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environment resulted in a society dedicated to peace and presided over Tibet, most of the arable land was still organised harmony". "We enjoyed freedom and contentment," he said.* into manorial estates worked by serfs. These estates were owned A reading of Tibet's history suggests a somewhat different by two social groups: the rich secular landlords and the rich picture. "Religious conflict was commonplace in old Tibet," theocratic lamas. Even a writer sympathetic to the old order writes one western Buddhist practitioner. "History belies the allows that "a great deal of real estate belonged to the Shangri-La image of Tibetan lamas and their followers living monasteries, and most of them amassed great riches". Much of together in mutual tolerance and nonviolent goodwill. Indeed, the the wealth was accumulated "through active participation in trade, situation was quite different. Old Tibet was much more like commerce, and money lending".'” ns Europe during the religious wars of the Counterreformation. Drepung monastery was one of the biggest landowners in the In the 13th century, Emperor Kublai Khan created the first world, with its 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 great pastures and Grand Lama, who was to preside over all the other lamas as might 16,000 herdsmen. The wealth of the monasteries rested in the a pope over his bishops. Several centuries later, the Emperor of hands of small numbers of high-ranking lamas. Most ordinary China sent an army into Tibet to support the Grand Lama, an monks lived modestly and had no direct access to great wealth. ambitious 25-year-old man, who then gave himself the title of The Dalai Lama himself "lived richly" in the 1,000-room, 14- Dalai ("Ocean") Lama, ruler of all Tibet. Here is an historical storey Potala Palace." irony: the first Dalai Lama was installed by a Chinese army! His Secular leaders also did well. A notable example was the two previous lama "incarnations" were then retroactively commander-in-chief of the Tibetan army, a member of the Dalai recognised as his predecessors, thereby transforming the first Lama's lay cabinet, who owned 4,000 square kilometres of land Dalai Lama into the third Dalai Lama. and 3,500 serfs.'” This first (or third) Dalai Lama seized monasteries that did not Old Tibet has been misrepresented by some western admirers as belong to his sect, and is believed to have destroyed Buddhist writings that conflicted with his claim to divinity. ‘a nation that required no police force because its people voluntarily observed the laws of karma." In The Dalai Lama who succeeded him Here is an historical irony: fact, it had a professional army, albeit pursued a sybaritic life, enjoying = . a small one, that served mainly as a many mistresses, partying with the first Dalai Lama was gendarmerie for the landlords to keep order, protect their property and hunt down runaway serfs. Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their peasant families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they were bonded for life. Tashi Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common for peasant children to be sexually mistreated in itterly violent clashes and summary the monasteries. He himself was a executions. In 1660, the fifth Dalai Lama was faced with a victim of repeated rape, beginning at age nine.'* The monastic rebellion in Tsang province, the stronghold of the rival Kagyu estates also conscripted children for lifelong servitude as sect with its high lama known as the Karmapa. The Dalai Lama domestics, dance performers and soldiers. friends and acting in other ways installed by a Chinese army! deemed unfitting for an incarnate deity. For these transgressions he His two previous lama was murdered by his priests. Within "incarnations" were then 70 years, despite their recognised divine status, five Dalai Lamas were retroactively recognised as illed by their high priests or other his predecessors... courtiers.° For hundreds of years, competing Tibetan Buddhist sects engaged in called for harsh retribution against the rebels, directing the In old Tibet there were small numbers of farmers who subsisted Mongol army to obliterate the male and female lines and the as a kind of free peasantry, and perhaps an additional 10,000 offspring, too: "...like eggs smashed against rocks... In short, people who composed the "middle-class" families of merchants, annihilate any traces of them, even their names."” shopkeepers and small traders. Thousands of others were In 1792, many Kagyu monasteries were confiscated and their beggars. There were also slaves, usually domestic servants, who monks were forcibly converted to the Gelug sect (the Dalai owned nothing; their offspring were born into slavery.'* The Lama's denomination). The Gelug school, known also as the majority of the rural population were serfs. Treated little better "Yellow Hats", showed little tolerance or willingness to mix their _ than slaves, the serfs went without schooling or medical care. teachings with those of other Buddhist sects. In the words of one — They were under a lifetime bond to work the lord's land—or the of their traditional prayers: monastery's land—without pay, to repair the lord's houses, Praise to you, violent god of the Yellow Hat teachings transport his crops and collect his firewood. They were also who reduces to particles of dust expected to provide carrying animals and transportation on great beings, high officials and ordinary people demand."° Their masters told them what crops to grow and what who pollute and corrupt the Gelug doctrine. animals to raise. They could not get married without the consent An 18th-century memoir of a Tibetan general depicts sectarian of their lord or lama. And they might easily be separated from strife among Buddhists that was as brutal and bloody as any their families should their owners lease them out to work in a religious conflict might be.’ This grim history remains largely distant location."” unvisited by present-day followers of Tibetan Buddhism in the As in a free labour system and unlike slavery, the overlords had West. no responsibility for the serf's maintenance and no direct interest Religions have had a close relationship not only with violence in his or her survival as an expensive piece of property. The serfs but with economic exploitation. Indeed, it is often the economic had to support themselves. Yet as in a slave system, they were exploitation that necessitates the violence. Such was the case bound to their masters, thus guaranteeing a fixed and permanent with the Tibetan theocracy. Until 1959, when the Dalai Lama last workforce that could neither organise nor strike and could not His two previous lama "incarnations" were then retroactively recognised as his predecessors... 44 = NEXUS Here is an historical irony: the first Dalai Lama was installed by a Chinese army! www.nexusmagazine.com FEBRUARY — MARCH 2008