○greater tibet discussion
within China, 1990 census reported 4.6 million ethnic Tibetan are devised between two regions –46 persent in the Tibet Autonomous Region(TAR)and 54percent in the west china provinces of Qinghai,Gansu ・・・the former area are referred to as
"political tibet" is equivalent to the polity ruled by the Dalai lamas; the latter "ethnographic Tibet" corresponds to the borderland areas occupied by various traditional Tibetan native states.
○Songtsen Gampo
Songtsen Gampo received a Chinese princess as a bride, and at one point in the eighth century when when the Chinese stopped paying tribute to Tibet, Tibetan forces captured Changan(Xi’an), the capital of the Tang dynasty.
It is clear that Tibet was in no ways subordinate to China during the imperial era.Each was a distinct and independent political entity.
○subsects of tibetan buddism
the Sakya, the Karma Kargyu and the Drigung Kargyu
○Tibet and the Mongols
Tibet, which submitted bloodlessly to the Mongols in 1207. And when Tibet ceased sending tribute to Mongolia, the new supreme khan Ogodai ordered Godan, his son, to invade Tibet. Godan summoned a famous lama of the Sakya sect- Sakya Pandita through whom introduced Tibetan Buddism into Mongolia.
Thus began the curious relationship Tibetan refer to as "priest-patron"( in Tibetan,mchod yon)
the relation between the two figures are successes by Phagpa(SakyaPandita’s nephew) and Kublai Khan. Phagpa was much more than a conquered subject put on the throne. When Kublai asked Phagpa to serve as his spiritual tutor, Phagpa agreed but insisted that Kublai show deference to his superior religious stature.
contemporary chinese scholars and officials consider this the period when Tibet first became part of China. Nationalistic Tibetan, by contrast, accept only that they,like china, were subjugated by the Mongols and incorporated into a Mongols empire centered in China
○during Ming dynasty
unlike their Yuan predecessors, the Ming emperors(1368-1644)exerted no administrative authority over the area.By conferring titles on Tibetans already in power, the Ming emperors merely recognized political reality.