Recommended Books on Tibetan History, Culture, Politics and Religion
"Tibet Past and Present", by Sir Charles Bell. Motilai Banbarsidass Publishers, Delhi, reprinted 1992.
Sir Charles Bell, who, in the early 20th century, befriended the previous 13th Dalai Lama, addresses Tibet's history from early times. But he also draws upon his eighteen years of living along the Indo-Tibetan frontier and writes of the conditions in Tibet with rare insight. The photographs taken by Bell--and there are approximately 100 of them--by themselves, make the price of the book a bargain.
Excerpt: "The Chinese connexion with Tibet goes back into the mists of antiquity...In the old days Tibet and China waged war with each other on fairly equal terms. Once at least China seized the Tibetan capital; once at least Tibet captured the captial of China. During the seventh and eighth centuries of the Christian era, neither China nor India escaped invasion by the Tibetans...but when the softening influence of Buddhism extended its hold over the country, the power of the Tibetans in war gradually declined."
"Secret
Tibet", by Fosco Maraini. Translated from the Italian by Eric Mosbacher
and Guido Waldman. The Harvill Press, London, 1951.
Based on two trips to Tibet, one in 1937 and the other in 1984, (two years before the communist Chinese invaded Tibet), Maraini's book is a major contribution to a core understanding of Tibetan culture. He writes convincingly about the extent to which Tibetan Buddhism anchors the nation's sense of identity. Little surprise, then, that Eastern Tibet rose in arms when the communists set about destroying the monastic culture in the mid-1950s. The bibliography is especially thorough, divided into numerous sub-categories. And his final thoughts on the current state of Tibet are particularly poignant:
"A single fundamental fact needs to be faced: that people's freedom is an asset that is of transcendent value, an asset that nobody is entitled to confiscate. It is one of the great paradoxes of our time that the "capitalist, reactionary, imperialist" world has fully recognized this fact for close on fifty years and acted upon it. All its colonial empires have been dismantled, dismembered, dissolved. The only colonial empire still extant is that of the Chinese "socialist and progressive" world, which, with its fine speeches and lovely doves of peace is in practice acting like the reviled colonial powers of the nineteenth century."
"My Land and My People", by H.H. the Dalai Lama. Warner Books, New York, 1997. "Freedom in Exile", by H.H. the Dalai Lama. HarperSanFrancisco, 1900.
H.H. the Dalai Lama is the vortex of everything Tibetan. The Dalai Lama writes about the Dalia Lama. Enough said but the Chicago Tribune is worth quoting:
"Throughout his story, told with great humility, the Dalai Lama reveals his obligation both to address the time-honored spiritual needs of his people and to help them deal with the practical cosiderations of their disrupted lives. Anyone wanting to understand Tibet today will do well to read this priest-king's tale of coping with the ancient and modern worlds that have shaped him.
"Four Rivers, Six Ranges" by Gompo Tashi Andrugtsang. Information and Publicity Office of H. H. the Dalai Lama, Dharamsala, 1973."Four Rivers, Six Ranges" is unavailble on Amazon. I got my copy at Alibris.com
Gompo Tashi was the famed Khampa leader of the Tibetan Resistance and creator of Chushi-Gangdruk. It doesn't get any more boots-on-the-ground than this. But one of the illuminating aspects of his autobiography is his profound and unswerving devotion to the Dalai Lama and, eventually, the Dalai Lama's recognition of Gompo Tashi's valor. Gompo Tashi's voice speaks to the heart of all Tibetans by underplaying his own suffering--a national trait if there ever was one:
"I was wounded all over the body and was in much pain, but...my life was not in immediate danger. It appeared that the Chinese had spotted me and the horse I was riding, for when we began to move away, they made me a special target of their gunfire. One of my companions noticed this and gave me his horse to ride."
"Tears of the Lotus: Accounts of Tibetan Resistance to the Chinese Invasion, 1950-1962", by Roger E. McCarthy. McFarland 1997.
Roger E. McCarthy created the CIA Tibetan Task Force and personally trained the first six Tibetans. Although others have tried to take credit (decades later) for much of his work, McCarthy was and still is The Man. He also debriefed Gompo Tashi following his escape to Darjeeling--the only non-Tibetan to have done so. For resolutely correct information about the CIA involvement, this is the primary source. Given much of the crap one finds in the bookstores on Tibet, it is a great pity this work is not more widely read and recognized--particualrly in understanding the horrible yoke of the Chinese:
"In most countries, all the jargon attendant to Communism means very little except to those whose duties require them to be communist parrots, but to Tibetans, freedom and independence and their religion are precious and not to be tampered with. Now all the tribals finally concluded after some six years of barbaric treatment by the Chinese that no more time was to be wasted waiting for things to get better and that with or without the blessing of the Dalai Lama the Chinese were to feel the sword. To the majority of Tibetans, it was basically a choice of either trying to escape to another country or fighting to defend their own."
"Captured in Tibet", by Robert Ford. Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, 1990.
Ford was one of the eight "Imperialists" who Mao Tse-tung ranted about and used (at least partially) as an excuse to invade Tibet. Ford offers his first-hand account in a self-effacing and highly readable form. He was working as a radio officer in Eastern Tibet--Chamdo--when the communist invasion began in October, 1950. He was betrayed by Ngabo, along with everyone else in Kham, captured, tried in a kangaroo court for espionage, anti-communist propaganda and murder. He languished in a Chinese prison for the next five years. The book ends with an eloquent epilogue in which he sums up forty disastrous years of Chinese occupation, including the ecological devastation:
"Massive deforestation had reduced rich forest areas to barren wasteland...Tibet's wildlife, once protected under Buddhism, had been decimated by large-scale hunting and fishing. The vast herds of gazelle, wild ass, and wild yak, a common sight in old Tibet, have disappeared..."
"Journey with Loshay: An Adventure in Tibet", by George N. Patterson. W.W. Norton, New York, 1954.
Patterson, a fine Scottish writer of the old school, was, in 1950, a medical missionary in the heart of Kham. He was an intrepid adventurer, a linguist and superior horseman as well, putting him in good stead with the untamed Khampas with whom he traveled. With the Chinese rapidly approaching the Tibetan border, Patterson knew he had to escape to India. His resultant horse trek across the wilds of southern Kham--Lithang, Bathang, Markham and beyond--became fodder for this book. It is an eagle-eyed account and describes the countryside (prior to the Chinese rape of Tibet) in authentic strokes few authors could match. To read Patterson is, on one level, to BE a Khampa:
"As the stars began to fade in the grayness of the dawn I found myself watching, with the intensity of a starving man watching for food, for the rose color which would herald the sunrise. I knew from experience that it would be some time before there would be any actual heat, but to see the sun and know that it contained that heat which I craved, became an obsession. I watched the edge of its approach down the mountainside with hypnotized fascination, and tried to guage the time for its arrival from one boulder to another. For we were now in a huge amphitheater of savage barren mountains whose sides and feet were covered with shale, stones and boulders. The whole place in that early morning light gave the impression of being a vast iron-gray bowl filled with some strange rose-colored liquid. It did not seem credible that those mountains could ever shed their iron harness to weep, but that they did could be seen in frozen streams and frozen lakes, sparkling brilliant in the hollows."
This was the land of the Khampas over which so much of the resistance was fought. In that sense, this is history of the most profound and evocative sort. I recommend that you read this book as selfishly as possible: Wait until all other humanity has left the premises; start a fire if you have a fireplace; shove a wingback close to the flames; throw your phone out the window; grab a blanket or dog and tuck around your feet; pour yourself a mason jar of scotch; put your feet up and luxuriate in real travel--not modern day tourism that passes itself off as travel.
"Tibetan
Nation: A History of Tibetan Nationalism and Sino-Tibetan Relations",
by Warren W. Smith, Jr. WestviewPress, Boulder, Colorado, 1996.
Do you dig tomes? If sobriety is your game, and you want the full dose, beginning with Paleolithic Tibet to the end of the 20th century, this is probably the doorstop for you. Unlike some of the other massive histories, Smith seems agenda-free. His maps are very helpful and his photographs are great. The organization is on the lumpy side (leaving the reader to string the linear story together on his/her own--but that's a professorial thing, they all like to do that.) Still, it's far more comprehensive than Goldstein's "A History of Modern Tibet, 1913-1951", and more reliable than Shakya's "The Dragon in the Land of Snows", which, at times, reads like an a apology for the communist Chinese. Smith leads the competition. All in all, Smith has tackled the big picture and published a chronicle that is consistantly well-documented and solidly written.
