The genesis of The Greater History of Amdo

 

The genesis of The Greater History of Amdo

On 11 November 1999, I had the good fortune to be granted an audience

with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I sought the private audience as I wanted

to brief His Holiness about the services I had been able to render to our

society . in my limited capacity - since coming into exile as a refugee in

1992. Besides, I had been so frustrated after being repeatedly annoyed by

contempt for rectitude shown by some in our society that I had decided to

seek an opportunity to study abroad.

After I presented my thoughts and ideas, His Holiness told me: .In our

society today there are many people studying English. Compared to the

situation in the past, the number of those graduating with a good standard of

knowledge in English is not insignificant. Nevertheless, even if we go to

Western countries and learn English, it is difficult for us to gain opportunities

such as professorships and Ph.Ds. On the other hand, you are already very

good at Tibetan. So, wouldn.t Tibetan society be better served if you could

work in an area related to Tibetan culture?.

I replied that this was indeed, true. However, I also recounted that when in

a meeting I had sought on an earlier occasion with Professor Samdhong

Rinpoche I had expressed a desire to take leave from my membership of

the Standing Committee of the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile in order that I

may pursue research in Tibetan culture, his reply had been: .It is good that

this is what you are interested in. But, while you research Tibetan culture,

who will take care of your livelihood?. I spoke to His Holiness about the

veracity of these concerns.

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His Holiness then asked me about the depth of my interest in Tibetan history.

I replied that while I had consulted and read quite a number of documents

on the early histories of Tibet, I had no special interest as such.

His Holiness then asked me, .Well, how about the possibility of you researching

the history of Amdo?. To this, I replied: .I had the occasion to

entertain such a thought back in 1994 when I was teaching Tibetan culture

at the Tibetan Medical and Astrological Institute. However, writing the history

of Amdo is not as straightforward as writing what is popularly viewed

today as the history of Tibet, which involves writing a fair amount of narrative

about the status of the many principal historical characters from the time

of Nyatri Tsenpo to Darma Wudum Tsen, and about the periods during the

Sakya, Phagdru, Rinpung, and Ganden Phodrang governments of Tibet.

One needs to be fluent in Chinese, Tibetan and English and have a profound

knowledge of many regions and territories. Without these, it is extremely

difficult to write a history of Amdo..

His Holiness replied, .It is not difficult these days to find people with a good

knowledge of English and Chinese. You don.t need to worry about funding.

It is extremely important that we have a history of Amdo. So, think this over

for the next three days and bring your response to this office..

I felt extremely happy at being an object of such personal attention and

hope for His Holiness. Nevertheless, it put me in a state of indecision as I

was already scheduled to leave for the USA on the 18th of the month. I

conferred with a number of experienced elders. They told me that it was a

matter of good merit for me that His Holiness was placing his hopes in me

rather than assigning the work to one of the many associations that are

continuously being set up these days in the name of religion or culture. There

was, therefore, no reason to hesitate, .You must commit yourself to it forthwith,

. they advised. Thus, in view of their unequivocal and unanimous advice,

I postponed my plan to go to the USA and resolved to fully commit

myself to the task. I informed the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama of

my decision accordingly.

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In another private audience I sought afterwards, I received the following

instructions: .Your work on this history research project should be independent

of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile; it should also be independent

of any particular group or religious sect. Your job is to put into writing the

outcome of research into historical records from the perspective of a historian.

The language you employ should be Tibetan. The main subject should,

of course, be Amdo in terms of its origin, development and status. In terms

of research methodology, the best course would be to adopt the approach

of Western research scholars.. Being granted instructions to approach my

research with such freedom and openness, I felt great happiness and willingness

to accomplish the work.

I initially set out a draft three-year schedule for carrying out the project. I

sought out my Machu friends Jamyang and Tseten Gyal as assistants and

began my work. But because of my lack of familiarity with the subject of

history, I found it difficult to define a detailed outline within which to build a

framework for the historical work. Hence, for about eight months, I was

unable to accomplish anything substantive. My two assistants also had no

special qualifications in historical studies; as a result, it was not easy to

allocate work between them, yet they acquired experience as they worked

and set out to build a framework for the project. Jamyang noted down,

sought out and collected periodicals and related materials. Tseten Gyal began

translating into Tibetan a section of the relevant documents. With the

work thus divided, the first foundations were laid.

In the meantime, for several reasons, I also had to hire Kunthar Dhondup as

an assistant. For about ten months he translated into Tibetan some Chinese

documentary materials.

Later on, when the need arose, I also hired Lhachab Jinpa. For a little over

a year, he took notes about the mountains, rivers and geographical details

of Amdo. After that I hired Sangay Dhondup to translate a large number of

documents into Tibetan. I engaged Akhor Soepa to draw up an index of the

histories of the monasteries in Golog and Ngawa and Zoege Kathab Tsering

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to translate into Tibetan numerous short documentary items related to the

history of Gyalrong.

At about the end of 2003, there was a great change in this project. The

initial plan had been to compile the entire history of Amdo within three years

in two, or possibly, three volumes. A new plan was now formulated to compile

it into about six volumes and this was duly reported. The new framework

seemed to be a natural development which had evolved from years of

experience of being engaged in actual historical research.

Consequently, I held a discussion with the writer Lutsang Lobsang Yeshe to

whom I assigned, without pay, the work of recording brief histories and

biographies of all the monasteries in Amdo, its learned Lamas, Tulkus, and

Geshes, and the prominent historical figures based on findings from the religious

histories of the region and other relevant documents. In the beginning

of 2004, with permission from the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama I

hired Lutsang Lobsang Yeshe and Datsenpa Tsering Dhondup. I instructed

them to review everything that had been done up to this date. This they did

for more than a year and their achievement was significant. However, before

the work was completed, my very dear friend Lobsang Yeshe died

suddenly, having succumbed to poor health. His death was a disaster not

just for my historical work, but also for my friends in the Tibetan intellectual

community.

For nine years, I gave up everything else to devote myself fully to this project,

which also meant totally ignoring my family affairs, not sharing responsibility

with my spouse, nor paying attention to my children.s education. These past

few years have finally culminated in the successful completion of this project.

Words cannot suffice to express my joy at being able to contribute this

unprecedented six-volume work of history as a common resource for everyone.

Of the six volumes, the first represents the main beams and pillars of the

history of Amdo. Consisting of more than 750 pages of body text, it chronicles

the history of Tibet from the time humans first emerged there until 1958, the

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status of Tibet as a whole under each of the different government powers,

and the status of Amdo during each of those periods. Instead of following

well-established positions on matters concerning the status of Amdo during

those periods, and refusing to be cowered by what the lama-tulkus, local

chiefs, and other strict adherents to local positions say, I strived to follow

the guideline provided by his Holiness the Dalai Lama. In line with this, I

tried to exercise a completely independent course of judgements. Nevertheless,

there are many places in this work where on a few particular matters,

I did not have the confidence to fully record all my fully independent

ideas.

The second volume contains over 640 pages. It brings together the histories

of Lho Gyalmo Tsawa Rong, Upper and Lower Ngawa, the Twelve Wings

of Zoege, the Three Divisions of Golog, Whelshul Serta, Whelshul Mewa,

the Three Divisions of Zangkar, Zungchu, Drugchu, Chone, Batse and

Thewo.

The third volume, with over 690 pages, covers the histories of Ladrang

Sangchu Dzong and its jurisdictional areas, Luchu Dzong, Machu Dzong,

and the Mongol Yulgan Dzong.

The fourth volume deals with the histories of the Tibetan areas of Tso-ngon

Province in the Rebkong region and of Pari in over 650 pages.

The above three volumes (second to fourth) cover the histories of the Amdo

region and of the particular areas within it. It encompasses 53 Dzongs from

Gyalrong in the South to Tso-ngon in the north, and from Kachu in the east

to Golog in the west. I have presumed to have written a detailed history of

these and the numerous other inhabited areas not included in them. Nevertheless,

in the case of some places, I could neither lay my hands on any

written records, nor find any person to interview. There have, therefore,

been many instances in which I have been left with nothing to write about.

Hence, with regard to the people residing in these areas I have nothing to

offer and must seek their forgiveness.

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In the fifth volume, I have compiled whatever information I could gather on

the histories of the monasteries of the four great Buddhist religious sects and

of the Bon religion, the hermitages and tantric centres in the Amdo region. It

consists of over 900 pages of body text. They include information about the

establishment of the monasteries, the names of their founders, the places

where they were set up and their religious affiliations, clarifying the history

of those years to whatever extent I could gather the details. I have written

very brief footnotes of importance relating to their histories, so that readers

will not be irritated by lengthy commentary, retaining crucial and beneficial

information that can be viewed at a glance. Nevertheless, because there

were many instances in which the original, old documents contained absolutely

no information about dates and other details, it was impossible to

render everything complete in every respect. Accordingly, it could be considered

a drawback of this volume that because of the constraints of time, it

was not possible to carry out completely satisfactory research, with the

result that some errors cannot be ruled out.

The sixth volume is devoted to the life stories of all the great scholars of

Amdo that I could source. Presented in chronological order, it consists of

over 720 pages of body text. It elucidates their names, birthplaces, dates of

birth and death, and their religious affiliations to whatever extent it was possible

to determine them. A brief biography of each of them appears in the

footnotes and their informative value is not insignificant. Nevertheless, there

have been many cases in which I could not find any dates of birth or death,

places of birth, nor . apart from their names . any life stories. It should be

possible for those able to carry out more in-depth research to supplement

these missing details.

In the course of writing this history, I also put aside a list of historical terms,

as I found it pertinent to compile a collection of them in order to create a

dictionary later on. I assigned Ghangkar Gyalsey to accomplish this within

six months. However, there is still much work to be done in terms of obtaining

a comprehensive list of terms and with limited time, the project remains

incomplete. I remain hopeful, however, of eventually publishing this work.

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One of the major difficulties from the very beginning to the tail end of carrying

out this research project was that the Chinese works of history were in

stark opposition to the contents of the Tibetan historical archives. The Chinese

documents speak of Tibet being under Chinese rule even before the

beginning of the current Anno Domino years. The Chinese have published

a pile of books a mountain-high telling shameless lies about Tibet having had

only a visage of an identity as a country during almost 200 years of rule

under the Tsenpo kings while being fully under Chinese rule in every respect.

For example, in Notes on the Ming Dynasty published by the Chinese

government there are three volumes on Tibet while in the Notes on the

Manchu Qing Dynasty - consisting of over 100 volumes - there are 11

exclusive volumes on Tibet. In addition, today there are Chinese government

establishments in every part of Tibet, whose output of articles and

books falsifying the history of Tibet is so voluminous that it is impossible to

read them all, much less to examine their contents. claims. Even copying

down the addresses of the publishers alone would require a strenuous amount

of effort.

It is particularly worth noting that the outlook towards the writing of history

on the part of early scholars in Tibet and China (not including most of the

Tibetan historians writing Tibet.s history under Chinese rule today) had been

totally different. The Chinese scholars had written history from the perspective

of long-term political objectives with the result that their efforts were

directed at trying to render the entire details of their works in political connotations.

On the other hand, the Tibetan scholars of history, lacking interest

in politics to any great degree, had devoted their expertise and skill to

exalting the miraculous powers of lamas and their clairvoyance and dreams.

The reference sources of the Chinese and Tibetan historians were also totally

different. For example, the Chinese had an inherent habit of describing

as their own, any and every piece of neighbourhood, land and territory they

saw or heard about, whether actual, or on maps. In addition, most of them

were family men with interests in ensuring the security of their food, clothing

and reputation. On the other hand, most of the Tibetan historians considered

all the pleasures and fame enjoyable in this world as merely dreamlike

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fleeting moments of happiness; they were dedicated religious scholars to

whom the promise of joy in the life hereafter was more important. Thus,

there was absolutely no commonality between the historians on the two

sides in terms of their outlook towards life. Because of this lack of meeting

of minds, their historical works too were marked, on the one side, by the

viewing of politics as the wall of their historical building work, and on the

opposing side an attitude of contempt for politics. Such were their back-toback

views of history writing.

The most illuminating impression I gathered during my nine years of researching

historical works was that although the old lama-historians had

either no grasp of the importance of politics, or did not attribute any importance

to it, there was very little evidence that they were guilty of distortions

or falsifications. Conversely, it was difficult to rely on the credibility of most

of the historical works by Chinese scholars. In view of this, I find most

instructive the suggestion of the modern scholar of Tibet, Muge Samten:

.rely mainly on Tibetan sources when writing Tibet.s history, and rely mainly

on Chinese sources when writing Chinese history.. In writing each section

of this history, I first approached Tibetan sources and took as reference the

materials that were amenable to examination. Regarding the corresponding

Chinese sources, which differed from the Tibetan versions, I sought to analyse

them on the basis of their reliability and authoritativeness.

However, we, the mountain people of Tibet, have an innate habit of trying to

be evasive when it comes to embarking on major projects, of dreading

greatly the initiation of potentially controversial new projects, and of being

reluctant to acknowledge the fruits of efforts made by others. Being very

familiar with these habits, I, a man of humble bearing, having accomplished

this work after years of enduring hardship without complaint, do not entertain

any great hope for generating applause. Nevertheless, it would be very

difficult for the fruits of the continuous day-and-night struggle of my nine

years of labour on this project, to be equalled by a person who worked

regular office hours for twenty years. This I can say with utmost confidence.

It is, of course, inevitable that these volumes are subject to some deficiencies

such as a lack of clarity, incompleteness, incorrectness or incoherence,

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resulting from inherent human limitations, failure to find relevant research

documents, the inadequacy of knowledge and lack of experience of the

author, and of time constraints in undertaking the research. Nevertheless, as

the product of an effort of monumental proportions, conducted across continents,

I can claim to be in a position to state that more than 95 percent of

its contents are accurate. It therefore, deserves requisite recognition for

whatever positive outcome it generates.

One important thing I must clarify here, is that although His Holiness the

Dalai Lama has a wide knowledge about the subjects of this historical research

work from beginning to end, and I perceived it as a great fortune that

His Holiness had given a general assent to write its foreword, upon reflection,

I deemed it proper not to ask him for his contribution. In my view,

history is, unlike other works, directly concerned with a great many historical

figures, and it is impossible that every historian has a similar appreciation

of the virtues and vices of each one of them. Consequently, there is no

certainty that the positions on historical events and developments I have

adopted in this work necessarily conform to that of His Holiness. In addition,

there is no certainty that in the case of some general and specific sections

in this work, future readers and researchers will agree with the views

adopted here. I could not bear to live with the thought that as a result of

others. critical views on this work, the name of His Holiness too should be

denigrated. With this in mind, my desire to seek a foreword from him progressively

diminished. I remain hopeful that whatever the shortcomings of

these volumes are, the responsibility should be attributed to me alone, not

to others for any reason, including by association for having borne its expenses.

If someone asked for elucidation of the special features of this work of

history written in the 21st century - though perhaps better provided by its

readers, especially historical researchers - they are as follows:

1) There has been no overall history of Amdo until now, apart from

Draggonpa Konchog Tenpa Rabgey.s book on the religious history of Amdo

written in 1865.

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2) In this work, the deities. planning and building of abodes and realms have

been replaced by giving pre-eminence to narrating the actual history of human

society.

3) Instead of accepting as truth everything seen in writing and ignoring one.s

own initiative, the main focus in reading texts has been to interpret and

analyze their facts.

4) In more than a few cases, there have been instances of findings and

chronological explanations of events where, for example, only the years

Earth-Bird and Fire-Rabbit were mentioned in the original documents without

any mention of their corresponding Rabjung (the sixty-year cycle in the

Tibetan calendar) or where, in numerous cases, the animal symbols of the

years were not mentioned at all. Subsequently, recourse was taken to use

alternative means of research.

5) In order to resolve problems arising from the troublesome confusion of

facts in historical data or in the life stories of lama-tulkus or the histories of

the status of monasteries, each was separately dealt with.

6) Every effort was made to ensure brevity and economy of language by

avoiding, to the greatest extent possible, the use of obscure, archaic and

elaborate linguistic terms that render it difficult to discern actual historical

facts. Also, the use of distorting terms possessing only symbolic local meanings

were dispensed with. Thus, the tone of the work is that of a universal

language ensuring that any Tibetan-literate can read and understand it.

7) A conscious attempt was made to avoid disrespecting the accomplishments

of other scholars through plagiarism of their work. Where quotes

were required, they were clearly attributed without corrective adulteration.

The sources of these quotes are clearly recorded in the footnotes.

8) The prevalent practice of the corrective adulteration of names and terms

for local areas, regions, and so on, was avoided. Rather, research opinions

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were recorded regarding the possible connotations for these names. No

conclusions were drawn on the basis of mere surmise.

9) High priority was given to maintaining the names and terms clearly recorded

in earlier standard historical and biographical works, no recourse

having been taken to obliterating the wordings of earlier scholars in order to

win credit for oneself.

10) Efforts were made on the part of the author, to ensure objectivity and

impartiality, avoiding the interference of personal feelings in the narration of

historical events.

The Author

30 October 2008