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.
