Unofficial Royalty

Last column the Jester attempted to bring you, Gentle Reader, up to speed on the history of Tibetan royalty, how it was affected by its own internal affairs, and then how it was affected by outside influences.

It’s a very long, complicated history, and was only actually written down, mostly by Chinese scribes, from the early 7th Century AD. In short, although how the Yarlung kings of Tibet (from the Yarlung River valley in southern Tibet, mostly farmers) came to power is unknown, the first one who took full advantage of neighbouring China’s weaknesses acted in 618. Contact between them had been going on for several decades. Tibet’s tribes occupied separate areas, which were always at odds with each other. At the time Turks and a Mongol-speaking tribe called the Aza had control of the three main mountain passes between Tibet and China, making it difficult for Tibet to transport its required tribute to China. The Sui Empire had a policy of keeping an eye on Tibet from afar, while keeping an eye on any advantage to be gained by Tibet’s wars with the Aza. But that year both the Sui Emperor and the Aza king died. The incoming T’ang dynasty wasn’t paying attention, so the Aza king’s son, Khri sron brtsan, conquered the Chinese around them and began the rise of the Tibetan empire. Once the T’ang emperor was established he started paying attention to the Tibetan attacks on Chinese border towns. After the Aza were defeated the defiant king Sron then proposed a marriage alliance. It was turned down. The offended king attacked again, claiming that if there wasn’t a marriage between him and a Chinese princess like now, China was in for a full-fledged invasion..

In 638, the Chinese surprise-attacked Sron btsan sgampo’s army. Forced to beg the Emperor’s forgiveness he again requested a marriage. A big stack of gold and gems helped buy him Princess Wen-ch’eng. They married in 641, and until both Emperors died in 649 peace reigned. Sgampo spent his time working to assimilate all Tibet’s divergent tribes into one unified country. The Chinese were concerned with subjugating the Turks. The new Chinese emperor, a fervent Buddhist, bestowed on the King the title of ‘Precious King’, ruler of the West (as China saw it then). From then on, due probably to the influence of princesses from China and Nepal who married into the family, Tibetan Buddhism began its influence at court. In 690 Sgampo died, but as his successor was his baby grandson, affairs were left in the hands of his chief minister, Mgar Ston rtsan, who ruled for two decades. He had been consolidating his power for some time, and was recognized by China as the boss. Prime Minister Mgar wrote a code of laws, but as he had kept the king’s death a secret, made sure to give credit to the king for it.

By 670 the Tibetan army threw the Chinese out of one of the most profitable parts of their colonial empire, which straddled the main east-west transcontinental trade routes, smack in the heartland of Buddhist Eurasia. It was a big shock to them. Apart from the Arabs, who had their own internal problems to deal with and were therefore no help in controlling the Tibetans, nobody was strong enough to stop them. They invaded and conquered Turkistan. China was unable to mount an army to oppose this. (Tibet, to its credit, once tribute arrangements had been made, left the Central Asian countries alone). By 690 the Tibetans and Turks had control of the northern section of the Silk Road. The T’ang Emperor’s widow Wu Chao grabbed the throne for herself, had herself declared the reincarnation of the future Buddha and ruler of China. She then changed the name of the dynasty back to Chou. In 692, Wu Chao’s armies, taking advantage of Tibet’s yet again internal struggles, kept hacking away at Tibet’s territories. By 755, when the new Tibetan king was murdered and his son could not be enthroned, China was poised to run them over. But then the Turks rebelled again, and their attention went there..

In Part One we traced Tibet’s history from this point, when written records began to be kept, up to the 1770s. Tibet had been invaded by Mongols, by Nepalese Gurkhas, and finally by China, who had incorporated it into their culture and declared the Dalai Lama as temporal leader. Meanwhile, having kept European sea traders at bay, China was desperately trying to keep all outside influences away from their population from all sides.  By the 1770’s, Britain, with a very vast, far flung, and increasingly expensive Empire of its own to maintain, was looking very hard at China as a trading partner. The East India Company, well established in the neighbouring Indian province of Bengal, had enlisted the subtle help of Tibet’s Panchen Lama-king, recognized by China as the superior religious leader in Tibet, to approach the Qing Emperor to allow them access.

By 1774 a young Scotsman named George Bogle was slowly working his way up the ranks of the Calcutta-based East India Company. Son of a prominent Glasgow trading family he had commercial and political connections. His father George had made a fortune in importing tobacco, sugar and slaves to America and Caribbean. Although known as a scion of one of the “Tobacco Lords’, it seemed to him that although he was working himself to death holding down three positions, he still wasn’t getting anywhere.

The Governor of Bengal, Warren Hastings, had been gathering intelligence about possibly opening up a trade route to China through Nepal and Tibet. The Company had a monopoly on the cultivation and private trade of opium into China, but otherwise their only product was tea. Britain wanted it insatiably. China had it, but wouldn’t supply enough. The Company was bordering on financial ruin, and that meant Britain’s economy was also threatened. The Third Panchen Lama’s gifts proved that Tibet was a rich country. A route from Bengal through Tibet into China was a tantalizing prospect. No Briton had ever been there before. From the Panchen’s envoys Hastings found out all he could about the Panchen Lama’s life, about Tibet’s resources, about all it made and all the other countries it traded with. Then he looked around for a suitable candidate to lead the mission. He would have to be a combination of diplomat, adventurer, geographer and spy. He would also have to be young and energetic. His eyes fell upon his private secretary. One month later George Bogle was appointed the first British envoy to Tibet. Now, thought George, I’m finally getting somewhere.

The Mission traveled in style. It left in late 1774 and traveled north from Calcutta, across the Ganges through Bengal, up through the western part of Bhutan, and into Tibet, arriving finally at the monastery of Dechenrubje in 1775.

He had a large, well equipped room, and was waited on with food from the Panchen’s own table, but because he was the first white-skinned human the monks had ever seen he felt like a zoo animal-everyone staring at him in disbelief. It had been the Panchen himself who had suggested to the new Chinese emperor that perhaps he should meet the British halfway. The only language they had more-or-less in common was Hindustani The Panchen wanted to know all about Bogle, the Company, whether Britain was anywhere near Ceylon or the land of the cannibals. Negotiations opened with the Panchen asking if his Buddhists could again have access to the monasteries in India. Although the Muslims had severed access between them in the 11th century, he was sure that if they again could visit for instruction Indian Buddhism could be revived. He also questioned George on Britain’s religious practices. Capuchin (Catholic) monks had proved themselves pretty unpopular in 1741, and been forced to flee. George assured them that Britain was a tolerant country and all were free to believe as they would. George himself was a strict Presbyterian.

George stayed with the Panchen, going with him on his pilgrimage back to his home monastery. He left in April, 1775, having made a favourable impression on the Panchen and on his followers, who were impressed with George’s great honour at being in the Panchen’s company daily, while all others could only gaze on him from a distance- truly blessed indeed! During his three-month journey home he had stopped in Bhutan to negotiate trade relations with their ruler, the Desi. He was not as successful there as he’d been in Tibet. He had to agree that no Company man would enter Bhutan, and all trade with Tibet through Bhutan would be done exclusively with Hindu or Muslim merchants. By the time he got back to Calcutta he found that Hastings’ influence had been eclipsed by the arrival of three British Counselors. Back in London the American colonies were kicking up a fuss about taxation on tea. His family’s business interests were in major peril, and not just from the losses caused by the “Boston Tea Party’ disaster.

Through his friendship with publisher Samuel Johnson in London, Hastings tried to encourage George to compile all his notes, journals, accounts, and observances into a book on Tibet.  But George seemed to be suffering some kind of depression and kept putting it off. Hastings probably had a fictionalized portrait of George meeting the Panchen Lama painted by the artist Tilly Kettle, which eventually was presented to King George III, and remains in the Royal Collection; although until the 20th century, nobody remembered who the subject was.

In 1776 the Panchen strangely declared that no European could enter Tibet, so Company business was now conducted by a cosmopolitan monk, who made the journeys between India and Tibet as required.  George didn’t have much to do but he and the Lama kept in touch. Finally in 1777 the Desi of Bhutan agreed to concessions that would allow a northern trade route from India to China-and a plan was devised to use the Panchen to broach the subject to the Qianlong Emperor in person. By 1779 Chinese merchants owed British traders a couple of million pounds. George had connections and if he could figure out a way to get the Company’s grievances heard in Peking-well, King and country would be really grateful. Which is why, despite the outbreak of smallpox killing off Chinese by the hundreds at the time, the Panchen traveled to China, and that is how he and the Emperor got to talking about meeting Governor Hastings at the Emperor’s 70th Birthday bash.(see Part One-April column).

To counteract fears that he too might contact smallpox, the Panchen did a few auguries, which all assured he would be fine. At the time the inoculation for children was to stuff wads of cotton soaked in camphor, herbs and powdered smallpox scabs up their noses. But no treatment was given adults.
With his eye on the Panchen’s progress to Peking the Emperor spared no expense in building massive new temples, shrines, and other buildings that rivaled Versailles. The PR spin was that the Emperor hadn’t invited the Panchen-the Panchen had begged him to do him the great honour of making a pilgrimage to the Emperor. Poems inscribed in Chinese, Mongol, Manchu and Tibetan were inscribed on the most glorious of these temples, the Xumifoushoumiao. When he finally arrived in mid-August, 1781, no expense was spared to show the Panchen what a splendid, rich and powerful country China was. Nevertheless every word, gesture and body language message between them was scrupulously noted by both sides.

The manner of first greeting was crucial. To the Tibetans the Panchen was the Emperor’s spiritual superior, so it was paramount that the Panchen not kowtow to the Emperor. The accounts of this first contact vary according to who is telling it. Tibetan stories say that as the Panchen was about to begin to kneel, the Emperor came forward and offered his hands, and led the Panchen to their golden thrones. The Manchus claim he completely prostrated himself before the Emperor. The information sent back to the British was that the two conducted the whole thing as if they were total equals. Essentially working for British concerns the Panchen had many opportunities for private conversations with Qianlong to open a direct line between Calcutta and Peking. It looked like he was making progress. A letter of greeting from the Emperor to Hastings was written, which the Panchen was to take back with him. Unfortunately, on November 20, the Panchen became very ill. By nightfall the diagnosis was clear. Four days later he was dead of smallpox.

The following April, George Bogle drowned at the age of 34.  He never knew the fate of his royal friend. While he was buried in England the Panchen’s body, encased in a golden shrine donated by Qianlong, was still making its laborious way back to Tibet. The Fourth Panchen Lama was discovered in an infant in 1872, and put into the care of the Third Panchen’s brother. The British sent another envoy, Turner, to start renegotiating with the new Panchen, who although he couldn’t speak yet, was the reincarnation of the Third, and therefore it should be taken that he could understand whatever was said to him. Governor Hastings suggested a list of goods which should be considered duty-free goods between them: cottons, watches, clocks, snuff-boxes, conch shells and large pearls were among them. After 12 years of service Hastings returned to England with a whole slew of goodies from Tibet, including two live yaks. The one that survived the journey lived out his life in the luxury of a Berkshire farmyard.

Taking full advantage of a rift in the Third Panchen’s family and their respective sects, the Regent of Nepal decided to debase the value of the mutual currency the two countries used. The Gurkhas wanted to replace this coinage with a new currency, and to force the issue they sent their army into Tibet in 1788, and occupied several routes into Tibet. The 6-year-old Panchen fled to Lhasa. The Dalai Lama appealed to Peking for help. The Regent secretly requested the British send their troops up to roust the Gurkhas, but for heaven’s sake never let the Chinese Emperor know the Regent had asked. But the new Governor, Lord Cornwallis, decided to stay out of it. Chinese forces however arrived in Lhasa. The deal was made that at the cost of an annual tribute from Nepal (paid by Tibet), the Nepalese would leave the border areas, Tibet would accept the new currency and the Qing authority would be considered paramount.  The first year Tibet paid, the second year it didn’t.  Once again occupied by Gurkhas in 1787 the boy king fled again. The occupiers looted all the temples, monasteries, shrines and halls they could find and set out back to Nepal with a massive train of booty.

Qianlong was furious and sent a vast and well equipped army of 17,000 across the mountains and deserts, in horrible conditions. A frightened Regent joined with the Dalai Lama to beg Cornwallis not to get involved with negotiating a route through Nepal. The Gurkhas asked for British help, but no way. They were too busy on China’s coastline, trying to impress Qianlong with all the great things trade with Britain could bring him. Their envoy, Lord Macartney, presented Qianlong with a letter from King George III, accompanied by bags of jewels. To no avail; Qianlong was unimpressed, and indicated to King George, monarch to monarch, that the British had nothing he wanted.  After 1782 Qianlong put the hammer down. Both the Panchen Lama’s and Dalai Lamas’ powers were nixed. Tibet was to be completely assimilated into the Qianlong’s Empire. It was declared that from now on the Chinese governor in Lhasa would decide who the next Lama would be by drawing the name out of a golden urn. The Fourth Panchen’s family sect would be the official one, which kept peace with the Mongols. Oh, and also that Lamas had never been recognized as spiritual teachers and the Chinese Emperor was now the only religious and secular power-period.

Then closed to the outside world for over a century Tibet gained its reputation as a land of mysticism and occult practices, full of mahatmas who held the secrets of Atlantis. In 1903, British-commanded Sikh troops marched to just inside Tibet’s borders to force the negotiations Tibet had so far refused. Although China had enforced their isolation at first, now Tibet liked it that way. Couldn’t blame them really. British aggression had caused the two Opium Wars of 1839-42 and 1856-60 for China. Now Canton was wide open, and British troops had laid waste to the countryside around it. The British controlled Customs, missionaries and passports, and a Hong Kong ambassador was in residence in Peking. The Qing had lost power in China and in Tibet. The Thirteenth Dalai Lama made the mistake of trying to reassert his authority by refusing a trade treaty between Britain and China because Tibet had not been consulted.  He had also started checking into relations with Russia. The British Raj, hearing that the Dalai Lama and Czar Nicholas II had been negotiating, decided the Dalai was going to talk to their Viceroy, Lord Curzon, too.

When this failed, in the dead of winter 1904, a massive British force invaded Tibet. The tiny Tibetan irregulars tried to fortify the route to Lhasa, but on the morning of March 31 the British surrounded their little fort. The Tibetans surrendered, but then, according to Company mission leader Younghusband, the Tibetans started firing and the British had to defend themselves. They lost not one man-the Tibetans had 500 dead. The Dalai Lama fled. The ensuing Lhasa Convention banned Tibet from entering into any foreign treaties, forced them to open two trade markets to them and accept a resident British agent. They would send the British seven and a half million rupees and gave them the right to occupy the frontier Chumbi Valley for 75 years.  (London decided this was too much and cut the rupees by two-thirds and changed the occupation to three years).

Using Bogle’s original writings, China has rearranged his accounts of the Third Panchen’s visit (Bogle wasn’t even there) to claim that Tibet was and is an integral part of its territory. Bogle, as an employee of the East India Company, and as such the British Government, would not know that in 2000 the Commonwealth Office, in a report on human rights, neither recognized China’s sovereignty over Tibet nor Tibet’s independence. For China’s part it claimed on its website that as far as it was concerned, in all British relations with Tibet from the 1700’s on, every time Britain tried to establish trade routes with Peking, it was always on the basis of Tibet being Chinese territory.

Last month Nepal’s Chinese Maoist party won a third of the seats in its 601-member assembly elections. Their first priority-abolish the 240-year-old monarchy.

The Dalai Lama, in exile since 1959, continues to travel the world, advocating the Buddhist dogma of pacification and calm in the face of world-wide screams for Tibetan independence from China’s abuses. Tibet hasn’t been truly independent for centuries.

The Jester’s prayers and sympathy go out to the people of China, Burma (Myanmar) and the U.S. in the wake of the recent disasters they continue to suffer through. Also congratulations to Peter Philips, son of Princess Anne, and Autumn Kelly on their Windsor wedding on May 17.

- The Court Jester
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it