchi, Uebach and Uray, among oth-
ers, has shown. Nevertheless, it is also true that these studies are prima-
rily concerned with political and economic institutions, and the people
who wielded power in relatively small arenas; many social groups—
ordinary villagers, for example, as well as substantial sections of the
Central Tibetan elite—have still not found a voice and a place of their
own in histories of Tibetan-speaking people.
The perspective of ‘history from below’, which owes so much to the
French Annales school, has not yet featured prominently in historical
writing on Tibetan societies. As is well known, the school has broadly
favoured a focus on what would later come to be known, in Gramsci’s
phrase, as “subordinate” (or “subaltern”) groups, in combination with
methods of other disciplines such as social anthropology. (Classic stud-
ies in the genre include Le Roy Ladurie’s Montaillou [1978], Carlo
Ginzburg’s studies of heterodoxy and witchcraft in the Friuli [1980a;
1983], and the works of Le Goff [1977, 1985].) Much of the historical
writing on Tibet has tended to emphasise its centralised, national insti-
tutions, and the homogeneity of its administrative and governmental
structures. An alternative perspective that has been successfully bor-
rowed from Southeast Asia in recent times is that of the “galactic poli-
ty”, whereby the provincial satellites (petty kingdoms, tribal confedera-
cies, monastic complexes) of central entities (such as the great monas-
tic colleges of Lhasa) themselves constituted the centres of other polit-
ical constellations (Samuel 1993). The elusiveness of the identity of
“Tibet” has itself formed the subject of scholarly discussion, and cer-
tain writers—notably Anne-Sophie Bentz—using theoretical apparatus
developed by authors such as Rogers Brubaker, have even argued that
the Tibetan nation is a creature of the diaspora that came into existence
only following the flight of the Dalai Lama and his followers into exile.
It is clear, in any event, that one of the most important factors in the
 INTRODUCTION 3

production of political loyalty and cultural identity has always been

based on Tibetans’ close association with their particular region.
The present collection is the outcome of a conference, “Recapturing
the Tibetans who Escaped the Historian’s Net”, held in Bonn on 27–28
May 2013. Most of the authors are directly associated with the project
“Social History of Tibetan Studies, 17th to 20th Centuries” (see
Acknowledgements). The two exceptions, Astrid Hovden and Berthe
Jansen, were invited to present papers based on their current research,
which addresses themes directly relevant to the topic of the conference
and to the project as a whole. As the title of the conference suggests,
the broad focus of interest was provided by the kinds of “people with-
out history” that Dalrymple saw emerging from the pages of the
“Mutiny letters” preserved in the Delhi’s National Archives. However,
the contributions to this volume are not confined to their elusive
Tibetan counterparts, but include the attitude of the central government
and its organs towards its subjects, and to the analysis of some of the
sources materials themselves.
While some of the papers are concerned with establishing a clearer
understanding of the perspectives close to the Tibetan centre—that is,
the Ganden Podrang government—during the period in question, the
“centrist” position is balanced by papers that focus on “peripheral”
areas: northeast Tibet (Amdo) and the Himalayas (the enclaves of Limi
and Mustang in what is now Nepal, and also Sikkim, which was
absorbed by India in 1975). As far as Central Tibet is concerned, the
political culture is framed by the “conjunction of religious law and gov-
ernment” (chos srid zung ’brel) articulated particularly through the rule
of the Lhasa-based Ganden Podrang (dGa’ ldan pho brang) government
(1642–1959). This political structure, with the Dalai Lama at its apex,
received its final form under the overall control of the Qing imperial
administration, but survived the collapse of the latter by more than four
decades. The confluence of the clerical and the worldly is starkly illus-
trated by Berthe Jansen’s presentation of the seventeenth-century
guidelines (bca’ yig) for ’Bras spungs, a warts-and-all document that
reveals aspects of monastic life such as “infighting, immigration, cor-
ruption, and even the shooting dead of a monk”. In spite of the pious
formulation (chos srid zung ’brel) cited above, the religious and the
secular were not always comfortable bedfellows. This is apparent from
a number of accounts, such as Melvyn Goldstein’s well-known study of
the consolidation of clerical authority through the confiscation and
4 INTRODUCTION

acquisition of aristocratic estates (Goldstein 1973). Without contesting

that this was the general trend, Peter Schwieger nuances the picture
with evidence that it was not only the aristocracy but the clergy too—
in this case, the bKra shis ljongs reincarnation lineage—who were sus-
ceptible to having their estates swallowed up by more powerful monas-
tic institutions. Provision of support for monasteries was of course not
a matter of choice for the inhabitants of clerical estates in Central Tibet.
Through a combination of local documents and ethnographic enquiry
Astrid Hovden reconstructs the history and current operation of patron-
age in Limi, northwest Nepal. The villages of Limi were once gifted to
the monasteries as a revenue base by a local king, but over the centuries
their contributions of material support and labour have become a vol-
untary affair that is built into the communities’ structures of household
obligations.
In spite of a few landmark studies, the field of Tibetan law remains
one of the most under-researched areas of Tibetan Studies. An impor-
tant component of Tibetan legal procedures was—and in certain areas
still is—the use of ordeals to establish guilt or innocence. Christoph
Cüppers’ investigation of sDe srid Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho’s comments
on ordeals reveals one of the probable reasons why law has not attract-
ed more researchers—the sheer difficulty of the texts—while advanc-
ing our knowledge of the use of this procedure. Fernanda Pirie devel-
ops the notion that law-codes may have had some function other than a
strictly legal one. In examining a corpus of Golok laws, she doubts the
likelihood of their ever having been enforced, and considers instead the
possibility of that they were produced by local chiefs to legitimise a
social order.
The most and systematic scholarly studies of the social system under
the Ganden Podrang government are provided by the work of Melvyn
Goldstein although, as anthropological studies, they naturally cover
only the last period of the old Tibetan government (e.g. Goldstein 1968,
1971). Goldstein’s well-defined characterisation of the socio-economic
structure of “old” Tibet as a form of serfdom has provoked much criti-
cism, much of it less well justified and documented than Goldstein’s
position. What these accounts lack are, on the one hand, extensive and
representative philological and diplomatic analyses of archived materi-
als, which would provide a solid basis for the examination of the whole
legal, administrative and bureaucratic processes involved; and on the
other, analyses of material that might offer insights into earlier periods
 INTRODUCTION 5

of the Ganden Podrang. Such material has been edited and analysed
extensively by Dieter Schuh, who thus established the field of diplo-
matics—the science of charters—within Tibetan Studies. However, the
examination of such material on a larger scale as sources for a social
history remains a desideratum. Studies of Tibetan history have been
based almost exclusively on historiographic sources. Now that other
sources are available, they too should come to form the basis of schol-
arly writing in order to present a more differentiated and rounded pic-
ture than we have at present. This picture can be drawn in particular by
letting the primary sources speak for themselves. How vivid and fresh
such a picture based on archival material can be is demonstrated by
Peter Blickle’s study on the history of serfdom and freedom in south-
west Germany (Blickle 2003).
The importance of documents for our understanding of the lives of
the Tibetan peasantry in pre-1951 Tibet is illustrated by the opening
article in this collection. Discussions about this group have too often
been reduced to an ideological and sterile debate on whether or not mi
ser should be classified as serfs. Jeannine Bischoff’s overview of
Tibetan documents edited and published in the past forty years suggests
a wealth of details in the interaction between different social groups,
such as mi ser and their lords, mi ser and the central government in
appealing against the excesses of their lords, as well as among mi ser
themselves. These are the kinds of sources that provide fascinating and
welcome contours to the otherwise flat landscape of Tibetan social life
that is available to us.
If the Tibetan peasantry has largely escaped the historian’s net, so
too has practically the entire middle level of Tibetan society, to such a
degree that its very existence has often been denied by writers. This
astonishing lacuna, Alice Travers suggests, is the result of “a tendency
to impose a medieval reading on Tibetan society and history... [that]
stresses the binary opposition between farmers and landlords and tends
to obliterate nuances and groups who are external to this opposition”.
Travers’ contribution is one of the few published attempts to foreground
the existence of such an “intermediate group”—merchants, the non-
monastic intelligentsia and others—who had a prominent but largely
unacknowledged role in Tibetan society.
The influence of the Qing administration on Tibet’s socio-econom-
ic system has been almost totally neglected from the Tibetological per-
spective. The only monograph in this regard is Dabringhaus’ study on
6 INTRODUCTION

the Amban Song Yun (1752–1835) and his efforts to reform the Tibetan
administration, tax system and military as well as controlling govern-
mental expenditure and improving the life of Tibetan peasants.
Dabringhaus’ valuable study is based on source material in Chinese,
especially the writings of Song Yun himself. Her landmark study can
now be complemented by investigations based on primary sources in
other relevant languages. Such sources, especially in Tibetan, as well as
certain trilingual works in Tibetan, Mongolian and Manchu, are avail-
able among the archival material collected so far. They also include
Tibetan versions of the ideas Song Yun presented to the Tibetan gov-
ernment. A matter that is generally overlooked when dealing with rela-
tions between Tibet and the Qing central authority is the medium of
communication. Clearly, a crucial role was played by translators, but
this group, too, has remained largely invisible in the writings of histo-
rians. The vicissitudes of the translation process between Manchu and
Tibetan, and the possible identity of the mysterious translators them-
selves, are the subject of Fabienne Jagou’s article. As Kalsang Norbu
Gurung points out, the function of the Qing Ambans was not always
very clear, but the focus of his contribution, the Ten-Point Edict drawn
up by the abovementioned Song Yun, is testimony both to the reform-
ing zeal of this remarkable figure and also a precious record of the par-
lous state of social conditions in Tibet at the time. Gurung’s study
anticipates a full-length translation and annotation of the Tibetan ver-
sion of this important resource. Liu Yuxuan’s paper underscores the
importance of official Qing documents for the social history of Tibet.
Of the many gazetteers of Tibet that were produced during this era, the
most important—for the detail it provides about Tibet’s social condi-
tions and especially the Gorkha wars of 1788–1792—was the Weizang
tongzhi. Liu’s contribution focuses on the structure of this gazetteer,
and addresses the uncertainties surrounding its authorship.
While the Himalayan areas also felt the presence of the Ganden
Podrang to varying degrees, they enjoyed a substantial measure of
autonomy, or else fell within the orbit of other powers. The rise of the
Ganden Podrang coincided with the establishment of Sikkim’s inde-
pendence from Tibet; Mustang, for its part, came under the sway of
Jumla and, after the late 18th century, of the Gorkhas, within the emerg-
ing state of Nepal. The rich archival collections preserved in these areas
offer an invaluable resource for the examination of institutions and
processes analogous to those that are known from Central Tibet. The
 INTRODUCTION 7

Sikkimese covenant (gan rgya) of 1830 that forms the subject of Saul
Mullard’s contribution is ostensibly concerned with a problem that beset
Tibet’s rulers at various period: the vexed issue of tax fugitives, and how
to retrieve them. But as is often the case, the document carries a subtext
that addresses broader concerns relating to tensions between the political
centre and the periphery, as well as between the ruler and members of the
country’s elite. Notoriously, the voices of subordinate groups generally
go unheard, and even when they are documented it is almost invariably
through the filter of the official record. In the concluding contribution,
Charles Ramble presents certain archives of southern Mustang that pro-
vide a rare example of “hidden transcripts” (in James Scott’s phrase): the
discussions and resolutions of subordinate communities who recorded
the strategies they adopted against their oppressors in documents that
they kept concealed from outside view.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bentz, A.-S. 2010. Les réfugiés tibétains en Inde: nationalisme et exile. Paris/Geneva:
PUF & The Graduate Institute Publications.
Blickle, P. 2003. Von der Leibeigenschaft zu den Menschenrechten. München: C.H.
Beck.
Brubaker, R. 1992. Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press.
Burke, P. 1978. Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe. LondonTemple Smith.
Dabringhaus, S. 1994. Das Qing-Imperium als Vision und Wirklichkeit. Tibet in
Laufbahn und Schriften des Song Yun (1752-1835). Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
French, R. 1995. The Golden Yoke. The Legal Cosmology of Buddhist Tibet. Ithaca and
London: Cornell University Press.
Ginzburg 1980. The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of the Sixteenth-Century
Miller. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
—— The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Goldstein, M.C. 1968. An Anthropological Study of the Tibetan Political System. Ph.D.
Dissertation, University of Washington.
—— 1973. The Circulation of estates in Tibet: reincarnation, land and politics. Journal
of Asian Studies 32(3), 445–55.
Le Goff, J. 1977. Les intellectuels au Moyen-âge. Paris: Seuil.
——1985. Pour une autre Moyen-âge: temps, travail et culture en Occident. Paris:
Gallimard.
Le Roy Ladurie, E. 1975. Montaillou, village occitan: de 1294 à 1324. Paris: Gallimard.
Samuel, G. 1993. Civilized Shamans. Buddhism in Tibetan Societies. Washington and
London: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Schuh, D. 1988. Das Archiv des Klosters bKra-is-bsam-gtan-gliṅ von sKyid-groṅ 1.
Teil. Bonn: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag.
 RIGHT THERE BUT STILL UNNOTICED: INFORMATION ON
DGA’ LDAN PHO BRANG MI SER FROM ARCHIVAL
MATERIAL PUBLISHED IN GERMAN(Y)

JEANNINE BISCHOFF

INTRODUCTION

Perhaps one of the most important lessons that history is able to teach
us is that it belongs to those who do not escape the historian’s net: in
other words, those whose documents and sources survive and are sys-
tematically studied. In this paper I will show how much can be deduced
on Central Tibetan mi ser based on archival sources that have been pub-
lished within the last forty years in edited versions.1 This will provide
food for reflection on Tibetan society in general and on mi ser as the
majority of the Tibetan population in particular. Mi ser have served as
a subject of study before. Major research on the subject was carried out
by Melvyn C. Goldstein decades ago. The question whether to translate
mi ser as serf has been debated at length between him and Beatrice D.
Miller in the Tibet Journal (1986–1989).2 So, why is there a need for
further research on mi ser? The work done so far has been mainly based
on interviews with contemporary witnesses, not taking into account
archival source material. There is apparently a natural discrepancy
between memory and documentary evidence. Combining the two may
not provide a full description of a time period or a social stratum like
mi ser, but it will at least fill some of the empty spaces that are still
left.3 The aim of social history in itself is to expand the subjects of his-

1 Mi ser in this paper will be defined as the majority of the inhabitants of Tibet dur-
ing the dGa’ ldan pho brang period in contrast to the aristocracy and clergy. The term
does include all the statuses a mi ser might have, including khral pa (tax payer), dud
chung (small households), mi bogs (literally “human lease”), mi rtsa (a person belong-
ing to someone), etc. For further explanations of the various statuses of mi ser, see for
example Melvyn C. Goldstein (1971a and b, 1986, 1987, 1989).
2 See the bibliography for the references.
3 I am currently writing my PhD thesis on the topic of mi ser, dependents of a
monastic estate during the dGa’ ldan pho brang period. My work is mainly based on
archival material, but does of course also take into account the existing studies on
10 JEANNINE BISCHOFF

torical study, develop new sources for information, as well as re-use

sources in new ways (Stearns 1994: viii). It can be used as a corrective
of other approaches on history writing, such as political history or his-
tory of ideas by redefining the past, opening up different perspectives
on groups of people and their range of social patterns and behaviour.
The edited archival source material used for this paper mainly origi-
nates from what Dieter Schuh has collected during his travels to India
and Nepal in the 1970s. It covers the whole scale of public and private
acts, as well as documents with little or no juridical bearing: charters,
decrees, legal agreements, letters, registers, requests, inventories, and
so forth. Schuh published them mainly in the 1970’s and 1980’s since
when they have been available to the scientific community.4 In 2012
Hanna Schneider published two volumes of Tibetan documents, with
special emphasis on private legal acts (Schneider 2012a and b). These
sources are accompanied by two translations: one of a public act by
Helga Uebach (2007), and the other of a list of memoranda (dran tho)
by Christoph Cüppers (1999).
For the historian, documents are sources that provide an account of
historical events and change, whereas for the diplomatist the document
itself is the result and the mirror of a historical act (Schuh 1983: 303).
By presenting these sources in edited and to some extent also translat-
ed versions, the authors have made “[…] them communicate once
more, resonantly and unmistakably” (Boyle 1992: 90). One of the first
steps among the subsequent tasks is to go beyond translation to the
interpretation of some of the information provided on mi ser. To
achieve this, I have systematically gone through the available editions
and translations and have then categorised them by relations within
society, from lower towards higher levels, as well as on the same social
level. This is followed by a brief demographic study providing quanti-
tative information in addition to the particular events and processes
described in documents relating to single persons or small groups of
people.

Tibetan society. It is hoped that this will expand certain areas of what we already know
about mi ser and enable us to revise others.
4 See the bibliography for a list of works on diplomatics related to the dGa’ ldan
pho brang period by Dieter Schuh.
 RIGHT THERE BUT STILL UNNOTICED 11

THE INTERRELATIONS OF MI SER WITH LEGAL AUTHORITIES

Immediately after the dGa’ ldan pho brang government had come into
being a list of tasks to bear in mind (dran tho) for district officials was
created as an appendix to the law code Zhal lce bcu gsum, issued by
Gushri Khan and the first regent bSod nams chos ’phel in 1643.5
Examples of correct, fair, and law-abiding behaviour towards the
households within the rdzong are explicitly stressed on several occa-
sions in order to restore social order after 1642. For example, the list
clearly states that the district official (rdzong dpon) and the estate
administrator (gzhis gnyer) had the duty to take care of the households
within their administration (Cüppers 1999: 59). This list reflects the
pragmatic interest that is common to all types of Tibetan texts
(Schwieger 2011: 263). It gives concrete instructions by focussing on
the ideal behaviour of officials serving the government as district
administrators, tax collectors or estate administrators.
The relationship between mi ser and estate lords is addressed in
Uebach’s translation of a 1739 diploma issued to the lords of sPo rong
by Pho lha ba.6 It is clearly stated that the sPo rong lords had the right
to demand from the mi ser belonging to the estates owned by them
taxes per head, taxes for farming land, and grazing grounds and other
taxes, such as carrying sand from the shore of the lake (gram mtsho bye
’don) or cutting marsh grass (rtsa ’dam brnga ba) (Uebach 2007: 272).
Although the amount of taxes levied should be based on what the
amount had been previously, it is also said that the amount should be
appropriate (ibid.: 274).7 Without further explanation, apart from an
enumeration of taxes specific for that area, we are groping in the dark
as to what exactly that might mean.
Injunctions to take care of subordinates can be found in other public
acts as well. A diploma granted by Lhabzang Khan in 1707 prohibits
the selling of goods at monopolistic prices (bam tshong spus bsgyur),

5 The actual year of its composition cannot be determined exactly, because there are
several versions (Cüppers 1999: 51).
6 sPo rong is situated in mNga’ ris skor gsum, close to the lake dPal khud mtsho,
but had also extraterritorial manors, for example in Gung thang. For a short history of
sPo[ng] rong see Ramble (2002).
7 Chu yur ma shong lta bu’i rigs sgrub pa.
12 JEANNINE BISCHOFF

because this led among other things to the scattering (’thor) of mi ser
(Schuh 1981a: 60 [Monumenta Tibetica Historica, hereafter MTH,
III/5/n°3]). From this day on, the text says, the people should be spared
from such unjust hardship. This scattering of mi ser amounts to the
abandonment of estates. The mi ser had no option but to buy from
traders who were in possession of documents granting them the right to
exact any price they wished for their goods. Thus the mi ser lost their
economic basis of livelihood. They saw no other solution than looking
for income elsewhere. This public act also has a political dimension: by
issuing this decree Lhabzang Khan alleviated a form of hardship that
had originated with privileges granted by sDe srid Sangs rgyas rgya
mtsho. Schuh suggests that this is because he wanted the population to
sympathise with him as sovereign (ibid.). Whether this was a mere
political strategy or in reference to a “duty to take care” was irrelevant
to the mi ser, as it improved their situation, no matter what the under-
lying intention.
In the observations and conclusions of his first inspection tour of
1795, after the Chinese official Song Yun had just become Amban
(period of office 1794–1799) of Tibet, he remarked on the negligence
faced by the mi ser and their extreme poverty. These conditions were
due to tax demands that were completely out of control, as well as igno-
rance about the circumstances of the people, a situation that had result-
ed in mi ser running away from the estates to which they belonged. As
the tax burden for agricultural land was based on the size of the area of
land and not on individuals, the remaining mi ser still had to pay the
same amount as before. Song Yun pitied them. In a concrete example
he mentions a village that had formerly comprised fifty tax-paying
households. By the time he visited the village there were only eight
households left to shoulder the tax burden of fifty. He identified the
reason for these circumstances as the irresponsible and ruthless behav-
iour of those who should have been responsible for taking care of the
mi ser: district officials, their representatives and estate administrators
(Dabringhaus 1994: 169–70). Although Kalsang Norbu Gurung states
in his paper in this volume that it is uncertain whether tax reductions
were actually implemented, a decree issued in 1818 by the Ambans
encourages mi ser to submit complaints to the central government
against officials who demanded transportation services in excess of
what was specified in their travel documents (lam yig) (Schuh 1981b:
43 [Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland,
 RIGHT THERE BUT STILL UNNOTICED 13

hereafter VOHD, XI/8/n°6]). Such additional burdens were intolerable

and should be punished. Furthermore, it is stated that the recent (da
lam) tax reductions (lcog cha) are meant to give the mi ser the oppor-
tunity to rebuild what they could not take care of before their taxes were
reduced. Further complaints about taxes still being too high are forbid-
den, and should be and should be punished in unspecified ways. Of
course this does not refer directly to a documented basis for the reduc-
tions. Despite the effort of improving the mi ser’s living conditions,
there were apparently mi ser who still felt the burden was too heavy or
saw a chance to take advantage of the situation.
When the estate lord asked for tax reductions it was not necessarily
to relieve the mi ser of too heavy a burden. In times of war the amount
of military-related taxes, such as provision of troops or food supplies,
might be raised, resulting in the impoverishment of mi ser. It was due
to this that the monastery of dGa’ ldan chos skor requested a tax reduc-
tion (Schuh 1981a: 168 [MTH III/5/n°11]). Additional taxes levied for
the Gorkha Wars had reduced income from the mi ser. To restore this
level of revenue, dGa’ ldan chos skor petitioned the government to
reduce the military taxes that had reduced the mi ser’s capacity to sup-
port the monastery (Schuh 1981a: 168). Another document mentions a
rise in tax obligations due to the increased stationing of troops as a
result of the resumption of military action in the region (Schneider
2012b: 21 [VOHD XI/17/n°13]). In times of military activity such as the
Gorkha Wars of 1788 and 1791, referred to in one of these documents,
the tax burden for mi ser increased to an extent that made it impossible
for them to secure their livelihood. They had to supply the troops with
food and whatever was needed, or were themselves sent to the battle-
field as soldiers without having received any training (Dabringhaus
1994: 186). Hardships like these increased the number of runaway mi
ser.
A document of 1889 from Southwest Tibet reveals that impoverish-
ment was caused by the additional burden of sending troops to fight the
British (Schuh 1981b: 60–62 [VOHD XI/8/n°13]).8 This had led to an
increased number of runaway mi ser, which had in turn resulted in the

8 The document does not state clearly to which event it refers, but most probably is
speaking of the military actions of 1888 related to the British taking over control in
Sikkim which had been under the protection of Tibet (for a detailed description of the
events, see for example Lamb 1986 [1960]: 139–56).
14 JEANNINE BISCHOFF

estate lord failing to pay his taxes to the central government. Since the
estate lord had no means of improving the situation for him and his mi
ser on his own, the government decided that he should lease the estate
to someone else. This leaseholder was supposed to support and protect
the mi ser of the estate, and to avoid levying any taxes or services on
them for the next ten years to give them time to recover and make a liv-
ing on their own again. Furthermore, runaway mi ser should come back
as far as that was possible. There is no mention of any punishment for
having run away, which may be due to the desperate need of labour to
run the estate and be able to pay taxes.9 For the runaways this was prob-
ably a lucky opportunity. When mi ser ran away from their estate they
could not be certain about being able to find employment on another
estate on a continuous basis. Although obligation to an estate lord
entailed to a burden of duties, it also offered the benefit of the lord’s
protection when this was needed (Schuh 1988: 38).
The inability to pay taxes also occurred in times of peace due to var-
ious circumstances. It resulted in the accumulation of debts up to an
amount that was impossible to repay. In cases when a debtor had accu-
mulated a massive level of debt, the creditor might forego levying addi-
tional interest on new loans (Schuh 1976: 108). While this measure may
seem generous at first sight it was probably a mere formality, as it was
obvious that the debtor would never be able to repay all his debts.
However, in a different document mi ser of lower living standards (mi
ser ’khyer zhan) were ordered to pay back their debts immediately
regardless of their own financial situation (Schneider 2012b: 83
[VOHD XI/17/n°44]). They are admonished to consider the needs of
the others, i.e. those of the creditors, above their own. The money was
needed for restoring a monastic site attributed to Milarepa.
Another duty of government officials referred to in the abovemen-
tioned task list was to render judgements that were reproducible later
on. Therefore everything relating to the legal case had to be written
down in detailed lists. The rdzong dpon was authorised to render juridi-
cal decisions, although he had to follow a detailed protocol. After a
thorough and well documented investigation, including the reasons for
the disputes and the full facts of the cases in question, the decision of
the rdzong administrative and the amount of fees that had to be paid

9 Goldstein
has pointed out that there was a general lack of labour in Tibet due to a
low population (1971a: 533).
 RIGHT THERE BUT STILL UNNOTICED 15

were written down in detail as well (Cüppers 1999: 64–65). It was com-
mon to approach the district administration or occasionally even the
central government to resolve disputes that arose between mi ser of two
different estates. However, for disputes or crimes involving mi ser of
only one estate, even in the case of murder, the estate lord had juridical
rights to render a decision. While government officials had to transfer
the payment for these decisions to the treasurer of the central govern-
ment, for monastic estate lords such disputes were a means of income
(Schwieger forthcoming).
An example of a dispute is concerned with modalities of pasture use
(Schuh 1981a: 227–82 [MTH III/5/n°30]): the mi ser of Tshong ’dus on
the one side claimed to own a certain piece of land, and were therefore
in a position to demand payment from the mi ser of the monastery bKra
shis bsam gtan gling, who let their livestock graze there. When the
monastic mi ser refused to pay, the Tshong ’dus people removed the
livestock from the pasture. In reaction several monks (not the monastic
mi ser) blocked the access route to it, so that the Tshong ’dus people
could no longer reach it. As positions hardened on both sides, it was
decided that a court settlement was necessary to solve the situation.
Both parties went to Lhasa to present their case. The Lhasa authorities
in turn delegated the district authorities to investigate the matter. The
investigation concluded that ownership could not be clarified anymore,
and both parties were presented with the option of either a general pro-
hibition on using the pasture, no matter by whom, or to settle the mat-
ter of usufruct by throwing dice. When each party declared itself in
favour of a different option, the minister responsible for the matter in
Lhasa ordered them to come and see him. The investigation concluded
that the dispute had arisen only because both parties had acted out of
bad and insincere motives, treating the regent like a child and the law
like a game, without any due respect. The only way to establish clearly
what was right and wrong in that case ought to have been interrogation
under torture. However, out of consideration for the merit of the
founder of bKra shis bsam gtan gling and the poverty of the mi ser in
that area, this procedure was not applied. Instead, the Tshong ’dus peo-
ple were pressured to let the livestock of the monastic mi ser graze
without demanding any fees (Schuh 1983: 305–309; Schuh 1981a:
227–82).
This document not only illustrates legal procedure but also allows us
to draw conclusions about the principles of jurisdiction in Tibet.
16 JEANNINE BISCHOFF

Because they document every step that was taken to settle a dispute,
court settlements are an invaluable source for understanding legal
processes and Tibetan society in general (Schneider 2012a: xxv, 66–85
[VOHD XI/16/n°25]; Schuh 1978: 305). The decision was based not
only on an investigation but involved consultation of the petitioning
parties. The Lhasa authorities only assumed jurisdiction after all other
measures had failed, and the final outcome was “a mixture of judicial
decision and compromise” (Pirie 2007: 154–55). It demonstrates what
Schneider has called the intention of the Tibetans to settle disputes at
the lowest possible level (Schneider 2012a: xxv, 66–85 [VOHD
XI/16/n°25]). Although the document refers to torture as the only pos-
sible means to establish the truth, reasons were found not to apply it,
with religious merit especially being cited (Pirie 2007: 155).
In the end everything was back to where it had begun: the
monastery’s mi ser could graze their livestock without having to pay for
it. Court settlements were normally a means of preventing irretrievable
damage among social groups that were supposed to live together and
get along. Therefore, by settling a dispute on a mutual basis a court set-
tlement aimed at keeping intact the social web and the means of coop-
eration (Schuh 1983: 305).
This example illustrates the principle of taking care in the interrela-
tion between mi ser and estate lord. Although the dispute itself arose
between the government mi ser of Tshong ’dus and the monastery mi
ser of bKra shis bsam gtan gling, the parties named by the document
are the monastery of bKra shis bsam gtan gling and its mi ser on the
one side and the government mi ser on the other. By taking care of its
mi ser the bla brang seems to have prevented them from further pun-
ishment. This is quite obvious when we recall the fact that further
investigation under torture was not implemented because of the merits
of the founder of bKra shis bsam gtan gling. Thus it was no longer the
monastery’s mi ser who were part of the juridical decision here, but
their estate lord, that is, the monastery itself.
Another example of mi ser being represented by their supervisory
institution can be found in a document in which the representatives of
a village petitioned against the bla brang family of ’Gro mgon. The
charge was that the bla brang had not paid compensation to mi ser from
this village for carrying out transportation services for them over the
preceding eighteen years (Schuh and Pukhang 1976: 16, 96 [MTH
III/2/n°34]; Schuh and Pukhang 1979: 16–17 [MTH III/4/n°34]). As the
bla brang was obliged by law to pay for such services, it was ordered to
 RIGHT THERE BUT STILL UNNOTICED 17

begin doing so, but there was no requirement that it should make up the
deficit of the past eighteen years (Schuh and Phukhang 1976: 16, 96;
Schuh and Phukhang 1979: 16–17).

INTERRELATIONS OF MI SER WITH THE MONASTIC WORLD

Although Tibetans are mostly portrayed as very religious people, will-

ing and happy to send one of their sons to a monastery, we do find
examples of the opposite: the monk tax (grwa khral), which involved
sending the middle son of each family to the monastery, was not ful-
filled by the mi ser of the monastery of mTho lding in Guge. According
to Schuh this might even have been a new tax that was levied on the
people of Guge shortly before the monastery petitioned to have that tax
enforced (Schuh 1981a: 76). The expansion of the monastery on the one
hand and the procrastination over recruiting new monks on the other
had led to the necessity of issuing a diploma to enforce the populations’
compliance with that duty. This 1741 diploma stipulates that the middle
son of every family in that area should be sent to the monastery, and
that this should be enforced by the military camp (sgar) of that region
(Schuh 1981a: 76 [MTH III/5/n°5]). That the military is seen here to be
carrying out police functions and is at the disposal of local monasteries
or ecclesiastics in particular, does not seem to be an exceptional occur-
rence, since a similar case is also documented in Southeast Tibet
(Schwieger 2011: 243).
Twenty years later, in 1761, we find another diploma also dealing
with the necessity of recruiting monks (Schuh 1981a: 113 [MTH
III/5/n°12]). It refers back to the first document, stating that those who
were responsible for enacting it had failed to do so out of disregard and
stubbornness. Why the Guge people did not hand over one son as
demanded, and why the military forces had not taken care of collecting
the boys, is not mentioned in the document, as this is irrelevant infor-
mation for the new document. Obviously, sending a son to a monastery
would mean the family losing his labour. Considering the permanent
lack of labour to fulfil tax obligations this might be a plausible reason
not to comply with that demand.
Mi ser could get away from being obliged to hand over one son by
paying extra taxes in money to the monastery (Schneider 2012b: 83
[VOHD XI/17/n°44]). Thus, those in possession of financial means
18 JEANNINE BISCHOFF

also possessed the wherewithal to be exempted from duties.

MI SER IN INTERRELATION WITH MI SER

The Tibetan taxation system was based on various obligations in kind

and labour towards the estate lord in return for the right to use fields
and pasture for farming and grazing livestock. The amount of taxes to
pay was not measured by the economic success achieved, but by the
size of the field, amount of livestock, etc. All obligations were ideally
fixed in contracts to ensure that there were no adjustments to the due
amount from either side. Hard work could lead to prosperity, but equal-
ly everything might be lost due to natural disasters, bad harvest, or ill-
nesses. Thus, the taxation system was an opportunity and a risk at the
same time (Schuh 1981a: 204). The balance of rights and duties was
upset when the system was abused by those who levied taxes without
permission from the government. In a court decision based on a peti-
tion by salt traders we do find that unauthorised levying of taxes
“destroys” the relationship between estate lord and mi ser (ibid.: 205
[MTH/III/5/n°27]). Additional taxation would have been equivalent to
the loss of livelihood for this group of mi ser and would have resulted
in their dispersal. The reason that the salt traders petitioned was that the
’Brong pa tried to force them to pay a proportion of the salt they were
taking from the salt lakes as well as a fee for grazing the transportation
sheep on their pasture, because they considered the salt lakes to be their
property. These demands had no juridical basis. The petition explains
that others had tried to levy unauthorised taxes on them before, but
without success. The final decision of the court was that the salt traders
did not have to pay anything to the nomads of the salt lakes. On the con-
trary, they were made responsible for the safety of the traders (ibid.:
205). Because salt was a valuable commodity it was a target for brig-
ands, so that there was a necessity for protecting the salt caravans. This
is illustrated by another document (Schneider 2012a: 103 [VOHD
XI/16/n°45]): after salt traders had been robbed of several of their sheep
loaded with salt the inhabitants of the region where the theft occurred
were held responsible for finding the sheep and paying a compensation
to the traders.
An obligation document (gan rgya) aimed at renovating a meditation
site of Milarepa states that the village elders were afraid that the pres-
 RIGHT THERE BUT STILL UNNOTICED 19

ence of too many inferior mi ser with rough customs in this place would
result in harm and chaos (Schneider 2012b: 82 [VOHD XI/17/n°44]).
The village elders therefore suggested that a special monetary fund be
set up by the better-off ones. The aim was clearly to finish the building
as fast as possible and therefore avoid having lower-class mi ser around
for too long. Among other things, the document gives us an insight into
the differential status of mi ser. The better-off households looked down
on the less prosperous—an attitude that is obviously not confined to
Tibetan society. Not being well off, or barely even to make a living,
meant that the labour of all family members was needed to secure a
livelihood: there was no time or funding for education or elegant man-
ners.
Misbehaviour of certain parts of a community is also referred to in
an official decree of 1807 (Schuh 1981a: 137 [MTH III/5/n°17]). The
document cites damage caused by “men of that region” (phyogs de’i
skye bo), without further specifying their status, and demands that they
refrain from various forms of shameless behaviour: beer-drinking
binges, invitation of guests, dancing, singing, smoking, playing dice,
inviting nuns to stay for the night, urinating within the temple precincts,
and throwing stones. This description of behaviour would surely
endorse the concerns of the village elders in the abovementioned doc-
ument about mi ser of lower rank. But it is also to say that the inhabi-
tants of the area took full responsibility for restoring the site, going well
beyond the requirements of their tax obligations. This, of course, is due
to the religious orientation of the Tibetans: the wish to accumulate
good karma in order to secure a rebirth in one of the three higher
realms.
Among the large quantity of available contractual documents (gan
rgya)10 that deal mostly with tax obligations or transportation services,
there are also a few that concerned with settling private disputes or
wrongdoings by members of the community. These include a written
undertaking by a thief who has admitted stealing from family members
(Schneider 2012b: 181 [VOHD XI/17/n°97]). He swears never to do so
again and to behave in an ethical and honourable manner. The mention
of a guarantor in this document may be the reason why he could escape

10 Gan rgya are contractual documents that, according to Schneider, were very
common in Tibetan law and were issued in a variety of situations, such as settlements
over a legal dispute at district level, declarations about leases and rents or commitments
to restore religious sites (2002: 418).
20 JEANNINE BISCHOFF

legal prosecution. If he were to break the terms of that contract, the

document would serve as witness for his repeated offence. The docu-
ment is therefore a threat and a chance to start anew at the same time.
In another document (Schneider 2012b: 27–28 [VOHD XI/17/n°17]),
someone named ’Gyur med from Ding ri has treated his fiancée disre-
spectfully and seems in general to have led a rather dishonourable life,
though further details are not given. By signing the contract he com-
mits himself to treating his future wife respectfully and to leading an
honourable life in general. Examples like those, although they are
rather negative ones, introduce us to individual people among the mass-
es of mi ser to whom we aim at giving a face and a voice. Furthermore,
the documents show once more the intention to settle disputes at the
lowest possible level, and on a basis of agreement rather than immedi-
ate punishment.

DEMOGRAPHICS

Registers11 compiled by the estate lord to administer his estate and its
income are valuable sources for our understanding of the demographic
features of an estate. Registers contain detailed numbers of dependent
peasants, the size of fields they were cultivating, how much they had
sown on these fields and the proportion of the yield they had to deliv-
er to the monastery (Schuh 1988: 167–99). With the help of registers, it
is possible to obtain demographic overviews of the peasants who were
bKra shis bsam gtan gling dependents. The lists are classified by name,
social group (khral ’dzin, dud chung, she ’dzin), status within the fam-
ily (father, mother, etc., adopted daughter/son), and as far as available
each person’s age. There is also information about the number of peo-
ple, male and female, who have come to the estate by exchange, how
many have been exchanged or married off to another estate, and how
many have obtained mi bogs12 status. Everything is noted down in a
very precise manner, to keep track of the monastery’s economic capac-
ities (ibid.: 98–139).
11The documents edited by Schuh regarding information on demographic struc-
tures of the monastery of bKra shis bsam gtan gling of sKyid grong contain numerous
terms that fall under the category of “register”: zhib gzhung, zhing tho, gzhis khang
dang sa zhing gi deb, mchod gzhis deb, sa zhing gi tho.
12 Literally, “human lease”. For a description of this category of mi ser see
Goldstein 1971.
 RIGHT THERE BUT STILL UNNOTICED 21

Registers such as these enable us to draw conclusions about a given

region’s demographic structure, including information on marriage,
birth and death rates, as well as the size of the monastic population
compared to the lay community. Thus we learn that in 1830 bKra shis
bsam gtan gling monastery received tax payments from 148 house-
holds. Only the name of the head of the household of each family is
mentioned, as he was considered its representative and was held
responsible for the whole family’s actions. Out of 148 households
belonging to the monastery, the members of 71 households were living
elsewhere and paying a mi bogs fee for being allowed to do so. 77
households with 328 family members were living on the estate, and the
amount of tax they had to pay is given in detail. The average number of
family members is 4.25 (ibid.: 31–37). On average every household had
2.42 children that survived, but the average married woman delivered
seven children throughout her life (ibid.: 63).
Without being able to differentiate between first and second mar-
riages Schuh was able to calculate the average age of women at mar-
riage as 22.05 years, and that for men as 29.8 years. While this was the
average, he points out that some girls were married off at the very
young age of 15 (ibid.).
As an overall result of his study of registers Schuh draws the conclu-
sion that the bigger khral pa households had more children than the
smaller and poorer dud chung families due to social and economic
advantage. Thus, Tibetan population growth was not regulated by bio-
logical or physiological deficiencies, but by social and economic fac-
tors (ibid.: 64).

CONCLUDING REMARKS

The crucial importance of documents for everyday life in Tibet is

undoubted. There seems to be a documentary witness for practically
everything: selling linen, exchanging one mi ser for another, signing
written commitment contracts, as well as registers of paid taxes,
receipts for having done so, official remarks on how to act in which sit-
uation, and so forth. Thanks to this varied wealth of archival material
we are in a position to reveal its value for social history by approaching
it through socio-economic questions.
22 JEANNINE BISCHOFF

The life of mi ser was defined by obligations towards the estate lord
and the central government on the one hand, but also by the rights that
they could demand from the higher authorities, assuming that they had
fulfilled their obligations. Remarkably, although Tibetan legal process-
es relied on centuries-old rules and were fixed in legal codes, the actu-
al decisions that were taken relied on the social status of the contestants
and the legal documents one could present to corroborate one’s
demands, as well as on the principle of the need for the petitioning par-
ties to reach an agreement.
Mi ser were carrying a burden of tax obligations they had to pay no
matter what happened, be it war, an epidemic, a bad harvest or traders
looking to maximise their profit by selling at monopolistic prices. In
not a few cases, as shown above, mi ser were impoverished and inca-
pable of securing their livelihood. The duty to take care of the mi ser
belonging to the estate, district or even the whole of Tibet is stressed
over and over again; but the failure to meet this obligation led to mi ser
abandoning their estates to search for better living conditions else-
where. One way of avoiding this measure was to petition a higher-rank-
ing authority, a measure that in many cases led to a juridical decision
that reduced taxes or declared the taxes demanded as unauthorised. As
we have seen above, the impoverishment of mi ser also had conse-
quences for the estate lord. Without their labour he was unable to pay
his taxes to the state, and this resulted in his own impoverishment and
in some cases the loss of the estate. Just because the estate lord ruled
over his mi ser, this did not mean that he did not have to take them into
account, as there was a degree of mutual dependency.
While most examples cited above are particular occurrences of peti-
tions, dispute settlements, and tax obligations, overall demographic
information on mi ser can provide the data necessary for statistical
analysis. By adding the few examples of personal information, such as
someone not being expelled from his family in spite of stealing from
them, or the moral expectations of leading an honourable life, without
excessive gambling, consumption of alcohol, and so forth, we can
obtain more than just a glimpse into the daily life of mi ser. Combining
all this information in a systematic manner allows us to “construct, or
reconstruct […] a coherent, preferably a consistent, system of behav-
iour or thought” (Hobsbawm 1988: 22).
This paper is thus not only a sample of the available material, but
also a sample of the circumstances and activities of mi ser during the
dGa’ ldan pho brang period.
 RIGHT THERE BUT STILL UNNOTICED 23

However, this methodology is limited to some extent, and confronts

us with a nearly insoluble problem of historical research. We need to
take into consideration the fact that subordinates often wear a perform-
ance mask in the presence of higher authorities. For example, we can
assume that there was a tactical need to appear as loyal subordinates in
the presence of authority for the salt traders petitioning against other mi
ser who had tried to levy unjust taxes on them. But apart from the tac-
tical need to appear loyal how can we say what they really thought?
How can we write a history from below if we have archival sources that
are mainly produced “from above”? Although these documents usually
reflect the attitude of the ruling class, when read against the grain they
become vital sources of social history.

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Symposium held at Velm-Vienna, Austria, 13–19 September 1981 Vol. 1, 2 vols,
Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde, Heft 10. Wien:
Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universität Wien, 303–28.
–––– 1984. Recht und Gesetz in Tibet. In L. Ligeti (ed.) Tibetan and Buddhist Studies.
Commemorating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Alexander Csoma de Kőrös.
Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 291–311.
—— 1988. Das Archiv des Klosters bKra-šis-bsam-gtan-gli von sKyid-groṅ: 1. Teil.
Monumenta Tibetica Historica, Abteilung III, Band 6. Bonn:
VGH Wissenschaftsverlag.
Schuh, D. and J. Phukhang. 1976. Urkunden und Sendschreiben aus Zentraltibet,
Ladakh und Zanskar: 1. Teil: Faksimiles. Monumenta Tibetica Historica,
Abteilung III, Band 2. St. Augustin: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag.
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—— 1979. Urkunden und Sendschreiben aus Zentraltibet, Ladakh und Zanskar: 2.

Teil: Edition der Texte. Monumenta Tibetica Historica, Abteilung III, Band 4. St.
Augustin: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag.
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fifth Dalai Lama in southeast Tibet. In A. McKay and A. Balikci (eds) Buddhist
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1: Tibet and the Himalaya. Gangtok: Namgyal Institute of Tibetology, 239–57.
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—— (forthcoming). Historical documents related to Tibetan society published in the
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New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc., vii–x.
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THE ROLE OF AMBANS IN THE DALAI LAMA GOVERNMENT
ACCORDING TO THE TEN-POINT EDICT OF 1795

KALSANG NORBU GURUNG

INTRODUCTION

The Ten-Point Edict or Regulation, rTsa tshig don mtshan bcu, is one
of the few important documents prepared in collaboration with the
Qing Ambans in Lhasa and the Dalai Lama government.1 According to
the available draft (zin bris) of the edict, the eighth Dalai Lama
(1758–1804) had instructed the then regent, the third rTa tshag Ba so rje
drung ho thog tu Ye shes blo bzang bstan pa’i mgon po (1760–1810) and
the four cabinet ministers (bka’ blon) to consult the Ambans about
improving the situation of the impoverished mi ser by releasing them
from various tax obligations. The four cabinet ministers then put for-
ward a request to the Ambans to issue this edict. Therefore, it was pre-
pared in 1795 by Amban Song-Yun (1752–1835; Song spelled gsung in
Tibetan) and assistant Amban He-Ning alias He-Ying (d. 1821; He
spelled ho in Tibetan) in Chinese and Tibetan languages.2 It is still
uncertain, however, whether this edict was ever implemented. The main
reasons for this uncertainty are the absence of an official stamp on this
copy of the edict3 and the absence of any other identical copy, or of any

1 I am currently working on an English translation of the Ten-Point Edict, which

will be published along with the English translation of its Chinese version undertaken
by my colleague Liu Yuxuan. We intend to include facsimiles and transliterations of the
manuscript in the publication.
2 I note here that Ya Hanzhang (1991: 84–85) has quoted a summary English trans-
lation without any reference to his source. However, from his reference to the Amban
Song-Yun, the eighth Dalai Lama and the year 1795, and judging from the content, he
has most probably translated and summarised the Ten-Point Edict. He further writes
that it was the eighth Dalai Lama who made the decision on the advice of the Amban
Song-Yun. This, to my understanding of the relevant passages in the Ten-Point Edict,
should not be read as the edict was actually issued by the eighth Dalai Lama. From all
the occurrences of the first person plural subject “nged bka’ mngags am ban gnyis” in
the edict, it is clear that the two Ambans were the joint authors of this edict.
3 For example, see documents 48 and 49 in CHAT 1995, the other two edicts bear-
ing seals issued by the same administration in 1795.
28 KALSANG NORBU GURUNG

reference to it, known to us. Nevertheless, this draft is a highly valuable

reference for the social history of Tibetan mi ser in late 18th century
Tibet.4 In particular, this document sheds light on the activities that the
Amban Song-Yun, his assistant He-Ning and the eighth Dalai Lama
attempted to carry out. As I will discuss later, it is quite clear from this
edict that the Ambans were highly influential in the decision-making
process in the Dalai Lama government. Therefore, I will discuss the
role of the two Ambans in the Dalai Lama government by analysing the
Ten-Point Edict in this paper. To understand their role, I shall first give
a brief historical overview of the Ambans in Tibet, on the basis of some
available publications, followed by details of how the power and
authority of the Ambans was consolidated over the course of time.

THE ROLE OF AMBANS IN TIBET

According to Kolma (1994), the Ambanship in Lhasa started in 1727

during the Yongzheng Era (1723–1735), when a Manchu member of the
Plain White Banner named Sengge was appointed to take charge as
Superintendent. Some years previously, when Yongzheng had become
the Emperor after his father’s death in 1723, he withdrew all the Qing
officials from Lhasa (Petech 1972: 92, 255; Shakabpa 1984 [1967]:
141).5 The officials were again appointed to Lhasa in 1727 by the
Yongzheng Emperor for the purpose of putting an end to the civil war
in Tibet (ibid.: 143–44).6 This position did not carry the title of Amban
at the time, but the incumbents were appointed as Superintendent,
Commander, and the like. In 1750, Bandi (No. 23 in Kolma 1994) was

4Since the exact meaning of the Tibetan word mi ser is still inconclusive, I prefer
to use the Tibetan word itself, in the plural, and refer more or less to the commoners
who work for the estates, purely based on the contextual meaning in this edict.
5 Shakabpa writes: “In 1723 the new Manchu ruler (i.e. Yonhzheng Emperor) began
a policy of retrenchment. He withdrew the garrison from Lhasa, leaving the adminis-
tration of central Tibet entirely in the hands of Tibetan officials, without any military
support from the Manchus”.
6 Shakabpa gives the following reason: “Two months later, a large imperial army
under the command of the Manchus, Jalangga, and Mailu, arrived in Lhasa. The expe-
dition had been dispatched by the Yung-cheng Emperor for the purpose of protecting
the Dalai Lama and putting an end to the civil war. [...] The expedition arrived on
September 4th and the Manchu leaders, Jalangga and Mailu, together with the two res-
ident Manchu officials, Senge and Mala, constituted a court of justice to try the minis-
ters and their followers”.
 THE ROLE OF THE AMBANS 29

appointed as the official responsible for Tibetan affairs in Lhasa, and

he was known by the title “Amban”, most likely because of his previ-
ous position as the Amban of Qinghai in Xining. The title of “Amban”
had been used for that position until the end of the Qing dynasty. The
Ambans were appointed for a maximum period of up to six years
depending on their services.
As Goldstein concludes, the role and power of Ambans in Lhasa
until 1793, when the 29-Point Edict was issued, was unspecified and
thus uncertain.7 Goldstein writes:
The actual role of the Amban in Tibet is difficult to assess. Despite the
rhetoric and rules the Qing prepared, their power appears to have varied
considerably in accordance with many factors such as their personality
and competence in relation to that of the leaders of Tibet, and the nature
of the political situation in China and Tibet at any point in time.
(Goldstein 1997: 20–21)
There were no actual detailed guidelines regarding the responsibilities
of the Ambans and they therefore did practically nothing.8 One source
informs us that the Ambans’ lack of experience, due to the short dura-

7 A facsimile version of this edict is published in CHAT 1995 (see document 50),
and its three printed versions published in Chab spel et al. 1989: 17–31; with minor
editing as a chapter of Chu glang wang shu tshur phul in Chab spel et al. 1991: 116–17;
131–46, and in Chab spel and Nor brang (eds) 1991: 317–33. Two separate edicts were
attached to the 29-Point Edict in the facsimile version, which gives the date of 58th
Qianlong Era (i.e. 1793). However they do not necessarily belong together. The physi-
cal features of the facsimile version such as paper size and handwriting make it dubi-
ous. I shall refer to Peter Schwieger’s forthcoming book, The Dalai Lama and the
Emperor of China, in which he convincingly argues in this regard. Therefore, one must
be cautious about assuming that this version of the facsimile was originally attached to
the two separate manuscripts. According to the colophon at the end, a Tibetan transla-
tion along with the Chinese original was discovered in Iron-sheep year, 7th month and
21st day, i.e. 1811 (cf. Schwieger forthcoming). Ya (1991: 72) also informs us about the
original in Chinese and its translation into Tibetan. On the basis of the acquired infor-
mation (cf. Schwieger forthcoming), the English translation in Ya (1991: 72–83) is pos-
sibly from the Chinese original that he has seen in the Jokhang temple along with a
Tibetan translation. As Schwieger (forthcoming) discovered, there are at least two
Tibetan translations: one extended version (that I have not yet seen, cf. Schwieger forth-
coming) and the other published in the facsimile above.
8 Goldstein (1997: 21) and his source Ya (1991: 83–84) summarise a letter by the
Emperor Qianlong to Commanding General Fu Kang’an in 1792 to instruct the
Ambans in Lhasa. “Usually capable, competent officials are assigned to posts in the
capital; those sent to Tibet have been mostly mediocrities who did practically nothing
but wait for the expiration of their tenures of office so they could return to Beijing. [...]
From now on the administration of Tibet should be effectively supervised by the
Resident Official”.
30 KALSANG NORBU GURUNG

tion of their stay in Tibet, made it difficult for them to deal with the sit-
uation of Tibet properly, whereas another source even suggests that the
indecent activities of Amban in Tibet caused them to be negligent in
their duties (Nor bu bsam ’phel 2008: 6). Besides, the most serious dis-
turbance in the administration of the Ambans in Lhasa seems to have
been fuelled by the two Nepal-Tibet wars of 1788 and 1792. Whatever
the actual reason might have been, several Ambans during that period
were criticised and either degraded or discharged from their positions,
as they were considered to have failed to carry out their duties satisfac-
torily. For example, Qinglin (or Qingling), assistant Amban from
1783–1788, was discharged on account of his mismanagement of bor-
der troubles with Nepal; Yamantai, assistant Amban from 1786–1788,
was first degraded, then reappointed to the same post from 1790–1791,
but was subsequently discharged; Shulian Amban from 1788–1790,
Pufu Amban in 1790, Baotai Amban from 1790–1791, and Ehui Amban
from 1791–1792 were all discharged before ending their official term
(See Kolma 1994, No. 48, 50/56, 52, 55, 57, 60). It is evident that the
period during the Nepal-Tibet war was very unfavourable for the
Ambans in Lhasa. Therefore, whoever was to take up this position dur-
ing those years had to face a difficult challenge and to put all his abili-
ty and skill at stake. In addition, as stated above there were no actual
detailed guidelines regarding the responsibilities of the Ambans.
A number of historians and scholars claim that the implementation
of the 29-Point Edict in 1793 strengthened the role and the power of
Ambans in Lhasa (cf. Ya 1991: 83; Goldstein 1997: 20; Chab spel and
Nor brang 1991: 316; Rockhill 1910: 53). This is to say that the Ambans
after that point were given equal power and authority to that of the
Dalai Lama to take control of all the major country policies, such as
social, political, financial, judicial, military as well as Tibet’s border
administration.9 As the power of the Ambans in Tibet was strength-
ened, the Qianlong Emperor appointed more skilled, capable, and liter-
ate officials to carry out the task more diligently. One of the most
renowned officials who has featured prominently in the history of the
Ambans in Lhasa is Song-Yun. Song-Yun was appointed as the Amban
of Lhasa on 14 August 1794 and assumed his office in Lhasa between
22 December 1794 and 20 January 1795. He remained in the position
and served for around four years as Amban until 25 February 1799

9 See particularly points 10, 11, 14, 18, 21, 23, and 24 in the 29-Point Edict.
 THE ROLE OF THE AMBANS 31

(Kolma 1994: 36). According to Kolma, he was the head of the

Ministry of Works and Commander-in-Chief before he moved to Lhasa.
This suggests that he was in a very high position among the Qing offi-
cials and must have been known as a very capable official to fulfil the
wish of the Emperor regarding Tibetan affairs.
As the assistant to Song-Yun’s administration, another renowned
official that the Qianlong Emperor appointed was Amban He-Ning.
According to Kolma (1994: 36), He-Ning assumed his post as the
assistant Amban between 31 March and 28 April in 1794 and was pro-
moted to Amban between 25 January and 23 February in 1800. He
remained in Tibet as the second Amban concurrently with Amban
Yingshan (1799–1803) for about half a year. The literary skill of these
two Ambans Song-Yun and He-Ning are obvious from the authorship
of numerous works published under their names. Kolma identifies
these two among the first three Ambans who became famous as men of
letters capturing the years of their activity in Tibet (Kolma 1994: 14).
The strengthened role and authority of the Ambans as influenced by
the 29-Point Edict issued a few years before the appointment of these
two incumbents is clearly visible in the Ten-Point Edict. As mentioned
above, this edict had been prepared by these two Ambans at the request
of the cabinet ministers. The major purpose of this edict was apparent-
ly to improve the social situation of impoverished Tibetan mi ser, par-
ticularly perhaps in several districts of the southern border regions,
where the peasantry had had to face severe economic instability due to
the Nepal-Tibet Wars until 1792.

CAUSES OF THE PROBLEMS: “IMPOVERISHMENTS”

According to the preface of the Ten-Point Edict, the causes of impover-

ishment are as follows: firstly, the mi ser were affected by an epidemic
and were in great danger of dying. In this regard, we know of one inci-
dent from Ya Hanzhang about a smallpox epidemic in northern Tibet.
Ya writes: “At this time [ca. 1795] a smallpox epidemic was ravaging
Tibet, taking a heavy toll of human lives. The Amban took effective
measures to combat the killer disease. What he did was recorded on a
stone slab in front of the Jokhang Temple” (1991: 86). The inscription
on the stone that Ya has translated reads, with few lines omitted here,
as follows:
32 KALSANG NORBU GURUNG

Smallpox victims end up in caves or on the wasteland; deserted by their

next of kin and left utterly without help, none can ever survive. Their fate
is indeed tragic. I had a number of one-storey houses built for the
Tibetans struck by smallpox at Langdang’gu in northern Tibet with my
own money. I fed the sick, and sent a detail of Han and Tibetan soldiers
to look after them. [...] I persuaded the Dalai Lama and the Panchen to
donate food to smallpox victims. (ibid.: 86)
The Amban’s encouragement of the Dalai Lama to support the victims
mentioned in this inscription is corroborated by the following passage
in the preface of the Ten-Point Edict. I translate:
If the investigation of this matter is neglected and those mi ser are not
taken care of with love, the government’s mi ser will gradually disperse;
their foods and clothes will deteriorate and they will lose their homes.
Now, the government should pay the cost and the homes must be restored
in order to support the resettlement of the mi ser.
Secondly, they had to flee from their land because of various tax obli-
gations such as transportation duty (’u lag), horse-load (rta khal), per-
sonnel or porter (mi reng), fodder, firewood and food provisions as
specified in the third point of this edict. Thirdly, as suggested in the
sixth point, some officials had ignored the tax obligation manual when
collecting the taxes, and they had over-collected as they wished. This
misconduct on the part the officials overburdened the mi ser.
In addition, I should refer to Dabringhaus (1994: 178–79), who has
translated five causes of impoverishment described in a report prepared
by Song-Yun that is now kept in the collection of Weizang Tongzhi. This
collection has been tentatively attributed to Song-Yun or to his prede-
cessor He-Lin (1792–1794), or else to their assistant Amban He-Ning.10
Since the following five causes were prepared by Song-Yun, as
Dabringhaus suggests, they are strongly related to the purpose of
preparing the Ten-Point Edict. Although the details about the injustice
and arbitrariness of the tax system are not explicitly given in the Ten-
Point Edict, these are apparent from the causes highlighted above. The
five causes may be summarised as follows:
First, some field administrators not only demanded more than
agreed, disregarding the agreed proportion of their harvest the mi ser
have to deliver, but also demanded that the mi ser should cultivate and

10
For a different opinion about its authorship, cf. Kolma 1994: 35–36 (notes 43
and 46) and Liu Yuxuan in this volume.
 THE ROLE OF THE AMBANS 33

irrigate their fields. Therefore, the mi ser could not cultivate their own
fields and consequently they fell into debt.
Second, there were people under the administrators who did not
work themselves, but sent other agents to the fields with intention of
filling their own pockets. Those agents demanded a surplus of the har-
vest for themselves.
Third, some degenerate leaders forced mi ser to provide labour under
the pretext that the work was urgently needed, or else collected cash
from the mi ser.
Fourth, the private-estate officials demanded corvée labour from the
mi ser, who also had to cultivate their own fields at the same time.
Those mi ser inevitably had to neglect their own fields. Even so, the
estate forced them to deliver the grain tax.
Fifth, the field administrators often took away the plough cattle in
order to rent to others or to use them privately. Therefore the peasants
were never able use the cattle to plough their own fields.11

THE TEN-POINT EDICT

The two Ambans Song-Yun and He-Ning proposed resolutions to min-

imise poverty through the Ten-Point Edict. These resolutions also
reflect the role and power of the Ambans in Lhasa until the end of the
Qianlong Era in 1795, obviously stimulated by the 29-Point Edict of
1793. It is clear from the Ten-Point Edict that these two Ambans were
primarily concerned about the situation of the Tibetan mi ser. Thus the
attempts to improve their conditions through this edict can be sum-
marised as follows: resettlement of the mi ser, ensuring their security in
terms of provisions, work and financial support through measures such
as refund, exemption and concessions on taxes, and the remission of
fines due from the past, as well as legal protection by instructing the
officials in the law and in making judicial decision. In order to describe
these resolutions in detail, I will summarise and categorise the ten
points.

11 I thank my colleague Jeannine Bischoff for helping me to translate these pas-

sages into English.
34 KALSANG NORBU GURUNG

Re-settlement and supply

The first point of the edict focuses on the re-settlement policy concern-
ing mi ser who have fled or have been expelled by building and restor-
ing houses with the expenses provided from the account of the Dalai
Lama. The district officials were assigned to investigate the number of
ruined houses which might be appropriate for restoration in the districts
under the territory of the Dalai Lama.12 This measure was probably also
intended to attract mi ser to the domain of the Dalai Lama government
and thereby to increase the number of government taxpayers.
Among the mi ser who had fled, those who took refuge in aristocrat-
ic estates were also relocated, as we can see from the description given
in points six and nine. Since these two points are more appropriate in
this context, I shall present them here. According to point six, the mi
ser who are willing to return are permitted to go back to their homes
and work in their fields, with provisions and seed grain supplied by the
concerned district officials, but the expenses are to be covered by the
government. Those who do not want to return to their home are allowed
to rent a field and farm it with a supply of provisions and seed grain
from the district commissioners.
In point nine, the aristocratic (drag btsan) officials are urged to
encourage the government mi ser, who have recently abandoned their
previous estates to work for them, to return the government estates in
order to cultivate land in their native villages. To prevent their situation
from declining at home, the Dalai Lama will take care of food supplies
and seed grain for impoverished mi ser. However, the aristocrat offi-
cials should supply provisions for their travel, which will be fully com-
pensated by the government.
The second point is about solving the difficulties of the relocated mi
ser once they have been resettled. The two Ambans attempted to solve
their difficulties through the following propositions. First, that district
officials should ensure that each family of relocated mi ser, including
the elderly and children, should receive food supplies for their subsis-
tence and seed grain with which to cultivate their fields. Secondly, the
mi ser are encouraged to cultivate their fields with the concession of

12The districts under the Dalai Lama specified here extend from sMar kham (mod-
ern-day Chab mdo prefecture, TAR) to lHa sa, bKra shis lhun po (in gZhis ka rtse pre-
fecture), mNya’ nang and sKyid grong. The last three districts were affected during
Nepal-Tibet Wars until 1792.
 THE ROLE OF THE AMBANS 35

waiving their tax obligation (khral bogs) and transportation service

(lam thogs) for three years. Thirdly, the mi ser are reassured against
officials taking bribes and forcibly blocking the sources of their irriga-
tion.

Tax refund, exemption, alternative, and concession

The third point concerns compensation of one silver tram coin to be
paid by the Dalai Lama government to all families of impoverished mi
ser to offset the burden of various tax obligations such as transportation
labour, animal transport, personal labour and provision of fodder and
firewood.
The fourth point states that the Dalai Lama has agreed to rescind the
debt of cash due in lieu of the unpaid provision of pack-animals over
the past twenty years.13 The tax may be resumed after ten years on the
condition that the mi ser have recovered from their adverse living con-
ditions. However, the Ambans also cautioned the mi ser to be diligent
in cultivating their fields and not to wander off in disregard of the Dalai
Lama’s intention.
The fifth point is about the options available to the mi ser for the
payment of taxes or interest on loans, and how their tax liability might
be adjusted. For instance, the mi ser may pay their grain tax in either
kind or cash (spus dngul). The tax obligation set previously—10 khal
of grain in return of one khal of seed at the best-quality agricultural
land, 7 khal at the medium-quality agricultural land and 5 khal at the
lowest-quality agricultural land—may be reduced to end the poverty
resulting from poor harvests caused by adverse weather conditions.
The sixth point specifies the cash equivalent for payments of grain,
animal fodder, firewood and livestock.14 It also specifies the rescission

13 In this regard, I shall quote here the details from the Ten-Point Edict: “During the
past thirteen, fourteen or twenty years, the Dalai Lama has been sending officials to
collect horses or mules from mi ser in certain districts (sMar khams, Go ’jo, mDzo
sgang, gSang sngags chos rdzong [the southwest of mDzo sgang], sPo bo, lHo rdzong,
Sho mdo, dPal ’bar, lCags ra [unknown] and Kong po), or the equivalent amount in
cash if [the mi ser] did not want to give the animals”.
14 The cash amounts fixed in lieu of the tax as recorded in the book are: two silver
srang coins (equals thirteen tram and five skar coins) for ten khal; one tram and five
skar coins for one khal of grain; five silver zho coins for animal fodder; eight silver zho
coins for firewood; seven and a half silver skar coins for one head of livestock, one sil-
ver tram for ten sheep, and one silver tram for twenty goats each year; and one pig per
twenty pigs each year from Kongpo mi ser.
36 KALSANG NORBU GURUNG

of all taxes for the wood hare year (1795) as well as of fines to the value
of over 40,000 silver srang (between 56th and 59th Qianlong Era,
1791–1794) to enable mi ser to recover from poverty.

Instruction in equal law

The seventh point is concerned mainly with the collaboration of the
district officials with the Storekeeper and Revenue Collectors (bkar
yong) in ensuring friendly treatment of mi ser. First, the bkar yong sent
specially by the Dalai Lama to all regions annually are enjoined to col-
lect taxes strictly and fairly without distinguishing between mi ser on
the basis of their income. Secondly, in collaboration with bkar yong
officials, the district officials are urged to collect the taxes in accor-
dance with economic, harvest, and weather conditions.
The eighth point describes the responsibilities of the grass-keeper
(rtswa gnyer) and the firewood-keeper (shing gnyer) appointed by the
government. The keepers may purchase fodder and firewood from the
four districts, bDe chen, sTod lung, Ra sgang and sTag rtse, and trans-
port them to Lhasa, if they could not obtain them around Lhasa. They
must provide victuals for those who make the purchases and also pay
the fees for the pack animals and personal labour.15
Point nine also specifies two important points for dealing with mi ser
on non-governmental estates. First, those mi ser on the private estates
of dignitaries such as ministers, army generals and district officials, and
mi ser on the monastic estates are granted larger tax concessions than
mi ser on the government estates. Secondly, if any impoverished mi ser
are reported in those estates, they are entitled to receive cash support
from the Dalai Lama government.
The tenth point concerns legal instruction in solving the problems
and hardships caused by aristocratic officials for the mi ser in relation
to transportation duties. Some Tibetan gentry (mi drag) misuse an edict
(bka’ shog) as a pretext, and forcibly refuse to pay their transportation
tax. Some even shift their burden of transportation labour (’u lag) duty
onto poor mi ser. To solve these problems, the Amban declares that the
Dalai Lama has enforced the law to apply the transportation tax unvary-
ingly to all the upper and lower strata of mi ser, to levy tax equitably

15
The fees fixed here are: one zho coin per one pack animal (khal ma), one zho coin
per mule and five skar coins per head per day.
 THE ROLE OF THE AMBANS 37

from the aristocrat mi ser, and not to permit the estate-holders to shift
their responsibility onto the poor mi ser. Secondly, with regard to the
transportation permit, aristocrat officials must obtain travel documents
from the Amban’s office for whomsoever they engage to carry out the
trade. Those employed must hire the necessary transportation labour
and provide sufficient fees for those they engage, and thus they may not
cause hardships for the poor mi ser.

Judicial decision
The Ambans were also influential in legal decisions. Almost all the ten
points conclude with assurances of rewards for positive service and
severe punishment for dereliction. It is apparently not relevant for the
Ambans to specify in the edict what kind of punishment might be
meted out. However, they have made clear in this edict that transgres-
sions and virtues will be respectively punished and rewarded. The
severest punishment or penalties for the officials are reserved for cases
like: inappropriate management of the building construction and the
expenses involved; oppressing and using force against mi ser; collect-
ing taxes improperly; ignoring one’s responsibilities; submitting false
tax accounts; practising fraud with respect to the mi ser’s supplies; and
finally, causing hardship to the mi ser by giving them tea in exchange
for grain. Severe punishment will be meted out to mi ser in cases such
as covetously taking double welfare payments, and, in the case of
wealthy mi ser, fraudulently receiving such cash allocations. Rewards
and recognition are announced for officials who manage construction
projects and building expenses honestly, who are diligent and active,
and who submit genuine accounts of taxes.

CONCLUSION

As the power and authority of the Ambans in Lhasa were unspecified

and uncertain, and because the two Nepal-Tibet Wars between 1788 and
1792 caused instability in their administration, the 29-Point Edict was
issued in 1793. This raised and strengthened the power of the Ambans
in Lhasa. As their power strengthened, Song-Yun and his assistant He-
Ning became involved in various affairs of the government, estates and
the mi ser. One obvious example is the attempt to improve the situation
38 KALSANG NORBU GURUNG

of Tibetan mi ser who were affected by epidemics, impoverished

because of various tax obligations, and afflicted by the injustice of cor-
rupt officials. Through this Ten-Point Edict, the two Ambans proposed
resolutions to reduce poverty by means of resettlement of the mi ser,
providing security with respect to provisions and work, and financial
support in the form of tax refunds, exemptions, and concessions, and
legal protection by instructing officials in the exercise of equal law and
judicial punishment.
The resettlement and security policy would have attracted mi ser into
the orbit of the Dalai Lama government, and this would consequently
have increased the number of government taxpayers. This is clear also
from point nine, which specifies that aristocrat officials are urged to
return the government mi ser to the government estates from which
they have fled. Through financial support, the mi ser were encouraged
to work hard on the fields. This policy is beneficial not only to raise the
mi ser out of poverty, but also to enhance the situation of the Dalai
Lama government from many perspectives (politically, socially, eco-
nomically and legally). Through the instruction of officials in legal pro-
cedures, the mi ser might suffer less injustice and arbitrariness from the
tax system and less hardship from the officials. The officials and the mi
ser would be encouraged and would feel appreciated by the reward and
recognition they received for their positive service, and would be dis-
couraged from dereliction of duty by the threat of severe punishment.
As said above, I have not found any concrete evidence to prove the actu-
al implementation of this edict. Nevertheless, this is a valuable docu-
ment from which we can learn about the situation of Tibetan mi ser and
the role and power of Ambans in Tibet in the late 18th century, as the
content tells us a great deal about their social, political and economic
activities, and their involvement with land management. More impor-
tantly, we can learn from this edict that the role of Amban in Lhasa dur-
ing this period was not limited, and that the two Ambans were very
actively involved in various affairs of the government, the estates, and
the mi ser of Tibet.
 THE ROLE OF THE AMBANS 39

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chab spel Tshe brtan phun tshogs and Nor brang o rgyan (eds). 1991. Bod kyi lo rgyus
rags rim g.yu yi phreng ba 2. Lhasa: Bod ljongs bod yig dpe rnying dpe skrun
khang.
Chab spel Tshe brtan phun tshogs et al. (eds). 1989. Bod kyi snga rabs khrims srol yig
cha bdams bsgrigs. Gangs can rig mdzod 7. Lhasa: Bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe
skrun khang.
—— 1991. Bod kyi gal che’i lo rgyus yig cha bdams bsgrigs. Gangs can rig mdzod 16.
Lhasa: Bod ljongs bod yig dpe rnying dpe skrun khang.
CHAT. 1995. A Collection of Historical Archives of Tibet. Compiled by the Archives of
the TAR. Cultural Relics Publishing House.
Dabringhaus, S. 1994. Das Qing-Imperium als Vision und Wirklichkeit. Tibet in
Laufbahn und Schriften des Song Yun (1752–1835). Münchener Ostasiatische
Studien 69. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.
Goldstein, M.C. 1997. The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet and the Dalai
Lama. California: University of California Press.
Kolma, J. 1994. The Ambans and Assistant Ambans of Tibet. Archív Orientální.
Supplementa VII. Prague: The Oriental Institute.
Nor bu bsam ’phel. 2008. Ching rgyal rabs snga cha’i skabs kyi bod skyong srid jus kyi
’phel rim khyad chos dang dge skyon skor gleng ba. Bod ljongs zhib ’jug 106(1),
1–9.
Petech, L. 1972. China and Tibet in the Early XVIIIth Century: History of the
Establishment of Chinese Protectorate in Tibet. T’oung Pao Monographie 1.
Leiden: E. J. Brill (revised edition).
Rockhill, W.W. 1910. The Dalai Lamas of Lhasa and Their Relations with the Manchu
Emperors of China 1644–1908. T’oung Pao, Second Series 11(1). Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1–104.
Schwieger, P. (forthcoming). The Dalai Lama and the Emperor of China.
Shakabpa, T.W.D. 1984 [1967]. Tibet: A Political History. New York: Potala
Publications.
Ya Hanzhang. 1991. The Biographies of the Dalai Lamas. Beijing: Foreign Language
Press.
 IN SEARCH OF THE TIBETAN TRANSLATORS WITHIN THE
MANCHU EMPIRE: AN ATTEMPT TO GO FROM THE GLOBAL
TO THE LOCAL

FABIENNE JAGOU

The translation of Manchu-Tibetan administrative documents raises

many questions, and many of these must remain unanswered given our
present state of knowledge. In the present contribution “translation”
and “translator” will be understood in terms of circulation and
exchange. Both notions will be envisioned as a flux between the “glob-
al” (the Manchu Empire) and the “local” (Tibet), and numerous chan-
nels of communication are likely to be revealed in the long run.

FROM THE GLOBAL…

Studies related to the use of translation as a cross-cultural tool between

China and Tibet are rare. It is mainly the field of religion that has been
covered. In China, scholarship in this domain ranges from the dissemi-
nation of Buddhism through the translation of religious texts from India
to Japan via China and Tibet from the eighth century, to the Jesuits’
first translations of Christian terminology into Chinese in the eigh-
teenth century. In Tibet, translations of Buddhist texts from Sanskrit
gave birth to various schools. In both countries, these first efforts at
translation initiated many debates that remain open to the present.
Translations of religious texts are considered vehicles for a better
understanding of imported religions and their adoption, and also as
tools for proselytism. This effort of diffusion through masters and texts
was followed throughout the duration of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911),
and lay at the origin of the knowledge of Tibetan esoteric Buddhism in
China. During the Qing dynasty, the Tibetan Buddhist Canon was
reproduced in Tibetan at least five times by the Manchu Emperors, and
underwent translation into Chinese (1738), Mongolian (1749) and
Manchu (1790). Then, at the beginning of the twentieth century, follow-
ing the destruction of a large corpus of Buddhist texts during the
42 FABIENNE JAGOU

Taiping Rebellion, some lay Buddhists searched for Tibetan esoteric

texts and produced new translations of Tibetan Buddhist works.
Western scientific analyses of language during the Qing dynasty
include studies of the use of Manchu by the Qing. These demonstrate
that the Qing consistently favoured Manchu: it was the official lan-
guage of the state, mainly because Manchu was the language of the
Aisin Gioro clan, the imperial clan. Throughout the Qing era, with a
reinforcement of this policy under Qianlong’s reign (r. 1736–1796),
officials were obliged to write their memoranda to the Emperor in
Manchu. The mandatory use of Manchu for all military and political
correspondence ensured its status as a kind of secure language
(Crossley and Rawski 1993: 63, 70–71). For the authors, this policy of
favouring Manchu “suggests the importance the Manchus themselves
eventually placed on language as a marker of cultural difference to the
end of the eighteenth century” (Berger 2003: 5). At the end of the eigh-
teenth century, the Qing wish was that the Manchu could express them-
selves in Manchu, the Mongols in Mongolian and the Chinese in
Chinese (Crossley and Rawski 1993: 80). Apparently, no mention is
made of the Tibetans.
This idea was emphasised by the creation of dictionaries which
incorporated the five languages of the Empire by the end of the eigh-
teenth century. These dictionaries began with the first Manchu diction-
ary, published in 1708. These were followed by: a bilingual Manchu-
Mongol dictionary (1717); a Manchu-Mongol-Chinese dictionary
(1780); a Manchu-Mongol-Chinese and Tibetan dictionary (1780) (Si ti
qing wenjian 四体清文鑑); the Uighur language was included within
the last of these, with phonetic transcriptions for Tibetan and Uighur
vocabularies, and all five languages of the Qing Empire (Wu ti qing
wenjian 五体清文鑑) were eventually united within a dictionary con-
cluded between 1787 and 1794. These dictionaries were progressively
expanded to include vocabulary related to various fields such as reli-
gion, landscape and daily life, but very little about administration and
administrative terms that might help with government correspondence.
Nothing is known about the use of these dictionaries and their distribu-
tion within the Empire. Of course, their existence perpetuates the idea
of the universalism of the Qing Empire and emphasises its multi-ethnic
form. They were also intended to standardise the five languages of the
Empire (Rawski 1996: 836). However, the production of these diction-
aries raises numerous questions: were they a kind of mirror of this Qing
 IN SEARCH OF THE TIBETAN TRANSLATORS 43

universalism or were they practical tools? Were they used by officials,

notably those who worked on the border areas of the Manchu Empire?
Who was involved in the creation of supposed translation tools? Who
could have been considered as official translators at the Qing court?
According to Rawski, the Emperor appointed imperial princes and high
officials who supervised a large number of scholars. Nothing seems
definitive, and nomination to such a task seems to have been an irreg-
ular affair (Rawski 2005: 309). For example, I notice within the list of
contributors to the Five Languages Dictionary four Tibetan monks and
two correctors who could have spoken and read Tibetan because they
lived in Tibet at the end of the eighteenth century (Sun Shiyi 孫士毅,
1720–1796 and Ehui 鄂輝, date unknown). But there is no way to deter-
mine whether they took part in writing the Tibetan part of the diction-
ary or worked in another language section. Although translation offices
existed at court, the task of producing the dictionaries seems not to have
been the responsibility of any office in particular.
Others questions are related to the translation services at the Qing
court in Beijing. Our first insight would be to think that the Court of
Border Affairs (Lifan yuan 理藩院), would provide a translation
department. But there is no evidence that such a department existed.
The Court of Border Affairs was not a decision-making body within the
Qing administration. It was an archive ministry: two archival services
were in use, Chinese (where Manchu and Mongol literati worked) and
Manchu (Jagou forthcoming). It is still uncertain what became of the
documents written in Mongolian and in Tibetan. Were they kept with-
in another administrative section of the Qing government? Were they
left within the local Manchu yamen? We do know, however, that the
Court of Border Affairs was in charge of Tibetan language classes.
Indeed, in Beijing, from 1658, every banner had to appoint three men
to learn the Tibetan language (Da Qing huidian, Kangxi edition, 1690,
juan 144, 1b; Da Qing huidian, Yongzheng edition, 1732, juan 222, 1b).
Later (1741), under the Qianlong Emperor, this informal structure
became the “Office Dedicated to the Study of Tibetan” (Tanggute xue
si 唐古忒學司). It was composed of one assistant teacher and four
Mongolian secretaries (Da Qing huidian, Qianlong edition, 1748, juan
79, 1b). The office was reinforced with more members in 1839 by
Emperor Daoguang (r. 1821–1850) and was supposed to enrol twenty-
four students for five years. A final examination directed by the Dalai
Lama should have concluded their studies (Da Qing huidian shili,
44 FABIENNE JAGOU

Guangxu edition, 1899, juan 992, 15a).1 What would be the appoint-
ments of these graduated officials? Would these students become the
Ambans in Tibet? Would they be interpreters for Tibetan tribute mis-
sions to Beijing? Would these students, after obtaining their qualifica-
tions, serve within the translation offices of the Qing court: the Office
of Translators (the Siyi guan 四譯舘, founded in 1407, under the Ming
dynasty (1368–1644), the Office of Interpreters (the Huitong guan 會
同舘), or the School of Combined Learning, also called the Imperial
College (the Tongwen guan 同文舘 founded in 1862 to conduct trans-
lation with Western languages and train diplomats)? None of these
three translation offices, which existed during the Qing dynasty, seems
to have had a direct link with the Court of Border Affairs: they were
part of other organs. The Office of Translators was part of the Hanlin
yuan (翰林院), the Office of Interpreters of the Ministry of Rites (Libu
禮部). Both were created to train translators and interpreters of Asian
languages, Tibetan included (Ross 1908: 690). However, as the Office
of Interpreters fell under the administration of the Minister of Rites,
relations with the Court of Border Affairs should have existed because
both offices were responsible for organising and receiving Tibetan mis-
sions to Beijing. They should no doubt have cooperated in the transla-
tion work carried out during these missions. But so far, we have no evi-
dence of such cooperation. The Imperial College was incorporated
within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Zongli yamen 總理衙門) at the
end of the dynasty. As a matter of fact, the Manchu dynasty took the
matter of translation very seriously, not only because it was a dynasty
of foreign origin but also because of the extent of its Empire. The
importance of the translation is evident from the fact that special
licences and doctoral exams were organised for translators throughout
the duration of the dynasty (Pelliot 1948: 229).
However, despite the existence of these administrative organs dedi-
cated to translation within the Qing government, it was the assistant
teacher of the “Office Dedicated to the Study of Tibetan” that was not
only in charge of teaching but also of translating orders of the Emperor
to the Dalai Lama, as noted in the Da Qing huidian shili, Guangxu edi-
tion, 1899, juan 992, 14b. What are we to make of this sole occurrence
of the translation of a Manchu document into Tibetan by this individ-

1
A Russian college (Eluosi wenguan 俄羅斯文舘) was set up by the Court of
Border Affairs in 1708.
 IN SEARCH OF THE TIBETAN TRANSLATORS 45

ual? And then what kinds of documents were translated? Who checked
the translations? Were all the translations made in Beijing because of
the existence of these colleges? How did these translated Manchu Court
orders go through the Amban yamen? How were these Qing imperial
orders communicated to the Tibetan government? What were the chan-
nels of communication between the global and the local for the trans-
lated documents? The fact is that translation was the mode of exchange
between the Manchu Emperor (Beijing, one of the Manchu Empire cap-
itals) and the Dalai Lama (Lhasa, the Tibetan capital).

… TO THE LOCAL

This overview regarding translation within the Manchu government

sketched out above, and still in need of clarification, represents the per-
spective of the Manchu capital and government, and is counterbalanced
by the documents representing the local level.
The local here should be understood from various angles, the first
being geographic. Lhasa is far from Beijing: the Tibetan government is
a long way from the Beijing government without even taking into con-
sideration any kind of subordination of the local to the global or a direct
link of domination and control from the global to the local. But Tibet
was part of the Manchu Empire, and as such could be considered as
local because of its geographic position compared with Beijing, where
the Manchu chose to establish the government of their Empire, and
which became the centre of this Empire. Far from being trivial, this
geographical observation is relevant for questions about the transmis-
sion of documents—that is to say the circulation of the translations—
especially for those made in Tibet that needed approval from Beijing.
On the other hand, the distance could justify the appointment of an
agent who understood Tibetan or an interpreter/translator at the
Manchu yamen in Lhasa. So, were the translations made in Lhasa or in
Beijing? Did all translated documents circulate between Lhasa and
Beijing? Who were the local translators? Were the translations made in
Lhasa sent to Beijing to be revised and then approved by the Emperor?
If so, who then were the censors of the translations that were made in
Tibet? Or is it possible that the Manchu agents in Lhasa were autho-
rised to implement a Tibetan version of imperial regulations that were
not subject to final approval by the Emperor?
46 FABIENNE JAGOU

Another angle would be to envisage the local exclusively in terms of

Manchu administration: the Emperor was at the head of a government
whose ramifications extended far from his Beijing base. As such, the
Amban, the Manchu high commissioner nominated to serve in Tibet for
a three-year period, or the special envoy named to resolve a conflict,
was or could be considered as a local official—not a minor one, since
the Ambans were high officials—working for the Beijing government.
He was responsible for the exchange of documents between both gov-
ernments and relied on other local officials—among them translators
and interpreters—for his task (Petech 1950: 205).
What remains even more obscure is the way the documents circulat-
ed locally. What kinds of documents were transmitted from the Tibetan
government to the Office of the Amban (Zhu Zang banshi dachen
yamen 駐藏辦事大臣 衙門) and vice versa? Who was responsible for
the choice of documents within both governments? For example, from
the Narrative of Youtai’s Soujourn in Tibet (Youtai zhu Zang riji 有泰駐
藏日記), the translator or interpreter of the Tibetan government brought
one document to the Amban, the Amban received it and immediately
passed it on for translation (Youtai: juan 3, 17; juan 5, 5; juan 5, 6). This
information is given without any details about the expectation, the con-
tent, or the importance of the documents or about the translators. Does
this mean that every document issued by the Tibetan government was
transmitted to the Amban and then translated? What happened in the
case of Manchu documents concerning Tibet? Did they arrive in Lhasa
from Beijing already translated into Tibetan? Did the Manchu yamen
take charge of the translation process? Was the Manchu document given
in its original form and language to the Tibetan government?
The same structural questions could be asked of the Tibetan govern-
ment. Among them: how were the translation activities carried out
within the Tibetan government? Who were the translators? Who took
the decision to transmit a given document? Such an analysis from the
Tibetan side should be possible for the end of the nineteenth century
and the beginning of the twentieth thanks to the Western travel
accounts and through the Sino-Tibetan Buddhists exchange channels,
but not from archives related to the eighteenth century that are still so
difficult to obtain. But going to the end of the nineteenth or the begin-
ning of the twentieth century—for example with the analysis of the
implementation of the Manchu ordinances of 1844 and 1907 regarding
Tibet—would entail widening the scope of our analysis and opening
 IN SEARCH OF THE TIBETAN TRANSLATORS 47

our studies onto an even larger global frame. The international context
was totally different from that of the eighteenth century because of the
arrival and settlement of Westerners within the Manchu Empire that
ended with the foundation of a new translation office and of a new
Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing.
In any event, the sources that provide the answers to so many ques-
tions combine the global and the local. They are to be found in
archives—mainly Chinese, but also Tibetan: diaries of some of the
Manchu agents named in Tibet, and biographies of Tibetan officials,
although information about the translation and communication process
is obviously very scarce within these archives.

THE IN-BETWEEN: A CASE STUDY

Both the global and the local are implied in the analysis of the elabora-
tion of the Manchu Imperial Rules regarding Central Tibet that were
implemented during the eighteenth century (specifically, in 1750, 1789,
1790 and 1793). As an example I will focus on the analysis of the
“Ordinance for the More Efficient Governing of Tibet” dated 1793—
that I have studied from other perspectives (Jagou 2011 and forthcom-
ing)—for practical reasons: I have already read and translated a huge
amount of published archival material related to it, without counting
unpublished works examined in the National Palace Museum Archives
in Taipei. For scientific reasons, this document is at the origin of my
research on the governmental translation process between China and
Tibet, and reveals our ignorance concerning the elaboration and the
implementation of the Manchu rules in Tibet.
This imperial edict was prepared after the two Gorkha Wars, respec-
tively of 1788–1789 (which was unresolved) and of 1791.
How could the global intervene in the Tibetan formulation of the
Manchu imperial edict of 1793? My first attempt to answer this ques-
tion would be to cite the nomination of Manchu officials able to speak
and write Tibetan. My second answer would be to point to the estab-
lishment of fast and efficient channels of communication between the
local and the global. Here I will concentrate on the criteria that deter-
mined the nomination of the Manchu officials in Tibet, and raise the
question of whether knowledge of the Tibetan language was a prereq-
uisite within the scope of the 1793 ordinance.
48 FABIENNE JAGOU

Bilingualism perceived as an obstacle (from the global

From the correspondence between Lhasa and Beijing related to the
inconclusive nature of the first Gorkha War (1788–1789), the bilingual-
ism of the then Amban, Bazhong (巴忠, in Tibet from 1788 to 1789) has
been cited as possible factor. As a Tibetan speaker, Bazhong was
blamed by the Manchu authorities for being too close to rDo ring
Pandita (born in 1760), the Tibetan minister in charge of the negotia-
tions with the Gorkhas in the name of the Tibetan government. They
even went so far as to blame him for the negative influence he exerted
on the Tibetan minister by communicating with him directly (Duojie
Caidan 1994: doc. 892, Report from Fu Kang’an, 14th February 1792).
No indication is given about how Bazhong learned Tibetan, and
whether this knowledge of the language had made him eligible for
nomination to serve in Tibet.
In fact, knowledge of the Tibetan language does not appear to have
been a prerequisite at all, as can be seen from the subsequent discus-
sions regarding the selection of the next Amban: criteria such as knowl-
edge of borders affairs, prior experience as Manchu Amban in Lhasa,
or else personal connections were taken into account. Finally, it was
high officials of the Empire who were chosen (Duojie Caidan 1994:
doc. 894, Memorandum from Fu Kang’an to the Dalai Lama, 18th
February 1792; doc. 903, Order of the Grand Secretariat, 22nd March
1792; doc. 894, Memorandum from Fu Kang’an to the Dalai Lama, 18th
February 1792). Knowledge of the Tibetan language was clearly not a
criterion for nomination as an Amban in Tibet: it was rather something
to be avoided in order not to allow too much proximity between
Manchu and Tibetan officials in Lhasa. However, this does not mean
that Tibetan cultural features were systematically brushed aside among
the criteria of nomination: for example, an official was turned down
because he was not a Buddhist follower (Duojie Caidan 1994: doc. 903,
order of the Grand Secretariat, 22nd March 1792).
If the Ambans were not supposed to speak Tibetan, did Fu Kang’an
(福康安, Man: Fu K’anggan, 1753–1796), the special administrator in
charge of the elaboration of the imperial edict in 1792–1793, speak
Tibetan himself? Of course he was not subject to the same criteria as
those that applied to the Ambans: he was a brilliant general on many
Manchu campaigns (Jinchuan in 1776, Gansu in 1784, and Taiwan in
1787) before being credited with having expelled the Gorkha army from
 IN SEARCH OF THE TIBETAN TRANSLATORS 49

Tibet in 1792 (Richardson 1974: 27–39; Boulnois 1983). He was also

known as a provincial governor (Yunnan and Guizhou 1780–1781;
1794–1795), Sichuan (1781–1783; 1793–1794), Shaanxi and Gansu
(1784–1788), Fujian and Zhejiang (1788–1789; 1795), Guangdong and
Guangxi (1789–1793)—but with a bad reputation (Jagou 2007)! Most
important of all, Fu Kang’an was a member of the yellow banner, the
imperial clan, and he had personal connections with the Emperor. He
also had personal links with the officials who were nominated to serve
in Tibet in 1792, and all had connections with Heshen (和珅,
1750–1799), Grand Councillor and favourite of the Qianlong Emperor.
Fu Kang’an and Heshen belonged to the same banner (after Qianlong
had promoted Heshen from the red banner to the yellow) and Fu
Kang’an succeeded Heshen on the Gansu campaign. Helin (和琳, d.
Sep. 1796), the new Amban, was the younger brother of Heshen
(1750–1799). Sun Shiyi (1720–1796) was a member of the Heshen
group and he followed Fu Kang’an to Vietnam (1789). Sun Shiyi and
Huiling (惠齡) were responsible for the rations of the troops during the
1792 campaign within Tibet.
Within the nomination process, the global—in the form of the high-
est authorities of the Empire—determined the resolution of the local.
But then, who was able to act as translator or interpreter during the
preparation of the 1793 edict? The sources are almost silent on that sub-
ject, and the best we can do is to draw inferences from them. It is clear,
for example, that when Fu Kang’an met the 8th Dalai Lama
(1758–1804), he was sometimes accompanied by a Manchu official
(Sun Shiyi), but the documents are silent about Sun Shiyi’s capacities
as interpreter or translator for Tibetan. Among the Manchu officials
resident in Lhasa with Fu Kang’an, Ehui was able to translate docu-
ments written in Tibetan (Duojie Caidan 1994: doc. 900, 22nd March
1792, report from Fu Kang’an specifying that Ehui translated a letter
from rDo ring Paṇḍita to the Dalai Lama), but the role of translator was
not one of his official duties.

Bilingualism as a necessity (from the local)

Locally, bilingualism was a necessity for communication with the
Tibetan officials and for making Tibetan translations of Manchu docu-
ments. Communication between Fu Kang’an and the Dalai Lama was
established and, according to Fu Kang’an, the Dalai Lama was part of
50 FABIENNE JAGOU

the negotiations regarding the elaboration of the document and the

Dalai Lama accepted it (Duojie Caidan 1994, Memorandum from Fu
Kang’an to Qianlong, 29th November 1792).
As the imperial edict had been written in Lhasa, employees, acting
as translators within the Manchu yamen, should have been in charge of
the translation, but their names and function are not specified within
any of the documents; nothing is mentioned in the archives about trans-
lators and interpreters working for the Tibetan government.

CONCLUSION

Relations between the Manchu Empire and Tibet passed through trans-
lations and translators. Translation might therefore be seen as a mode
of exchange not only in terms of practice (the local) but also in terms
of meaning (the global).
The practice, that is to say the use and the impact of a translated doc-
ument locally, could be discussed so as to determine which document
prevails: was it the original document or its translated version?
Importance should be given to the analysis of the elaboration and con-
clusion of a final translated version of a Manchu imperial edict into
Tibetan. The channel of communication of translated documents
should be known in order to elaborate on a possible revision of the
translation work in Beijing and then an approval of the final translation
document by the Emperor. Otherwise, what can be said, ultimately,
about the value of a Qing regulation for Tibet that has been translated
into Tibetan locally but not revised in Beijing and approved by the
Emperor?
The meaning could be tentatively examined mainly in the event that
both language versions—at least Manchu and Tibetan—of an ordi-
nance existed. It would then be possible to analyse their “reciprocity of
meaning-value” (Liu 1999: 4) and perhaps even how Manchu political
ideas were understood by Tibetans. Beyond the scope of the Imperial
ordinances with a kind of standardised translation vocabulary, Tibetan
documents without Manchu or Chinese originals emanating from the
Office of the Amban show other aspects of Manchu-Tibetan relations.
At first glance, a real Manchu-Tibetan communication for the elabora-
tion of a new policy for Tibet emerges with a circulation from the glob-
al to the local. But on a second reading, the Tibetan vocabulary used
 IN SEARCH OF THE TIBETAN TRANSLATORS 51

shows that the Manchu agent was aware of the Tibetan administrative
procedures for communication in implementing a new policy. In this
case, the circulation would be plural with constant interactions between
the global and the local, with the tacit aim of making a Manchu policy
look like a Tibetan policy, or at least render Manchu policy acceptable
to Tibetans (see the text analysed by Kalsang Norbu Gurung in this vol-
ume).

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匯編 [Compendium of Archival Documents Concerning Sino-Tibetan Relations
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she.
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gaige de xianqu 滿州將軍福康安: 1792 至 1793 年西藏政務改革的先驅
[Fukang’an: a Manchu general at the origin of the Tibetan administrative reform
of 1792–1793]. In P. Calanca and F. Jagou (eds) Faguo Hanxue 法國漢學,
Sinologie française, Bianchen yu jiangli 邊臣與疆吏, vol. 12. Beijing: Zhonghua
shuju, 147–67.
—— 2011. The use of the ritual drawing of lots for the selection of the 11th Panchen
Lama. In K. Buffetrille (ed.) Revisiting Rituals in a Changing Tibetan World:
Proceedings of the Seminar “La transformation des rituels dans l’aire tibétaine à
l’époque contemporaine” held in Paris on November 8th and 9th 2007. Leiden:
Brill, 43–68.
—— (forthcoming). Lifanyuan’s limits of competence with regard to Tibet.
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 ON THE EDITION, STRUCTURE, AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE
WEIZANG TONGZHI

LIU YUXUAN

It was not until the Qing dynasty (1644–1912) that Tibetan difangzhi
(gazetteers)1 compiled in Chinese first appeared. Before that time, the
overwhelming volume of literature concerning Tibet, irrespective of
history, geography, culture, customs, religion, ethics and so forth, had
been entered into official history books. The estimated number of sur-
viving Chinese monographs on Tibet written since the Tang dynasty is
around thirty (Zhang Lihong 2005: 131), most of them composed dur-
ing the Qing dynasty. The first Qing dynasty monograph on Tibet clas-
sified as a gazetteer is the work entitled Zangjigai (A brief description
of Tibet)2 compiled by Li Fengcai and proofread by Kuifeng shanren,3
1 Difangzhi (lit. gazetteer) is a genre of Chinese historical records which covers
areas such as history, geography, culture, people, products, and so on, as comprehen-
sively as possible. It focuses on an administrative prefecture, a geographical district,
even a country (NB: I use “gazetteer” to stand for the term difangzhi in my paper).
China has a long history and fine tradition of compiling gazetteers. Moreover, the
majority of gazetteers were compiled under the supervision of local officials, with the
fundamental purpose of recording local history. Therefore, to some extent, we can treat
the gazetteers as periodical but progressive historical records—this means there have
always been modifications and supplements in the gazetteers. Even till now the govern-
ment in every administrative district, from highest to lowest, will organise officials to
compile the gazetteers. In general, the gazetteers can be classified into two subgenres:
comprehensive history (tongshi) and dynastic history (duandaishi). The Weizang
tongzhi, discussed here, belongs to the tongshi genre (comprehensive history). For fur-
ther research on the Chinese gazetteers see Brook 1988, especially part II.
2 Chinese terms and names are given in Pinyin transcription, Tibetan in Wylie
transliteration, Manchu according to Erich Hauer (1952), and Mongolian according to
Nikolas Poppe (2006).) Meanwhile, the Chinese-Western calendar conversion is based
on Qingdai Zhongxi Libiao (1980).
3 Zangjigai (A brief description of Tibet) contains three chapters (juan). Its records
end in the 5th year under the reign of the Yongzheng emperor (1727). Two persons named
Xiujiang tiechuan jushi and Wuling kuifeng shanren both appeared in the beginning of
every chapter as compilers. According to the research of the modern Chinese scholar Wu
Fengpei, Xiujiang tiechuan jushi is Li Fengcai. (cf. the postscript of Wu Fengpei collect-
ed into Zangjigai, 1988), who styled himself as Tingyi (zi) and Tiechuan (hao), from
Jianchang (i.e. today’s Yongxiu), Jiangxi. He was a wu juren (people who have succeed-
ed the imperial examination for the selection of military officers) in the 53rd year under
the reign of the Kangxi emperor (1714) and was sent to Tibet to suppress riots.
54 LIU YUXUAN

during the reign of the Yongzheng emperor.4 Nevertheless, of all the

gazetteers compiled in the earlier stages of the Qing dynasty—taking
the Jiaqing era (1795–1820) as dividing line—, the Weizang tongzhi
undoubtedly has a position of vital importance from the perspective of
academic research, because of the extensive information it provides on
Tibet. The work preserves more historical and archival materials from
before the end of the Jiaqing era than the other gazetteer, especially the
meticulous and comprehensive accounts about the war between Tibet
(and the Qing) and the Gorkhas (1788–1792). The purpose of this paper
is to introduce this Chinese historical source, the Weizang tongzhi, with
particular reference to its editing, structure, and authorship.

THE EDITION OF THE WEIZANG TONGZHI

The Weizang tongzhi was virtually unknown because it existed only as

a manuscript, now preserved in the library of Beijing University.5 Only
in the second half of the 19th century, when Yuan Chang6 included it in
his private family book collection series called jianxi cunshe, did it
become widely known.7 However, he made a rather radical adjustment,
especially with regard to the rearrangement of the whole book. Long

However, the author of the Zangjigai, namely Wuling kuifeng shanren, is still unknown
(See Zhao Xinyu 2013: 185).
4 There are two different viewpoints on the first Tibetan gazetteer: the first treats
Zangjigai as the earlier, since it was compiled in Yongzheng’s time according to the lat-
est date recorded on it (see Zhao Xinyu 2013: 185; Zhongguo difangzhi lianhe mulu
1985: 849); the other viewpoint is that Xizang zhi is the first; it was written in the name
of Guo qinwang (namely Prince Guo, whose name is Yunli, the 17th son of the Kangxi
emperor), very likely between the end of the reign of the Yongzheng and the beginning
of the Qianlong period, which has a version published under the sponsorship of He
Ning (see He Jinwen 1985: 1–3.) Based on the date of the end of the compilation and
also on the strength of research carried out in China, I have adopted the first viewpoint.
5 I have not yet been able to obtain access to that manuscript, but am currently try-
ing to secure a copy.
6 Yuan Chang (1846–1900), who styled himself Zhongli (zi) and Shuangqiu (hao),
was from Tonglu, Zhejiang. He held an official position in the Qing court up to the
position of Taichangsi qing, the highest official in charge of ritual and ceremony at the
ancestral temple. For further details, see Hummel 1964: 945–48).
7 The vogue for making private book collections began in the Song dynasty, even
though this kind of personal activity was on a rather small scale in comparison with
official compilations.
 ON THE WEIZANG TONGZHI 55

Jidong,8 at the request of Yuan Chang, did the job of proof-reading. He

finished it in the 21st year of Guangxu’s reign (1895) and published it
as a separate reprint the following year (1896). From then on, the
Weizang tongzhi was noted by scholars. It was reprinted twice after it
had been included in these jianxi cunshe series. The two reprints have
sixteen chapters (juan) each, with chapter headings: one comprises six
volumes bound in one box and the other eight volumes in one box. This
means that the only difference between the two is the package.
Thereafter, the three different block-printed versions, easily accessible
to scholars today, are all based on the version from the abovementioned
jianxi cunshe series. In the present article I shall focus only on these
three different versions. The three are as follows:
Edition I, included in the Congshu jicheng chubian series, the chief edi-
tor of which was Wang Yunwu.
Title: Weizang tongzhi
Author/compiler: author unknown (zhuanren weixiang)
Publisher: Shanghai: Commercial Press (Shangwu Yinshuguan)
Typography: vertical typesetting, basic pauses and printed in traditional
Chinese characters.
Publication Year: 1936
Edition II, included in the series of Tibetan Studies together with Xizang
zhi from page 126 to 565.
Title: Weizang tongzhi
Author/compiler: Song Yun
Publisher: Lhasa: Tibet People’s Publishing House (Xizang Renmin
Chubanshe)
Typography: vertical typesetting, punctuation and printed in simplified
Chinese characters.
Publication Year: 1982
Edition III, included in the Xuxiu siku quanshu series under the cata-
logue entry for history (shibu), subcatalogue geography (dililei)
Title: [Jiaqing] Weizang tongzhi
Author/compiler: anon. (yiming zuanxiu)
Publisher: Shanghai: Shanghai Classics Publishing House (Shanghai
Guji Chubanshe)
Typography: facsimile publication of the block-printed version of the
year of bingshen under the Guangxu reign (1896), vertical typesetting,
double-column per folio, and printed in traditional Chinese characters.
Publication Year: 2002

8 Long Jidong (1845–1900), who styled himself Songcen (zi) from Guilin, was
good at composing poems and proofreading ancient books.
56 LIU YUXUAN

It is hard to say which version is the best because the versions we now
have were changed substantially by the editor, Long Jidong. However,
from the point of accuracy and reliability, there is no doubt that the fac-
simile version (Edition III) is the best. It should be emphasised that the
literature collected in the Xuxiu siku quanshu series has been praised as
the best edition in all of China.
By contrast, for Editions I and II, scholars have done the work of intro-
ducing pauses and punctuation, and have even simplified the traditional
Chinese characters, in order to facilitate an understanding of traditional
Chinese works in a relatively short time. In spite of this, we should bear
in mind that adding punctuation is already a kind of interpretation, and
errors have been introduced into both Editions I and II with regard to
Tibetan toponyms, among others. Since Chinese authors usually used
Chinese characters to record the names of peoples or places in non-
Chinese languages, the names are often hard to identify and errors occur
rather frequently. A version containing simplified Chinese characters and
additional punctuation may be convenient for reading and for preliminary
research, but for citation and further research the published facsimile ver-
sion is clearly preferable.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE WEIZANG TONGZHI

The fact of inclusion in the the jianxi cunshe series represents a land-
mark in the history of the Weizang tongzhi. Therefore, I separate the
different versions into two groups: the non-numbered Weizang tongzhi
(i.e. the manuscript preserved in the library of Beijing University)9 and
the later, numbered Weizang tongzhi editions (i.e. Editions I, II and III).
All the available published versions of the Weizang tongzhi are organ-
ised into 16 consecutively numbered chapters. To each is attached a
chapter heading, provided by the editor Long Jidong. Fortunately, how-
ever, the catalog of the non-numbered Weizang tongzhi is retained in
the numbered Weizang tongzhi. We can see that there are seven cate-
gories in the non-numbered Weizang tongzhi regardless of the volume:
fangyu (geography), sengsu (monks and laymen), zhenfu (the responsi-
bilities of central officials), jinglüe (administration), waibu (external
9 I am currently obliged to use the records of the old categories preserved in the
rearranged versions. Once I have obtained the older manuscript preserved at Beijing
University, I also will compare the contents of the two groups.
 ON THE WEIZANG TONGZHI 57

affairs), yiwen (literature and art), and jingdian (sutras).10 Each catego-
ry is further divided into subcategories.
In order to show how many changes to the arrangement have been
made, I list the catalogues of the non-numbered and the numbered
Weizang tongzhi below.
Former arrangement (irrespective of volume):
1. The category of geography (fangyu)
- textual research (kaozheng)
- territory (jiangyu)
- topography (shanchuan )
- routes and stations (chengzhan)
2. The category of monks and laymen (sengsu)
- lamas (lama)
- monasteries and temples (simiao)
- Tibetan nationalities and tribes (fanzu)
- Tibetan officials (fanguan)
- Tibetan soldiers (fanbing)
- households and population (hukou)
3. The category of the responsibilities of central officials (zhenfu)
- the organisation system (zhizhang)
- regulations regarding currencies (qianfa)
- trade (maoyi)
- battalions and troops (yingwu)
- regulations (zhangcheng)
4. The category of administration (jinglüe)
- Kangxi
- Yongzheng
- Qianlong
5. The category of external affairs (waibu)
- Damu Mongolia (damu menggu)
- the 39 clans (sanshijiu zu)
- the tribes surrounding Tibet (sifang waifan)
6. The category of literature and art (yiwen)
- literary works and inscriptions by emperors (yuzhi beiwen)
- poems and prose (shiwen)
- odes (fu)
7. The category of classical Buddhist texts (jingdian)
- sutras (jingdian)

10 According to the accounts of the bibliophile Li Shengduo, the Weizang tongzhi pre-
served at Beijing University contains six categories instead of seven (Li Shengduo 1985:
138). The category of sutras (jingdian) does not exist in the manuscript described by Li
Shengduo. I cannot tell which manuscript, Li Shengduo’s or Yuan Chang’s, is the earlier.
58 LIU YUXUAN

Later arrangement (arranged in 16 consecutively-numbered juan):

chapter heading, newly added (juanshou xinbian)
[imperial poems and articles (yuzhi shiwen)]
juan 1: textual research (kaozheng)
juan 2: territory (jiangyu)
juan 3: topography (shanchuan)
juan 4: routes and stations (chengzhan)
juan 5: lamas (lama)
juan 6: monasteries and temples (simiao)
juan 7: regulations concerning Tibetan officials (fanmu)
juan 8: military systems (bingzhi)
juan 9: the responsibilities of central officials (zhenfu)
juan 10: regulations concerning currencies (qianfa)
juan 11: trade (maoyi)
juan 12: ordinances (tiaoli)
juan 13: central administration (jilüe)
juan 14: reduction of taxation, corvée, etc. (fuxu)
juan 15: tribes (buluo)
juan 16: classical Buddhist texts/sutras (jingdian)

The following chart shows the differences in the arrangement of the

non-numbered Weizang tongzhi and the numbered Weizang tongzhi.

Former arrangement Later arrangement

kaozheng juan 1 kaozheng
jiangyu juan 2 jiangyu
fangyu shanchuan juan 3 shanchuan
chengzhan juan 4 chengzhan
lama juan 5 lama
simiao juan 6 simiao
fanzu NB: missing
sengsu
fanguan juan 7 fanmu (NB: title change)
fanbing juan 8 bingzhi (NB: title change)
hukou NB: missing
 ON THE WEIZANG TONGZHI 59

Former arrangement Later arrangement

zhizhang juan 9 zhenfu (NB: title change)

qianfa juan 10 qianfa

maoyi juan 11 maoyi

zhenfu yingwu NB: partially missing and the
remaining three parts subtitled
yingguanquefen, luying, fanying
and moved into juan 12
zhangcheng juan 12 tiaoli (NB: title change)
Kangxi
jinglüe juan 13 jilüe (NB: title change)
Yongzheng
damu menggu
waibu juan 15 buluo (NB: title change)
sanshijiu zu
sifang waifan
yuzhi beiwen
yiwen juanshou (NB: title change)
shiwen
fu NB: missing
jingdian jingdian juan 16 jingdian
juan 14 fuxu (NB: new addition)

A comparison of the arrangement in the two cases shows that the num-
bered Weizang tongzhi varies considerably from the non-numbered ver-
sion.
First, the numbered Weizang tongzhi’s sequences have been
rearranged and chapter numbers added, while the organisation of the
non-numbered Weizang tongzhi has no volume number, but instead dif-
ferent categories and sub-categories. Most of the subcategories which
were subsumed under various categories in the non-numbered Weizang
60 LIU YUXUAN

tongzhi have now been listed as separate chapters. A few of them have
been altered to other titles, such as juan 7: regulations concerning
Tibetan officials (fanmu), juan 8: military systems (bingzhi), juan 9:
responsibilities of central officials (zhenfu), juan 12: ordinances
(tiaoli), juan 13: central administration (jilüe), and the addition of chap-
ter headings (juanshou) to replace the following subheadings: Tibetan
officials (fanguan), Tibetan soldiers (fanbing), the organisation system
(zhizhang), regulations (zhangcheng), the category of administration
(jinglüe), and the category of literature and art (yiwen).
Secondly, in the numbered Weizang tongzhi the heading of literature
and art (yiwen) has been abandoned, and the contents of this section
have been rearranged into different chapters. Moreover, the poems, arti-
cles, and inscriptions written by the Qing emperors that were original-
ly subsumed in the category literature and art (yiwen) have been
rearranged. Thus, a new chapter heading (juanshou) has been added.
Thirdly, juan 14: reduction of taxation, corvée, etc. (fuxu)11 is a new
addition that did not exist in the non-numbered Weizang tongzhi at all.
That means that this chapter was added by Long Jidong, who acted as
proof-reader and compiler of the Weizang tongzhi at the request of
Yuan Chang, the owner of the jianxi cunshe series. In the catalogue of
juan 14 there is a remark under the title to the effect that this chapter
did not exist in the non-numbered Weizang tongzhi: “[It] was not listed
in the catalogue. Today [we] add it as new chapter and separate it into
two sub-juan”.12
Fourthly, in the non-numbered Weizang tongzhi entire subcategories
or parts of the contents are missing. Among these are the subcategories
Tibetan nationalities and tribes (fanzu), as well as households and pop-
ulation (hukou) under the category of monks and laymen (sengsu), and
the subcategory odes (fu) under the category of literature and art
(yiwen), and parts of the content in the subcategory of battalions and
troops (yingwu) under the category of the responsibilities of central
officials (zhenfu).
An important part of the Weizang tongzhi, placed before the main
text, is called “the synopsis of Weizang tongzhi” (Weizang tongzhi
tiyao).13 Its 41 items guide the reader through the compilation of the
Weizang tongzhi. Furthermore, the information given in “the synopsis
11Edition I: 327–87; Edition II: 449–502; Edition III: 203a–252a.
12The Chinese original texts is: 原未列入门类今新编入分为上下二卷.（Edition
I: 2; Edition II: 128; Edition III: 1b).
13 See Edition I: 1–4; Edition II: 129–31; Edition III: 2b–3b.
 ON THE WEIZANG TONGZHI 61

of Weizang tongzhi” provides some clues about the time of its comple-
tion and the authorship. Chinese scholars therefore make use of this
synopsis to support their arguments concerning the authorship of the
work. I will return to this question in the last part of the present article.
The translation of the 41 items listed in “the synopsis of Weizang
tongzhi” is as follows:14
1. As references, [we should] include all documents and stories concern-
ing Tibetan Buddhism written since the Han and Tang Dynasties in types
of shijian, leihan, and zashu.15
2. An old Tibetan manuscript obtained in Chengdu in the year of
wushen16 in which are recorded various aspects of Tibet such as routes
and stations (chengtu), customs and traditions (fengtu), topography
(shanchuan), and so on. Therefore, we should select from it and arrange
them according to other categories.
3. The Weizang tushi, which recorded territory (jiangyu), geography
(xingsheng), mileage (daoli), monasteries (siyuan), customs (fengsu),
and products (wuchan) quite well, should also be included and regis-
tered.
4. Translate [the parts about] the origins and evolvements of the Potala
(Budala), Tashi lhunpo (Zhashilunbu; Tib. bKra shis lhun po) and other
monasteries from the book which registered the items of ethnic groups
(fance) and meanwhile register the newly-built monasteries after ascer-
tainment.
5. The lineages and origins of the Dalai Lama (Dalailama), the Panchen
Erdeni (Banchan eerdeni) and every ho-thog-thu qubilγan (hutuketu
hubierhan)17 should be singled out as a category.
6. The documents concerning the Gorkha invasion since the 53rd year
under the reign of the Qianlong emperor (1788).
7. The files about Gorkha’s intrusion which recorded the whole story
from inception to surrender since the 56th year under the reign of the
Qianlong emperor (1791).
8. All memoranda to the throne submitted by the Great General (Da
jiangjun)18 Fu Kang’an, the Imperial Envoy (Qinchai) He Lin, and the

14 I have added numbers, which are not present in the original texts, for the sake of
convenience.
15 Shijian, leihan, and zashu are the way to categorise historical materials and
books based on purpose of compilation in China.
16 The year of wushen is the 53rd year under the reign of the Qianlong emperor
(1788).
17 Concerning the Chinese characters of hutuketu, Editions I and III are 呼圖克圖
while Edition II has 瑚圖克圖 due to the same pronunciation of 呼 and 瑚.
18 This was a temporary military position, set up only during times of war, but it
was the highest during the Ming and Qing dynasties.
62 LIU YUXUAN

first rank of civil officials during the Qing dynasty (Daxueshi) Sun
Shiyi, and the issues on the rehabilitation [after the war] since the 56th
year under the reign of the Qianlong emperor (1791).
9. Imperial edicts since the 56th year under the reign of the Qianlong
emperor (1791).
10. The original memorials submitted to the emperor from the Great
General Fu Kang’an and the Imperial Envoy He Lin which concern
delimiting borders and establishing landmarks (ebo).19
11. The origins of hereditary noble titles in Tibet, such as duke
(Gongjue), Taiji,20 and so on.
12. The rules relating to officials’ ranks (pinji) and emoluments (fengdu-
an) below the rank of gabulun (Tib. bka’ blon),21 and the regulations on
officials’ promotion and transfer (shengdiao).
13. Inscriptions [should be included, such as] the stele erected during
Tang times (tangbei), the inscription made in Kangxi’s time, the inscrip-
tion about his ten achievements written by the Qianlong emperor (qian-
long yuzhi shiquanji bei), two inscriptions in the Guandi temple
(guandimiao bei) situated on Mopan Mountain (Mopan shan) in the city
of Tashi lhunpo (Zhashi cheng; Tib. bKra shis lhun po), the inscriptions
in the Jo khang temple (dazhao jigong bei), the inscriptions in gTsang
district (houzang bei), the inscriptions on the stele advising people to be
inoculated against smallpox (quanrenxu chudou bei), and the bulletin on
forbidding the custom of sky burial (jinzhi tiandizang jiuxi gaoshi).
14. About the jingzhong ci,22 [we should] ascertain the names of men
who died in the line of duty and then honour them in the temple.
15. [We should] establish a school which teaches the languages of
Gorkha (kuofan), Chinese (hanwen), Tibetan (tanggute), and Manchu
(manwen).
16. Regulations concerning the drilling of Tibetan and Chinese troops.
17. The paper and tributes proposed by the king of the Gorkha which
express his gratitude [to the emperor].
18. Memoranda from the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Erdeni which
show their gratitude [to the throne].
19. The brief history of every tribe near the borders.
20. The names of tribes and clans from Dajianlu (Tib. Dar rtse mdo) to
zang (Tib. gTsang).
19 Ebo is Mongolian obuga/oboo, transcribed in Chinese, and denoting cairns sur-
mounted with flags.
20 Taiji is derived from Chinese Taizi (crown prince), and was a title of Mongolian
Chingiside nobles. The Qing empire inherited it in order to grant it to noble chieftains
of Mongolian and other ethnic groups in northwestern China.
21 Gabulun (Tib. bka’ blon)—full name gagonglun (Tib. bka’ gung blon)—were the
ministers in the Tibetan central government’s cabinet (Tib. bka’ shag), which consist-
ed of three lay officials and one monk official.
22 Jingzhong ci denotes the memorial temple for honouring those who served and
died for the empire.
 ON THE WEIZANG TONGZHI 63

21. The names of mountains and rivers, places, people, and officials
should be transcribed in accordance with the Tibetan language.
22. The number of the forts and checkpoints where luying bianbing23
are stationed.
23. The number of horses and soldiers for defence in every local district
(tang).
24. The duties of civilian officials (wenyuan) serving in the Liangtai.24
25. The duties of siyuan (a generic term for civil officials), secretaries
(bitieshi),25 and liangyuan (officials serving in Liangtai and responsible
for provisions) in Tibet.
26. The affairs of the treasury (baozang ju), notably minting coins by
melting metals.
27. Official travel documents (guanji lupiao; Tib. Lam yig) [issued to]
those who were eligible to make demands on transport and trade among
tribes.
28. The regulations of corvée duties (wula; Tib.’u lag) that Tibetan peo-
ple in different places have to render.
29. Matters concerning Tibetan (tanggute) chieftains who hold responsi-
bility.
30. The categories of commodities transported between the tribes and
Central Tibet.
31. The names and geographical features of localities (shanchuan) in
Tibet (Qianhouzang; Tib. dBus and gTsang) and the routes between sta-
tions (tai).
32. To establish [the system of] drawing lots from the Golden Urn (benba
ping; Tib. bum pa) in order to identify reincarnations (hubierhan; Mong.
xubilgan) by imperial decree.
33. The Taiji in Mongolia, to the north, are permitted to send people to
Tibet with the purpose of aocha.26
34. [Regulations concerning] the kanbu (Tib. mkhan po) dispatched by
the Dalai Lama (Dalailama) or the Panchen Erdeni (Banchan eerdeni) to
present the annual tribute.
35. The goods for the yearly required awards should be provided from
Sichuan (chuangsheng).
36. The transportation of goods such as money reserves (xiangyin),
paper/stationery (zhizha), and so on should be carried out under escort
from Sichuan [to Tibet] as usual.
23 Under the Qing dynasty, luying refers to the armed forces formed by Han people
in local districts and organised in the green banner, while bianbing is the generic term
for low-ranking military officers and soldiers.
24 Liangtai (commissary) is the official agency which managed army provisions in
military operations during the Qing Dynasty.
25 Bitieshi originated from Mongolian bičiči, and is a person in charge of translat-
ing memorials in Chinese and Manchu to the court.
26 Aocha denotes the custom of donating money, tea, and the like, to monasteries
by Tibetan Buddhist devotees.
64 LIU YUXUAN

37. There should be a category of miscellanea (zazhui) which includes

Tibetan customs, men’s and women’s agricultural activities, people
[inhabiting] liuyu (i.e. settling in places other than their home towns or
villages) for every tribe, the activities of lamas, seasons and climates
(jiehou), ceremonies (yizhu), regulations concerning expenses for the
yamen of the Imperial Envoy (Qinchai yamen), and the yamen of civil
servants and military officers (wenwu yamen).
38. The provision according to which the yamen of the Imperial Envoy
(Qinchai yamen) should report all official business in detail, submit offi-
cial documents (zibao) and seek advice from senior officials in the
Dependency Office (Lifanyuan) and the Ministry of Revenue (Hubu)
[should be included].
39. People who are dispatched by monks (fanseng) from Yunnan (dian-
sheng), and hereditary headmen (tusi) in Kokonor Mongolia (Qinghai
menggu) and Sichuan (chuansheng), etc., aiming to make donations and
to study Buddhist scriptures, would get official travel documents
(lupiao).
40. The number of officers and soldiers of ’Dam Mongolia (damu meng-
gu).
41. The checkpoints set up along the routes running both north and west
of zang (Tib. gTsang).

WHO COMPILED THE WEIZANG TONGZHI?

Since the Weizang tongzhi’s inclusion in the jianxi cunshe series and
publication in 1896, the question of its authorship has been subject to a
good deal of discussion. Opinions differ. Summarising the results of
research by Chinese scholars, to the best of my knowledge there are five
viewpoints on the matter of authorship.

1. Amban He Lin27
Yuan Chang gave this proposition in his epilogue, which is included in
27
He Lin (1753–1796), who styled himself as Xizhai (zi), is from the Manchu Plain
Red Banner (zheng hongqi). His family name is Niugulu shi (Manchu: Niohuru
Hala/Niuhuru clan, one of the eight main Manchu family names). He is the younger
brother of the notorious He Shen, the famous and powerful minister during the reign of
the Qianlong emperor. He Lin started his official career as secretary in the Board of Rites
(Libu bitieshi) in the 42nd year (1777) under the reign of the Qianlong emperor. He
entered Tibet during the Qing-Gorkha war with the duty of providing logistical supple-
ments, and was later promoted during the war. Thereafter he stayed in Tibet as Amban
from the fourth Chinese leap month, 57th year to the eleventh Chinese month (23rd
November to 21st December), 59th year (1792–1794) under the reign of Qianlong emper-
or (Ding Shicun 1948: 52–53). For further details see also Hummel 1964: 286–87).
 ON THE WEIZANG TONGZHI 65

the rearranged version of the Weizang tongzhi.28 In the accounts of the

epilogue of Yuan Chang, he quoted the viewpoint of Long Jidong: “The
original manuscript hasn’t the name of the author, but I suspect it was
compiled by He Lin”.29 However, Yuan Chang’s suggestion is mere
speculation, and no supporting arguments are provided. We find the
same situation in the book The Catalog of Literature and Art Compiled
by Eight Banners (Baqi yiwen bianmu) compiled by En Hua (1867? –?)
(En Hua 2006: 19).30 He also cites He Lin as the author of Weizang
tongzhi, but adds no explanatory statement.
A record in the The Veritable Records of Emperors of Qing Gaozong
(Qing Gaozong shilu), usually cited by modern Chinese scholars, could
be taken as evidence that Amban He Lin was the compiler of the
Weizang tongzhi—or at least was one of several compilers (Cao Biaolin
2009: 79; Zhang Yuxin 1985: 105):
Through scrupulous management and establishing regulations on Tibet
by He Lin, every tribe is under control and Tibetan soldiers are being
trained. All issues [to be] handled were carried out well. [I, the August
Emperor] still order He Lin to instruct Song Yun in person with every
detail [on Tibet] so that [Song Yun] can administer [Tibetan issues]
according to the instructions, but in a more appropriate way in order to
help the commission.31 (Qing Qaozong shilu, juan 1457, n°27: 432a)
This decree, issued on the seventh Chinese lunar month (27th July to
25th August), 59th year (1794) of the Qianlong reign, was handed to
Song Yun by Amban He Lin. According to the opinion of Zhang Yuxin,
the Weizang tongzhi has been compiled just under this decree.
However, He Lin was unable to complete the whole book due to other
demands on his time, as he held the highest office in Tibet. Therefore,
the actual work of compiling was finished by his assistant Amban He

Biographical information about He Lin, Song Yun, and He Ning are principally based
on the work of Ding Shicun.
28 Edition I: 3; Edition II: 158; Edition III: 285b.
29 The Chinese reads: “按此书系请前户部主事桂林龙松岑先生继栋校刻，伊
未署名，详见先公文集中附记，并云原本未著姓氏，疑即为和琳所辑云”.
30 About En Hua and his achievements, see the introduction by Guan Jixian which
was added as a preface to the Baqi yiwen bianmu and newly published in 2006: intro-
duction: 1–9.
31 The original texts in Chinese are “西藏地方，经和琳悉心整顿，定立章程，
一切驾驭各部落，训练番兵，所办具有条理。仍著和琳再向松筠将巨细事宜面
为告知，俾得循照成规经理，倍臻妥协，以副委任也”.
66 LIU YUXUAN

Ning. I shall return to the viewpoint of Zhang Yuxin presently.

However, his conclusion about the origin of compilation, based on this
single decree, is barely convincing not least because it lacks any specif-
ic reference to the Weizang tongzhi, even though Zhang Yuxin gives the
records of comments under the categories listed in the Weizang tongzhi
to support his conclusion.

2. Amban Song Yun32

Wu Fengpei first proposed this viewpoint in 1936, and then reaffirmed
his statement in his paper “On the author of Weizang tongzhi” (Weizang
tongzhi zhuzhe kao) which was added to Edition II as an appendix (Wu
Fengpei 1943: 567–70). Moreover, the editors of the Series of Tibetan
Studies (Xizang yanjiu congkan)—Weizang tongzhi is a part of this
series—adopted Wu Fengpei’s viewpoint and directly put the name
Song Yun together with the title Weizang tongzhi on the cover page. Wu
Fengpei’s viewpoint may be roughly summarised as follows:
1) Song Yun was good at book compilation and writing. He has left us
several books about the frontier regions.
2) Wu Fengpei found a book entitled A Rough Draft on the Western
Borders (Xichui jishi chugao), a manuscript composed during the reign
of the Xianfeng and Tongzhi emperors (1851–1874) and attributed to
“Changbai Song Yun”. According to Wu’s accounts, its contents are sim-
ilar to the Weizang tongzhi, with the exception that it has a different
arrangement and some minor repetitions.33
3) The Weizang tongzhi included materials collected after the 59th year

32 Song Yun (1751/1752/1754? –1835), who styled himself Xiangpu (zi), is sur-
named Malate shi (Manchu: Malara Hala) from the Mongolian Plain Blue Banner
(zheng lanqi). He became secretary in the Dependency Office (Lifanyuan bitieshi) after
taking the imperial examination, and began his official career from then on. He inher-
ited the position as Amban from He Lin from the end of the 59th year of the Qianlong
reign till the fourth year of the Jiaqing reign (1794–1799). Song Yun was a famous and
legendary historical figure of the Qing dynasty who devoted himself to affairs in the
northwest border areas. He also left several books that he either compiled or wrote him-
self. His official career culminated in the position of Minister of Junjichu (Ding Shicun
1948: 54–55). For further details, see Hummel 1964: 691–92.
33 Regarding the The rough draft on Xichui (Xichuan jishi chugao ), no one saw this
book except Wu Fengpei. Although it was attributed to Changbai Song Yun, it is strange
that Song Yun would have added—as a member of a Mongolian banner––Changbai
before his name, because only Manchu people would have used this name of themselves
(Zhang Yuxin 1985: 100).
 ON THE WEIZANG TONGZHI 67

of the Qianlong reign (1794) when Song Yun was holding the position of
Amban while He Lin had already left.

3. Assistant Amban He Ning34

In his paper “Weizang tongzhi de zhuzhe shi hening” (The Author of
Weizang Tongzhi is He Ning), Zhang Yuxin, the scholar mentioned
above, states that He Ning was the one who completed the book. By
way of supporting arguments Zhang Yuxin offers the time of compila-
tion, personal relationship of He Ning with He Lin, his poems, and
other evidence from the records in the Weizang tongzhi. In the first part
of his paper, he discusses the arguments of Wu Fengpei and gives his
own evidence in response. Moreover, we owe to the research of Zhang
Yuxin a deeper insight into how the whole book was completed. The
first draft was finished in the 59th year of Qianlong (1794), and the book
itself was completed in the 2nd year of Jiaqing (1797) after continuous
amendments, revisions and supplements. The Weizang tongzhi took
three years to complete. The same point of view is also shared by Cao
Biaolin based on a more meticulous study (Zhang Yuxin 1985:
103–104; Cao Biaolin 2009: 78–80).

4. Song Yun and He Ning

The argument is that as chief compilers, these two ordered their subor-
dinates to implement the actual compilation of the book, and also par-
ticipated in the compilation. This was another point of view temporar-
ily held by Wu Fengpei in his paper Jindai guoren zhuanshu zhi Xizang
shiji (Tibetan Historical Records Compiled by Chinese Scholars in
Modern Times) written in 1943. He changed his original position on
Song Yun, expressed in 1936, because he obtained another manuscript
called Fanjiang lanyao (The Brief Introducation on Tibet)35 by He
34 He Ning (1741–1821), who styled himself as Runping and Tai’an, is surnamed
Eledete shi (Manchu: Erket Hala) from the Mongolian Bordered Yellow Banner (xiang
huangqi). He changed his name to He Ying because Yu’ning was the name of the
Xuanzong emperor (i.e. the reign title Daoguang). It was a taboo for people to use the
same characters in their names during the Qing dynasty. He was jinshi in the 36th year
(1771) of the Qianlong era and then began his career as government official. He stayed
in Tibet as vice Amban from the 59th year of the Qianlong reign to the 6th year of the
Jiaqing reign (1794–1801) (Ding Shicun 1948: 54).
35 I have been unable to find the books Fanjiang lanyao and Xichui jishi chugao
mentioned by Wu Fengpei in his two papers. Other Chinese scholars, too, only cite
these works indirectly by referring to Wu. As long as these books are not found, no con-
clusion can be reached.
68 LIU YUXUAN

Ning. In this book, according to Wu’s paper, there was an author’s pref-
ace recording that “I wrote Weizang tongzhi”. However, when the
Weizang tongzhi was reprinted by the Tibet People’s Publishing House
(Xizang renmin chubanshe) in 1982, Wu Fengpei abandoned this view,
and reaffirmed his previous point of view of 1936 (Wu Fengpei 1982).
It is possible that he doubted the reliability of the single statement in
Fanjiang lanyao on the grounds that it lacked supporting evidence.
Based on the discussion among Chinese scholars, Dabringhaus
(1994: 126) draws the conclusion that both Song Yun and He Ning are
eligible as authors. However, she assumes that Song Yun as He Ning’s
superior (banshi dachen) was the editor, while He Ning as his assistant
(bangban dachen) only participated in the compilation of the book
(ibid.).

5. Official activity36
Nowadays most scholars support this view. Reading the whole book
and checking the phraseology used in Weizang tongzhi, phrases like “so
as to abide by (yizhao zunshou)”, “in order to check (yibian jiancha)”,
etc., appear frequently. Based on this, it is believed that the majority of
sources collected in the Weizang tongzhi are archival documents,
because even the imperial comments were preserved well without
changes or deletions. But on the premise of official activities, there
remain diverse opinions:

5.1. An unfinished official book

The illustrious Chinese bibliophile Li Shengduo,37 who published
remarks and comments on his abundant collection of books, states that
36There were rules about how to sign an officially compiled gazetteer. Generally a
local senior official is just a titular organiser. Thus, he is called zhuxiuren. When the
senior official is in charge of organising and is also taking part in the compilation, he
is called zuanxiuren. A junior official who actually composes the gazetteer is called
zuanzhe or zongzuan. Zhuxiuren or zuanxiuren will sign with their names and will add
the word xiu or zuanxiu because they bear the major responsibility for the compilation.
Meanwhile the zuanzhe or zongzuan will write their names together with the word zuan
which stands for minor responsibility (Li, Liu and Wang: 70–71). Therefore, for
gazetteers compiled by officials, the name which is normally given does not refer to the
people who actually completed the book, but to the person who took responsibility.
37 Li Shengduo (1859–1934), who styled himself Yiqiao, Jiaowei, Muzhai, Shizi’an
jiu zhuren, Shi’an jushi, Linjia jushi, etc., was awarded the title jinshi in the year of
jichou under the Guangxu reign (1889). He was from Dehua, Jiangxi. Even during his
career he devoted himself passionately to the collection of books.
 ON THE WEIZANG TONGZHI 69

the Weizang tongzhi was “an unfinished official book at that time (dai
dangshi weicheng zhi guanshu ye)” (Li Shengduo 1985: 138), but fails
to provide adequate evidence for this assertion. Prof. Xiangda, a famous
Chinese scholar, described Li Shengduo’s attitude on history books as
follows:
He devoted his full heart to book collation for decades as well, as if [the
time he spent were just] one day. [When he obtained a book, he] would
collate the book once, twice, even up to three or four times. He would
abided by the way on collating ancient books according to the extreme-
ly strict procedure of the bibliophiles belonging to the branch of Suzhou,
and he never drew his conclusions rashly.38
Why Li Shengduo, who held such a prudent attitude towards historical
books, drew his conclusion on the Weizang tongzhi so straightforward-
ly remains an unsolved question.
He Lin, Song Yun and He Ning took charge of the book’s compilation
successively (Cao Biaolin 2009: 76–80; Zhao Wu 2001: 230–42).
In every Chinese dynasty, central and local governments would order or
organise officials to compile books. Officials of the highest rank are
therefore normally cited as the responsible compilers. He Lin, Song
Yun, and He Ning were undoubtedly the highest officials in Tibet, and
they would therefore have been responsible for the compilation of the
Weizang tongzhi.

5.2. An official compilation not intended for publication

This is the opinion held by Sun Fuhai (2008: 60–62). After sketching out
the circulation and organisation of Weizang tongzhi, he concludes that
it is a compilation of local chronicles for use only in the Amban yamen.
Based on the fact that most of the materials in the Weizang tongzhi are
archival documents, he considers that it could not have been published
after compilation. Therefore, the compilation did not follow the gener-
al format of a monograph, and there was no author in the strict sense of
the term.
The viewpoints of all the Chinese scholars cited above on the author-
ship of the Weizang tongzhi, no matter whether they favour He Lin,
38 Xiang Da’s paper included in the book of Li Shengduo as appendix (Li
Shengduo 1985: 422). The original contents are “他又欢喜校勘书籍，丹黄不去手，
数十年如一日；一书一校再校至于三四校，牢守苏州派藏书家死校之法，不轻
下断语”.
70 LIU YUXUAN

Song Yun, He Ning or the idea of a collective compilation, share the

general feature that they are statements that lack definitive proof. On
the basis of the sources at hand, the organisation of the contents,
phraseology, function, and so on, the compilation reflects an official
activity, and when citing the work it might be preferable therefore to
refer to the author as unknown (zhuanren weixiang).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Sources
Qing Gaozong Shilu 清实录27. 1986. Beijing 北京: Zhonghua Shuju 中华书局
[Zhonghua Press].
Weizang Tongzhi卫藏通志. 1936. Shanghai 上海: Shangwu yinshuguan 商务印书馆
[Commercial Press].
—— 1982. Lhasa 拉萨: Xizang renmin chubanshe 西藏人民出版社 [Tibet People’s
Publishing House].
—— 2002. Shanghai 上海: Shanghai guji chubanshe 上海古籍出版社 [Shanghai
Classic Publishing House].
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社 [China Tibetology Research Publishing House].

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Chinese studies (no. 58). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Cao Biaolin 曹彪林. 2009. Weizang tongzhi zuozhe bianxi 卫藏通志作者辨析. Lhasa
拉萨: Xizang Yanjiu 西藏研究 [Tibetan Studies] 4, 76–80.
Dabringhaus, S. 1994. Das Qing-Imperium als Vision und Wirklichkeit. Tibet in
Laufbahn und Schriften des Song Yun (1752–1835). Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag
(= Münchener Ostasiatische Studien, Bd. 69).
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Shenyang 沈阳: Liaoning Minzu Chubanshe 辽宁民族出版社 [Liaoning
Nationalities Press].
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例. Kunming 昆明: Yunnan Shifan Daxue Xuebao 云南师范大学学报 [Journal
of Yunnan Normal University] 3, 110–18.
Hauer, E. 1952. Handwörterbuch der Mandschusprache. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
He Jinwen 何金文. 1985. Xizang zhishu shulüe 西藏志书述略. Changchun 长春: Jilin
Difangzhi Bianzuan Weiyuanhui 吉林地方志编纂委员会 and Jilin sheng
Tushuguan Xuehui 吉林省图书馆学会.
Hummel, A.W. 1964. Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period. Taipei: Literature House.
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Li Shengduo 李盛铎. 1985. Muxixuan cangshu tiji ji shulu 木樨轩藏书题记及书录,

(ed.) Zhang Yufan 张玉範. Beijing 北京: Beijing University Press 北京大学出
版社.
Li Shuwen 李淑文, Liu Jun 刘军 and Wang Shumei 王淑梅. 2002. Zhongguo gudai
difangzhi de zhulu 中国古代地方志的著录, Tushu yu Qingbao 图书与情报
[Library and Information] 3, 70–71.
Sun Fuhai 孙福海. 2008. Weizang tongzhi de bianzhuan yu liüchuan 卫藏通志的编撰
与流传. Xianyang 咸阳: Xizang Minzu Xueyuan Xuebao 西藏民族学院学报
[Journal of Tibet Nationality University] 29(6), 60–62.
Wu Fengpei 吴丰培. 1943. Jindai guoren zhuanshu zhi xizang shiji 近代国人撰述之
西藏史籍. Zhongyang Yaxiya 中央亚细亚 2(4), July, 42–49.
—— 1982. Weizang tongzhi zhuzhe kao 卫藏通志著者考, appendix of Weizang
Tongzhi. Lhasa 拉萨: Xizang renmin chubanshe 西藏人民出版社 [Tibet People’s
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GLOSSARY

aocha 熬茶
Banchan eerdeni 班禅额尔德尼
baozang ju 宝藏局
Baqi yiwen bianmu 八旗艺文编目
benba ping 奔巴瓶
bianbing 弁兵
bingshen 丙申
bingzhi 兵制
bitieshi 笔帖士
Budala 布达拉
buluo 部落
Changbai 长白
72 LIU YUXUAN

Changbai Song Yun 长白松筠

Chengdu 成都
chengtu 程途
chengzhan 程站
chuansheng 川省
Congshu jicheng chubian 丛书集成初编
dai dangshi weicheng zhi guanshu ye殆当时未成之官书也
Da jiangjun 大将军
Dajianlu 打箭炉
Dalailama 达赖喇嘛
damu menggu 达木蒙古
Daoguang 道光
daoli 道里
Daxueshi 大学士
dazhao jigong bei 大招记功碑
diansheng 滇省
difangzhi 地方志
dililei 地理类
Ding Shicun 丁实存
duandaishi 断代史
Ebo 鄂博
eledete shi 额勒徳特氏
En Hua 恩华
fangbing 番兵
fance 番册
fanguan 番官
fangyu 方舆
Fanjiang lanyao 藩疆揽要
fanmu 番目
fanseng 番僧
fanying 番营
fanzu 番族
fengduan 俸缎
fengsu 风俗
fengtu 风土
Fu Kang’an 福康安
fu 赋
fuxu 抚恤
gabulun 噶布伦
 ON THE WEIZANG TONGZHI 73

gagonglun 噶贡伦
Gongjue 公爵
guandimiao bei 关帝庙碑
Guangxu 光绪
guanji lupiao 官给路票
Guilin 桂林
Guo qinwang 果亲王
hao 号
hanwen 汉文
He Lin 和琳
He Ning 和宁
He Shen 和珅
He Ying 和瑛
houzang bei 后藏碑
hubierhan 呼必尔罕
Hubu 户部
hukou 户口
hutuketu hubierhan 瑚图克图呼必尔罕
Jianchang 建昌
Jiangxi 江西
jiangyu 疆域
jianxi cunshe 渐西村舍
Jiaowei 椒微
Jiaqing 嘉庆
[Jiaqing] Weizang tongzhi [嘉慶] 衛藏通志
jichou 己丑
jiehou 节候
jilüe 纪略
Jindai guoren zhuanshu zhi xizang shiji 近代国人撰述之西藏史籍
jingdian 经典
jinglüe 经略
jingzhong ci 旌忠祠
jinshi 进士
jinzhi tiandizang jiuxi gaoshi 禁止天地葬旧习告示
juan 卷
juanshou 卷首
juanshou xinbian 卷首新编
Junjichu 军机处
kanbu 堪布
74 LIU YUXUAN

Kangxi 康熙
kaozheng 考证
Kuifeng shanren 奎峰山人
kuofan 廓藩
lama 喇嘛
leihan 类函
Li Fengcai 李凤彩
Li Shengduo 李盛铎
Liangtai 粮台
liangyuan 粮员
Libu bitieshi 吏部笔帖士
Lifanyuan bitieshi 理藩院笔帖士
Lifanyuan 理藩院
Linjia jushi 麐嘉居士
liuyu 流寓
Long Jidong 龙继栋
lupiao 路票
luying 绿营
luying bianbing 绿营弁兵
malate shi 玛拉特氏
manwen 满文
maoyi 贸易
Mopan shan 磨盘山
Muzhai 木斋
niugulu shi 钮钴禄氏
pinji 品级
qianfa 钱法
Qianhouzang 前后藏
Qianlong 乾隆
qianlong yuzhi shiquanji bei 乾隆御制十全记碑
Qinchai yamen 钦差衙门
Qinchai 钦差
Qing gaozong shilu 清高宗实录
Qinghai menggu 青海蒙古
quanrenxu chudou bei 劝人恤出痘碑
Runping 润平
sanshijiu zu 三十九族
sengsu 僧俗
shanchuan 山川
 ON THE WEIZANG TONGZHI 75

Shanghai Guji Chubanshe 上海古籍出版社

Shangwu Yinshuguan 商务印书馆
shengdiao 升调
Shi’an jushi 师庵居士
shibu 史部
shijian 史鉴
shiwen 诗文
Shizi’an jiu zhuren 师子庵旧主人
Shuangqiu 爽秋
sifang waifan 四方外番
simiao 寺庙
siyuan 寺院
Songcen 松岑
Sun Shiyi 孙士毅
tai 台
Tai’an 太葊
Taichangsi qing 太常寺卿
Taiji 台吉
Taizi 太子
tang 塘
tangbei 唐碑
tanggute 唐古忒
Weizang tongzhi tiyao 卫藏通志提要
tiaoli 条例
Tiechuan 铁船
Tingyi 廷仪
Tonglu 桐庐
tongshi 通史
Tongzhi 同治
tusi 土司
waibu 外部
Wang Yunwu 王云五
Weizang tongzhi de zhuzhe shi He Ning 卫藏通志的著者是和宁
Weizang tongzhi zhuzhe kao 卫藏通志著者考
Weizang tongzhi 卫藏通志/衛藏通志
Weizang tushi 卫藏图识
wenwu yamen 文武衙门
wenyuan 文员
Wu Fengpei 吴丰培
76 LIU YUXUAN

wuchan 物产
wu juren 武举人
wula 乌拉
Wuling kuifeng shanren 吴陵奎峰山人
wushen 戊申
Xianfeng 咸丰
Xiangda 向达
xiang huangqi 镶黄旗
Xiangpu 湘浦 or 湘圃
xiangyin 饷银
Xichui jishi chugao 西陲纪事初稿
xingsheng 形胜
Xiujiang tiechuan jushi 修江铁船居士
xiu 修
Xizang Renmin Chubanshe 西藏人民出版社
Xizang yanjiu congkan 西藏研究丛刊
Xizang zhi 西藏志
Xizhai 希斋
Xuanzong 宣宗
Xuxiu siku quanshu 续修四库全书
yibian jiancha 以便检查
yiming zuanxiu 佚名纂修
yingguan quefen 营官缺分
yingwu 营伍
Yiqiao 嶬樵
yiwen 艺文
yizhao zunshou 以昭遵守
yizhu 仪注
Yongxiu 永修
Yongzheng 雍正
Yuan Chang 袁昶
Yu’ning 昱宁
Yunli 允礼
yuzhi beiji 御制碑记
yuzhi shiwen 御制诗文
zang 藏
Zangjigai 藏纪概
zashu 杂书
zazhui 杂缀
 ON THE WEIZANG TONGZHI 77

Zhang Yuxin 张羽新

zhangcheng 章程
zhashi cheng 札什城
Zhashilunbu 扎什伦布
Zhejiang 浙江
zhenfu 镇抚
zheng lanqi 正蓝旗
zhizha 纸剳
zhizhang 职掌
Zhongli 重黎
zhuanren weixiang 撰人未详
zhuxiuren 主修人
zi 字
zibao 咨报
zongzuan 总纂
zuan 纂
zuanxiuren 纂修人
zuanxiu 纂修
zuanzhe 纂者
SDE SRID SANGS RGYAS RGYA MTSHO’S SHORT REMARKS
ON ORDEALS IN HIS GUIDELINES FOR GOVERNMENT
OFFICIALS

CHRISTOPH CÜPPERS

Before turning to the short section on ordeals in the Guidelines for

Government Officials (Blang dor gsal bar ston pa’i drang thig dwangs
shel gyi me long nyer gcig pa) written by sDe srid Sangs rgyas rgya
mtsho, we should recollect what we already know about Tibetan
ordeals. The first mentions of ordeals are to be found in the reports by
missionaries and travellers to Tibet, such as Sarat Chandra Das and
Ekai Kawaguchi, to name a just few.1 The latest work on this subject is
the brief article by O.R. Meisezahl (1987) in which Tibetan ordeals are
introduced on the basis of the available Tibetan law codes. From this
article we learn that the Tibetan judges used ordeals for separating truth
from falsehood [bden rdzun shes yong / bden rdzun ’byed dgos] in
accusations or defences as the last and final means, and there existed
several methods for performances of ordeals. One method was, for
example, to take out with one’s hand the correct pebble of two, a black
and a white one, from boiling oil or mud-water. If, after several days—
for example three or seven—the hand showed no blisters or wounds, the
accused was declared innocent, and conversely wounds or blisters were
regarded as evidence of guilt. Another method was to lick a hot-red
piece of iron. If the tongue was not burned, the accused was regarded
as innocent. Still another method was that the accused person had to
take a hot stone into his hands and walk seven steps with it. It was per-
missible to move the hot stone from one hand to the other while mak-
ing the seven steps, and both hands were consequently investigated for
wounds and blisters.2
The law codes also stress the fact that not everyone was liable to be
summoned to undergo an ordeal. The exceptions were Buddhist priests
(bla ma) and powerful practitioners (sngags pa nus pa can), monks

1 For references see Schuh 1984: 291, fn. 2.

2 See Dotson 2007 on oaths performed with dice.
80 CHRISTOPH CÜPPERS

(btsun pa), women, children below eight years (according to the

Tibetan system of reckoning age), and mentally retarded people (glen
lkugs). The reasons for these exceptions are that lamas and monks were
above worldly matters; the tantric practitioners had magical powers to
change the outcome of the ordeals; women favour only their husbands
and children; and finally, children below eight years and imbeciles lack
the mental capacity to distinguish between right and wrong.
In a law code from gTsang, kept in the National Archives in
Kathmandu, the section on the restriction is a quotation from ancient
law codes and reads as follows:
[155] mna’ mi’i ’os / khrims yig rnying pa rnams na / gser bya ngang pa
snyi la ma ’dzin/
dug sbrul nag [156] po thur du ma rgyug /
pho rog nag po la rdo ma rgyag /
khyi mo tshang ma la dbyug pa ma ’phyar /
g.yu chung gru mar rtsad la ma rgyu zer ba ’dug pas /
gser bya ngang pa’i [157] don ni / bla ma dang dge bshes yul gnyan pa
dang btsun pa la mna’i yul min pas mna’ mir mi bsdu /
dug sbrul nag po sngags pa nus pa can gyi thabs rten ’brel gyi [158] sgo
nas mna’i nyes pa sel nus pas mna’ mir mi bsdu /
pho rog nag po mi ltogs hral dang ’dod can gyis nyes pa dor nas mna’
bza’ bas mna’ mir mi bsdu /
khyi mo tshang ma ni skye dman rang gi khyo bo dang phrug gu’i ched
du mna’ za bas mna’ mir mi bsdu /
g.yu [159] chung gru dmar ni / byis pa dbye ba ma chags pa dang / glen
lkugs rnams kyis mna’i nyes pa dang spang blang mi go bas mna’ mir mi
bsdu /

[In former laws it has been said: do not trap a yellow goose, do not touch
on the head of a serpent, do not throw a stone on a black crow, beat not
a bitch while with young ones, string not a turquoise on a root.
For the reason that a yellow goose is the high priest, and professor,
who are great in the presence of God, and cannot be called upon to take
oath. The serpent is the sorcerer and Ponpo, who are mighty and cannot
be called to take oath. The bitch is a woman, and she will swear for the
sake of her children and husband, and cannot give her oath. The
turquoise is a child of immature understanding and unable to understand
charity and sin and therefore cannot give oath.]3

3I follow here the translation which was made by Tshering Phuntshog, Kalimpong,
the 23rd July 1917, at the request of Charles Bell. A typescript copy of this translation
is kept at the British Library.
 SDE SRID SANGS RGYAS RGYA MTSHO ON ORDEALS 81

The phrasing is slightly different in a version of the Zhal lce bco

lnga, which is inserted in the Tibetan Legal Material, published in
Dharamsala:
mna’ sgog pa’i dkar mi la spangs bya bzhi dor nas / dkar mi bsdu dgos
pa yin [13v4] te / spangs bya bzhi ni /
gser bya ngang pa ’dam la mi ’dzin zer ba de / btsun pa la mna’ ma sgog
zer ba yin / de’i rgyu mtshan btsun pa yul gnyan pa yin / mna’ [13v5]
btsun pa’i spangs bya yin pas lag ’ju la bsdu mi nyan /
g.yu chung gru dmar ltar la mi rgyu zer ba de / bu tsha la mna’ ma sgog
zer ba yin / de’i rgyu mtshan ni / bu [13v6] tshas khe nyen ma togs pas /
mna’ za la nye bas lag la sdud mi nyan / bya rog nag po snyi la ma ’dzin
zer ba de / bud med la mna’ ma sgog zer ba yin / [13v7] de’i rgyu mtshan
ni / bud med mdza’ bo’i phyir du mna’ za ba la nye ba’i lag ’ju la sdud
mi nyan / dug sbrul nag po snyi la ma ’dzin zer ba de / sngag pa la [13v8]
mna’ ma sgog zer ba yin / de’i rgyu mtshan ni / sngag pas rdzas sngag
dang mna’ sel shes pas / mna’ za ba la nye bas / ’di rnams lag ’ju la
spangs [13v9] dgos so /
In his dictionary Dungkar (2002: 135) gives the following explanation
for the term dkar mi rgyus dkar gcig:
de sngon bod sa gnas kyi khrims khang du zhu gtugs byed skabs zhu
gtugs byed mi ham shed can rnams mna’ bskyal dgos pas / de’i skabs
mna’ skyel mi’i phyogs nas rgyus can gyi mi gcig yong dgos pa de la zer /
It is obvious that he took the lemma dkar mi rgyus dkar can from the
Zhal lce bco lnga, and in his explanation indicates with the final zer
that he is not very sure about the meaning of the word.
For the term dkar mi Goldstein (2001) gives: “1. a person who has
taken an oath; 2. a close friend”.
Owing to the fact that no reference is given in Goldstein’s diction-
ary, I assume that his Tibetan informants provided the meanings 1 and
2, in a similar way to Dungkar but on a more-or-less hearsay basis.
Dotson (2006) gives as an explanation for dkar mi “jurors” (in its
historical context, i.e. “a person taking an oath, especially one of alle-
giance”).
I understand the phrase lag ’ju la bsdu mi nyan as “one cannot take
him/her (as a dkar mi) by the hand and bring him/her along”.
In my short sketch above of Meisezahl’s article I have emphasised
the facts that are necessary to understand the obscure remarks by Sangs
rgyas rgya mtsho, i.e. the different methods of administering ordeals
and the restriction that not everyone could be summoned to undergo
one.
82 CHRISTOPH CÜPPERS

Sections 1.48 to 1.56 (my numbering) in the Guidelines for

Government Officials (henceforth Guidelines) are a part of the first
chapter, which refers—among other prescriptions—to procedures in
court cases. The texts of these paragraphs are not easy to understand
due to their brevity and to some rare and unknown vocabulary.
The text reads as follows:
[1.48] khrims kyi gcod ’breg la zhal che bcad par phan yon kyang du ma
yod pas zhu len mi snas zhu ba byung bar gzhigs pa’i phan tshun bden
’brel gyi ’dod pa rked gcog gi gzu re dang / de’i mthar don ’gangs la bltas
pa’i rdo snum lcags mna’ sho sogs ’dam kha byed /
rked gcog gi gzu = conciliation judgement, compromise judgement
[1.48] Translation
Since there are with reference to judicial procedures also many advan-
tages in punishments, the delegates who interrogate [the parties] should,
under consideration of whatever statement was made, issue a compro-
mise judgement to each [party] to the effect that each party has to relin-
quish some of its claims. At the end of this/As the last resort they should
choose—under consideration of the importance of the matter—[an
ordeal with] stone, oil, iron, oath, dice, etc.

[1.49] ri tshig gzhung nas bkod dgos thor chags yong zhing gzhan ma
zhu ba len dus nas so so’i ri tshig gang phul ga slog yong ba byed cing /
mi ’os mi ’tsham pa ’dug na ’bud /
Searching the dictionaries for the term ri tshig we find the term only in
one dictionary, the rGya bod ming mdzod (Kansu 1989):
ri tshig = bden tshig = truth, true words
ri tshig = mna’ tshig = oath, covenant, vow
But it becomes clear from a passage in the She bam chen mo
(Anonymous 1987), that the term ri tshig is a technical term with the
meaning “oath formula” [or in German: “Eidesformel”].4
[1.49] Translation
The oath formula should be formulated by the government and should be
registered. At other times of interrogation, whatever is offered as an oath
4 See “kong po khams tshan gyi lcags ldag pa’i ri tshig gi snying po [chief part of
the oath formula of an ordeal with licking red-hot iron by a (member of) the Kong-po
House]” (She bam chen mo: 118). Also “nged tsha ba khams tshan gyis lcags ldags pa’i
ri tshig gi snying po [chief part of the oath formula of an ordeal with licking red-hot
iron by me, a (member of) the Tsha-ba House” (ibid.).
 SDE SRID SANGS RGYAS RGYA MTSHO ON ORDEALS 83

formula should be free of contradictions, and unworthy and unsuitable

[words] should be removed.

[1.50] ’ju can gyi rigs gzhung nas tshag rgyab byed pa dang so sos tshag
’dzugs skabs dang bstun pa’i khra ma gtong /
Although the technical term ’ju can occurs in all law codes in their
respective chapters, Meisezahl does not mention it. The term is still
absent from all published dictionaries and is not well understood even
by native speakers as can be seen from the erroneous emendation to
’jug can in sNga rabs bod kyi srid khrims (2004: 268) a modern collec-
tion of legal material), edited by bSod nams tshe ring.
At present it is not clear whether ’ju can is a loan word from
Mongolian or Chinese or whether it is associated with lag la ’ju ba (to
take somebody by the hand). In any case, it means “someone who takes
an oath” and probably “someone who takes an oath per procura-
tionem”.
Bearing in mind that there were persons ineligible or unfit to under-
go an ordeal, I propose for the meaning of the term tshag rgyab—of
which I have no exact reference except as in bzo gnas texts5—some-
thing like “to filter out”, and consequently the term tshag ’dzug “to
admit [as a person taking an oath] after investigation [whether the per-
son falls into the excluded categories or not]”.

tshag rgyab = tshags rgyag (?) = to filter

tshag ’dzugs = tshags btsugs = bsko bzhag byed pa = to appoint
I offer as a translation of this paragraph the following:
[1.50] Translation
Regarding the jurors, the government should select them, or when they
are selected by the parties, one should accordingly mention this in the
verdict.
Paragraphs 1.51, 1.52 and 1.53 are of no particular importance for the
present argument, and I therefore omit their translation here.
[1.51] se’bras kham tshan rnams dogs pa ngan pas gzu ’di mthong phyo-
gs che ba dang snum ’di nyen yod pas mtshon gzhung du gnang gtad med
cing phan tshun du spyan rgyang ri tshig ga slog gi lcags kyi yin skyel
dang lcags la brten pa’i slar nas ’di gyis dang ma thon par nyes chad kyi
gzu re gtong /
5 See Mi pham rgya mtsho, bZo gnas gnas nyer mkho’i za ma tog, fol. 10b: tshag la
btsag, to filter, to sift.
84 CHRISTOPH CÜPPERS

yin skyel = proof [a rare word of which I have found only three
occurrences]
nyes chad kyi gzu = judgement in which (both parties) are punished
[1.52] spyir gzu ’dir gtong lugs rnam grangs mang zhing stabs bde ba
zhig ’dug na’ang thog mar phan tshun la rgyun gtan bzos sgo dgos rigs
yin kyang che nges la phul don dang de phyin la springs yig las bzos sgo
mi byed /
[How people should be addressed on the envelope of the verdict.]
[1.53] de nas phan tshun gyi don rtsa rnams sbyangs bshad du ’thus pa
byed srol ’dug rung / phyis kyi mi rnams dogs pa ngan gshis zhu len mi
snas zhu rtsa ji bzhin ma ’byor ba’i dogs par phan khyad / gnyis ka’i lo
ma gang yin bzhag pa’i rdo kha rnams bkod rjes khrims sa stong par ’jog
pa ma ’gab cing / zhu rtsa’i don ’gangs dang do bdag la gzhigs pa’i
khrims ’degs babs smyug dang bcas pa bkod /
[court fees]
[1.54] don rtsa rnams phan tshun cha snyoms kyi spang blang dgos rigs
’di gyis dang / don ’gangs dang mtshungs pa’i bkru dgag re dgos par ri
tshig lha dpang gi gsham du phan tshun so so’i don skor la gzhi lhas ga
slog gi tshig la mang nyung ma shor ba dang /
[the oath formula should not have too many or too few words]
[1.55] ri [re] zer ba don rnam grangs ha cang gi mang ba ma byung phyin
gsum la gang ‘du bsdu dgos /
Why is the oath formula called ri tshig? The answer lies in the variant
re above and we know from Dunhuang documents and orthographic
variants in law codes that the oath or vow sentence ended in the
emphatic particle re. Presumably in association with the mountain gods
who are summoned as arbiters (dpang du btsugs pa) in the oath, the
particle re turned into ri.6
I understand the phrase ri zer ba don as the points or sentences
which end in the emphatic particle re or ri, i.e. the chief part (ri tshig
gi snying po) of an oath. In order to prevent overly long oath formulas
which may be confusing and which may provide a chance to insert con-
flicting and inappropriate wording, Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho advises that
the formula should as far as possible contain three main sentences end-
ing in ri.

6The usual translation of dpang is “witness”, but I think that in some cases, or even
in all, the meaning of “arbiter” is fitting and even more appropriate. The term gzu bo =
“arbiter, judge” is paraphrased in Tibetan dictionaries with the term dpang po.
7 On a short introduction to this text and its heterogeneous material, see Cüppers
2010.
 SDE SRID SANGS RGYAS RGYA MTSHO ON ORDEALS 85

We are in a fortunate position to have a few occurrences of ri tshig

at our disposal. They were inserted in the text She bam chen mo
(Anonymous 1987), a collection of legal and other material.7 The ri
tshig in question read as follows:
[page 117] shing yos [1675 BC] zla tshes nyin / yi dam rdo rje ’jigs byed
dpal ye shes kyi mgon po phyag drug pa / khyad par dam can chos kyi
rgyal po sprul pa’i chos rgyal chen po sku lnga ’khor bcas rang la ’go ba’i
lha bsrung gnyan po rnams [page 118] dang bcas pa’i drung du / ’bob
sogs spor bdun tsam zhugs te nged kong po khams tshan gyis lcags ldag
pa’i ri tshig gi snying po / grub rgya ba’i dpon g.yog skya ser tshang ma
nged kong po khams tshan la thob par grub rgya sde pa’i phyag tham
kyang nges khungs min ri / phyag tham nges khungs yin rjes bar skabs
su tsha ba khams tshan gyis gra rgyun dang ’grul pa ’ga ’ zhig brkus pa
lta bu’i ham bzos byas pa las khyed tshab khams tshan la thob pa’i babs
’brel yod ri / da sgos se ra stod bla zur bkra shis rgya mtsho sog yul nas
’khor ba ’dir ma zad / grub rgya ba’i dpon g.yog skya ser tshang ma nged
kong po khams tshan gyis thob pa’i don la lcags ldags pa ’di bden pa
bden tshig gi sgo nas ldags pa ma gtogs / rdzas man ngag gi sgo nas ldags
pa ri krus pa yin pas / go don las ’gal ba shar na lcags mi thon zhing lce
’tshig pa dang khra ’dzags pa’i yid ches mngon sum du ston par mdzod
ma ’gal tshe lcags thon zhing lce rgya dar las ’jam po thong zhus / nga
kong po /
[page 118] nged tsha ba khams tshan gyis lcags ldags pa’i ri tshig gi sny-
ing po /
dbyings pa bsod nams chos ’phel gyi skabs nas da lta’i bar / nged tsha
ba khams tshan la grub rgya ba dpon g.yog gi ’grul pa dang gra rgyun
yong bzhin pa min ri / da lam se ra stod bla zur bkra shis rgya mtsho sog
yul nas ’khor bar kong po khams tshan gyi ham pa byas rtsod min ri / bla
ma bkra shis rgya mtsho ma zad / grub rgya ba skya ser dpon g.yog
tshang ma nged tsha ba khams tshan la thob pa’i don du lcags ldag ’di
bden pa bden tshig gi tshig brjod gong bzhin yin /
The end of this oath formula is abbreviated (bden tshig gi tshig brjod
gong bzhin yin) and leads to the assumption that the closing part of an
oath formula for the iron-licking ordeal had a fixed phrasing:
lcags ldags pa ’di bden pa bden tshig gi sgo nas ldags pa ma gtogs / rdzas
man ngag gi sgo nas ldags pa ri krus pa yin pas / go don las ’gal ba shar
na lcags mi thon zhing lce ’tshig pa dang khra ’dzags pa’i yid ches
mngon sum du ston par mdzod ma ’gal tshe lcags thon zhing lce rgya dar
las ’jam po mthong zhus /
Translation:
I am not only licking (the red-hot iron) by (uttering) words of truth, that
86 CHRISTOPH CÜPPERS

this ordeal of red-hot iron licking (shows the) truth, but because the lick-
ing by means of a powerful formula is a clarification by an oath formu-
la (ri krus), if it appears that there are contradictions to the meaning, the
iron will not come off, the tongue will be burned and blood will drop
from it, revealing [the lie] convincingly and manifestly; if there are no
contradictions, the iron does not stick/comes off and the tongue appears
to be softer than Chinese silk.
There are some more details given here which are of interest for the
understanding of an iron-licking ordeal:
[page 117] ’bras spungs tsha ba khams tshan gnyis nas sngags khang du
lcags ldags pa’i dgos char / so so nas yi dam la snyan dar dang mchod
chas blos bcad dkon gnyer la gser la gser zho re / mgar ba la gos kha re
/ tshogs chas rtsam mkhar ru’i khal re / lug khog phyed re / ja mkhar nyag
re sdor bcas / mi snar rkang gla smar khrag phyed ma’i srang re bcas
sprod / shing yos zla tshe la /
This ordeal took place in a sngags khang, presumably in Drepung
monastery. The two persons undergoing the ordeal had to provide the
following items each: a ceremonial scarf to the deity and a gold zho to
the dkon gnyer who provided the ritual utensils; to the smith each one
had to give a square piece of cloth; for the assembled group each one
had to give a standard khal of tsampa, a half-sheep (lug khog) and a
standard nyag of tea including the butter (rdor bcas);8 and to the dele-
gate officials each had to give a smar khrag phyed ma’i srang as their
travel allowance.

CONCLUSION

It is obvious that one cannot understand the relevant paragraphs of the

Guidelines without referring to the law codes. Only by understanding
the procedures of a Tibetan ordeal and the different methods the
Tibetans used for such procedures can we make any sense of these para-
graphs. On the other hand, our understanding of the law codes is also
slightly enhanced by the admittedly short section in the Guidelines.
From these we learn that the oath formula should be concise and to the
point, without contradictions and unnecessary words. The main sen-

8
rdor/sdor is the condiment in soups or Tibetan tea. In the present case the condi-
ment is butter.
 SDE SRID SANGS RGYAS RGYA MTSHO ON ORDEALS 87

tences of the oath formula should, if possible, be no more than three in

number.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anonymous. 1987. She bam chen mo’i dper brjod. In Tshe ring bde skyid (ed.) Bod kyi
dus rabs rims byung gi khrims yig phyogs bsdus dvangs byed ke ta ka. Lhasa: Bod
ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang, 117–90.
Blondeau, A.M. 1996. Foreword. In A.M. Blondeau and E. Steinkellner (eds),
Reflections of the Mountain: Essays on the History and Social meaning of the
Mountain Cult in Tibet and the Himalaya. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften, vii-xii.
Cüppers, C. 2010. Some remarks on Bka’ ’gyur production in 17th-century Tibet. In A.
Chayet, C. Scherrer-Schaub, F. Robin and J.-L. Achard (eds) Edition, éditions :
l’écrit au Tibet, évolution et devenir. Collectanea Himalayica 3. München: Indus
Verlag, 115–28.
Dotson, B. 2006. Administration and Law in the Tibetan Empire: the Section on Law
and State and its old Tibetan Antecedents. D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford.
—— 2007. Divination and law in the Tibetan empire: the role of dice in the legislation
of loans, interest, marital law and troop conscription. In M.T. Kapstein and B.
Dotson (eds) Contributions to the Cultural History of Early Tibet. Leiden: Brill
Academic Publishers, 3–77.
Dungkar (Dung dkar Blo bzang ’phrin las) 2002. Dung dkar tshig mdzod chen mo.
Beijing: Krung go’i bod rig pa dpe skrun khang.
Goldstein, M.C. 2001. The New Tibetan-English Dictionary of Modern Tibetan.
Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press.
rGya bod ming mdzod 1996. Lanzhou: Kan su’u mi dmangs dpe skrun khang.
Meisezahl, R.O. 1987. Die Ordalien im tibetischen Recht. ZAS 20, 228–32.
Mi pham rgya mtsho. Bzo gnas nyer mkho’i za ma tog. gSung ’bum/ mi pham rgya
mtsho. TBRC W2DB16631. Khreng tu’u: [Gangs can rig gzhung dpe rnying myur
skyobs lhan tshogs], 2007. 3, 81–154. retrieved from
http://tbrc.org/link?RID=O1PD45159|O1PD451591PD45325$W2DB16631
Sangs rgyas rya mtsho. Blang dor gsal bar ston pa’i drang thig dwangs shel gyi me long
nyer gcig pa [Guidelines for Government Officials]. In Tshe ring bde skyid (ed.)
Bod kyi dus rabs rims byung gi khrims yig phyogs bsdus dvangs byed ke ta ka.
Lhasa: Bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang, 1987, 203–79. [For the short sec-
tion on ordeals mentioned above, see p. 215, 12]
Simons, W. 1968. Tibetan re in its wider context. BSOAS 31, 555–62.
Zhal lce bco lnga in Tibetan Legal Material, Dharamsala.
Walter, M. 2009. Buddhism and Empire: the Political and Religious Culture of Early
Tibet. Brill’s Tibetan Studies Library 22. Leiden: Brill.
Zhal lce bcu gsum (Tâ la’i bla ma sku ’phreng lnga pa’i dus gtan la phab pa’i khrims
yig zhal lce bcun gsum) (1989). In Chab spel Tshe brtan phun tshogs (ed.) Bod kyi
snga rabs khrims srol yig che bdams bsgrigs. Gangs can rig mdzod 7. Lhasa: Bod
ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang, 146–84.
 A NEARLY-FORGOTTEN DGE LUGS PA INCARNATION LINE
AS MANORIAL LORD IN BKRA SHIS LJONGS,
CENTRAL TIBET

PETER SCHWIEGER

INTRODUCTION

The households (bla brang) of certain sprul sku in Tibet were able to
accumulate great amounts of wealth and land during the course of their
history. As in the case of feudal societies in mediaeval Europe, land
ownership included the right to demand duties and regular corvée from
the farmers and nomads who cultivated the land and were bound to it.
The estates belonging to a sprul sku’s household were often scattered
over areas that were far apart. Despite the vastness of the territory that
was theoretically available for the distribution of land, cultivable land
was limited. The constant demand for land could therefore only be sat-
isfied by the circulation of land ownership. Melvyn Goldstein has
analysed that during the last two hundred years of the dGa’ ldan pho
brang Government, the estates that were confiscated for re-distribution
(Goldstein 1973: 7–11) were mainly those of the aristocracy. He states
that the confiscation of religious estates was a rare and mostly only
temporary exception, limited to monasteries and households “whose
leaders had committed serious political offenses” (ibid.: 7). As a result,
more and more land was transferred from the aristocracy to the govern-
ment and especially to the clergy.
There is no evidence to contradict Goldstein’s analysis in principle.
However, if on the one hand we extend our focus back to the seven-
teenth century and, on the other, take a closer look at the clergy’s acqui-
sition of land, the confiscation of religious estates was neither very
exceptional nor always just temporary. The establishment of the rule of
the dGa’ ldan pho brang Government towards the middle of the seven-
teenth century was accompanied by a forced conversion of monasteries
of other Buddhist schools into those of the dGe lugs pa. It was mostly
bKa’ brgyud monasteries in Central and East Tibet that were affected.
The forced conversion also meant massive confiscation of estates as
90 PETER SCHWIEGER

economic resources to strengthen the dGge lugs pa and to weaken rival

Buddhist schools. This process continued until the end of the eigh-
teenth century when, after the first Gorkha War, the Qianlong Emperor
(reign: 1736–1795) ordered the extinction of the Zhwa dmar pa incar-
nation line and the confiscation of his residence, the Yangs pa can
Monastery, together with its estates. The beneficiary was the newly
established Kun bde gling bla brang of the Eighth rTa tshag rje drung
rin po che Ye shes blo bzang bstan pa’i mgon po (1760–1810), who at
that time functioned as regent under the Eighth Dalai Lama ’Jam dpal
rgya mtsho (1758–1804). But after the death of the Eighth rTa tshag rje
drung rin po che, Yangs pa can and its estates were again confiscated
on the orders of the Ambans and lost to the then regent, the Seventh De
mo qutuqtu nomun qan Blo bzang thub bstan ’jigs med rgya mtsho (in
office 1811–1819).1
In the present paper I want to draw attention to another almost for-
gotten, but once nevertheless important dGe lugs pa incarnation line in
Central Tibet. The sources available so far do not allow us to recon-
struct anything like a complete history of this incarnation line and its
fate as manorial lords. By contrast, they pose more questions than they
present clear answers. Nevertheless, they demonstrate in some detail
continuity and change surrounding clerical landownership in Tibet over
time, including periods of unrest and turmoil.

THE FOUNDATION OF THE INCARNATION LINE’S SEAT, BKRA SHIS LJONGS

MONASTERY, IN THE 17th CENTURY, AND ITS SKYID SHOD PATRONS

The residence of the incarnation line was a monastery called bKra shis
ljongs, located roughly 35 kilometres to the northeast of Lhasa, not far
from dGa’ ldan Monastery in present-day sTag rtse County. In the
diplomatic sources known to me the incarnation line itself is usually
named after the monastery as the bKra shis ljongs sprul sku. Otherwise
it is mentioned as sKyid shod zhabs drung rin po che.
The bKra shis ljongs Monastery is listed in bShes gnyen tshul
khrims’ book on monasteries in and around Lhasa (bShes gnyen tshul
khrims 2001: 125). It still existed until the middle of the twentieth cen-
tury. At that time the monastery was home to only about thirty monks.

1 For details, cf. Schwieger forthcoming.

 A NEARLY-FORGOTTEN DGE LUGS PA INCARNATION LINE 91

Towards the end of the seventeenth century, that is to say at the time of
sDe srid Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho (1653–1705), the monastery housed
154 monks (sDe srid Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho 1989: 155). As the year of
its foundation bShes gnyen tshul khrims gives the year 1600. As
founder he mentions the Fourth Panchen Lama Blo bzang chos kyi
rgyal mtshan (1567/70–1662),2 but adds that it was also said to have
been founded by rTse thang Byang ma dPal ’byor lhun grub (2001). An
early historical source that provides supplementary information on
bKra shis ljongs Monastery is Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho’s Vairya ser
po, composed in 1698 (sDe srid Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho 1989: 155).
According to this work, the monastery was founded jointly by the gov-
ernor of sKyid shod, the Fourth Panchen Lama and rTses dang Byang
ma ba dPal ’byor bsod nams lhun grub.3 Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho listed
the latter also as rTses dang chen po Byang ma Khang gsar ba dPal
’byor bsod nams lhun grub among the lamas of Se ra byes (ibid.: 142).4
Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho’s statement reflects more precisely the histori-
cal circumstances of the foundation, because it does not ignore the sig-
nificance of the patron who granted the land and funded the new
monastery. He was one of the major political figures of his time and
crucial as patron of the dGe lugs pa in dBus province: sKyid shod dGa’
ldan pa’i sde pa gYul rgyal nor bu (died 1607). He was among those
who welcomed the Fourth Dalai Lama Yon tan rgya mtsho (1589–1617)
on his arrival from Mongolia in 1603 (Sas-rGyas rGya-mTsho 1999:
222).5 Sørensen and Hazod (2007: vol. II, 768; vol. I, 242f) doubt that
he was the son of sKyid shod zhabs drung bKra shis rab brtan
(1531–1589) and see it more likely that he was his nephew. However, in
a document found in the Kun bde gling archives (ID 1681) we read that
2 The author gives the abbreviated name Blo bzang chos rgyan and gives as year of
his birth 1570. The year 1567 results from the Panchen Lama’s autobiography (Blo
bzang chos kyi rgyal mtshan 1969). Since he is the first bearer of the title Panchen
Lama, he is sometimes called the First and sometimes the Fourth Panchen Lama.
3 Note that for rTse thang, the place of the lama’s origin, the sources have various
spellings: rTse thang (bShes gnyen tshul khrims 2001), rTses dang (sDe srid Sangs
rgyas rgya mtsho 1989), rTsed thang (Champa Thupten Zongtse 1995: 240). Dung dkar
(2002: 254) refers to this individual as rTses thang Byang ma Khang gsar ba bSod nams
lhun grub, but mentions only that he was invited after the foundation of the monastery.
This is in accordance with Khetsun Sangpo (1975: 59), which is based on the same
source. Khetsun Sangpo does not mention the epithet rTses thang Byang ma Khang
gsar ba.
4 The sobriquet Byang ma Khang gsar ba is also used by Dung dkar (2002: 254).
5 Some scattered vignettes about him obtained from historiographical sources are
summarised by Sørensen and Hazod (2007: vol. I, 245).
92 PETER SCHWIEGER

gYul rgyal nor bu founded bKra shis ljongs Monastery in commemora-

tion of his deceased father Zhabs drung A khu bkra shis who is identi-
cal with bKra shis rab brtan (Dung dkar 2002: 256). The slightly dam-
aged document was issued to confirm the rights and privileges of bKra
shis ljongs as one of the long-established dGe lugs monasteries. The
document does not mention the issuer, but shows at the bottom the seal
of Pho lha nas (1689–1747) with the inscription: pho lha tha’i ji bsod
nams stobs rgyas kyi tham ka / don kun grub pa (Schuh 1981: 68). Thus
it is one of several documents issued by Pho lha nas in favor of bKra shis
ljongs. The document refers to the confirmation of bKra shis ljongs’
rights by the seals of the successive previous rulers, starting with gYul
rgyal nor bu and ending with Sa skyong D’a’i ching sba dur who is iden-
tical with Khang chen nas (died 1727). The latter’s seal was used from
1721 to 1727 when Tibet was governed by a council of ministers (Schuh
1981: 61). What is highly problematic is the date of issue: the 8th day of
the 7th month of the fire monkey year. This would either correspond to
a date in 1716, which is too early, or in 1776 which is too late. As is well
known, Pho lha nas used his seal during his rule from 1728 to 1747
(Schuh 1981: 68). Thus, either the year given on the document is a sim-
ple scribal mistake or else the document itself is a forgery.

BSTAN ’DZIN BLO BZANG RGYA MTSHO, FIRST OF THE SKYID SHOD
SPRUL SKU LINE

Regarding the incarnation line established in bKra shis ljongs

Monastery we have a few fragmentary and partly conflicting items of
information. The line started with a famous dGe lugs pa scholar: bsTan
’dzin blo bzang rgya mtsho, who lived from 1593 to 1638.6 His biogra-
phy was written by Rong po sKal ldan rgya mtsho (1607–1677).7
Khetsun Sangpo (1975: 58–65) provides a slightly abridged version.
Another Tibetan summary that draws in the same source is contained
in Dung dkar (2002: 254f). Furthermore, based on the same source
6 Note that 1636 as the year of his death provided by Khetsun Sangpo (1975: 65) is
based on a faulty calculation.
7 sKyid shod zhabs drung bstan ’dzin blo bzang rgya mtsho’i rnam thar mdor bsdus.
In Po ta lar bzhugs pa’i dge lugs gsung ’bum gyi dkar chag (TBRC W19836: 227). lHa
sa: Bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang 1990.
http://tbrc.org/link?RID=O1GC1356|O1GC13561GC13571GC13611GC14521G
C14571GC14631GC14691GC14721GC14751GC15021GC1622$W19836.
 A NEARLY-FORGOTTEN DGE LUGS PA INCARNATION LINE 93

Anne Chayet (2002: 79f) outlines the main events in the life of bsTan
’dzin blo bzang rgya mtsho. He was born in Lhasa as the fourth son of
gYul rgyal nor bu, the governor of sKyid shod. The biography refers to
him as a reincarnation (yang srid) of Zhang zhung Chos dbang grags
pa (1404–1469) (Ko zhul Grags pa ’byung gnas et al. 1992: 1464f; bSod
nams rgya mtsho et al. 2000: 460), a nephew of mKhas grub rje, and of
sGom sde shar pa Nam mkha’ rgyal mtshan (1532–1592). However, this
ascription is hardly to be regarded as the result of a previous systemat-
ic effort to find the reincarnation of Nam mkha’ rgyal mtshan.
According to the biography, bsTan ’dzin blo bzang rgya mtsho’s father
founded a new monastery called bKra shis ’byung gnas specifically for
his son’s studies, and this establishment is most probably identical with
bKra shis ljongs. There, bsTan ’dzin blo bzang rgya mtsho studied
under rTse thang Byang ma dPal ’byor lhun grub, mentioned in the
biography as dPal ’byor bsod nams lhun grub.8 Although we have two
different motivations for the foundation of bKra shis ljongs
Monastery—commemoration of the founder’s deceased father and pro-
vision of facilities for the study of the founder’s son—, it is evident that
it was the political ruler who took the initiative to build a new dGe lugs
pa monastery, which he then attached to his family. That bsTan ’dzin
blo bzang rgya mtsho and bKra shis ljongs Monastery had their own
estates is also evident from the biography: the bla ma’s own estate was
Brag dkar, which is also known as the residential estate of the sKyid
shod pa (Sørensen 2007: 864).
bsTan ’dzin blo bzang rgya mtsho’s life coincided with a period of
utmost unrest in Central Tibet. Both the dGe lugs pa and the house of
the sKyid shod pa were under permanent pressure from the rulers of
neighbouring gTsang province, patrons of the rival bKa’ brgyud
schools. According to bsTan ’dzin blo bzang rgya mtsho’s biography,
after the death of his father gYul rgyal nor bu in 1607,9 troops of the
patrons of the bKa’ brgyud pa had invaded dBus province and plun-

8 rTse thang Byang ma dPal ’byor lhun grub, also known as dPal ’byor bsod nams
lhun grub, is not to be confused with ’Khon ston dPal ’byor lhun grub (1561–1637).
According to Khetsun Sangpo (1973: 443f), in Sera Monastery the former had once
acted as tutor of the latter, who went on to become abbot of the upper college (Byes)
of Se ra Monastery (ibid.: 445).
9 Khetsun Sangpo (1975: 60) gives the earth sheep year of the 10th sixty-year cycle,
which would correspond to 1619. This, however, does not fit into the chronology nar-
rated by him. Thus sa lug seems to be a mistake for me lug. Elsewhere 1607 is given as
year of his death (Sørensen and Hazod 2007: vol. I, 245).
94 PETER SCHWIEGER

dered numerous district estates, destroyed some smaller dGe lugs monas-
teries and imprisoned bsTan ’dzin blo bzang rgya mtsho’s elder brothers
(Dung dkar 2002: 2329; Sørensen 2007: 867). In 1618 gTsang military
forces occupied dBus province. Mongols of the Tümed tribe took sides
with the dGe lugs pa, and the combined forces of the Tümed and of the
sKyid shod governor bSod nams rgyal mtshan, alias bSod nams rnam
rgyal (1586–1636), together with the monks from Se ra and ’Bras spungs
attacked the gTsang troops (Sørensen and Hazod 2007: vol. I, 245;
Sørensen 2007: 868f). Though they fought successfully at first, it was
finally the gTsang army which prevailed and put the combined forces to
rout. The monasteries of Se ra and ’Bras spungs were occupied by soldiers
from gTsang, and the district estates of the sKyid shod pa were confiscat-
ed. bsTan ’dzin blo bzang rgya mtsho had no choice but to escape towards
the north. He travelled as far as the land of the Mongols (sog yul).
However, after the mediation of the Fourth Panchen Lama between
the gTsang troops on the one side and the allied forces the dGe lugs pa,
sKyid shod pa, and Tümed Mongols on the other in 1621, the position
of the dGe lugs pa and the sKyid shod pa in dBus had improved.
Though hostile towards the dGe lugs pa as holders of large estates and
as an ambitious political power in Central Tibet, in 1622 the gTsang sde
srid nevertheless allowed the new Fifth Dalai Lama Ngag dbang blo
bzang rgya mtsho (1617–1682) to be installed in ’Bras spungs
Monastery ( Tucci 1949: 58f).
The oldest legal document concerning bKra shis ljongs Monastery
known to me is a testament (kha chems kyi yig dan) drawn up in 1625
(ID 1045). Motivated by a serious illness, a man called Dar gling pa
Dar rgyas bequeathed an estate to the dpon slob pa chen rin po che
and his monastic college (grwa tshang) in exchange for religious serv-
ices for the benefit of himself and those he might leave behind. At that
time the title pa chen rin po che was not yet the official title of the
incarnation line of the great hierarchs of bKra shis lhun po Monastery.
Thus it cannot be excluded that the title is being used here as a mere
courtesy for another respected learned incarnation. However, since the
monastic college mentioned in the document refers to bKra shis ljongs,
it is not unlikely that pa chen rin po che does indicate the Fourth
Panchen Lama Blo bzang chos kyi rgyal mtshan. After all, he was
among the founders of that monastery and probably took care of it in
the beginning. The document further mentions the Byang ma ba and
the zhabs drung chos rje.
 A NEARLY-FORGOTTEN DGE LUGS PA INCARNATION LINE 95

The text is remarkable also in other resepects: it is a fine example of

a will issued in favour of a monastery, thus illustrating an important
resource for the monastic economy. Since this type of document is rare
in the archivial material at hand, it is worth translating in full:10
Content of the written agreement about [his] last will, delivered by Dar
gling pa Dar rgyas in the second month of the wood ox (year 1625):
I have no hope that I will overcome [my disease] in the long run, because
this time this illness is a severe and serious one. Thus [my last will is fixed
as follows]:
Previously, when the lord of bKra shis ljongs [had invited] the Byang ma
ba [dPal ’byor lhun grub], and when the zhabs drung chos rje [bsTan
’dzin blo bzang rgya mtsho] had granted the sustenance [for him], the store-
house-keeper of bDe chen rdzong11 had handed over bKra shis ljongs to my
chos rje rin po che [bsTan ’dzin blo bzang rgya mtsho] as his personal
monastic estate. That is it.
Now, by offering [it] with trust and with an open heart to the slob dpon
pa chen rin po che and [his] monastic community as an endowment for reli-
gious ceremonies in the event that I do not die for the time being and, in the
event that I do die, for dedicating [the merit] to draw [my consciousness]
upwards [to a better rebirth] and as a flower with a stalk for the continuous
[practice of] virtues, I have handed over from the core of my heart—after [I]
had given an appropriate share to the Ya lde chos mdzad ma—the other
[property, namely the estate] Rin sdings,12 and the people I will leave
behind, [namely] my wife, the mother and the children, the monks, and the
few serving women, together with the decrees of the gTsang sde srid rin po
che, the ruler and his ministers, and the earlier and later [granted] land tenure
documents to the dpon slob rin po che [and his] monastic community.
Without moving them away, the dpon slob must later give the people
I will leave behind, [namely] my wife, the mother and the children,
together with the serving women, [the feeling of] not missing the
deceased one.
In the past the lord did not deviate from the care and help [granted
already] at the time of Byang ma nas [dPal ’byor lhun grup]. Please [go
on] accordingly!

10 Of help for the translation was not only the context provided by other documents
and historigraphical sources, but also the discussions with my colleague Namgyal
Nyima to whom I am thus very grateful. For the transliteration and an image of the doc-
ument see the appendix.
11 bde gnyer is an abbreviation for bde chen gnyer tshang. As such it appears for
instance in ID 1040.
12 Elsewhere the name of the estate is given as Rin sding or Rin chen sding (ID
1236; ID 1040). In the database of the Digitized Tibetan Archives Material at Bonn
University (http://www.dtab.uni-bonn.de) ID 1040 is dated 1498. Based on the content
of the document this has to be corrected to 1618.
96 PETER SCHWIEGER

After I have died, you monk community, headed by slob dpon pa
chen rin po che, must always and in every situation do whatever is good
to seal the dedication [of merit] which benefit [me] after my death.
For that purpose I have given [here the imprint of] my, Dar rgyas’ seal.
In 1632 Choɣtu Tayiǰi of the northern Qalqa defeated the Tümed.
Thereupon bsTan ’dzin blo bzang rgya mtsho, who at that time was
staying in the Kokonor region, again had to escape from the war and
turned to Khams. Finally, in 1637 Gushri qan (1582–1655) of the Oirats
arrived with his army at Kokonor and defeated Choɣtu Tayiǰi. As is well
known, from then on things gradually began to improve for the dGe
lugs pa.

THE INCARNATION LINE IN THE SOURCES

After the death of bsTan ’dzin blo bzang rgya mtsho in 1638, there was
obviously an interest in making him the starting point of a new incar-
nation line in bKra shis ljongs Monastery. Dung dkar (2002: 255)
writes that bsTan ’dzin blo bzang rgya mtsho’s successor was sKyid
shod zhabs drung Ngag dbang bstan ’dzin phrin las, and that although
there were a few subsequent incarnations he, i.e. Dung dkar, has hith-
erto been unable to find any detailed accounts (see also Smith 2001:
129). For sKyid shod zhabs drung Ngag dbang bstan ’dzin phrin las,
both Gene Smith and bSod nams rgya mtsho et al. (2000: 34) provide
the dates 1639–1682 which would of course fit. However, Ko shul
Grags pa ’byung gnas et al. (1992: 125) give no date of birth, but state
that it is evident that he died 1696.13
I have so far found three different historical sources for the succes-
sion line of the bKra shis ljongs sprul sku. None of them, however,
mentions sKyid shod zhabs drung, that is, sprul sku Ngag dbang bstan
’dzin phrin las as the reincarnation or successor of bsTan ’dzin blo
bzang rgya mtsho.
In his Vairya ser po Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho merely lists the
names of the succession of lamas without explicitly referring to them
as sprul sku. Leaving a minor rearrangement of syllables aside, this list
matches one that features on an undated slip of paper found in the Kun
13
This sKyid shod zhabs drung is mentioned in the Fifth Dalai Lama’s autobiogra-
phy as sKyid shod sprul sku Ngag dbang bstan ’dzin phrin las for the year 1655 (Ngag
dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho 1989: vol. I, 476).
 A NEARLY-FORGOTTEN DGE LUGS PA INCARNATION LINE 97

bde gling archives (ID 2157). This brief note does not go beyond the
succession list of the Vairya ser po. After mentioning rTses thang
zhal mnga’, that is rTses dang Byang ma ba dPal ’byor bsod nams lhun
grub, four successive lamas are listed. Just as in the Vairya ser po,
the fourth is noted as being contemporary with the author. However, in
this case he is explicitly described as the “precious rebirth” (sku skye
rin po che): that is, he had the status of a sprul sku.
The third source is the famous registration list of Tibetan incarna-
tions demanded by the Qing government, composed in 1814 and
expanded to include additional information over the next few years.14
As proved by several spot tests this list is not completely reliable and
has to be regarded with caution, especially as a basis for any statistical
examination. Here the successive lamas are called bKra shis ljongs
sprul sku and are listed as a succession of rebirths. The following chart
shows the variations and differences between the three sources.
Leaving aside the fact that the sequence of the syllables in some of
the names is confused, it is only the name dGe ’dun rgyal mtshan pro-
vided by the third and latest list that does not fit into the picture.
Therefore, that name should probably be omitted. The sKye phreng deb
gzhung also provides the age of death for each of the reincarnations. As
I have checked already with regard to other incarnation lines, these
numbers are not at all reliable, especially in regard to earlier individu-
als. In this specific case the sum of all ages listed would shift the birth
Vairya ser po ID 2157 sKye phreng deb
gzhung
1 Chos rje bsTan ’dzin blo Zhabs drung chos rje Blo bzang bstan ’dzin
bzang rgya mtsho bsTan ’dzin blo bzang rgya mtsho
rgya mtsho
2 Blo bzang bstan skyong Zhabs drung chos rje dGe ’dun rgyal
rgya mtsho bsTan skyong blo bzang mtshan chos rje Blo
rgya mtsho bzang bstan skyong
rgya mtsho
3 Blo bzang bstan ’dzin Zhabs drung chos rje Zhabs drung Blo
Blo bzang bstan ’dzin bzang bstan ’dzin

14
Bod dang/ bar khams/ rgya sog bcas kyi bla sprul rnams kyi skye phreng deb
gzhung, abbreviated as sKye phreng deb gzhung (Chab spel et al. 1991: 281–369). For
the year of composition see also the introduction of Ma grong Mi ’gyur rdo rje (ibid.:
24).
98 PETER SCHWIEGER

4 Ngag dbang phun sKu skye rin po che Byung {read: Ngag}
tshogs rnam rgyal Ngag dbang phun tshogs dbang phun tshogs
rnam rgyal rnam rgyal
5 Blo bzang phrin las
rgyal mtshan

6 sKal bzang dam chos

rgyal mtshan

7 Blo bzang thub bstan

rgyal mtshan (born as
bSod nams bkra shis)
of the first incarnation to the beginning of the sixteenth century.15 And
even if we simply delete dGe ’dun rgyal mtshan without replacement,
the first incarnation’s birth would still be about half a century too early.
Blo bzang bstan skyong rgya mtsho, number two according to the
Vairya ser po, is known from a longevity prayer composed for him
by the Fifth Dalai Lama.16 There he is mentioned as sKyid shod sde pa
chos rje Blo bzang bstan skyong rgya mtsho. Starting with the year
1652 and ending in 1659, the autobiography of the Fourth Panchen
Lama Blo bzang chos kyi rgyal mtshan (Blo bzang chos kyi rgyal
mtshan 1969) refers to him on several occasions without giving his per-
sonal name. He is either just called the rebirth, sku skye, of the sKyid
shos sde pa chos rje (142v), that is, sKyid shod zhabs drung chos rje
(147r), or addressed as sKyid shod sku skye rin po che (150r, 153r), that
is, sKyid shod sprul pa’i sku (160v), and for the year 1659 explicitly as
the reincarnation (sprul sku) of the sde pa Blo bzang bstan ’dzin rgya
mtsho from sKyid shod (181r). That Blo bzang bstan ’dzin rgya mtsho
is here—as in the chart presented above—just a variant of the name
bsTan ’dzin blo bzang rgya mtsho and actually refers to the same per-
son, is evident from the Panchen Lama’s autobiography. For the year
1615 the first zhabs drung chos rje is mentioned as sKyid shod sde pa
bsTan ’dzin blo bzang rgya mtsho (57r). The terms sku skye, sku skye
rin po che and sprul sku, that feature in the Panchen Lama’s autobiog-
15 The fact that the age given in Tibetan sources corresponds to ordinal numbers
according to Western reckoning has been taken into account.
16 Ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho. sKyid shod sde pa chos rje blo bzang bstan
skyong rgya mtsho la gsol ’debs brtan bzhugs. In gSung ’bum/_ngag dbang blo bzang
rgya mtsho/ (TBRC W1PD107937/18: 300–301). Pe cin: Krung go’i bod rig pa dpe
skrun khang, 2009.
http://tbrc.org/link?RID=O8LS6083|O8LS60838LS7006$W1PD107937.
 A NEARLY-FORGOTTEN DGE LUGS PA INCARNATION LINE 99

raphy to designate the second zhabs drung chos rje, make it very clear
that in the middle of the seventeenth century the high dGe lugs pa
authorities had recognised the sKyid shod pas’ installation of their own
incarnation line in their monastery bKra shis ljongs.

THE QAN’S PROTECTION AND THE GRANT OF THE SNANG RTSE ESTATE
TO THE LINE

Though there are a few references to the bKra shis ljongs sprul sku in
the digitised archives material from Kun bde gling, there is only one
document that also gives a sprul sku’s name (ID 1235). This document,
issued by Lha bzang qan (died 1717) in 1709, mentions Ngag dbang
phun tshogs rgya mtsho as the recently deceased sprul sku. This is the
Fourth bKra shis ljongs sprul sku.
According to a document, issued by Lha bzang qan in 1705 to con-
firm ownership rights of bKra shis ljongs (ID 1918), the predecessor of
the contemporary zhabs drung of bKra shis ljongs had become the
chief spiritual teacher (dbu bla) of bsTan ’dzin chos rgyal, i.e. Gushri
qan, and the latter had therefore given the sNang rtse estate, located in
sTod lung (ID 1089, 1172, 1185), to the lama. The zhabs drung living at
the time of Gushri qan should be identical with zhabs drung chos rje
bsTan ’dzin blo bzang rgya mtsho who, towards the end of his life, had
been on good terms with Gushri qan (Chayet 2002: 80). The second
zhabs drung chos rje Blo bzang bstan skyong rgya mtsho can be ruled
out as dbu bla of Gushri qan, because at the time of Gushri qan’s death
he must still have been a boy of about sixteen years. It is hard to believe
that Gushri qan took him as his chief spiritual teacher.
A similar document, issued by Lha bzang qan in 1707 (ID 2051),
again mentions bsTan ’dzin chos rgyal (that is, Gushri qan) as benefac-
tor of the so called bKra shis ljongs qutuqtu (kho thog thu), whose
rights were confirmed by the seals of the subsequent rulers. Special
mention is made of the fact that Gushri qan gave horses, cattle, and
sheep to the sprul sku to spare them from slaughter.
This matter was already addressed in a document issued in 1678 (ID
1167). The document has no intitulatio. Someone has written on the fab-
ric on which the document’s paper is mounted: da’ yan rgyal po’i bka’
shog or “decree of Dayan qan”, that is Dayan Ochir qan who in 1658 fol-
100 PETER SCHWIEGER

lowed his father Gushri qan as king. Since Dayan Ochir qan had already
died in 1668 (Weiers 2004:190) he can be ruled out. However, at the bot-
tom the document bears the red imprint of one of the seals of the Dalai
Lama (Schuh 1981: 11–13). Although this seal was used not just by the
Fifth Dalai Lama, but also by later Dalai Lamas, we can conclude that
in this case it was the Fifth Dalai Lama who issued the document.17 The
document confirms that it is forbidden to appropriate, as provisions, the
sheep that have been set free by Gushri qan. Though the publicatio of
the decree is missing, it is evident that it is addressed to officials pass-
ing through the pastures of bKra shis ljongs.
That Gushri qan had already benefited bKra shis ljongs Monastery
is confirmed by a very short document issued on 26th March 1649. The
document is sealed by Gushri qan (Chab spel et al. 1991: 70) as well as
by the first regent bSod nams chos ’phel (1595–1658) (ibid.: 42):
Ja khral / ma {mar} khral gyi bsdud pa po go bod {’go ’bod} sne slebs la
springs pa / (bkra shis) ljong {ljongs} gi ja len mi gnyis khal ma bcu gcig
la / ja khral / la {mar} khral gyi brtser {gtser} pa na yang ma byed / sa
glang hor zla gnyis pa’i tshes bcu gsu la chos ’khor lha sa nas bris /

Sent to the collectors of tea- and butter-tax, to those who are called head-
men, the leaders. Regarding the two persons who fetch the tea for bKra
shis ljongs never bother their eleven pack animals with tea- and butter-
tax! Written in the earth-ox [year] on the thirteenth day of the second
Hor month in Chos ’khor Lhasa. (ID 1110)

To the best of my knowledge there is no source that highlights Blo

bzang bstan skyong rgya mtsho’s reincarnation Blo bzang bstan ’dzin
in any way. The autobiography of the Fifth Dalai Lama mentions him
once as bKra shis ljongs chos rje Blo bzang bstan ’dzin, who visited the
Dalai Lama in 1668 (Ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho 1989: vol. II,
114).18
The bKra shis ljongs sprul sku, the bKra shis ljongs pa, had to pay
government taxes (gzhung khral) for their estates. But the regent Sangs
rgyas rgya mtsho issued decrees to prohibit the imposition of any fur-

17 The Tibet Archive in Lhasa has dated the document to 1798. Leaving aside the
content of the document, this date can definitely be ruled out, because in 1798 decrees
were authenticated by the seal of the first rTa tshag regent.
18 The Dalai Lama’s autobiography mentions the bKra shis ljongs chos rje a few
times, but normally without specifying the name of the incumbent.
 A NEARLY-FORGOTTEN DGE LUGS PA INCARNATION LINE 101

ther obligations on them (ID 1541).19 On the other hand the serfs (mi
ser) of sTod lung Tshal bDe gnyis, who lived on the estates of the for-
mer sKyid shod pa in Tshal Gung thang and in bDe chen Brag dkar, had
to contribute to the maintenance of the monks of bKra shis ljongs
Monastery. Sørensen and Hazod (2007: vol. I, 53f) mention references
according to which the sKyid shod pa was the actual ruler of Tshal
Gung thang and that since the early fifteenth century they had main-
tained “close bonds with Tshal, and possibly having a secular seat
there”. The actual seat of the sKyid shod pa was bDe chen Brag dkar
(Sørensen and Hazod 2007: vol. II, 759 note 2; Dung dkar 2002: 1003).
In 1696, that is to say after the sKyid shod pa had ceased to be the most
important patrons of bKra shis ljongs, Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho con-
firmed in a decree that the maintenance for the monks of bKra shis
ljongs Monastery should nevertheless continue to be provided by the
sTod lung Tshal bde area (ID 1534).

THE EXCHANGE OF SNANG RTSE ESTATE UNDER PHO LHA NAS FOR THREE
OTHER ESTATES GRANTED TO THE BKRA SHIS LJONGS SPRUL SKU

The estate in sNang rtse, once given to the bKra shis ljongs sprul sku by
Gushri qan, appears to have been exchanged under Pho lha nas’ rule for
some other estates. On 26th April 1735 Pho lha nas issued a decree through
which he granted the bKra shis ljongs pa three estates as a substitute for
their land in sNang rtse: rGyal sa sgang, Sa sbugs and Ge re (ID 1066).
rGyal sa sgang, also called rGyal sgang, rGya sgang, or rGya sa sgang in
the documents, as well as Ge re are estates located in the territory of sNe
gdong in lHo kha. For the rGyal sgang estate the archives even preserve
an old map (ID 1935). I have not yet been able to locate Sa sbugs.
Soon after issuing the above-mentioned decree, in June/July 1735
Pho lha nas confirmed the ownership rights and tax privileges of bKra
shis ljongs (ID 1122) with a prestigious document that itemised the
estates that were given in lieu of the sNang rtse estate. In 1745 he added
a note of confirmation to the same document. The document is written
on yellow silk and mounted on red silk. It shows the red imprints of
19 The document was issued 1694. Another one identified by the Tibet Archives as
a document issued in favour of bKra shi ljongs pa in 1695 (ID 1538) is damaged to such a
degree that the beneficiary of the document is no longer legible. The seal imprints on both
documents are identical with those depicted in the tham deb (Chab spel et al. 1991: 46).
 102
PETER SCHWIEGER

ID 1935 (inscription on the reverse: rgya sgang skor)

 A NEARLY-FORGOTTEN DGE LUGS PA INCARNATION LINE 103

three different seals used by Pho lha nas to authenticate his legal docu-
ments. First, there is the imprint of a well-documented seal at the end
of the intitulatio bearing six columns of ’Phags pa script (Schuh 1981:
70f). Below, the document shows the red imprint of a variety of the sil-
ver seal presented to Pho lha nas by the Emperor containing text in
Manchu, Chinese, and Tibetan (ibid.: 71f).20 Finally, immediately fol-
lowing the note of confirmation at the bottom, there is the imprint of
yet another seal of Pho lha nas showing four columns of ’Phags pa
script in an ornamental frame.
I know of altogether five documents issued by Pho lha nas which
bear this seal (ID 1122, 1218, 1221, 1512, 1553). None of the docu-
ments’ images is clear enough to allow a transliteration. It is most prob-
ably identical with seal M, mentioned by Schuh as one of ’Gyur med
rnam rgyal’s (died 1750) seals which was possibly already used by his
father Pho lha nas (Schuh 1981: 103).
That under Pho lha nas the sNang rtse estate was exchanged for some
other estates does not mean that the bKra shis ljongs sprul sku did not have
the ruler’s favour, but could as well have represented an award. In a travel
document issued by him in favour of the bKra shis ljongs sprul sku in 1742
he pointed him out as his chief spiritual teacher (dbu bla) (ID 1223).
Altogether I know of three travel documents issued by Pho lha nas in 1742
and 1745, all concerning travels of the bKra shis ljongs sprul sku to bKra
shis lhun po Monastery to see the young Sixth Panchen Lama Blo bzang
dpal ldan ye shes (1738–1780) (ID 1217, 1553). Obviously, at that time the
sprul sku was a prominent cleric whose journeys were of such impor-
tance that he received travel documents entitling him to demand public
support along his way.
In 1752 the Seventh Dalai Lama sKal bzang rgya mtsho (1708–1757)
(ID 1434) and in 1774 the first De mo regent Ngag dbang ’jam dpal bde

20 Though the wording on the imprint shown below and on the one depicted as seal
J by Schuh are the same, there are distinct differences with regard to the ductus of the
letters as well as with regard to the distribution of the syllables on the various lines.
Thus, there obviously existed at least two different versions of that seal. The seal’s
imprint mentions the junwang (郡王) title which according to Petech (1972: 180f) was
conferred upon Pho lha nas by the Qianlong Emperor on 11th January 1740. Dung dkar
(2002: 1343) confirms that Pho lha nas had received the corresponding seal in 1740.
However, on the present document the imprint of the seal has been affixed right at the
end of document issued in 1735. The confirmation note of 1745 was then later careful-
ly written around the seal’s imprint and authenticated by the imprint of another seal.
Currently I am unable to present a satisfactory explanation to solve this contradiction.
The possibility that the entire document may be a forgery cannot be excluded.
 104
PETER SCHWIEGER

Lower part of ID 1122

 A NEARLY-FORGOTTEN DGE LUGS PA INCARNATION LINE 105

legs rgya mtsho (1757–1777) (ID 1434, 1690) explicitly confirmed the
bKra shis ljongs pa’s right to own serfs, land, houses, leases, moun-
tains, valley, grass, water, wood, and so forth. In 1784 the bka’ shag, the
Tibetan Council of Ministers, issued another document (ID 1171) in
favour of the bKra shis ljongs sprul sku which he authenticated by the
imprint of his seal (Schuh 1981: 17–19). By referring to previous docu-
ments issued by successive rulers of Tibet starting with bsTan ’dzin
chos kyi rgyal po, i.e. Gushri qan, and the Fifth Dalai Lama, the issuer
confirms that anyone who travelled through nomad territory owned by
bKra shis ljongs had to pay a fee for using its pastures. By way of exam-
ple the document lists monks who travel around to collect donations for
their respective monasteries as well as military officers (brgya dpon).21

CONCLUSION

At some point in the nineteenth century the incarnation line of bKra

shis ljongs ceased to exist and the Kun bde gling Monastery in Lhasa
became the owner of bKra shis ljongs and its estates. The last bKra shis
ljongs sprul sku known to me so far is Blo bzang thub bstan rgyal
mtshan who on 20th December 1816, was identified by using the lottery
of the golden urn (Chab spel et al. 1991: 338, Skye phreng deb gzhung).
Until now I have seen no sources which tell us about the circumstances
that finally led to the extinction of this incarnation line and the incor-
poration of its monastery and estates into the property of Kun bde
gling. bShes gnyen tshul khrims (2001: 125) states that the Kun bde
gling bla brang later took possession of bKra shis ljongs. The legal
documents once issued for bKra shis ljongs thus became part of the
Kun bde gling archives. The Kun bde gling bla brang definitely bene-
fited from the circumstance that two incarnations of the rTa tshag rje
drung rin po che had served as regent in Tibet. Kun bde gling emerges
as a snowball that over the course of time gathered more and more
estates scattered all over Tibet. And among them were also estates that
originally had belonged to the incarnation lines of other monasteries.

21 There are more kind of possible travellers mentioned. However, since the docu-
ment is partly damaged the text is not completely preserved.
106 PETER SCHWIEGER

APPENDIX

ID 1045
Note on transliteration conventions:
(...) denotes the full-length rendering of contractions in the Tibetan
text.
{...} denotes emendations.
[...] denotes added syllables.
Z represents the che rtags symbol.

Shing glang zla ba gnyis pa’i nang du dar gling pa dar rgyas
kyis kha chems kyi yig dan phul don nged rang da res nad ’di yang
shin tu tshabs che zhing babs lji ba zhig byung bas phugs rigs {ring} mthar
thon bsams pa zhig ma byung bar brten de snga (bkra shis) ljongs Zrje’i
zhal mnga’ {snga} nas byang ma ba dang Zzhabs drung chos rje’i drung nas
zhal
’dzin gnang skabs kyang (bkra shis) ljongs rang gi mchod gzhis su
nged rang gi chos rje (rin po che) [la] bde gnyer pa drung nas ’bul sbyor gnang
ba de
bzhin yin pa dang dus da lam kyang nged rang ma shi tsam zhig byung
na rim gro dang shi na yar ’dren brngo {bsngo} ba’i thebs su dge ba rgyun
chags me tog yu ba can du dpon slob Zpa chen (rin po che) gra tshang dang
bcas par blo gtad snying gzhad gis phul bar ya lde chos
mdzad mar skal ba ’os ris byin rjes gzhan ma rin sdings
nged rang gi shul mi skye dman ma bu gra rigs mor {mo} bran phran
bu Z gtsang sde srid (rin po che) dpon blon gyi bka’ shog gtan tshigs
de rnga’i {snga’i} gtan rtsis {tshigs} rnga {snga} phyi dang bcas pa rnams
dpon slob (rin po che)
gra tshang rang du snying thag pa nas ’bul sbyor zhus pa yin
rjes dpon slob nas kyang shul mi (bud med) ma bu mor {mo} bran dang bcas
pa rnams ma rgyangs zhing ’das po dran ma dgos pa zhig gnang
dgos zhing de rnga {snga} rje’i zhal mnga’ {snga} nas byang ma nas kyi
skabs kyi mgo ’don bdag rkyen las ma g.yos pa bzhin
(mkhyen mkhyen) nged rang ’das rjes dus dang rnam pa (thams cad) du Zdpon
slob pan
chen (rin po che) nas dbus pa’i khyed gra tshang nas nga’i rjes su phan pa’i
brngo {bsngo} ba’i rgyas ’debs gang drag rang gnang dgos rgyu’i don du
nga dar rgyas kyi the’u phul ba yin/
A NEARLY-FORGOTTEN DGE LUGS PA INCARNATION LINE 107
108 PETER SCHWIEGER

ABBREVIATIONS

ID refers to the identification number of the digitised Documents of

Kündeling Monastery in Tibet of the Digitized Tibetan Archives
Material at Bonn University: http://www.dtab.uni-
bonn.de/tibdoc/index1.htm
TBRC refers to the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center in Cambridge,
MA: www.tbrc.org.

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 HOW TO TAME A WILD MONASTIC ELEPHANT: DREPUNG
MONASTERY ACCORDING TO THE GREAT FIFTH

BERTHE JANSEN

INTRODUCTION

Drepung (’Bras spungs) was once the largest monastery in the world in
terms of its population. This monastic institution was both influential
and wealthy. The combination of masses, money, and influence, how-
ever also posed a potential threat to those in power in Central Tibet. The
Fifth Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobzang Gyatso (Ngag dbang blo bzang
rgya mtsho, 1617–1682) attempted to manage the occasionally unruly
Drepung by authoring a set of monastic guidelines (bca’ yig). Written
in 1682, the year of the Fifth’s passing, the work paints a picture of a
monastery that had to deal with a number of unwanted elements:
infighting, immigration, corruption, and even the shooting dead of a
monk.
Rather than the esoteric contents of pure visions, familiar to us from
many Tibetan Buddhist texts, this work offers us a vision of society.
This vision of a large, ethnically diverse monastic society in the late 17th
century, abounds with the “seamy realities” that Michael Aris lament-
ed that were absent in the History of Drepung (’Bras spungs chos
’byung). According to him, this work, written by Geshe Gedün Lodrö
in 1974, contained none of “the less savoury but fascinating aspects” of
the monastery’s internal life (Aris 1978: 398). Rather than a history of
Drepung monastery, this article is more of an addition to what is
already known from various sources on this institution.1
Furthermore, I attempt to demonstrate the value of the genre of
monastic guidelines to the study of social history of Tibet. The only
scholar to have written on the bca’ yig in more general terms remains
Ter Ellingson (1989: 205–29). To date this valuable article is the most
comprehensive discussion of this genre of texts.2 Ellingson proposes

1 For George Dreyfus’ well-balanced overview of the monastery’s history see:

http://www.thlib.org/places/monasteries/drepung/essays/# (viewed 09/04/2013).
112 BERTHE JANSEN

that this genre derived from sources such as common law and tradition-
al rights, in accordance with the way the larger polity was divided up.
In light of the presumed origination in Tibetan traditional “secular”
law, he translates bca’ yig with “monastic constitution” and with “a
monastic constitutional document”. He explains:
[…] the Tibetan bca’ yig are “constitutions” in the sense that they are
constitutional-documentary outlines of part of a more extensive body of
documentary and traditional fundamentals of monastic government.
(ibid.: 205)
Ellingson does not give further information on this extensive body of
sources, but mentions many of these may be oral (ibid.: 210). The trans-
lation of bca’ yig as “monastic constitution” has its problems. The word
“constitution” communicates a sense of permanence, indicating that
the rules are somehow fundamental. The bca’ yig texts in contrast usu-
ally explicitly state their provisional and contemporary nature. The
translation is furthermore problematic because many texts called bca’
yig are not written for monastic communities. We know for example of
bca’ yig written for hermitages (ri khrod)3 and for communities of
tantric practitioners (sngags pa) that are not monks.4
Certain law codes in Bhutan are also called bca’ yig, although this
is a more recent development. Another interesting use of the word is
encountered in contemporary Amdo. In certain village communities in
Amdo, people make use of what they themselves call bca’ yig, which
usually take the shape of rules jotted down in a notebook. These bca’
yig consist of rules on lay religious gatherings (such as the recitation of
mani mantras) and state the monetary punishments to be paid when one
fails to attend, when one does not wear Tibetan dress and when one
arrives late at the gathering.5 The name bca’ yig also crops up in the
context of regulations for certain Himalayan communities. One such

2 I am currently in the process of writing my dissertation on pre-modern monastic

organisation and social justice in Tibet, in which bca’ yig are taken as the main source.
3 Examples of this are the dBen gnas ’khyung rdzong ri khrod pa rnams kyi khrims
su bca’ ba’i yi ge thar pa’i them skas, written by the Seventh Dalai Lama (bsKal bzang
rgya mtsho: 434–45); the De mo srid skyong dang pos dar nor ri khrod la bstsal ba’i
bca’ yig (1757), written by the first De mo srid skyong (1757: 151–55).
4 A very early example of this is a text by Rong zom chos bzang (1042–1136): Rong
zom chos bzang gis rang slob dam tshig pa rnams la gsungs pa’i rwa ba brgyad pa’i
bca’ yig: 399–414.
5 Personal communication with Ciulan Liu, June 2011.
 HOW TO TAME A WILD MONASTIC ELEPHANT 113

text is for the inhabitants of Pachakshiri, written by Lama Lodre

Gyamtso (Bla ma Blo gros rgya mtsho) in the early 1930s and some
years later completed by Sonam Gelek Rabtan Lhawang (bSod nams
dge legs rab brtan lha dbang). It gives information on the migration of
people to an area and the creation of a so-called Hidden Land (sbas
yul). The text lays down rules on correct moral behaviour, the relation-
ship between the ruler and his subjects, the establishment of law, and
social and religious order. It also instructs on how to deal with newcom-
ers or tribal neighbours, and it can be read as a justification of
Pachakshiri’s inhabitants’ rights to inhabit that area (Grothmann 2012:
137–39). The word bca’ yig appears in yet another context, namely
where it indicates a text that contains guidelines on issues such as aes-
thetics and punctuation for copyists of a bka’ ’gyur.6
The Fifth Dalai Lama himself also did not restrict his bca’ yig to
monastics alone. In 1652, he wrote a set of guidelines for both monks
and government officials consisting of rules on how to behave during
travel and in the encampments (Cüppers 2007: 37–51). In 1679, he even
addressed one such work to all beings under the sun, which was dis-
played at the top of the three flights of stairs at the Potala Palace.7 It is
clear that the bca’ yig is a name for a genre of texts that address more
audiences than merely the monastic ones. For these reasons both “con-
stitution” and “monastic” are not necessarily correct as descriptors of
texts that have “bca’ yig” in their names. However, in the particular
context of my work here I choose to translate the word bca’ yig as
“monastic guidelines”, because the text I treat below is limited to the
monastic context.

THE GUIDELINES

The set of monastic guidelines by the Fifth Dalai Lama discussed here
contains much information on life in the monastery, shining a light both
on monastic organisation as well as on the shadier aspects of Drepung

6 Kun mkhyen rig pa ’dzin pa chos kyi grags pa (1595–1659) wrote the bKa’ ’gyur
bzhengs dus dpon yig rnams kyi bca’ yig. (gSung ’bum vol. 2: 175–80). This text is
briefly discussed in Schaeffer 2009: 31–33. He translates the title as “Guidelines for
Chief scribes [sic] During the Production of a Kangyur”.
7 Ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho 1679: 12–14.
114 BERTHE JANSEN

monastery.8 Written in 1682, the work confirms later oral accounts of

feuding and rogue semi-monks at the Three Seats (gdan sa gsum).9 At
the same time the text shows us how the Great Fifth envisioned the
future of his former residence. The full title of the work is Chos sde
chen po dpal ldan ’bras dkar spungs pa’i dgon gyi bca’ yig tshul ’chal
sa srung ’dul ba’i lcags kyo kun gsal me long. This can be roughly
translated as “The monastic guidelines for the great religious centre, the
glorious monastery of heaped up white rice, [called] the iron hook that
tames the elephant (sa srung) of bad behaviour: the entirely clear mir-
ror” (henceforth ’Bras spungs bca’ yig).10 It appears that this text—at
least the original version—was thought to have certain special powers.
The disciplinarian (dge skos) at Nechung (gNas chung) monastery, who
used to live in Drepung in Tibet, remarked about this work:
We call this text written by the Fifth Dalai lama the bca’ yig chen mo. It
could only be kept by the general disciplinarian (tshogs chen zhal ngo).
During the Great Prayer Festival (smon lam chen mo) the Drepung
monastic guidelines would be “invited” (gdan ’dren zhu ba) to Lhasa.
This disciplinarian would carry the text, accompanied by his assistants
(chab ril) and phagdampa (’phags gdams pa), totalling about 20 people.
There exists an oral account that this text could fly. When transported to
Lhasa, the bca’ yig would not go underneath the stpa which is between
the Potala and this one hill. Instead it would fly up and then circumam-
bulate the Potala and land back into the disciplinarian’s hands. For twen-
ty-one days, during the festival, everyone would abide by the rules of the
Great Prayer Festival.11 On the way back, the text would again fly up.
This is an anecdote (gsung rgyud), I have of course not seen this myself.
I was told that before 1959 the original of this bca’ yig was kept safe at

8 This work and its contents have been previously briefly treated by Dakpa (2003:
172–74).
9 For an account of the life of a Sera “rogue monk” (ldob ldob) see Khedrup et al.
1986.
10 This text has been reprinted in (at least) two volumes: Bod kyi snga rabs khrims
srol yig cha bdams bsgrigs (1989: 275–323) and in bCa’ yig phyogs sgrig: gangs can
rig brgya’i sgo ’byed lde mig ces bya ba 11 (1989: 169–213) (henceforth ’Bras spungs
bca’ yig 2). It can also be found in the Fifth’s Dalai Lama’s gsung ’bum, vol. 20, in
’Phags bal bod dang bod chen rgya hor sog pos mtshon mchod dman bar ma mtha’ dag
gi spyi bye brag legs nyes ’byed pa’i bca’ yig bsko ’ja’ sogs bkod pa khrims gnyis gser
shing phun tshogs ’dod ’jo: 106b–132a (henceforth ’Bras spungs bca’ yig 3). Here the
first version is mainly used.
11 The whole city of Lhasa would be under the rule of Drepung monastery during
that festival. The general disciplinarian would have final authority over the population
of monks and lay-people at that time. For an eyewitness account see Bell (1998 [1946]:
58).
 HOW TO TAME A WILD MONASTIC ELEPHANT 115

the monastery and a copy of it was being used for general purposes. All
the versions of the text present there must have been destroyed because
when I became a monk at Drepung there were no monastic guidelines
there at all.12
Not only is this set of monastic guidelines seen as significant in the way
described above, it seems that some still see the relevance of this text
for Tibetan monasticism today. gShes gnyen tshul khrims, in an article
about this work, devotes a section on the value of the ’Bras spungs bca’
yig to the organisation of monasteries in Tibet today.13 The article fur-
ther examines the text as a whole, enumerating the various points that
he sees as important, unfortunately without attempting to put these
monastic guidelines into their historical context.
Compared to other monastic guidelines—the shortest of which may
consist of just one folio—the ’Bras spungs bca’ yig is a long text that
starts with a rather lengthy semi-historical introduction, beginning with
a discussion of the different world-systems. After describing various
previous Buddhas, the author goes on to relate the origins of the
Buddhist teachings and their introduction to Tibet. It comes as no sur-
prise that, after having praised the various Dharma-kings and the great
Tsongkhapa (Tsong kha pa), he relates the life of one of his disciples
and the founder of Drepung ’Jam dbyangs bkra shis dpal ldan
(1379–1449, also known as ’Jam dbyangs chos rje) and the history of
the monastery itself.
Some general points on the nature of the monkhood follow, which he
supports by citing both Vinaya and stra material (’Bras spungs bca’
yig: 294–99). Citing the *Bhikupriya-stra (dGe slong la rab tu gces
pa’i mdo), he stresses the pivotal role of ethical discipline: “The ethical
discipline of some [leads to] happiness, while the ethical discipline of
others [leads to] suffering. The one who has ethical discipline [will
have] happiness, the one who has faulty ethical discipline [will have]
suffering”.14 In this stra, the person who does not keep the vows, but

12 Personal communication with Ngag dbang dpal sbyin, August, 2012.

13 This section is called: “bca’ yig gi nang don ’ga’ zhig la dgon pa’i da yod kyi
sgril srol khag ’thus sgo tshang du gtong rgyur dpyad gzhi rin thang yod pa’i skor”
(bShes gnyen tshul khrims 2006: 46).
14 “la la’i tshul khrims bde ba ste/ la la’i tshul khrims sdug bsngal yin/ tshul khrims
ldan pa bde ba ste/ tshul khrims ’chal ba sdug bsngal yin” (’Bras spungs bca’ yig: 299).
The version in the Derge Kangyur reads for the third line “tshul khrims ldan pa bde ba’i
mchog” (D. 302, vol. 72): 126b.
116 BERTHE JANSEN

still claims to be a bhiku, is compared to a crazed elephant drunk on

wine. It appears that the Great Fifth had this analogy in mind when he
created the title of this set of monastic guidelines. He then addresses
the issue of dkor: the using or abusing of the Sangha’s possessions
(ibid.: 299). The Vinayavibhagha is cited: “It is preferable for one who
does not have proper vows [or] whose discipline is faulty, to eat iron
balls that are ablaze with fire than to eat the alms from [people] in the
vicinity”.15
The Dalai Lama explains this by stating that there will be heavy
karmic repercussions for a person who does not abide in the trainings
or for a layperson who uses dkor.16 And again he cites canonical mate-
rial, this time the Sryagarbhastra, which warns that for those who
have become householders, it would be easier to take on a fire equal in
size to mount Meru than to use that which is the Sangha’s.17 Out of con-
text, what the Fifth Dalai Lama addresses here may be read as a discus-
sion on Buddhist ethics. However, it is clear that what is addressed and
carefully supported by canonical quotations is a very topical and local
problem, namely the exponential growth of the monastic population
and the questionable motives and behaviour of some of the inhabitants
of Drepung monastery during the late 17th century.
Like other bca’ yig in the Gelug (dge lugs) tradition it is likely that
this text was read out to everyone at Drepung by the general disciplinar-
ian at important occasions.18 The dangers of the misappropriation of
monastic goods was thus something the Dalai Lama wanted everyone
to be aware of. Later references in the text demonstrate the reason for
this: there appeared to have been a significant number of inhabitants of
Drepung who were not exactly monks. One such reference concerns the
issue of farming, in which the Fifth forbids monks to work in the fields
in spring and autumn, unless there are:
among the residents (gzhi ba), those without vows and who are after dkor
who want to do this, then they need to be given lay-clothes for which the

15 “lung rnam ’byed du/ lcags gong me lce ’bar ba dag/ zos par gyur pa mchog yin
gyi/ tshul ’chal yang dag mi sdom pas/ yul ’khor bsod snyoms za ba min” (ibid.).
16 “[...] bslab pa dang mi ldan pa’i gang zag gis dkor la longs spyod pa dang der
ma zad khyim pas spyad kyang de dang cha ’dra ba’i nyes dmigs bzod par dka’ zhing
[…]” (ibid.).
17 “nyi ma’i snying po’ mdor/ lhun po dang ni ’dra ba’i me/ blang bar bya ste bzod
pa sla’i/ khyim par gyur pas dge ’dun gyi/ longs spyad par ni mi bya’o” (ibid.).
18 There are no agreed upon times or religious festivals during which they were read
out. Each monastery had its own customs.
 HOW TO TAME A WILD MONASTIC ELEPHANT 117

permission of the disciplinarian (dge skos) has been asked. They are not
allowed to do this in monastic robes.19
This shows that there were people living in Drepung—who would nor-
mally be wearing monastic robes—but who in fact had no vows.
Furthermore, these people clearly fell under the “jurisdiction” of the
disciplinarians at Drepung. At the same time they were, apparently,
accepted as residents of the monastery. Perhaps a parallel can be found
with the ban log, the “monk rebels” Ekvall encountered during his
fieldwork in Amdo between 1925 and 1941. These were “debarred from
being monks”, because they had broken one of the root vows, but who
for various reasons continued to live in their quarters in the monastery,
wore the robes, and were still in high standing outside the monastery. A
ban log often found alternative means to support himself and was reg-
ularly engaged in business both for his own sake as well as for the
monastery’s (Ekvall 1959/60: 210).
Elsewhere the issue of questionable monks comes up in a discussion
of the seating arrangements during the assembly. As is common, the
educated monks sit at the front (gral stod) according to seniority, the
intermediate ones sit in the middle (gral rked), while the “riffraff that
is after dkor” sits at the back (gral gsham). The phrase used to express
this is dkor phyir ’breng mi ’bags rengs rnams, which is not entirely
clear but is most definitely very pejorative, which my translation tries
to convey. ’bags means polluted or degenerated, while rengs can mean
stiff or obstinate. Whatever the exact meaning, it is clear that the author
here speaks of the presence of people who were not in pursuit of high-
er goals in the monastery (’Bras spungs bca’ yig: 300, 1). He uses the
above idiom again and writes:
Previously, according to the speeches made by earlier honourable monks
that concern examinations, there was no custom of restricting the riffraff
who are after dkor. However, nowadays, if all are allowed in, then the
junior monks who are involved in study will not be able to enter [the
assembly hall]. Therefore of course not all monks [can enter], and the
riffraff, who have not been there beyond eight years or those who have
not passed the five higher exams, should not be let in.20

19 “gzhi ba’i khrod nas sdom ldan min pa’i dkor phyir ’brang mkhan gyis byed pa
shar na dge skos la gnang ba zhus pa’i skya chas sprad nas byed pa ma gtogs btsun
chas kyis byas mi chog” (’Bras spungs bca’ yig: 312).
20 “sngar lha btsun cha bas rgyug tshad mdzad pa’i gtam tsam las dkor phyir ’breng
mkhan gyi ’bags rengs bkag srol med kyang da cha tshang mar byas na chos grwa
118 BERTHE JANSEN

The implications of effectively banning certain people from attending

the assembly only become clear when one is aware that, generally
speaking, the larger monasteries in pre-modern Tibet did not sponsor
monks, nor provide (sufficient) food (Dreyfus 2003: 68). However, tea
was served and monetary donations were handed out mainly during
assemblies. Therefore to deny the riffraff entry to the assembly-hall
was paramount to denying them a means of income, which served to
disincentivise the less sincere renunciates from crowding the
monastery.
The presence of people who were not quite monks highlights the
complexity of the monastic institution, in which people who abided by
different rules lived alongside each other. For the Fifth Dalai Lama the
problem lay not in the mere presence of these “vow-less” men—for
they were tolerated—but in the possibility of them misappropriating
the property of the Sangha, and giving the monastery (and consequent-
ly the Sangha as a whole) a bad name. For that reason he also created
guidelines that restricted the distribution of monastic goods to those
monks who were involved in either studies or in monastic governance.
Throughout the text, the Fifth Dalai Lama emphasises and encourages
the quality of the monks and not their quantity. This, in part, was due
to the rapid increase of population at Drepung in the period after the
founding of the dGa’ ldan pho brang in 1642. Unfortunately, we do not
exactly know the ratio of monks and non-monks present at Drepung
during the late 17th century. We do however have a rough idea of the
total number of Drepung’s inhabitants at that time.

OVERPOPULATION AND MASS MONASTICISM

Any claims concerning the number of monks at Drepung are largely

based on speculation. When the Great Prayer Festival was reinstated in
1517, around 1500 Drepung monks were said to be present (dGa’ ldan
chos ’byung: 115). This means that possibly there were around 2000
monks at that time. According to the author of the dGa’ ldan chos
’byung, sDe srid Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho (1653–1705), the monastery

’grim mkhan gyi btsun chung mi tshud ’dug pas grwa pa gang yin brjod med dang
’bags rengs kyi rigs lo brgyad dang rgyug tshad mtho lnga ma longs na mi gtong”
(ibid.: 301).
 HOW TO TAME A WILD MONASTIC ELEPHANT 119

of Drepung under the auspices of the Dalai Lama grew “like a lake in
summer or a waxing moon”, and it therefore was difficult to calculate
an exact number. The regent nevertheless estimated that the monk-pop-
ulation consisted of over 4200 monks and was still growing.21 Later on,
4400 became the traditionally known number of monks. Before the
middle of the 20th century the estimate was 10000: when the Fourteenth
Dalai Lama went to Drepung in 1958 the official count was 9980, but
not all monks can have been counted (Lodrö 1974: 192).
Melvin Goldstein theorises that size, not quality, was crucial to
monasticism in traditional Tibet, and that Tibetans believed that all
monks, even the bad ones, were better than lay-people. He cites the
proverb “’jig rten rab la chos ba’i [sic: pa’i] mtha’ skyes”: the worst
religious practitioner is better than the best of the worldly ones
(Goldstein 2009: 2). From this apparent emphasis on the number of
monks, Goldstein proposes that there was a “mass monastic ideology”
in place which “gave equivalence to all monks regardless of their
knowledge or spirituality”(ibid.: 14) and that “[...] monasticism was
pursued with an implicit ideology of mass monasticism, in that it
enrolled as many monks as sought entrance and expelled very few”
(Goldstein 1998: 15). He uses the monastery of Drepung as an example
for his argument. It cannot be denied that over the centuries Drepung
sustained large amounts of monks who were not directly involved in
education or formal religious practice. But was to have as many monks
as possible really seen as a desideratum by the monastic authorities?
Surely, ideology, however implicit, will only become apparent when
studying rules developed by monastic policy-makers themselves.
The Fifth Dalai Lama, who was for many obvious reasons heavily
invested in Drepung monastery, clearly sees the overpopulation as a big
problem. The monastic guidelines give the sense of a monastery burst-
ing at the seams. The unchecked population growth meant that the
monastery attracted all types of people from a wide range of social and
ethnic backgrounds. This picture of monastic growth that the Great
Fifth sketches in his bca’ yig is confirmed by other historical sources.
Stein, for example, suggests that the general population of monks
appears to have increased since the time of the Fifth Dalai Lama. He

21 “de yang chos grwa chen po ’di nyid rje bla ma phyag na padma’i ’phrin las kyi
dbang gis dbyar mtsho’am yang zla’i cha shas ltar je ’phel la tshad bzung dka’ na’ang/
da lta dge dgon gyi yang rtse ang med dge ’dun bzhi stong nyis brgya lhag bcas ’du’o”
(ibid.: 137).
120 BERTHE JANSEN

mentions a census of 1663, but gives no source (Stein 1972 [1962]:

139–40).
As is well known, during the start of the Fifth Dalai Lama’s reign,
some decades before these monastic guidelines were written, the con-
tact with the Mongols became more enduring. This also meant that
Mongolian monks increasingly went to Tibetan monasteries to study.
As the monastery was directly connected to the Dalai Lama, many of
them entered Drepung (Snellgrove and Richardson 1986 [1968]: 199).
At the same time, numerous new Gelug monasteries were founded in
Khams and Amdo, while other existing monasteries were “converted”
to the Gelug school. Most of these new monasteries were branches (yan
lag) of one of the Three Seats. This established networks between
Central Tibet and the outer regions, the importance of which historians
of Tibet have not yet fully appreciated.22 Monks were sent out from
Sera, Ganden, and Drepung to populate and educate these monasteries
(dGa’ ldan chos ’byung: 457), but presumably a fair number of monks
from those faraway monasteries went to one of the Three Seats to fur-
ther their studies. Although no exact numbers are known, the influx of
a considerable number of East-Tibetan and foreign monks must have
put a strain on the monastery.
The section of the ’Bras spungs bca’ yig cited earlier shows just one
example of how having a large number of monks in the monastery was
not seen as something desirable for pragmatic reasons. In addition to
the objections that are of a practical nature, the Fifth Dalai Lama’s posi-
tion challenges Goldstein’s claim that there was an implicit ideology of
mass-monasticism, which favoured quantity over quality. This is
because the Fifth Dalai Lama explicitly states the exact opposite of
Goldstein’s assertion:
If, due to a specific condition, one cannot keep the vows, it is more ben-
eficial to give them up than to keep them hypocritically. For [the
*Bhikupriya-stra] says: “It is better to physically be a lay-person who
has never for a moment kept the trainings, than to be someone who holds

22 The interrelatedness of monasteries has been briefly treated by Miller (1961:

197–203). The monastic guidelines that were written for the new or converted monas-
teries at that time are valuable sources that help us understand the position of these
branches in relation to their mother monasteries (ma dgon) and the way these networks
functioned. In addition, they can be read as tools employed by the dGa’ ldan pho brang
government to exert greater power over the regions that were in many ways still out of
its reach.
 HOW TO TAME A WILD MONASTIC ELEPHANT 121

the banner of the Sugata23 who does not keep to the trainings, [if only]
for one moment”.24
It appears then that one cannot simply uncritically accept an a-histori-
cal and essentialist phrase such as “the ideology of mass monasticism”.
Although there were at times masses of monks occupying the Tibetan
monasteries, this does not mean that having great numbers of monks
was ever seen as an objective, even implicitly. In fact, the claim that the
Tibetan monastic system “enrolled as many monks as sought entrance”
(Goldstein 1998: 15) cannot possibly hold true, for there exist numer-
ous monastic guidelines that expressly state limitations to the entrance
of the monastery. These monastic guidelines both exclude monks-to-be
on the basis of their social background as well as based on worries
about overpopulation.25
Although it is true that entry to the monastery did not necessarily
depend upon a certain level of education or the heartfelt wish of the
individual to devote the rest of his life to religion, which may have been
the case in other Asian countries where monastic Buddhism existed, the
reasons for the large numbers of monks should not be sought in ideol-
ogy but in the social, economic, and political historical processes of
which monasticism was a part. For Drepung monastery, the founding of
the dGa’ ldan pho brang, a wider pool of lay-donors, the personal
involvement of the Dalai Lama, and the widening network of Gelug
monasteries are just a few possible explanations for Drepung
monastery’s sudden growth. The broader issue of why, compared to
other countries where Buddhist monasticism throve, the numbers of
monks were so much higher in Tibet, has thus not yet been answered
satisfactorily.
Various sources give percentages of the monastic population that
range from 10 to as high as 25 percent of the population. I suspect that
while these numbers may have been accurate at certain times, from a
statistical point of view they are still open to misinterpretation. This is

23 “Holding the banner of the Sugata” means wearing the Buddhist monastic robes.
24 “sgos dbang gis bsrung ma nus na chab [sic: ’chab, see ’Bras spungs bca’ yig 2:
191] sems kyis gnas pa las sdom pa phul ba phan yon che ste/ de nyid las/ gang zhig
bslab pa mi gnas pas/ bde bzhin gshegs rgyal mtshan ’dzin pa las/ bslab pa mi gnad
skad cig la/ gzugs por khyim par gnas pa bzang” (’Bras spungs bca’ yig: 299).
25 For a discussion of the limitations of entrance to the monastery according to the
bca’ yig and its broader implications for Tibet’s social history see my forthcoming arti-
cle to be published in the Proceedings of the 2012 Kobe ISYT Conference (Jansen
forthcoming).
122 BERTHE JANSEN

because what tends to not be taken into account is that in the largest
monasteries in Central Tibet (for usually the percentages of monks only
pertain to that area) the number of “immigrant monks”, for example
people from Mongolia, Kham and Amdo, must have been very high.
Most of these monks were not permanently residing at those monaster-
ies. Thus even though one in four males resident in Central Tibet may
have been a monk, this does not mean that one in four boys born in
Central Tibet would eventually be sent to the monastery. Immigration
and semi-permanent residence are thus issues that need to be taken into
account when making umbrella-statements about the state of Tibet’s
societal composition. The Drepung monastic guidelines address these
issues of immigration and the presence of foreign monks.

THE ISSUE OF IMMIGRATION

In connection to the problem of overpopulation, the issue of Mongolian

and other monks from “outside” are specifically addressed on multiple
occasions. The influx of a great number of foreign monks, who spoke
different languages or dialects and had different habits, must have
caused not just a few clashes. One of these clashes is actually men-
tioned in the Drepung monastic guidelines: apparently a Mongolian
had fired a gun, thereby killing a monk who—judging by his appella-
tion—must have been a scholar-monk (dpe cha ba). This episode seems
to have occurred in the context of inter-collegial feuding, for the text
states:
Even though previously, when the monastic houses (khams tshan) fought
over people and possessions, arrows and catapults (mda’ rdo sgyogs)
used to be employed, other than the Mongolian dNgos grub rgya mtsho
firing a gun and killing Glu ’bum rab ’byams pa, nothing else has
occurred. Still, from now on firearms should not be used.26
The author goes on to warn that, in the case of illegal actions (khrims
’gal rigs) such as causing a rift in the Sangha and bringing down the
teachings by, for example, colleges and houses fighting with each other,

26 “khams tshan rnams mi nor sogs kyi don du ’thab ’dzings kyi dus mda’ rdo sgyogs
sogs kyi mtshon pa ni sngar nas byed srol ’dug kyang sog po dngos grub rgya mtsho
me mda’ brgyab nas glu ’bum rab ’byams pa bsad pa tsam las ma byung ’dug pas slad
nas kyang me mda’i srol mi byed” (’Bras spungs bca’ yig: 311).
 HOW TO TAME A WILD MONASTIC ELEPHANT 123

the ringleaders together with their gang shall be punished according to

state law (rgyal khrims).27 Monks generally speaking could only be
tried according to state law in the case of serious crimes. In contrast,
monastic guidelines regularly appear to be imposing judicial authority
over lay-people who found themselves on monastic grounds.28
Although the above does not necessarily suggest that the violent feuds
that were taking place at Drepung were motivated by xenophobia (or
perhaps simply culture-clashes), the ’Bras spungs bca’ yig generally
shows a bias against the newcomers and imposes a number of rules that
were clearly prompted by the presence of foreigners.
It appears that the food and shares of offerings that were handed out
during occasions such as at the rigs grwa scholastic gathering29 were
traditionally distributed via monastic societies (skyid sdug).30 These
societies were organised on the basis of the monasteries the monks
originally came from. The bca’ yig under examination here shows that
not all monks were members of these societies, but that those who were
not had to be under the supervision of the colleges. Later on, people
entered the monastery without the general or the normal disciplinarians
knowing about their background and intentions. The Fifth Dalai Lama
mentions Indians and Newaris (bal po), who did not belong to an offi-
cial monastic association (mi tshan) or house (khams tshan), as well as
the Chinese, Hor, and Mongolians who were all unknown and arrived,
one relying on the other, thereby “becoming each other’s accomplices”.
He remarks:
Thus people, who only have symbolically gained the external marks of a
monk, are all filling up the assembly hall, both on the inside and the out-
side. And when all [these] kinds of people gather at a place like the
Barkor, one cannot even be sure that arson will not take place.31

27 “grwa sa phan tshun dang khams tshan ’thab rtsod kyis mtshon dge ’dun gyi
dbyen dang bstan gshig khrims ’gal byas rigs la gte po sde tshan dang bcas par rgyal
khrims kyis tsa ra skabs thob byed pa ’dir gsal ma dgos” (ibid.).
28 This is evidenced in some of the monastic guidelines researched by Huber (2004:
127–52).
29 This was a yearly gathering at the start of the summer retreat during which the
serving abbot gave each studying monk money and food (gtong sgo). See bShes gnyen
tshul khrims 2006: 42.
30 Not much appears to be known about the function of these monastic societies.
For the role of lay societies, which are also called skyid sdug, see Miller (1956:
157–70).
31 “[...] btsun pa’i rtags cha lugs tsam tshang ba rtags su bkod nas thams cad
tshogs pa’i ’du khang gi phyi nang mdo sbugs thams cad khengs dkyin yod ’dug pa bar
124 BERTHE JANSEN

He concludes that for that reason people who are not a member of a
society should not be sent out (to the scholastic gathering). This
informs us that the Dalai Lama felt that monks who were not connect-
ed to a society formed a security threat. The fact that those people were
usually “foreigners”—which is to say, non-Central Tibetans—must
have been a big factor in this. This statement is furthermore interesting
because we do not often find information on the ethnic make-up of the
monk-population in Tibet. It is safe to assume that Drepung during the
late 17th century must have been one of the most ethnically diverse
Tibetan Buddhist monasteries.
It appears that the Fifth found the attitudes of the outside monks to
be rather different. The text speaks of monks from Mongolia and Kham
at the tantric college (sngags pa grwa tshang) who were unable to
engage in the study of logic (mtshan nyid ma nus) and would only learn
a bit of tantra (sngags chos phran bu re bslabs) and then return to their
place of origin. This unrestricted coming and going, he mentions, is
potentially harmful, because they, the outsiders (phyogs mi),32 are then
not taken off the monk-register (grwa rgyun) at one place, but then end
up living at another college or monastery. This may result in the tantric
college ending up empty. He then suggests that the numbers of monks
should be counted during festivals and formal sessions (dus thog), pre-
sumably as opposed to merely counting the names of monks listed in
the register (’Bras spungs bca’ yig: 313).
In the context of sending monks out to other monastic centres, the
Great Fifth warns against people who would go for the wrong reasons.
Monks who go out to Sangphu (Gsang phu) needed to have passed the
phar phyin (prajñpramit) exams, and to abide by the rules on how
long to stay and teach for,33 as well as to make sure that the fixed num-
ber of “communal tea services” (mang ja) was implemented. This prop-

skor lta bur mi sna tshogs bsdad na me mi brgyag pa’i nges pa’ang mi ’dugs pas skyid
sdug then par mi phan pa rnams gtong sa med cing” (’Bras spungs bca’ yig: 302).
32 In the vocabulary of the Fifth Dalai Lama, phyogs mi are people who were orig-
inally from another monastery but arrived at Drepung monastery later in life. It was
thought that such people would go to Drepung to study, but this bca’ yig makes clear
that they were at Drepung for a variety of reasons. The opposite of phyogs mi is gzhi
ba: (permanent) residents.
33 Sangphu, originally a bka’ ’dams pa institution, was a large and important
scholastic centre, to which monks from Drepung often went. Dreyfus mentions that
monks travelled from Drepung to Sangphu quite freely, which changed after the civil
war, which lasted until the midst of the seventeenth century. See:
http://www.thlib.org/places/monasteries/drepung/essays/# (viewed 09/04/2013).
 HOW TO TAME A WILD MONASTIC ELEPHANT 125

er behaviour was unlike that of “some people from Kham and

Mongolia (khams sog) who would do this for one of two days but were
then known only to abuse their power. Thus from now on, rather than
giving numerous endless explanations, one is not to behave as one
pleases”.34
Here monks from Kham and Mongolia are singled out as being in
the habit of abusing their power. It is perhaps fair to say that while there
was a bias against outsiders, this bias was not limited to monks alone.
In the monastic guidelines, the Fifth Dalai Lama addresses the issue of
women visiting the monastery. The text appears to state that even
though up until that time Tibetan women (bod mo) were, but
Mongolian women (sog mo) were not given permission to stay
overnight at the monastery, if the woman in question is a donor (sbyin
bdag) she may stay for a limited number of days.35
Generally speaking, the reason the Fifth Dalai Lama wanted the
monastery to be more restrictive with regards to its entry-policy may
have been that he wanted Drepung’s population to be more respectable,
as well as religiously homogeneous, this to avoid clashes but also to
keep the tradition. He writes:
Those who have come looking for protection from danger, such as peo-
ple with other philosophical views, outcasts (g.yung po), escapees,
thieves, those who are after food and clothes and the like should not be
attended to (mi bsten). Because when the individual colleges and the
houses give their prerogative (thob pa) as a reason, then this is [just] a
minor consideration:36 this will eventually lead to disgraceful actions,
due to the bad disposition [of these people].37
The Great Fifth clearly wanted to avoid the monastery becoming a safe-
haven for all sorts of people, most notably people with different views

34 “[...] khams sog la las nyi ma gcig gnyis brgyab nas log pa’i dbang gzhed kho
na byas zer ba’ang da nas bzung kha grangs ma rdzogs par bshad pa rgyag pa las gang
’dod byed sa med” (’Bras spungs bca’ yig: 310).
35 Admittedly, the language is not entirely clear here: “bar skabs nas bod mo ma
gtogs sog mo’i rigs la zhag sdod sogs la’ang gnang ba par bkab zhu yin med ’dug
kyang sbyin bdag bud med yin na gnang ba zhus pa’i zhag re tsam dang” (ibid.: 312).
36 This implies that there is thought to be insufficient justification for letting those
types of people in. I am indebted to Jonathan Samuels for this translation and gloss of
the idiom dgos pa chung.
37 “[…] lta grub mi gcig pa’i mi dang g.yung po dang bros po’i rigs dang rkun po
dang lto gos tshol thabs sogs ’jigs skyabs kyis yong ba rnams grwa tshang dang khams
tshan so sos thob pa rgyu mtshan du byas te ngan mtshang phyir skyel gyi phugs zhabs
’dren las spros pa’i dgos pa chung nges su ’dug pas mi bsten” (ibid.: 312).
126 BERTHE JANSEN

(lta grub mi gcig pa’i mi), which probably refers to adherents to other
schools. Later he also states that only the prayers and rituals of the
Gelug, in combination with the general teachings (bstan pa spyi)
should be used within the monastic compound. This section was para-
phrased in a work by Pabongkha rinpoche (also known as bDe chen
snying po, 1878–1941), in which the author appears to have used it to
show that there was historical precedent for expelling monastics on the
basis of their views.38 While he edited out the section that deals with
outcastes and the like, Phabongkha rinpoche probably employed the
Fifth’s unambivalent statement on keeping the various schools and their
practices separated to suit his own religio-political agenda. What the
Fifth Dalai Lama seems to have attempted, as is apparent in the above
statement but also throughout the text, is to prevent the colleges from
becoming too independent. His concern stemmed from the danger that
with the influx of new monks certain colleges would change, cultural-
ly, religiously, and politically. One of his concerns was then to maintain
the unity and relative homogeneity of Drepung.

A HEALTHY MONASTIC ECONOMY

The increase in the monastic population is an indication that the

monastery was prospering. The late 17th century must have been a time
of abundance for Drepung monastery. There was a stable government,
to which it was intimately connected, and its popularity with the
Mongolians must also have attracted new sponsors. It was perhaps due
to the good economic situation of the monastery that so many people
felt drawn to the monastery in the first place. The guidelines give a
good idea of the amounts of offerings coming in and show concerns
with regard to their correct distribution. Again, this is partly related to

38 mDo sngags skor gyi dris lan sna tshogs phyogs gcig tu bsgrigs pa 41a: “yang
lnga ba chen pos dpal dlan ’bras spungs kyi bca’ yig sogs su’ang/ lta grub mi gcig pa
re gnyis byung ba sngar nas ’bud bzhin pa yin pas/ zhes dang/ grub mtha’ ’gyur la re’i
dgos dbang gis gzhan phyogs pa’i rigs ched gnyer bcug na min pa lta grub mi gcig pa’i
mi sogs yongs pa rnams grwa tshang dang khams tshan so sos thob ba rgyu mtshan du
byas te ngan mtshang phyir skyel gyis phugs zhabs ’dren las spros pa’i dgos pa chung
nges su ’dug pas mi bsten/ zhes dang/ bstan pa spyi dang dge lugs kyi chos spyod ma
gtogs grub mtha’ gzhan gyi gsol ’debs sogs chos spyod kyi rigs gling gseb tu ’don sa
med cing/ zhes sogs” (bDe chen snying po, gSung ’bum vol. 6: 399–618). The under-
lined sections are taken from the ’Bras spungs bca’ yig.
 HOW TO TAME A WILD MONASTIC ELEPHANT 127

the concept of dkor, but of course also has to do with making sure the
monastic colleges and houses more or less got an equal share, to pre-
vent further resentment and feuding among the Drepung monks. At the
same time, another issue that these guidelines negotiate—and this can
be found in many other monastic guidelines—is that of benefactor sat-
isfaction. That is, the monastic managers needed to be able to show the
benefactors that their donations went to a worthy and “virtuous” cause.
The correct allocation of gifts was important in this matter, as our
author notes:
These days it is increasingly the habit of the monastic houses or the
teachers, when they have got their share of allowances (za sgo), to give
handouts to all kinds of lowly drifters. Even the benefactors were dis-
mayed at this, namely that the communal tea services (mang ja) and the
donations (’gyed) would not get to each of the colleges and that they
would go unrecorded. This is a very great wrong amounting to depriving
the general Sangha of income.39
The set phrase that the Fifth Dalai Lama uses here, namely: “to deprive
the general Sangha of income” (“spyi’i dge ’dun gyi ’du sgo ’phrogs
pa”), is one of the five secondary acts of immediate consequence (nye
ba’i mtshams med lnga) (Tshig mdzod: 961; Silk 2007: 265). This
served to highlight the gravity of the matter: it appears that people in
Drepung were giving away their donations rather randomly. This seems
to have angered the donors and also went against certain rules on
monastic economy that have proven to be problematic throughout the
ages.40 Perhaps the recipients of these handouts were exactly the people
the Fifth Dalai Lama wanted to deter from staying in the monastery: for
the “lowly drifters” assumedly would be those unconnected to either a
college or a society. The text goes on to explain exactly how certain
donations are to be divided, demonstrating which positions were the
better “paid” ones (’Bras spungs bca’ yig: 304–306).

39 “dus phyis nye phyogs che zhing khams tshan dang dge rgan ci rigs kyis za sgo
gtso bor bton nas mi khyams khungs med mtha’ dag la bdag rkyen sprad gshis/ sbyin
bdag rnams kyang ha las te mang ja dang ’gyed so so’i grwa tshang la mi bsgyur tho
med yong yod ’dug pa/ dge ’dun spyi’i ’du sgo ’phrogs pa’i gnod tshabs shin tu che ba
’dug pa […]” (’Bras spungs bca’ yig: 304).
40 In Indic Vinaya texts a distinction between personal property and the property of
the general Sangha was made. Sometimes these texts dealt with problems of the distri-
bution of donations among the members of the monastic community. See for example
Schopen (1995: 101–23).
128 BERTHE JANSEN

It was not just that there were problems with the mere allocation of
goods; there also appeared to have been a profusion of food at certain
times. The author warns that if the monastic community had too much
tea and soup, the leftovers needed to be made into fodder and nothing
else.41 Presumably this means that the food scraps could not be given
(or worse: sold) to beggars and other needy people in the surroundings.
Again, the reason for this restriction is likely to be a “Vinayic” one:
what is intended for the Sangha should not end up in the hands of
“undeserving” lay-people. Interestingly, this is not entirely in line with
the view of Lama Tsongkhapa, one of whose monastic guidelines is
paraphrased by our author towards the end of the text (ibid.: 319–20).
This work, which the Fifth claims as either Tsongkhapa’s or the first
bca’ yig,42 was probably written in 1417 (bya lo) (Blo bzang grags pa’i
dpal 1417a: 319). It has been a great source of inspiration for many later
Gelug writers of monastic guidelines. However, in a bca’ yig for Byams
pa gling monastery written in the same year,43 Lama Tsongkhapa takes
a clear stance on the issue of redistributing goods beyond the monastic
community. He instructs the monks not to let beggars into the monas-
tic compounds, but instead to leave them waiting at the boundary-mark-
er. Food can be given to them there by an upsaka (dge bsnyen) (Blo
bzang grags pa’i dpal 1417b: 251a). This means that there clearly exist-
ed different ways to deal with the problems of redistributing monastic
goods vis-à-vis helping those in need.44
The author addresses another issue to do with distribution, namely
that while sometimes there was insufficient distribution, apparently on
other occasions the dividing of the goods went too far:
When donations that are not supposed to be divided up [and given] to the
Sangha, are made into pieces, it renders the wealth (nor) unusable.
Therefore, rather than dividing it, the benefit would be greater to the gen-
eral community (spyi so)45 if it were to be deposited at the treasury of the
general administration (spyi pa’i phyag mdzod).46

41 “ja thug kyang mang skyon gyis dge ’dun rnams kyis bzhes mi thub cing/ snod
dpyad sogs la gzan pa las spros pa’i dgos pa gzhan mi ’dug gshis” (’Bras spungs bca’
yig: 310).
42 The wording is ambiguous: “dge ’dun gyi khrims su bca’ ba dang por mdzad par”.
43 Versions of this text can be found in various places. An online version is here:
http://www.asianclassics.org/release6/flat/S5275MC6_T.TXT
44 The issue of the level of social responsibility at the Tibetan monasteries and the
extent to which this relates to certain aspects of Buddhist doctrine is something that I
deal with extensively in my dissertation.
45 spyi so is generally understood to be the monastic main office where practical
 HOW TO TAME A WILD MONASTIC ELEPHANT 129

The above shows that attitudes with regard to reallocating monastic

goods changed over time. Again, the reason may be sought in the
unchecked population growth at Drepung monastery during the later
half of the seventeenth century. A larger number of inhabitants simply
calls for a different type of management. In any case, all of the above
examples suggest that the large numbers of inmates at the monastery
were, to a certain extent, counterbalanced by an abundance of benefac-
tors and goods. The Fifth Dalai Lama even sets lower and upper limits
for those benefactors in terms of the extent of offering to the monastic
community.47 The minimum is paying for soup and tea served six times
a day for thirteen days, the maximum is to do the same for twenty three
days (’Bras spungs bca’ yig: 310).
The monastic guidelines show that it was not just the monastery that
flourished under the attention of sponsors, but also certain areas were
perceived to be rather wealthy:
These days, there is a vast boundless income one can get when one, for
example goes to faraway lands like Mongolia and Khams to collect offer-
ings. As for those monks who were sent [here] by their home monaster-
ies (gzhis dgon) as students, because they are sent shares (skal ba), they
will need to take care of their own contribution (sham thabs khral)48 by
means of doing rituals and the like.49
The above seems to suggest at least two things. First of all, Mongolia
and Kham were seen as places that were wealthy and where it was easy

matters were handled. It can also be a title, and the financial officers at Sera were so
called. However, it appears to be that here the term speaks of the entire estate of
Drepung monastery.
46 “dge ’dun tshor bgod rin mi chog pa’i ’gyed kyi rigs tshal par btang tshe nor mi
nyan du ’gro bas bgod pa las spyi pa’i phyag mdzod du bzhag na spyi sor phan slebs
che ba ’jog” (’Bras spungs bca’ yig: 313). Instead of ’gyed, ’Bras spungs bca’ yig 3
reads za byed: food.
47 This may be a specific type of offering: the person who requests to do this is
called ’gyed tshar gtong mi. I have not been able to assess the exact meaning of this
phrase.
48 This phrase appears to suggest that the branch monasteries had to pay the main
monastery a certain amount for letting their monks study there. A different use of the
phrase is noted in Davidson (2005: 394, n. 68). Here it appears that it refers to the flow
of money or contributions from subsidiary groups to the main temples in the 11th cen-
tury.
49 “deng sang khams sog gis mtshon yul thag ring la ’bul sdud du song ba sogs
la’ang skal ba len pa’i rgya che mu med yod ’dug cing/ gzhis dgon pa’i rigs nas grwa
pa tshor bslab gnyer lta bur song ba la skal ba gtong ba ni tshul sgrub mchod kyis
mtshon so so’i sham thabs khral sgrub dgos pa’i rgyu mtshan yin ’dug” (’Bras spungs
bca’ yig: 304).
130 BERTHE JANSEN

to collect donations. Some monks may have been abusing the wealth
and the locals’ willingness to give. Elsewhere in the text, the Dalai
Lama forbids monks to go out on unofficial trips to these areas to col-
lect “alms”. This is in fact a recurrent issue that gets addressed in other
monastic guidelines. Secondly, the above citation indicates that monks
coming from elsewhere were “sponsored” by their home monastery,
and thus were not reliant upon the allowances (phogs) handed out by
the government. It appears then that these monks, who were not finan-
cially dependent on Drepung, formed a potential threat to the reputation
of the monastery, because the section cited above is immediately fol-
lowed by this statement:
Monks like this have no such scruples (srol med) and their characters and
the example [they set] cannot be hidden. Because even when benefactors
do service [to them] it may be harmful, they should not be sent out [to
benefactors].50
As alluded to above, many monastic guidelines express concerns about
monks going out and pressuring lay-people into giving donations, in
particular when the sole beneficiary was the individual monk and not
the monastic institution. This is in tension with the Vinayic ideal of the
monk begging for alms, even though it seems as though this particular
practice, so widespread in Theravda countries, has never been com-
mon in Tibet. Although the points on which monastic guidelines and
Vinaya rules potentially clash are almost never remarked upon in bca’
yig, the Great Fifth makes something of an exception here:
Because going on an alms-round in Tibet proper, during for example the
autumn, is in accordance with the intent of the Vinaya, it does not need
to be stopped. Except for people who collect offerings for the general
good (spyi don) in China, Mongolia, and Khams, etc., one is not to go to
ask for donations, on one’s own accord, without it being an exception [on
behalf of] the officials and the general good.51
In the above statement the author sees the possible conflict, but somehow
finds a way around it by using the Vinayic/stric term bsod snyoms
brgyag pa, this is allowed. However, he limits the practice to Tibet and
50 “grwa pa ’di tshor ’de ’dra’i srol med gshis dpe mi khebs shing/ sbyin bdag
rnams kyis zhabs tog byed pa la’ang gnod ’dug pas gtong sa med” (’Bras spungs bca’
yig: 304).
51 “ston ka sogs bod rang du bsod snyoms brgyag pa ni ’dul ba’i ba’i dgongs pa
dang yang mthun pas dgag mi dgos shing/ rgya sog khams sogs la grwa pa grwa tshang
spyi don gyi slong mo byed mi ma gtogs las sne dang spyi don dmigs bsal med par kha
mthun sdebs slong mo brgyag par mi ’gro” (ibid.: 313).
 HOW TO TAME A WILD MONASTIC ELEPHANT 131

employs a more pejorative term for the forbidden practice of collecting

donations elsewhere, namely slong mo byed pa, which can simply be
translated as “to beg”. Interestingly, this section was cited almost ver-
batim by the Seventh Dalai Lama bsKal bzang rgya mtsho (1708–1757)
in a set of monastic guidelines for Sera monastery (1737).52 In this text,
he merely seems to have adapted the language somewhat, conspicuous-
ly leaving out Kham as a place one cannot go to collect donations.53
This may have to do with the changed perception of what was seen to
be “Bod”. In the mind of the Great Fifth, Kham perhaps did not belong
to Bod, but some fifty years later it may have done in the opinion of his
incarnation, the Seventh.
Above, I referred to the allowances, which were handed out by the
monastic office (spyi so). The Fifth stipulates who is entitled to this
“salary” and the order in which people are to receive it:
When the allowances of the monastic main office are given out, then
liaising with a government representative (gzhung gi ngo tshab), one
gives, according to the sealed document with allowances (phogs yig),
first to the colleges and their studying monks (chos grwa ba), secondly
to the residents who are not affiliated (ldebs ’byar med pa’i gzhi ba) and
those from dGe ’phel54 and dNgul chu chos rdzong,55 thirdly, to the rest
of the crowd who are in one way or the other affiliated, consisting of the
riffraff (’bags rengs) such as the kitchen aids. Those who have not gone
through three debate classes (chos grwa), those who now study medicine
and astrology (gso dpyad rtsis), and the resident servants of the dbon
chos mdzad56 are not taken up in the allowances-ledger (phogs deb) of
the monastic main office.57

52 A partial, but conspicuously selective translation of this text can be found in

Michael (1982: 183–88).
53 “bod rang du bsod snyoms byed pa ’dul ba’i dgongs pa dang mthun pas dgag bya
mi dgos ’dra yang/ rgya sog gi yul khams sogs la spyi don gyi ’bul sdud slong mo byed
mi ma gtogs/ spyi don med par kha mthun gyis slong mo mi byed” (rGyal mchog bdun
pa chen po 1737: 111).
54 This is likely to be dGe ’phel hermitage (ri khrod), which is situated in the moun-
tains above Drepung monastery.
55 Originally an early bka’ ’dams monastery in Tsang.
56 The Tshig mdzod explains this as “sngar gdan sa khag gi tshogs chen chos
mdzad”: a chos mdzad of the big assembly at the monastic seats of the old days (Tshig
mdzod: 1949). Not much is known of the exact nature of the chos mdzad. Cabezón notes
that they were usually from aristocratic or wealthy families and that their families often
donated a large sum to the monastery as monks, which would buy them a special sta-
tus (Cabezón 1997: 348).
57 “spyi so’i phogs rgyag dus gzhung gi ngo tshab dang sbrel nas phogs yig dam
’byar gyi nang bzhin ang ki dang por chos grwa ba sogs grwa tshang khag gnyis par
132 BERTHE JANSEN

This is an interesting account of who, according to the author, is and

who is not deserving of a monastic stipend. It perhaps comes as a sur-
prise that the lower stratum of inhabitants is included among the bene-
ficiaries while the students of medicine are not. The allowances proba-
bly functioned to support those who were the most disadvantaged, who
did not have the opportunity to do some business on the side. People
who practised astrology, medicine, or served an aristocratic monk
already received an income.

BRIBES AND CORRUPTION

The monastic economy appears to have been in a healthy state, a situa-

tion that attracted both serious monks and opportunists to Drepung. It
therefore comes as no surprise that bribery became a problem at
Drepung. Corruption is a recurrent theme in many monastic guidelines.
It appears that the Fifth Dalai Lama was particularly concerned with
corruption in the context of education. He laments that the level of edu-
cation had gone down in comparison to previous times, during which
people were much more motivated to study (ibid.: 307). It appeared that
certain monks were even willing to pay to get a degree:

It is well known that when taking the gling bsre [exam],58 one would be
let off the hook without having one’s level of education examined, had
the disciplinarian received a present (rngan pa).59
The dividing line between what constitutes as a bribe rather than an oblig-
atory gift is of course fluid. Even in today’s spoken Tibetan the word
rngan pa is used for both. Here it is clear that as the aim of this gift is to
gain something that one otherwise would not have deserved, rngan pa can
surely be thought of as equal to our concept of bribe, although the west-
ern connotation with unlawfulness would be stretching it too far.

gzhan gyi ldebs ’byar med pa’i gzhi ba dang dge ’phel dang dngul chu chos rdzong pa
sogs/ gsum par thab g.yog sogs ’bags rengs skor bab ’brel gang yod rnams la rgyag
chos grwa la gsum tsam yang ma ’grim pa’i phyogs mi gso dpyad rtsis sogs bslab
mkhan dang dbon chos mdzad lta bu’i g.yog gzhi bar bsnyed pa’i phogs deb tu mi skyel
zhing” (’Bras spungs bca’ yig: 306–307).
58 This is one of the lower level geshe degrees at Drepung (Tarab Tulku 2000:
17–18).
59 “gling bsre gtod [sic?: gtong] skabs dge skos kyi rngan pa blangs nas yon tan che
chung la mi blta bar gtong ba yongs su bsrgags shing” (’Bras spungs bca’ yig: 308).
 HOW TO TAME A WILD MONASTIC ELEPHANT 133

Our author further notes that up until the time of writing this prac-
tice had been going on with impunity, but that henceforth this degree
should only be given to someone who has studied all the main topics,
including Madhyamaka, Prajñpramit and the four topics that are
singled out (zur bkol), and who knows how to interpret, and has
received the transmissions of, the Pramavarttika. This degree, the
Fifth Dalai Lama remarks, “should not be given to people who bribe
(stod khrab pa),60 because it will harm the continuation of the teach-
ings”.61 He then names what gifts can be given by the recipient of the
degree, such as tea and soup to the monks of the college, for the two
disciplinarians evening tea with molasses (dgongs [sic: dgong] ja bu
ram) and if there happened to be a party (ston mo) one could hand out
some coins (dngul srang) (ibid.: 309). It seems that limiting the quan-
tity of gifts that the “graduate” can give served two purposes in this
context. First of all, if the presents to the other monks were insignifi-
cant, they could not be perceived as bribes, and secondly, the gifts that
a geshe (dge bshes) to be was expected to give often financially crip-
pled the giver, so limiting the expenditure would allow the poorer
monks to become a geshe. Even recently, this was an issue on which
new rules had to be made at the Three Seats in India. Geshe Gedün
Lodrö gives a list with the amounts of food the new geshe had to pay
for (Lodrö 1974: 282). All in all, it must have been an expensive affair.
Corruption did not just occur in the context of degrees. The Drepung
monastic guidelines report that on occasions there had been:
some greedy teachers (dge rgan ham pa can), like those who would go
to Lhasa on official business (don gcod), not hiding the fact that they are
of the Gelug school (dge ba pa), but who would pretend that what they
got was only for their college. They would put a seal on the goods and
their own living quarters would be full of them. [Since then] those things
have turned up and it is obvious that they should wholly go to the big col-
leges. These things are a total embarrassment, and should thus not be
carried out.62

60 I have not come across this expression anywhere else, so the translation is con-
jectural.
61 “de la ’dzem bag kyang cher mi byed pa zhig sngar nas da lta’i bar ’dug kyang/
dbu phar gnyis po’i thal phreng spyi don zur bkol bzhi cha tshang song ba/ rnam ’grel
gyi rigs lung phogs pa rnams brda lan ’byor nges shes pa ma gtogs stod khrab pa’i rigs
la slad nas gtad na bstan rgyun la gnod pas mi sprod cing” (ibid.: 308–309).
62 “dge ba par bkab mi byed par lha sar don gcod la yong ba lta bur dge rgan ham
pa can la las khams tshan thob pa tsam rtags su bkod nas chas pa la rgya sdom byed
cing/ gnas tshang du ’tshangs nas dngos po ’don pa sogs byung ’phros ’dug pa grwa
134 BERTHE JANSEN

Even though the Dalai Lama had previously written a set of guidelines
on how to behave during the Great Prayer Festival (smon lam chen mo)
in 1675 (Ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho 1675), he also addresses the
issue of corruption during the festival in the Drepung guidelines. He
finds it particularly important for Drepung monks to behave correctly
because Drepung is the de facto ruler of the city at that time. The author
points out that the number of participating monks has grown, and that
it will grow even more if monks’ duties would stay as relaxed as they
were before. The biggest problem that the Great Fifth sees is that
monks in an official position, such as that of disciplinarian or discipli-
narian’s assistant (dge g.yog), would abuse their office. This would be
done by not properly dividing the donations, by forcing other monks to
hand theirs over, and by settling old grudges.
The position of disciplinarian’s assistant must have been a profitable
one, because the Dalai Lama notes that the disciplinarians were in a
habit of receiving bribes that would influence their choice of assis-
tant.63 The appointed assistants then would go on to behave with
impunity, carrying with them short sticks that they could hide under
their armpits, which they used to force other monks to give up the dona-
tions they received (ibid.).64 The author goes on to forbid the discipli-
narians from accepting bribes and soliciting visitors for alms (’grul pa
sogs la slong mo) and prohibits their assistants from snatching goods
away from others (dngos chas ’phrog pa) (’Bras spungs bca’ yig:
315–16). This rogue behaviour that apparently was rife when monks
from the Three Seats and beyond flooded Lhasa was not just a 17th cen-
tury phenomenon. Charles Bell reports that, some 250 years later, dur-
ing the Great Prayer Festival the Drepung monks would not just take
over power in the city but that they would also loot, causing the wealth-
ier people to flee the city along with their belongings (Bell 1998
[1946]: 58).

sa chen po rnams rlabs kyis ’gro dgos gshis/ de rigs zhabs ’dren kho na yin ’dug pas
byed sa med” (’Bras spungs bca’ yig: 313–14).
63 “dge skos kyis dge g.yog lag nas rngan par bltas pa’i bsko lugs byas pa dang”
(’Bras spungs bca’ yig: 315).
64 This bca’ yig, as do all others I have come across so far, is silent about the
“rogue” or ldob ldob monks, which were said to have had their own societies. The
description of these unscrupulous disciplinarian’s assistants here somehow reminds
one of them.
 HOW TO TAME A WILD MONASTIC ELEPHANT 135

THE EXTENT OF AUTHORITY

Throughout this article, the Fifth Dalai Lama has been presented as the
single author of this text. It is certainly true that it is more than highly
likely, judging by the idiosyncrasies in the style of writing and choice
of words, that he wrote the Drepung guidelines. However, the details
concerning the contemporary goings on at Drepung are very intricate
and it is unlikely that the Dalai Lama was personally aware of most of
them. These monastic guidelines—and, for that matter, most monastic
guidelines written by an author “from the outside”—have only come to
be on the basis of careful communication with other highly placed and
qualified Drepung monks. The Fifth names them all and meticulously
describes the process of meeting with representatives from all the col-
leges and specifies that he sent out delegates to consult with those who
were ill or in retreat about the new guidelines.65 He also gives the main
reasons why he was requested to write new rules, namely that the orig-
inal guidelines written by the founder ’Jam dbyangs chos rje had
become lost, that the set that had been written later on was found to be
too intricate by some and too long by others and that generally speak-
ing, of late the behaviour of certain colleges had deteriorated gradual-
ly (’Bras spungs bca’ yig: 322).
Even though, this text can be seen as a document that shows us the
vision the Great Fifth had for Drepung, it does not mean that it was
entirely his vision alone. He did not lay down the law like some theo-
cratic despot, but wrote the work in consultation with many other
experts and as well as other documents. The Dalai Lama did however
hold the view that rules needed to be enforced, and that they could only
be enforced by someone in religious authority, for otherwise the new
rules would remain ignored.66 For the monks of the powerful Drepung
monastery, the only author whose law they would be prepared to accept
would be the person with the highest authority in the whole of Tibet,
the Great Fifth.

65 The same procedure for compiling a new set of monastic guidelines is still fol-
lowed at the monastic institutions in Tibet and in exile.
66 The language is rather cryptic here: “bgyis pa rnams kyang tshul bzhin ma byung
tshe de lam du bzhag na ma mthus pas rim ’gyangs su lus pa yin rung sprul pa’i chos
skyong chen po nas rta mdzos mtha’ brten pa’i bkag cha’i bcad brdar dang” (ibid.:
323).
136 BERTHE JANSEN

GUIDELINES FOR TIBETAN SOCIAL HISTORY

The text under discussion here, taken at face value, appears to be elit-
ist, and therefore not to fit the subject matter of this volume, which
deals with “historical blind spots” and “views from below”. This is
because it was written by someone who had the highest authority at that
time in Tibet. The topic of the text is a monastery that was wealthy and
important. Furthermore, Drepung belongs to the Gelug school, a school
that dominates the Western language research of Tibet’s cultural, polit-
ical, religious, and social history, particularly where Buddhist monasti-
cism is involved. This emphasis has, to a great extent, to do with our
sources: there is simply more material written by Gelug masters
around, and perhaps more Gelug teachers willing to explain the intrica-
cies of the Tibetan texts. On the other hand, the fact that the Gelug
school was so intimately involved in politics also makes it absolutely
essential to understand Tibetan history through a wider lens. Thus, even
though this set of monastic guidelines gives a perspective viewed from
above, it most definitely grants us a view on what was below. In other
words, even though social history is generally thought of as acting
against “great man history”, there is no reason why a work written by a
great man cannot form the basis for a social historical investigation. In
this respect, it is perhaps surprising that a text on the wild monastic ele-
phant that is the enormous Drepung monastery has been able to escape
the historian’s net. I hope I have made clear that the work contains valu-
able material for the study of Tibet’s social history.
The set of monastic guidelines that I have treated here is one single
source that informs us about the social historical context of monastic
life and beyond. This text represents just one case study that highlights
certain issues to do with the more mundane aspects of Tibetan monas-
tic life, such as overpopulation, immigration, monastic economy and
corruption. The limitations of closely reading just one text should be
obvious, and here we are restricted to Drepung monastery in the year
1682. However, there are many more of these types of texts, which
almost all contain similar information on the social position of monas-
teries in pre-modern Tibet, spanning a number of centuries.67 These
texts, most of which have not been studied in an academic context,
address contemporary issues and tackle various monastic problems
67 So far, I have collected close to two hundred bca’ yig texts, which I am sure is
just the tip of the iceberg. I am in the process of developing a database that will make
the texts more accessible.
 HOW TO TAME A WILD MONASTIC ELEPHANT 137

thereby permitting us a candid view of the goings on at monastic insti-

tutions. By taking the monastic guidelines as a genre, and by studying
these texts in a way that is both synchronic and diachronic, one will be
able to see larger patterns emerge. Some of these patterns will have to
do with the level of restrictions to the monastery: when the restrictions
for becoming a monk imposed by a monastery were strict, it is more
likely for it to have had a high population at that time; the more con-
cern a set of monastic guidelines shows to its benefactors and its imme-
diate surroundings, the more likely it is for the monastery to have been
economically highly dependent on the neighbouring lay-population.
When one then looks at the longue durée by means of these documents,
one will be able to see the emergence of certain trends that shed light
first of all on the changing position of the monastic communities, but
second of all also on their relations and interactions with the lay com-
munities and thereby on Tibetan society as a whole.

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khrims srol yig cha bdams bsgrigs. Lhasa: Bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun
khang,1989, 324–45.
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yig tshags khang (ed.) Bod sa gnas kyi lo rgyus dpe tshogs bca’ yig phyogs
bsgrigs. Lhasa: Bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang, 2001, 12–14.
’Bras spungs bca’ yig
—— 1682. Chos sde chen po dpal ldan ’bras dkar spungs pa’i dgon gyi bca’ yig tshul
’chal sa srung ’dul ba’i lcags kyo kun gsal me long. In Tshe ring dpal ’byor et al.
(eds) Bod kyi snga rabs khrims srol yig cha bdams bsgrigs. Lhasa, Bod yig dpe
rnying dpe skrun khang, 1989, 275–323.
’Bras spungs bca’ yig 2
bCa’ yig phyogs sgrig: gangs can rig brgya’i sgo ’byed lde mig ces bya ba 11. Beijing:
Mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1989, 169–213.
’Bras spungs bca’ yig 3
’Phags bal bod dang bod chen rgya hor sog pos mtshon mchod dman bar ma mtha’ dag
gi spyi bye brag legs nyes ’byed pa’i bca’ yig bsko ’ja’ sogs bkod pa khrims gnyis
gser shing phun tshogs ’dod ’jo. In gSung ’bum vol. 20, 106b–132a.
Rong zom chos bzang (1042–1136). Rong zom chos bzang gis rang slob dam tshig pa
rnams la gsungs pa’i rwa ba brgyad pa’i bca’ yig. In gSung ’bum vol. 2. Chengdu:
Si khron mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1999, 399–414.
Tshig mdzod
Bod rgya tshig mdzod chen mo. 1993. Zhang, Yisun, ed. Beijing: Mi rigs dpe skrun
khang.

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Bell, C.A. 1998 [1946]. Portrait of a Dalai Lama: the Life and Times of the Great
Thirteenth. Delhi: Book Faith India.
Cabezón, J.I. 1997. The regulations of a monastery. In D.S. Lopez (ed.) Religions of
Tibet in Practice. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 335–51.
Cüppers, C. 2007. Die Reise- und Zeltlagerordnung des Fünften Dalai Lama. In
B. Kellner, H. Krasser, H. Lasic, M. Torsten Much, and H. Tauscher (eds)
Pramakrtih: Papers Dedicated to Ernst Steinkellner on the Occasion of his
70th Birthday. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien,
37–51.
Dakpa, Ngawang. 2003. The hours and days of a great monastery: Drepung. In F.
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Buddhist Monk. Berkeley: California University Press.
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Ekvall, R.B. 1959/1960. Three categories of inmates within Tibetan monasteries: sta-
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www.case.edu/affil/.../Tibetan_Buddhism_and_Mass_Monasticism.doc
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 HOW SHOULD WE DEFINE SOCIAL STATUS?
THE STUDY OF “INTERMEDIATE GROUPS” IN
CENTRAL TIBET (1895–1959)*

ALICE TRAVERS

Constructing a theory of social space presupposes a series of breaks with Marxist

theory. First, a break with the tendency to privilege substances—here, the real
groups, whose number, limits, members, etc., one claims to define—at the
expense of relationships; and with the intellectualist illusion that leads one to
consider the theoretical class, constructed by the sociologist, as a real class, an
effectively mobilised group. Secondly, there has to be a break with the
economism that leads one to reduce the social field, a multi-dimensional space,
solely to the economic field, to the relations of economic production, which are
thus constituted as co-ordinates of social position. Finally, there has to be a break
with the objectivism that goes hand-in-hand with intellectualism, and that leads
one to ignore the symbolic struggles of which the different fields are the site,
where what is at stake is the very representation of the social world and, in par-
ticular, the hierarchy within each of the fields and among the different fields.
(Bourdieu 1985 [1984]: 723)

INTRODUCTION: A MISSING SOCIAL STRATUM, INTERMEDIATE ELITES IN

CENTRAL TIBET?

The observation of the social world has produced different representa-

tions and theories of its organisation. One of them is social stratifica-
tion, usually defined as a social, economic and political organisation
scheme in social categories or groups, called strata, which display
homogeneity, and are distinct and hierarchised. Tibetan society con-
ceives itself in terms of hereditary social divisions called rigs, which
are hierarchically organised and have been mostly translated by the
term “social strata”. These strata are known to be clearly delimited at
the top, for the aristocracy (sku drag), and at the bottom, for the “infe-

* I would like to thank Charles Ramble, Nicolas Sihlé and Saul Mullard for their
useful comments on this paper. I would also like to express my gratitude to Tashi
Tsering (AMI) for his invaluable help in the early stages of this research.
142 ALICE TRAVERS

rior” or so-called “impure strata” (smad rigs), but are more flexible in
the middle. How social differentiation works in the middle, in terms of
hereditary divisions (rigs), status (gras) or rank (rim pa) is a subject
that has received little attention from researchers.1
The stratification of Central Tibetan society in the first half of the
20 century tends to be presented as a never-changing, almost imma-
th

nent social order,2 be it by Tibetans themselves, or by Western

observers who have taken these representations for granted. According
to Stein, for example, there were “social classes—the common people
and the nobility, for the older Tibet, and the people, the nobility and the
clergy from the 9th century onwards” (Stein 1972: 92). Moreover, he
curiously denies the existence of an intermediate group, while never-
theless perceiving it at the same time: “There is no ‘middle’ class [in
the French version, Stein wrote “Point de bourgeoisie]”3—except for a
few rich merchants from better-off plebeian families, especially in
modern Tibet, and stewards, who are remarkably well informed”
(ibid.).
For the first half of 20th-century Central Tibet, we find almost no
studies of the intermediate groups, between traditional elites such as
aristocrats and high lamas on the one hand and the farmers and nomads
on the other, even though they seem to become more numerous with the
modernisation of Tibet and the development of trade, especially in
cities like Lhasa.4 Why should actors and observers be blind to a whole
social group? By “social group”, I mean an ensemble of people who
share norms, values, lifestyle, and who have important relationships
among themselves. Why should observers see that there are people who
do not fit the traditional presentation of social order, but do not need to
give them a name or think that they deserve attention?

1 For a study of hereditary divisions in contemporary Tibetan society, see Fjeld

2005.
2 M. Kapstein mentions this perception of an immutable class system: “the precise
history of the emergence of the Central Tibetan class system has been poorly studied to
date, and though the system was imbued with an aura of inalterability it is not at all
clear that, at the time of its breakup in the 1950’s and 1960’s, it was more than two or
three centuries old” (Kapstein 2006: 180).
3 One has to note that the French phrase “classes moyennes” differs in meaning
from its English equivalent “middle class”: the latter encompasses only what is regard-
ed as the higher middle strata or the bourgeoisie in France (Chauvel 2013).
4 The reality of the development of trade during the first half of the 20th century and
its impact on the social structure needs further exploration.
 HOW SHOULD WE DEFINE SOCIAL STATUS? 143

It seems to me that the lack of attention to the intermediate social

group in Tibetan social studies can be explained by several factors.
First, because there has been a tendency to impose a medieval reading
on Tibetan society and history.5 This interpretation stresses the binary
opposition between farmers and landlords and tends to obliterate
nuances and groups who are external to this opposition. This tendency
has also been reinforced by a dominant Marxist interpretation of
Tibetan history since the 1950s, among Western observers and in com-
munist China, which stresses the class struggle, and produces an artifi-
cially binary representation of society in antagonistic classes. Last but
not least, there is an obvious lack of urban social history regarding
Tibet, though as we shall see, not all these intermediate strata lived in
cities.6
The Tibetan statutory system and the preceding description of
Tibetan society do not give an accurate account of the reality and com-
plexity of Tibetan society in terms of social status in the first half of the
20th century. It seems crucial to understand how social order worked
and how professional groups and social status were intertwined in the
intermediate social groups. In this paper, I would like to take a very pre-
liminary step in this direction by discussing the existence of an inter-
mediate social group, its common features and its name, and by con-
fronting these issues with a very concrete example of “intermediate
social status” expressed by Tibetans during the period.
The sources used to investigate the subject are mainly autobiogra-
phies in Tibetan, published in India and China, and fifteen interviews
with Tibetans in Dharamsala and Lhasa, conducted during the summer
of 2012.
First, I will tackle methodological considerations on the study of an
“intermediate group” in Tibet; in the second part, I will describe and
analyse the status of “ordinary people” (dkyus ma), as the term was
applied in the private school of Nang rong shar in the first half of 20th
5 See for instance the conclusive part of Stein 1973 [1962].
6 There have been only very few works on Tibetan urban social history. We may cite
the study of Veronika Ronge on handicrafts before 1959 (Ronge 1978) and, more
recently, Françoise Robin’s study of the par pa’i skyid sdug, the printers’ association in
Lhasa (Robin 2010). Urban social history is useful inasmuch as it allows us to go
beyond the opposition between landowners and agrarian/nomadic taxpayers, and hence
to examine groups who were neither farmers nor pastoralists, and take into account
floating populations. It is a particularly good field of observation for the intermediate
strata, as in the case of the social history of other cultural areas such as Japan (Carré
2011).
144 ALICE TRAVERS

century Lhasa; lastly, I will come back to the broader question of the
social group and social status, and to what is most relevant in their def-
inition, if one investigates the existence of intermediate strata in Tibet.

1. METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE STUDY OF “INTERMEDI-

ATE GROUPS”: ETIC VERSUS EMIC POINT OF VIEW

1.1. Composition of the intermediate strata: a number of specific pro-

fessional activities
In a previous study conducted on the aristocracy of Central Tibet
(Travers 2009), I drew attention to an ensemble of commoners at its
fringes, who enjoyed close relations with the nobility, especially with
the lower ranking families (sger pa), to the point that they not infre-
quently married into the aristocracy and/or were ennobled. The hypoth-
esis of a certain unity in this group of elite commoners started to take
shape, although its members came from different subgroups, either
from local agricultural and nomadic areas or from the capital of Lhasa.
Among them were rich farmers (zhing pa) holding large non-hereditary
estates or extensive lands with numerous servants (g.yog po), and often
charged with local representative functions or tax collecting responsi-
bilities;7 traders from East and Central Tibet; individuals serving as
secretaries-cum-administrators (las drung) in district headquarters
(rdzong); secretaries (drung yig) and managers-cum-secretaries (gnyer
drung) of low rank in the central government’s offices, below the main
officials’ ranking system, and without the status of government official
(gzhung zhab); treasurers (phyag mdzod) and managers (gnyer pa) of
aristocratic families or bla brang; non-commissioned army officers;8
and sometimes families of famous tantric practitioners (sngags pa)
(Travers 2008).
The life stories and family genealogies which could be drawn from
biographies and recent interviews confirmed that all these small groups
were linked to each other in specific ways, forming an identifiable

7 These included the ’tsho dpon (tax collectors), gtso drag, gtso dpon, she dpon (for
nomad areas), brgya dpon, bcu dpon and lding dpon (in a civil, non-military sense). See
the description of some of these functions in Blo bzang bkra shis (ed.) 2007 and
Dhingri Ngawang 2011: 3.
8 Interview n°9.
 HOW SHOULD WE DEFINE SOCIAL STATUS? 145

social network, which made it possible to identify a kind of middle stra-

tum or intermediate elite that has been marginalised in social studies of
Tibet.

1.2. Scarcity of mention in secondary literature

Three authors in particular have been sensitive to social differentiation
among the common people. The first to have stressed the existence of
such an intermediate group was Charles Bell, but he saw it as a purely
mercantile group: “Tibetan society falls mainly into two classes; the
landed gentry on the one side, the peasantry and shepherds on the other.
The trading community stand between the two, forming a middle class
with middle-class aims, but they have so far little power. There is no
strong middle class” (Bell 1992 [1928]: 109).
Then, without naming it, Hugh Richardson also refers to such an
intermediate group, in a very short note in Tibet and its history, when
he writes, while describing the social origins of army officers: “What
might be described as the equivalent of warrant officers were drawn
from the same stratum of society as stewards of estates or by promotion
of able ordinary soldiers” (Richardson 1962: 17).
But it was Melvyn Goldstein who first took into account the diversi-
ty of this group and chose to label it a “middle class” and then a “mid-
dle stratum”. In the first volume of his history, published in 1989, he
makes only one mention of the existence of a middle class when he
states: “Most commonly, monk officials were either the sons of the
Lhasa middle class or members of the families of existing monk offi-
cials [shag tshang]” (Goldstein 1993 [1989]: 8). We find a more elabo-
rate description in his second volume on Tibetan history, published in
2007, in a small digression, when he describes the creation of the
Tibetan People’s Association (Mi dmangs tshogs ’du) in 1956, pointing
to the fact that its founders were not exactly common folk:
They were, to be sure, of the people in the sense that they did not belong
to the aristocratic and monk official government elite, but they were also
not proletarian folk in the communist sense. Tibet in 1951 had no well-
defined hierarchy of social strata. At the apex of the social hierarchy was
an elite upper stratum consisting of several hundred aristocratic govern-
ment officials (and their families) and an equal number of monk govern-
ment officials (and their households). There were also a few—less than
a score—major incarnate lamas with vast property in Lhasa and their
own monasteries in Lhasa, for example, Kundeling, Tshecholing, and
146 ALICE TRAVERS

Tshomöling. Together, this elite category probably numbered no more

than a few thousand people. […] Beneath them almost all of the remain-
der of the population hereditarily belonged to estates owned by aristo-
cratic and monastic lords or by the government itself. And while there
were significant differences within this vast social category—for exam-
ple, some had land and others did not—they all shared the characteristic
that they were hereditarily bound to their lord and could not change that
status unilaterally.
Between the elite and the ‘masses’ was a numerically small category
sometimes referred to in Tibetan as ‘those in the middle’ (badzalaga; bar
tsa lag ga). This middle stratum was primarily made up of administra-
tors and managers who worked privately for the elite—for monasteries,
for the labrang of incarnate lamas, for aristocratic families, and even
sometimes for government offices. The vast majority of these adminis-
trators and managers were worldly monks or ex-monks who had learned
writing and managing skills while living as monks. […]
The job market for such manager-administrators was excellent,
because the elite government officials disliked leaving Lhasa to collect
taxes or loans or to conduct other trading activities, and because there
was no general education system to produce large numbers of other lay
people with equivalent skills. Many of these manager types, therefore,
came to work for the elite and were well-connected with powerful figures
in society, particularly among the monk official segment. Consequently,
among the nonelite in Lhasa, there was a small stratum of individuals
who were especially conscious of government activities and personages
and had important personal relationship with the elite. (Goldstein 2007:
319–21)
We see that Goldstein’s definition of a Tibetan middle class in still cen-
tred on the monk officials. Yet, in a small footnote linked to this pas-
sage, Goldstein extends the group to certain lay categories:
In addition to these badzalaga monks and ex-monks, in the urban setting
the middle stratum also included a small category of laymen who had
learned writing in one or the three or four small private schools in Lhasa.
These individuals were typically the children of the above mentioned ex-
monk managers, or the relatives of government monk officials, or the
sons of successful craftsmen and clerks in Lhasa. Some were even the
sons of rich suburban village families. This stratum also included a small
group of clerks working in government offices, small shopkeepers, large
and small traders, and non-commissioned officers in the Tibetan army
and police. (ibid.: 321)
 HOW SHOULD WE DEFINE SOCIAL STATUS? 147

1.3. Education and endogamy as criteria for this social group’s exis-
tence

The common features to be found among these different sub-groups

were not only their frequent interaction (professional or matrimonial)
with the aristocracy, as I had already established: the principal common
characteristic was above all the fact that very often, some children of
these families were well educated, having been trained since their
childhood by private teachers or in private and government schools,
which confirms what Goldstein points out in the footnote cited above.
The second main feature is the fact that they also preferred to marry
among themselves. Two examples will serve by way of illustration.
The first is that of sPel gong Phur bu dbang rgyal. He came from a
mi ser family living on the sPel gong estate, which belonged to the yab
gzhis sTag tsher house (of the 14th Dalai-lama) near rGyal rtse. He was
a very good student at his village school, and the father of the 14th Dalai
Lama recommended him when he was around twenty-five years old to
the Pha lha noble house. They took him as their treasurer and he even
became their senior treasurer (phyag mdzod rgan pa). He received an
estate called sPel snang, that he was entitled to pass on to his family and
could keep the products of the estate while paying a tax to the Pha lha
family. At the time, he was renting a three-storey house in Lhasa, near
the house of Pha lha family, again called sPel gong, in which he start-
ed a private school with around 170 children. He had nine children:
among them three were married after 1950 and three were nuns.
Among the three who married before major changes in the society
occurred, two were married to traders’ families (one being mi ser of the
Pha lha family and hence called Pha lha tshong khang, the other trader
house being called Kutri tshong khang and having a house and shop on
the bar ’khor). The third child, a daughter, married an elderly monk
official who had disrobed and had become a lay official, holding a low
rank in the Ganden Podrang administration.9
The second example is the treasurer of the sNar skyid noble house.
When sNar skyid was posted as district governor (rdzong dpon) in
Kunam district, the treasurer, who stayed with him, arranged for the
wedding of his son to the daughter of a local nomad headman (she

9 Interview n°2 and sPel gong Blo bzang yon tan 2007.
148 ALICE TRAVERS

dpon). When the headman later brought a legal case against the district
governor for mistreatment of the local people, the governor and his
treasurer forced the two young people to divorce. The headman’s
daughter subsequently married a powerful merchant of rTse thang.
Then, after the latter passed away, she married a well-known sngags pa,
while the treasurer’s son, her ex-husband, became a manager (gnyer pa)
in the sNar skyid noble house in Lhasa.10
Now, although this social intermediate group certainly displays a
certain unity, I found nobody either among old Tibetans from Central
Tibet now exiled in Dharamsala or old Tibetans in Lhasa who had ever
heard of this word bar tsa lag ga.11 Some of them even denied the exis-
tence of such a social group with the unity that the concept implies,
insisting on the fact that social status would depend on individual con-
siderations.12 Only one informant explained that it was a pure lha sa
skad term and that the idea of “intermediary [social] space” (bar ma)
could be used in Lhasa to refer only to merchants, but not to rich farm-
ers or to scholars.
The next step, then, is to examine if there is really no conception of
an intermediate elite in Tibetan representations of society during the
first half of the 20th century. Is there any trace of such a group from the
emic point of view?

2. THE SPECIFIC STATUS OF “ORDINARY PEOPLE” (DKYUS MA GRAS) IN THE

PRIVATE SCHOOL OF NANG RONG SHAR

Since education seemed to have been a common pillar of this social

group identity, I started investigating the system of private and govern-
ment schools in Lhasa and in Central Tibet. There were more than
twenty private schools in the capital of Lhasa, with the largest number-
ing up to 300 students. Most future government officials went to Tar
khang School, and many others to Nang rong shar, which was one of
those biggest schools, and is known for having enrolled the children of
most traders.13 The term dkyus ma, which means “ordinary”, was used
in general to designate all commoners, in opposition to aristocrats, but
10 Interview n°3.
11 Interview n°12.
12 Interview n°1 and 2.
13 Interview n°7.
 HOW SHOULD WE DEFINE SOCIAL STATUS? 149

not in the Nang rong shar School, where it took on a particular mean-
ing.14

2.1. The three name lists of Nang rong shar School

In several passages of his autobiography, published in 2009 by the
Amye Machen Institute in Dharamsala, Nor bu chos ’phel describes the
social origins of the students in the Nang rong shar School. We learn
that the students were children from people of “high, middle or ordi-
nary status: children from the higher social strata of the government’s
official, and also from merchants’ families, etc.” The author underlines
that “among the children who graduated from this school, there were
many employees of high, middle and small (rank) who were to enter the
service of the government, and treasurers and managers of the
landowners/aristocrats, and also a few who were appointed as treasur-
ers and managers of different monastic households (bla brang). And
besides, there were traders who, thanks to their knowledge, made a liv-
ing through all kinds of business” (Khri zhabs nor bu chos ’phel 2009:
52).
He then explains the organisation of the schooling and the registra-
tion process when one new student entered the school and had his name
put on a list:
There were three sorts of name lists for the school: the list of landown-
ers/aristocrats, the list of ‘ordinary people’, and the list of ‘lower people’.
First, in the list of aristocrats [sger gzhung] were registered the children
of government’s officials, in the list of ordinary people [dkyus gzhung]
were registered the children of merchants, etc., and in the list of ‘lower
people’ [shod bag] were registered the children of people having ser-
vant’s rank.15 (ibid.: 54)
It was possible to investigate this further by interviewing five Tibetans
who had studied in this school and had in certain cases served as cap-

14 Interview n°12. The world dkyus ma takes on different meanings according to the
context in Tibetan: when speaking only of the government officials, drung ’khor dkyus
ma designates the lower ranking officials of the 7th rank.
15 “Slob grwa’i ming gzhung la khag gsum yod/ sger gzhung/ dkyus gzhung/ shod
bag bcas yin/ dang po sger gzhung nang gzhung zhabs khag gi a war rnams dang/
dkyus gzhung nang tshong rigs sogs kyi phru gu’i ming/ shod bag nang zhabs gras sogs
kyi ming bcas bkod yod”.
150 ALICE TRAVERS

tain (rgan bdag) at different levels.16 Nor bu chos ’phel, the author of
the book, states that there were delimited spaces inside the school for
the students of these three categories, although the schooling itself was
the same. The children of the aristocracy studied on the top floor,
whereas the dkyus ma and the servants’ children each sat separately on
one side of the ground floor. The status difference was also expressed
in the terms of address used: they would use “sras” before the family
name for children of the aristocracy, “a wa” for children of dkyus ma
and treasurers, etc., and only the family name for children of servants
or petty merchants.17
According to several informants who also studied in Nang rong
shar,18 the dkyus ma list or the status of ordinary people (dkyus ma gras)
encompassed mainly traders, but also some rich farmers who were
gzhung rgyug, sons of treasurers, managers and caretakers working for
the government but without the rank of government official, and the
higher status craftsmen (lag shes pa) (the rest being in the shod pa
list).19 There were exceptions, such as the son of a zhing pa family that
held estates, and where a well-known lama had been born, who was
registered among the sger gzhung.
It is clear that there was a Tibetan concept of a social group occupy-
ing the middle of the Central Tibetan social ladder, the “ordinary rank”
(dkyus gras). It has to be underlined that this division in different lists
according to one’s social status was used in Nang rong shar School, but
one cannot say with certainty if it was used in other schools. It seems
that in some other schools like Dar po gling (also named Skyid ras),
social differentiation would be expressed only in the terms of address.20
Let us now examine the stated logic behind the aggregation of the
dkyus ma group at Nang rong shar School.

16 Interviews n°4, 6, 7, 12, 13.

17 Interview n°4.
18 Interviews n°7, 12, 13.
19 Interview n°12.
20 Interview n°3.
 HOW SHOULD WE DEFINE SOCIAL STATUS? 151

2.2. SPECIFICITY OF THE DKYUS MA SUBGROUP: FREEDOM VERSUS SERVI-

TUDE, THEORY AND PRACTICE

Apart from the fact that all these families sent their children to school
to acquire an education, a common feature shared by the shod pa group
(servants), what was the idea behind the creation of such a statutory
list? An informant identified the following common points: they could
all provide food and shelter for themselves and lived autonomously
from the economic point of view; they were neither servants nor mas-
ters. All those who had no land and were not working for someone, but
paid the so-called “human lease” fee (mi bogs) were considered inde-
pendent.21 Several informants insist that what defines a “dkyus ma” or
an ordinary person is the fact that he is not serving anybody, nor being
served by anyone, has no master and no servant.22 So the status of dkyus
ma when used alone would be defined by the absence of a service rela-
tionship. And such a view applied perfectly to the big traders’ families
from eastern Tibet, outside the Ganden Podrang regime, which consti-
tuted a good part of students in this group.
But it seems that there are many exceptions to this first definition
even in the dkyus ma group: first, only merchants from eastern Tibet
outside the boundary of the Ganden Podrang territory were technically
freemen in Central Tibet. All other merchants living in Central Tibet
and working in Lhasa were mi ser with mi bogs (“human lease”) status
(Goldstein 1971). It appears then that those merchants who had to pay
a nominal fee to their monastic or aristocratic landlord, or to the
Agricultural Office (So nam las khung), or to other institutions, were
considered freemen in practice by others, as well as by themselves, as
several interviews show.
Let us take one example of a family of traders whose son used to
attend the Nang rong shar School. This family was called Tshong pa
gsar pa and had a shop on the bar ’khor. The parents had come from
sMar khams to set up their business in Lhasa, they had around eighty
horses and were engaged in commercial trade between India and China.
They paid the mi bogs fee to a local bla brang near dMar khams, to
which they were officially attached as mi ser. They had five sons whom
they all made monks, and who also studied at Nang rong shar. They

21 Interview n°7.
22 Interview n°3.
152 ALICE TRAVERS

took a mag pa for their only daughter. This mag pa was a trader from
Kong po, a mi ser of the So nam las khungs to which he paid the mi
bogs.23 The mi bogs price was completely nominal, he said: around one
Indian rupee.
The second reason why this distinction, based on a service relation-
ship, was not that clear-cut, is that the dkyus ma group included man-
agers’ and treasurers’ children working for the government. They were
very often ex-monks as Goldstein underlines, and they were not serv-
ing any aristocratic or religious landlord. But there were also children
of treasurers, managers employed in noble families or bla brang,24 who
were technically mi ser of the aristocratic or monastic landowners, even
if they had obtained a high status. According to some informants, some
of them were in the dkyus ma list and others in the shod pa list. And
finally, many rich families of traders or farmers or managers, etc.,
themselves had servants (g.yog po).

2.3. Heterogeneity of the dkyus ma group: the professional and eco-

nomic criteria
The professional criterion was not that relevant either, since there were
treasurers’ children in both lists of dkyus ma and shod pa, depending on
whether the parents were working directly for the government or for a
noble house or bla brang, and also on the status of the noble house.
Craftsmen’s children were also in both of them, depending on their sta-
tus.25 The economic criterion, the level of income, seems not to have
been the most important consideration for the definition of “ordinary
people” (dkyus ma) in Nang rong shar School, since there were big and
small merchants in the dkyus ma list.
More generally, outside the context of the Nang rong shar School,
some informants emphasised the fact that there could be no social cat-
egory that could have encompassed whole professional groups like
merchants, secretaries, treasurers, etc., for one good reason: among all
these groups were small and rich people, and their economic situation
also determined their social status.26

23 Interview n°6.
24 Interview n°3.
25 The differences between high- and low-status craftsmen need further investiga-
tion.
 HOW SHOULD WE DEFINE SOCIAL STATUS? 153

To return to our main question: from a Tibetan point of view, level

of education, the economic circumstances, and whether one was or not
in service all seem to have been relevant to the definition of social sta-
tus. We will now examine if and how the dkyus ma group differs from
the middle stratum described in the first part of this paper and how we
should term these groups.

3. SOME ASPECTS OF THE DETERMINATION AND REPRESENTATIONS OF

SOCIAL STATUS AND SOCIAL GROUP

3.1. Evolving and relative social status in Tibet

All professional categories that I suggest form an intermediate social
group because of their kinship ties and a shared level of education, are
part of the dkyus ma statutory group at the Nang rong shar School, with
two exceptions. The first is the category of wealthy farmers and non-
noble landowners, who could only rarely be enlisted since they lived
outside Lhasa and would rather study in local regional schools or at
home. The second are the craftsmen who were not, according to my
sources, linked through marriage to other abovementioned groups.
It should be noted that, according to several informants, the dkyus
ma group was not strictly speaking considered higher that the shod pa
category. According to an informant, there was indeed a general hierar-
chy between the three name lists at Nang rong shar, but actually the
hierarchy between the second and third was not clear and depended
rather on individual cases than on membership of a particular group.27
Social groups among the commoners were thus not hierarchically
organised per se. In a way, the dkyus ma group was not strictly consid-
ered higher than the shod pa category, since some very learned servants
of high aristocratic family could actually be considered to have higher
status than small traders.
Each one shaped his status by his own agency, and certain persons
would change groups in the course of their life,28 starting as shod pa

26 Interview n°1. As for the matrimonial criterion, she emphasises that apart from
the smad rigs (lower strata or polluted strata), everyone could marry anybody.
27 Interview n°7.
154 ALICE TRAVERS

and becoming dkyus ma. This sort of social mobility is illustrated by

the case of an informant’s uncle, who started as a servant in a bla
brang, and then became a monk official thanks to his education, and
ceased thereafter to belong to the shod pa group.29 In several other
instances some individuals were allowed to be termed dkyus ma instead
of shod pa, even if they were treasurers or managers of landlords—that
is, servants. It appears then that the dkyus ma group was differentiated
but not strictly hierarchised with the shod pa group.30 Finally, Tibetans
were also highly conscious of the fact that social status was not an
essence, but took on its meaning only in a relational context.31

3.2. Theoretical debates and terminology of social groups

Until now, we have encountered several names used to describe this
social intermediate group: “bourgeoisie” for Stein, “middle class” for
Bell, and alternatively “middle class” and “middle stratum” for
Goldstein. Individuals’ social status and membership of social groups
could be based on birth, profession, wealth, education or access to
power, and were linked to individuals’ membership of specific social
groups. How these social groups should be designated, whether
“caste”, “order”, “class” or “stratum”, has been the object of extensive
debate in social sciences, especially in the works of Karl Marx, Max
Weber, and Roland Mousnier, but there is insufficient space to present
their arguments here. The choice of term depends mostly of the criteri-
on considered to be most relevant to the aggregation of the social
group, such as wealth, birth, prestige, and so forth.
Let us briefly recall the theoretical debates around the use of these
terms. In the middle of the 19th century, Marx took a historical step by
propagating his idea that all societies were divided into antagonistic
social classes whose inequality was primarily based on relations of pro-
28 Interview n°4.
29 Idem.
30 It is interesting to note that, generally speaking, in Tibetan society, there were
social statuses which were not strictly defined. One good instance of blurred social sta-
tus is those people who did not belong to any definite group, such as those termed “ngo
ma g.yog” in noble houses. They were considered neither full members of the family,
nor only servants; they were half-family, half-servants. In many instances, the term was
applied to a distant relative who served in the house.
31 For instance, for the same position in the territorial administration, the rank of a
number of government officials would be higher when they were in their local post than
when they were back in the capital of Lhasa.
 HOW SHOULD WE DEFINE SOCIAL STATUS? 155

duction. In the 1920s, Weber criticised Marx’s economic reductionism,

arguing that prestige and access to power were also decisive; he did not,
however, effect a radical break with Marx, since he still based his def-
inition of social classes on their relationship to the economic market.
Weber introduced a distinction between social class and social order,
the former being defined by economic considerations and the latter by
symbolic considerations. Mousnier in the 1960s again criticised the
Marxist economist interpretation that had been taken up by the Ecole
des Annales, according to which societies had always been divided into
classes, and social groups had always thought of themselves in eco-
nomic terms of sharing the same level of fortune. He showed that in tra-
ditional European society, hierarchies would ignore levels of fortune,
and that class organisation according to economic criteria appeared
later in history. He introduced a distinction between what has been
called “order societies”, and “class societies”, and which differ also
from “caste societies”. According to his theory, in “order societies”,
social distinction depends mostly on a hierarchy of honour and digni-
ty;32 in “caste societies”, it depends mostly on criteria of religion and
purity, while in “class societies”, the distinction is based mostly on the
economic criterion of possessing wealth or not (Mousnier 1969).33 In
the 1970s and 80s, Pierre Bourdieu criticised Weber’s notion of “social
class” and “social order” for its dissociation of economic and symbol-
ic aspects. Bourdieu argued that economic and symbolic aspects always
coexist in reality and, while continuing to use the term “class”,
estranged himself from the Marxist paradigm (Bourdieu 1984 [1979]).
He proposed a theory of social space in which structure is defined by
the distribution of different kinds of capital—economic, social and cul-
tural—the elites being those who accumulate the largest quantity of all
kinds of capital. He also insisted on the relational nature of social space
and structure (Mauger 2013a).
The stratification theories, more or less inspired by Weber’s analy-
sis, have in common with the class theories that they also tend to rep-

32 In his view, the importance of wealth is not denied, but money is only a means
to acquire and keep the external attributes of dignity and honour.
33 The label “middle class” as it is now used in describing societies comes directly
from such views, with the level of income serving as the first criterion. This definition
is well rendered in the Tibetan neologism to denote the middle class: ’byor ’bring gral
rim (lit. “average fortune class”).
156 ALICE TRAVERS

resent society as an ensemble of hierarchically organised groups; how-

ever, “stratum” is much less narrowly defined,34 since it is based on the
level of revenue, together with the level of education, inequality of
power, and prestige (Mauger 2013b). The term “stratum” has thus right-
ly been preferred to terms such as “class” (too narrowly restricted, in its
most frequent use, to economic factors) or “order” (too closely related
to Western ancien régime societies) or “caste” (Tibetan stratification is
not mainly based on ritual purity) by many Tibetologists to describe
Tibetan society. The question now is: how should we qualify the inter-
mediate social elite?

3.3. The intermediate levels: “logical” or “virtual” strata

We thus have a social category that distinguishes itself to external
observers through negative features—its members are close to political
power but without real access to it—and through positive features—
they belong to a number of precise professional activities, prefer to
intermarry, and enjoy a high educational and economic level (for rich
farmers, non-aristocratic sger pa). In Bourdieu’s terms, we would say
that they all shared a high portion of economic, social and cultural cap-
ital.
We can also confirm the existence of a conception of a “Tibetan
intermediate status”, as shown through the dkyus ma status in Nang
rong shar. Sources have shown that the criteria—endogamy, education
and wealth—for the aggregation of the social group observed in the
first part are partly congruent with and partly distinct from the criteria
for defining the dkyus ma group at Nang rong shar—that is, the relative
independence of this group’s members in practice, if not from a legal
point of view.
The term “social stratum”, a social entity less closed than the class,
multidimensionaly defined, and conveying the idea of a continuum
with other strata, seems to apply well to these intermediate elites, which
were closely linked to the stratum of traditional elites. But there was no
consensual Tibetan representation that corresponded to it exactly, and
no consciousness of belonging to this stratum among the actors con-
cerned. Bourdieu’s approach again helps us to understand that a certain
degree of unconsciousness on the part of the actors with regard to the
34 A good definition of stratum is that “it designates groups of persons who have
comparable status and share the same kind of living conditions and perspective of exis-
tence” (Roze 2013).
 HOW SHOULD WE DEFINE SOCIAL STATUS? 157

existence of a stratum does not imply its non-existence: “proximity in

social space produces ‘logical classes’, ‘classes on the paper’, ‘likely
classes’ or ‘virtual classes’ that are likely to be mobilised only after a
symbolic and political construction work” (Bourdieu 1985 [1984],
Mauger 2013a).

CONCLUSION: THE INTERMEDIATE STRATUM AND SOCIAL CHANGE

We do not have sufficient data to draw comparisons with the situation

in historical periods prior to the beginning of the 20th century.
Nonetheless, the reason why the criteria of belonging are diverse and
have diverse orders of priority for informants could lie in the fact that
the period under scrutiny was one of rapid changes; one where wealth
and education seem to have played a larger role in social mobility than
in the past, and where social hierarchy based on hereditary status was
certainly more frequently destabilised. The definition and the bound-
aries of this intermediate elite group were permanently susceptible to
redefinition: the debates around the definition of this non-institution-
alised stratum are witnesses to intense social dynamics.
It is interesting to note that, when Chinese communists introduced
the class struggle to Central Tibet, they recognised the existence of this
intermediate elite stratum by labelling the rich farmers and all those
professionally related to the former landlords, such as treasurers, man-
agers (mnga’ tshab gral rim: the class of representatives/stewards of
feudal lords), and so forth, as class enemies, along with the landlords
themselves (mnga’ bdag gral rim: the class of feudal lords and serf
owners), considering them as an elite. In particular, educated mi ser
working as treasurers and managers or holding similar positions were
thus assimilated into the aristocratic class (Woeser 2010 [2006]: 95,
131).
Finally, it is interesting to see the determinant role of the private
schools, in Lhasa and in other towns or on country estates, in the for-
mation of this middle class. The role played by education in this regard
has been studied in other cultural areas and periods. G.M. Trevelyan,
for example, has shown that the English grammar school, from the 15th
to the 17th century, was an institution that allowed children of all social
strata from the aristocracy, the gentry, city bourgeoisie and the yeoman-
ry, to be educated together, and provided the arena in which the new
158 ALICE TRAVERS

middle stratum would be shaped; whereas from the 18th century

onward, the different educational institutions would ensure a strong
class segregation (Trevelyan 1993 [1944]). The history of Tibetan
schools, and the composition of the student body in other schools in
Lhasa and other parts of Tibet would clearly be a fruitful avenue of
investigation for our understanding of the formation Tibetan social stra-
ta.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bell, C. 1992 [1928]. The People of Tibet. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers.
Bourdieu, P. 1984 [French version 1979]. Distinction: A Social Critique of the
Judgement of Taste. Harvard: Harvard University Press.
—— 1985 [French version 1984]. The social space and the genesis of groups. Theory
and Society 14(6), 723–44.
Carré, G. 2011. Les marges statutaires dans le Japon prémoderne : enjeux et débats.
Annales, Histoire, Sciences sociales 4, 955–76.
Chauvel, L. 2013. Classes—Classes moyennes. In Encyclopædia Universalis [online],
consulted 20 May 2013. URL: http://www.universalis.fr/encyclopedie/classes-
sociales-classes-moyennes/
Fjeld, H. 2005. Commoners and Nobles: Hereditary Divisions in Tibet. Copenhagen:
NIAS Press.
Goldstein, M. 1971. Serfdom and mobility: an examination of the institution of “human
lease” in traditional Tibetan society. JAS 30(3), 521–34.
—— 1993 [1989]. A History of Modern Tibet. Volume 1: The Demise of the Lamaist
State (1913–1951). New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers.
—— 2007. A History of Modern Tibet. Volume 2: The Calm before the Storm
(1951–1955). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kapstein, M. 2006. The Tibetans. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Mauger, G. 2013a. Classes sociales—Penser les classes sociales. In Encyclopædia
Universalis [online], consulted 18 May 2013.
URL: http://www.universalis.fr/encyclopedie/classes-sociales-penser-les-classes-
sociales/
—— 2013b. Classes sociales—Classe dominante. In Encyclopædia Universalis
[online], consulted 18 May 2013. URL:
http://www.universalis.fr/encyclopedie/classes-sociales-classe-dominante/
Mousnier, R. 1969. Les hiérarchies sociales de 1450 à nos jours. Paris: PUF.
Richardson, H. 1962. Tibet and its History. London: Oxford University Press.
Robin, F. 2010. Étude préliminaire sur la corporation d’aide mutuelle des imprimeurs
de Lhasa (par pa’i skyid sdug). In A. Chayet, C. Scherrer-Schaub, F. Robin and J.-
L. Achard (eds) Edition, editions : l’écrit au Tibet, évolution et devenir. München:
Indus Verlag, 239–62.
Ronge, V. 1978. Das Tibetische Handwerkertum vor 1959. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner
Verlag.
Roze, X. 2013. Stratification sociale. In Encyclopædia Universalis [online], consulted
18 May 2013. URL: http://www.universalis.fr/encyclopedie/stratification-sociale/
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Stein, R.A. 1973 [French version 1962]. Tibetan Civilization. Stanford: Stanford
University Press.
Travers, A. 2008. Exclusiveness and openness: a study of matrimonial strategies in the
Ganden Phodrang aristocracy (1880–1959). JIATS 4, 1–27.
—— 2009. La noblesse tibétaine du Ganden phodrang (1895–1959) : permanences et
transitions. Ph.D. thesis, University Paris Ouest-Nanterre La Défense and INAL-
CO.
Trevelyan, G.M. 1993 [English version 1944]. Histoire sociale de l’Angleterre : six siè-
cles d’histoire de Chaucer à la reine Victoria. Paris: R. Laffont.
Weber, M. 1995 [German version 1921]. Économie et société, I, Les catégories de la
sociologie. Paris: Agora.
Woeser, Tsering. 2010 [Chinese version 2006]. Mémoire interdite. Témoignages sur la
Révolution culturelle au Tibet. Paris: Bleu de Chine.

Written sources
Khri zhabs Nor bu chos ’phel. 2009. mThong myong mi tshe’i lo rgyus mngar skyur bro
ldan. rTsom rig sgyu rtsal deb phreng 13. Dharamsala: Amnye Machen Institute,
49–78.
sPel gong Blo bzang yon tan. 2007. Nga’i mi tshe dmyal me’i nang btso sbyang byung
ba. Chab srid btson pa’i lo rgyus deb phreng 15. Dharmasala: Bod kyi dgu bcu
gsum las ’gul tshogs pa.
Blo bzang bkra shis (ed.). 2007. Jo mo glang ma’i bu phrug [The Son of Mount Everest,
Biography of Dhingri Ngawang]. Chab srid btson pa’i lo rgyus deb phreng 14.
Dharmasala: Bod kyi dgu bcu gsum las ’gul tshogs pa.
Dhingri Ngawang. 2011. Son of Mount Everest. An Autobiography. Dharamsala:
Vidhyadhara Publications.

Interviews
Interview n°1 with Longs spyod khang gsar Chos skyid, spouse name Rnam tshe gling
(born 1930), Dharamsala, 18/07/2012.
Interview n°2 with sPel gong Blo bzang yon tan (born 1943), Dharamsala, 18/07/2012.
Interview n°3 with sNar skyid Ngag dbang don grub (born 1929), Dharamsala,
19/07/2012 and 27/07/2012.
Interview n°4 with Nor bu chos ’phel (born 1939), Dharamsala, 21/07/2012.
Interview n°5 with bKar rnying phun khang Blo bzang bde skyid (born 1941),
Dharamsala, 23/07/2012.
Interview n°6 with phyag mdzod Ngag dbang bstan pa (born 1929), Dharamsala,
24/07/2012.
Interview n°7 with gLang mthong zur pa Blo bzang chos spel (born 1934), Dharamsala,
24/07/2012.
Interview n°9 with Ding ri bu Ngag dbang (born 1932), Dharamsala, 26/07/2012.
Interview n°11 with bKra dbang (born 1928), Dharamsala, 30/07/2012.
Interview n°12, anonymous, Lhasa, 2012.
Interview n°13, anonymous, Lhasa, 2012.
Interview n°15, anonymous, Lhasa, 2012.
 WHO WERE THE TIBETAN LAWMAKERS?

FERNANDA PIRIE

In the spirit expressed by the title of this book, I have framed my ques-
tion as one about law-makers. This is very much a rhetorical question:
in the case of many Tibetan legal texts we do not know anything about
the authors. Asking the question may, nevertheless, shed light on wider,
and more interesting, questions about the nature of Tibetan laws and
how we should understand them, in their historical, social, and politi-
cal contexts.
In this chapter I discuss a law-code I found amongst the nomads of
Golok (mGo log), in eastern Tibet. We do not know who created it and
can only guess its date and provenance. Nevertheless, questions about
who is likely to have made such a code, and why, as well as questions
about how it may have been used, are worth asking. From a historical
perspective, it would be easy to dismiss this code on the basis that its
practical application is uncertain—it seems unlikely that it was ever
directly applied in the resolution of disputes—but we can consider how
it might have been invoked, what it may have represented, and the aspi-
rations of those who made and referred to it, taking advantage of recent
histories of the region and contemporary fieldwork. The conclusions
we can draw, in this regard, indicate ways in which we might approach
and understand some of the better-known, and earlier, law-codes of
Central Tibet, whose social contexts are necessarily less well under-
stood. Primary among these are the texts known as the zhal lce.

LAWS AND LAW-MAKERS AS ASPECTS OF SOCIAL HISTORY

Before asking about law-makers, we need to ask about law. How should
we identify law outside the familiar realms of the western world? What,
indeed, should a social history of laws and law-making consist of? In
the English-speaking world we tend to think of law in a number of dif-
ferent ways. Firstly, it is something made by a ruler to bring order to a
society, a still-dominant strand in legal theory, a legacy of the jurispru-
162 FERNANDA PIRIE

dence of John Austin (1832). Secondly, it is something that reflects

social norms, or is found in processes of conflict resolution, an
approach that characterises much legal anthropology (Pirie 2013).
Thirdly, it is a matter of rules, typically written codes, or legalism: that
is, a way of thinking about and organising the world through the medi-
um of explicit rules, using general and abstract categories (Dresch
2012). It is the third of these, I suggest, that allows for the most illumi-
nating analysis of the Tibetan texts.
The idea that law is, essentially, a tool of government, which is
enforced in the courts in order to produce social order, was developed
by legal theorists to suit a model of state law, and must be employed
with caution in pre-modern Tibet. Asking about social order quickly
dissolves into questions about social life in general, while methods of
conflict resolution, albeit interesting in themselves, may bear little rela-
tion to the content of any legal codes.1 The legal codes with which I am
concerned here need to be understood as sets of rules, ostensibly for-
mulated to regulate legal processes, but which may, like legal texts else-
where in the world, have symbolic, as much as regulatory, functions.
The Golok code was not made by a state, or a state-like ruler, and, like
the zhal lce, had a very uncertain relationship with legal (or any other)
practice.

THE GOLOK CODE

Until the momentous changes wrought by the Chinese government after

1958, many of the tribes that herd yaks and sheep on the lush grasslands
of Amdo retained a significant degree of autonomy from any form of
centralised political control.2 This was particularly so in Golok, to the
southeast of the region, where the tribes were led by hereditary ruling
families, the xhombo (dpon po).3 They formed a loose confederacy, but
often came into conflict with one another, as well as combining to wage

1 These are issues which have long concerned legal anthropologists, as witnessed
by the debates over “legal pluralism” (Pirie 2013).
2 The details in this section have, to a large extent, been drawn from my earlier
work, in particular Pirie (2009). I carried out around twelve months of fieldwork in
Amdo between 2003 and 2007.
3 I transcribe this term according to local pronunciation, and names according to
standard formulations, adding the Wylie transliteration in brackets.
 WHO WERE THE TIBETAN LAWMAKERS? 163

war, periodically, on their neighbours. The Golok tribes were historical-

ly renowned for their violence, a reputation that remains in the twenty-
first century. Accounts by Robert Ekvall from the early twentieth cen-
tury depict a pattern of feuding and mediation: in cases of inter-tribal
conflict it was necessary to call upon high-status mediators, normally
chiefs from other tribes, Buddhist lamas, or famous orators, who would
exercise their powers of argument, persuasion, cajolery, and appeals to
honour and self-interest to bring the parties to accept compensation in
lieu of further violence (Ekvall 1964: 1140; 1968: 77–80). There was no
question of an adjudicator applying the rules of a code to make a judg-
ment and impose a punishment; agreement had to be achieved through
mediation and negotiated indemnity (1968: 76).
During fieldwork conducted in the early twenty-first century, I found
that despite the presence of the Chinese state, whose governmental
structures, agents, and police force penetrate far into the grasslands,
practices of feuding and mediation continue in a form that follows
much the same principles as those described by Ekvall. When feuds
escalate they may continue for decades unless a high-ranking Buddhist
lama or a renowned mediator from one of the ruling families intervenes
and successfully promotes a settlement. Just as Ekvall describes it, the
process of mediation is tentative and contingent upon the mediators’
powers of persuasion; they have to threaten or cajole the parties to
accept the solution they are proposing or there can be no final settle-
ment (Pirie 2008). It came as a considerable surprise, then, to find a
historic law-code still being referred to in the region. As I describe else-
where (Pirie 2009), this code was printed as part of the history of the
region, its substance based upon interviews carried out by the authors
with those who could remember the content of the written codes that
had existed before 1958. One of my informants was able to recite some
of the provisions of these codes from memory in 2004. I gathered two,
different, copies of the text, one in Chinese and one in Tibetan, both of
which were reprinted as part of projects to record oral histories in the
region in the 1980s.4 Their basic content is the same, although the lat-
4 The Chinese text is in a book entitled A collection of materials on the culture and
heritage of Qinghai, edited by the Qinghai Provincial Committee of the Chinese
People’s Consultative Conference and its Committee for Research on Culture and
History, and published in 1982 by the Qinghai People’s Press. The Tibetan text has been
published in at least two slightly different versions, one entitled mGo log rig gnas lo
rgyus (A history of Golok culture), by the Golok Prefecture Committee for Historical
Research, in 1991.
164 FERNANDA PIRIE

ter is longer, more elaborate, and contains several of the maxims and
aphorisms (gtam dpe), for which the region is famous. The two main
sections of the code contain, firstly, general and directive rules for the
making of war,5 specifying how tribal leaders should organise their
forces and select commanders, and secondly, detailed and specific pro-
visions for the making of peace, that is, the amounts and nature of the
compensation to be paid after killings and injuries.
The introduction to the longer codes starts with a reference to
Songtsen Gampo (Srong btsan sgam po), the seventh-century Tibetan
emperor. He is said to have been the author of a set of moral laws, the
Mi chos gtsang ma bcu drug, stipulating that people should respect
their religion and family, and behave well in other respects, and these
are set out in the code. His moral laws, the text continues, were consid-
ered and each tribe made its own laws (khrims), with directions as to
how they should be applied. These laws are divided into four classes
(byed thabs).
The content of the laws can be summarised as follows, although the
provisions of the Chinese version are somewhat less complex. First are
the nine “rules for subduing the enemy”. These are largely directive in
nature, specifying how the xhombo should organise events at times of
conflict, including the selection of commanders. They direct, for exam-
ple, that if possessions have been stolen the xhombo must summon peo-
ple to recover them; that if a fight has occurred and someone has been
killed or possessions have been stolen the xhombo must send men to
take revenge; that in the event of a serious dispute, the two groups must
be kept apart, sentries must be posted, and a rotating guard must be set
up; that when there is important business to be done the xhombo or
other leaders must call meetings; and that the xhombo must carefully
select those to go on raiding parties. They also direct cooperation on the
part of the members of the group, in particular those sent out to recov-
er stolen possessions, those summoned to meetings, and those sent on
raiding parties, who, on their return, must share what they have seized.
The rules also specify the number of soldiers to be supplied by three
different classes of families—high, middle, and low—thus indicating a
form of class distinction.

5 The code refers to war (dmag) but we should probably think, rather, of the feuds
that still arise between the tribes, both within the Golok tribal confederacy and in rela-
tions with the surrounding tribes.
 WHO WERE THE TIBETAN LAWMAKERS? 165

The second set of rules is for resolving conflict within a tribe.6 They
begin with a preamble which establishes the position and status of the
mediator (gzu ba) and continues by expressing the principle that if you
attack a member of another group that is your own affair; but if some-
one attacks yours it is a matter for the whole group. The implication is
that restraint should be shown in initiating a conflict but that defence of
the group requires loyalty and solidarity. The rules in this section con-
tain complex provisions specifying the amounts of blood money that
must be paid in the event of a killing, the compensation that must be
paid in the event of theft, the amount of compensation appropriate for
threats and injuries, and brief provisions for compensation in the event
of wife stealing. The amounts are expressed in terms of horses, guns,
yaks, and silver coins. They also specify the amounts needed in order
to secure a truce after a killing, the apology payment to be made to the
xhombo, payments to the victim’s family, widow, and children. A
repeated provision is that the amounts depend upon the status of the
victim—high, middle, or low. These provisions are specific and pre-
scriptive in form. They also specify what the mediator must take into
account in formulating a solution, including the nature of the injuries
and the possibility that the victim might be lying about the cause of his
injuries, the nature of a theft, whether from the mountains or from
within an encampment—the latter is regarded as being much more
grave—the degree of fault, and specifying that property must be con-
fiscated—implicitly by the xhombo—if a theft has taken place within a
single group. There are also procedural provisions for the use of wit-
nesses, the testing of evidence, and the making of oaths, including the
possibility of divination and ordeals.
In the longer version, this section continues with supplemental rules
(’gug) concerning personal morality and the virtues of truthfulness and
helpfulness, stating that it is not shameful to take revenge in specific
cases and underlining the need for solidarity within the group. There is
a definition of the statuses—high, middle, and low—which is
expressed in terms of loyalty to the xhombo and personal morality.
Finally it specifies the need to punish those who disobey the xhombo,
deserters from the battlefield, and those who stir up problems.

6There are several Tibetan terms used to designate tribal groups in Amdo, many of
which can be used to refer to either a large group, or to one of its sub-divisions.
166 FERNANDA PIRIE

As I have discussed elsewhere (2009), it is inconceivable that these

laws were ever directly enforced. The compensation provisions are
impractically complex and the amounts specified far outweigh the sums
currently awarded, as well as requiring the use of silver coins that must
have been rare. Moreover, neither contemporary informants nor ethno-
graphic accounts suggest that mediation processes ever took a substan-
tially different form from those that occur now. It seems likely that the
codes were referred to during the lengthy speech-making that charac-
terised such processes, along with appeals to religion, moral principles,
and the authority of tradition. The principles and payments they set out
may well have provided the basis for negotiation of what might be
accepted as appropriate compensation for an unavenged wrong. There
is also historical evidence that the people of Golok regarded their laws
as ancient, unchanging, and a symbol of their independence. A Russian
explorer recorded the boast of a confident and confrontational
tribesman: unlike the timid subjects of the Dalai Lamas, he declared,
“we [...] have from time immemorial obeyed none but our own laws,
none but our own convictions [...] they have never been altered”
(Kozloff 1908: 522–28). The codes may, then, have had the authority of
tradition, which could have assisted the mediators’ task. They also
stood as a symbol of the independence and historical autonomy of the
Golok tribes.
Who, then, might have made them, and why? To a large extent, the
codes reflect the forms of mediation that are still practised among the
Amdo nomads, in particular the payment for life or injury as a means
of establishing peace after a conflict. They also reflect the sanctity of
the encampment, a principle I also noted in contemporary mediation
practices (2008: 227). On the other hand, the specificity of the codes’
provisions, in both versions, is striking, as is the fact that they repeat-
edly refer to social status—high, middle, and low. There is no evidence
of such status distinctions ever being marked in practice, below the
small class of xhombo.
Status is the basis for the calculation of punishments in fragments of
legal texts that survive from the Tibetan empire (Thomas 1936). The
specification of rank and status was also a feature of Anglo-Saxon and
early Irish law-codes (Kelly 1988), while the detailing of precise
amounts payable by way of compensation for various wrongs is famil-
iar from ancient codes of the classical and pre-classical periods, from
Mesopotamia, through ancient Greece and Rome, to medieval Iceland
 WHO WERE THE TIBETAN LAWMAKERS? 167

(Miller 1990; Whitman 1996). As Whitman suggests, it is unlikely that

such codes were ever applied in detail; rather, the rules, and their speci-
ficity, seem to have created a sense of system and order, in and of them-
selves. Placing people into different ranks, as the codes do, presents a
model of social order, which may have suited the vision of a ruler keen
to portray himself at the pinnacle of a social hierarchy. In the Golok
case, the codes also encapsulate ideals of honour, revenge, loyalty, and
family and tribal solidarity. Above all, they repeatedly affirm the need
for loyalty towards the xhombo. The codes, that is, might be regarded
as the work of the xhombo, designed to reinforce their status as media-
tors and war-leaders.
They also seem to evoke a sense of commonality within what could
be regarded as a loose confederacy between the Golok tribes, whose
ruling families claimed descent from three brothers. In a society in
which conflict was common, and to some extent admired, tribal rela-
tions have always, in practice, been unstable. As Dresch (2006:
283–97) also found when analysing eighteenth-century law-codes from
tribal Yemen, a text that articulates shared principles for both the con-
duct of warfare and the achievement of peace suggests that the tribes-
people, although divided and often antagonistic, participated in a sin-
gle moral domain. The codes may have been, and remain, important in
and of themselves, as a vision for tribal society.
Another clue as to the authorship of the codes or, at least, to autho-
rial influences, lies in the brief references in the preamble to the “laws”
of Songtsen Gampo. This indicates a link with the zhal lce (discussed
further below), which claimed to have been based upon the laws hand-
ed down by the great Tibetan emperor. Copies of the zhal lce were
widely distributed under the Ganden Podrang (dGa’ ldan pho brang)
government (1642–1959) and knowledge of this code could have pro-
vided inspiration for the authors of the Golok laws. Although their con-
tent is very different, there is some similarity in style, as I discuss fur-
ther below. Despite, therefore, the assertions of uniqueness and inde-
pendence, made at other times by the Golok tribesmen about them-
selves and their laws, the authors of these codes were representing their
tribes as part of a wider Buddhist civilisation. The code indicated that
they participated in a historic Tibetan civilisation, with its roots in the
activities of Songtsen Gampo.
Contemporary fieldwork has indicated that this code retains impor-
tance in the eyes of the Golok tribespeople, both as a historic record
168 FERNANDA PIRIE

and as an indication of enduring tribal values. Its details and aphorisms

affirm principles of loyalty and revenge; they provide a partial map for
tribal relations that were essentially unregulated, save by shared values;
and these values are still adhered to in the modern world, dominated
though it is by the structures of the Chinese state. The code does not
regulate anything (if it ever did), but we could say that it articulates the
principles on which tribal relations could, and should, be negotiated; it
also represents an ideal for tribal society, which it presented as being
founded upon recognisable religious and moral principles, sanctioned
by historic tradition.
In what follows, I ask whether these insights might suggest ways in
which we can explore the origins and significance of the earlier zhal lce
from Central Tibet.

THE ZHAL LCE

The text that came to be widely regarded, under the Ganden Podrang
government, as an authoritative statement of Tibetan law is generally
known as the Khrims yig zhal lce bcu gsum/bcu drug (the law book
containing 13/16 laws), or in its abridged name, the zhal lce. The earli-
est code, in fact containing fifteen laws, is attributed by the Fifth Dalai
Lama to the era of Changchub Gyaltsen (Byang chub rgyal mtshan) in
the fourteenth century.7 His historical chronicle claims that they were
based upon the ten virtues of Songtsen Gampo (Schuh 1984; Ahmad
1995: 141–42). A version with sixteen laws dates from the time of
Karma Tenkyong Wangpo (Karma bsTan skyong dbang po, ruled
1620–1642). Although the product of a Tsang (gTsang) ruler, it contin-
ued to be used during the Ganden Podrang period and served as a base
for codes with thirteen and twelve laws, written between 1653 and 1655
(Ishihama 1993: 39). This continuity in the use of the laws is described,
by the Regent Desi Sangye Gyatso (sDe srid Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho),
as descending on the new rulers “like a stream of water”.8 These early

7 I am grateful to Christoph Cüppers for his assistance with the details of these
codes.
8 The statement reads: zhal lce bcu drug tu grags pa gtsang dus nas rje bla ma’i
chos srid gdugs dkar gyis khyab nas deng sang bar chu ’bab tu song zhing—[the law-
code which] is known in sixteen laws came from the time of the gTsang [rulers] like a
waterfall to the present times since the white umbrella of Lama Lord [= Fifth Dalai
Lama] covers all religious and political affairs. See Khrims skor dogs sel: 188.
 WHO WERE THE TIBETAN LAWMAKERS? 169

versions claim to have been based on the laws written by the mythical
ancient Indian king, Melong Dong (Me long gdong) (van der Kuijp
1999: 268).
The code is written as a set of directions to government officials,
containing administrative directions about the amounts of money they
might raise for living allowances and expenses, and also containing
moralistic directions as to how they should behave and enact justice.9 It
describes the exemplary punishments that may be meted out for more
heinous crimes, and lists compensation payments for various injuries
and wrongs. Some of the provisions are repetitive and contradictory,
suggesting that they might be compilations from previous laws. They
also contain provisions for legal procedure, in particular the taking of
oaths. The punitive provisions in the laws, which comprise the majori-
ty of them, are largely directed at the offences of murder, causing
injuries, and theft, with the addition of three laws on adultery, divorce,
and the non-return of borrowed livestock. A longer version includes a
long catalogue of official salaries and provisions for the legal treatment
of non-Tibetans (Meisezahl 1973).
It is also worth considering what else was included within some of
the documents in which the text was reproduced. An early text analysed
by Meisezahl (ibid.), containing sixteen laws, is followed by a list of
minor decrees: categories of public dangers, minor penalties—includ-
ing fines to be paid in kind—and provisions concerning the authority
of the dzongpon (rdzong dpon), regional officials, who had responsibil-
ity for dealing with minor crimes. The text ends with tables of weights
and measures. Another early text includes complicated tables, contain-
ing 84 rows and three columns, which set out economic values for var-
ious categories of goods, according to three measures. A nineteenth-
century version includes the same provisions for public dangers and
rules for particular cases of punishments, along with lists of legal costs
(Meisezahl 1992).
As well as these legalistic provisions, some of the early documents
also contain more narrative provisions. One of the early texts includes
an account of military campaigns; it sets out a decree by Altan Khan
(1507–1582), including a prediction of the Buddha that his religion
would spread northward, and records that it was Songtsen Gampo who

9I base this analysis largely on the rough translation prepared for Charles Bell, a
manuscript copy of which is in the British Library, reference MSS Eur F80/169.
170 FERNANDA PIRIE

brought the teachings into the uncivilised land of Tibet (Meisezahl

1973). The text of 1653–1655 contains a historical narrative discussing
the relationship between the Dalai Lamas and the Mongol rulers
(Ishihama 1993: 39). Later versions, recorded in Sikkim (White 1894)
and by Tharchin in 1954 (Schuh 1984: 298), also claim to have been
founded upon the laws pronounced by Melong Dong and by Songtsen
Gampo.
There is, of course, much uncertainty over the origins, use and sig-
nificance of these codes and much yet to be gained from close textual
analysis. In what follows, I simply suggest some of the ways in which
the codes might be interpreted in their social and historical contexts,
and what might be revealed by comparison with the provisions of the
Golok code.

ORIGINS

Obvious questions arise about the origins of the zhal lce texts—can we
trace parts of it back to earlier codes, including the historical narratives
and the tradition that originated in the empire?—which I cannot
address here. But we can also ask about those who made and preserved
the texts, not so much their identity, but the wider authorial influences,
purposes, and aspirations. These might have included regulation and
regularisation, that is a desire to present a new regime as a successor to
the Tibetan empire, and Changchub Gyaltsen as the guardian, or foun-
dation, of its civilisation and laws.
As Schuh (1984: 299) has pointed out, despite the various claims,
the zhal lce are not based on the moral codes known as the dge ba bcu
or the mi chos gtsang ma bcu drug. A glance at their content indicates
as much. The influence of Buddhism, he says, was “a retrospective,
purely fictitious, ideological construct” (1984: 300). Van der Kuijp
(1999: 288) remarks, similarly, on “the total absence of anything that
might remotely be construed as Buddhist, except for their propagandis-
tic introductions written for the purposes of legitimation and authori-
ty”. This rather dismissive statement was made in the context of his cri-
tique of French’s (1995) The Golden Yoke, which presents a picture of
an essentially Buddhist Tibetan legal realm. However, it is worth ask-
ing whether Changchub Gyaltsen might have made a set of laws and, in
any event, why the Fifth Dalai Lama chose to present his text as having
 WHO WERE THE TIBETAN LAWMAKERS? 171

been written in the fourteenth century, as well as claiming earlier, and

Buddhist, precedents.
In 1239 the Mongols had swept into Tibet, having already conquered
much of Eurasia. The reaction of Tibet’s religious leaders, most suc-
cessfully Sakya Pandita (Sa skya paṇ ḍi ta, 1182–1251), leader of the
Sakya sect, was to convert the Mongols to Buddhism, which led to what
has been described as a patron-client relationship between their respec-
tive leaders—the secular (Mongol) ruler and the religious (Tibetan)
teacher or lama (Kapstein 2006: 110–16). The subsequent weakening of
the Mongols’ Yüan dynasty in China, however, gave the opportunity for
Changchub Gyaltsen, leader of the Pagmodru (Phag mo gru) religious
order, to challenge Sakyapa-Mongol rule and, eventually, to set himself
up as a prince. He adopted the title desi (sde srid), an old imperial term
meaning “regent”, and was awarded the title of Tai Situ (chief minister)
by the Mongols (Kapstein 2006: 116–18).
An early zhal lce text asserts that the code replaced the Mongols’
laws (hor khrims) with a set of Tibetan laws (bod khrims) (Meisezahl
1973). This might indicate that Changchub Gyaltsen wanted to assert
control over this area of governmental administration at a time when
Mongol power was waning. According to Snellgrove and Richardson
(1968: 152–55) he “undertook an active policy of removing the traces
of Mongol influence and of deliberately restoring the glories of the old
Tibet of the Religious Kings”.10 As Sørensen (1994: 34–35) puts it, he
was a “nationally and independently minded politician” who embarked
upon a nationalistic quest, which included the codification of a set of
laws resembling the code supposed to have been executed by Songtsen
Gampo. Given the importance of the imperial legacy in contemporary
historical narratives, it seems only natural that he should have done this
by modelling himself on the great Tibetan emperors, whose activities
included the making of laws.11 There are precedents for this type of
law-making in post-Roman Europe, where Charlemagne, along with
other kings and princes, modelled his laws on Justinian’s code. As
Wormald (1998: 27–30) puts it, Charlemagne’s laws represented an
aspect of his imperial dignity, since legislation had been, par excel-

10 This interpretation is supported by Tucci (1949: 23) and Dreyfus (1994: 210)
although some doubt is cast on it by van der Kuijp (1991).
11 That he made laws is also confirmed in the chronicle of his life by Sonam Drakpa
(bSod nams grags pa) (Tucci 1971).
172 FERNANDA PIRIE

lence, a function of the Roman emperors. A similar impulse might also

explain the later decision of the Fifth Dalai Lama, during the very early
stages of the Ganden Podrang government, to reproduce an earlier
code—or parts of it—or at least to claim that his laws had been written
at the time of an earlier ruler. He was presenting his government as the
latest in a tradition of Tibetan kingship, and was invoking the legacy of
a predecessor known for his independence, after a long period of
Mongol domination.
A parallel with the activities of the Golok law-makers might be
drawn here: the laws served to present the rulers, and their realms, as
part of a long tradition of Buddhist civilisation. They also explicitly
invoke the legacy of Songtsen Gampo and claim Buddhist origins. This
would have resonated with Tibetan historical narratives, which claimed
that law-making had been an activity of the early emperors, who made
religious laws (chos khrims) to replace the sinful, royal laws (rgyal
khrims) (Stein 1986). The fourteenth century Padma bka’i thang
(Toussaint 1933: 269–72), for example, includes a series of verses
describing the activities of Tri Song Detsen (Khri Srong lde btsan) and
how he asked for the dharma to be brought from India. It describes a
declaration (bka’ khrims) to the effect that he was king and protector of
religion, and supplemented the royal law (the golden yoke and heavy
ingot) with religious law (which was like a silken knot, soft and sacred).
The claims in these narratives are far from consistent, but they general-
ly assert imperial Buddhist origins for Tibetan law. Given this, as well
as the prevailing ideology of harmony between the religious and the
political, any Tibetan ruler would have had to claim Buddhist origins
for a law-code, particularly one containing harsh punishments.12

THE CODES IN PRACTICE

Copies of the zhal lce were reproduced and distributed around Tibet: as
well as the copies from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there are

12 The document written in 1653/55, containing thirteen of the laws, was described
as the mchod yon nyi zla zung gi khrims yig (laws relating to the donor/donee,
sun/moon) (Ishihama 1993; van der Kuijp 1999). It contains a narrative asserting that
Tibet is the land of Avalokitevara and discusses the relationship between the Dalai
Lamas and the “kings” (Mongolian rulers). This could be regarded as an implicit rep-
resentation of the principle of chos srid zung ’brel.
 WHO WERE THE TIBETAN LAWMAKERS? 173

references to their being in the possession of district officials, includ-

ing in Sakya, which had remained semi-independent into the twentieth
century, and Sikkim, which was essentially an independent kingdom
from the mid-seventeenth century (White 1894; Macdonald 1932;
Dawa Norbu 1974). Chandra Das (1902: 1068) in his dictionary
describes the zhal lce as “enactments in force in Tibet”.
A code created in the seventeenth century—quite possibly based on
a fourteenth-century precedent—was, therefore, being distributed and
described as Tibetan law into the twentieth century. However, with its
rather confusing, inconsistent, and precise provisions for compensation,
it could hardly have been the practical basis for judicial practice.
Indeed, there is no evidence that these codes were ever referred to in
detail by the judges. There were courts in Lhasa and other urban cen-
tres, although no professional judges (Kapstein 2006: 191). Documents
record their activities, from which it is evident that petitioners would
bring their cases to Lhasa officials if they had failed to obtain what they
saw as justice locally, although these officials also seem to have been
reluctant to decide cases, preferring to send them back to regional offi-
cials or the aristocratic rulers of the estates in which they had originat-
ed (Cassinelli and Ekvall 1969: 92–93; Schuh 1984: 227; Pirie 2007:
165–66). Nevertheless, these officials did, at times, preside over a set-
tlement. Dawa Norbu (1974), for example, discusses what he calls “the
law’s delays” in Sakya: there was an ornately bound copy of the zhal
lce in the courtroom, which was ceremoniously consulted on delicate
points of procedure by the judges, but only the highest officers had
access to it. There is no evidence that any of its substantive laws were
ever applied (Cassinelli and Ekvall 1969: Ch. 6). As Schuh (1984:
305–306) describes, the overriding principle seems to have been one of
agreement between the parties and it was never the case that the judge
imposed a legal solution on the parties.
The parallels with the Golok codes are obvious. Reference to the
zhal lce by government officers might well have been made for rhetor-
ical purposes, and as a source of legitimacy, in a way not too dissimi-
lar to the Golok mediators’ and xhombos’ use of their code. We should
not think in terms of their practical use and application, that is, at least
not without direct evidence. Rather, we should think in terms of what
the codes represented and how they might have been invoked.
174 FERNANDA PIRIE

LEGALISM AND LITERARY STYLE

An important, often overlooked, aspect of the zhal lce, is the legalistic

provisions, including the minor decrees and lists of weights and meas-
ures found in the accompanying texts. Other documents written in the
early decades of the Ganden Podrang government also contain detailed,
precise, and legalistic provisions for the conduct of government offi-
cials: the Fifth Dalai Lama established seating rules for officials; and
in 1681 the Regent Desi Sangye Gyatso issued a document containing
twenty-one rules and a myriad of sub-rules for the behaviour and com-
petence of government officials, making fine distinctions about grades
of officials, salaries, qualities of food, and serving dishes (Cüppers
1997). As discussed in relation to the Golok code, the regularising aims
of legal codes have been noted widely in texts from the ancient world
onwards. The authors can be regarded as presenting the rulers, their
offices, and laws as the foundation of regularity and order within their
polities.
Both texts also contain maxims, metaphors, and aphorisms, employ-
ing a quite different literary style. Several of the laws begin with a
metaphorical statement, often in poetic form, and often apparently
obscure, even to Tibetans. The law on the conduct of judges contains
the following:13
The judge should be as spotless as the moon holding the hare and be seen
and accessible to everyone. It is said that when the light of truth shines
the light of falsehood vanishes. First of all according to evidence, it
should be ascertained whether the parties are equals, if they are not there
should be no interrogation (between them).
Another begins as follows:
Burn the malicious (prickly) thorn in the fire of law and by the sap of the
cloud of law let the earth be turned into a fertile one, so that the harvest
thereon may be prosperous. Therefore arrest them that lodge a complaint
and violate the law knowingly by striking with weapons.

13 The following quotes are based on the manuscript translation in the British
Library (see footnote 9).
 WHO WERE THE TIBETAN LAWMAKERS? 175

They contrast with other laws that contain precise punishments and
provisions, sometimes attributing them to “former laws” or Chinese
penalties. In the law on murder, for example, it is said:
In the case of murder among priests the property of the murderer should
be confiscated and used for the purpose of charity and the murdered
should be banished from the place. In the case of the murder of a king or
lama [...] impose a penalty of 120 sang (srang) and a fine of 12 sang.
There are 6 different penalties [...].
One government sang is equal to one score of barley, two score of bar-
ley are equal to one score of butter. Two sang are equal to five gold sang
and five silver sang[...]. The release penalty is realised in three parts, one
third in gold and silver, one third in horse, cattle and armour, and the rest
in other articles of insignificant value.
The difference in tone and language is striking. The aphorisms are lit-
erary, complex, suggestive, and allusive, unlike the precise, explicit,
and straightforward legalism of what we might call the substantive con-
tent of the rules. The readers are being directed to act (legally) in spe-
cific ways, but also inspired to act (morally) through metaphor and allu-
sion.
In other ways, the two sets of laws are quite different, indicating the
very different social contexts in which they were created. The zhal lce,
as befits a ruler (or rulers) setting out to centralise his government, are
directed at government officials, principally stipulating the ways in
which they should conduct the judicial aspects of their administration.
The penal nature of these laws was quite possibly inspired by the
Chinese law-codes, which were overwhelmingly penal in nature
(MacCormack 1996). The Golok codes, by contrast, are clearly
designed for mediators acting with a tribal context, concerned with the
conduct of feuding and antagonism between warlike tribespeople, and
with the ways in which truces can be negotiated, compensation negoti-
ated, honour satisfied, and peace restored.

CONCLUSIONS

The Golok code embodies a combination of authorial influences, pur-

poses, and aspirations. These include regulation and regularisation,
reflected in their legalism. The texts also make use of aphorisms, max-
ims, and metaphors, evoking general moral principles. They can be
176 FERNANDA PIRIE

read, in part, as an assertion, by the xhombo, of their status, of the rela-

tions of loyalty that bind them to their tribespeople, and their participa-
tion in the wider, historic, Buddhist civilisation of Tibet. All these ele-
ments might usefully be explored in relation to the zhal lce, whether
they were created under Changchub Gyaltsen, or substantially written
by the Fifth Dalai Lama, as well as the texts distributed later under the
Ganden Podrang government. The zhal lce contain penal laws and
ostensibly aim to regulate and regularise, but they also appeal to histo-
ry, religion, and precedent, implicitly presenting the Ganden Podrang
government as successor to earlier Tibetan polities, and the Dalai
Lamas as heirs to the legacy of Songtsen Gampo.
It would be a mistake to think we might find a single style or set of
principles we can call “Tibetan law”. The substance of these two sets
of codes reflects the very different social and political dynamics of
their contexts. However, looking beyond the content, their distinctive
mixture of styles—legalistic and aphoristic—provides some clue to the
ways in which Tibetans, over a wide area, and separated by several cen-
turies, may have thought about the nature and purpose of their laws.

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 RECAPTURING RUNAWAYS, OR ADMINISTRATION
THROUGH CONTRACT: THE 1830 COVENANT (GAN RGYA) ON
KOTAPA TAX EXILES AND SIKKIMESE
BORDER REGIONS1

SAUL MULLARD

INTRODUCTION

Runaway mi ser were an issue of concern to the authorities of Tibetan

societies. For example, as Jeannine Bischoff shows in her paper in this
volume, a sharp rise in runaways in 1889 had serious consequences: the
inability of estate lords to pay their taxes to the government. If, there-
fore, we accept the American sociologist and historian Charles Tilly’s
view that one of the principal functions of a state is to extract tax (Tilly
2006: 419), the reduction of tax revenue resulting from runaways should
have been something that “Tibetan” states took seriously. This is appar-
ent in Sikkim from a number of administrative documents, including
the document which is the subject of this paper: a covenant which
recounts the events surrounding the recapture of the head of an aristo-
cratic family and his runaway taxpayers (see figure 1). As has been
noted elsewhere (Mullard and Wongchuk 2010: 4–10), tax collection in
Sikkim was largely the responsibility of hereditarily appointed offi-

1 I would like to thank Dr Hissey Wongchuk for his help and assistance during the
time this paper was researched. Particular thanks go to him for his assistance in editing
the Tibetan text of the 1830 Covenant cited in this paper. I would also like to thank
Jenny Bentley for giving me access to the Nepali documents collected in Ilam regard-
ing the Kotapa branch of the Barfung clan, and to Rajen Upadyay (Namchi College-
Sikkim University) for translating them and other works in Nepali. Thanks also to
Christoph Cüppers for his comments and suggestions on the Tibetan document and
translation, and to Alice Travers and Fabienne Jagou for their comments on earlier
drafts of this paper.
2 The majority of Sikkimese estates were controlled by hereditary lords, though
there were of course royal estates, and five monastic estates in pre-modern Sikkim.
There also existed an intermediate group of people who acted as estate managers, sub-
divisional rdzong dpon, and smaller scale tax collectors of the bcu dpon, rgya dpon,
and spyi dpon (pronounced pyipön in Sikkim), and lding dpon rank. See Mullard and
Wongchuk 2010 for a summary of the ranks of administrative officials in Sikkim.
180 SAUL MULLARD

cials,2 who formed a group in Sikkimese society that can be regarded

as an elite class. In the present paper this class is defined as “the aris-
tocracy” or “nobility” of Sikkim in that they resemble Marc Bloch’s
definition of the nobility as a group with “a legal status of its own,
which confirms and makes effectual the superiority to which it lays
claim” (Bloch 2005 [1961]: 1). To be an aristocratic class according to
Bloch, inheritance and wealth are not enough, there also needs to be a
legal underpinning (ibid.). In pre-modern Sikkim this is contained in
several documents such as La sogs rgyal rabs (which defines the rela-
tionships between the monarch and the aristocracy and the aristocracy
and the commoners) as well as in individual land grants, which not only
grant land but also privileges to the recipients. In addition and over time
the families that made up the Sikkimese aristocracy were also defined
by the titles of minister or lord (blon, yap [yar po], and yug, or a mthing
for Lepchas) and, under the British, kazi.
These families controlled significant areas and wielded immense
political, social and economic power both within the Sikkimese state
but also amongst the common people bound to their estates. The kings
(or chos rgyal) of Sikkim were not absolute rulers but were in fact rel-
atively weak, with their ability to exercise power in the kingdom large-
ly dependent upon the tacit consent of the nobility. As a result Sikkim’s
history is characterised by the negotiation between the kings with high
status and theoretical/legal power on the one hand, and the dependence
of the kings on the real economic and political power of the aristocra-
cy on the other. The document which is the subject of this paper is an
interesting example of this relationship, in which the Sikkimese state’s
interest in preventing the removal of taxpayers from Sikkim can be
identified and understood on several different levels. This paper, there-
fore, addresses both the issues of taxation and territory on the one hand
and the negotiation of power and the loyalty of the aristocracy and elite
to the king on the other. These two broad themes are explored through
a covenant or gangya (gan rgya) enacted in 1830 as a result of the
Kotapa (Ko tā pa) insurrection, which began in 1826. For the sake of
this paper and its readers the gangya has been given the title of “The
1830 Covenant on tax exiles and Sikkimese border regions”
(PD/1.2/004).3 This paper is divided in order to illustrate the Sikkimese

3 This refers to the document number in the catalogue of the Sikkimese Palace
Archives. See Mullard and Wongchuk (2010) for details.
 RECAPTURING RUNAWAYS 181

background to the Kotapa dispute and the presentation of the covenant

which, when placed in its historical context, provides important
insights into the themes of taxation, territorial security, loyalty, and the
negotiation of power between the king and the elite.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

In 1826 the Sikkimese Chancellor, Bolhö (Bo lhod aka: rNam rgyal
phun tshogs),4 along with his wife and son, were executed by order of
the seventh Chögyal (chos rgyal) of Sikkim—Tsugphü Namgyal
(gTsug phud rnam rgyal). The execution was, most likely, an attempt to
wrest back power from the Barfung (’Bar spung, Lepcha: Barfung)5
family, who had ruled Sikkim for eighty-three years, and re-establish
the political authority of the Namgyal dynasty. This dramatic and vio-
lent change in Sikkimese politics had, as Sprigg rightly noted (Sprigg
1995: 89–90), a number of unintended consequences, which had an
impact upon the financial and political security of the Sikkimese state.
One such consequence was the rebellion of the Kotapa, or Ilam branch,
of the Barfung clan,6 which in turn threatened the security of tax rev-
enue from the Kotapa estates, which included areas in Vijaypur,
Chainpur, Ilam, Darjeeling (Kurseong [Gar rdzong] and Nagri jong
[Nag ri rdzong]), and the Sikkimese plains estates (rgya gzhis) from
which the majority of Sikkim’s tax revenue originated. Whilst the
Kotapa rebellion has been studied by a number of Nepalese historians,7
original and primary Sikkimese sources have not been used.
Unfortunately, this omission has led to serious errors in the Nepalese

4 In order to assist those readers familiar with Tibetan, Tibetan words appear in
Wylie transliteration after the first appearance of the word. To aid those readers unfa-
miliar with Tibetan, all names have been rendered in a phonetic transliteration.
5 This family is called Barfung on account that they are members of the Lepcha
Barfungmo clan. This name is frequently rendered in Tibetan as ’Bar spung, though
other orthographic representations can be found such as: Bar phungs, Ba’ pung, and
’Ba’ phungs. This name should not be confused with Barmiok (’Bar myag), a place in
South Sikkim and estate of the Barmiok Kazis, a sub-branch of the Barfung family. The
eldest member of the Barfung family is considered the head of the clan and is respon-
sible for the completion of annual clan rituals. This is currently Barmiok Rinpoche
Tashi Densapa, the middle son of the last Barmiok Kazi T. D. Densapa (conversation
with Barmiok Rinpoche, April 2013).
6 They are most probably so named after Kota in modern eastern Nepal.
7 See Bajracharya and Shrestha 1978, Manandhar 1983, and Mishra 2012.
182 SAUL MULLARD

works, in which the complex political context of the Nepal-Sikkim

frontier has been, if not ignored then at least, misunderstood. In those
Nepalese works the border seems fixed and the dispute has been under-
stood only within the context of the international relations of Nepal
(with very few attempts at understanding the conflict from the
Sikkimese side). Instead these borderlands were defined more by
shared and multiple relationships of power, authority, and the shifting
loyalties of local leaders than (nation) state control and administration.
The Kotapa episode, therefore, needs to be understood in the political,
economic, and social environment of the frontier on the one hand and
the needs of the states of Nepal and Sikkim to extend control over that
frontier, on the other (Mullard forthcoming).
In order to both understand the Kotapa dispute and the 1830
covenant we need to be aware of the wider historical background of
Sikkim. In 1736 the fourth Sikkimese king Gyurme Namgyal (’Gyur
med rnam rgyal) died issueless and without naming a successor to the
throne. This crisis led to the Second War of Succession,8 involving two
rival factions in the Sikkimese court: Tamdin (rendered rTa mgrin in
the ’Bras ljongs rgyal rabs)—the Sikkimese Chancellor (phyag
mdzod)9—and Gawang Barfungpa (Gar dbang), a Lepcha descendant
of the second king’s illegitimate son (see simplified genealogy of the
Barfung clan below). Tamdin, on account of his position as chancellor
and a member of the Tongde ru zhi (stong sde ru/s bzhi)10—the group
of Lho po or Tibeto-Sikkimese clans to which the first Sikkimese kings
belonged—claimed the Sikkimese throne for himself. He ruled Sikkim
well into the 1740s. Meanwhile, Garwang made the claim that there was
indeed an heir to the Sikkimese throne, who had been born after the
death of Gyurme Namgyal to a nun from Sang-nga Chöling (gSang
sngags chos gling) in western Sikkim. This child, named Namgyal
Phuntshog, was taken by Garwang and his father, Gyatso Barfungpa

8 For details on The First War of Succession see Mullard 2011: 162–65.
9 Normally the title of phyag mdzod is translated as treasurer. In Sikkim, however,
the phyag mdzod was more than just a minister of finance: he had an important execu-
tive function and was the main minister responsible for the rule of the country. As a
result the title of chancellor (in its mediaeval English sense) seems quite appropriate.
There were three main ministers of state in Sikkim: phyag mdzod, mgron gnyer (Lord
Chamberlain), and drung yig chen mo (Chief Secretary).
10 For arguments regarding the meaning of this term and its connection to the
administration of imperial Tibet, see Mullard 2011: 73–78.
 RECAPTURING RUNAWAYS 183

(rGya mtsho ’Bar spung pa), into exile in Bhutan.11 Garwang or, more
likely, his father, then led the army against Tamdin and ultimately
defeated him. Following this Rabden Sharpa (Rab brtan shar pa) was,
according to “The Testimony of the Barfung clan”, enthroned as king
of Sikkim by the Tibetan government,12 though the authors of ’Bras
ljongs rgyal rabs claim that Rabden Sharpa was only a Tibetan deput-
ed to act as regent during the minority of Namgyal Phuntshog.
Whatever political role Rabden Sharpa may have held, it is clear that
the actual administration of Sikkim fell to Garwang and his father as
heads of the lay council.13 Following this, though the precise date is
unclear, Garwang and his father, as rulers of Sikkim brought the illegit-
imate king back to Sikkim, where he was enthroned.14 The role of
Garwang and his father in this period does seem to suggest that the
political administration of Sikkim remained in the hands of the Barfung
family, and through their control and influence over the king, reduced
Namgyal Phuntshog to little more than a puppet ruler.
As Chancellor, Garwang dispossessed the allies of Tamdin of their
estates and redistributed the land amongst his children: ensuring the
dominance of the Barfung family in Sikkimese politics.15 By the time
of Garwang’s death, sometime after 1774, his eldest son—who had
been appointed governor of Barmiok (’Bar myag)—inherited his
father’s position as the Royal regent of Sikkim, granted the title of

11 Garwang wrote a testimony toward the end of his life when he was accused of
abusing his position. This is preserved in parts in “The Testimony of the Barfung clan:
an account of the life and times of the ancestors” (document number PD/9.5/003) in the
Sikkimese Palace Archives. According to the chronology of The History of Sikkim, it
seems likely that Garwang died sometime after the birth of the sixth king Tenzin
Namgyal in 1769 (Namgyal and Dolma 1908: 45). For details of the exile of Namgyal
Phuntsog, see “The Testimony of the Barfung clan: an account of the life and times of
the ancestors” (PD/9.5/003). It states: “At the time of the controversy regarding whether
Namgyal Phuntsog was the king’s son or not my father and I took responsibility for the
child [...] thereafter the king was escorted to Bhutan”.
12 ibid.: “Rabden Sharpa was enthroned as the Sikkimese king by the Tibetan gov-
ernment”.
13 ibid.: “Within the year, for the purpose of reuniting all the Lho pa and Lepcha, I
took the leadership of the public council”.
14 ibid.: “Furthermore, in consultation and with help from the Bhutanese govern-
ment, it was necessary to escort the prince here and as my father and I had the respon-
sibility [for Sikkim] the prince was enthroned as the king”.
15 The allies of Tamdin included the ancestor of Lobsang Choeden, an assistant to
J.C. White. This family remained without land until 1889 when Lobsang Choeden was
given the estate of Lingmo for services rendered to the British.
184 SAUL MULLARD

Densap (gdan tshab) and ruled Sikkim until his brother Chugthub
(Phyog thub) was appointed Chancellor in the 1780s. Following the
Sino-Nepal War (1788–1792), Chugthub was granted estates in modern
Rhenock (Ri nag)—the eastern border region between Bhutan, Sikkim,
and Tibet—by the Tibetan government and Damzang (Dam bzang)—
near modern Kalimpong—by the Bhutanese for his efforts during the
war. Chugthub then retired to his estates, and the position of Chancellor
was passed on to his younger brother Yug Namcha (Yug gnam lcags),
who had also led the northern armies against the Gorkha during the
war. The chancellorship was then passed on to Yug Namcha’s youngest
brother Bolhö, whose real name was Namgyal Phuntshog.
During this period we have considerable information regarding the
Barfung family but when it comes to the lives of the Sikkimese kings,
most documents are conspicuously silent.16 It can be concluded that the
influence of both the fifth and sixth kings was limited by the power and
control exerted upon them by successive members of the Barfung fam-
ily. We know, for example, that the sixth king was married to
Garwang’s youngest daughter and that once his heir (Tshugphü
Namgyal) had reached an age (8) that the risk of infant mortality had
passed, the sixth king Tenzin Namgyal (bsTan ’dzin rnam rgyal) died in
mysterious circumstances aged only 24. The care of the child king,
Tshugphü Namgyal, was entrusted to his maternal uncle—Chancellor
Bolhö—probably as an attempt to maintain Barfung control over the
Sikkimese royalty and state. However, when Tshugphü Namgyal
became of age he challenged the traditional authority of his uncle and
the Barfung clan, leading to the execution of Bolhö in 1826.
Responding to the assassination of their paternal uncle, the sons of Yug
Kunga (known as Ko t kun dga’ in Sikkimese sources)17—that is the

16 It should be noted that this period in Sikkimese history is characterised by a

number of difficulties, which cast considerable doubt over the traditional histories of
Sikkim. Not least amongst these is the fact that there are numerous references to
Namgyal Phuntshog though it is unclear whether this refers to Garwang’s son (other-
wise known as Bolhö) or the shadowy figure of the fifth Sikkimese king, whose legit-
imacy is, at the very least, doubtful. In addition the only sources that ascertain the exis-
tence of this king are the royal histories of Sikkim and the biography of Garwang, writ-
ten in 1759.
17 Ko ta here refers to the estates in Ilam. Yug is a Lepcha title meaning lord or sov-
ereign, which was given to Lepcha aristocrats. It is unclear why his name is rendered
with a d in Nepali (which became represented in British sources as “ta”) rather than a
“ga”, which would be closer to the Tibetan rendering of his name.
 RECAPTURING RUNAWAYS 185

Yu-kang-ta of British sources18 or the Ikunda/Yekunda of Nepali

sources19—rebelled against Tshugphü Namgyal, leading an armed
insurrection in western Sikkim, Darjeeling and the plains estates.
Some clarification of this family and its possessions is necessary for
understanding the importance of this rebellion for the economic and
political security of Sikkim. Yug Kunga (who was the elder brother of
Bolhö) had fought alongside his other brothers (Yug Nam cha’ and Yug
Chugthub) in the Sino-Nepal War of 1788–1792 and then later in the
Anglo-Gorkha War of 1814–1816. In the Sikkimese theatre of the Sino-
Nepal War he was active in the regions of Nagri (Nag ri rdzong, now in
the Darjeeling Hills), Ilam, and the North Bengal plains, which were
his patrimonial estates.20 Although the Gorkhas finally took the fort of
Nagri in 1791, they were unable to hold it and pacify the region, so
between 1792 and 1814 this region returned to the administration of
Yug Kunda (Hamilton 1819: 123). A land grant to Yug Kunda on Aswin
Sudi 12, V.S. 1868 (1811 AD) confirms this:
To Yekunda, blessings, we are aware of your efforts and your honest
services in our cause. Accordingly, we hereby assign you six annas in
each rupee of land taxes (wajbi malguzari) collected in the hill and plain
areas of Sikkim that you have settled. We also hereby place under your
jurisdiction the gola of Dimali and the village settled with Dhimal ryots.
In addition, we have granted jagir lands to 21 peons (ardali) to work
under you day and night whenever required for our purposes. Transmit
the income from fines collected for major crimes (panchakhat), buried
treasure (kalyanadhana), and other sources (undanta, gadanta, rahā,
bahata) to the royal palaces through the amali. (Translated in the Regmi
Research Collection, vol. 40, 246–47)
The only change that seems to have occurred was that the tax revenue
from these lands was being paid towards the Gorkha kings rather than
the Sikkimese. To complicate matters further Yug Kunga had rights in
1805 to settle forest lands and then collect the taxes from those lands in

18 See Hamilton 1819: 122–23.

19 See for example Sharma and Tulasi 1996: 53. Here Ikunda is misrepresented as
Bolhö, a mistake which has also been reproduced in Tirtha Mishra 2012.
20 The development of the influence of the Namgyal kings in Ilam and the Terai is
quite complicated and not fully understood. This being said, there was a degree of
involvement with this region from the reign of the first Namgyal king, when the influ-
ence of the Hindupatti kings of Vijaypur in the hills was curtailed by Phuntshog
Namgyal (Phun tshogs rnam rgyal). Since that time the Barfung family have held
important positions in those regions.
186 SAUL MULLARD

Chainpur (modern Sankhuwasabha District) and parts of Vijaypur as is

attested to in a document dated Jestha Sudi 4, VS. 1862 (1805 AD):
Ikunda has been granted permission to reclaim Kalabanjar lands in
Vijayapur and Chainpur with settlers procured from Tibet and India, on
condition that he appropriates for himself six annas in the rupee of the
additional revenue collected and transmits the balance of ten annas to the
government through the Dittha. (Translated in the Regmi Research
Collection, vol. 6, 154–55)
This meant that by the end of the Anglo-Gorkha War and the defining
(but not demarcation) of the boundary between Nepal and Sikkim
along the Mechi River, Yug Kunga was responsible for territory and tax
revenue to both Sikkim (everything east of the Mechi) and Nepal (parts
of Chainpur and Vijaypur as well as parts of Ilam). It was this position
of dual overlordship which most likely would have worried the
Sikkimese king Tshugphü Namgyal when the sons of Yug Kunga, led
by Yug Drathub (Yug dGra thub), rebelled; particularly given the fact
that this plains territory provided the bulk of Sikkimese tax revenue.
The tax revenue and administration of the plains estates (or rgya
gzhis) are currently the subject of an ongoing project, and so without
presuming the findings of that project it may be useful to explain the
importance of this region. Since the early years of the Sikkimese state,
the kings of Sikkim coveted the plains for their wealth in terms of agri-
cultural production, trade and slaves. This desire to control the plains
brought Sikkim into conflict with the Hindupati rulers of Vijaypur
beginning with Harihar Sena, who ruled from 1661 to 1684 and who,
according to “The Testimony of the Barfung clan”, was defeated by the
first Sikkimese king. Later (around 1761) the Barfung family were
involved in the political intrigue of the court of Vijaypur, where they
supported Buddhi Karna Rai in his coup against king Kama Datta Sen.
The result was that the Barfung family had managed to acquire not only
the annual tribute of Vijaypur, but also some degree of control of the
plains immediately to the south of the low hills of Pankhabari
(Darjeeling district).21 Three forts were built on the hills just above the
plains at (what is now) Mirik, Nagri, and Kurseong (Gar rdzong) and
two trading houses were built on the banks of the Mahananda River in

21 “The Testimony of the Barfung clan” reads: “a good relationship between the
king and minister [of Vijaypur] was made, and so they fell under our authority. As such
whatever annual tribute items, that were received, were recorded in the register”.
 RECAPTURING RUNAWAYS 187

the plains.22 From these vantage points the Barfung were able to extract
taxes and slaves23 from the Rajabanshi people living on the plains and
control the vital gold trade. The gold trade must have been quite impor-
tant to the economy of the area as there remains a historical memory of
it amongst the inhabitants of the area. According to these respondents
it seems that in the past the Sonowal (a sub-tribe of the Kachari of
Assam and Koch Bihar) panned for gold in the Brahmaputra River,
from where they would then take the gold dust to a place near modern
Salugara (close to Siliguri) on the Mahananda River. There the Lepcha
would collect the gold dust from the Sonowal people and trade it in
Nepal and other places.24 Even excluding the potential wealth from this
trade the tax records from the 1840s for the plains estates show that the
annual tax revenue on agricultural products amounted to Rs. 26,000—
a huge sum by the standards of the times. Therefore whoever controlled
this region would have had immense political and economic power. In
1826 this region was the inherited estate of the Kotapa branch of the
Barfung family.

THE TEXT OF THE 1830 COVENANT ON TAX EXILES AND BORDER REGIONS

Transliteration of the Covenant (PD/1.2/004)25

1. lcags stag zla 11 tshes 21 la_ phan bde’i ’byung gnas lugs gnyis gong
ma khrim26 bdag rin po’i zhabs drung du zhu gsol

2. zhu ba_ bdag ming rtags khungs gsham gsal nas blos blang27 ’gyur
med kyi gan

22 The “Testimony” does seem to suggest that the control of the trading houses was
not complete during this period for example: “The traders from the plains estate of
’Gying stole pigs, tobacco, cloth, etc. but they were apprehended [by the Barfung] and
so Chog pa set fire to the government trading post and whatever trade goods that were
there were taken by [him]”.
23 According to a respondent close to the former ruling Rikut family of Jaipalguri,
the Sikkimese regularly raided Koch Bihar for slaves until the principality became a
protectorate of British India in the late nineteenth century.
24 Interview with respondent B.A. 16 May 2013.
25 The transliteration of this text is unedited with major corrections in footnotes.
The use of the underscore represents a space in the original text.
26 khrims.
27 blangs.
188 SAUL MULLARD

3. brgya28 gtsang mar phul snying_ sngon du ’bras ljongs yug rnams
rgyal phun tshogs zer ba nas rgyal blon bar go bab gyi bka’ khrims khur
shes med khar sa mtshams dkrog rkyen lta bu’i

4. byed ’dzol sna tshogs byung bar rten rnams phun zer ba rgyal po nas
me khyi lo tshar gcod mdzad stab29_ kho pa’i nye ’brel yug dgra thub can
dang khong rtogs30 gyi khral pa ’bor
5. mi chung tsam skab31 der ’jig skrag rkyed pa’i gor kha rgyal po’i sa
khongs su yul byol la mthon bshis32_ mi ser de rnam33 ’bras ljongs rang
khungs su phyir log yod pa zhig thugs rje

6. che zhu’i bod gzhung Am ban lhan rgyas dang_ srid skyongs skyabs
mgon rgyal tshab no mi han chen po bcas rgya bod lhan rgyas su ’bras
ljongs rgyal po nas skyid rgyud gser snyan sgron tser

7. la brten_ rang khri’i sa mtshams byed sko’i zhabs ’degs su da phan

thud shor med pa’i zhabs ’gyur du dgongs_ bkrin phar gzigs kyi gor kha
rgyal por Am ban lhan rgyas kyi34 bka’ brgya tsal

8. ba’i me khyi lo ’bras ljongs pa’i mi ser yul byol du song ba de rnams_
’bras ljongs rang khung35 su phyir sprod bgyis tshe rgyal khag phan
mtshun legs tshogs che ba’i bka’i khyab

9. ’dom rtsal ba de ltar la_ gor rgyal nas kyang bka’ ’brel spyi khur gyi36
’bras ljongs mi ser yul byol pa rnam37 phyir ’bul zhu rgyu’i snyan zhu
’bul lam zhus pa’i_ ’bras mi

10. rnams skyid grong sa mtshams nas rtsis len byed par ding ri shu sbi
dang_ rgyal rtse ru dpon rdo rje dgra ’dul gnyis bka’ ’brel kyi mngags
rdzong38 rkyang pa’i mi ser rnam39 skyid grong du zla 10

28 rgya.
29 stabs.
30 Allies.
31 skabs.
32 bshis is a Sikkimese past tense indicator.
33 rnams.
34 kyis.
35 khungs.
36 gyis.
37 rnams.
38 rdzangs.
39 rnams.
 RECAPTURING RUNAWAYS 189

11. tshes 7 nyin rtsis len thog_ ru dpon rdo rje dgra ’dul mdun mgo pa
yug dgra thug dang_ g.yog gras nu mong bla ma_ de khying rgan mthus
de’u shing_ khong ma hang_ mdza’ ma na

12. ’byor rgyas_ hing dkar na_ A ling_ ma chen_ bde sa brjid_ rub
shing_ A dar bcas khyon sdom mi grang bcu gsum mnyam khrid thog _
zla 11 tshes 21 nyin ’bras ljongs dbang rtser rtsis sprod

13. gnang byung cing_ yul byol mi ser rnam40 la sngon nyes byed ’dzol
phran bu sems zhig gi snar bcod ’gal rkyen sogs mi zhu ba dang_ yul
byol pa rnams sngon kyi sdod gnas ga phig du

14. sngar rgyun ltar zhag pa’i_ yug dgra thub gyi thab ’degs kyang ko Ta
rdzong dpon rang gnas thog khos dpag zos go sngar lam ltar gnang rgyu
bcas_ sngon du rgya bod lhan rgyas su gan rgya rtags can ’bul

15. lam zhus don la rgyab mdun mi tshungs41 pa’i ’gal cha til ’bru tsam
mi zhu zhus cing_ yug dgra thub can khral mi rnam nas kyang sngar byas
la ’gyod sems dang_ da byed spang blang

16. gyi dpon ’bangs bar khral khrims khur shes kyi skam chung bsdong42
mkhas zhu ba las sa mtshams phyi rol du mgo rten lugs ’gal rigs da cha
rten nas mi zhu ba’i mtshon43_ mi khyi lo mnyams

17. mthon byas pa’i khral mi rnams ’bras ljongs rang khur su ri bong
tshang log zhu rgyu’i mgo pa yug dgra thub nas gan rgya zur zur ’bul
zhus nang ltar dang_ phyogs mtshungs blon rigs rnam44 nas kyang sngar
lugs

18. mig ltos shas rkyen du ma song ba’i rgyal blon go babs45 dang bstun
’bras ljongs sa mtshams zhabs ’degs ngag bkod dang len zhu rgyu sogs
la don gang spyi’i thad la rgyal blon dam gtsang gi mig

19. ltos yar mgran46 zhu ba las sngon yug rnams phun lta bu’i bka’
khrims chal rkyen su ’gro rigs drag gzhan su thad nas mi zhu ba bcas_
’bras ljongs rgyal blon khral mi bcas

40 rnams.
41 mtshungs.
42 sdod.
43 Prohibited.
44 rnams.
45 go bab.
46 ’dren.
190 SAUL MULLARD

20. tshangs ma’i thad nas gtso bor rang khung47 sa mtshams khag nas
thud shor med pa dang_ lhag par sa mtshams phyi rol du mgo rdren48 gyi
phyi dgra nang g.yab rgyal khag phan tshun bar dkrog rkyen

21. ’gro rigs sogs blo ngan sbub tshang gyi rigs rgyal ’bangs su thad nas
mi zhu zhus pa’i ’dod mthun gyi gan tshig gtsang ’bul zhus pa ’di don las
mi ’gal cing_ gal srid gong tshig las

22. ’gal ba’i nga min kho yin_ kha gcig lce gnyis_ dran49 gtam gsar
skye_ ri sgul mtsho skyom_ bka’ zhu dam phebs_ gken tsa50 phyogs
lang_ zhu tshem byung tshul sogs drag gzhan

23. su thad nas ’gal g.yon khra mo tsam shar tshe byed po so sor gong
ma chos51 yon gyi bka’ khrims dpyad gras rkyang ’os sogs so so’i ’gal
tshab la zhib pa’i zhu dgos thog_ khrims zhabs

24. rin po cher ’ba’ gser srang brgya tham pa shul bcas gtsang sgrub la
zhu re med pa dang_ slar yang bris dan ’di don la sor gnas brgyun khy-
ongs su zhu zhus pa’i don mi ’gyur ba’i mched rtags phul

25. ba ’bras ljongs sa spyod gtsug phug rnam rgyal gyis phyags rtags

26. gus blon phyag rdor khral mi bcas spyi lhag bskor gyi rtags_ blon
brag shar nam kha dbang ’dus khral mi bcas spyi lag

27. bskor gyi rtags rnams rdzong tshe ring rgya mtho dang khral mi bcas
spyi lag bskor ba’i rtags blon tshe gsum dang khral mi bcas spyi lag
bskor ba’i rtags_ sgang rdzong dpal ’byor dang khral mi spyi

28. lag bskor ba’i rtags_ yug A dum dang khral mi spyi lag bskor ba’i
rtags_ blon A chung dang khral mi spyi lag bskor ba’i rtags_ blon lha
brtan dang khral mi bcas spyi lag bskor ba’i

29. rtags_ shar blon phun tshogs rig ’dzin dang khral mi bcas lag bskor
ba’i rtags_ zhal rdzong bsod nams dgra ’dul dang khral mi bcas spyi lag
bskor ba’i rtags_ Am lam rdzong nag ril52 dang khral
47 khungs.
48 ’dren.
49 ’dran. It was brought to the attention of the author that in the phrase dran gtam
gsar skye [sic: bskyed] the dran gtam (= remembered [points of a] dispute) can be found
in different texts as ’gran gtam /’dran gtam = objections (personal communication with
Christoph Cüppers June 2013). He very kindly suggested the following translation
“coming up again with these old stories of the dispute”.
50 rkyen rtsa.
51 mchod.
 RECAPTURING RUNAWAYS 191

30. mi bcas spyi lag bskor ba’i rtags_ sgo gling rdzong yar tshes dang
khral mi bcas spyi lag bkor ba’i rtags_ bsam gling rdzong ’brug phun
tshogs dang khral mi bcas spyi lag bkor53 ba’i

31. rtags_ gsang54 rdzong sgrub chen dang khral mi bcas spyi lag skor
ba’i rtags_ sgar rdzong tshe ring dbang rgyal khral mi bcas spyi lag bskor
ba’i rtags_ ’bar nyag rdzong ’brug rgyas dang khral mi

32. bcas spyi lag bkor55 ba’i rtags_ zhal yang dgos spun lag bskor ba’i
rtags_ mgron lha chos drung sman chung rgya dpon ’bum thub_ pho
bdar bcas las tshan nang ma spyi lag bskor

33. ba’i rtags_ dmag dpon ’phris56 bzang po_ mgo las_ dpa’ shan_ hung
’bar bcas spyi lag bkor57 ba’i rtags_ tsam dum yang bcas spyi lag bskor
ba’i rtags_ rgya gzhi ’go pa ru mo_ mir

34. shing lag bskor ba’i rtags_ spyi dang gra tshang pad ma yang rtse’i
dbu mdzad bde chen klong grol bcas lha bde spyi’i rtags

Translation
Submitted on the 21st day of the 11th month of the Iron Tiger year (1830)
to the feet of the precious law holder who is master of the dual system
which is the source of happiness and benefit. The permanent covenant
has been submitted in honesty by those who have signed and sealed
below. Because there arose various forms of conflict [between the king
and ministers] like the agitation on the borders on account of the fact that
earlier Yug Namgyal Phuntshog disregarded the law of obligation
between the king and ministers, so in the Fire Dog year (1826) the king
defeated the one called Namgyal Phuntshog. This resulted in our rela-
tives Yug Drathub, his allies, taxpayers and exiles, fleeing, on account of
fear, to the land under the realm of the Gorkha king for a short period.
On account of that the Sikkimese king sent a letter, regarding the return-
ing of those mi ser to Sikkim, to the Chinese and Tibetan governments,
the Amban and the Tibetan regent Nom-un Qan [No mi Han]58 and it was
hoped that henceforth [the governments] would assist completely in pro-
tecting and maintaining the borders of the kingdom. The Amban, there-
fore, sent a letter to the Gorkha king regarding the repatriation of those

53 bskor.
54 bsang.
55 bskor.
56 Contraction of ’phrin las.
57 bskor.
58 The author would like to thank Fabienne Jagou for informing him that this is a
192 SAUL MULLARD

mi ser, who had fled in the year of the Fire Dog (1826), to Sikkim as a
means of maintaining the well being, prosperity and harmony between
the [two] countries. Even the Gorkha king has respected and obeyed the
order [of the Amban] and submitted a letter for the extradition of the
Sikkimese exiles from Kyirong (sKyid grong),59 within which [it says]
that Ding Ri Subba60 (Ding ri Shu sbi [sic]) and the colonel of Gyantse
Dorje Dradul (rDo rje dgra ’dul), who were deputed by order, were dis-
patched and the unemployed mi ser were rounded up and sent off from
Kyirong on the 7th day of the 10th month. Altogether thirteen people were
gathered and escorted in front of the colonel Dorje Dradul [including]:
the leader Yug Drathub, the servant Nu mong bla ma, De khying rgan
mThus, De’u shing, Khong ma hang [Limbu], mDza’ ma na, ’Byor
rgyas, Hing dkar na [Limbu], A ling, Ma chen, bDe sa brjid (Desajit),
Rub shing, A dar. On the 21st day of the 11th month the list [of these peo-
ple] was submitted to the Sikkimese palace of Wandutse (dBang sdus
rtse). The previous crimes of the exiled mi ser were forgiven and they
were not punished. Instead they were located in their previous lands of
Kabi (Ga phig). Even Yug Drathub was appointed to his previous posi-
tion, in his ancestral estate, as governor of Kota. No violation or contra-
diction, no matter how small, shall be committed against the letter or
spirit of the signed and sealed reconciliation document submitted earli-
er, to the Tibetan and Chinese governments.
Even the taxpayers of Yug Drathub regret their previous actions and
from now on one must be able to remain [in their place], be competent
in following the tax laws and dedicated to fostering a good relation
between lord and subject; and from now onwards it is prohibited to lead
[people] to the external borders as per the internal points of the agree-
ment made by the leader, Yug Drathub, of the taxpayers who had fled in
the Fire Dog year (1826) and who returned to their previous places in
Sikkim, like a rabbit returning to its den. Similarly regarding whatever
general concerns there may be; such as: following the oral instructions

title of Mongol origin given by Manchu emperors to high Lamas and for her informa-
tion regarding the regent at the time the covenant was composed (Fabienne Jagou per-
sonal communication). Jagou also informed the author that in this case the use of the
title refers to the second Tsemonling (Tshe smon gling) regent (1819–1844), who inher-
ited his titles from the First Tsemonling Regent (1777–1786). Prior to becoming regent
he was the preceptor of the Manchu Emperor for more than ten years in Beijing. When
he was appointed regent in 1777, the Emperor granted him with the title Erdeni Nom-
un qan (Petech 1959: 383–88).
59 It is not clear whether Kyirong (sKyid grong) was at this time under the nominal
authority of the Gorkhas, though it was certainly a region of Gorkha interest as
Geoffrey Childs has shown in his study of the history of Nub ri sKyid grong was occu-
pied in the war between Tibet and Nepal in 1855 but was returned to Tibet by Jung
Bahadur after the peace agreements of 1856 (Childs 2001: 19).
60 Dingri (Ding ri) is a town in southern Tibet close to the Sino-Nepalese border
and mount Everest.
 RECAPTURING RUNAWAYS 193

regarding the protection of Sikkim’s borders and the rights and respon-
sibilities between the king and his ministers, of which the earlier exam-
ple [i.e. Yug Drathub] should not be forgotten; the high and low people
cannot break those laws, like in the previous case of Yug Namgyal
Phuntshog. Instead the good example, that is the sacred vow between the
king and ministers, should be followed.
All of Sikkim’s population including taxpayers, ministers, and royal-
ty should not give up the protection of their own country’s border
regions. Especially they shall not violate the pure covenant that was
made in which all the subjects of Sikkim vow not to act deceitfully by
creating disturbance between different countries such as leading the
external enemies inside. If one violates the abovementioned agreement
and [instead of accepting the charge] blames another, is two faced, comes
up again with the old stories [of the dispute], [or] is disruptive,61 if gov-
ernment justice is requested [in those cases] the accused whether they be
high or low, or have only slightly violated [the covenant], a full examina-
tion of the violation of the laws of the highest patron and spiritual lord
[will be carried out], and each person who violates the laws must pay
clearly the fine of 100 gold srang to the lord of the law without excuses
and delays. In addition to that, seals and signatures have been submitted
[as verification] that the fundamental point of this [law], which has been
written, will spread in perpetuity.
The Sikkimese king (gTsug phud rnam rgyal [sic]).
The sign and seal of the humble minister Chagdor (Phyag rdor)
together with his taxpayers.
The minister Dragshar (Brag shar [sic]) Namkha Wangdu (Nam
mkha’ dbang ’dus) together with his taxpayers (Yangthang Kazi).
The seal of the district governor of Namchi (Nam rtse [sic]) Tshering
Gyatsho (Tshe ring rgya mtsho) together with his taxpayers.
The minister Tshesum (Tshe gsum) together with his taxpayers.
The district governor of Gangtok Paljor (dPal ’byor) together with his
taxpayers.
Cheebu Lama (Yug A dum) together with his taxpayers.
Minister Achung (A chung) [of Tateng] together with his taxpayers.
The minister Lha Tenzin (Lha bstan) together with his taxpayers.
Sharlön Phuntshog Ringzin (Shar blon Phun tshogs rig ’dzin) togeth-
er with his taxpayers.
The district governor of Zhey Sonam Dradul (Zhal rdzong dpon bSod
nams dgra ’dul) together with his taxpayers.
Ilam and Nagri districts together with the taxpayers.
The upper part of Goling (sGo gling) district together with the taxpay-
ers

61 ri sgul mtsho skyom: literarily “shaking the mountains and disturbing the lakes”.
194 SAUL MULLARD

The district governor of Samling (bSam gling), Drug Phuntshog

(’Brug phun tshogs) together with his taxpayers.
The district governor of Sang (gSang [sic]) Drubchen (sGrub chen)
together with his taxpayers.
The district governor of Kurseong (sGar [rdzong]) Tshering Wangyal
(Tshe ring dbang rgyal) together with his taxpayers.
The district governor of Barmiok (’Bar nyag [sic]) Drugyal (’Brug
rgyal) together with his taxpayers.
Anggö of Zhey (Zhal Ang dgos) and his brothers.
The sign of the manager Lhachö (lHa chos), the attendant Menchung
(sMan chung), the captain Bumthub (’Bum thub), with the Phodar (tax
collectors) and all the government officials.
The military officer Thinley Zangpo (’Phrin las bzang po) and Golay
(mGo las), Parshan, Hungbar, and Dumyang.
The sign of the leaders of the plains estates Rumo (Ru mo) and
Mishing (Mir shing).
The sign of the general witness the provost (dbu mdzad) of
Pemayangtse (Padma g.yang rtse), Dechen Longdrol (bDe chen klong
grol) with the general ecclesiastic council.

Remarks on the text

The covenant can be clearly understood as a response to the flight of
Yug Drathub and his taxpayers from the jurisdiction of Sikkim, and the
border issues and the international diplomatic problems that arose
because of those actions, following the execution of Chancellor Bolhö
in 1826. These developments are considered acts of rebellion, not only
against the king, but also against the tradition of master and servants
(dpon g.yog). This system was defined in The Royal Genealogy of
Lasso (La sogs rgyal rabs) in 1657, and later ratified by the signing of
the Agreement of the three [communities of] the Bhutia, Lepcha and
Limbu (lHo mon gtsong gsum gyi gan rgya) agreement in 1663,62 in
which major clan leaders, ministers, and regional chiefs agreed to
accept a single governmental authority in Sikkim, headed by the
descendants of the first Sikkimese king Phuntshog Namgyal. The legit-
imacy of the Sikkimese kings and their rights of power and authority in
Sikkim result, at least theoretically, from these two important legalistic
documents. This right to rule is further legitimised by the religious nar-
ratives prophesising the first king as an incarnate dharmarja. Of course
the actual political reality of 1820s Sikkim was probably a more impor-
tant factor for Yug Drathub, than the legal and religious precedents of
62 For details see Mullard 2011: 140–47 and 240–45.
 RECAPTURING RUNAWAYS 195

the seventeenth century. Yug Drathub, in all likelihood, saw himself as

the successor to his uncle Bolhö. Whereas the king Tsugphü Namgyal
interpreted the assassination of Bolhö as a legitimate act as Bolhö acted
against the system of master and servants: a system which defines the
legitimacy of the Namgyal dynasty. Indeed the text is clear that the exe-
cution of Bolhö was justified. Therefore, the response of Yug Drathub
can only be understood as an act of rebellion against the king’s rule and
hence the necessity for the above covenant. Essentially the covenant, by
the fact that it is signed by the aristocrats, elite, and officials of the
Sikkimese state, legalises the action of the king in removing his uncle,
Bolhö, from the position of Chancellor.
Whilst that is an important aspect of the function of the covenant,
the document is more than just an act of legitimisation. It is ultimately
dealing with three issues of great concern to any state: the tax base of
the kingdom, territory, and loyalty. A brief summary of the document’s
main points may help to clarify this further. The majority of the docu-
ment is a statement of facts, presented in a narrative form which dis-
plays the magnanimous qualities of the king. That is: Yug Drathub
rebelled and removed himself and tax-paying subjects from Sikkim; the
king (using international diplomatic channels) had the rebels returned
to Sikkim to face the king’s justice; instead the king forgave them and
allowed them to return to their estates, having made them swear an oath
of loyalty; the rebels regretted their actions and agreed to abide by the
tax laws of Sikkim and accept the master-servant relationship. The
question is then why did the king go through all that trouble only to for-
give the crimes? Why did he not simply execute Yug Drathub as he had
his uncle?
It could be that the rebellion of Yug Drathub took the king by sur-
prise and simply executing him may have led to more significant prob-
lems such as a large-scale rebellion of the Kota estates of Darjeeling,
Antu (now part of Ilam but only defined as such in 1835), and the plains
estates (the region east of the Mechi River, west of the Tista and north
of Purnea District of North-West Bengal). As noted earlier, this territo-
ry accounted for the bulk of Sikkim’s tax revenue during this period.
For example in tax revenue receipts from 1846 (SPA document number
PD/1.1/040) of the estates in the Ranibum, Naxalbhari, Kharibari, and
Gosaipur areas amounted to a net income (before deductions for expen-
diture, salaries and purchase of trade goods) in excess of Rs 26,000,
equivalent to approximately Rs 32 million today (when calculated on
196 SAUL MULLARD

the basis of nominal GDP inflation).63 As such the potential loss of rev-
enue would have alarmed the king. This apprehension is further reflect-
ed in the text itself, particularly with regard to the status of runaway
taxpayers and the narrations of the king’s efforts in having them
returned to Sikkim. Indeed the removal of tax-paying subjects from the
kingdom was so unacceptable that it is specifically outlawed in the
covenant above, in which it is stated: “from now onwards it is prohibit-
ed to lead [people] to the external borders”. It is, of course, a legitimate
concern for a state to have given that the tax revenue of the state large-
ly depends upon common people remaining in their fields producing
agricultural yield which the state in turn extracts as taxation. A reduc-
tion in commoners, resulting from escape to country where it was dif-
ficult to have them returned, would have led to a reduction in tax rev-
enue.
The second fear the covenant addresses is that of territory. For exam-
ple the text proclaims: “All of Sikkim’s population including common-
ers, ministers, and royalty should not give up the protection of their own
country’s border regions”. In the decades prior to the signing of the
covenant, Sikkim had a very uneasy relationship with its western neigh-
bour, Nepal. Sikkim was involved in three major wars with the
Gorkhas. The first was in 1771–1774 during the Gorkha-Limbu War on
account of the expansion of the Gorkhas into the regions east of the
Arun River, which were considered by Sikkim to be vassals.64 This war
culminated in the third Battle of Chainpur in 1774. The second major
conflict was the Sino-Nepal War which saw the invasion and occupa-
tion of the Sikkimese capital and the flight of the young king, Tsugphü
Namgyal, to Tibet. The third and most recent was the Anglo-Gorkha
War of 1814–1816 (1817) and resulted in Sikkim recapturing the plains
estates. On account of this history of conflict with the Gorkha state, the
flight of Yug Drathub to Nepal was a serious concern to the Sikkimese,
63 To put this into context, the annual value of trade through Natu-la is currently
around Rs. 16 million. Nominal GDP inflation can be quite a useful method for assess-
ing the value of the rupee in the mid-nineteenth century rather than calculating the sil-
ver value of the rupee, as the rupee lost a significant amount of its value in the silver
crisis of 1871–1893 as a silver-standard currency. All the palace records regarding tax-
ation of the plains estates are currently in the process of being published.
64 The extent to which Sikkim actually controlled this region is open to speculation.
However, it is recorded in a number of Sikkimese sources that Sikkim’s involvement in
eastern Nepal dates from the expulsion of the Makwani kings from the region which
now straddles western Sikkim and eastern Nepal, in the 1650s and 1660s. The Makwani
kings were the rulers of Vijaypur in Morang.
 RECAPTURING RUNAWAYS 197

who had little faith in Nepal to return Sikkimese subjects uncondition-

ally and even less trust in Nepal to remain militarily neutral should
events deteriorate. Ultimately the relationship between Yug Drathub
and the king did, indeed, deteriorate and after 1830 Nepal was no
longer a neutral observer of events but an active participant. For exam-
ple several land grants had already been issued to Yug Drathub by the
Gorkha prior to 1830 for a number of settlements in Ilam:
Shri Durgajyu
Injunction by his Majesty

Kazi Yukla Thup [sic] shall be granted under the district of Morung,
Taluk Illam, the barren and non arable land right from Birgan River in
the east, from the hills to Temey River in the south to the boundary of
Baisavada in the west and north and within the jurisdiction of Madanpur
under his administration. For the purpose of developing the land and
habitations he can bring the people from India and Tibet and shall with
sincere allegiance and after making due payment of revenue to the new
Shri Nath company. Administer and reap the benefit!
Samvat 1885 (1827), dated Vaisakh 7th roj (day) 2. (Bajracharya and
Shrestha 1978: 42–43)65
Of course at the time the covenant was signed, the final rebellion had
not taken place and it is difficult to know what the true intentions of
both Yug Drathub and the Sikkimese king were. The above document
certainly give the impression that Yug Drathub, at the very least, had
the possibility, if not intention, to escape to Ilam should hostilities
resume. Similarly, given that there had been a conflict between the
Sikkimese king and Yug Drathub for the preceding four years, it seems
inconceivable that Tsugphü Namgyal would have been so naïve as to
abandon preparations in case the reconciliation did not hold. It is prob-
ably for this reason, in combination with the fact that Yug Drathub pos-
sessed tax-estates in eastern Nepal, that the covenant is so explicit
regarding the protection of Sikkim’s border regions with Nepal. This is
particularly important given that the Nepal-Sikkim border was not
clearly demarcated. Indeed the frontier region was politically compli-
cated. As mentioned above the ability of the states of both Sikkim and
Nepal to impose authority on this region was hampered by local lead-
ers, such as Yug Drathub, who collected and paid revenue to both

65 Translated from “Sikkim Ka Kazi Yuklathupko Nepalma Saran” [The political

asylum of Kazi Yuklathup in Nepal].
198 SAUL MULLARD

Sikkim and Nepal (as attested to by the land-grants above). These local
leaders were connected to a complex matrix of power and authority,
defined, as it was, by shifting loyalties to both states.66 As such the
covenant is, perhaps, an attempt by the state to gain some measure of
control over this complicated region, through the embryonic idea of
linking territory with sovereignty.
The third issue is that of loyalty. The covenant is ultimately that: a
promise, a pledge, and an oath on the part of the signatories to remain
in loyal service to the king. The covenant binds the signatories to the
king specifically through the vow to uphold the master-servant relation-
ship. It is important, therefore, to examine the signatories in more
detail, as by identifying who did and who did not sign the covenant it
is possible to draw some conclusions regarding the motivation of the
king to bind these specific figures to his rule.
The most striking omission in the signatory section of the document
is that of the principal culprit Yug Drathub himself. Whilst it is true that
some of the estates under Yug Drathub are mentioned (such as Ilam,
Nagri, Kurseong, and the plains estates), the actual signatories of those
regions are, when a name and title are in fact mentioned, of the gover-
nor or headman rank (rdzong dpon and sgo pa), and so do not refer to
Yug Drathub. Instead they refer to (possibly) his subordinates, or the
estate managers and tax collectors of the regions in question. Of course
there could be many reasons why the lower ranking officials were
bound by oath to the king. However, it is also possible that the choice
of signatories was deliberate—using the reconciliation between the
king and Yug Drathub as an excuse to bind in loyalty those leaders, who
were traditionally subordinate to Yug Drathub, directly to the king
Tsugphü Namgyal instead, and thus cutting Yug Drathub from his
power base. It has been mentioned elsewhere (Mullard and Wongchuk
2010: 6–10) that a similar method was used to divide the Barfung clan
at this time: tying certain branches of this clan to the fortunes of
Tsugphü Namgyal. Similarly, a glance at the remaining signatories
seems to confirm this practice of divide and rule.

66 A similar situation existed on the Nepal-Bihar border, wherein local rulers often
remained largely independent of both British and Gorkha state dynamics, through dual
tax obligations to both states (see Michael 2012 for details). Whilst this situation was
politically solved with the Anglo-Gorkha War, the legacy of this situation still exists in
the form of the Madeshi movement for autonomy in the Nepalese Terai.
 RECAPTURING RUNAWAYS 199

Interestingly, and not without deliberate intention, many of the sig-

natories are, if not direct members of, at least related to, the Barfung
clan through marriage alliances or historical connections (see the sim-
plified genealogy of the Barfung clan below). The first signatory, fol-
lowing the king, was Chagdor Khangsarpa (Phyag rdor Khang gsar pa).
The Khangsar family (who allegedly descend from an ancient Lepcha
chief called Hungbar of the Khatak clan)67 play an important role in
later Sikkimese history,68 but the family’s ascent in Sikkimese politics
stems from the reign of Tsugphü Namgyal. It was, according to ’Bras
ljongs rgyal rabs, Chagdor who ensured the survival of Tsugphü
Namgyal during the Gorkha invasion of Sikkim. He was also involved
in the assassination of Bolhö in 1826, and therefore a natural ally to the
king.
The second signatory is from the Thakarpa69 (Brag dkar pa) family
of the Yangthang (gYang thang) Kazis. Though the title given in this
text is Brag shar, indicating the Sharlön (Shar blon) family of modern
Biksthang in western Sikkim, it is clearly referring to the Brag dkar pa
minister as in 1830 there was no Namkha Wangdu (Nam mkha’ dbang
’dus) from the Sharlön family. The Sharlön is in fact recorded later in
the list of signatories as Phuntshog Ringzin (Phun tshogs rig ’dzin),
who was the son of Minister Dondrub (bKa’ blon Don sgrub), meaning
that the Namkha Wangdu in the text above can be none other than the
Yangthang Kazi of that time. His son married into the Barfung clan by
becoming an in-marrying son-in-law (mag pa) to the daughter of Yug
Chugthub.
The origins of the next two signatories are not clear. When I was
conducting fieldwork in Namchi (gNam rtse) in 2013, a number of local
informants suggested to me that the governor of Namchi was not a
hereditary position, and that the post was instead appointed directly by
the king from members of different families (though by the twentieth
century it fell under the administration of Newar contractors or
ṭhekadars). This is similar to the account given by Risley (1894: 35),
though it is unsure whether the local accounts are part of an older oral

67 See The History of Sikkim: genealogical appendix: 4.

68 Their role is generally considered a negative one, involving direct disloyalty to
the Sikkimese kings. Firstly during the reign of Thuthob Namgyal and then later dur-
ing the chaos of the 1970s.
200 SAUL MULLARD

tradition or have been affected by the widespread availability of The

Gazetteer of Sikhim [sic].
The governor of Gangtok (sGang tog rdzong dpon) was a subordi-
nate member of the Barfung clan, whereas Yug A dum is none other
than the Cheebu Lama, mentioned in The History of Sikkim. The
Cheebu Lama is related to the ’Bar myag branch of the Barfung
through his elder sister, who married the district governor of Zhey
(Zhal rdzong dpon or the Shew Jongpon of English sources) Sonam
Dradul (bSod rnam dgra ’dul). To add further to the confusion of
Cheebu Lama’s connections with the Barfung, his nephew’s wife was
also a Barfungpa from the Tateng (bKra steng) line and she later had an
incestuous affair with her cousin the Enchey (dBen can) Kazi. She was
also the sister of A chung who is found as a signatory above.
The next signatory is Lha Tenzin (lHa bstan ’dzin), who was the
Lasso Kazi (in Sikkim Lasso is confusingly rendered as La sogs). The
Lasso line is considered to be one of the few Bhutia (lHo po) aristocrat-
ic families in Sikkim, based on patrilinial descent. However, Lha
Tenzin was in fact the bastard son of Kota Kunga and so had a claim to
his father’s estates in Ilam, Darjeeling, Nag ri and the plains estates
should the current lord (Yug Drathub) fall out of favour.70 As the dis-
trict governor of Zhey and the minister of Shar have been discussed
above we can move on to Sang (bSang). The family of Sang are also of
the Barfung clan but they come from a different line from that of
Garwang and his descendants. Whereas Garwang’s line descends from
Tensung Namgyal’s (bsTan srung rnam rgyal) illegitimate son
Yugthing Arub (Yug mthing A rub), the Sang line originates in Arub’s
mother’s legitimate children; that is, the true sons of Tasa Aphong (rTa
sa A phong) and Nambong (Nam bong).71 The remaining signatories
are mainly officials. They include tax revenue officials such as Gyapon
(brgya dpon) and Poddar (a sub-group of the Agarwal community of
India which migrated to Bihar and West Bengal for trade and adminis-
trative purposes during the British period), as well as representatives of
the plains estates and representatives of the monastic community.
Given that the signatory section is by no means a complete list of all
Sikkimese aristocratic and other powerful and elite leaders, the choice
of officials was, most likely, deliberate. As has been shown above many
of the signatories were connected to Yug Drathub, either as relatives

69 This is how the current family spells their surname in English.

 RECAPTURING RUNAWAYS 201

(both blood and marriage) or as political associates and so binding

these people to the Sikkimese king through an oath of loyalty is clear-
ly a significant political act. It appears, therefore, that the king is
attempting to isolate Yug Drathub from his natural allies, his family, his
tax collectors and his political connections. If that is indeed the case,
which seems most likely given the historical context, this document
represents a negotiation of power. That is, the covenant legitimises the
master-servant relationship, by the assertion that the Kotapa rebellion
was essentially illegal and the fact that the signatories have sworn an
oath for the protection of that relationship indicates a level of agree-
ment with that assertion by the signatories. Whilst of course oaths are
almost as often broken as they are made, the actual act of bringing and
binding people to a vow is still a demonstration of power, irrespective
of whether the signatories keep their oath or not. The symbolic signif-
icance of the act itself cannot be underestimated. That alone makes it a
very important event as the king was able to bring together people, who
were not necessarily his natural allies, and make them swear an oath
and sign the covenant dealing with the three main concerns of the king:
maintenance of tax revenue laws, territorial security, and loyalty to the
king and state.
These three issues of concern all ultimately relate back to the preser-
vation of tax revenue. If, for example, the tax laws were ignored there
would be an obvious decrease in tax revenue. Similarly, if territorial
security decreased there was the real possibility that taxes would be lost
to a neighbouring or new state, and if there were no contract of loyalty
(or at least acceptance of the system and the position of the king) the
economic revenue of both the elite and the state would be threatened by
potential conflict. Stability of administration is in the long-term eco-
nomic interests of both the state and the elite, and this has been recog-
nised by the signatories of the covenant: their political connections or
family loyalty to Yug Drathub are overshadowed by their economic
interests. Since the interests of the state and the elite converge the
covenant essentially represents the administration of Sikkim through
contract and agreement.

70 Incidentally it was Lasso Kazi who was appointed to Darjeeling in 1835 as the
first Sikkimese representative (known in British sources as Vakil), and who became
responsible for tax collection from the plains estates.
71 Lepcha names are often not consistently transliterated into Tibetan in documents
from Sikkim.
202 SAUL MULLARD

CONCLUSION

Whilst the 1830 Covenant is ultimately tied to the recapture of run-

aways during the Kotapa episode in Sikkimese history, this document
also provides a degree of insight into the relationships of power in
Sikkim. This covenant can be read as both a political tool—designed to
divide the power of the leading aristocratic family of Sikkim—and a
legal act, in which certain laws regarding tax rules, territorial security,
and loyalty to the state and country are enacted. The laws are ultimate-
ly a reaction to the events of the Kotapa rebellion, with the objectives
of preventing the loss of tax revenue from tax exiles, international inter-
ference from Sikkim’s long-time enemy, and maintaining the territori-
al integrity of the state. The fact that this document was written during
the Kotapa rebellion further confirms these points: when the historical
context of the Kota branch of the Barfung clan is examined, it is clear
that the outcomes of this dispute could have had potentially serious
consequences for Sikkim’s tax revenue (dependent as it was on the
plains estates controlled by the Kota family) and territory (if the Kota
family had been successful in seceding from Sikkim).
This paper has also raised some questions regarding how best to
understand the regions of the plains and the Sikkim-Nepal borderlands.
In particular the fact that Yug Drathub had tax responsibilities to both
the kings of Sikkim and Nepal seems to suggest that an alternative
approach, that addresses a regional perspective rather than a state-cen-
tric analysis, is relevant for the study of the history of the region. Given
that the frontier regions were defined by a situation in which the lead-
ers were simultaneously tied, if only theoretically, to the states of the
area, this covenant could also be read as the attempt of one of those
states to impose order (and one could argue sovereignty) on an area that
lacked a definite demarcation of state authority.
Whilst the covenant is indeed a political tool and a legal act it is also
something more subtle. It is not just the imposition of the king’s wish-
es upon his lords and officials. It is a negotiation, an agreement, and a
contract where the material interests of both the state and the elite con-
verge. It preserves the political stability in the relationship between the
royalty and the elite.
 RECAPTURING RUNAWAYS 203

Figure 1: The Covenant (PD/1.2/004)

 204

SIMPLIFIED GENEALOGY OF THE BARFUNG CLAN

SAUL MULLARD
 KEY

◊ In-marrying son-in-law
↔ Marriage
≈ Extra-marital relationship
⌂ Illegitimate child
RECAPTURING RUNAWAYS

□ Known male
□? Unknown male
○? Unknown female
CL Cheebu Lama
∆ Nephew
205
206 SAUL MULLARD

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources
1663. “Agreement of the three [communities of] the Bhutia, Lepcha and Limbu”.
(PD/1.2/001). From the Sikkimese Palace Archives, Gangtok.
1730–1809. “The Testimony of the Barfung clan: an account of the life and times of the
ancestors” (PD/9.5/003). From the Sikkimese Palace Archives, Gangtok.
1811. “A land grant to Yug kunda on Aswin Sudi 12, V.S. 1868 (1811 AD)”. Translated
in “The Gola of Dimali”, Regmi Research Collection, vol. 40, 246–47.
1805. “A Letter to Champa Singh Gurung regarding land grants to Ikunda on Jestha
Sudi 4, V.S. 1862”. Translated in “The Eastern Hill region”, Regmi Research
Collection, vol. 6, 1978, 81–86.
1830. “The 1830 Covenant on tax exiles and Sikkimese border regions” (PD/1.2/004).
From the Sikkimese Palace Archives, Gangtok.
Karma tshang pa’am skal bzang blo ldan. 1657. La sogs rgyal rab [sic]. Contained
within Mi nyag a’o sdong gi byung khung skye rgyud ba nas ’dir ’dug tshul mon
pa’i mtho byang zin bris su bkod pa’o. Found in the private collection of the late
T.D. Densapa (Barmiok Athing), Gangtok.

Secondary Sources
Bajracharya, D. and T.B. Shrestha. 1978. Sikkim ka Kazi Yuklathupko Nepalma saran
[The political asylum of Kazi Yuklathup in Nepal]. Contributions to Nepalese
Studies 5(2), 37–50.
Bloch, M. 2005 [1961]. Feudal Society II: Social Classes and Political Organisation.
London: Taylor and Francis (e-Library).
Childs, G. 2001. A brief history of Nub-ri: ethnic interface, sacred geography, and his-
torical migrations in a Himalayan locality. Zentralasiatische Studien 31, 7–29.
Hamilton, F.J. 1819. An account of the Kingdom of Nepal: and of the territories
annexed to this Dominion by the House of Gorkha. Edinburgh: Archibald
Constable and Company.
Manandhar, T.R. 1983. Kazi Yuklthup prati Nepalle liyeko niti [Nepalese policy
towards Kazi Yuklathup]. Contributions to Nepalese Studies 10(1–2), 118.
Mishra, P.T. 2012. Nepal-Sikkim relations: the Yuklathup episode. In A. Balikci and A.
McKay (eds) Buddhist Himalaya: Studies in Religion, History and Culture:
Volume II The Sikkim Papers. Gangtok: Namgyal Institute of Tibetology, 95–101.
Mullard, S. 2011. Opening the Hidden Land: State formation and the Construction of
Historical Narratives. Leiden: Brill.
—— (forthcoming). Hard boundaries or soft frontiers? Some remarks on territory and
authority on the Nepal-Sikkim frontier during the early nineteenth century.
Himalaya 31(2).
Mullard, S. and H. Wongchuk. 2010. Royal Records: A Catalogue of the Sikkimese
Palace Archives. Andiast: International Institute of Tibetan and Buddhist Studies.
Namgyal, T. and Y. Dolma (Their Majesties). 1908. The History of Sikkim (English).
Gangtok: unpublished typescript, British Library edition.
Petech, L. 1959. The Dalai Lamas and regents of Tibet, A chronological study. T’oung
Pao 47(3–5), 383–88.
Risley, H. (ed.) 1894. The Gazetteer of Sikhim. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat.
 RECAPTURING RUNAWAYS 207

Sharma, K. and R. Tulasi. 1996. Sikkim Hijo dekhi Aajasamma [Sikkim: From
Yesterday to Today]. Gangtok: Ankura Publications.
Sprigg, R.K. 1995. 1826: An end of an era in the social and political history of Sikkim.
The Bulletin of Tibetology 19(2), 88–92.
Tilly, C. 2006. Why and how history matters. In R.E. Goodin and C. Tilly (eds) The
Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University
press, 417–23.
 WHO WERE THE SPONSORS? REFLECTIONS ON RECRUIT-
MENT AND RITUAL ECONOMY IN THREE HIMALAYAN
VILLAGE MONASTERIES

ASTRID HOVDEN

INTRODUCTION

The one who performs prostrations and makes offerings,

is the shrine keeper, Dusum Sangye.

The ones who perform the more extensive rituals,

are the assembly of monks from our own village.

The ones who provide food supplies to the monastery,

are the groups of men from our own village.

The ones who provide firewood to the monastery,

are the groups of women from our own village.1

Across the Tibetan Buddhist world there has been a variety of monas-
tic institutions, and the way the monastic economy has been organised
has varied correspondingly. This paper will focus on the “local” or “vil-
lage” monastery, which has been the least studied, but by far the most
prevalent monastic institution.2 More specifically I will look at the
patronage of the monasteries in Limi (Sle mi), a community consisting
of three villages situated along a tributary to the Karnali River in the
northwestern corner of Nepal. Each village has a monastery belonging
to the Drigung Kagyu (’Bri gung bKa’ rgyud) school of Tibetan
Buddhism. This paper will focus mainly on the eleventh century
Rinchenling (Rin chen gling) in Halji (dBal rtse), but the histories of
the three are closely intertwined.3

1 Excerpt from a song called “The village prayer” (Yul gi ma ni) sung in Limi dur-
ing harvest.
2 I use the term “village monastery” as largely synonymous with “local monastery”
as defined by Kværne (1977: 87–88). See also Ström 2001: 85ff.
3 Tilchen monastery (Til chen dgon) in Dzang (mDzang), and Til Kundzom (Til
210 ASTRID HOVDEN

The monasteries have been dependent on the laity for funding, and
the villagers have provided labour, provisions, and goods, as described
in the song cited above. In return the monasteries have fulfilled a wide
spectrum of functions, the most important of which include the per-
formance of a set of elaborate rituals in order to protect the village and
its inhabitants from misfortune. The relations between monastery and
villagers are complex and include several levels of reciprocity, but this
paper will focus mainly on some of the economic aspects.4
My account will be based partly on administrative documents and
partly on interviews and observations of village life.5 The administra-
tive and historical documents include Rinchenling taxation register
(1952), Rinchenling monastery inventory (1870), Rinchenling list of rit-
ual expenses (1935?), and The Drigung history of Kailash (1896).6
Although significant changes have taken place in the century that has
passed since the documents were composed, the documents are still in
use and on the local level, the organisation of monastic patronage has
remained largely the same. These local and regional documents offer a
fairly good insight into how the monastic economy was organised at the
margins of the Tibetan state, but tend to be lacking as far as the per-
spective of the common laypeople is concerned. Moreover, the admin-
istrative documents are mainly registers meant for internal usage and
contain few explanations. I will therefore supplement my account with
ethnographic material. This helps me include some observations about
the contributions of women, who have been almost invisible in the doc-
uments, but constitute the backbone of the agro-pastoral economy in
Limi.7 In order to provide the necessary background, I will start with an

Kun ’dzom) in Til were both founded in the early thirteenth century. The name of the
monastery in Dzang was was later changed to ’Phel rgyas gling.
4 I will provide a more balanced account in my Ph.D. thesis.
5 The material was collected during twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork in
Limi conducted as part of my Ph.D. research in the period 2010–2012. The ethnograph-
ic fieldwork involved a combination of interviews with monks and laypeople, my own
observations of activities in the monastery and village over the course of twelve
months, and the collection of various written documents and oral literature.
6 The full titles of the documents are provided in the list of references below. A note
should be made regarding the dates of the documents. The dates refer to the year when
the documents were copied, but the documents contain many later addenda and the
handwriting clearly belongs to different scribes.
7 Women’s role in sustaining monastic institutions has rarely been taken into prop-
er account, neither in the archival documents, nor in historians’ descriptions, but the
accounts by Gutschow (2004) and Grimshaw (1994) are important exceptions.
 WHO WERE THE SPONSORS? 211

account of the initial patronage of the monasteries which, according to

historical documents, was the initiative of kings and religious masters.
But whereas the royal benefactors must have provided important sup-
port, the real sponsors were the local villagers, who were made to sup-
port the institutions through recruitment and a number of taxes. The
main objective of the paper will be to describe how the rules for recruit-
ment and funding of the monastic institutions have been organised in
Limi since the end of the nineteenth century and thus try to shed some
light on patronage from the villagers’ point of view.

The location of Limi

Today Limi forms a VDC in the upper Humla District of Nepal, but the
political history of this frontier region has been less straightforward.8
Documents show that Limi has been regarded as located on Mon terri-
tory9 from at least the thirteenth century onwards and this has been
reflected in the practice of paying “land tax” (sa khral) to the various
kingdoms ruling in Western Nepal. Yet, the people have been regarded
as Tibetan and have paid “people’s tax” (mi khral) to the administration
in Purang as well as taxes to three of the monasteries in the Ngari
(mNga’ ris) region. The former kingdoms in Ngari came under Central
Tibetan administration after the fall of the Guge (Gu ge) kingdom in the
seventeenth century, whereas Limi and other areas that had been ruled
by the former Jumla kingdom were incorporated into Nepal after the
military expansion of the Gorkhas at the end of the eighteenth century.
Limi maintained strong relations with the Tibetan administrations and
monasteries, and a system of dual (or perhaps rather multiple) taxation
continued until the Sino-Nepali border treaty of 1961 (Goldstein 1974:
261).
Limi, being a small community, has had little say in the wider
geopolitics of the area and would generally have to comply when pow-
erful rulers of the neighbouring kingdoms have demanded taxes and
tributes. But local documents and oral tradition also tell about occa-
sional acts of resistance and avoidance, and the villagers in Limi have
8 For examples from other parts of Humla and Western Tibet, see Levine (1987,
1988, and 1992).
9 The term Mon has been used in Tibetan sources to designate the lands on the
southern border of the Tibetan plateau. In this particular case it refers to the territory
in contemporary northwestern Nepal that was ruled by the Khas Malla kings and later
the Kalyal kings. See for instance Tucci 1956.
212 ASTRID HOVDEN

protected their own internal government carefully. Each village has

been governed by a secular village assembly presided over by local
headmen (spyi khyab and mgo pa),10 whereas the monasteries have
been governed by a monastic administration.11 Although formally affil-
iated with Gyangdrag (rGyang grags) Monastery in Ngari, the monas-
teries recruited from only the three Limi villages and the administrative
posts rotated among the local monks according to seniority.

FROM ROYAL TO VILLAGE PATRONAGE

At some time in the first half of the eleventh century, a two-storey

Vairocana (rNam par snang mdzad) statue was erected in Halji, and a
temple was built to house it. Local and regional tradition claim that the
temple was founded by the translator Rinchen Zangpo (Lo tswa ba Rin
chen bzang po, 958–1055), famous for his role in the second dissemi-
nation of Buddhism in Tibet.12 The building of the Vairocana statue
must have been a costly affair and whether carried out at the initiative
of Rinchen Zangpo or not, it must have been sponsored by a wealthy
patron. Rinchenling was initially only a temple and we know little
about how and when it was developed into a monastic institution. The
Drigung Kagyu sources are silent about it. Perhaps because the temple
was Sakya in the early period, or perhaps, as some of the villagers
claim, because the extension of the temple into a monastery was not
carried out at the order and patronage of a king, but rather at the vil-
lagers’ own initiative.

10 Today, the three villages in Limi form one VDC, and are becoming increasingly
integrated into the Nepali political system. However, they retain a high degree of auton-
omy, and the internal management of the villages continues in much the same way as
in the past.
11 The administrative leader was entitled sbug pa, whereas the religious leader
would be the Limi sprul sku. The sbug pa position and all the other monk offices would
rotate according to seniority among the monks from the three villages. In the periods
without a sprul sku or when the sprul sku was not resident, the most senior local monks
would function as head lama of the monastery.
12 The Rinchenling monastery inventory folio 11a states that the temple was built
by the translator. Similarly, The register of the three silver brothers (1996: 22) and,
according to Vitali (1996: 268, n. 405), the Kho char dkar chag list Limi among the
temples constructed by Rinchen Zangpo. Since the temple is not mentioned in the
translator’s biographies, Vitali (ibid.) warns us that the inclusion of Limi in the Purang
scriptures may be due to regional favouritism. Be that as it may, the temple is confirmed
to date from the same period by C-14 testing of the wooden base of the statue.
 WHO WERE THE SPONSORS? 213

The sources are more informative about the two other monasteries in
the valley, which were Drigung Kagyu from the start. In the early thir-
teenth century, different Buddhist schools patronised by rival kings
were establishing their footholds in the Kailash area. The Drigung
Kagyupas founded Gyangdrag Monastery at the foot of Mount Kailash
and sent a large number of meditators and masters to their new strong-
hold (Drigung history of Kailash: 494). Limi’s location in a shielded
valley in the proximity of the sacred mountain attracted a number of
famous masters to its many hermitages and meditation caves. The visit
of one of these, Drigung Chengalingpa (’Bri gung sPyan snga gling
pa)13 turned out to have important consequences for the villagers.

How the villagers became sponsors

The story is recorded in various sources. Here I will quote the
Rinchenling monastery inventory, which was first written in 1690 at the
order of the Drigung Vajraholder of Kailash.14 Drigung Chengalingpa
was a close disciple of Kyobpa Jigten Sumgön (sKyob pa ’Jig rten gsum
mgon, 1143–1217), the founder of the Drigung Kagyu order of
Buddhism. After the passing away of his lama, Chengalingpa went on
a pilgrimage to the Kailash area where he would stay for seven years
(1219–1225). On one occasion, the document tells us, Chengalingpa
met Kracalla,15 king of Jumla, at the shores of Lake Manasarovar. The
king spoke with Chengalingpa through a translator and became so
impressed that he took him as his root lama and became a great patron
and supporter of the Drigung School. The king subsequently invited
Chengalingpa to his capital at Yatse (Ya rtse/Ya tshe)16 in a golden
palanquin (gser gyi mdo li) and showered him with precious gifts

13 Also referred to as dBon Shes rab ’byung gnas (1187–1241).

14 The story is also mentioned in Drigung history of Kailash (494–95) and in The
biography of Chengalingpa.
15 Referred to as Grags pa lde in Tibetan sources. See for instance Petech (2003: 35)
and Vitali (2003: 74).
16 Ya rtse was conquered by the Gu ge king Nga lde (Ngarja) in the first quarter
of the 12th century (Vitali 2003: 68). According to Petech (2003: 34f) his successor
bTsan phyug lde established his residence at Ya rtse and made it capital of the Khas
Malla kingdom of Jumla (’Dzum lang) which flourished until the fourteenth century.
Limi was under the king of Ya rtse in this period, but had close relations with the bor-
dering Pu rang/Gu ge. For more insight into the complicated history of the kingdoms
at Ya rtse, Gu ge, and Pu rang see Petech (2003), Vitali (1996), and Tucci (1956: 116),
who identified Ya rtse with Sinja/Sej in the contemporary Jumla District of Nepal.
214 ASTRID HOVDEN

(Drigung history of Kailash: 495). The Rinchenling monastery invento-

ry records that:
Out of reverence to [Chengalingpa’s] prophesy, [the king and his two
sons] bestowed the Limi valley Tilchen17 estate in Dzang, the Kundzom
monastery in Til, a lama’s estate with individual property rights, and lay
sponsors. Whatever resources18 the individual [sponsors] would provide
could be collected unhindered for however long. By obtaining these
orders and regulations19 by the king and his two sons, [the two monas-
teries] became branch monasteries of Tise Gyangdrag monastery.20
This story about the conversion of King Kracalla is very important for
the Drigung Kagyupas, who were able to expand greatly after forming
an alliance with the king.21 From the perspective of the villagers in
Limi, the donation of land, establishment of a lama’s estate, with lay
sponsors and the authority to collect taxes would have very important
consequences, in both religious and economic terms. The king was
reportedly generous, but the greatest expenses were to be paid by the
villagers, who from now on constituted the basis of the monasteries’
economy. The sources do not say anything about how the order of the
king was received in the local communities, and we do not know how
the patronage was organised at the time. What we do know is that dur-
ing the following centuries the villagers strengthened and enlarged their
monasteries and made them integrated parts of the local community.
But the sponsoring of three monasteries in a valley of only a few hun-
dred inhabitants cannot always have been easy; especially in view of the
fact that the villagers were also paying taxes to kings as well as to other
monasteries in the region.

17 Til chung in the original, but this must be a slip of the pen.
18 rnyed skur can be translated as “riches and honour”, but here I have opted for a
simpler version.
19 bcad can also be translated as “taxes” or “interest” and this is most likely what
the king’s donation of land to the monasteries meant for the villages.
20 Tentative translation of Rinchenling monastery inventory folio 3b–4a: Lung
bstan pa dang bcas [cas] kyi gus ’dud du sle mi yul ’dzang du gnas gzhi til chen
[chung]/_ stil du kun ’dzom dgon dang_bla brang sa yul bdag thob dang mchod gzhis
yon bdag so so’i rnyed bkur [rnyed skur] gang bgyis sdud len [sdu len] sogs ji srid bar
’gog med du/_rgyal po yab sras gsum gyi bka’ gi gnang ba rgyas bcad du thob pas _ti
se rgyang grags dgon gyi ya gyal dang khongs su ’thubs pa.
21 Chengalingpa’s missionary activities during his pilgrimage seem to have been
quite successful. The Drigung history of Kailash (495) praises the Jumla king for the
spread of the teaching to the southern lands of Mon and records that Chengalingpa
formed alliances also with other regional kings and managed to secure a large number
of monasteries and hermitages into the Drigung fold.
 WHO WERE THE SPONSORS? 215

Escaping the taxes of the five Mon brothers

By the fifteenth century, the former kingdom of Jumla had fragmented,
and the region was ruled by petty Kalyal kings, referred to as the five
Mon brothers (Mon rong spun lnga) in local sources. Levine (1988:
25f) notes that the rule of the Kalyal kings seems to have been charac-
terised by “great instability” for the Tibetan communities in Humla.
Limi’s isolated location would often save the villagers from day to day
exploitation by more powerful neighbours, but tax collectors and cred-
itors would still find their way to the villages. Contrary to their prede-
cessors, the Kalyal kings reportedly had little sympathy for the
Buddhist population and were notorious for their harsh rule and heavy
taxation.22 The fifteenth century seems to have been a particularly dif-
ficult time period and at one point, the villagers in Limi took a very
drastic step to escape the taxes. The story is briefly described in the
Rinchenling monastery inventory:
Because of the severe oppression caused by the five Mon brothers’ heavy
taxation23 the villagers supporting the Drigung Dzang Tilchen
Monastery abandoned their houses and dispersed. They were not able to
provide the extensive provisions to support24 the monastery, lama, and
monks [and] therefore [decided to] move the shrine objects25 [and] all
the monastic property of the Dzang Tilchen Monastery to the Halji
Temple.26
According to this account, the villagers left their houses and seem to
have become “tax refugees”. Throughout Tibetan history, fleeing has
not been an uncommon strategy to escape heavy taxes. In this particu-
lar case, since there are no memories of Dzang village having been
abandoned and the descendants of the first settlers still live there, the

22 Levine (1987: 78f) records that during the Kalyal period it was relatively com-
mon that antagonistic petty kings levied taxes on the same populations in Humla.
23 khrims can also mean “taxation laws” or refer to both “taxation and laws”, but in
this context I found the simpler translation more probable.
24 ’khra literally means “to prop oneself up on the elbows”.
25 Literally “the three supports”, representatives of Buddha’s body, speech, and
mind.
26 Partial translation of Rinchenling inventory, folio 4a: De rjes rang re ’bri gung
pa’i ’dzin bdag ’dzang gi til chen dgon pa’i mi sde zhabs ’degs pa rnams mon rong spun
lnga pa’i khral khrims gyi mnar spyod che ba’i bud stongs thor zhig du song shis _ dgon
gnas bla grwa rnams la gzan rgyag ches pa’i ’khra tshugs [’khra’ tshugs] ma thub
nas/_rten [brten] gsum mchod cha rnams dbal rtse’i lha khang du gdan drangs pa
bcas.
216 ASTRID HOVDEN

villagers must have left their houses only temporarily. Unfortunately the
inventory does not provide any more information, but the strategy pre-
sumably worked. The transfer of property to Halji, which had become
Drigung at the time, and the merging of the monasteries must have
relieved the economic burden on the sponsoring villagers.27 It is worth
noting that the villagers decided not to let their monastic institution be
abandoned, but instead they secured its future sustenance by merging
with Rinchenling monastery in Halji.28

THE VILLAGERS’ SUSTENANCE OF THE MONASTIC ECONOMY

In the nineteenth century, the monks from the three monasteries still
convened in the Rinchenling monastery in Halji.29 The period is rela-
tively well documented in the local archives, and the remaining part of
the paper will be devoted to a description of what the sponsorship of
the monasteries actually involved from this time onwards. Accounts of
Tibetan monastic economies show a variety of sources of income both
within and among the different institutions. Whereas larger monaster-
ies or monasteries with important lamas would often have a broad eco-
nomic base, the sponsoring of Rinchenling monastery in Halji was pre-
dominantly a local affair. The monastery was sustained by a combina-
tion of taxes collected by the monastery itself, rotational sponsorship,
and voluntary sponsorship.30 Here I have chosen to focus mainly on the
monastic taxes or obligations (dgon pa’i khral),31 which can be grouped
27 Rinchenling in Halji had originally belonged to Sakya (Sa skya), but by this time,
the monastery had been given over to the Drigungpas. The story is described in
Rinchenling monastery inventory, folio 4a.
28 Rinchenling served all three villages until the 1980s when the monasteries again
split after a bitter strife about the monastic economy.
29 Whereas the monks would assemble in the monastery in Halji, caretaker monks
would look after the shrines and perform daily supplication rituals in Dzang and Til.
The monks from Rinchenling would visit the other two monasteries at the occasion of
larger rituals, such as the Sa ga zla ba celebration in Til Kun ’dzom Monastery.
30 Tsarong’s (1987) study of the economy of an anonymised Drigung monastery in
Ladakh is a particularly interesting case for comparison because of the monastery’s
similar size and school affiliation. See also Gutschow’s (2004) account from Zangskar
and Jahoda’s (2007) study of the patronage of Tabo monastery in Spiti.
31 Because of its connotations, the word “tax” may not always be the most appro-
priate English rendering of khral. Cassinelli and Ekvall (1969: 233) pointed out in
theirtheir study of the Sakya Principality that the word khral has a range of meanings,
and suggested the term “revenue” for the various economic contributions, and “levy”
for manpower and recruitment.
 WHO WERE THE SPONSORS? 217

into four main categories: recruitment of monks, compulsory ritual

sponsorship, lease on the usage of monastery land, and labour. The rit-
ual sponsorship consisted mainly of the provision of food for the
monks, offering items, and a small sum of money that would be hand-
ed out to the assembled monks (phogs).32 Apart from the monks’
allowance, the ritual expenses and the other monastic funding would be
provided largely in kind and the sustenance of the monasteries was
therefore largely dependent on the agro-pastoral economy of the vil-
lage.

Social stratification and division of labour

The logic of monastic recruitment and the ritual economy in Limi has
to be understood on the basis of the system of household categories and
the division of labour within the household. Most of the rights and
duties in Limi are not conceived of as individual, but are based on
household membership. We do not know how many people were living
in the valley in the first half of the twentieth century, but the number
was presumably somewhat lower than the 791 inhabitants reported by
Goldstein in 1974.33 The direct descendants of the original settlers own
relatively large patches of land and are called grong chen (“large house-
holds”). The houses that have split off from the large households are
called grong chung (“small households”) and have inherited a smaller
portion of the family estate. The final category is called mo rang, which
translates as “single woman households”.34 In addition, there was one
blacksmith (mgar ba) family who served all three villages. The mo rang
households have normally been established by unmarried women who
have split off from their brothers’ estates and own little or no land. The
women in this household category have to pay taxes, but much less than
the other two categories.35 Generally it is said that the large households
32 The amount of phog given to the monks has recently been fixed at a relatively
low level to ensure equal distribution among the monks and that the ritual services pro-
vided by the monastery are also affordable for the less wealthy villagers.
33 According to Goldstein’s (1974) demographic estimates the population was
increasing.
34 The grong chen are also referred to as grong pa, the grong chung as mi re, and
the mo rang as pomtang (uncertain spelling). This basic division is also described by
Goldstein (1974 and 1975).
35 Social stratification in Limi differed from that of pre-1950s Central Tibet
(Carrasco 1959; Goldstein 1971; Surkhang 1966), but there were also notable differ-
ences with the Nyinba (Nyin pa) and other Tibetan communities in Humla as described
by Levine (1988) and Fürer-Haimendorf (1975).
218 ASTRID HOVDEN

have to contribute with roughly 100% of the household tax responsibil-

ities, the small 50% and the single women 25%. However, this does
only partly apply to the monastic taxes; the main tax burden is carried
by the monks’ households, as will be explained below.
Limi has been a predominantly endogamous society and fraternal
polyandry has been practised in families with two or more brothers.
Because of the recruitment system, which will be described in more
detail below, the majority of monks would come from polyandrously
married families. Labour is typically divided among the members of
the household according to the following pattern: the householder is
normally the eldest brother in the household36 and has the right and
duty to take part in the village assembly, to carry out the household’s
communal labour responsibilities, and is the household’s representative
in conflict resolution meetings and in celebrations. Depending on the
household category the second or third brother will be a monk in the
monastery. The householder and the other men in the family will vari-
ously take care of the family’s animals, work as craftsmen, and traders.
The householder’s wife will together with unmarried sisters and other
female members of the household take care of most of the heavy agri-
cultural work.37 It is also the women who perform most of the house-
holds’ service to the monasteries. One of the reasons for this is that
many of the male family members spend the winter season when most
of the rituals take place away from the village. Another reason is that
much of the work required for the sustenance of the monasteries has
been the type of work that has traditionally been regarded as women’s
work in Limi.

Monastic recruitment and the las sne sponsorship duty

Monastic recruitment has taken various forms throughout the Tibetan
and Himalayan region, but traditionally it has taken place at young age
and therefore, like marriage, it has often been the decision of the par-
ents. In some cases, as in Limi, recruitment has been enforced by law,
and forms part of the villagers’ obligations to the monastery (dgon pa’i

36 In Limi all generations normally live in the same house and the position as head
of household is generally kept until retirement, when the eldest son will take over.
37 The different types of income generating activities have been thoroughly
described by Goldstein (1974 and 1975).
 WHO WERE THE SPONSORS? 219

khral).38 The current recruitment system in Limi was established at the

end of the nineteenth century during the visit of the 33rd Drigung line-
age holder, Chungtsang Tenzin Chökyi Lodrö (Chung tshang bsTan
’dzin chos kyi blo gros, 1868–1906). Chungtsang Rinpoche stayed a
whole winter in Limi during his pilgrimage to Kailash and
Manasarovar (1894–1896).39 After correcting the monks’ performance
of monastic dances (’cham) during the Rim mchod festival,40 the
Rinpoche reportedly recommended that in order to perform the ritual
correctly a minimum of fifty monks was needed. A large meeting was
subsequently held with monk and lay representatives (skya ser) from all
three villages during which new recruitment rules were made. We do
not know how many monks there were in the monastery at the time and
how they had been recruited, but the number is likely to have been rel-
atively low since the Rinpoche saw the need for the instalment of a new
recruitment system. During the meeting it was decided that the second
son from large households and the third son from small households
would be obliged to enrol as monks in the monastery. The agreement
document (gan rgya) was written in the year of the fire monkey (1896)
and is still followed in the three villages.41 This recruitment rule is in
line with the general fiscal system in Limi, in which the large house-
holds carry a greater tax burden than the small and subsidiary house-
holds, but it differs for instance from the system described by Goldstein
in Samada, where the “monk tax” (grwa khral) was heavier for the
small ’dud chung households than the larger khral pa (Goldstein 1971:
20).
38 Compulsory recruitment (grwa khral, btsun khral) has often been mentioned in
the scholarly literature on Tibet, but little is known about how widespread this particu-
lar form of monastic recruitment actually was. Levine (1992: 344) notes that compul-
sory recruitment was practised in neighbouring Kho char Monastery. Ramble (2008:
180–83) mentions a similar system of recruitment in Baragaon, in Nepal’s Mustang
District, and provides an interesting account of how the system dissolved in Te. See also
Aziz (1974: 180, 274), Cassinelli and Ekvall (1969: 311), and Goldstein (1971: 20 and
2010: 9).
39 It was towards the end of this pilgrimage that he wrote Drigung history of
Kailash.
40 The corrections are detailed in the Rin chen gling ’cham yig which was com-
posed in 1896.
41 This does not mean that the rule has been uncontroversial; it used to be possible
to pay a fine to be exempted from the duty of convening in the monastery, but this pos-
sibility has been removed in Halji and the size of the fines has recently increased in
Dzang and Til. Such amendments of the rules have generally been made at joint meet-
ings (skya ser) arranged either at the initiative of the village assembly or the monaster-
ies.
220 ASTRID HOVDEN

In addition, there have been a few monks who have enrolled for other
reasons, and in the past there must also have been some nuns in
Rinchenling, because one of the rows in the assembly hall is called the
“nuns’ row”. I discussed with people in Limi why there were no nuns
in the nuns’ row anymore, and a common explanation was that the
women staying in the village would have too much work to do to con-
template a monastic life.42 It is obviously important not to reduce the
question of monastic recruitment to economics, but the labour-intensive
agro-pastoral economy and the sponsorship system of the monasteries
in Limi are indeed likely to be the main reasons why there have not
been more monks (and nuns) outside the taxation system.
What it means to be a monk differs significantly depending on the
type of monasteries, the monk’s position within the monastery, and the
school of Buddhism to which he adheres.43 In Limi, as in many other
village monasteries, the monks are primarily ritual specialists and
monastic life has been closely adapted to village life. The liturgical year
starts from Lha ’babs dus chen festival celebrated on the 22nd of the 9th
Tibetan month and lasts until Gos sku dus chen festival on the 25th of
the 4th month.44 During these seven winter months, the monks are
obliged to serve in the monastery. Rituals are arranged every day by the
monastery, the village assembly, or individual villagers and this is a
very busy period for the monks. Many rituals will be performed also in
the summer season, but there will be fewer monks available as most of
the monks have to contribute to the economy of their households. In the
past many families were completely dependent on the monks’ labour
for their sustenance.45 Monks who for religious or other reasons do not

42 Gutschow’s (2004) account of the work situation of the nuns in Zangskar shows
that being a nun does not necessarily mean that a woman is free from work duties in
her natal home. See also Havnevik (1989: 55–59) for accounts of the economic situa-
tion of Tibetan nuns.
43 The villagers in Limi use the word grwa ba, which I have translated as “monk”.
All the monks wear robes and crop their hair short for the seven winter months, but only
some of the monks would take full dge slong vows and these monks would generally
be addressed by their dge slong title. The others would take dge tshul or dge bsnyen
vows.
44 Lha ’babs dus chen celebrates Buddha’s descent from heaven and Gos sku dus
chen commemorates the founder of the Drigung Kagyu order of Buddhism, sKyob pa
’Jig rten gsum mgon. The monk officials will have to stay in the monastery one or two
days after the festival until the annual budget calculation meeting (rtsis sprod) is over.
45 Contribution to the household economy by monks seems to have been relatively
common, especially in village monasteries. In Limi, the monks would participate in
most types of work except for ploughing and slaughtering animals.
 WHO WERE THE SPONSORS? 221

participate in economic activity would spend the summer seasons in

one of the many hermitages (mtshams khang) in the valley.46 Unless
there is a ritual in the monastery or the monks are called to perform rit-
uals in one of the village households, it is the monks’ families that will
have to provide food for the monks.
What it has meant to be a monk and what it has meant for the house-
holds in Limi to have a monk in the family cannot be answered proper-
ly in such a short paper. For reasons of space I have delimited the scope
to an examination of some of the economic implications. The majority
of rituals47 arranged by the monasteries in Limi have been funded
through the rotating las sne positions.48 The las sne responsibility
implies that for a total of fifteen years, the monks’ families will have to
sponsor the rituals arranged by the monastery.49 The requirements for
ritual sponsorship in Halji are detailed in a book entitled Rinchenling
list of ritual expenses (Rin chen gling gi mchod rgyun gtong bzhi’i len
krod lag khyer gsal ba’i sgron me) kept by the caretaker of the
monastery’s storerooms (gnyer pa). The book, which was written in the
year of the wood pig, probably 1935,50 opens fittingly with a prayer to
rNam sras, the god of wealth. The rest of the book consists of a list of
food and offering items required for each of the regular rituals. The
expenses (gtong sgo) for the rituals used to include considerable
amounts of butter, tea, roasted barley flour, and meat. It was particular-
ly this latter item that made the sponsorship so expensive in the past.
46 Devout lay villagers also spend part of the year (normally the winter season) in
the hermitages.
47 These monastic rituals constitute only a portion of the ritual activity in the vil-
lages. In addition, a significant number of rituals are arranged, and hence sponsored,
either by the village or by private households.
48 Tsarong (1987: 77ff.) uses the term las sne as general designation of monks’
“work obligations” and part of the monastic taxes or obligations (dgon pa’i khral). One
of these involves the compulsory “sponsoring of rituals” (gtong sgo). This definition
also applies in Limi, but in daily speech the term las sne is generally used about monks
who have to provide gtong sgo, whereas regular monk officials like the dbu mdzad and
the sku gnyer are referred to as las thog.
49 The las sne in Limi involves sponsorship of the following rituals and posts: six
years of sponsorship of the regular confession and purification rituals (sKong bshags),
one year for the same ritual sponsored by the caretaker of the Vairocana temple (gTing
skong bshags), three years of regular meals (rgyun thug), and finally two years of
expenses for the commemoration of Kyobpa Jigten Sumgön (Gos sku dus chen).
50 The rab byung is not specified, but because of the nature of the document and
some of the names occurring, I find it most likely that it was written in the sixteenth
rab byung. As in the case of most administrative documents in Limi, passages have
been added as needed and the most recent additions were written only a few years ago.
222 ASTRID HOVDEN

However, tea was also regarded a luxury and added to the costs.51 The
las sne positions rotated according to the monks’ age, starting with the
responsibility of funding the sKong bshags rituals.52 The responsibili-
ties for the more costly Mani festival (Ma ni dus chen) and regular
meals (rgyun thug) would fall to more senior monks, and the women in
Limi say that they would be allocated special fields that they would
have to tend as capital (ma rtsa) for these funding positions.53 Many vil-
lagers, both laypeople and monks, told me that they experienced this
sponsorship as a difficult duty to fulfil.54 The difficulties in meeting
these requirements were acknowledged by the monasteries, and monks
with the las sne sponsorship responsibility would obtain leave from the
monastery in order to help their families to accumulate the required
funding. In the past, some of the monks who came from poor families
had to spend several seasons working in villages further south in Humla
in order to help their families to pay the gtong sgo. The sponsorship
duties were enforced strictly, but tax reductions could be obtained
under special circumstances if a family was particularly poor. Such
decisions were made at joint meetings between the lay and monastic
population (skya gser) and were recorded in the administrative docu-
ments. It has been pointed out both by Kværne (1977: 92) and later by
Crook and Shakya (1994: 560) that decision-making in village monas-
teries has tended to be more democratic than in the larger institutions
and this seems to have been the case also in Limi. Despite these hard-
ships, even the people who had suffered the most emphasised that
despite of the expenses, it was valuable to have a monk in the family.
Moreover, it was commonly expressed that because of the merit thus
accrued, having a monk in the family would also contribute to the pros-
perity of the household.

51 Eating of meat in the monastery was later abandoned.

52 It is a requirement to have finished the six-year sponsorship of the sKong bshags
rituals before taking up the monk office (las thog) positions.
53 Tsarong (1987: 59) reports that in Kyilung Monastery (pseudonym) in Ladakh,
each of the monks had usufruct over an agricultural field, a so called “salary field”
(phog zhing). Jahoda (2007: 229) similarly notes that the monks in Tabo would tradi-
tionally be entitled to the produce of “monk fields” (grwa zhing). In Limi, usufruct to
fields have only been temporarily given to the families of certain las sne monks.
54 In comparison, the monks described by Tsarong (1987: 84) had sponsorship obli-
gations of only three years.
 WHO WERE THE SPONSORS? 223

Field taxes
The villagers also paid revenue from the agricultural output of the
monasteries’ landholdings. Several villagers to whom I spoke in Halji
opined that the Rinchenling monastery’s fields had been donated by the
villagers themselves, whereas in Dzang and Til, it was commonly held
that the majority of the fields were given to the monastery by the Jumla
king.55 This has been impossible to verify, but administrative docu-
ments testify to a number of cases in which villagers have donated
fields to the monastery,56 and the story about the king of Jumla quoted
in the beginning of this paper only mentions the monasteries in Dzang
and Til. It is also significant to note that the majority of land has been
privately owned in Limi. Most families would farm a combination of
privately owned fields, some fields belonging to the monastery, and
some fields on land belonging to the village assembly.57 At least from
the end of the nineteenth century onwards, no families in Limi seem to
have been dependent on a single landlord. The system of monastic
landownership in Limi therefore differed from that of Central Tibet
(Carrasco 1959; Goldstein 1971; Surkhang 1966).
The major part of the monastic property has been leased out to vil-
lagers, who have built a house or are working fields on the land. The
monastery levies a “lease fee” (bca’ khral)58 on the usage of monastery
land. The lease is hereditary, and the list of households tending such
fields and the amount of taxes paid by each is recorded in the
Rinchenling taxation register from 1952. According to this document,
there were 49 taxpaying households in Halji at the time, and the total
revenue from the fields in Halji amounted to 63 khal and 5 bre of grain,
a sum that counted only for a relatively low percentage of the
monastery’s income. The grain that was collected as revenue from the
monastery’s fields would rarely be used for the monks’ consumption
since all ritual activity was financed by the sponsors, and when not per-
forming rituals, the monks lived in their respective households. Instead

55 Many of the Jumla kings were known as strong supporters for the Drigungpas.
See for instance Petech 2003 and Vitali 2003.
56 The reasons given for the donations would vary from the seeking of merit for
deceased family members to the payment of debts.
57 The estimate of the size of the landholdings was provided by a previous mgo pa.
I have not yet been able to go through the Nepali land register documents.
58 Among the various spellings occurring in the tax document this seems to be the
correct one.
224 ASTRID HOVDEN

the grain revenue used to be lent out to villagers in need of seed grain.
One of the senior monks recalled:
In the past we had scarcity of food and all the grain would be consumed
during the winter. Then, in the spring, villagers would request the
monastery for seed grain. The monastery would give a double amount to
the large households. If the monastery for instance lent 2 khal of grain to
the large households, small households would be allowed a loan of 1
khal.
The monk maintained that the opportunity to obtain loans from the
monastery in this way was appreciated by the villagers, because even if
the interest rate was high, it was considerably lower than the interest
rate demanded by private creditors. The citation also shows that the
same distribution logic was used for loans as for taxes: the large house-
holds could take loans that were up to twice as high as those allowed to
the small households. It seems to have been quite common that monas-
teries, as landlords and recipients of large donations, often in kind,
would lend out some of the surplus for interest.59 The monastery would
also lend out money to traders, and in this way the monasteries func-
tioned as rudimentary credit institutions.60

Work contributions
The final lay obligation to the monastery consisted of labour. The
households had to take turns serving tea, fetching water, and tending
the fire in the monastery kitchen. Both men and women could in theo-
ry perform these duties, but most often they were performed by women.
The work would be organised on a rotational basis, with the small
households serving half of the time of the large households. The single
women from the mo rang category told me that they did not need to
serve tea, but had to contribute with firewood and carry water from the
stream to the east of the village. Laypeople could also be asked to cook
in the monastery or perform other tasks during special events, but

59 See for instance Nornang (1990: 255). In the case described by Nornang, the loan
conditions were tougher than in Limi, especially the interest rate on cash loans was very
high. Monasteries’ practice of lending out money is also described in Gutschow (2004:
108), Levine (1992: 339) and Tsarong (1987).
60 In Limi, also the village assemblies and private households would give loans in
grain or cash to villagers against an interest. Credit could similarly be obtained from
trading partners, but often at higher interest rates and the villagers therefore normally
preferred to keep loans within the village.
 WHO WERE THE SPONSORS? 225

would often volunteer as this would be paid work. People in Limi told
me that it was common for poor people, especially women from mo
rang households, to work in the monastery kitchen.
Most of the contributions have been made in kind and it has to a very
large extent been the continuous work of the men and women in the val-
ley that has kept the monasteries alive. A significant amount of the
grain, roasted barley flour, butter, dried cheese, and other agricultural
products that had to be paid as taxes, provided as payments for rituals,
or given as voluntary donations were products of the women’s labour.
It was also the women who spun the wool and wove the cloth used for
the monks’ robes, and it was the women who fetched all the firewood
and water needed for the numerous tea servings. The men worked hard
as well and had to spend large parts of the year away from the village
trading,61 herding, or making wooden bowls. As in most communities
in the region, the agricultural output in Limi would seldom be suffi-
cient and the majority of the households were dependent on a combi-
nation of agriculture, pastoralism, trade, crafts production, and manual
labour for their sustenance. The administrative documents mainly enlist
the products needed, but reveal little information about who actually
carried it out.

Voluntary ritual sponsorship and donations

In addition to the rituals arranged by the monastic institution and spon-
sored by the monks’ families during the winter season, communal ritu-
als are sponsored by the village assembly or groups of villagers, and a
large number are organised by individual households throughout the
year. Most households in the village sponsor supplication rituals (gsol
kha) to the protector deity A phyi Chos kyi sgrol ma as well as purifi-
cation offerings (bsang gsol) at least once a month. Among all the rit-
ual activity in the monastery, the Rim mchod festival has been regard-
ed as the most important both by monks and laypeople.62 It is celebrat-
ed annually at the end of the twelfth Tibetan month with a nine-day
recitation of The eight pronouncements (bKa’ brgyad) ritual text and
61 Additional grain, tea, and other provisions were obtained by trading salt, wool,
or various wooden or textile products on the seasonal marts in the region. See Goldstein
(1975) and Fürer-Haimendorf (1975).
62 The importance given to this festival can be illustrated by the fact that the mini-
mum number of monks who have to be present in the three monasteries corresponds to
the minimum number of monks required to perform the ritual.
226 ASTRID HOVDEN

the performance of ’cham monastic dances. The festival is organised at

the villagers’ request because it is believed to be the most effective rit-
ual for preventing diseases, crop failure and other major obstacles, and
therefore a very important contribution to the society’s wellbeing and
prosperity. The festival is funded partly through village taxes, partly
through monastic funds, and through sponsorship of private house-
holds. Regarding the private sponsorship of rituals, one of the elderly
men in Limi pointed out that: “[...] if you look at the rituals performed
by the monastery throughout the year, there are many privately spon-
sored sKong bshags rituals.63 Nowadays everybody is well off com-
pared with the past, when only very few families were able to sponsor
this kind of extensive ritual”. Interestingly, many of the rituals he
referred to were sponsored by single woman households, a category
that was economically disadvantaged in the past. This has only become
possible because of the recent years’ work possibilities. The sponsor-
ship of rituals can thus be seen as an indicator of the economy and well-
being of the society. Moreover, the increase in ritual activity also says
something about the continued value placed on the monastery in soci-
ety.
Many of the statues, thangka, scriptures, printing blocks, and other
religious items in Rinchenling monastery were once donated to the
monastery by lay patrons and some of them are named in the
Rinchenling Monastery inventory. Among the sponsors enlisted, some
were from the wealthy families in Limi, others came from the wider
Ngari region, and a few came from the main Drigung Kagyu monaster-
ies in Central Tibet. Names of a number of hermits (mtshams pa) occur
in the lists, suggesting that many of the foreign donors were pilgrims to
Kailash, who were meditating in the caves and hermitages in Limi. This
is a sign that there has been frequent contact with other Buddhist insti-
tutions, and such gifts must have contributed to forging and strengthen-
ing links between them.
But it is important to note that the material support went both ways.
As villagers testify, many of these hermits were receiving food and
other alms (bsod snyoms) from the villagers, and many of the religious
objects donated to the monastery, together with various rituals, must
have been a way of reciprocating the sponsorship from lay devotees.

63 These privately sponsored rituals are performed in addition to the sKong bshags
rituals sponsored by the families of the las sne monks.
 WHO WERE THE SPONSORS? 227

For instance, the Dzogchen (rDzogs chen) masters Tshogkhang (Tshogs

khang) Rinpoche, who spent the last ten years of his life meditating in
Chaye (sPya ye) hermitage in Limi,64 and Serta (gSer thar) Rinpoche,
were both sponsored by families from Til Village.65 Another, more
famous Dzogchen master, Shabkar (Zhabs dkar, 1781–1851), recorded
in his biography that generous donations were provided when he visit-
ed Limi as part of his pilgrimage to Kailash (Ricard 1994: 321, 328).
Such sponsorship would occasionally involve donations of money or
religious objects if the recipient was an acknowledged religious mas-
ter,66 but the most important, and largely unrecorded contributions,
were the local villagers’ steady provisions of food supplies. These sto-
ries are not mentioned in the documents, only stored in local memories.
Old grandmothers in Halji for instance, told me how they for years had
used to carry water and food provisions to the hermits who had medi-
tated in the hermitages high up on the mountainside above the village.
It must have been very hard work, but this type of support has gone
largely unremarked in the written sources.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Buddhist institutions have been dependent on the laity for funding since
the first Buddhist sangha was established almost two and a half millen-
nia ago. But the forms this support has taken and the nature of the rela-
tionship between religious and lay establishments have varied consid-
erably in different historical periods and in different contexts. The his-
torical accounts quoted at the beginning of the paper praise the king of
Jumla for providing the monastic institutions in Limi with estates and
lay sponsors, thus establishing a permanent basis for monastic funding.
The main purpose of this paper has been to look at this patronage from
below and to explore what providing “abundant support for the liveli-

64 According to The biography of the Kagyu masters, Ye shes rdzong hermitage in

sPya ye was built by sGrub thob Seng ge ye shes during his three-year stay in the thir-
teenth century.
65 Tshogs khang Rin po che, alias E ta r dza or Pad ma bde ba’i rgyal po
(1873–1933) and gSer thar Rin po che alias Padma Lung rtogs rGya mtsho, 1891–1964
were both disciples of Dudjom Lingpa (bDud ’joms gling pa, 1835–1904).
66 For an interesting discussion of hierarchy in the Tibetan Buddhist “economy of
merit”, see Gutshow (2004: 77–122).
228 ASTRID HOVDEN

hood of the hermits and monks”67 implied for the common villagers.
The system that was established in the late nineteenth century made
recruitment compulsory and the monks’ families were given the
responsibility of providing food for the monks through a system of
rotating las sne positions. However, all households have contributed
through payment of revenue from the monastery’s fields, rotating
labour, and a considerable amount of voluntary ritual sponsorship and
donations. The villagers continue to support their monasteries and they
still keep the strict rules for recruitment and ritual funding. When
explaining why, it is the ritual part of the ritual economy that is empha-
sised, both by the monks and the laypeople.

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China Tibetology, special issue, 322–45.
Nornang, Ngawang L. 1990. Monastic organisation and economy at Dwags-po bshad-
grub-gling. In L. Epstein and R.F. Sherburne (eds) Reflections on Tibetan Culture:
Essays in memory of Turrell V. Wylie. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen press, 249–69.
Petech, L. 2003. Ya-Ts’e, Gu-Ge, Pu-rang: a new study. In A. McKay (ed.) The History
of Tibet, Volume II, The Medieval Period: c. 850–1895, The Development of
Buddhist Paramountcy. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 33–52.
Ramble, C. 2008. The Navel of the Demoness: Tibetan Buddhism and Civil Religion in
Highland Nepal. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ricard, M. 1994. The Life of Shabkar: Autobiography of a Tibetan Yogin. Albany: State
University of New York Press.
Ström, A.K. 2001. Continuity, adaptation and innovation: Tibetan monastic colleges in
India. Ph.D. thesis, University of Oslo.
Surkhang, W. 1966. Tax measurement and lag-’don tax. Bulletin of Tibetology 11(3),
15–28.
Tsarong, Paljor 1987. Economy and ideology on a Tibetan monastic estate in Ladakh:
processes of production, reproduction and transformation. Ph.D. thesis, University
of Wisconsin, Madison.
Tucci, G. 1956. Preliminary Report on Two Scientific Expeditions in Nepal. Roma:
IsMEO.
Vitali, R. 1996. 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 sgo’i go.sgrig
tshogs.chung.
–––– 2003. A chronology (btsan rtsis) of events in the history of mNga’ ris skor gsum
(tenth-fifteenth centuries). In A. McKay (ed.) The history of Tibet, Volume II, The
Medieval Period: c. 850–1895, The Development of Buddhist Paramountcy.
London: Routledge Curzon, 53–89.

Documents from Limi

Rinchenling list of ritual expenses 1935 (?). Rin chen gling gi mchod rgyun gtong bzhi’i
len krod lag khyer gsal ba’i sgron me.
Rinchenling monastery inventory 1870. Chos ’khor dbal rtse’i gtsug lag khang thub
bstan rin chen gling gis gtan deb chen mo don bsdus dri med pad ma dkar po’i
’phreng ba tshar du mngar ba.
230 ASTRID HOVDEN

Rinchenling taxation register 1952. Chu ’brug zla 8 nang kyi bca’ yong bab zhal brus
tho bskod pa la.

Other literature in Tibetan

The biography of Chengalingpa 2004. sPyan snga ’bri gung gling pa’i rnam thar snyan
pa’i ’brug sgra. Composed by Rin chen phun tshogs chos kyi rgyal po (16th cen-
tury). Printed in Lhasa. TBRC no. W00JW501203.
The biography of the Kagyu masters 1985. bKa’ brgyud kyi rnam thar chen mo rin po
che’i gter mdzod dgos ’dod ’byung gnas. A collection of lives of the successive
masters in the transmission lineage of the ’Bri gung bKa’ brgyud pa tradition in
the Nepal-Tibet borderlands. Composed by rDo rje mdzes ’od (13th century).
Copy reproduced from a rare manuscript from Dzang Phelgyeling in Limi.
Published by D. Tsondu Senghe. Bir, Kangra H.P. TBRC no. 27600.
The Drigung history of Kailash 1896. Gangs ri chen po ti se dang mtsho chen ma dros
pa bcas kyi sngon byung gi lo rgyus mdor bsdus su brjod pa’i rab byed shel dkar
me long). Composed by dKon mchog bstan ’dzin chos kyi blo gros.
The register of the three silver brothers 1996. Jo bo rin po che ngul sku mched gsum
rten dang brten pa bcas pa’i dkar chag rab dga’i glu dbyangs. Composed by Nga
dbang phrin las (Wa gindra karma, 16th century), introduction by R. Vitali.
Dharamsala: Tho.ling gtsug.lag.khang lo.gcig.stong ’khor.ba’i rjes.dran.mdzad
sgo’i go.sgrig tshogs.chung.
 HIDDEN HIMALAYAN TRANSCRIPTS: STRATEGIES OF
SOCIAL OPPOSITION IN MUSTANG (NEPAL),
19TH–20TH CENTURIES

CHARLES RAMBLE

INTRODUCTION

It is to Antonio Gramsci that we owe one of the most influential theo-

ries of class oppression: the concept of social hegemony. Gramsci’s
theory arises from his division of the state into two entities: political
society on the one hand and the sphere of civil society on the other. The
state is the expression of the dominant “fundamental group”—a term
that he used instead of “class” in order to avoid the attention of the cen-
sors in the prison where he wrote much of his work—which is the bour-
geoisie. Political government takes the form of institutions such as the
judiciary, the army and the police, which are openly coercive. Civil
society, by contrast, is made up of “soft” entities such as the church, the
family, schools and so forth. For the most part political government
does not make its presence felt, and dominance over the masses is
achieved thanks to their subscription to the values purveyed by the
dominant group through the structures of civil society. This “sponta-
neous consent” to being dominated is what Gramsci refers to as social
hegemony (Gramsci 1971: 12). It is only when this consent becomes
visibly frayed, and the mechanisms of civil society fail to achieve their
purpose, that the apparatus of political society must be applied to
restore the status quo.
Although Gramsci was writing particularly about relations of pro-
duction between classes (the bourgeoisie and the proletariat), his con-
cept of social hegemony has been plausibly applied to numerous other
contexts that entail the domination of one community by another.
Examples include the study of inter-caste relations in India (Zene
2011), and the use of English literary studies as a device to inculcate
British standards and values in colonial India via the school curriculum
(Viswanathan 1989). It could, in principle, be applied to the social envi-
ronment with which I shall be concerned in this paper. The setting is a
232 CHARLES RAMBLE

culturally Tibetan (and partly Tibeto-Burman) enclave in the Nepal,

consisting of a hierarchical order of hereditary social groups. The rulers
in the period with which we are concerned were the local aristocracy,
and the Gramscian model would regard as evidence of “consenting
domination” the many approving cultural formulations of the social
order, such as the song-and-dance performances, known as shon, that
were “offered” to the Nobility1 at seasonal festivals by the Commoner
rank, and in various reverential topoi that feature in folksongs. Here is
what may be one of the simplest formulations of hegemony:
One beautiful flower,
Two beautiful flowers,
Offer these beautiful flowers to the birthplace of the root-lama (rtswa
ba’i bla ma).
One beautiful flower,
Two beautiful flowers,
Offer these beautiful flowers to the birthplace of the lord who leads us
(’go ’dren dpon po).
One beautiful flower,
Two beautiful flowers,
Offer these beautiful flowers to the birthplace of our dear parents (drin
can pha ma).
Gramsci’s work has been criticised on numerous grounds, most com-
monly perhaps by Marxist writers who have taken issue with his inter-
pretation of certain fundamental dogmas, such as historicism.2 But per-
haps the most devastating critique, delivered in deceptively non-con-
frontational tones, has come from James Scott, and is articulated in his
book Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts
(1990). Since it is of some importance to this article, the main points of
the book’s argument may be presented briefly.3

1 The different social strata of the enclave in question will be rendered with capital
initials, since some of them are nominally professions that are not actually practised.
Thus not all Priests are priests, and Artisans no longer do any artisanal work, since this
has become the province of Blacksmiths and Tailors.
2 For an extended critical appraisal of Gramsci’s thought see Anderson 1976.
3 I am indebted to Sara Shneiderman for giving me the occasion to reflect on the
relevance of James Scott’s work to the social history of Tibetan-speaking communities.
 HIDDEN HIMALAYAN TRANSCRIPTS 233

Public and hidden transcripts: the case against Gramsci

The basic premise of Scott’s critique is simple: Gramsci is wrong
because there is no such thing as hegemony in the sense of domination
with the consent of the dominated: subordinate groups do not subscribe
to the world-view of those who dominate them. The illusion that this is
the case is created by the success on the part of subordinate groups in
concealing their disaffection: all that is accessible is the “public tran-
script”, the official veneer used by such groups to hide their true senti-
ments. The more intolerant of resistance the dominant group is, the
greater the degree of acquiescence shown by the dominated. This much
is evident from the fact that, whenever the establishment eases the pres-
sure, subordinates will test the waters with relatively anodyne expres-
sions of discontent and, if these expressions are not immediately extin-
guished, will amplify the signs of their opposition.
More than once it has happened that the dominant have mistakenly
regarded such concessions as a safety valve that permits the underclass
to let off pressure before returning to their state of habitual subservience.
In fact, these opportunities are not a safety valve: they are the thin end
of a wedge. The archetypal example is that of the case of the Cahiers de
doléances, the opportunity given by Louis XVI to the French peasantry
(among others) in the spring of 1789 to register their complaints against
the government in publicly accessible lists. The complaints lodged there
were careful to accuse the corrupt and exploitative officers of the state
and church, never the king himself. But the chance to express grievances
in this way did not result in the peasantry returning to its previous con-
dition of apparent acceptance; it culminated, within a very few months,
in the French Revolution (ibid.: 77, 146).
The remarkable thing, Scott suggests, is not that people should sub-
scribe to a world-view that places them in a position of inferiority; it is
rather that they should have the courage at all to vent their discontent,
given the brutal response that history has shown generally follows man-
ifestations of resistance. The point is illustrated by examples from the
recent history of Tibet, a region that Scott does not consider among the
many cases he cites.
In the two decades between the suppression of the Tibetan uprising
of 1959 and the end of the Cultural Revolution there were a few out-
breaks of resistance in rural communities but, to the best of my knowl-
edge, not a single recorded public expression of discontent in Lhasa.
234 CHARLES RAMBLE

Five years after Beijing’s declaration of religious tolerance in the form

of the famous Document 19 of 1982 (The Basic Viewpoint and Policy
on the Religious Question during Our Country’s Socialist Period), the
Tibetan capital was rocked by large-scale demonstrations, spearheaded
by religious figures. The unrest was quickly and effectively calmed. In
2008, awareness of international visibility provided an environment for
even more widespread protests, not just in Lhasa but throughout the
Tibetan-speaking parts of the People’s Republic of China, with results
that the demonstrators must surely have foreseen.
In view of the consequences for one’s livelihood (especially for
those working in the public sector) or one’s family, resistance tends to
be muted to the point of near-imperceptibility. Some poignant examples
of such—literally—inaudible messages are given by Maria-Luisa
Nodari in a recent study of the history of Chinese mountaineering. To
cite just one instance: on 4 April 1985 nine members of a Tibetan team
of climbers reached the peak of Mt Cho Oyu as the culmination of a
climb that had been organised as part of the celebrations for the 20th
anniversary of the Tibet Autonomous Region. In their book on Chinese
mountaineering, Zhou Zheng and Liu Zhenkai report the event—appar-
ently in all innocence—as follows: “Unfurling a [national] flag they
tried to shout out ‘Long life to the Fatherland’, but their throat were too
parched” (Zhou and Liu 1995: 151, cited in Nodari 2012: 67).
In the absence of any arena for the overt expression of discontent it is
often the arts that provide the context for protest. In the case of visual
arts, the message is conveyed through the presence of salient cultural
symbols (white stupas, for example) or the juxtaposition of motifs that
serve to reinforce bonds among those who understand the implicit inten-
tion. The more public the forum, the subtler the message must be. A
Tibetan artist who worked from his home once showed me his oeuvre.
Most paintings carried political messages of varying degrees of subtlety.
One canvas showed a Tibetan-style cairn composed not of stones but of
heaped-up human corpses, and surmounted by a pole bearing a red flag.
He commented, rather unnecessarily, that he had no plans to exhibit this
one. By contrast, on another occasion I happened to be standing near the
front desk of one of Lhasa’s main international hotels with the man who
had conceived and executed the decoration of the foyer walls, while he
pointed out to me, with no small satisfaction, the damning messages con-
cealed in the scenes he had created.
 HIDDEN HIMALAYAN TRANSCRIPTS 235

Perhaps the best-documented medium for expression of nonconfor-

mity is song. Contemporary popular songs contain veiled references to
personae non gratae and outlawed aspirations. As in the case of visual
arts, the trick here is to achieve a balance between being comprehensi-
ble to insiders while remaining opaque to the watchful authorities. There
are numerous instances in recent years of songs that enjoyed wide pop-
ularity at least partly because of the perceived subtext of their lyrics
until, in certain cases at least, the censors themselves read between the
lines and prohibited further diffusion over the airwaves. The signifi-
cance of song in Tibetan social criticism is of course not confined to the
post-1950s era. Melvyn Goldstein’s study of Lhasa street songs provides
numerous illustrations of excoriating political wit (Goldstein 1982), and
Michael Aris’ study of Bhutanese balladry situates its subject within the
more general phenomenon of Tibetan and Himalayan anti-establishment
mendicant singers (Aris 1987). To the best of my knowledge the most
extensive study to date on the continuity of the Tibetan tradition of
social criticism across a range of literary genres is to be found in a recent
and still unpublished work by Lama Jabb (2013: 60–92; on modern
songs and Tibetan national sentiment, see also Lama Jabb 2012). While
the avarice of the clergy and the oppressive brutality of lords are recur-
ring motifs in these songs, we still know very little about the day-to-day
life of the Tibetan peasantry, and have almost no chance to hear what
they themselves might have had to say about the government officials,
local rulers and monastic agents whose exactions brought them to, and
often beyond, the brink of penury. Official documents of the sort dis-
cussed by Jeannine Bischoff in this volume are of inestimable value for
understanding the quotidian hardships of Central Tibetan mi ser, and
their methodical or desperate responses to their living conditions; but
they remain, nevertheless, public transcripts of the people’s lives.
In the case of the recent Tibetan uprisings mentioned above, the
response of the dominant group seems to have been astonishment and
a sense of betrayal that a people who ought to have been grateful for
their peaceful liberation should have bitten the hand that had freed
them. Among the many comparable examples that are considered by
Scott—and that I shall return to below—is that of the slaves in the
Ante-bellum American South. During the Civil War, white families
were shocked and distressed by the suspicion that their loyal slaves
might actually be hoping for victory for the North. Their suspicions
were aroused not by any statement to this effect by the slaves, but by the
absolute silence of the latter on the issue.
236 CHARLES RAMBLE

How then, could the Gramscian theory of hegemony have got it so

wrong? Because, says Scott, the theory takes at face value the version
of events to which the subordinate groups claim to subscribe. This is
the version to which Scott refers as the “public transcript”. Violent
uprisings and eloquent silences are not spontaneous manifestations;
they are the expressions of a well-formulated view of the world that is
drastically different from the official discourse. And if these expres-
sions come as a shock to the dominant groups, that is precisely because
the latter are not privy to the well-concealed sentiments that generated
them. It is for this reason that Scott refers to such alternative versions,
as well as to their manifestations, as “hidden transcripts”.

THE SETTING: THE DUKEDOM OF BARAGAON

While Scott acknowledges his debt to the growing body of published

“history from below”, he emphasises the problems encountered by cer-
tain social historians in tackling their subjects: the subordinate groups
in question were sometimes so cautious as to have left barely any writ-
ten evidence at all. A case in point is Christopher Hill’s study of the
seventeenth-century Lollards, whose heterodox religious beliefs are so
difficult to ascertain because their followers “were anxious to leave no
traces” (Hill 1982: 41, cited Scott 1990: 88). When such evidence does
come to light it often reveals a degree of structure and coordination of
which the dominant groups are generally entirely unaware.
In this contribution I wish to present a selection of documents pro-
duced by different subordinate communities that reveal secret strategies
of coordination of precisely this sort. The area concerned is the south-
ern part of what is now Nepal’s Mustang District. Extensive studies of
the history and ethnography of this region are to be found in several
publications,4 but a few words should be said here to provide the nec-
essary political and social context.
Baragaon, literally the “twelve villages” (Nep. Bhrag) is actually
an enclave of eighteen settlements that once formed part of the king-
dom of Lo, but whose ruler—a duke who was administering the area
on behalf of the king—seceded from the parent kingdom in the 17th
century and became a direct vassal of the powerful principality of

4 See for example Schuh 1994, 1995; Ramble 1985, 2008a.

 HIDDEN HIMALAYAN TRANSCRIPTS 237

Jumla. After the unification of Nepal in the late 18th century, the dukes
of Baragaon retained judicial and administrative powers under the
authority of the Gorkhas until the mid-19th century, when the govern-
ment of Nepal—by now in the hands of the dynastic rule of the Rana
Prime Ministers—auctioned off these rights, as well as the power to
collect taxes, to a non-local contractor. The communities are all Tibetan
speaking with the exception of an enclave of five, collectively known as
the Shod yul, whose inhabitants speak a Tibeto-Burman language
known as Se skad. The population is socially stratified in five ranks
(rgyud pa): the Nobility (sras po, dpon po), the Priesthood (bla mchod),
the Commoners (phal pa), Artisans (’gar ba) and Indo-European serv-
ice castes, specifically Blacksmiths and Tailors. The Nobility, the
Artisans and the service castes are endogamous, whereas the
Priesthood and the Commoners intermarry. The Commoners them-
selves are stratified into two ranks: members of the Shod yul—who are
considered by the rest of Baragaon to comprise the majority of the
lower rank of Commoners—do not generally marry outside their sub-
enclave, while one of the Shod yul—a settlement named Te—was until
a decade ago itself almost entirely endogamous.
This rather essentialised summary is inevitably an oversimplifica-
tion of what is of course a much more complicated picture, but the
many nuances are not relevant to the cases that will be examined below.

Baragaon vs Kathmandu
The highest-level, most “public”, hidden transcripts in Baragaon are
those in which the entire population is seen to be united against an
external entity. Such documents are uncommon, but the archive of the
community of Lubrak contains a particularly explicit example of such
an agreement that embraces all the social strata of the enclave. (The
presence of the document in Lubrak’s archive is explained by the fact
that this priestly community was a sort of scribal office for Baragaon.)
The beginning of the document is damaged, but from the names of the
signatories it can be safely dated to the 1880s. The document is a reso-
lution to oppose an attempt by the government to move a certain cus-
toms post to a location that would have been disadvantageous to
Baragon. While the details do not concern us here, two brief excerpts
are relevant because they provide unequivocal declarations of unity.
238 CHARLES RAMBLE

Since the language of the first of these is somewhat opaque, the translit-
eration is followed by an amended rendering in more conventional
orthography.5
...de la bgrong dpa’ med khra dzhal sngo dpon bo tshang ma lar rgya 1
man dpa’ 2 med...
(de la grong pa me khral zhal ngo dpon po tshang ma lhan rgyas 1 [ma
zad] 2 min)
In this [matter], everyone—[members of] full estates, subsidiary house-
holds and noble aristocrats—shall form a single, undivided body.
Secondly, the document concludes with the statement that:
...dpon bang tshang ma nas chod [tsh]igs =ie= (yi ge) [’br]i {±3S}
This document of agreement has been written by all nobles and subjects.
(Lubrak doc. 1)
But as stated above, such expressions of unity of purpose between the
ruling elite and the commoners seem to have been the exception rather
than the rule. The power of the aristocracy has waned over the course
of time, and for the past decades their status has been largely ceremo-
nial (though even this is being challenged by their traditional social
inferiors in the wake of the Maoist insurgency). However, it is quite
clear from the available sources—and, to a lesser extent, from living
memory—that their authority was reinforced by political power and
coercion. The duke of Baragaon had the authority to choose a
Commoner headman for all of Baragaon, apparently as a sort of liaison
between the headmen of the individual communities and the ruling
aristocracy. Some of the administrative and ceremonial functions of
this headman in the late seventeenth century are detailed in a document
studied by Dieter Schuh (1995), though information of the period
between then and the advent of ethnographic research in the 1970s is
largely lacking.

5 The conventions followed in the transliterated passages are as follows: {abc} =

intentional deletions; Z = che rtags; ˆ = tsha rtags, a small diagonal stroke used as an
abbreviation for various letters, but most frequently tsha. The Tibetan text of the
excerpts is unedited unless stated otherwise. Contracted forms (bskungs yig) are repre-
sented as closely as possible as they appear in the text, followed by a full-length form
in brackets.
 HIDDEN HIMALAYAN TRANSCRIPTS 239

Oppression and resistance

The case of one nineteenth-century headman whose name does appear
in a number of documents from Kag—one of the “capitals” (rgyal sa)
of Baragaon—is worth citing, because it provides anecdotal evidence
of the oppressiveness of the dominant groups. The headman in ques-
tion, Genpa Daro (rGan pa Dar po), is named in tax documents for a
number of years in the second half of the 19th century up to 1864
(Ramble 1994). (The fact that the texts name at least one other person
with the title of rgan pa does suggest that the position of headman was
no longer the solitary ducal appointment it had originally been.) A
well-known story has it that Genpa Daro was a champion of the welfare
of the common people and this outspoken defence of their rights pro-
voked the enmity of the aristocracy. If the story is true, it may well be
the case that he was attempting to uphold the law against abuses perpe-
trated by the local nobility against a populace who were either unaware
of their legal rights or were unable to exercise them—we shall see doc-
umented cases of this sort presently. One of the noblewomen was mar-
ried to the ruler in Kathmandu,6 and she was able to obtain the seal with
which to authorise a forged death-warrant against the turbulent head-
man. On receipt of the document, the Nobles or their henchmen took
Genpa Daro to the river below the settlement, where they beheaded
him, and hung his head under a bridge. The last detail is more than just
a gratuitous act of barbarity. It is not uncommon in Mustang to see the
heads of goats hanging under bridges. These are animals that have died
of some sort of cerebral disorder locally described simply as “mad-
ness”, and hanging the heads of the dead animals under bridges is
believed to prevent the condition from spreading. The sight of Genpa
Daro’s head dangling above the river would have sent a clear message
to anyone who saw it.
Even if this story is apocryphal it carries echoes of palpable popular
animosity towards the dominant groups; and, as we shall see, there is
certainly documentary evidence—from precisely this time—both of
exploitation of the community by the local elite and also of abuses per-
petrated in defiance of rulings from far-away Kathmandu.
The dukes of Baragaon may have been the rulers of the enclave, and
the political structure was evidently a top-down scheme with a single
6 It is at least possible that there was a woman of Kag who was a member of a Rana
household, since the provision of young women to the Rana court formed part of
Baragaon’s tax obligations at this time.
240 CHARLES RAMBLE

appointed headman liaising between the nobility and the local village
leaders, but there is clear evidence that the communities had mecha-
nisms for acephalous or “horizontal” communication and coordination
that bypassed the apical figures. One of the most striking illustrations
of this is a document from 1863 which shows the commoners of
Baragaon acting concertedly as a unified body. In 1857 the government
had introduced a contract (Nep. ijara) system whereby the hereditary
aristocracy were displaced by an outsider who had bid successfully for
the right to collect revenues in the region.7 The contractor exercised his
prerogatives through local agents, who seem to have been none other
than the local nobility whom he had in certain respects displaced. In
any event, the obligations imposed by the contractor were far more bur-
densome than had been the case under the dukes, and the people of
Baragaon lost no time in presenting their grievances to the government.
Details concerning this document are given elsewhere (Ramble forth-
coming a), but certain salient points may be summarised here. We do
not have the petition that was actually submitted to the government.
The document that is available to us is a Tibetan translation of the
Nepali text that the government issued by way of a response to
Baragaon’s complaints, but the narratio section rehearses the content
of the petition, giving us a full list of the grievances that are then
addressed.
A selection from the twelve complaints will give some idea of the
causes of dissatisfaction: the contractor imposes fines without consul-
tation with locally respected figures; the period of unpaid provision of
firewood has increased from four months to eight months; pack- and
riding-animals are requisitioned without notice, whereas customarily
several days’ notice was given to enable people to bring the animals
down from the pastures; while exemption from tax payments had been
conceded for six nobles houses, this privilege has now been extended
to the houses of their illegitimate children (presumably those of the
contractor or his aristocratic agents); fines that use previously to be
paid partly in cash and partly in grain must now be paid exclusively in
cash; fines for forbidden sexual liaisons between Commoners and
7 The contractor in question was almost certainly a certain Hem Karna Khadga. It
is known that this individual held the customs contract from 1862 to 1867, and the doc-
ument seems to suggest that the contractor at the time the document was issued in 1863
was the same as the one at the time of the events with which it deals three years earli-
er (Vinding 1998: 81). See also ibid.: 399, where the contractor is named as Captain
Hemakarna Khadka Chhetri.
 HIDDEN HIMALAYAN TRANSCRIPTS 241

Artisans have been increased; villagers are fined for failing to gather
firewood for the lord even when they have been prevented from doing
so by heavy snow; the contractors’ aristocratic agents send their live-
stock into the commoners’ fields even before they have been harvested.
The government’s response was mixed: it upheld most of the com-
plaints, rejected some and compromised on others. However, our con-
cern here is less with the outcome of the case than with the fact that the
petition was produced and submitted at all. The formulation of the
complaint makes it entirely clear that the eighteen villages of Baragaon,
far from requiring an apical duke to manage and direct their activities,
were fully capable of coordinating an effective legal strategy. The mat-
ter did not stop there. In the course of the government’s investigation of
the contractor’s alleged abuses it was discovered that Baragaon had
failed to pay its government taxes for one year in the period before the
introduction of the ijara system, when one of the dukes was still in
power. The duke was prosecuted and compelled to pay the government
the money he had collected from Baragaon as taxes but omitted to pass
on, while the population demanded—and received—a written apology
from their former lord for having deceived them in this way. If there
was ever a written correspondence to enable the coordination required
to achieve these results, it has not yet come to light. All we can say with
confidence is that a great deal of complex coordination must have taken
place behind the scenes.

Strategies for alleviating oppression: the case of Lubrak’s taxes

The document cited here shows the communities of Baragaon acting in
concert to uphold their interests—and rights—against the exactions of
its rulers. There were numerous instances in which it was not the entire
enclave but one or more of its component settlements that are singled
out for victimisation of one sort or another.
The Priestly (bla mchod) rank in Baragaon are for the most part con-
centrated in two communities: the Buddhist village of Chongkhor and
the Bonpo settlement of Lubrak. The taxes paid by Lubrak had for cen-
turies been a largely symbolic affair, consisting of a small quantity of
goji berries, wild chives and some birch bark (Ramble and Vinding
1987: 18). It had paid these items to whichever principality had had
jurisdiction over it at different periods: Thini, immediately to the south
of Baragaon, is named as the beneficiary power in one document, and
Manang, to the east of Mustang, in another. It seems to be the case that
242 CHARLES RAMBLE

it continued this token gesture to the rulers of Baragaon until the latter
part of the nineteenth century, after which point the concession was ter-
minated and a substantial levy imposed. Lubrak refused to pay, and the
dukes who were then in power—probably as the agents of the contrac-
tor at that time, a certain Krishna Prasad Thakali—responded by send-
ing henchmen to expropriate property from individual households. It is
only in the internal archive of Lubrak itself that we know something of
the strategy adopted by the community to cope with these depredations:
4. ... blu brags yul pa gro pa mo rang ma {kha’ don tshig}
5. rnas ’dzo nas / grong re mi re nas spe don gnas sngar pa srol la
med pa la / dpon bang rnas nas
6. lags bcugs pa shar tshe grong pa mo rang ma gsu yis gyud khyer kyang
yul pa ’dzo gnas gyud sde thogs la
7. rin skyabs byas nas rin ma pham pa yul nas srad gyud mchod pa yin /
A vote was held at a meeting consisting of one person from each house-
hold, and it was agreed that, even though there had been no such tradi-
tion in the past, if the lords and their subjects should lay their hands on
anyone and expropriate the property of either an estate or a subsidiary
household, a village meeting should be held; an assessment should be
carried out of that property, and its value restored to the owner in full by
the community. (Lubrak doc. 2)
But Lubrak is a small settlement, and if, as this “hidden transcript”
shows, it had developed a strategy for alleviating the hardships suffered
by individual families by distributing their losses across the communi-
ty, they were powerless to prevent the raids of the bailiffs.

The importance of horizontal coordination: the case of the Shod yul

If Lubrak had no natural allies with whom it might make common
cause against the rest of Baragaon and its leaders, this was not the case
with the five villages comprising the subsidiary enclave of the Shod
yul. While there are very few recorded instances of individual Shod yul
clashing with the rest of Baragaon, there are numerous cases in which
the five settlements presented themselves as a unified bloc against the
majority. One of these altercations flared up in 1922, when the Shod yul
sent a declaration of non-cooperation to the headmen (rgan pa) and
warden (spyi khyab) of southern Baragaon. The cause of the conflict is
not recorded, but the document contains five points stating that, hence-
forth, the Shod yul will boycott all future meetings of Baragaon and
 HIDDEN HIMALAYAN TRANSCRIPTS 243

will refuse to pay their share of the expenses for the enclave’s officials.
But it is the preamble to the document that is particularly interesting for
our present purposes:
1. [...] ngos mi
2. zer smong pa gla skra rnams la / mis ngan pa skra res nyis nas ’dug
spo mang rig stong
3. ba rkyen gi / ’dis phar lngar byas gyab gyur dar byas dwong len byas
nas / kha cig spyes 2
4. mis byis pa ngos rten yin / dwa sta ngos shod yul lnga phyes spya mo
chung spa ra don
5. tshan gang byung skyang cigs spa ma stogs spa 7 med Zzhin / ngos yul
5 / nas zur go yon
6. su nas byas skyang / bha dngul 500 lnga ’rgya tham spa nye spa Zzha
Zzhud med’i (med pa’i)
7. len gyu yin /
Because a few wicked people have been inflicting various forms of hard-
ship on us dumb [gla skra < Nep. la], backward people, we shall hence-
forth abandon whatever procedures may have been usual in the past and
adopt new policies. We shall certainly not behave as if we had two
tongues in one mouth, but in whatsoever mater may arise, whether it be
as great as a double six [in a game of dice] or as insignificant as two
ones, we five Shod yul shall act as one, and stand undivided. Whichever
of us five Shod yul diverges from this policy shall pay a fine of 500
rupees, and no excuses will be accepted. (HMA/Baragaon/Tib/05)
To the extent that this document was intended to be read by (or to) the
entirety of Baragaon, it corresponds to what Scott refers to as the pub-
lic transcript. It tells Baragaon nothing about the procedures whereby
the five communities arrived at this consensus. It does provide the
assurance that the Shod yul do not speak “as if they had two tongues in
one mouth”—meaning that none of them will betray another—and
backs up this declaration of unanimity by saying that each one is bound
to the agreement on pain of paying a fine of 500 rupees (an almost
impossibly large sum at that time) for violating this union. This may
well have been true, but the fact that they announced it was clearly
intended to persuade Baragaon that they meant business, since no one
would trifle with such large sums.
In certain cases it would not have been in the Shod yul’s interest to
reveal that they had made any sort of separate arrangement among
themselves. Plenary meetings of Baragaon were held periodically to
decide on matters that concerned the enclave as a whole—such as trade
and transit arrangements with northern Mustang, or in negotiating with
244 CHARLES RAMBLE

the government over the positioning of checkposts. It was expected in

such cases that the village representatives would be acting in the inter-
est of Baragaon as a whole, without consideration of individual com-
munity interests.
What Baragaon did not know—or at least, was never explicitly told
by the Shod yul—was that, prior to any plenary gathering of the
enclave the five would hold a secret meeting and decide how they were
going to vote at the general assembly. The following excerpt is taken
from a document from the archive of Te, and records a resolution of the
five Shod yul that they should vote as a bloc.
An agreement among the five Shod yul. Wherever we have to attend a
meeting, whether far or near, in accordance with the traditional practice
of Ngazhab [the commoners of Baragaon], we five villages shall place
our votes in the same place, not separately. Whichever village casts its
votes separately shall be fined.8
In the course of such general assemblies the other communities of
Baragaon may well have suspected that the five Shod yul were in col-
lusion, but the fact that the documentary record for such an arrange-
ment was not in the public domain meant that there was no evidence to
prove the existence of such well-organised factionalism. This docu-
ment, and others like it, belong to the hidden transcript of the Shod yul
as a collectivity. We might imagine such an assembly of Baragaon, and
the frustration that the leaders must have felt at the imperviousness of
the representations of the Shod yul to reasonable arguments, and the
conviction that the wearers of those masks of innocence might not be
as “dumb and backward” as they claimed to be. We are reminded of the
suspicion elicited by the particular inscrutability of American slaves
when the topic of the Civil War was raised:
Noting that her slaves fell uncharacteristically silent whenever the latest
news from the front in the Civil War became a topic of white conversa-
tion, Mary Chestnut took their silence as one that hid something: “They
go about in their black masks, not a ripple of emotion showing; and yet
on all other subjects except the war they are the most excitable of all
races...”. (Scott 1990: 3, citing Patterson 1982: 208)
The tenacity of the Gramscian notion of hegemony, Scott notes, is sus-
tained in no small measure by the reality that many subordinate groups
are non-literate. It is only from their coordinated response to persecu-
8 HMA/Te/Tib/51. The full text and translation of this document are given in
Ramble 2008b: 286.
 HIDDEN HIMALAYAN TRANSCRIPTS 245

tion that the existence of behind-the-scenes organisation can be

inferred. Fortunately for us, the evidence of local archives in Mustang
renders the effort of such inference unnecessary. Several documents
offer priceless insights into the precise mechanisms for the manufacture
of consent. Here is another excerpt from a document (from 1936) from
the Shod yul’s archives:
1. [...] sgan pa mi ngo lnga yi skor nas sngon bsrol nar rtar
2. mchod tshig dbyed pa stod nas phyi dra nang nas smad dra gang rtar
byung na yang yul kha lnga po grong pa yul gang dra tham cad gcig
chong gnyis chong
3. man pa khyod stod shos khyo tshug shos khyod bsteng yod shos khyod
tsang li shos khod gya ga shos bzer ba med sgal srid zer ba yul nas
’byung na
4. bha dngul 100 grong pa nas gram na bha dngul 23 yin [...]

The headmen [of the] five [Shod yul] must adhere to past custom. If ene-
mies come from the north or south, from without or within or wherever,
all the [five] villages and their households must act as one, and no one
may say “You are Te Shod, you are Taye Shod” (i.e. that it is your prob-
lem, not ours) and so forth. If an entire village acts in this way the fine
will be 100 rupees; if a household does so, it will be 23 rupees.
(LTshognam/Tib/16)
Spontaneous constancy to a policy of solidarity in the face of oppres-
sion is never something that can be taken for granted, and subordinate
groups customarily adopt coercive measures of various sorts to ensure
that their members do not break ranks, and to punish those that do. The
preferred method among the Shod yul was by the threat of fines of
which the levels were specified for recidivist individuals, households
and entire communities. Most important, however, was the oath of
secrecy sworn annually by the assembled Shod yul. The procedures for
taking this oath are spelled out in the same document:
6. stod nas phyi ’dra smad nas nang ’dra gang ’dra ’byung kyang sgan pa
dun du bcug dyab du mi mang phyi skor nang skor byas nas
7. cig chong gnyis chong man pa nga bsted pa’i bcan tshug mi shes nga
tsang le bcan btsug mi shes nga gya ga bcan tsug mi shes
8. nga tshug bcan tshug mi shes nga bsteng yed bcan tshug mi shes bzer
ba med pa sgan pa na ma rim bzhin gyi bcan tshug la lag rtam
9. mi mang pho thog mo thog tham cad gon pa la mi mang lag rkor kyis
stags de rta bu la ka dros ’cham nas phyi rtam nang du man pa nang rtam
10. phi ru kyol yod dam bzer nas sna dyal hor zla 3 pa’i tshe 10 byed rgyu
yin
246 CHARLES RAMBLE

If outside (i.e. Tibetan?) enemies come from the north, and inside ene-
mies (Nepalese?) come from the south, the headman should be in front,
the supervisors behind them, and the populace in an outer and inner cir-
cle, and they should act as one. [Each supervisor] should not say “I can-
not act as the supervisor of Te” or whatever. The headmen each in turn
should grasp the hands of the supervisor; each man and woman offers his
or her hand to the headman. Having so united they swear an oath to the
effect that they should bear information about the outside to the inside,
and should not convey inside information to the outside. This oath shall
be sworn on the tenth day of every third Hor month. (ibid.)
This injunction to secrecy appears in much the same form in the
archives of most of the communities, and was probably universal in
Mustang, at least as an oral formulation if not as a written policy. Such
a policy of village-level omertà still certainly prevails through Mustang
in cases of inter-community disputes or criminal investigations by
police. In the case of the document under consideration here, there is a
sort of double oath: not only must the people of the Shod yul swear an
oath of secrecy, but they must also swear not to reveal to anyone that
they have sworn such an oath at all. An addendum to the document
states:
11. […] yul ka lnga po’i rgan pa skags du gsu ’dzom kyang
12. kha 1 ce 2 byas nas lab sa med / rgan pa can btsugs yul pa thaṃd
(thams cad) gsu na =kya[l] ’dugs zer ba gang byung na / rbun ’drigs chad
dngul 25 / dang yul nas byas pa sheˆr (sher [< shar] tshe) / ’drid chad
13. dngul 100 phul phyogs zhus pa /
If any headman of the five [Shod yul] goes to Kag for a meeting he shall
not speak with two tongues in one mouth (i.e. with duplicity); if a head-
man, supervisor or all the villagers admit that they have sworn this oath
there will be a 25-rupee fine for individuals and a fine of 100 rupees for
villages. (ibid.)
The archive of Te contains half a dozen documents from which it is
possible to piece together a protracted dispute in which the five Shod
yul, seriously—and illegally—put upon by the King of Lo, were able to
coordinate their resistance effectively enough to shake off his oppres-
sion. The event is described in some detail (and the relevant documents
presented) elsewhere, but the main episodes in the dispute are worth
reproducing here.
The apparatus of the central government was not well developed in
the peripheral areas of post-unification Nepal, and authority was gen-
erally delegated to local elites who had either cooperated with the
 HIDDEN HIMALAYAN TRANSCRIPTS 247

Gorkhas during their campaign, or else had been elevated to positions

of power by the conquerors. The policy of both the Shah and Rana
administrations was to erode the prerogatives of these provincial elites
in favour of individuals or structures more directly connected with the
country’s rulers (Regmi 1972: 29–33). Although the details are not
always clear, it appears that the king had been entitled to certain cate-
gories of tax and services from the Shod yul (as well as one other com-
munity), but that in 1863 the government had abolished these services
and declared that the revenues in question should be redirected to the
local customs office. The King of Lo did not accept this ruling, and
continued to exact what he regarded as his hereditary dues until, in
1900, the Shod yul asked the Rana government to intervene in the mat-
ter. The secret documents of the Shod yul—this particular collection is
kept in the archive of Te—suggest that the government’s confirmation
of its earlier position was not readily forthcoming. The enclave engaged
certain prominent aristocrats to go to Kathmandu to intercede on their
behalf, and this cost money—honoraria for the mediators and fees and
bribes for the authorities in the capital—which was secretly raised by
collecting payments from all the families on the basis of the numbers
of livestock each one possessed. At the same time, the five villages
adopted a policy of passive resistance to the king. A royal visit to any
of the villages in the past would have meant receiving the royal party at
some distance from the settlement, entertaining them with food and
drink, leading their horses by the bridle and so on. On 14 March 1910
the Shod yul passed a resolution prohibiting its members from precise-
ly these activities, and specifying fines of 100 rupees and 16 rupees
respectively for any community or individual whose nerve might fail.
A sort of early warning system was also implemented, whereby any vil-
lage that had reason to believe a royal party was about to descend on it
would send missions to the neighbouring settlements, who would in
turn dispatch a delegation to support their beleaguered ally.
The strategy proved successful: the Shod yul’s non-cooperation,
backed up by a missive from Kathmandu confirming the ineligibility of
the services claimed by the king, resulted in liberation from the royal
oppressor (Ramble 2008a: 63–70).
248 CHARLES RAMBLE

CONCLUSION

As a case study in the opposition of public to hidden transcripts the

archives of Baragaon are a particularly rich source, since they offer an
insight into several degrees of concealment. The manoeuvring of
Baragaon as a whole against its noble or contractual chiefs was carried
on without the knowledge of the leadership; and Baragaon itself had no
inkling of the elaborate scheming of the five Shod yul in pursuit of their
own common interest; nor was the King of Lo privy to the strategies the
Shod yul had formulated to deprive him of what he regarded as his
hereditary rights. But the layers of the onion do not stop there. The
Shod yul may have been united against forces that they regarded as their
common oppressors, but the archives of the individual settlements con-
tain abundant evidence of strategies that each adopted against one or
more of its neighbours in disputes, generally relating to pasture bound-
aries.9 These documents were clearly not for the public eye of the Shod
yul, who had ceased in these circumstances to be the ally and had
become instead the enemy. A policy of openness would have led to the
people of Te being deprived of their resources by their neighbours, just
as surely as by any king, contractor or duke.
The significance of this last example is that it takes us beyond rela-
tions of simple dominance to a confrontation between peers: clearly,
hidden transcripts are not the monopoly of a social underclass but are
likely, in some form or other, to be a feature of any group that aims to
preserve its collective identity in an environment in which its integrity
is threatened; and even dominant groups—as Scott rightly points out—
need a private space in which they can figuratively mess together and
unbuckle the burden of affectations that they must wear if they are to
be credible oppressors.
Most of the examples given here do deal with relations between
groups of unequal social standing, and in the majority of cases the
direction of persecution follows the natural order, so to speak: it is the
aristocracy who are bullying their social inferiors—priests and com-
moners—while the “sub-Commoner” of the Shod yul are being put
upon by Commoners in one case and royalty in another. But in relations
between members of the Shod yul the impulse to secrecy has nothing
to do with the opposition of a weaker group by a more powerful one. It
9For examples of such “internal” strategies against neighbouring communities, see
Ramble 2008a: chapter 4.
 HIDDEN HIMALAYAN TRANSCRIPTS 249

is, rather, the strategic caution of a community that knows it will be

endangered by too much openness about its internal affairs.
The “hidden transcripts” of which a few examples have been pre-
sented here were made available by the communities that own them
because they felt that such revelation no longer carried any risk. There
are other documents to which I have been denied access because pub-
lication might, it was felt, render the community vulnerable. In the case
of the most underprivileged groups in the region it is probable that
there are no historical accounts at all, beyond sporadic appearances in
the archives of the communities to which they are attached. The hard-
ships we have seen inflicted on the Priests and Commoners in these
documents must surely pale in comparison with the cruelties and indig-
nities visited on the region’s Blacksmiths and Tailors. A sensitive
anthropological enquiry might discover in this community an attitude
to their statutory betters that is at odds with the good-humoured acqui-
escence its members characteristically convey; the success among them
of Maoist politicians and Christian missionaries in recent years is evi-
dence enough of unarticulated discontent. Their ascending generations,
however, left no written traces because they could not write, and prob-
ably had no one trustworthy to write for them; but the documents from
other groups seen in this article do suggest that, whatever they may
have said and done in public, they are unlikely to have been under the
spell of anyone else’s social hegemony.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Unpublished documents from Mustang

HMA/Baragaon/Tib/05
Document from the Baragaon archive, dated Water Dog year (1922); 32 lines, cursive
script. To appear in Ramble forthcoming c.
HMA/LTshognam/Tib/16
Document from Lower Tshognam, dated Fire Rat year (1936); 15 lines, cursive script.
To appear in Ramble forthcoming b.
Lubrak doc. 1
Document from Lubrak, undated (1880s), 31 lines, cursive script.
Lubrak doc. 2
Document from Lubrak dated Fire Pig year (1886), 19 lines, cursive script.
250 CHARLES RAMBLE

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 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Jeannine BISCHOFF is a doctoral student at the University of Bonn.

She is currently writing her dissertation on the socio-economic situa-
tion of Central Tibetan mi ser during the time of the dGa’ ldan pho
brang government. The work is mainly based on private legal docu-
ments related to the monastery of Kun bde gling.

Christoph CÜPPERS studied Indology and Tibetology at the

University of Hamburg and received his doctorate in 1983. From 1983
till 1988 he was the deputy director and later director of the Nepal-
German Manuscript Preservation Project and the Nepal Research
Centre. Since 1995 he has been director of the Lumbini International
Research Institute, Lumbini, Nepal. His research focuses on 17th centu-
ry Tibet with particular interest in the state administration of that peri-
od.

Kalsang Norbu GURUNG is a post-doctoral research fellow at the

Department of Mongolian and Tibetan Studies in the University of
Bonn in Germany. He is a member of a research group working on the
social history of Tibetan societies funded by the German Research
Council (DFG). His current research focuses on the situation of Tibetan
mi ser during the late 18th century according to the historical archives
of Kündeling Monastery now digitally preserved at Bonn University.
His research interest also extends to religious history of Tibet and in
particular, the Bon religion of Tibet.

Berthe JANSEN is a PhD candidate in a research project at Leiden

University called “Buddhism and Social Justice”. Her research focuses
on pre-modern Tibetan Buddhist monastic organisation and the rela-
tionships between monastics and lay-people. The main sources she
examines are Tibetan monastic guidelines (bca’ yig). She has been
working as an interpreter and translator of (Buddhist) Tibetan since
2004.
254 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Fabienne JAGOU (PhD Paris, École des Hautes Études en Sciences

Sociales) is associate professor at the École française d’Extrême-
Orient. She teaches at the École Normale Supérieure in Lyon and at the
Lyon Political Science Institute. She is the author of Le 9e Panchen
Lama (1883–1937): Enjeu des relations sino-tibétaines (EFEO, 2004),
published in English under the title The Ninth Panchen Lama (1883-
1937): A life at the crossroads of Sino-Tibetan relations
(Silkworm/EFEO, 2011) and the editor of “Conception et circulation
des textes tibétains”, Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie (15, 2005) and co-editor
(with P. Calanca) of “Border officials”, Sinologie française, 12,
Beijing: Zhonghua shuju (in Chinese, 2007).

Astrid HOVDEN is a PhD candidate at the Department of Culture

Studies and Oriental Languages at the University of Oslo. Her PhD
project explores the relations between monastery and lay population in
Limi, northwestern Nepal, with a particular focus on ritual economy.
The research is based on a combination of ethnographic material and
the study of local administrative documents.

LIU Yuxuan is currently working in the Department for Mongolian and

Tibetan Studies at Bonn University. She has finished her doctoral stud-
ies at Nanjing University in 2012. In her research she is focusing on the
social situation and people’s lives in Tibet during the Qing dynasty,
based on historical records in Chinese.

Saul MULLARD is a researcher at the EPHE (École Pratique des

Hautes Études), where he is currently working on the social history of
the Sikkimese Himalaya based on archival material from the Sikkimese
Palace Archive. His principal research foci are the taxation and admin-
istrative organisation of Sikkim, frontiers and boundaries in state, inter-
state, and non-state spaces and ethnicity and stratification in the 17th20th
centuries. He has published one monograph on Sikkim's history
Opening the Hidden Land (Leiden, Brill 2011), a catalogue of the
Sikkimese Archives entitled Royal Records: A Catalogue of the
Sikkimese Palace Archives (with Hissey Wongchuk; Halle, IITB 2011),
and numerous articles on Sikkimese and Tibetan history.
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS 255

Fernanda PIRIE is a university lecturer in socio-legal studies and direc-

tor of the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford.
She has carried out anthropological research on the Tibetan plateau
since 1999, and is the author of Peace and Conflict in Ladakh (Leiden,
Brill 2007) and Conflict and Social Order in Tibet and Inner Asia (with
Toni Huber; Leiden, Brill 2008), as well as publications on the nomads
of Amdo. Her current research concerns the nature of legalism on the
Tibetan plateau and the history and context of Tibetan legal texts. She
is a co-organiser of the Oxford Legalism project, which brings togeth-
er scholars from law, history, anthropology, classics and oriental stud-
ies in order to compare examples of legal texts and legalistic practices
and thought from across the world.

Charles RAMBLE is directeur d’études at the École Pratique des

Hautes Études (EPHE), Paris, and a member of the Centre de
Recherche sur les Civilisations de l’Asie Orientale (CRCAO). His pub-
lications include The Navel of the Demoness: Tibetan Buddhism and
Civil Religion in Highland Nepal (New York, 2008), and Tibetan
Sources for a Social History of Mustang (Nepal): Volume 1, The
Archive of Te (Halle, 2008)

Peter SCHWIEGER is Professor of Tibetan Studies at Bonn University

in Germany. His publications cover the literature of the Tibetan
Nyingma school, Tibetan diplomatics, Ladakhi and East Tibetan histo-
ry, Tibetan oral literature and the grammar of Tibetan language.
Currently he does research on the political and social history of Tibetan
societies.

Alice TRAVERS is a researcher at the French National Centre for

Scientific Research (CNRS), in the East Asian Civilisations Research
Centre (CRCAO), Paris, where she works on social history in 19th and
20th century traditional Tibet, and on the dGa’ ldan pho brang govern-
ment. She has written her PhD dissertation and several articles on the
aristocracy of Central Tibet.