On Thursday 15 December Dr. Alice Travers (CNRS, Paris) will give a guest lecture titled “The challenges of maintaining a standing army: the reforms of the Tibetan troops during the first half of the 20th Century”.
Venue: University of Oslo – Seminar room 10, P.A. Munchs building
The presentation will first give an overview of this new field of research and present the current state of knowledge regarding the creation of the first Tibetan standing army under the Ganden Phodrang government. It will then analyse the content of the military reforms (recruitment, hierarchy, training, uniform, arms and ammunitions) undertaken during the first half of the 20th century under the successive governments, based on secondary literature, and on primary written and oral sources (biographical accounts published in India and in the TAR, archives and interviews), in order to show how the distinctive features of these reforms were closely shaped by the political national and international context at various times.
The lecture is organized by the interfacultary Research Seminar in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies (TibHim), and are jointly funded by Network for University Cooperation Tibet-Norway and Religion in Pluralist Societies (PluRel).
Thursday 8 December 2016, 16.30-18.30, Maison de l’Asie (Grand Salon) – Professor Elliot Sperling will give a talk on violence and the military in 17th and 18th century Tibet.
It has been long acknowledged that state violence and military activity were a part of Tibetan history. Indeed, popular perceptions aside, the evidence for this has been easily available. In this talk some of it will be reviewed, to clarify both the idea that violence was justifiable and the fact that military organization was part of Tibetan politics and society – weaponry, soldiers, support units, etc. – all a part of functioning of authority in Tibet. The history of 17th and 18th century Tibet provides enough examples of the ways in which armed force war trained and deployed to allow us to make useful observations about the Tibetan military.
Pr. Elliot Sperling is a Numata Visiting Professor in South Asian, Buddhist, and Tibetan Studies at the University of Vienna. His writing and research has concentrated on Tibetan history, with a specific focus on Tibet’s historical and modern relations with China.
The Tibetan Army of the Dalai Lamas, 1642-1959
