Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch Volume III Part 41

Lozang[961], the fifth Grand Lama, is by common consent the most remarkable of the pontifical line. He established the right of himself and his successors--or, as he might have said, of himself in his successive births--to the temporal and ecclesiastical sovereignty of Tibet: he built the Potala and his dealings with the Mongols and the Emperor of China are of importance for general Asiatic history.

From the seventeenth century onwards there were four factors in Tibetan politics.

1. The Gelugpa or Yellow Church, very strong but anxious to become stronger both by increasing its temporal power and by suppressing other sects. Its att.i.tude towards Chinese and Mongols showed no prejudice and was dictated by policy.

2. The Tibetan chiefs and people, on the whole respectful to the Yellow Church but not single-hearted nor forgetful of older sects: averse to Chinese and p.r.o.ne to side with Mongols.

3. The Mongols, conscious of their imperfect civilization and anxious to improve themselves by contact with the Lamas. As a nation they wished to repeat their past victories over China, and individual chiefs wished to make themselves the head of the nation. People and princes alike respected all Lamas.

4. The Chinese, apprehensive of the Mongols and desirous to keep them tranquil, caring little for Lamaism in itself but patiently determined to have a decisive voice in ecclesiastical matters, since the Church of Lhasa had become a political power in their border lands.

Lo-zang was born as the son of a high Tibetan official about 1616 and was educated in the Depung monastery under the supervision of Chos-kyi-Gyal-tsan, abbot of Tashilhunpo and a man of political weight. The country was then divided into Khamdo, Wu and Tsang, or Eastern, Central and Western Tibet, and in each province there ruled a king of the Phagmodu dynasty. In Central Tibet, and specially at Lhasa, the Gelugpa was the established church and accepted by the king but in the other provinces there was much religious strife and the older sects were still predominant. About 1630 the regent of Tsang captured Lhasa and made himself sovereign of all Tibet. He was a follower of the Sakya sect and his rule was a menace to the authority and even to the existence of the Yellow Church, which for some years suffered much tribulation. When the young Grand Lama grew up, he and his preceptor determined to seek foreign aid and appealed to Gushi Khan[962]. This prince was a former pupil of Chos-kyi-Gyal-tsan and chief of the Oelt, the ancestors of the Kalmuks and other western tribes, but then living near Kokonor. He was a staunch member of the Yellow Church and had already made it paramount in Khamdo which he invaded in 1638. He promptly responded to the appeal, invaded Tibet, took the regent prisoner, and, after making himself master of the whole country, handed over his authority to the Grand Lama, retaining only the command of his Mongol garrisons. This arrangement was advantageous to both parties. The Grand Lama not only greatly increased his ecclesiastical prestige but became a temporal sovereign of considerable importance. Gushi, who had probably no desire to reside permanently in the Snow Land, received all the favours which a grateful Pope could bestow on a king and among the superst.i.tious Mongols these had a real value. Further the Oelt garrisons which continued to occupy various points in Tibet gave him a decisive voice in the affairs of the country, if there was ever a question of using force.

The Grand Lamas had hitherto resided in the Depung monastery but Lo-zang now moved to the hill of Marpori, the former royal residence and began to build on it the Potala[963] palace which, judging from photographs, must be one of the most striking edifices in the world, for its stately walls continue the curves of the mountain side and seem to grow out of the living rock. His old teacher was given the t.i.tle of Panchen Rinpoche, which has since been borne by the abbots of Tashilhunpo, and the doctrine that the Grand Lamas of Lhasa and Tashilhunpo are respectively incarnations of Avalokita and Amitbha was definitely promulgated[964].

The establishment of the Grand Lama as temporal ruler of Tibet coincided with the advent of the Manchu dynasty (1644). The Emperor and the Lama had everything to gain from friendly relations and their negotiations culminated in a visit which Lo-zang paid to Peking in 1652-3. He was treated as an independent sovereign and received from the Emperor a long t.i.tle containing the phrase "Self-existent Buddha, Universal Ruler of the Buddhist faith." In return he probably undertook to use his influence with the Mongols to preserve peace and prevent raids on China.

After his return to Tibet, he appears to have been a real as well as a nominal autocrat for his preceptor and Gushi Khan both died, and the new Manchu dynasty had its hands full. His chief adviser was the Desi[965] or Prime Minister, supposed to be his natural son. In 1666 the great Emperor K'ang-hsi succeeded to the throne: and shortly afterwards the restlessness of the Mongol Princes began to inspire the Chinese Court with apprehension. In 1680 Lo-zang died but his death was a state secret. It was apparently known in Tibet and an infant successor was selected but the Desi continued to rule in Lo-zang's name and even the Emperor of China had no certain knowledge of his suspected demise but probably thought that the fiction of his existence was the best means of keeping the Mongols in order. It was not until 1696 that his death and the accession of a youth named Thsang-yang Gya-thso were made public.

But the young Grand Lama, who owing to the fiction that his predecessor was still alive had probably been brought up less strictly than usual, soon began to inspire alarm at Peking for he showed himself wilful and intelligent. He wrote love songs which are still popular and his licentious behaviour was quite out of harmony with the traditions of the holy see. In 1701, under joint pressure from the Chinese and Mongols, he resigned his ecclesiastical rights and handed over the care of the Church to the abbot of Tashilhunpo, while retaining his position as temporal ruler. But the Chinese still felt uneasy and in 1705 succeeded in inducing him to undertake a journey to Peking. When he got as far as Mongolia he died of either dropsy or a.s.sa.s.sination. The commander of the Oelt garrisons in Tibet was a friend of the Chinese, and at once produced a new Grand Lama called Yeses, a man of about twenty-five, who claimed to be the true reincarnation of the fifth Grand Lama, the pretensions of the dissolute youth who had just died being thus set aside. It suited the Chinese to deal with an adult, who could be made to understand that he had received and held his office only through their good will, but the Tibetans would have none of this arrangement. They clung to the memory of the dissolute youth and welcomed with enthusiasm the news that he had reappeared in Li-t'ang as a new-born child, who was ultimately recognized as the seventh Grand Lama named Kalzang. The Chinese imprisoned the infant with his parents in the monastery of k.u.mb.u.m in Kansu and gave all their support to Yeses. For the better control of affairs in Lhasa two Chinese Agents were appointed to reside there with the Manchu t.i.tle of Amban[966].

But the Tibetans would not accept the rule of Yeses and in 1717 the revolutionary party conspired with the Oelt tribes of Ili to put Kalzang on the throne by force. The troops sent to take the holy child were defeated by the Chinese but those which attacked Lhasa were completely successful. Yeses abdicated and the city pa.s.sed into the possession of the Mongols. The Chinese Government were greatly alarmed and determined to subdue Tibet. Their first expedition was a failure but in 1720 they sent a second and larger, and also decided to install the youthful Kalzang as Grand Lama, thus conciliating the religious feelings of the Tibetans. The expedition met with little difficulty and the result of it was that China became suzerain of the whole country. By imperial edict the young Grand Lama was recognized as temporal ruler, the four ministers or Kaln were given Chinese t.i.tles, and garrisons were posted to keep open the road from China. But the Tibetans were still discontented. In 1727 a rebellion, instigated it was said by the family of the Grand Lama, broke out, and the Prime Minister was killed. This rising was not permanently successful and the Chinese removed the Grand Lama to the neighbourhood of their frontier. They felt however that it was unsafe to give ground for suspicion that they were ill-treating him and in 1734 he was reinstated in the Potala. But the dislike of the Tibetans for Chinese supervision was plain. In 1747 there was another rebellion. The population of Lhasa rose and were a.s.sisted by Oelt troops who suddenly arrived on the scene. Chinese rule was saved only by the heroism of the two Chinese Agents, who invited the chief conspirators to a meeting and engaged them in personal combat. They lost their own lives but killed the princ.i.p.al rebels. The Chinese then abolished the office of Prime Minister, increased their garrison and gave the Agents larger powers.

About 1758 the Grand Lama died and was succeeded by an infant called Jambal. The real authority was wielded by the Panchen Lama who acted as regent and was so influential that the Emperor Ch'ien-Lung insisted on his visiting Peking[967]. He had a good reception and probably obtained some promise that the government of Tibet would be left more in the hands of the Church but he died of smallpox in Peking and nothing came of his visit except a beautiful tomb and an epitaph written by the Emperor. After his death a new complication appeared.

The prelates of the Red Church encouraged an invasion of the Gurkhas of Nepal in the hope of crushing the Yellow Church. The upshot was that the Chinese drove out the Gurkhas but determined to establish a more direct control. The powers of the Agents were greatly increased and not even the Grand Lama was allowed the right of memorializing the throne, but had to report to the Agents and ask their orders.

In 1793 Ch'ien-Lung issued a remarkable edict regulating the appearance of incarnations which, as he observed, had become simply the hereditary perquisites of certain n.o.ble Mongol families. He therefore ordered that when there was any question of an incarnation the names of the claimants to the distinction should be written on slips of paper and placed in a golden bowl: that a religious service should be held and at its close a name be drawn from the bowl in the presence of the Chinese Agents and the public. The child whose name should be drawn was to be recognized as the true incarnation but required invest.i.ture by an imperial patent.

A period of calm followed, and when the Grand Lama died in 1804 the Tibetans totally neglected this edict and selected a child born in eastern Tibet. The Chinese Court, desirous of avoiding unnecessary trouble, approved[968] the choice on the ground that the infant's precocious ability established his divine character but when he died in 1815 and an attempt was made to repeat this irregularity, a second edict was published, insisting that the names of at least three candidates must be placed in the golden urn and that he whose name should be first drawn must be Grand Lama. This procedure was followed but the child elected by the oracle of the urn died before he was twenty and another infant was chosen as his successor in 1838. As a result the Lama who was regent acquired great power and also unpopularity. His tyranny caused the Tibetans to pet.i.tion the Emperor; and His Majesty sent a new Agent to investigate his conduct. Good reason was shown for holding him responsible for the death of the Grand Lama in 1838 and for other misdeeds. The Emperor then degraded and banished him and, what is more singular, forbade him to reappear in a human reincarnation.

The reigns of Grand Lamas in the nineteenth century have mostly been short. Two others were selected in 1858 and 1877 respectively. The latter who is the present occupant of the post was the son of a Tibetan peasant: he was duly chosen by the oracle of the urn and invested by the Emperor. In 1893 he a.s.sumed personal control of the administration and terminated a regency which seems to have been oppressive and unpopular. The British Government were anxious to negotiate with him about Sikhim and other matters, but finding it impossible to obtain answers to their communications sent an expedition to Lhasa in 1904. The Grand Lama then fled to Urga, in which region he remained until 1907. In the autumn of 1908 he was induced to visit Peking where he was received with great ceremony but, contrary to the precedent established when the fifth Grand Lama attended Court, he was obliged to kneel and kotow before the Empress Dowager. Neither could he obtain the right to memorialize the throne, but was ordered to report to the Agents. The Court duly recognized his religious position. On the birthday of the Empress he performed a service for her long life, at which Her Majesty was present. It was not wholly successful, for a week or two later he officiated at her funeral. At the end of 1908 he left for Lhasa. He visited India in 1910 but this created dissatisfaction at Peking. In the same year[969]

a decree was issued deposing him from his spiritual as well as his temporal powers and ordering the Agents to seek out a new child by drawing lots from the golden urn. This decree was probably _ultra vires_ and certainly illogical, for if the Chinese Government recognized the Lama as an incarnation, they could not, according to the accepted theory, replace him by another incarnation before his death. And if they regarded him as a false incarnation, they should have ordered the Agents to seek out not a child but a man born about the time that the last Grand Lama died. At any rate the Tibetans paid no attention to the decree.

The early deaths of Grand Lamas in the nineteenth century have naturally created a presumption that they were put out of the way and contemporary suspicion accused the regent in 1838. There is no evidence that the deaths of the other three were regarded as unnatural but the earlier Grand Lamas as well as the abbots of Tashilhunpo lived to a good age. On the other hand the Grand Lamas of Urga are said to die young. If the pontiffs of some lines live long and those of others die early, the inference is not that the life of a G.o.d incarnate is unhealthy but that in special cases special circ.u.mstances interfere with it, and on the whole there are good grounds for suspecting foul play. But it is interesting to note that most Europeans who have made the acquaintance of high Lamas speak in praise of their character and intelligence. So Manning (the friend of Charles Lamb) of the ninth Grand Lama (1811), Bogle of the Tashi Lama about 1778, Sven Hedin of his successor in 1907, and Waddell of the Lama Regent in 1904.

The above pages refer to the history of Lamaism in Tibet and Mongolia.

It also spread to China, European Russia, Ladak, Sikhim and Bhutan. In China it is confined to the north and its presence is easily explicable by the genuine enthusiasm of Khubilai and the encouragement given on political grounds by the Ming and Manchu dynasties. Further, several Mongol towns such as Kalgan and Kuku-khoto are within the limits of the eighteen provinces.

The Kalmuks who live in European Russia are the descendants of tribes who moved westwards from Dzungaria in the seventeenth century. Many of them left Russia and returned to the east in 1771, but a considerable number remained behind, chiefly between the Volga and the Don, and the population professing Lamaism there is now reckoned at about 100,000.

Buddhist influences may have been at work in Ladak from an early period. In later times it can be regarded as a dependency of Tibet, at any rate for ecclesiastical purposes, for it formed part of Tibet until the disruption of the kingdom in the tenth century and it subsequently accepted the sovereignty of Lhasa in religious and sometimes in political matters. Concerning the history of Bhutan, I have been able to discover but little. The earliest known inhabitants are called Tephu and the Tibetans are said to have conquered them about 1670. Lamaism probably entered the country at this time, if not earlier[970]. At any rate it must have been predominant in 1774 when the Tashi Lama used his good offices to conclude peace between the Bhutiyas and the East India Company. The established church however is not the Gelugpa but the Dugpa, which is a subdivision of the Kar-gyu-pa. There are two rulers in Bhutan, the Dharmarja or spiritual and the Debrja or temporal. The former is regarded as an incarnation of the first cla.s.s, though it is not clear of what deity[971].

The conversion of Sikhim is ascribed to a saint named Latsn Ch'embo, who visited it about 1650 with two other Lamas. They a.s.sociated with themselves a native chief whom they ordained as a Lama and made king.

All four then governed Sikhim. Though Latsn Ch'embo is represented as a friend of the fifth Grand Lama, the two sects at present found in Sikhim are the Nying-ma-pa, the old unreformed style of Lamaism, and the Karmapa, a branch of the Kar-gyu-pa, a.n.a.logous to the Dugpa of Bhutan. The princ.i.p.al monasteries are at Pemiongchi (Peme-yang-tse) and Tashiding[972].

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 910: Tibetan orthography Sron?-btsan-sgam-po. It is hard to decide what is the best method of representing Tibetan words in Latin letters:

(_a_) The orthography differs from the modern p.r.o.nunciation more than in any other language, except perhaps English, but it apparently represents an older p.r.o.nunciation and therefore has historical value.

Also, a word can be found in a Tibetan dictionary only if the native spelling is faithfully reproduced. On the other hand readers interested in oriental matters know many words in a spelling which is a rough representation of the modern p.r.o.nunciation. It seems pedantic to write bKah_-h_gyur and h_Bras-spun?s when the best known authorities speak of Kanjur and Debung. On the whole, I have decided to represent the commoner words by the popular orthography as given by Rockhill, Waddell and others while giving the Tibetan spelling in a foot-note. But when a word cannot be said to be well known even among Orientalists I have reproduced the Tibetan spelling.

(_b_) But it is not easy to reproduce this spelling clearly and consistently. On the whole I have followed the system used by Sarat Chandra Das in his Dictionary. It is open to some objections, as, for instance, that the sign h has more than one value, but the more accurate method used by Grnwedel in his _Mythologie_ is extremely hard to read. My transcription is as follows in the order of the Tibetan consonants.

k, kh, g, n?, c, oh, j, ny.

t, th, d, n, p, ph, b, m.

ts, ths, ds, w.

zh, z, h?, y.

r, l, s, s, h.

Although tsh is in some respects preferable to represent an aspirated ts, yet it is liable to be p.r.o.nounced as in the English words _hat shop_, and perhaps ths is on the whole better.]

[Footnote 911: See Waddell, _Buddhism of Tibet_, p. 19.]

[Footnote 912: It has been argued (_e.g., J.R.A.S._, 1903, p. 11) that discoveries in Central Asia indicate that Tibetan civilization and therefore Tibetan Buddhism are older than is generally supposed. But recent research shows that Central Asian MSS. of even the eighth century say little about Buddhism, whatever testimony they may bear to civilization.]

[Footnote 913: See h.o.e.rnle MS. _Remains found in E. Turkestan_, 1916, pp. xvii ff., and Francke, _Epig. Ind_. XI. 266 ff., and on the other side Laufer in _J.A.O.S._ 1918, pp. 34 ff. There is a considerable difference between the printed and cursive forms of the Tibetan alphabet. Is it possible that they have different origins and that the former came from Bengal, the latter from Khotan?]

[Footnote 914: There were some other streams of Buddhism, for the king had a teacher called Sntaraks.h.i.ta who advised him to send for Padma-Sambhava and Padma-Sambhava was opposed by Chinese bonzes.]

[Footnote 915: The Pad-ma-than-yig. It indicates some acquaintance with Islam and mentions Hulugu Khan. See _T'oung Pao_, 1896, pp. 526 ff. See for a further account Grnwedel, _Mythologie_, p. 47, Waddell, _Buddhism_, p. 380, and the Tibetan text edited and translated by Laufer under the t.i.tle _Der Roman einer tibetischen Knigin_, especially pp. 250 ff. Also E. Schlagintweit, "Die Lebensbeschreibung von Padma-Sambhava," _Abhand. k. bayer. Akad._ I. CL. xxi. Bd. ii.

Abth. 419-444, and _ib._ I. CL. xxii. Bd. iii. Abth. 519-576.]

[Footnote 916: Much of Chinese popular religion has the same character. See De Groot, _Religious System of China_, vol. VI. pp.

929, 1187. "The War against Spectres."]

[Footnote 917: Both he and the much later Saskya Pandita are said to have understood the Bruzha language, for which see _T'oung Pao_, 1908, pp. 1-47.]

[Footnote 918: Or bSam-yas. See Waddell, _Buddhism_, p. 266, for an account of this monastery at the present day.]

[Footnote 919: The Tibetan word bLama means upper and is properly applicable to the higher clergy only though commonly used of all.]

[Footnote 920: He was temporarily banished owing to the intrigues of the Queen, who acted the part of Potiphar's wife, but he was triumphantly restored. A monk called Vairocana is also said to have introduced Buddhism into Khotan from Kashmir, but at a date which though uncertain must be considerably earlier than this.]

[Footnote 921: See _Journal of Buddhist Text Society_, 1893, p. 5. I imagine that by Hoshang Mahyna the followers of Bodhidharma are meant.]

[Footnote 922: _J.R.A.S._ 1914, pp. 37-59.]

[Footnote 923: See Rockhill, _Life of the Buddha_, p. 225.]

[Footnote 924: Various dates are given for his death, ranging from 838 to 902. See Rockhill (_Life of the Buddha_), p. 225, and Bush.e.l.l in _J.R.A.S._ 1880, pp. 440 ff. But the treaty of 822 was made in his reign.]

[Footnote 925: g Lan-dar-ma.]

[Footnote 926: But see for other accounts Rockhill (_Life of the Buddha_), p. 226. According to Csoma de Krs's tables the date of the persecution was 899.]

[Footnote 927: See the chronological table in Waddell's _Buddhism_, p.

576. Not a single Tibetan event is mentioned between 899 and 1002.]