Category Archives: TibArmy Seminar Cycle

Atelier introductif

Le jeudi 15 décembre 2022, à l’occasion de l’inauguration de l’exposition “L’armée tibétaine en vues : photographies historiques (1895-1959)”, un atelier introductif se tiendra à partir de 16h00 à l’Auditorium de l’Humathèque.

Programme

16h00-16h30
Donald La Rocca (Metropolitan Museum of Arts, New-York) :
Seventeenth-Century Tibetan Warriors in Twentieth-Century Photographs (en anglais)

16h30-17h00
Emma Martin (University of Manchester) :
Methods and approach to colonial photographs: a curator’s perspective (en anglais)

17h00-17h15 Pause

17h15-17h45
Alice Travers (CNRS, CRCAO) :
Les archives photographiques et la culture matérielle de l’armée tibétaine : présentation de l’exposition (en français)

L’atelier sera suivi du vernissage de l’exposition à 18h00 (L’Interface, Humathèque).

Book presentation: “Conflict in a Buddhist Society: Tibet under the Dalai Lamas”

Thursday 9 December 2021 – 5:30 pm –7:00 pm

Peter Schwieger (University of Bonn) presented his book “Conflict in a Buddhist Society: Tibet under the Dalai Lamas”

The presentation is now available online (see below).

Conflict in a Buddhist Society presents a new way of looking at Tibet under the rule of the Dalai Lamas (1642–1959). Although this era can be clearly delineated as a distinct period in the history of Tibet, many questions remain concerning the specific form of rule established. Author Peter Schwieger attempts to make transparent the complexity and dynamics of the Dalai Lamas’ domination using the work of sociologist Niklas Luhman (1927–1998) as his theoretical starting point. Luhman’s systems theory allows Schwieger to approach Tibetan history and culture as a remarkable effort to create—under times of great conflict and stress and using uncommon means—a stable social and political order. Such a methodology provides the distance needed to move beyond event-based narrative history and understand the structures that made social action possible in Tibet and the operations by which its society as a whole distinguished itself from its environment.

Schwieger begins by asking the crucial question of how Tibet’s society dealt with conflict. The chapters that follow answer this question from various perspectives: history and memory; domination; hierarchy; center and periphery; semantics; morality and ethics; ritual; law; and war. Each reveals a different avenue for cross-cutting discourses in the historical and social sciences. Together, they provide a comprehensive picture of how conflicts were portrayed in Tibet society and how the manner in which they were handled stabilized the country for a considerable time but were ultimately unsuccessful in the face of radical upheavals in its environment.

Situated at the intersection of systems theory, conflict theory, and Tibetan/Inner Asian history and society, Conflict in a Buddhist Society will be of considerable interest to students and scholars in these areas. Its theoretical rather than narrative-descriptive approach to the history of the three centuries of Dalai Lama rule will be welcomed as wide-ranging and insightful.

View the presentation in full screen mode

PANEL CONFERENCE AT UCLA: BUDDHISM AND VIOLENCE IN ASIA

November 1st 2019, 14.00-16.00, conference by Alice Travers, Ryosuke Kobayashi and Federica Venturi, Charles E. Young Research Library Presentation Room UCLA

Schigatse, tibetisches Militär mit Dzong, Truppenparade (Shigatse, Tibetan Army with castle, military parade).

Alice Travers (CNRS, France), Ryosuke Kobayashi (Kyushu University, Japan), Federica Venturi (CNRS, France/ USA) are invited by UCLA Asia Pacific Center to a panel presentation which tackles the question of Buddhism and Violence in Asia through “The Case of the Military in Tibet during the Ganden Phodrang Period (1642 – 1959)”. The panel aims to examine the rapport between the Buddhist government of the Dalai Lama and its army from multiple viewpoints:

Alice Travers, CNRS, CRCAO: “TibArmy’s Recent Research Developments on the Theme of Buddhism and the Military in Tibet”

Ryosuke Kobayashi, Kyushu University: “Militarization of Dargyé Monastery: Contested Borders on the Sino-Tibetan Frontier during the Early Twentieth Century”

Federica Venturi, CNRS, CRCAO / UCLA: “His Holiness’ Army: Some examples from the Documents of the Fifth and Thirteenth Dalai Lamas”

To read more about the panel conference:
https://www.international.ucla.edu/apc/centralasia/event/13955

Seminar cycle: The fortresses of Ladakh: evolution of a defensive infrastructure at the interface between the Tibetan and Central-Asian spheres

Conference by Quentin Devers, Wednesday 19 June 2019, 5.30- 7.00 PM, INALCO (room 3.11)

View of the Fortress of Anley, one of the main residences of Sengge Namgyal (1616-1623 / 1624-1642), on the border between Ladakh and Guge (photo by Quentin Devers, 2018)

Ladakh extends over a territory previously divided between the Tibetan and Central-Asian spheres. Because of this particular situation, a wide diversity of groups have inhabited the region: Dards, “Mons”, Turks, Tibetans, Mongols, etc. have left a rich array of archaeological remains for us to study all over the country. Its important mineral resources (gold, iron, copper, chrome) as well as international trade routes have attracted since times immemorial hordes of bandits and armies of all kinds, leading to the development of the densest defensive infrastructure of the Tibetan plateau. This seminar aims at covering the evolution of military architecture in the region, the differences between the fortresses of the numerous cultures represented , and how this diversity enabled the emergence of the famous fortified palaces of Ladakh – the architectural precursors of a number of the great palaces of the Ganden Phodrang such as the Potala.

To see more about the archaeology of Ladakh: instagram.com/ladakharchaeology

SEMINAR CYCLE: Une étude historiographique de la reddition de l’armée chinoise du Tibet en 1912

Conference by Fabienne Jagou, Wednesday 20 March 2019, 5.30- 7.00 PM, INALCO (room 3.11)



“Chinese troops”, Photography by Henry Martin, copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (1998.293.129)

Les sources tibétaines, britanniques et chinoises donnent à voir les différentes étapes de la capitulation des troupes chinoises stationnées au Tibet. Elles permettent de suivre le déroulement des événements : la mutinerie à Lhasa, les négociations entre les gouvernements britannique et chinois et la narration des difficultés rencontrées tout au long du trajet de retour vers la Chine. De registres différents, elles invitent à réfléchir sur les interprétations et les priorités que chacune des parties privilégie et à discuter de la potentialité d’écrire une histoire à parts égales de la reddition des troupes chinoises du Tibet.

SEMINAR CYCLE: The Rise and Fall of Guandi, the Chinese God of War, in Tibetan Buddhism

December 12th, 18.00-19.30, conference by George FitzHerbert, INALCO (Room 3.04).

“A late 18th century thangka of Tibetanised Guanyu (Kwan lo ye/ Sprin ring rgyal po)” Credit: Himalyan Art Resources item no. 88591

Under the Dalai Lamas’ government of Tibet (1642-1959) the avowed aim of politics was to serve religion. But sometimes it was religion that served politics. Based on a voluminous Tibetan-language literature (much of it ritual texts), this talk will look at the manner in which Guandi, the Chinese god of war, was incorporated into the pantheon of Tibetan Buddhist protectors during the 18th and 19th century. It will show how this development in the religious/literary sphere, which was led by (mostly Mongolian) Geluk lamas with links to the imperial court, closely mirrored the various stages in the establishment and consolidation of a Qing Protectorate in Tibet and the presence of Chinese military garrisons there. The talk will also try to show that as Qing military power weakened during the second half of the 19th century, the identity of Guandi and the temples devoted to him in Inner Asia, became increasingly overgrown and obscured by his superscription as a completely different figure, namely Gesar Gyalpo/ Geser Khan, the eponymous hero of Tibetan and Mongolian epic traditions.  By the time of Tibet’s independence (1913-1951), the identity of Guandi and the temples originally devoted to him in Tibet, had been all but forgotten.

SEMINAR CYCLE: The Bodyguard regiment (Ka dang sku srung dmag sgar) of the Ganden Phodrang army

November 15th, 16.30-18.00, conference by Alice Travers, La Maison de l’Asie (4th floor).

Photo caption: The Bodyguard / Ka dang sku srung regiment (between 1948 and 1950). © Ethnographic Museum at the University of Zurich. Inv.no. VMZ 400.07.50.012 / Photo: Heinrich Harrer, “Soldaten bei der Truppenrekrutierung”

The Bodyguard regiment (Tib. Ka dang sku srung dmag sgar) was created by the 13th Dalai lama around 1913-1914 and dissolved, with the rest of the remaining Tibetan troops, in 1959 after the 14th Dalai Lama’s flight into exile. When started, it was the first regiment (regiments were named in alphabetical order, hence “Ka”) in the newly organised and numerically increased army. It complemented the former Ganden Phodrang force of 3000 Tibetan soldiers, called “rgya sbyong” (lit. “trained by the Chinese”) at least since the end of the 18th century.

This paper will present a first attempt at a historical study of the Bodyguard regiment, based on an ensemble of Tibetan oral and written autobiographical accounts (notably some thirty-five interviews with Tibetan soldiers who served before 1959 in the Bodyguard regiment, and five book-length and article-length accounts of the Tibetan Bodyguard regiment’s officers published in the Tibet Autonomous Region and in India), as well as on British archival sources. Beyond the study of its organisation, its social composition and development over its period of existence, the presentation will particularly underline how this regiment was conceived as a showcase of the project of military modernisation launched by the 13th Dalai lama, functioning as a “model regiment” for the other permanent Tibetan troops, while retaining certain specificities related to its primary – and highly prestigious – role as the personal bodyguard to the Ganden Phodrang government’s ruler.

Seminar cycle: Tibetan Sources for the Study of the Ganden Phodrang’s Military History – the State Library of Berlin’s Collection of Legal Documents from South-Western Tibet

detail of Hs.or.6697, a public proclamation concerning the renovation of the military headquarter-cum-court of Dingri (Ding-ri sPyi-mda’ ya-mon)

October 17th, 18.00-19.30, conference by Hanna Schneider, INALCO (room 3.04).

The state library of Berlin (Staatsbibliothek Preußischer Kulturbesitz zu Berlin) is in possession of a collection of 320 legal documents from south-western Tibet, primary sources for the study of the region‘s cultural, religious, social and military history that cover the time range between the beginning of the 18th century and the early aftermath of the Ganden Phobrang era, i.e., the early sixties of the 20th century.

Given the longstanding strategic importance of Tibet‘s border with Nepal, it comes without surprise that a considerable part of these documents directly relate to issues of military purport, with a clear focus on the three aspects of military administration, maintenance and defence.

Above all, these documents deal with and respond to the changing tides of Tibet‘s history during  and after the two Gorkha wars (1788-1792; 1855-1856) in the first place. Both events triggered far reaching consequences that e.g. led to the reinforcement of troops, the upgrading of the military prefecture of south-western Tibet with its headquarters at Ding-ri, and the systematic development of new settlements and arable lands in order to strenghten the human and agricultural resources in times of war and peace.

This collection grants valuable first hand insights into the various aspects of Tibetan military history of the time and place: the role of the key players – the Tibetan government with its central and provincial branches, e.g., the Khashag or council of ministers, the military prefecture of Dingri (Ding-ri sPyi-mda‘ khang) and the monastery and rDzong of Shel-dkar; the role and involvement of Ch‘ing authority within these levels of Tibetan bureaucracy and within the borderland defence, the administration and maintenance of the troops and their garrisons, the role of the local people within the military administration as well as within the service and tax system; documents such as a certified copy of the 10 points Nepal-Tibet treaty of 1856, sources covering the border security at the strategically important border crossing at Rong-shar, and documents dealing with reconnaissance-cum-security issues across the high ranges of the highest mountains of our planet, down to an undertaking for the restoration of and a receipt for the timely delivery of fire wood to the military headquarter at Ding-ri in the height of winter…

Seminar cycle: three seminars to come!

Wednesday 17 October 2018 (18.00 – 19.30 PM), INALCO (room 3.04): 
Hanna Schneider (Erwin Schneider Archive Lech a/A), “Tibetan Primary Sources for the Study of the Ganden Phodrang’s Military History. The State Library of Berlin (Staatsbibliothek Preußischer Kulturbesitz zu Berlin)’s Collection of Legal Documents from South-Western Tibet”

Thursday 15 November 2018 (16.30 – 18.00 PM), Maison de l’Asie (room on the 4th floor): 
Alice Travers (CNRS, CRCAO), “The Bodyguard Regiment (Ka dang sku srung dmag sgar) of the Ganden Phodrang Army”

Wednesday 12 December 2018 (18.00 – 19.30 PM), INALCO (room 3.04):
George FitzHerbert (CNRS, CRCAO), “The Rise and Fall of Guandi, the Chinese God of War, in Tibetan Buddhism”

Seminar Cycle: The Lhasa Mentsikhang (1916-1950) and the Tibetan Tradition of Military Medicine

May 16th, 17.00-18.30, conference by Stacey Van Vleet, INALCO (room 3.15) – 65  rue des Grands Moulins, Paris.

Tibetan medical instruments, ca. 19th century, Tso-Ngon (Qinghai) Tibetan Medicine and Culture Museum

In the Earth-Tiger year of 1938, as Tibetans in Lhasa awaited the arrival of the young Fourteenth Dalai Lama, the Mentsikhang (Institute of Medicine and Astrology, founded in 1916) welcomed its third batch of students. At the request of the Kashak ministers, these young students were recruited mainly from ten regiments of the Tibetan army – unlike the first two batches who had come from monastic and medical family-lineage backgrounds. The formation of a Tibetan army medical corps represents the culmination of a long historical relationship between medical and military institutions in Tibetan Buddhist regions. This relationship predated British and other foreign models, and developed particularly within Gelukpa monastic medical colleges (sman pa grwa tshang) during the period of Qing Empire (1644-1911). This talk will situate the training and service of the Tibetan army’s medical corps within the politics of early twentieth-century Lhasa. It will consider the broad scope of physicians’ military duties, from treatments for wounds and broken bones to alchemical precious pills to divination aiding the course of a battle. It will argue that medical technologies supported Tibetan Buddhist governance not just through benevolent care for the populace, but also to aid in its empowerment and defense.

Seminar cycle “Les chapitres traitant de traumatologie dans le Quadruple Traité (rGyud bzhi), texte fondamental de la tradition médicale tibétaine savante”

April 5th,  15.00-16.30, conference by Fernand Meyer, Maison de l’Asie – Grand salon – (22 avenue du Président Wilson).

© Vignettes figurant le traitement des plaies dans la série des peintures sur toile qui, commanditées au début du 18ème siècle à Lhasa par le Régent Sangs-rgyas rgya-mtsho, illustre le contenu du rGyud bzhi.

Les sources textuelles tibétaines pré-modernes font rarement, si ce n’est jamais, mention de la présence de médecins accompagnant les corps d’armée tibétains. Les biographies de médecins tibétains célèbres parvenues jusqu’à nous semblent également ignorer cette activité. Toutefois le Quadruple Traité comprend plusieurs chapitres consacrés à l’examen et au traitement de traumatismes dont certains ne peuvent avoir été causés que par des armes et non par un banal accident.

Ces chapitres très mal connus et compris des médecins tibétains actuels et de la recherche en tibétologie, présentent toutefois un grand intérêt dans la mesure où ils exposent des connaissances anatomiques spécifiques, ainsi que des pratiques diagnostiques et thérapeutiques très sophistiquées qui ne sont pas évoquées dans l’exposé général de l’anatomie, de la séméiologie, ou du traitement qui constitue l’essentiel du Quadruple Traité.

Ces connaissances et pratiques relatives à la traumatologie n’ont que peu d’équivalents dans les traditions médicales indienne et chinoise dont on sait l’influence qu’elles ont eu, par ailleurs, sur le développement de la médecine tibétaine savante. Il est difficile de dire à quel moment de l’histoire de cette dernière elles ont été abandonnées. Cet abandon pourrait avoir un lien avec celui, également attesté, d’un certain nombre de pratiques chirurgicales évoquées dans le Quadruple Traité.

SEMINAR CYCLE: “A Survey of the Military and its Relationship to dGe lugs pa Religious Hierarchs (1682-1895)”

March 15th,  16.00-17.30, conference by Federica Venturi, Maison de l’Asie – Grand salon – (22 avenue du Président Wilson).

© “Horpa militia guarding northern border of Tibet”, Photography by Sven Hedin (Tibet. The Sacred Realm. Photographs 1880-1950, Aperture, 1983, 89).

In the period between the death of the Fifth Dalai Lama (1682) and the assumption of political power of the Thirteen Dalai Lama (1895) a number of military conflicts were fought in Tibetan territory. Some of these were internal, including a civil war and attempts to quell rebellious chieftains at the periphery of the plateau. Others, instead, were clashes with foreign powers that had attempted to encroach upon territories the dGa’ ldan pho brang considered in its political sphere.

This presentation aims to offer an overview of the military engagements that occurred in this period, and particularly to examine in which way religious hierarchs of the dGa’ ldan pho brang became involved with these military affairs. Several sources, including the lives (rnam mthar) and autobiographies (rang rnam) of religious hierarchs, as well as the life stories of laymen, such as the biography of Pho lha nas bSod nams stobs rgyal (1689-1747), and the autobiography of rDo ring bsTan ’dzin dpal ’byor (b. 1760), can be used to trace the role of some of the dGe lugs pa hierarchs with respect to the employment of armed forces. In addition, the multiple viewpoints shown in these sources also allow the investigation of more general questions concerning the army of the dGa’ ldan pho brang, such as when it originated, how it operated, and how it developed and was shaped by contemporary historical events.

Seminar cycle: “Armed forces of the Ancient Kingdom of Dergé in the 18th Century: a preliminary study”

December 14th,  17.00-18.30, conference by Rémi Chaix, Maison de l’Asie – 4th floor – (22 avenue du Président Wilson)

© Jampa Phuntsok (?-1667), considered as the founder of the Kingdom of Dergé, in the Dergé Gyelrab

The making and the expansion of the territory of the Dergé (sDe dge) Kingdom, between the mid-17th and late 18th centuries, were partly achieved by military action. Yet, no archives related to the forces that were mobilised (their size, their organisation, their equipment, etc.) and their modalities of action are, to my knowledge, available to document this crucial aspect of the influence and the prestige of this kingdom across Kham and, more widely, the Tibetan world.

This paper will show how the biographies of the chaplains of the house of Dergé, particularly those of Situ Panchen and Palden Chokyong, allow us to glimpse some aspects of the engagement of the armed forces in the context of internal conflicts in the kingdom, against certain neighbours and also during large-scale conflicts, such as the Jinchuan wars, alongside the Manchu armies.

Seminar cycle: Winning the Peace: The Aftermath of the Tibet-Ladakh War of 1679–1683 and the Reorganisation of Western Tibet

Conference by Charles Ramble, Inalco, room 3.03 (65 rue des Grands Moulins) – 17.30 – 19.00

1683 edict, photography by Charles Ramble

The Tibet Ladakh war, which resulted in victory for the Central Tibetan army under the leadership of the Mongol general Ganden Tshewang and the annexation of the Ngari region, has been well documented by several authors, notably Luciano Petech. Less well known are the measures that were taken to bring the newly-won territory in the administrative orbit of Lhasa’s Ganden Phodrang government. Based on published Tibetan studies and a hitherto unknown edict of the Fifth Dalai Lama issued in 1683, this presentation will examine the post-war policies that were implemented to reassure the local chiefs and the ordinary population of Western Tibet of the good intentions of their new ruler.