In Exile From the Land of Snows

by John Avedon

  SEPT. 7, 2013 The Tibetan Task Force on Sino–Tibetan negotiations constituted to recommend policy matters and strategies, concludes its twenty-sixth session after reviewing the developments in Tibet and China. In a statement, the Central Tibetan Administration says, “Clear strategies were discussed on the way forward for the peaceful resolution of the Tibetan issue through dialogue between envoys of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and representatives of the new Chinese leadership.”

  SEPT. 18, 2013 The Tibetan Government-in-Exile unanimously passed three resolutions to express solidarity with the Tibetans self-immolators, saying that the new Chinese leadership must take a realistic approach on the issue of Tibet.

  NOV. 20, 2013 The Dalai Lama, in an address to the All Party Parliamentary Group in Tokyo, Japan, speaks about his view of President Xi Jinping and the Chinese leadership, calling them “more pratical and realistic.”

  DEC. 5, 2013 Kalon Dicki Chhoyang, Minister of the Tibetan Department of Information and International Relations, Central Tibetan Administration, testifies before the Italian Senate’s Extraordinary Commission for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights, urging for Italian support.

  DEC. 10, 2013 In his 2013 International Human Rights Day statement, U.S. Ambassador to China Gary Locke says, “The United States calls on the Chinese government to protect the fundamental freedoms of all its citizens without discrimination. We also urge China’s leaders to engage in constructive dialogue with the Dalai Lama or his representatives, as a means to reduce the tensions.”

  JAN. 28, 2014 U.S. Senator Max Baucus, nominated as Washington’s next ambassador to China, announces he will counsel the Chinese leadership to restart dialogue with the Dalai Lama without any preconditions in order to reduce the growing instability in Tibet.

  FEB. 21, 2014 U.S. President Barack Obama, after meeting with the Dalai Lama, reiterates his support for the Middle Way Approach and encourages direct dialogue on Tibet to resolve the longstanding differences.

  FEB. 21, 2014 U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry designates the Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights, Dr. Sarah Sewall, to serve concurrently as United States Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues.

  MAR. 10, 2014 The President of the EU’s European Economic and Social Committee, Henri Malosse, reiterates support for Middle Way Approach to resolve the Tibet issue through dialogue between the Chinese government and the Tibetan leadership.

  MAR. 13, 2014 A resolution adopted by the Italian Senate’s Human Rights Committee urges the Chinese government to bring an “immediate halt to the oppression of Tibetan people, and resume dialogue with the envoys of His Holiness the Dalai Lama for the implementation of a genuine autonomy for the Tibetan people.”

  A Note on Sources

  The oral sources for this book are roughly a hundred people met with during a four-year period in the United States and India. Though principal informants were interviewed repeatedly over a period of weeks and months and others on only one occasion, their firsthand accounts together provide the basis of the book The key contributors are mentioned in the Acknowledgments. Among the written sources, certain authors and periodicals, listed in the bibliography, were invaluable. For a portrait of Tibetan society at its apogee, the classics of Tibetan studies, written by Bell, Richardson, Shakabpa and Stein were fundamental, including a small but unique text on the discovery of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama by Sonam Wangdu, a member of the search party. For their firsthand accounts of Tibet in its declining days, the works of Heinrich Harrer and Robert Ford were indispensable as, for the Tibetans’ own view of their nation’s invasion and fall, were those of Rinchen Dolma Taring, Thubten Jigme Norbu and the Dalai Lama’s own autobiography, My Land and My People. Much of the Tibetan revolt was revealed in the history of Chushi Gangdruk, written by Gompo Tashi Andrugtsang, as well as by Noel Barber’s account of the fighting in Lhasa in March 1959. For information on the Tibetan refugees’ quarter century in exile I am beholden to the various reporters of India’s chief newspapers and above all to the Tibetan Review, which, published in New Delhi, is essential reading for any student of Tibetan affairs. Main sources for the period covering China’s unabridged occupation of Tibet include the Union Research Institute’s Tibetan documentation, Tibet 1950–1967, and the personal accounts of Kunsang Paljor, Tsering Dorje Gashi and Dhondub Choedon, all of whom, as Tibetan cadres working in the region’s administration, had access to its interior functions. Peking’s numerous publications issued to present its achievements in Tibet have been of value, including the English-language staples, the Beijing Review and China Reconstructs. For an overview of the PRC’s Minority Policy since its inception I am indebted to June Teufel Dreyer’s definitive study, China’s Forty Millions. Special thanks to John Ackerley of the International Campaign for Tibet, and to the International Committee of Lawyers for Tibet for the Chronology of Major Events from 1984–1994.

  Acknowledgments

  In varying ways, many people contributed time and effort to this book. To begin with, Pema Thonden, of New York City, the third Tibetan to visit Lhasa following the 1978 liberalization, provided a vivid description of life in the previously sealed capital. Her account, originally to have been a chapter unto itself, ranked with those of the principal figures in the book: Tempa Tsering, Gendun Thargay, Dr. Yeshi Dhonden, Lobsang Jigme and Dr. Tenzin Choedrak. I am grateful to all of them for their patience during long work sessions and for their generosity in permitting their lives to be singled out as emblematic.

  For memories of the old Tibet, prior to 1950, I am obliged to numerous experts, among whom Nechung Rinpoché, abbot of Nechung Monastery, and the foremost authority on Tibet’s State Oracle, was of inestimable assistance. Over a protracted series of interviews, he offered the first public explanation of the oracle’s role and function in both spiritual and temporal terms, after which he took considerable care in checking every detail of the transcripts. I wish to thank Kesangla, lifelong companion of Lobsang Jigme, the Nechung Kuden, as well as Tenzin Wangdrak, current medium of the Gadong oracle for their help. Taktser Rinpoché, the Dalai Lama’s eldest brother, offered one-of-a-kind background on both his family and present-day Tibet, which he visited in 1980. For illuminating the unique place of religion in Tibet’s government I am most thankful to Serkhong Rinpoché, one of the Dalai Lama’s seven tsensbap or debate instructors and particularly to the senior and junior tutors of the Dalai Lama, Kabjé Ling Rinpoché and Kyabjé Trijang Rinpoché. Tsepon W. D. Shakabpa, who accompanied Reting Rinpoché, the regent of Tibet, on his visit to the sacred lake of Lhamo Lhatso, whereafter he helped arrange Lhasa’s reception for the newly discovered Dalai Lama, furnished an impeccable account of life in the capital up to the Chinese invasion. Mr. Thubten Tharpa Liushar, Tibet’s last Foreign Minister as well, gave his kind assistance to the project. For the hard work of elucidating minute points of religious and historical detail I have also to thank the following: Khensur Rinpoché—ex-abbot of Gyudme, the Lower Tantric College, Thubten Jamyang and Kalsang, respectively, master of ceremonies and umze or chant master for Namgyal Dratsang, the Dalai Lama’s private monastery; Sangay Samdup, a Swiss monk in training at Dharamsala’s School of Buddhist Dialectics and Yeshi Khedup, an ex-monk of Drepung monastery currently residing in New York. For their views on Tibetan medicine’s introduction to the West I am grateful to doctors Gerald Goldstein and Donald Baker of the University of Virginia, as well as to Herbert Benson and Richard Selzer of Harvard and Yale. I am equally appreciative of Mr. William Schneider’s kind help in permitting his meeting with Dr. Yeshi Dhonden to be recounted. Lobsang Rabgay, a student of Tibetan medicine, offered essential aid in confirming my presentation of the topic.

  Those who assisted me most in chronicling the experience of Tibetans from 1959 through the present often did so under conditions of some delicacy. Jamyang Norbu, current head of the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts in Dharamsala was at the core of the refugees’ more volatile intramural conflicts.
His aid, however, was both candid and objective. So was that of someone I may only identify as KN, a key player in the tense relations between Katmandu and the Tibetan guerrillas in Mustang. Lobsang Chonzin of Byllakuppe Camp Number 1 and Khentrul Rinpoché, an inmate at the Buxa Luna Ashram, were instrumental in describing the refugees’ early days in India. Mr. N. N. Nowrojee, proprietor of Nowrojee and Sons, McLeod Ganj, deserves my deepest thanks for his captivating description of the history of Dharamsala from its beginning. Bikku Gian Jagat, caretaker of the stupa at Bodh Gaya, was a gracious host who inspired me with his singlehanded efforts at preservation and renovation of the great shrine. Mr. Om Prakesh Dawan, New Delhi’s liaison officer to the Dalai Lama, not only has my gratitude for elucidating his government’s remarkable record of aid to the Tibetan refugees, but for his warmth of spirit and unqualified assistance in carrying out my research.

  Most of those Tibetans, recently permitted to visit abroad, who gave critical aid to this book have now returned home. For obvious reasons, they must remain nameless. I was honored by their courage in speaking up, given the ongoing existence of prison camps and frequent reprisals exacted on family members. I can only indicate two of those who have remained in exile: DL, a trader from Amdo, recently released after twenty-one years in five Chinese prisons; DY, a woman of Lhasa now residing in Dharamsala. Suzette Cook, an Australian student of more than normal enterprise, was, with her companion Christina Jengen, the first Westerner in decades to travel overland from Chengtu to Lhasa; she patiently submitted to close questioning. The members of the Tibetan Government-in-exile’s three fact-finding missions, sent to Tibet in 1979 and 1980, each deserve their own acknowledgment both for copious notes taken during their tours and the lucid presentation of the facts on their return. In particular, I wish to thank the Dalai Lama’s immediate elder brother and head of the Tibetan Medical Center, Lobsang Samten, without whose assistance my comprehension of the personal dimension of the relations currently underway between Peking and Dharamsala would be nil. By the same token I am indebted to Pema Gyalpo, the Dalai Lama’s sister and the director of the Tibetan Children’s Village, for her penetrating depiction of the current social atmosphere in China and Tibet. I am also obliged to Lobsang Jinpa, President of the Tibetan Youth Congress, who rendered an exact and valuable account of his delegation’s travels.

  It was the special necessity of this project to rely heavily on translators. Without their exhaustive work in refining points and definitions, whatever degree of accuracy has been achieved herein would be far less. I am most thankful to Namgyal Lhamo Samten for her painstaking but marvelously fluid translation of Dr. Tenzin Choedrak’s life in prison, delivered within weeks of his release. I am equally grateful to Marya Schwabe who gave a truly herculean performance, worthy of a book unto itself, not just in translating but also in perfecting, with Nechung Rinpoché, essential background to the chapter on Tibet’s State Oracle. No less thanks go to Professor Jeffrey Hopkins of the University of Virginia, the Dalai Lama’s chief Western translator and a peerless scholar of Tibetan Buddhism. Professor Hopkins’s help has for years been a mainstay of my own limited research into Tibetan medicine and religion, which could never have been undertaken without it. I am beholden to Alexander Berzin and Glenn H. Mullin, members of the Tibetan Library of Works and Archives Translation Bureau, and among the first Westerners to settle permanently in Dharamsala in order to study with Tibetan teachers. Prof. Robert Thurman of Amherst, a pioneer of Tibetan Buddhist studies in the West, has been consistently gracious and forthcoming in his assistance. Sangay Rabten, currently posted to the exile government’s bureau in Switzerland, and Phuntso Thonden, the Dalai Lama’s second representative in New York, also generously offered their services as translators. The results of every interview were transcripts, thick piles of which accumulated early on. Those who transcribed had no simple task, due to accents, as well as the frequent, spontaneous exchange of Tibetan and English equivalents in conversation. They were Rinchen Khando, Pema Dorje, Joyce Murdoch and Diane Short in Virginia. I am particularly obliged for both transcription and a bevy of other tasks to Ngoudup Tesur of the Dalai Lama’s Private Office. I am no less appreciative of the daunting task undertaken by the typists who submitted to much painstaking revision: Shirley Baker, Carol Atkinson, and Jane Freeman. Nora Paul and Neesha Sethi also graciously contributed time to the project.

  Certain friends and colleagues have provided substantial assistance to me from the inception through the end of work on this book. Jann Wenner, publisher of Rolling Stone, was the first to recognize the present significance of Tibet’s story and support its telling. Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari, ex-Chairman of the Assembly of the Tibetan People’s Deputies, not only added much to my understanding of the Tibetans’ fledgling democratic experiment, but in his present capacity as additional secretary in the Information Office of the Tibetan government-in-exile oversaw the vast task of corroborating the accuracy of my research. Sonam Topgyal, General Secretary of Information, Samphel Dy and other members of the staff who assisted with checking, as well as Lhamo Tsering, an ex-officer of Chushi Gangdruk, and P. T. Takla, retired minister of the Kashag all have my thanks. Tenzin Geyché Tethong, for sixteen years the Dalai Lama’s chief foreign secretary and now a member of his cabinet, has offered me precious insights at every juncture of the project. The combined services of the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives under Gyatso Tsering, aided by Tashi Tsering, in addition to those of the Bureau of H.H. the Dalai Lama in New Delhi under Tashi Wangdu, were consistently appreciated. Most helpful has been the staff of the Office of Tibet in New York City: Frances Thargey, Tinley Akar and Tenzin Choedrak. Their assistance has for many years contributed in every capacity, from turning up rare sources to keeping open the somewhat difficult lines of communication with India. I owe them much. Tenzin Namgyal Tethong, the Dalai Lama’s representative in New York, has, besides detailing the experiences of the second delegation sent to Tibet, which he led, worked long and hard to verify the accuracy of material, assemble maps and photos and bring me together with certain sources, emanating directly from Peking, which otherwise I would have been unable to contact. Valrae Reynolds, curator of the Newark Museum’s collection of Asian art, was extremely generous in allowing the use of photos, as were George Patterson, Khedroob Thondup, Dolma Ladenla and most especially Nicholas Vreeland. Michael Van Walt Van Praag and Peter Brown, friends and students of Tibet, proved excellent sounding boards for plumbing the depths of Sino-Tibetan relations through the ages. Kunga Wangdrak, Anila Kungsang and Roberta Mullin all provided munificent hospitality in India. John Brzotoski, an instructor at the New School of Social Research, afforded me with a stimulating introduction to Tibetan iconography. Above all my good friend and mentor in all things Tibetan has been Khyongla Rato Rinpoché, a preeminent lama of Rato, Drepung and Gyudto monasteries and currently president of the Tibet Center in New York City. He has given me, through years of generous help, the basic vocabulary for comprehending Tibetan culture and religion without which I would have been unable to understand the overall terms let alone the present day particulars of the Tibetans’ world view.

  Final thanks are due to those closest to the project. Lee Goerner, my editor at Alfred A. Knopf, had the wisdom to cut the manuscript by more than half and thus save it from a morass of secondary material. It was Andrew Wylie, my literary agent, who conceived the idea of the book. To him I owe gratitude for a constant infusion of enthusiasm during the tedium of day-to-day work and for fulfilling the writer’s greatest need, that of an objective observer and a subjective collaborator in one. Ngari Rinpoché, presently chief foreign secretary of the Dalai Lama’s Private Office, in his own ever truthful words worked “his tail off” from day one of my research. He arranged innumerable interviews, provided a plethora of superlative personal information, and energetically coordinated most aspects of production. RCA and EFA, throughout, offered their loving support. Elizabeth Paul aided every phase of the project, consistently taking time off fr
om her own work to evaluate and offer guidance through the various obstacles encountered.

  Finally, I am indebted to the Dalai Lama. Through long hours of probing interviews, he frankly related his personal reaction to historic events, thereby revealing the heart of the issue. His concern for and interest in this book stemmed not so much from the understandable desire to see Tibet’s story told, but from a genuine motive to assist however he could. It was this spirit that made possible my other work and for which I owe my greatest thanks.

  Bibliography

  Andrugtsang, Gompo Tashi. Four-Rivers-Six Ranges: A True Account of Kbampa Resistance to Chinese in Tibet. Information Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Dharamsala, India, 1973.

  Avedon, John F. An Interview with the Dalai Lama. Littlebird Publications, New York, 1980.

  Barber, Noel. The Flight of the Dalai Lama. Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1960.

  Barber, Noel. From the Land of Lost Content. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1970.

  Bell, Sir Charles. Tibet Past and Present. Oxford University Press, London, 1968 (first published 1924).

  Bell, Sir Charles. The People of Tibet. Oxford University Press, London, 1968 (first published 1928).

  Bell, Sir Charles. The Religion of Tibet. Oxford University Press, London 1968 (first published 1931).

  Bell, Sir Charles. Portrait of the Dalai Lama. Collins, London, 1946

  Bhushan, Shashi. China: The Myth of a Superpower. Progressive People’s Sector Publications Ltd, New Delhi, 1976

  Bonavia, David, and Magnus Bartlett. Tibet. The Vendome Press, New York, 1981.

  Buddha, Sakyamuni. The Ambrosia Heart Tantra. Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, Dharamsala, India, 1977.