藏人由何处起源很少被人知道。他们最早来源于一个好战的游牧部落——羌。在中国历史中，早在公元前2世纪就有关于这些大肆在边境掠夺的部落的记载了。但是，西藏直到公元7世纪才被计算成为一个政治上联合的力量。
向所有的人一样，藏人也有大量的关于世界和他们自己的起源的神话文献。根据藏人的神话，世界在最早时候是被风充斥的一片空旷，直到一场暴风云的酝酿才集合成一股力量，然后释放出奔流不止的雨，形成原始的海洋。当雨停止后，风继续从海面吹过，像搅动奶油一样搅动着新生的海，直到陆地，像白脱一样，最终成为凝固的物体。
根据神话，藏人将他们的形成归功于一个食人女妖和一只猴子在泽当的贡布山上的结合（比达尔文还要早一千年）。另外一个传说讲述了西藏第一个国王如何从天上沿着绳索下降到人间。这个早期的神话毫无疑问是好的开始，但是也被用于佛教，所以猴子被表现为白色本尊白观音（Chenresig）也就是大悲观音。女妖和猴子有六个子女，分别是西藏六个主要部落的祖先。

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛就像藏人起源的神话所说的，雅伦流域也是西藏中部文明起源的摇篮。早期的雅伦国王们，尽管在传说中被赋予荣耀，但是实际上也就是个酋长，统治的区域超不过雅伦流域地区太多。被重建的西藏的第一个堡垒雍布拉康依然能在雅伦流域看见，就在这里据说在公元5世纪第28任国王收到了西藏第一批佛教经文。传说中说，这些佛经掉到了雍布拉康的屋顶。
根据可靠的历史记载，雅伦流域王朝的雏形只有在6世纪才通过征服和联盟进入国际舞台。在那时候雅伦国王们已经通过征服和联盟在统一中部西藏的进程中迈出了很大的一步。囊日化赞（Namri Songtsen大约 570-619），第32任西藏国王，继续了这个趋势并扩展西藏 对亚洲内陆的影响，在中国边境上击败羌族部落。但是让西藏成为一个真正的地区势力是囊日化赞的儿子松赞干布（630-49）开始统治之后。
在松赞干布统治之下中部西藏进入了一个新纪元。西藏的扩张不间断的持续着。西藏部队一直覆盖到了印度的北部，并且对中国当时的唐朝产生威胁。尼泊尔和中国都对西藏的入侵做出了不情愿的通婚联盟。松赞干布的中国新娘文成公主和尼泊尔新娘尺尊公主（Bhrikuti）成为了西藏历史上重要的人物，因为是通过她们的影响才使得佛教获得皇室的保护并且立足于西藏高原。国王进一步通过了一条法律不成为佛教徒是违法的。
松赞干布统治时期开始了大昭寺和朗木撤寺的建造，同时开始在拉萨建造一个堡垒，在很多年以后成为了布达拉宫。在同中国的接触中西藏引入了天文和医药的科学，西藏的字母从印度文发展而来。这些字母最早被用来翻译佛经，起草法律条文和记载西藏最早的历史。
松赞干布统治之后的两个世纪，西藏的势力和影响继续扩张。到赤松德赞（Trisong Detsen 755-97）时代，西藏的影响力已经到达土耳其斯坦，巴基斯坦北部、尼泊尔和印度。在中国，西藏部队征服了甘肃和四川并且控制了敦煌的伟大的佛洞。在公元763年，西藏部队占领了都城长安（现在的西安），迫使唐朝达成一项协议承认西藏大部分占领地区的新边界。
一个进一步的唐蕃条约在公元821年赤祖德赞Tritsug Detsen Ralpachen （ 817-36）统治时期签订。它被刻成三块石碑，一块在拉萨大昭寺外，一块在当时中国的都城长安，另一块在西藏和大唐的边境上。只有在拉萨的那块现在依旧竖立着（参看拉萨八廓广场章节）。条约的签名者发誓道“……以东所有地区属于大唐，以西确实属于西藏，边境两边都不得战争，不得敌意入侵，不得夺取领地……” 盟约继续预示着一个“蕃人乐蕃，唐人乐唐”的新时期。更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛在松赞干布统治时期佛教首次被传入西藏的时候，佛教已经繁盛了1100年并且成为周围所有邻国的主要宗教信仰。佛教最初在西藏传播得很慢。
早期的传教士，比如从印度佛教中心Nalanda（现在是Bihar）来的息护（Shantarakshita，又成为住持菩萨）要面对来自本教（Bon-dominated court）的很大敌视。松赞干布的唐朝妻子和尼泊尔妻子的影响力仅仅局限于宫廷，那时候的祭祀大概是印度人和唐人，没有藏人。
直到赤松德赞的统治时期佛教才开始取得实质性进展。赤松德赞负责兴建了桑耶寺，那是第一个开始系统的翻译佛经和训练西藏僧侣的机构。
佛教之引入西藏依旧不像采用指定的规则体那么简单。到9世纪，许多原先教授释迦牟尼的学校衍生为佛教学校，并且西藏已经不再被认为是一个统一的信仰体。
对于西藏是否要接受佛教的争论在桑耶寺到达了顶点。据说在那里赤松德赞的判决有利于提倡基于学院研究和道德准则建立起逐步启蒙的印度教师，但是也有很多反对制度化、全体化佛教的反对者，很多的支持者来于本教（Bon faith）。下一任西藏国王Tritsug Detsen Ralpachen成为反对派的受害者，被他的兄弟Langdharma暗杀了，Langdharma发起了对佛教的攻击。在公元842年Langdharma 自己在一个节庆中被一个装扮成黑帽舞蹈者的佛教僧侣暗杀了，整个西藏很快就崩溃成互相征战的公国。在随后的混乱之中，佛教的支持萎缩了，经历了150年的裂痕。更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛自从公元842年西藏的崩溃，西藏对亚洲的扩张也停止了，西藏再也没有举起手臂。最初在本地压倒性势力的挣扎之下，佛教再次逐渐地发挥出它的影响力，在精神上把藏人的思想作了转换，转换为朝着佛教的方向发展。随着佛教信仰在印度、尼泊尔和中国的消退，西藏逐渐成为世界上最虔诚的佛教国度。
传统的西藏佛教认为西藏国家的崩溃与系统的迫害佛教是一致的，但很多西方学者并不这样认为。这更像类似桑耶寺这样被国家引入的佛教机构在中央政权崩溃后受到忽视。这个是佛教在狭小空间生存并且在150年中受到贵族家庭保护直到复苏的迹象。
这所谓的佛教的第二轮传播（也参看佛法）与两个发展是一致的。第一，在东部康区（Kham）避难的教师回到了中部，在10世纪建立了新的寺庙。第二，在不久之后的11世纪中期，位于西部的古格王朝邀请了孟加拉学者阿底峡（Atisha）。阿底峡的信徒，主要是敦巴（Dromtonpa）帮助建立了嘎当派，和在例如热定（Reting）Ü 的寺院。
在11世纪的这次佛教影响的复苏使得很多藏人前往印度去学习。这些被他们带回来的新思想在藏人的思考方面有着新生的影响并且产生了藏传佛教的其他新学校。在这之中有噶举派（Kagyupa order），是翻译家玛尔巴（Marpa，1012-93）的门徒米拉日巴（Milarepa，1040-1123）创立的。同时在萨迦，Kon家族在1073年建立了一个寺院，在那里形成了萨迦派（Sakyapa order）。更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛随着西藏中部王国的崩溃，西藏同唐朝的接触日渐减少。到唐朝在907年快结束的时候，唐朝已经收复了几乎以前被西藏占领的所有土地。在整个宋朝（960-1276）两国直接几乎没有接触，而西藏危及外国的接触就是南部的佛教邻居们。
这些在1206年成吉思汗（Genghis Khan）发动一系列的征服之后都改变了。成吉思汗的霸权横跨中亚和中国的广大帝国。当时的宋朝直到1279年才沦陷，但是同时蒙古很快占领中亚。因为全神贯注于其他事物，西藏直到1239年才注意到蒙古，那时候蒙古军队对西藏进行了多次袭击。蒙古军队在返回之前几乎到达拉萨，并把途径的无数寺院夷为平地。
藏人认为回来的蒙古部队将西藏喇嘛们的显赫精神和阔端Godan Khan 联系了起来，阔端是成吉思汗的孙子并且统治着库库诺尔（Kokonor）地区（现在的青海）。作为回应阔端召集了萨迦寺的首领（住持）萨迦班智达（Sakya Pandita）前往他的宫廷。这次会议的结果就是开始了深度宗教的西藏和军事强悍的蒙古的神职赞助。藏传佛教成为了蒙古在东亚地区的国家宗教，萨迦喇嘛的首领成为了精神领袖，这个职位同时也蒙受了当时整个西藏的权力。许多寺院转变成（或者被转变成）萨迦学院。
萨迦派的支配地位持续了不到100年。从最早开始就存在斗争（It was strife-tom from the start.）。萨迦派和蒙古朝廷的关系以及对西藏的统治引起了其它宗教派系的嫉妒。政治阴谋，权力斗争和流血冲突是那时的流行事务。到公元1350年，一个最早在接受萨迦训练的僧侣Changchub Gyaltsen 回到他的雅伦流域的家乡地区作了地方长官，通过联盟和直接面对推翻了萨迦霸权。仅在18年后，蒙古的元朝被推翻，明朝建立。更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

一些中国人申明说，西藏曾经在高原上寻求蒙古元朝的封建君主权位，并且神职赞助关系在那时候存在，作为中国在西藏政权建立的先例。赞成独立的支持者说那就像印度声称对缅甸的主权就因为两个国家都被英国统治过一样。
事实上，西藏对蒙古的屈服是在蒙古征服宋之前，结束在蒙古在中原失去权利的时候。当蒙古帝国解体之时，明和西藏都重新获得独立。明-西藏的关系以通常的独立的两个国家的外交交换的方式呈现。
在Changchub Gyaltsen 击败萨迦派之后，他担保要去除所有蒙古机构的痕迹。为了做这些，他利用了前雅伦国王的传统：官员们必须按照前朝廷的方式穿着，被修订过的松赞干布的法律条文被颁布；新的税收系统被增强；描述雅伦王朝辉煌的手卷被使用（尽管Changchub Gyaltsen声称这些手卷是被“发现”的）。这个运动完全就是声明西藏从外国干预中独立并且寻求国家身份。
Changchub Gyaltsen 和他的继承者一直统治到公元1435年，直到雅伦流域附近的乃东（Nedong）。他们的统治被仁布（Rinpung）王子继承，那是一个在拉萨西南的地区。在1565年，藏王Tsang在日喀则（Shigatse）成为了西藏的长期统治者。那时候的精神统治被既定为在楚布寺（Tsurphu Monastery）的噶举分派的首领噶玛巴（Karmapa）。

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛在1374年，一个叫做宗喀巴（Tsongkhapa）的年轻人从他在藏东库库若尔（Kokonor）的家出发前往西藏中部，在那里他拜访了藏传佛教所有的主要学校并且担任教值。到他25岁的时候，他已经成为很有名声教师和作者，尽管那时候他自己还师从一名当时很显赫的喇嘛。
宗喀巴在拉萨边上的甘丹（Ganden）建立了一个寺院，也就是在那里他见到了阿底峡（Atisha）。阿底峡是11世纪孟加拉学者，在西藏的佛教第二轮扩张中起了很大促进作用。在甘丹，宗喀巴开设了一门课程详细说明他的思想，指导清除政治阴谋，他赞成学术纯洁和僧侣戒律。尽管看上去宗喀巴并不打算成立一个新的佛教学校，但他的思想吸引了很多门徒。他们发觉回到阿底峡式的教学比萨迦派和噶举派的被政治玷污的教学更令人激动。
宗喀巴的门徒决定传播他们的大师的学说，他们在哲蚌（Drepung ，1416）和色拉（Sera ，1419）建立了寺院。公元1447年另外一个寺院（扎什伦布寺，Tashilhunpo）在日喀则（Shigatse）建成，新诞生的教派被称为格鲁巴派。扎什伦布寺的建立者Genden Drup 是宗喀巴的一个侄子，就在他死前不久他宣布他会在西藏再生并且给了追随者一个记号使得他们能够发现他。他的再生者甘丹加措（Genden Gyatso）成为哲蚌寺的领导，这个寺院现在是西藏最大的寺庙，并且他进一步加固了在新格鲁巴派的声望。
到格鲁巴派的第三任转世索南加措（Sonam Gyatso ，1543-88）蒙古开始对西藏的新的不断壮大的门派感兴趣了。就像13世纪萨迦派进入政治舞台那样，索南加措接受了阿尔泰可汗（Altyn Khan）的邀请于公元1578年在库库若尔（Kokonor）与之进行了会谈。在会上索南加措接受了达赖的头衔，达赖的意思是“海洋”暗示着“智慧的海洋”。这个头衔也被回溯到他的前两任的转世者上，索南加措就成为了第三任达赖喇嘛。
格鲁巴-蒙古的关系标志着格鲁巴派进入了世间事务的波涛之中。当第三任达赖喇嘛在1588年过世的时候，和蒙古的关系更加深入了，他的下一任转世灵童在蒙古阿尔泰可汗的曾孙子中被发现了。这个男孩在蒙古部队的护送下被带到了拉萨进行了隆重的典礼。
不奇怪， Tsang的国王们和楚布寺（Tsurphu Monastery）的噶玛巴（Karmapa）看见了格鲁巴派与蒙古的联盟对他们的权力是一个直接的威胁。争论就此爆发了，在公元1611年Tsang国王进攻了哲蚌寺和色拉寺。第四任达赖喇嘛逃出了中部西藏，并且在公元1616年25岁的时候死了（他可能被囚禁了）。更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛第四任达赖喇嘛的继承人很快被找到了，男孩再次被蒙古兵护送送到了拉萨。同时，蒙古介入了西藏的事务，继续表态支持四方受敌的格鲁巴派。
在公元1621年蒙古的入侵在最后一分钟通过扎什伦布寺的班禅喇嘛（Panchen Lama）的调停停止了。这意味着格鲁巴派内可能有某种因素想和Tsang国王休战避免直接冲突。
不论怎样的情形，看上去格鲁巴派统治的支持者占有优势，在公元1640年蒙古军队代表他们介入并且击败了Tsang的力量。Tsang国王被俘之后被处决了，也许是在扎什伦布寺的喇嘛们煽动下做的。
不像萨迦派-蒙古对西藏的统治，萨迦派的领袖需要居住在蒙古朝廷，第五世达赖喇嘛可以在西藏内部实行统治。在蒙古的支持下整个西藏在公元1656年平息了下来，达赖喇嘛的控制延伸到从西部的冈仁波齐山（Mt Kailash）一直到东部的康区（Kham）。第五式喇嘛同时成为精神上和世俗上统一的西藏的君主。达赖喇嘛在所有的画像上都被展示成手持作为他们新建立的政治力量标志的法轮。
第五世达赖喇嘛被纪念为西藏伟大的新世纪的开拓者。他游历了西藏诸多的寺庙，尽管他为了财富推倒了大部分作为他主要权力对手的噶当寺庙，但是之后他允许重建他们。新一轮的庙宇建设高潮开始了，主要的成就是拉蚌寺（Labrang Monastery，位于现在的甘肃省）。在拉萨，对西藏新统治者的住所的装修工作开始了，这就是布达拉宫。达赖喇嘛还邀请了印度学者访问西藏，在蒙古的财政支持下许多寺庙被翻新和扩建了。更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛转世血统延续可能最早是为了维持在各种派系中持续一个精神统治的虚幻而采用的。第五世达赖喇嘛在公元1682年去世的时候，这样的体系的弱点已经很明显了。西藏政府面对先寻找灵童然后等到18岁的可能性。第五世达赖喇嘛的个人声望和威信在将新统一的西藏捏合在一起中起到很大的作用。达赖喇嘛的摄政者决定秘密的掩盖达赖死亡，对外宣布第五世达赖喇嘛进入了一个长期的冥想之中（超过10年）。
在公元1695年秘密被泄露了，摄政者被逼无奈草率的将第六世达赖喇嘛立为国王，这个男孩是他自己选定的。这是一个不幸的选择。第六世达赖喇嘛很快就证明自己相比冥思和学习来说对酒和女人更加有兴趣，他经常偷偷的溜出布达拉宫到下面去找妓女。一个居住的天主教修道士见过他记录道“任何俊男美女都逃不出他的放纵淫荡”。被一个可疑的过程选中的不称职的国家领导的登基证明需要孩子竞争者去选择一个特定的吉祥符号已经不可能更糟糕了。
在中原，明朝在1644年垮台了，从北方来的满族很快的填补了权力真空，建立了满族清朝（1644-1912）。之后的事件比较复杂。基本上，西藏的无用领导，清朝对西藏和蒙古关系感觉到了威胁，不同阶级之间对西藏-蒙古结盟的不赞成和清朝扩展势力到西藏的野心，这一切导致了清朝的介入，并且这个对西藏有着持续的结果。
西藏对新成立的清朝的处理方式一开始就是错误的。清朝第二个皇帝康熙认为隐瞒第五世达赖喇嘛死亡不让他是一种冒犯的态度。同时，一个充满野心的蒙古王子Lhabzang Khan 认为早年的蒙古领导人在和西藏的关系中作了太久的幕后位置。他请求康熙的支持，并且理所当然的在公元1705年率领蒙古军队袭击了拉萨，杀死了西藏的摄政者，俘虏了第六世达赖喇嘛并且想引渡给在北京的康熙。第六世达赖喇嘛在途径理塘（Litang）的时候死了（很可能是被谋杀的），Lhabzang Khan 在拉萨安置了新的达赖喇嘛。
Lhabzang Khan 的诡计适得其反了。第六世达赖喇嘛可能是被谋杀并且被替换在西藏引起了强烈的敌意。更糟糕的是，这树立了其他蒙古部落的敌对，这些部落将达赖喇嘛视为精神领袖。
在公元1717年来自中亚的准噶尔蒙古人（Dzungar Mongols）袭击了拉萨，杀死Lhabzang Khan ，废除了新达赖喇嘛，但这并没有解决任何问题。根据第六世达赖喇嘛的预言在理塘（现在的四川）找到的第七世达赖喇嘛，在清政府的“保护”之下在塔尔寺（Kumbum Monastery）日渐憔悴。
由此导致的西藏的混乱正是康熙一直等待的机会。作为回应，他在公元1720年往拉萨送出了军事远征队。满清部队驱逐了准噶尔蒙古人，被藏人视为解放者。当他们带回来第七世达赖喇嘛的时候他们不太可能遇到有其他方式。
康熙皇帝马上宣布西藏成为中国的保护国。两个满清代表，被称为办事大臣，被安置在西藏，此外还有大清的卫戍部队。这个是可以小看的大开端，导致了两个世纪的满族的封建君主权位，并且很方便的在250年后被共产主义者当作了历史的先例接管了西藏。更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

满族的封建君主权位被描述成在对危机反应的时候不断的以军事介入，而不是稳定接手统治西藏的政治事务。这样的介入通常导致西藏政府的重组。满族在一个时期指派一个国王，但是世俗统治在公元1750年回到了第七世达赖喇嘛手中。
第七世达赖喇嘛一直到公元1757年死亡，统治都是很成功的。但是这时候很清楚，一直到下一任达赖喇嘛成年另外一个统治者将会被指派。摄政者的职位被册封，但是也决定应该被喇嘛控制。
这也许是被指派成摄政者的喇嘛精神造诣的糟糕反映，很少人一旦被安置到这个位置后愿意放弃支配权。在第七世达赖喇嘛死亡到第十三世成年的120年时间内，达赖喇嘛实际掌权只有仅仅七年。他们中的三个在很可疑的情况下夭折。只有第八世达赖喇嘛活到了成年，过着安静、冥想的生活一直到45岁。
清朝最后一次军事介入是在1788年对从尼泊尔的廓尔喀族人（Gurkha，尼泊尔的主要居民）入侵的反应。就像以往一样因为短命会有行政改组，从这时候开始满族在西藏的影响消退了，尽管办事大臣的职位不断的被填充一直到1911年清朝垮台为止。也许公元1788年介入的一个显著成果是禁止了外国接触，因为害怕在廓尔喀族人入侵时英国的共谋而强加税。

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛最早的英国和西藏的接触开始与公元1774年苏格兰人George Bogle带领的代表团前往日喀则。Bogle 很快讨好了班禅喇嘛，并且到了娶了他一个姐妹的地步。到第三任班禅喇嘛在1780年死亡和廓尔喀族人在1788年的入侵，英国已经和西藏没有任何官方接触了。
与此同时英国很紧张的旁观，因为俄罗斯帝国吞噬了中亚，将自己帝国的边境往印度进一步推进了1000公里。从在拉萨的俄罗斯“顾问” Agvan Dorjieff来的报告进一步加重了英国的担心，因为俄罗斯对英国的“皇冠上的珠宝”有军事图谋。
Dorjieff 是一个布里亚特（Buryat）佛教僧侣，最早来自贝加尔湖，在哲蚌寺学习了15年最终成为第十三世达赖喇嘛的精神顾问。Dorjieff 看上去已经将他自己和达赖喇嘛都说服了，俄罗斯帝国是香巴拉（Shambhala，关于香巴拉进一步解释请参看耶律大石写的西藏文化谈14章节）的故乡，香巴拉是来自北方的神话的国度的国王（或者沙皇）将把西藏从敌人手中解救出来。
当Dorjieff 带领达赖喇嘛的大使及其随员在1898，1900，1901年前往沙皇尼古拉二世，并且当英国情报人员确定拉萨接受了俄罗斯代表团（类似的英国代表团曾经被拒绝过），英国统治阶级（Raj）出了一身冷汗。更有大胆的推测说俄罗斯的沙皇有姿态皈依佛教。
这违背了印度总督Lord Curzon 的背景，他决定在萌芽阶段就阻止俄罗斯的图谋。在1903年晚期，一支由Francis Younghusband 上校带领的远征队从锡金进入了西藏。在等待西藏的代表若干个月后英国远征队终于进入了拉萨，在那里他们发现达赖喇嘛已经和Dorjieff.一起逃到了蒙古。但是，一次英国-西藏会议中和来自甘丹的被达赖喇嘛指定为在自己不在的时候作为摄政者的Tri Rinpoche喇嘛签订了以下协定。英国军队在两个月后撤出拉萨。
在英国-西藏协定中缺少的一环是满族的签字。实际上协定暗示者西藏是一个主权力量并确有权力自己定下条约。满族对此拒绝并且在1906年英国和满族签订了第二个协定，承认中国对西藏有领主地位。在1910年满族清朝在垮台的边缘摇摇欲坠，满族实现了协定入侵西藏，迫使达赖喇嘛再次逃离，这次是到了在印度的英国军队那里。更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

在1911年革命终于倾覆了腐败的清王朝。反抗的精神很快在西藏蔓延开，那时候西藏已经被满族军队占领。在拉萨士兵叛变了他们的长官，在其他地区满族部队和西藏部队交了火。到1912年末，最后的占领部队被驱逐了出去，通过印度送回了中国。在1913年一月，第十三世达赖喇嘛回到拉萨。
新成立的中华人民共和国政府渴望维持前清朝的地域控制，给达赖喇嘛发去电报表达了对满族压迫者行为的抱歉并且宣布达赖喇嘛正式恢复他以前的头衔。达赖喇嘛回复说对中国授予的头衔不感兴趣，他担任他自己国家的世俗和精神领导人。
西藏人就此读到这篇正式宣布独立的回复。这当然是在精神上的而不仅仅是停留在文字上。对于中国来说，他们选择了忽略，报告说达赖喇嘛表达了对祖国的巨大热爱。不管怎样，西藏享受了30年的没有中国干预的自由。更进一步，西藏突然曾显出一个机会要建立一个上升的国家准备面对现代世界的挑战，并且如果需要，保护国家面对中国地域野心。很悲哀的，这个机会被西藏根深蒂固的神权机构沉没了，西藏的独立只是短命的事件。

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛在达赖喇嘛逃亡到印度的期间，他和Charles Bell 爵士成为了亲密的朋友，Charles Bell 是西藏学者以及锡金的政治长官。这个关系开始了英国-西藏关系的升温，英国开始在西藏和中国之间扮演了日趋重要的调停人角色。
在1920年Bell 被作为代表团派遣到拉萨，在那里他延续了和达赖喇嘛的友谊。英国答应提供给西藏现代武器只要西藏答应只用于自卫。达赖喇嘛欣然接受，武器弹药的装备的供应建立起来了。西藏的军官在江孜和印度接受训练，在拉萨和日喀则之间架设了电报线。其他的建设包括在拉萨边上建设水力发电站，在江孜建立英语学校。四个西藏男孩被送到英国Rugby 的公立学校。在达赖喇嘛邀请下，英国专家进行了西藏部分地区的土地测量，评测有无潜在矿产。
这很像第十三世达赖喇嘛离开国家使得他认识到西藏开始现代化势在必行。同时他必须意识到通往现代化的路充满困难。最大的问题是西藏自身的社会体制。
自从格鲁巴派的兴起，西藏就被神权统治。尤其那些在拉萨的哲蚌寺和色拉寺这样的巨大寺庙中的僧侣，已经习惯于对西藏的高层政府施加影响。对于在西藏的僧侣来说政府的主要焦点是维持一个宗教国家。现代化的尝试对这个目标来说是一个敌人，不久之后就遇到了很强的反对。
也许像其他一样，西藏中部的大寺院害怕西藏社会中不断增加对世俗因素的授权。举例来说，对寺院来说设立军队是一个直接的威胁，而不是用来防卫外族威胁的。大部分寺院保持一小部分的武僧作为自己的军队，装备精良的国家部队的出现表现出对僧侣争执的介入。事实上，当达赖喇嘛将新成立的军队用来镇压因受到威胁而造反的哲蚌寺的时候这样的恐惧被证明已经形成。
不久第十三世达赖喇嘛的革新成为了保守派对抗力量的牺牲品。新训练的西藏军官被重新分配到了非军事工作，这导致了军纪的迅速堕落；新成立的警察力量被保持自己的设备并且很快无用了；江孜的英语学校被关闭了；英国设立的邮政服务被停止了。
而且西藏的主要的独立阶段不仅仅被无力去现代化扰乱。班禅喇嘛和达赖喇嘛在扎什伦布寺以及资产自治上发生了争执。班禅喇嘛在请求英国调停后逃往了中国，在那里他住了14年一直到去世。到1933年第十三世达赖喇嘛去世，将国家的运作留给了摄政者热定（Reting）。现任的第十四世达赖喇嘛在靠近安多（Amdo）西宁一个叫做祁家川（Pari Takster）的村子被发现，但是直到支付给本地的中国指挥官一笔三百万中国钱的巨额费用后才被带到拉萨。这个男孩被改名叫做丹增嘉措（Tenzin Gyatso）在1940年2月22日四岁半的时候就职达赖喇嘛。
在1947年一次迅速推翻政府的试图震撼了拉萨，这次事件也叫做热定共谋（Reting Conspiracy）。在1949年中国国家主义政府消除了各种不确定因素成为了毛泽东和他的共产党的“强盗”。更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛当铁鸟飞翔和马在轮子上奔驰，西藏人民会分散在世界各地，达摩会来到赤色土地之上。
根本仁波切（Guru Rinpoche）

对藏人并不知晓的共产党接管了中国，也由此打开了西藏历史上最悲伤的章节。中国“解放”西藏最终导致了一百二十万藏人的死亡，对藏人传统生活方式的全力进攻，达赖喇嘛逃往印度和大规模的摧毁高原上几乎所有的历史建筑。主要的罪犯就是中国种族沙文主义和被叫做文化大革命的社会流行性狂热。

在1950年10月7日，就在共产党接管总过一年以后，三十万久经沙场的中国部队从六个方向袭击了西藏的中部。西藏部队总共只有四千人，只有很差的装备几乎没有机会抵抗中国人，在冲击拉萨前任何抵抗的试图很快崩溃，西藏政府做出的反应是将15岁的达赖喇嘛加冕，这个行动引起满街的庆祝和舞蹈，他们并不做更多的事情去保护西藏免受中国军队的进一步前进。
联合国的呼吁也和没用差不多。令所有卷入各方羞辱的是只有萨尔瓦多谴责了中国的进攻，作为西藏传统朋友的英国和印度事实上怕遭到中国否决，试图说服联合国不要讨论这个问题。

当时面对这个看上去无望的局面，达赖喇嘛往北京派去了一个代表团带上所有对拉萨决定的命令。看上去并没有作出什么决定。中国已经起草了一份协议。西藏代表团有两个选择：在虚线上签字或者面对进一步的进攻。
“西藏和平解放17点条约”（The 17-pointAgreement on Measuresfor the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet ）许诺一国两制的架构，很像现在提供给香港和澳门的。但是提供了很少的保证这样的许诺将被遵守。西藏使节抗议他们没有被授权签署这样的条约加上没有达赖喇嘛的印章。深思熟虑的中国政府已经伪造了达赖喇嘛的印章，条约被批准了。

最初中国占领西藏有条不紊的进行着，但是压力不可避免的上升。在拉萨地区出现的大量中国部队很快耗尽了食物储备并且引起了大量的通货膨胀。大屠杀和迫使康区政治教化的谣言开始传入拉萨。在1954年达赖喇嘛应邀前往北京，在与毛泽东热忱的会谈中，他被告知宗教是“毒药”。

1956年西藏自治区筹备委员会成立了。尽管由达赖喇嘛领导，主要的位置都被中国傀儡填满了。无论如何，实际权力被在西藏的共产党掌握着，这被说成完全没有西藏代表。

同一年，西藏东部爆发了反抗；在1957年和1958年抗议和武装反抗蔓延到西藏中部（有CIA隐秘的协助）。达赖喇嘛带着沉重的心情于1957年3月从印度的庆祝佛诞生2500年庆典上归来。看上去西藏不可避免地要爆发反抗，同样不可避免的将面对中国冷酷无情的镇压。更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛在1959年的藏历新年，向所有以前的新年庆祝一样，吸引了众多的人前往拉萨，比平时人口翻了一倍。除了往常的节日庆祝之外，中国加上了自己的亮点—中国军区的中国舞蹈团表演。对达赖喇嘛的邀请隐隐有命令的意味。达赖喇嘛为了避免冲突接受了邀请。

随着表演准备的临近，达赖喇嘛的安全长官吃惊的听说达赖喇嘛被要求秘密的出席而不带常规的25名保镖。尽管达赖喇嘛答应了这些条件，消息很快泄漏了，不多时被中国统治引起的骚动沮丧变成了街上人群中的沸腾。这看上去对藏人很明显，中国要绑架达赖喇嘛。大量的人集中到了罗布林卡（Norbulingka）周围（达赖喇嘛的夏宫）并且发誓要用生命保护他。

达赖喇嘛毫无选择，只能取消到军事基地的约定。同时街上的人群被西藏军队吞噬了，西藏部队换下了人民解放军军服开始交出武器。一组政府部长宣布17点条约被废除，西藏正式脱离中国的统治。

达赖喇嘛毫无权力去介入，只能写信给中国说他的人民准备在拉萨的街上战斗。为了防止流血的最后的努力中达赖喇嘛甚至愿意将自己提供给中国（作人质）。对此的回应是罗布林卡院子里面两声破击炮的爆炸声。这次的进攻很明显使得达赖喇嘛唯一的选择是逃亡。在3月17日达赖喇嘛化装成士兵离开了罗布林卡。14天后他出现在印度。更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

中国和西藏两边都没有意识到达赖喇嘛的离去，在拉萨的紧张关系持续着。在3月20日一清早，中国部队开始围住罗布林卡以及周围的民众，杀死了上百人。之后尸体被检查，这使得达赖喇嘛逃离的事情变得很明显了，在中国的报告里面写道“被反动分子诱拐”。

流血依然持续着。炮兵轰炸了布达拉宫，色拉寺和在铁山（Chagpo Ri）上的医学院。用汽油弹武装的藏人被中国狙击手摘除，当大约一万藏人撤退到大昭寺的圣地，依然被炮击。据估计在3天暴力冲突之后大约有1万到1万5千藏人横尸拉萨街头。

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛中国迅速加固在拉萨的镇压，控制了通往印度的所有关口。自由战士被中国部队歼灭，健康的年轻男性被围捕、射杀、禁闭或者劳改。就像中国自己说的，他们在解放西藏的反动份子和引入一个新的社会主义社会。自然的他们不会去问藏人是否需要一个社会主义天堂。

中国废除了西藏政府并且着手按照马克思主义重组西藏社会。受过教育的和贵族被安排琐碎的工作要服从斗争课程，也成为批斗（thamzing？），有时人会因此而死。一场阶级斗争的骚乱开始了，一些贫穷的藏人会对以前的封建地主发泄真正的仇恨，这些地主会受到可怕残酷的惩罚。

中国还将他们的注意力转向西藏6000多所“封建”寺院。藏人不允许向寺院捐献实物，僧侣被强迫参加斗争课程，放弃他们的僧袍并且结婚。寺院的富有被剥除，经书被烧毁，被用作厕所纸，大规模拆除西藏的寺庙遗产如火如荼的进行着。

值得注意的是在众多错误中中国决定改变西藏的农业习惯。除了大麦是西藏的主要作物，西藏农民被教授如何耕种水稻和大米，藏人抗议这些作物不适应西藏的高原条件。他们是正确的，这导致了大规模的饥荒。据估计到1961年末7万藏人被饿死或者将要被饿死。

到1961年9月份，甚至中国培植的班禅喇嘛也改变了看法。他向毛泽东提交了7万字的报告陈述了他的人民所受的苦难，并且要求宗教自由和停止洗劫西藏的寺庙。4年之后他被投入一所严密防范的监狱并且呆了10年，对于中国，他是西藏自治区准备成立的最后一块障碍，也被清除了。

在1965年9月1日西藏自治区在众多号角吹奏和谈及藏人忍住眼泪喜庆成为伟大祖国一员中正式成立了。为了将来留住眼泪。在中国，动乱以社会运动方式在酝酿着，这个就是文化大革命。更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛在毛泽东的作品中有一篇标题叫做“On Going Too Far”。他是很符合写这个标题的人。1965年毛泽东和刘少奇的权力斗争在1966年演化成无产阶级文化大革命，这是个一震动到中国核心的运动，将所有的传统踩在脚下，导致无数人的死亡将国家的运行在红卫兵乌合之众手中。整个中国遭受着毛泽东大胆的建立社会主义新天堂实验的痛苦，但是西藏遭受着最深重的苦难。

1966年7月，第一批红卫兵到达了拉萨。两个月后被中国教育的西藏年轻人第一次组织了集会，并且袭击了大昭寺，亵渎任何能找到的宗教物品。这个就是大规模破坏西藏宗教纪念物的开始，并且在贯彻了破“四旧”（旧思想，旧文化，旧习惯和旧风俗）的精神。佛教的“噢嘛咪吧咪哄”（“向莲花上的珠宝欢迎”）被共产党的颂歌“毛主席万岁”替代了。佛本身被谴责为“反动分子”。

文化大革命的三年多时间内着手它的从头转变西藏世界的破坏工作。西藏农夫被迫集体化并入公社，被告知何时去种植何种作物。寻欢作乐被宣布违法，妇女将身上的珠宝摘下，在街上红卫兵将西藏男性传统的辫子剪下。任何反对的人会被捕去批斗。达赖喇嘛成为一号公敌，藏人被迫公开指责他是寄生虫、叛国者。名单不停的继续：一个很悲伤的目录，一些人仅仅的错误是保持着与他们中国主人不一致的渴望。

到1969年末期，人民解放军将红卫兵控制住了。西藏继续成为可能爆发暴力的地方。西藏的反抗是简单的和被压制的兽性的。在1972年，禁止藏人自由祈祷被大张旗鼓的兴起，但是关于这方面没有什么结果。在1975年，一组到同情中国的外国记者被邀请到西藏。他们发表的报告描绘了这片土地上悲惨的肖像，民众被中国强加的政策猛击跪在地上，暴行的总和不亚于文化种族大屠杀。同一年，被CIA支持的最后一个西藏游击队营地在尼泊尔北部的Mustang 关闭了。更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛到毛泽东1976年过世时，甚至中国自己都意识到对西藏的统治走错了方向。叛乱曾经就在后方，维持高原的次序对北京来说是不断干耗国库。毛泽东选定的继承人华国锋决定软化统治西藏的线路，这被叫做复兴西藏的习俗。在1977年中期，中国宣布欢迎达赖喇嘛和其他流亡者的归来，不久之后班禅喇嘛被从10年的关押中释放出来。

西藏流亡政府谨慎的收到回归西藏的邀请，但是达赖喇嘛建议他应该被允许先派遣一个寻找西藏事实真相的考察团。令各方惊讶的是中国同意了。就如达赖喇嘛在自传《自由流亡》中评论的，看上去中国相信代表团将发现他们故乡在如此的欢乐中，“他们没有理由去继续流亡”。事实上，代表团的结论这么令人诅咒，达赖喇嘛决定不公开这些结果。

不论怎样，接下来又有两个代表团。他们的结论是令人绝望的。代表团罗列了1百20万人的死亡，6254间寺庙、尼姑庵的毁坏，2/3的西藏被吸入中国，10万藏人在劳改营和过度森林砍伐。在仅仅30年内，中国将西藏变为难以识别的荒芜。

在中国，华国锋的短命的政治地位被邓小平的权力上升变得黯然失色。在1980年邓小平将胡耀邦作为考察团送去，得出和西藏流亡政府一致的结论。
胡耀邦的结论没有像西藏考察团的那样令人诅咒，但是描绘了世界屋脊人民的严酷的景象。提高生活质量和自由的六点计划被草拟出来，减税两年，允许有限的私人企业。在1978年大昭寺一个月被允许开放两次，布达拉宫在1980年重新开放。在中国的其他地方，政府着手在一党统治下扩展个人自由。更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛80年代早期看到了有限的宗教自由的回归。以前被变为瓦砾的寺院重新开放，一些宗教物品从中国回到西藏。

重要的是，中国对朝圣的禁止有所松弛。达赖喇嘛的肖像又出现在拉萨的街头。不是其中任何一点都指向中国在考虑宗教问题上的重大逆转，这些是对群众的麻痹。那些行使宗教自由的人以就要担很大的风险。

目标将达赖喇嘛在中国影响范围内请回西藏的谈话还在继续，但是结果很小。1982年从印度达兰色拉（Dharamsala）三人小组被送去北京，在那里听到了西藏怎样是中国一部分的讲演，并且被告知如果达赖喇嘛回来的话没有一个确定的期限他会在北京被安置一个职位。到1983年谈判破裂，中国决定不再希望达赖喇嘛回来，根据中国政府西藏变为“分裂主义斗争的前线”。

也许对藏人最惊慌的是汉族移民高原政策的出现。在新疆、内蒙古和青海汉化已经成功实施，现在西藏成为大规模移民的目标。吸引人的工资和无息贷款式的中国人愿意移民西藏，就在1984年10万利用“现代化”落后省份西藏的动机。

在1986年一群外国人到达西藏。中国开始放松旅游，稀疏的旅行团和个人很快变成洪流。自从中国结果之后第一次，西方国家游客能有机会看到中国统治下西藏的第一手结果。

对于中国，外国人是一个混合的祝福。旅行外汇被欢迎，但是外国人有一个很恼人的同情藏人的习惯。他们还看到中国不希望被看到的东西。
当在1987年9月，一群从色拉寺来的30人喇嘛绕着大昭寺游行，高呼“西藏独立”和“神圣的达赖喇嘛万岁”，他们的队列被看热闹的人吞没，之后被捕。四天以后另外一群喇嘛重复了他们的行动，这次挥舞着西藏旗帜。
这些喇嘛们被殴打和被捕。有西方游客在边上观看，一群大约2000到3000愤怒的藏人聚集起来。警车被掀翻，中国警察开始往人群里射击。
中国的反应是迅速的。从拉萨切断与外界的通讯。但是依然太晚了去阻止目击事实到达全世界的报纸。随后在拉萨开始了镇压，但是在之后几个月内依然没有阻止进一步的抗议。

在1988年3月的祈愿大会（The Monlam festival）还看见拉萨街头的射击，同年9月一个荷兰旅游者肩部中弹，骚乱中18个藏人死亡150人受伤。更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

到70年代中期达赖喇嘛成为了卓越的国际形象，在印度达兰色拉的流亡政府不知疲倦的工作，让国际进一步了解他人民的困境。他访问美国正式谴责中国占领西藏。在1987年他在美国国会演讲概括了5点和平计划。

计划提倡西藏被建立成“和平区域”；放弃汉族移民西藏的政策；回归基本人权和民主自由；保护西藏的自然遗产结束往高原倾倒核废料；中国和西藏联合讨论西藏的未来。中国指责这个计划是“分裂主义”的一个样例。当在一年以后达赖喇嘛在法国斯特拉斯堡的欧洲议会精心演讲，放弃任何完全独立的要求，同意中国管理西藏外交和军事事务的权力，之后得到了同样的回应。

整个1989年抗议和镇压在西藏不断进行，西藏流亡社区的绝望因素开始讨论是否需要重新拿起武器。这是达赖喇嘛一贯反对的一个选择，他讲述只能用非暴力方式达到目标。达赖喇嘛的努力为他的人民获得和平和自由赢得1989年10月4日的诺贝尔和平奖。这个看上去是对文明世界对中国在西藏事务上施加实质性压力失败的一点安慰。

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛西藏赢回了很多的宗教自由，但是代价沉重。喇嘛和尼姑通常是抗议和渴望独立的焦点，被当局猜疑重视，经常导致被殴打和被捕。尤其是尼姑，考虑到很少的数量，变得十分活跃，在90年代中期的126次独立抗议中占了55次。教义使得尼姑在被捕、入狱后不再可能回到尼姑庵。

宗教学院最近集中“爱国教育”和“文明无神论”运动，配额严格强行设定寺院居住的和尚、尼姑的数量。哲蚌寺的喇嘛最近被迫在谴责达赖喇嘛关押痛苦的表格上签名。在印度受教育的西藏导游被禁止工作。在研究期间宗教镇压还在继续。

中国官方否认了汉族移民西藏的政策，但是多次访问西藏的汉族人的数量令人惊愕的增加。移民的程度使得藏人在他们的国家将变成少数民族。达赖喇嘛将这个政策描述为文化种族大屠杀。

必须提到的是遏制过量中国统治的努力被采用了，一个相对软化的针对“少数民族”的线路提高了很多藏人的生活水平。现在有超过2万个寺庙在运行。但是基本问题还存在。抗议和政府镇压持续到新的世纪。中国政府在西藏是中国一个省上面决不宽容，在和达赖喇嘛达成共识上不再接近。
达赖喇嘛继续成为西藏独立斗争中的某些形式的喉舌。他已经发起作为一个国家地位的任何希望，但是继续争取西藏文化、宗教和语言作为一个系统在中国自治。在西方，政治圈很少讲同情转化为积极的支持，外国政府很小心的因为达赖喇嘛作为流亡政府领袖的政治状态而不接受他进入。中国政府继续有规律的抗议达赖喇嘛的国际活动。2000年2月在达兰色拉举行了达赖喇嘛加冕60周年庆祝活动。

近几年代喇嘛安静的承认了他在同中国处理中的失败，在西藏社区内部也存在了微小的但是也实在增加的分歧，什么才是最好的前进方向。一系列小炸弹在1996和2000年的夜晚被引爆（一个在法院边上，另外一个在八郎学（Banak Shol）旅馆附近），暗示着至少一些藏人正在背离达赖喇嘛公开宣称的和平主义的立场。

在中国当局鼓吹工业和农业迅速的出口的时候，观察家们有一种膨胀的感觉中国在从系统的迫害转向另外一种更复杂的将藏人吸收入祖国的阶段。外国投资，汉族移民和一个只有汉语教学的教育体制在高层次上确保只有汉化的藏人才能够积极地参与西藏的经济前进中。中国的经济控制，伴随着大量华人居住时的西藏独立的梦想进一步难以实现。

有利的一面是，美国政府在1997年指定了一个“西藏特殊协调人”，在1998年联合国人权委员Mary Robinson 访问了西藏。甚至希望达赖喇嘛和中国总理江泽民能开始对话；达赖喇嘛的兄弟Gyalo Thondub 在2000年10月访问了北京。不要因此摒住呼吸。很多方式符合西方：只要在拉萨没有血腥镇压，外国能继续与中国交易同时在中国能听到的范围内批评人权记录。2001年西藏“解放”50周年提供了一个冷静的时刻去反省西藏人民半个世纪的悲剧。更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛Mythological Beginnings
Little is known of the beginnings of the Tibetan people. They originated from the nomadic, warlike tribes known as the Qiang. Chinese records of these tribes, which harried the borders of the great Chinese empire, date back as far as the 2nd century BC. However, the people of Tibet were not to emerge as a politically united force to be reckoned with until the 7th century AD.
Like all peoples, the Tibetans have a rich corpus of myths concerning the origin of the world and themselves. In the beginning, according to a Tibetan creation myth, the void was filled with a wind that gathered in force until storm clouds brewed and unleashed a torrential rain, forming in time the primeval ocean. After the cessation of the rains, the wind continued to blow over the ocean, churning it like cream, until lands, like butter, came into existence.
According to myth, the Tibetan people owe their existence to the union of an ogress and a monkey on Gangpo Ri at Tsetang (anticipating Darwin by over a millennium!). Another legend tells of how the first Tibetan king descended from heaven on a sky cord. These early myths are no doubt Bon in origin, but have been appropriated by Buddhism, so that the monkey is seen as a manifestation of Chenresig (Avalokiteshvara), the Bodhisattva of Compassion. The ogress and the monkey had six children, who are seen as the ancestors of the six main tribes of Tibet.


Yarlung Valley Dynasty
As early myths of the origin of the Tibetan people suggest, the Yarlung Valley was the cradle of the civilisation of central Tibet. The early Yarlung kings, although glorified in legend, were probably no more than chieftains whose domains extended not much further than the Yarlung Valley area itself. A reconstruction of Tibet’s first fortress, Yumbulagang, can still be seen in the Yarlung Valley, and it is here that the 28th king of Tibet is said to have received Tibet’s first Buddhist scriptures in the 5th century. According to legend, they fell on the roof of Yumbulagang.
Credible historical records regarding the Yarlung Valley dynasty date only from the time when the fledgling kingdom entered the international arena in the 6th century. By this time the Yarlung kings, through conquest and alliances, had made significant headway in unifying much of central Tibet. Namri Songtsen (c. 570-619), the 32nd Tibetan king, continued this trend and extended Tibetan influence into inner Asia, defeating the Qiang tribes on China’s borders. But the true flowering of Tibet as an important regional power came about with the accession to rule of Namri Songtsen’s son, Songtsen Gampo (r. 630-49).
Under Songtsen Gampo, central Tibet entered a new era. Tibetan expansion continued unabated. The armies of Tibet ranged as far a field as northern India and emerged as a threat to the Tang dynasty in China. Both Nepal and China reacted to the Tibetan incursions by reluctantly agreeing to alliances through marriage. Princess Wencheng, Songtsen Gampo’s Chinese bride, and Princess Bhrikuti, his Nepali bride, became important historical figures for the Tibetans, as it was through their influence that Buddhism first gained royal patronage and it foothold on the Tibetan plateau. The king went as far as passing a law making it illegal not to be a Buddhist.
King Songtsen Gampo’s reign saw the establishment of the Jokhang and Ramoche temples and the construction of a fort on the site of what much later was to become the Potala palace in Lhasa. Contact with the Chinese led to the introduction of the sciences of astronomy and medicine, and a Tibetan script was developed from Indian sources. It was used in the first translations of Buddhist scriptures, in drafting a code of law and in writing the first histories of Tibet.
For two centuries after the reign of Songtsen Gampo, Tibet continued to grow in power and influence. By the time of King Trisong Detsen (r. 755-97), Tibetan influence extended across Turkestan, northern Pakistan, Nepal and India. In China, Tibetan armies conquered Gansu and Sichuan and controlled the great Buddhist cave complex of Dunhuang. In 763, Tibetan armies overran Chang’an (present-day Xi’an), the Chinese capital, forcing the Chinese to conclude a treaty that recognised new borders incorporating most of the Tibetan conquests.
A further Sino-Tibetan treaty was signed in 821 during the reign of King Tritsug Detsen Ralpachen (r. 817-36). It was immortalised in stone on three steles: one in Lhasa, outside the Jokhang; one in the Chinese capital of Chang’an; and one on the border of Tibet and China. Only the Lhasa stele still stands (see Barkhor Square in the Lhasa chapter). Signatories to the treaty swore that “... the whole region to the east… being the country of Great China and the whole region to the west being assuredly that of the country of Great Tibet, from either side of that frontier there shall be no warfare, no hostile invasions, and no seizure of territory... ”. The treaty went on to herald a new era in which “Tibetans shall be happy in Tibet and Chinese shall be happy in China”.


Introduction of Buddhism
By the time Buddhism first arrived in Tibet during the reign of Songtsen Gampo, it had already flourished for some 1100 years and had become the principal faith of all Tibet’s neighbouring countries. Buddhism was initially slow to take hold in Tibet.
Early missionaries, such as Shantarakshita from the Indian Buddhist centre of Nalanda (in modern-day Bihar), faced great hostility from the Bon-dominated court. The influence of Songtsen Gampo’s Chinese and Nepali wives was almost certainly limited to the royal court, and priests of the time were probably Indian and Chinese, not Tibetan.
It was not until King Trisong Detsen’s reign that Buddhism began to make any real progress. Trisong Detsen was responsible for founding Samye Monastery, the first institution to carry out the systematic translation of Buddhist scriptures and the training of Tibetan monks.
Still, the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet was no simple matter of adopting a prescribed body of precepts. By the 9th century many schools of Buddhism had evolved from the original teachings of Sakyamuni (Sakya Thukpa), and Tibetans were in no way presented with a coherent unified body of beliefs.
Contention over the path that Buddhism was to take in Tibet culminated in the Great Debate of Samye, in which King Trisong Detsen is said to have adjudicated in favour of Indian teachers who advocated a gradual approach to enlightenment, founded in scholastic study and moral precepts, There was, however, much opposition to this institutionalised, clerical Buddhism, largely from supporters of the Bon faith. The next Tibetan king, Tritsug Detsen Ralpachen, fell victim to this opposition and was assassinated by his brother, Langdharma, who launched an attack on Buddhism. In 842, Langdharma was himself assassinated - by a Buddhist monk disguised as a Black Hat dancer, during a festival - and the Tibetan state soon collapsed into a number of warring principalities. In the confusion that followed, support for Buddhism dwindled and clerical monastic Buddhism experienced a 150-year hiatus.


Second Diffusion of Buddhism
The collapse of the Tibetan state in 842 put a stop to Tibetan expansion in Asia; Tibet was never again to rise to arms. Overwhelmed initially with local power struggles, Buddhism gradually began to exert its influence again, giving the Tibetan mind a spiritual bent and turning it inward on itself. As the tide of Buddhist faith receded in India, Nepal and China, Tibet slowly emerged as the most devoutly Buddhist nation in the world.
While Tibetan Buddhist tradition holds that the collapse of the Tibetan state corresponds with the systematic persecution of Buddhism, many Western scholars believe that this was probably not the case. It is more likely that Buddhist institutions, such as Samye Monastery, which were brought into being by the state, fell into neglect with the collapse of central power. There is evidence that Buddhism survived in pockets and received the patronage of some noble families in the 150 years that passed before the resurgence of monastic Buddhism.
The so-called second diffusion of Buddhism (also referred to as the dharma) corresponded with two developments. First, Tibetan teachers who had taken refuge in Kham, to the east, returned to central Tibet and established new monasteries in the late 10th century. Second, and not long after, the kingdom of Guge in western Tibet invited the Bengali scholar Atisha (Jowo-je; 982-1054) to Tibet in the mid-11th century. Disciples of Atisha (Jowo-je), chiefly Dromtonpa, were instrumental in establishing the Kadampa order, and monasteries such as Reting in Ü.
This resurgence of Buddhist influence in the 11th century led to many Tibetans travelling to India to study. The new ideas they brought back with them had a revitalising effect on Tibetan thought and produced other new schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Among them was the Kagyupa order, established by Milarepa (1040-1123) who was the disciple of Marpa the translator (1012-93). Meanwhile, in Sakya, the Kon family established a monastery in 1073 that was to emerge as the seat of the Sakyapa order.


Sakyapa Order Ascendancy & Mongol Overlordship
With the collapse of a central Tibetan state, Tibet’s contacts with China dwindled. By the time the Tang dynasty reached the end of its days in 907, China had already recovered almost all the territory it had previously lost to the Tibetans. Throughout the Song dynasty (960-1276) the two nations had virtually no contact with each other and Tibet’s sole foreign contacts were with its southern Buddhist neighbours.
This was all set to change when Genghis Khan launched a series of conquests in 1206 that led to Mongol supremacy in the form of a vast empire that straddled central Asia and China. China was not to fall to the Mongols until 1279, but in the meantime the Mongols made short work of central Asia. Preoccupied with other matters, the Mongols did not give Tibet serious attention until 1239, when they sent a number of raiding parties into the country. Numerous monasteries were razed and the Mongols almost reached Lhasa before turning back.
Tibetan accounts have it that returning Mongol troops related the spiritual eminence of the Tibetan lamas to Godan Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan and ruler of the Kokonor region (modern-day Qinghai), and in response Godan summoned Sakya Pandita, the head of Sakya Monastery, to his court. The outcome of this meeting was the beginning of a priest-patron relationship between the deeply religious Tibetans and the militarily adventurous Mongols. Tibetan Buddhism became the state religion of the Mongol empire in east Asia, and the head Sakya lama became its spiritual leader, a position that also entailed temporal authority over Tibet. Many monasteries converted (or were converted) to the Sakya school.
The Sakyapa ascendancy lasted less than 100 years. It was strife-tom from the start. The Sakyapa relationship with the Mongol court and its rule of Tibet aroused the jealousy of other religious orders. Political intrigue, power struggles and violence were the order of the day. By 1350, Changchub Gyaltsen, a monk who had first trained in Sakya and then returned to his home district in the Yarlung Valley as a local official, contrived, through alliances and outright confrontation, to overturn the Sakya hegemony. Just 18 years later, the Mongol Yuan dynasty in China lost its grip on power and the Chinese Ming dynasty was established.


Tibetan Independence
Certain Chinese claims on Tibet have looked to the Mongol Yuan dynasty overlordship of the high plateau, and the priest-patron relationship that existed at the time, as setting a precedent for Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. Pro-independence supporters state that this is like India claiming sovereignty over Myanmar (Burma) because both were ruled by the British.
In fact, Tibetan submission was offered to the Mongols before they conquered China and it ended when the Mongols fell from power in that country. When the Mongol empire disintegrated, both China and Tibet regained their independence. Sino-Tibetan relations took on the form of regular exchanges of diplomatic courtesies by two independent governments.
After defeating the Sakyapas, Changchub Gyaltsen undertook to remove all traces of the Mongol administration. In doing this he drew on the tradition of the former Yarlung kings: Officials were required to dress in the manner of the former royal court; a revised version of King Songtsen Gampo’s code of law was enacted; a new taxation system was enforced; and scrolls depicting the glories of the Yarlung dynasty were commissioned (although Changchub Gyaltsen claimed they were “discovered”. The movement was nothing short of a declaration of Tibet’s independence from foreign interference and a search for national identity.
Changchub Gyaltsen and his successors ruled Tibet until 1435 from Nedong, near the Yarlung Valley. Their rule was succeeded by the princes of Rinpung, an area south-west of Lhasa. In 1565, the kings of Tsang became secular rulers of Tibet from Shigatse. Spiritual authority at this time was vested in the Karmapa, head of a Kagyupa suborder at Tsurphu Monastery.


Rise of the Gelugpa & the Dalai Lamas
In 1374, a young man named Tsongkhapa set out from his home near Kokonor in eastern Tibet to central Tibet, where he undertook training with all the major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. By the time he was 25 years old, he had already gained a reputation as a teacher and a writer, although he continued to study under eminent lamas of the day.
Tsongkhapa established a monastery at Ganden near Lhasa, and it was here that he had a vision of Atisha (Jowo-je), the llthcentury Bengali scholar who had been instrumental in the second diffusion of Buddhism in Tibet. At Ganden, Tsongkhapa maintained a course of expounding his thinking, steering clear of political intrigue, and espousing doctrinal purity and monastic discipline. Although it seems unlikely that Tsongkhapa intended to found another school of Buddhism, his teachings attracted many disciples, who found his return to the original teachings of Atisha (Jowo-je) an exciting alternative to the politically tainted Sakyapa and Kagyupa orders.
Disciples of Tsongkhapa, determined to propagate their master’s teachings, established monasteries at Drepung (1416) and at Sera (1419). In 1447 yet another monastery (Tashilhunpo) was established at Shigatse, and the movement came to be known as the Gelugpa (Virtuous) order. The founder of Tashilhunpo, Genden Drup, was a nephew of Tsongkhapa, and shortly before his death he announced that he would be reincarnated in Tibet and gave his followers signs that would enable them to find him. His reincarnation, Genden Gyatso, served as the head of Drepung Monastery, which was now the largest in Tibet, and further consolidated the prestige of the new Gelugpa order.
By the time of the third reincarnated head of the Gelugpa, Sonam Gyatso (1543-88), the Mongols began to take an interest in Tibet’s new and increasingly powerful order. In a move that mirrored the 13th-century Sakyapa entrance into the political arena, Sonam Gyatso accepted an invitation to meet with Altyn Khan near Kokonor in 1578. At the meeting, Sonam Gyatso received the title of dalai, meaning “ocean”, and implying “ocean of wisdom”. The title was retrospectively bestowed on his previous two reincarnations, and Sonam Gyatso became the third Dalai Lama.
The Gelugpa-Mongol relationship marked the Gelugpa’s entry into the turbulent waters of worldly affairs. Ties with the Mongols deepened when, at the third Dalai Lama’s death in 1588, his next reincarnation was found in a great-grandson of the Mongolian Altyn Khan. The boy was brought to Lhasa with great ceremony under the escort of armed Mongol troops.
It is no surprise that the Tsang kings and the Karmapa of Tsurphu Monastery saw this Gelugpa-Mongol alliance as a direct threat to their power. Bickering broke out, and in 1611 the Tsang king attacked Drepung and Sera Monasteries. The fourth Dalai Lama fled central Tibet and died at the age of 25 (he was probably poisoned) in 1616.


The Great Fifth Dalai Lama
A successor to the fourth Dalai Lama was soon discovered, and the boy was brought to Lhasa, again under Mongol escort. In the meantime, Mongol intervention in Tibetan affairs continued in the guise of support for the embattled Gelugpa order.
In 1621 a Mongolian invasion was turned back at the last minute through mediation by the Panchen Lama of Tashilhunpo Monastery. This suggests that there were probably elements of the Gelugpa order that preferred a truce with the kings of Tsang to outright conflict.
Whatever the case, it seems that proponents of Gelugpa domination had the upper hand, and in 1640, Mongol forces intervened on their behalf, defeating the Tsang forces. The Tsang king was taken captive and later executed, probably at the instigation of Tashilhunpo monks.
Unlike the Sakya-Mongol domination of Tibet, under which the head Sakya lama was required to reside in the Mongol court, the fifth Dalai Lama was able to carry out his rule from within Tibet. With Mongol backing, all of Tibet was pacified by 1656, and the Dalai Lama’s control ranged from the Mt Kailash area in the west to Kham in the east. The fifth Dalai Lama had become both the spiritual and temporal sovereign of a unified Tibet. The Dalai Lamas are shown in wall paintings holding the Wheel of Law (Wheel of Dharma) as a symbol of their new-found political power.
The fifth Dalai Lama is remembered as having ushered in a great new age for Tibet. He made a tour of the monasteries of Tibet, and although he stripped most Kadampa monasteries - his chief rivals for power - of their riches, he allowed them to re-establish afterwards. A new flurry of monastic construction began, the major achievement being Labrang Monastery (in what is now Gansu province). In Lhasa, work began on a fitting residence for the head of the Tibetan state: the Potala. The Dalai Lama also invited Indian scholars to Tibet, and with Mongol financial support saw to the renovation and expansion of many temples and monasteries.


Manchu Intervention
Reincarnation lineages were probably first adopted as a means of maintaining the illusion of a continuous spiritual authority within the various monastic orders of Tibet. With the death of the fifth Dalai Lama in 1682, however, the weakness of such a system became apparent. The Tibetan government was confronted with the prospect of finding his reincarnation and then waiting some 18 years until the boy came of age. The great personal prestige and authority of the fifth Dalai Lama himself had played no small part in holding together a newly unified Tibet. The Dalai Lama’s regent decided to shroud the Dalai Lama’s death in secrecy, announcing that the fifth lama had entered a long period of meditation (over 10 years!).
In 1695 the secret was leaked and the regent was forced to hastily enthrone the sixth Dalai Lama, a boy of his own choosing. The choice was an unfortunate one. The sixth Dalai Lama soon proved himself to be more interested in wine and women than meditation and study - he would often sneak out of the Potala to visit the brothels at its base. A resident Jesuit monk who met him noted that “no good-looking person of either sex was safe from his unbridled licentiousness”. The enthronement of an inept head of state chosen by a dubious process requiring the child contender to select specific auspicious tokens could not have come at a worse time.
In China, the Ming dynasty had fallen in 1644 and the Manchus from the north had swiftly moved in to fill the power vacuum, establishing the Manchu Qing dynasty (1644-1912). The events that followed were complicated. Basically, Tibet’s ineffectual head of state, the Qing perception of the threat of Tibetan relations with the Mongols, disunity within the ranks of Tibet’s Mongol allies and Qing ambitions to extend their power into Tibet led to a Qing intervention that was to have lasting consequences for Tibet.
Tibet’s dealings with the new Qing government went awry from the start. Kangxi, the second Qing emperor, took offence when the death of the fifth Dalai Lama was concealed from him. At the same time, an ambitious Mongol prince named Lhabzang Khan came to the conclusion that earlier Mongol leaders had taken too much of a back-seat position in their relations with the Tibetans and appealed to Emperor Kangxi for support. It was granted, and in 1705, Mongol forces descended on Lhasa, killed the Tibetan regent and captured the sixth Dalai Lama with the intention of delivering him to Kangxi in Beijing. The sixth died en route at Litang (he was probably murdered) and Lhabzang Khan installed a new Dalai Lama in Lhasa.
Lhabzang Khan’s machinations backfired. The Mongol removal, possible murder and replacement of the sixth Dalai Lama aroused intense hostility in Tibet. Worse still, it created enemies among other Mongol tribes, who saw the Dalai Lama as their spiritual leader.
In 1717 the Dzungar Mongols from central Asia attacked Lhasa, killed Lhabzang Khan and deposed the new Dalai Lama. Not that this solved anything in particular. The seventh Dalai Lama, who had been discovered according to a prophesy by the sixth in Litang (present-day Sichuan), was languishing in Kumbum Monastery under Chinese “protection”.
The resulting confusion in Tibet was the opportunity for which Emperor Kangxi had been waiting. He responded by sending a military expedition to Lhasa in 1720. The Chinese troops drove out the Dzungar Mongols and were received as liberators by the Tibetans. They were unlikely to have been received any other way: With them they brought the seventh Dalai Lama.
Emperor Kangxi wasted no time in declaring Tibet a protectorate of China. Two Chinese representatives, known as Ambans, were installed at Lhasa along with a garrison of Chinese troops. It was the thin end of the wedge, leading to two centuries of Manchu overlordship and serving as a convenient historical precedent for the Communist takeover nearly 250 years later.


Manchu Overlordship
The Manchu overlordship was characterised by repeated military intervention in reaction to crises rather than a steady hand in governing Tibetan political affairs. Such interventions typically resulted in a reorganisation of the Tibetan government. The Manchus appointed a king at one stage, but temporal rule reverted to the seventh Dalai Lama in 1750.
The seventh Dalai Lama ruled successfully until his death in 1757. However, at this point it became clear that another ruler would have to be appointed until the next Dalai Lama reached his majority. The post of regent was created, and it was decided that it should be held by a lama.
It is perhaps a poor reflection on the spiritual attainment of the lamas appointed as regents that few were willing to relinquish the reins once they were in the saddle. In the 120 years between the death of the seventh Dalai Lama and the majority of the 13th, actual power was wielded by the Dalai Lamas for only seven years. Three of them died very young and under suspicious circumstances. Only the eighth Dalai Lama survived to his majority, living a quiet, contemplative life until the age of 45.
The last Chinese military intervention took place in reaction to a Gurkha invasion from Nepal in 1788. As usual there was an administrative reshuffle with short-lived consequences, and from this time Manchu influence in Tibet receded, although the post of Amban continued to be filled until the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911. Perhaps the one significant outcome of the 1788 intervention was a ban on foreign contact, imposed because of fears of British collusion in the Gurkha invasion.


Barbarians at the Doorstep
Early contact between Britain and Tibet commenced with a mission to Shigatse headed by a Scotsman, George Bogle, in 1774. Bogle soon ingratiated himself with the Panchen Lama - to the extent of marrying one of his sisters. With the death of the third Panchen Lama in 1780 and the Gurkha invasion of Tibet in 1788, however, Britain lost all official contact with Tibet.
Meanwhile, Britain watched nervously as the Russian empire swallowed up central Asia, pushing the borders of its empire 1000km further towards India. The reported arrival of Russian “adviser” Agvan Dorjieff in Lhasa exacerbated fears that Russia had military designs on Britain’s “jewel in the crown”.
Dorjieff was a Buryat Buddhist monk from near Lake Baikal who had studied at Drepung Monastery for 15 years before finally becoming one of the spiritual advisers of the 13th Dalai Lama. Dorjieff seems to have convinced both himself and the Dalai Lama that the Russian empire was the home of Shambhala, the mythical kingdom from the north whose king (or tsar) would come to save Tibet from its enemies.
When Dorjieff led embassies from the Dalai Lama to Tsar Nicholas II in 1898, 1900 and 1901, and when British intelligence confirmed that Lhasa had received Russian missions (while similar British advances had been refused), the Raj broke into a cold sweat. There was even wild conjecture that the tsar of Russia was poised to convert to Buddhism.
It was against this background that Lord Curzon, viceroy of India, decided to nip Russian designs in the bud. In late 1903, an expedition led by Colonel Francis Younghusband entered Tibet via Sikkim. After several months waiting for a Tibetan delegation, the British expedition moved on to Lhasa, where it was discovered that the Dalai Lama had fled to Mongolia with Dorjieff. However, an Anglo-Tibetan convention was signed following negotiations with Tri Rinpoche, a lama from Ganden whom the Dalai Lama had appointed as regent in his absence. British forces withdrew after spending just two months in Lhasa. (For more on the story of the British invasion, see the boxed text “Bayonets to Gyantse” in the Tsang chapter.)
The missing link in the Anglo-Tibetan accord was a Manchu signature. In effect the accord implied that Tibet was a sovereign power and therefore had the right to make treaties of its own. The Manchus objected and in 1906 the British signed a second accord with the Manchus, one that recognised China’s suzerainty over Tibet. In 1910, with the Manchu Qing dynasty teetering on the verge of collapse, the Manchus made good on the accord and invaded Tibet, forcing the Dalai Lama once again into flight - this time into the arms of the British in India.


Tibetan Independence Revisited
In 1911 a revolution finally toppled the decadent Qing dynasty in China. The spirit of revolt soon spread to Tibet, which was still under occupation by Manchu troops. In Lhasa, troops mutinied against their officers, and in other parts of the country fighting broke out between Tibetans and Manchu troops. By the end of 1912, the last of the occupying forces were escorted out of Tibet via India and sent back to China. In January 1913 the 13th Dalai Lama returned to Lhasa.
The government of the new Chinese republic, anxious to maintain control of former Qing territories, sent a telegram to the Dalai Lama expressing regret at the actions of the Manchu oppressors and announcing that the Dalai Lama was being formally restored to his former rank. The Dalai Lama replied that he was uninterested in ranks be stowed by the Chinese and that he was hereby assuming temporal and spiritual leadership of his country.
Tibetans have since read this reply as a formal declaration of independence. It certainly was in spirit if not quite in letter. As for the Chinese, they chose to ignore it, reporting that the Dalai Lama had responded with a letter expressing his great love for the motherland. Whatever the case, Tibet was to enjoy 30 years free of interference from China. What is more, Tibet was suddenly presented with an opportunity to create a state that was ready to rise to the challenge of the modern world, and, if needs be, protect itself from the territorial ambitions of China. Sadly, the opportunity foundered on Tibet’s entrenched theocratic institutions, and Tibetan independence was a short-lived affair.


Attempts to Modernise
During the period of his flight to India, the 13th Dalai Lama had become intimate friends with Sir Charles Bell, a Tibetan scholar and political officer in Sikkim. The relationship was to initiate a warming in Anglo-Tibetan affairs and to see the British playing an increasingly important role as mediators in problems between Tibet and China.
In 1920 Bell was dispatched on a mission to Lhasa, where he renewed his friendship with the Dalai Lama. It was agreed that the British would supply the Tibetans with modern arms providing they agreed to use them only for self defence. The Dalai Lama readily agreed and a supply of arms and ammunition was set up. Tibetan military officers were trained in Gyantse and India, and a telegraph line was set up linking Lhasa and Shigatse. Other developments included the construction of a small hydroelectric station near Lhasa and the establishment of an English school at Gyantse. Four Tibetan boys were sent to public school at Rugby in England. At the invitation of the Dalai Lama, British experts conducted geological surveys of parts of Tibet with a view to gauging mining potential.
It is highly likely that the 13th Dalai Lama’s trips away from his country had made him realise that it was imperative that Tibet begin to modernise. At the same time he must also have been aware that the road to modernisation was fraught with difficulties. The biggest problem was the Tibetan social system itself.
Since the rise of the Gelugpa order, Tibet had been ruled as a theocracy. Monks, particularly those in the huge monastic complexes of Drepung and Sera at Lhasa, were accustomed to a high degree of influence in the Tibetan government. And for the monks of Tibet, the principal focus of government was the maintenance of the religious state. Attempts to modernise were seen as inimical to this aim, and before too long they began to meet intense opposition.
Perhaps as much as anything else, the large monastery complexes of central Tibet feared the increasing empowerment of lay elements in Tibetan society. The establishment of an army, for example, was seen as a direct threat to the monasteries rather than as a means of self defence against external threats to the nation. Most monasteries kept their own small armies of fighting monks, and the presence of a well-equipped state army posed the threat of state intervention in monastic disputes. In fact, such fears proved to be well founded when the Dalai Lama brought the newly established army into action to quell a threatened uprising at Drepung Monastery.
Before too long, the 13th Dalai Lama’s innovations fell victim to a conservative backlash. Newly trained Tibetan officers were reassigned to nonmilitary jobs, causing a rapid deterioration of military discipline; a newly established police force was left to its own devices and soon became ineffective; the English school at Gyantse was closed down; and a mail service set up by the British was stopped.
However, Tibet’s brief period of independence was troubled by more than just an inability to modernise. Conflict sprang up between the Panchen Lama and the Dalai Lama over the autonomy of Tashilhunpo Monastery and its estates. The Panchen Lama, after appealing to the British to mediate, fled to China, where he was kept for 14 years until his death. In 1933 the 13th Dalai Lama died, leaving the running of the country to the regent of Reting. The present (14th) Dalai Lama was discovered at the village of Pari Takster near Xining in Amdo, but was brought to Lhasa only after the local Chinese commander had been paid off with a huge “fee” of 300,000 Chinese dollars. The boy was renamed Tenzin Gyatso and he was installed as the Dalai Lama on 22 February 1940, aged 4 1/2.
In 1947 an attempted coup d’etat, known as the Reting Conspiracy, rocked Lhasa. And in 1949 the Chinese Nationalist government, against all odds, fell to Mao Zedong and his Communist “bandits”.


Liberation
When the iron bird flies and horses run on wheels, the Tibetan people will be scattered throughout the world and the Dharma will come to the land of red men.
Guru Rinpoche
Unknown to the Tibetans, the Communist takeover of China was to open what is probably the saddest chapter in Tibetan history. The Chinese “liberation” of Tibet was eventually to lead to 1.2 million Tibetan deaths, a full-on assault on the Tibetan traditional way of life, the flight of the Dalai Lama to India and the large-scale destruction of almost every historical structure on the plateau. The chief culprits were Chinese ethnic chauvinism and an epidemic of social madness known as the Cultural Revolution.
On 7 October 1950, just a year after the Communist takeover of China, 30,000 battlehardened Chinese troops attacked central Tibet from six different directions. The Tibetan army, a poorly equipped force of some 4000 men, stood little chance of resisting the Chinese, and any attempt at defence soon collapsed before the onslaught. In Lhasa, the Tibetan government reacted by enthroning the 15-year-old 14th Dalai Lama, an action that brought jubilation and dancing on the streets, but did little to protect Tibet from advancing Chinese troops.
An appeal to the United Nations (UN) was equally ineffective. To the shame of all involved, only EI Salvador sponsored a motion to condemn Chinese aggression, and Britain and India, traditional friends of Tibet, actually managed to convince the UN not to debate the issue for fear of incurring Chinese disapproval.
Presented with this seemingly hopeless situation, the Dalai Lama dispatched a mission to Beijing with orders that it refer all decisions to Lhasa. As it turned out there were no decisions to be made. The Chinese had already drafted an agreement. The Tibetans had two choices: Sign on the dotted line or face further Chinese aggression.
The 17-pointAgreement on Measuresfor the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet promised a one-country two-systems structure much like that offered later to Hong Kong and Macau, but provided little in the way of guarantees that such a promise would be honoured. The Tibetan delegates protested that they were unauthorised to sign such an agreement and anyway lacked the seal of the Dalai Lama. Thoughtfully, the Chinese had already prepared a forged Dalai Lama seal, and the agreement was ratified.
Initially, the Chinese occupation of central Tibet was carried out in an orderly way, but tensions inevitably mounted. The presence of large numbers of Chinese troops in the Lhasa region soon depleted food stores and gave rise to massive inflation. Rumours of massacres and forced political indoctrination in Kham began to filter through to Lhasa. In 1954 the Dalai Lama was invited to Beijing, where, amid cordial discussions with Mao Zedong, he was told that religion was “poison”.
In 1956 the Preparatory Committee for the Autonomous Region of Tibet (Pc art) was established. Although headed by the Dalai Lama, a majority of its seats were filled by Chinese puppets. In any case, real power lay in the hands of the committee of the Communist Party in Tibet, which claimed no Tibetan representatives at all.
In the same year, uprisings broke out in eastern Tibet (see History in the Kham (Eastern Tibet) chapter); and in 1957 and 1958, protests and armed revolt spread to central Tibet (with covert CIA assistance). With a heavy heart, the Dalai Lama returned to Lhasa in March 1957 from a trip to India to celebrate the 2500th anniversary of the birth of the Buddha. It seemed inevitable that Tibet would explode in revolt and equally inevitable that it would be ruthlessly suppressed by the Chinese.


1959 Uprising
The Tibetan New Year of 1959, like all the New Year celebrations before it, attracted huge crowds to Lhasa, doubling the usual population of the city. In addition to the usual festival activities, the Chinese had added a highlight of their own - a performance by a Chinese dance group at the Lhasa military base. The invitation to the Dalai Lama came in the form of a thinly veiled command. The Dalai Lama, wishing to avoid offence, accepted.
As preparations for the performance drew near, however, the Dalai Lama’s security chief was surprised to hear that the Dalai Lama was expected to attend in secrecy and without his customary contingent of 25 bodyguards. Despite the Dalai Lama’s agreement to these conditions, news of them soon leaked, and in no time simmering frustration at Chinese rule came to the boil among the crowds on the streets. It seemed obvious to the Tibetans that the Chinese were about to kidnap the Dalai Lama. Large numbers of people gathered around the Norbulingka (the summer palace of the Dalai Lama) and swore to protect him with their lives.
The Dalai Lama had no choice but to cancel his appointment at the military base. In the meantime the crowds on the streets were swollen by Tibetan soldiers, who changed out of their People’s Liberation Army (PLA) uniforms and started to hand out weapons. A group of government ministers announced that the 17 -point agreement was null and void, and that Tibet renounced the authority of China.
The Dalai Lama was powerless to intervene, managing only to pen some conciliatory letters to the Chinese as his people prepared for battle on the streets of Lhasa. In a last-ditch effort to prevent bloodshed, the Dalai Lama even offered himself to the Chinese. The reply came in the sound of two mortar shells exploding in the gardens of the Norbulingka. The attack made it obvious that the only option remaining to the Dalai Lama was flight. On 17 March, the Dalai Lama left the Norbulingka disguised as a soldier. Fourteen days later he was in India.


Bloodshed in Lhasa
With both the Chinese and the Tibetans unaware of the Dalai Lama’s departure, tensions continued to mount in Lhasa. Early on the morning of 20 March, Chinese troops began to shell the Norbulingka and the crowds surrounding it, killing hundreds of people. Later, as the corpses were searched, it became obvious that the Dalai Lama had escaped –"abducted by a reactionary clique” went the Chinese reports.
Still the bloodshed continued. Artillery bombed the Potala, Sera Monastery and the medical college on Chagpo Ri. Tibetans armed with petrol bombs were picked off by Chinese snipers, and when a crowd of some 10,000 Tibetans retreated into the sacred precincts of the Jokhang, that too was bombed. It is thought that after three days of violence, 10,000 to 15,000 Tibetans lay dead in the streets of Lhasa.


Socialist Paradise on the Roof of the World
The Chinese quickly consolidated their quelling of the Lhasa uprising by taking control of all the high passes between Tibet and India. Freedom fighters were put out of action by Chinese troops, and able-bodied young men were rounded up, shot, incarcerated or put to work on Chinese work teams. As the Chinese themselves put it, they were liberating Tibet of reactionary forces and ushering in a new socialist society. Naturally they did not bother to ask the Tibetans themselves whether they wanted a socialist paradise.
The Chinese abolished the Tibetan government and set about reordering Tibetan society in accordance with their Marxist principles. The educated and the aristocratic were put to work on menial jobs and subjected to struggle sessions, known as thamzing, which sometimes resulted in death. A ferment of class struggle was whipped up and former feudal exploiters some of whom the poor of Tibet may have harboured genuine resentment for - were subjected to punishments of awful cruelty.
The Chinese also turned their attention to Tibet’s more than 6000 “feudal” monasteries. Tibetans were refused permission to donate food to the monasteries, and monks were compelled to join struggle sessions, discard their robes and marry. Monasteries were stripped of their riches, Buddhist scriptures were burnt and used as toilet paper, and the vast wholesale destruction of Tibet’s monastic heritage began in earnest.
Notable in this litany of errors was the Chinese decision to alter Tibetan farming practices. Instead of barley, the Tibetan staple, Tibetan farmers were instructed to grow wheat and rice. Tibetans protested that these crops were unsuited to Tibet’s high-altitude conditions. They were right, and mass starvation resulted. It is estimated that by late 1961, 70,000 Tibetans had died or were dying of starvation.
By September 1961, even the Chinese groomed Panchen Lama began to have a change of heart. He presented Mao Zedong with a 70,000-character report on the hardships his people were suffering and also requested, among other things, religious freedom and an end to the sacking of Tibetan monasteries. Four years later he was to disappear into a high-security prison for a 10year stay. For the Chinese, he was the last obstacle to be cleared away in the lead up to the establishment of the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR).
On 1 September 1965 the TAR was formally brought into being with much fanfare and talk of happy Tibetans fighting back tears of gratitude at becoming one with the great motherland. The tears were set to keep on coming. In China, trouble was brewing in the form of a social movement that came to be known as the Cultural Revolution.


The Cultural Revolution
Among the writings of Mao Zedong is a piece entitled “On Going Too Far”. It is a subject on which he was particularly well qualified to write. What started as a power struggle between Mao and Liu Shaoqi in 1965 had become by August 1966 the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a movement that was to shake China to its core, trample all its traditions underfoot, cause countless deaths and give running of the country over to mobs of Red Guards. All of China suffered in Mao’s bold experiment in creating a new socialist paradise, but it was Tibet that suffered most dearly.
The first Red Guards arrived in Lhasa in July 1966. Two months later, the first rally was organised and Chinese-educated Tibetan youths raided the Jokhang, desecrating whatever religious objects they could get their hands on. It was the beginning of the large-scale destruction of virtually every religious monument in Tibet, and was carried out in the spirit of destroying the “Four Olds”: old thinking, old culture, old habits and old customs. The Buddhist “om mani padme hum” (“hail to the jewel in the lotus”) was replaced by the communist mantra “long live Chairman Mao”. The Buddha himself was accused of being a “reactionary”.
For more than three years the Cultural Revolution went about its destructive business of turning the Tibetan world on its head. Tibetan farmers were forced to collectivise into communes and were told what to grow and when to grow it. Merrymaking was declared illegal, women had their jewellery taken from them, and the traditional plaits of Tibetan men were cut off by Red Guards in the street. Anyone who objected was arrested and subjected to thamzing. The Dalai Lama became public enemy number one and Tibetans were forced to denounce him as a parasite and traitor. The list goes on: a harrowing catalogue of crimes against a people whose only fault was to hold aspirations that differed from those of their Chinese masters.
By late 1969, the PLA had the Red Guards under control. Tibet, however, continued to be the site of outbreaks of violence. Tibetan uprisings were brief and subdued brutally. In 1972, restrictions on Tibetans' freedom of worship were lifted with much fanfare but little in the way of results. In 1975, a group of foreign journalists sympathetic to the Chinese cause were invited to Tibet. The reports they filed gave a sad picture of a land whose people had been battered to their knees by Chinese-imposed policies and atrocities that amounted to nothing less than cultural genocide. In the same year the last CIA-funded Tibetan guerrilla bases, in Mustang, northern Nepal, were closed down.


The Post-Mao Years
By the time of Mao’s death in 1976 even the Chinese themselves must have begun to realise that their rule in Tibet had taken a wrong turn. Rebellion was ever in the wings, and maintaining order on the high plateau was a constant drain on Beijing’s coffers. Mao’s chosen successor, Hua Guofeng, decided to soften the government’s line on Tibet and called for a revival of Tibetan customs. In mid-1977, China announced that it would welcome the return of the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan refugees, and shortly afterwards the Panchen Lama was released from more than 10 years of imprisonment.
The Tibetan government-in-exile received cautiously the invitation to return to Tibet, and the Dalai Lama suggested that he be allowed to send a fact-finding mission to Tibet first. To the surprise of all involved, the Chinese agreed. As the Dalai Lama himself remarked in his autobiography, Freedom in Exile, it seemed that the Chinese were of the opinion that the mission would find such happiness in their homeland that “they would see no point in remaining in exile”. In fact, the results of the mission were so damning that the Dalai Lama decided not to publish them.
Nevertheless, two more missions followed. Their conclusions were despairing. The missions catalogued 1.2 million deaths, the destruction of 6254 monasteries and nunneries, the absorption of two-thirds of Tibet into China, 100,000 Tibetans in labour camps and extensive deforestation. In a mere 30 years, the Chinese had turned Tibet into a land of nearly unrecognisable desolation.
In China, Hua Guofeng’s short-lived political ascendancy had been eclipsed by Deng Xiaoping’s rise to power. In 1980, Deng sent Hu Yaobang on a Chinese fact-finding mission that coincided with the visits of those sent by the Tibetan government-in-exile.
Hu’s conclusions, while not as damning as those of the Tibetans, painted a grim picture of life on the roof of the world. A six point plan to improve the living conditions and freedoms of the Tibetans was drawn up, taxes were dropped for two years and limited private enterprise was allowed. The Jokhang was reopened for two days a month in 1978; the Potala opened in 1980. As was the case in the rest of China, the government embarked on a program of extended personal freedoms in concert with authoritarian one-party rule.


The Deng Years
The early 1980s saw the return of limited religious freedoms. Monasteries that had not been reduced to piles of rubble began to reopen and some religious artefacts were returned to Tibet from China.
Importantly, there was also a relaxation of the Chinese proscription on pilgrimage. Pictures of the Dalai Lama began to reappear on the streets of Lhasa. Not that any of this pointed to a significant reversal in Chinese thinking on the question of religion, which remained an opiate of the masses. Those who exercised their religious freedoms did so at considerable risk.
Talks aimed at bringing the Dalai Lama back into the ambit of Chinese influence continued, but with little in the way of results. A three-person team sent to Beijing from Dharamsala, India, in 1982 heard lectures on how Tibet was part of China and was told in no uncertain terms that the Dalai Lama would be given a desk job in Beijing if he were to return. By 1983 talks had broken down and the Chinese had decided that they did not want the Dalai Lama to return after all Tibet became the “front line of the struggle against splittism”, according to the Chinese government.
Perhaps most dismaying for Tibetans, however, was the emergence of a Chinese policy of Han immigration to the high plateau. Sinicisation had already been successfully carried out in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Qinghai, and now Tibet was targeted for mass immigration. Attractive salaries and interest-free loans were made available to Chinese willing to emigrate to Tibet, and, in 1984 alone, more than 100,000 Han Chinese took advantage of the incentives to “modernise” the backward province of Tibet.
In 1986 a new influx of foreigners arrived in Tibet. The Chinese began to loosen restrictions on tourism, and the trickle of tour groups and individual travellers soon became a flood. For the first time since the Chinese takeover, visitors from the West were given the opportunity to see first hand the results of Chinese rule in Tibet.
For the Chinese, the foreigners were a mixed blessing. The tourist dollars were appreciated, but foreigners had an annoying habit of sympathising with the Tibetans. They also got to see things that the Chinese would rather they did not see.
When in September 1987 a group of 30 monks from Sera Monastery began circumambulating the Jokhang and crying out “Independence for Tibet” and “Long live his Holiness the Dalai Lama”, their ranks were swollen by bystanders and arrests followed. Four days later, another group of monks repeated their actions, this time brandishing Tibetan flags.
The monks were beaten and arrested. With Western tourists looking on, a crowd of some 2000 to 3000 angry Tibetans gathered. Police vehicles were overturned and Chinese police began firing on the crowd.
The Chinese response was swift. Communications with the outside world were broken and foreigners were evicted from Lhasa. It was still too late, however, to prevent eyewitness accounts of what had happened from reaching newspapers around the world. A crackdown followed in Lhasa, but it failed to prevent further protests in the following months.
The Monlam festival of March 1988 saw shooting in the streets of Lhasa, and in December of the same year a Dutch traveller was shot in the shoulder; 18 Tibetans died and 150 were wounded in the disturbances.


The Dalai Lama & the Search for Settlement
By the mid-1970s, the Dalai Lama had become a prominent international figure, working tirelessly from his government-inexile in Dharamsala, India, to make the world more aware of the plight of his people. His visits to the USA led to official condemnation of the Chinese occupation of Tibet. In 1987 he addressed the US Congress and outlined a five-point peace plan.
The plan called for Tibet to be established as a “zone of peace”; for the policy of Han immigration to Tibet to be abandoned; for a return to basic human rights and democratic freedoms; for the protection of Tibet’s natural heritage and an end to the dumping of nuclear waste on the high plateau; and for joint discussions between the Chinese and the Tibetans on the future of Tibet. The Chinese denounced the plan as an example of “splittism”. They gave the same response when, a year later, the Dalai Lama elaborated on the speech before the European parliament at Strasbourg in France, conceding any demands for full independence and offering the Chinese the right to govern Tibet’s foreign and military affairs.
Protests and crackdowns continued in Tibet through 1989, and despairing elements in the exiled Tibetan community began to talk of the need to take up arms. It was an option that the Dalai Lama had consistently opposed. If there was to be any improvement in the situation in Tibet, he reasoned, it could only be achieved through nonviolent means. The Dalai Lama’s efforts to achieve peace and freedom for his people were rewarded on 4 October 1989, when he was awarded the Nobel peace prize. It must have seemed a small consolation for the civilised world’s notable failure to put any real pressure on China regarding its activities in Tibet.


Tibet Today
Tibetans have won back many religious freedoms, but at great expense. Monks and nuns, who are often the focus of protests and Tibetan aspirations for independence, are regarded suspiciously by the authorities and are often subject to arrest and beatings. Nuns in particular, considering their small numbers, have been very active, and accounted for 55 out of the 126 independence protests in the mid-1990s. Regulations make it impossible for nuns, once arrested and imprisoned, to return to their nunneries.
Religious institutions have recently been the focus of “patriotic education” and “civilising atheism” campaigns, and strict quotas have been imposed on the numbers of monasteries and their resident monks and nuns. Monks in Drepung were recently forced to sign a form denouncing the Dalai Lama on pain of imprisonment. Tibetan guides educated in India have been banned from working. Religious crackdowns were continuing at the time of research.
The Chinese officially deny any policy of Han immigration to Tibet, but for visitors who have made repeated trips to Tibet the increased numbers of Han Chinese are staggering. The extent of immigration poses the grave danger that the Tibetans will become a minority in their own country. The Dalai Lama has described the policy as cultural genocide.
It must be said that great effort has been made to curb the worst excesses of the Chinese administration and that a comparatively softened line on “minorities” has improved conditions for many Tibetans. There are now over 2000 functioning monasteries in Tibet. But the basic problems remain. Protests and government crackdowns have continued into the new millennium. The Chinese government has in no way relented in regarding Tibet as a province of China and is no closer to reaching an agreement of any kind with the Dalai Lama.
The Dalai Lama continues to be vocal in the Tibetan struggle for independence in some form. He has abandoned any hope of nationhood, but continues to strive for a system of Tibetan cultural, religious and linguistic autonomy within the Chinese state. In Western political circles covert sympathy rarely translates into active support, and foreign governments are careful not to receive the Dalai Lama in any way that recognises his political status as the head of an exiled government. The Chinese government continues to protest regularly against the Dalai Lama’s international activities. In February 2000, celebrations were held in Dhararnsala for the 60th anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s enthronment.
In recent years the Dalai Lama has quietly admitted to a growing sense of failure in his dealings with the Chinese and there is a small but growing split within the Tibetan community on the best way forward. A series of small bombs were detonated at night in Lhasa in 1996 and 2000 (one next to a courthouse near the Banak Shol hotel), suggesting that at least some Tibetans are moving away from the Dalai Lama’s overtly pacifist stand.
As the Chinese authorities trumpet rapid advances in industrial and agricultural output, there is a growing feeling among observers that China has switched from systematic persecution to a second, far more sophisticated phase in assimilating Tibet into the motherland. Foreign investment, Han immigration and an education system that exclusively uses the (Mandarin) Chinese language at higher levels ensures that only Sinicised Tibetans will be able to actively participate in Tibet’s economic advances. Chinese economic control, coupled with large numbers of Chinese settlers, makes the Tibetan dream of independence ever harder to realise.
On the positive side, the US government appointed a “special Coordinator for Tibet” in 1997, and in 1998 the United Nations human rights commissioner, Mary Robinson, visited Tibet. It is even hoped that talks might begin between the Dalai Lama and Chinese premier Jiang Zemin; the Dalai Lama’s brother Gyalo Thondub visited Beijing in October 2000. Don’t hold your breath though. In many ways the status quo suits the West: As long as there are no bloody crackdowns in Lhasa, foreign countries can continue to trade with China while quietly criticising its human-rights record well out of China’s earshot. The 50th anniversary of the “liberation” of Tibet in 2001 offered a sobering moment of reflection on half a century of tragedy for the Tibetan people.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛耶律大石：西藏文化谈（1-21）全文
耶律大石兄的《西藏文化谈》系列，因视角独特，且争议颇多——其中涉及史料的真实性，作者态度的客观度，取材的全与偏，因其取材而造成的行文论证的合理性，乃至该系列文谈可能的影响，进而作者撰文的用意与目的等等，不一而足——激起了咱驴友的广泛兴趣。
俺查了咱驴坛精品库，缺被删的文化谈（8-12），故整理全文，重贴，以飨有兴趣之驴友。
文化谈8-12为浪子燕青兄在其被删前抢救,特此鸣谢。关于删帖之前因后果，参见咱驴坛精品库俺的“驴坛回顾”。时值春节，兔子和旅行猪斑竹均外出遛驴，现任店小二刺客尚是小毛驴一头。
西藏文化谈(楔子)：也说六世达赖仓央加错逸事
也先太师，并注耶律大石
决心要写些西藏的宗教文化了，但如果全面包含地写，不是我现在拥有的精力，时间所能允许的，那么就只能挑些重要的，有意思的来写，也许会有点信马由□。许多人都知道六世达赖仓央加错，网上有过些介绍他的文章，甚至于由幻想仓央加错而引起的浪漫经历。仓央加错博得了不少现代人的同情，在很多人眼里，他是反叛者，是浪漫的诗人，是情哥儿，是一个厌倦宗教政治而向往自由的人，他在战乱中的早夭更增添了这个人物的悲剧性。我在这里不想重复仓央加错的生平简历，只想谈些大家不知道的事情，并请藏迷们和关心西藏的人共同参详讨论。谈仓央加错当然少不了他的诗，本文引用的他的诗都是我自己译成汉语的，艺术性也许不高，但我更着重内容。先看一段：
---当我在布达拉宫，
---人们都称我为“纯洁海洋”大师；
---当我在城里街头游荡，
---人们都称我为娼妓王子；
(参见John Stevens的 Lust und Erleuchtung. Sexualitaet im Buddhismus,Bern, 1993)
据记载仓央加错的外貌：长长的头发打成了结，戴着沉重的耳环，每个手指上都戴着珍贵的戒指，他的首饰和绸缎衣服很为拉萨市民所钦慕。
(参见Helmut Hoffmann:Religionen Tibets. Bon und Lamaismus in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung, Freiburg 1956)
桑结第巴(Sangy Gyatso)据称是五世达赖的亲生子，那么这个五世达赖的亲生子和五世达赖的转世仓央加错的关系应该是相当微妙的。实际上桑结第巴大权独揽，仓央加错形同傀儡。当仓央加错要求掌权时，他的“淫乱”突然变成了很重要的罪行，有人要求将他废退。仓央加错出人意料地同意了这个要求，1702年他将宗教权交与班禅，但却想保留世俗政治权力。从这里看，权力对仓央加错来说到底重要不重要？仓央加错的行为，是他的个人行为，还是达赖喇嘛这个“神”的行为？在我看来，这是要理解西藏宗教文化的最基本的问题，是人在玩弄着“神”的招牌，还是“神”(或魔鬼)的意志在主导着人的行为？
我们再来看仓央加错的“爱情生活”：
---即使我每夜都和女人交合，
---我也从来不丢失一滴精液。
(参见John Stevens的 Lust und Erleuchtung. Sexualitaet im Buddhismus,Bern, 1993)
仓央加错在这里要表明什么？哪位藏迷能给个解释？据称仓央加错曾在布达拉宫的顶上给他的手下做过如下表演：
他将尿撒出去后再用阳具将尿液吸收回来。
(参看Guenther Schulemann：Die Geschichte der Dalai Lamas,Leipzig 1958)
谁知道仓央加错练的是什么功？再来看仓央加错的诗：
---将清澈的雪山水
---和魔蛇的金刚(Vajra)滴露混合，
---再加上一点仙液。
---让女飞天(Dakini)作甜酒女郎。
---如果你怀著纯净的愿望饮下，
---你就不会再有危险去品尝地狱的滋味。。。
(参见Per K. Sorensen: Divinity secularized. An inquiry into the nature and form of songs ascribed to the sixth Dalai Lama, Wien 1990)
---只要那一轮苍白的月亮还在东山之上
---我就仍在从姑娘的体中
---抽取喜悦和力量
(参见Erwin Erasmus Koch: Auf dem Dach der Welt. Tibet. Die Geschichte der Dalai Lamas, Frankfurt 1960)
比起前一首来，这两首诗算是隐讳多了，不加解释，常人看了不知所云。如同《离骚》中的美人香草，仓央加错的诗中是有所指的，我在这里先不做深入解释。仓央加错还在布达拉宫里建了一个“蛇房”，将拉萨城里的娼妓酒女找来“作法”。根据Sorensen，仓央加错和这些女子的交合仪式是有象征意义的。
写了这么一段与常人印象迥异的仓央加错，想使大家明白，如果不了解喇嘛教的本质，光靠现代人自以为是的天真幻想去解释西藏是多么的荒诞可笑。不光是仓央加错，整个喇嘛教都躲藏在虚假的外壳里，我希望通过我的文章能使大家对喇嘛教的本质有所了解。 题外话：关于Kagyupa是红教还是白教的问题，我写了信给Kagyupa自己的组织(Tenzin Elwell offic-@kagyu.org)去询问，得到的答覆是：“黑帽子”。看来这个问题上是没有意义再纠缠下去了，我行文中再也不会采用这种汉语和西文中有歧议的俗称，对此的争论算是结束了。
西藏文化谈(一)：巫术，作为政治手段
也先太师，并注耶律大石
十四世达赖喇嘛可以算是当今世界上的一个大红人了，每每见他张口就是人权民主，言论自由，科学精神等等等等，不知道的人会以为他是理性主义者，而事实上藏文化的传统是迷信非自然力量，认为神鬼巫术是社会历史发展的关键。
呼唤魔鬼
自古以来在西藏巫术和政治就是不分家的，而绝大部分巫术是用来毁灭政治上的敌人的。而这就需要魔鬼的帮助。藏
文化也许在很多方面有缺乏，但最不缺少的恐怕就是魔鬼了，翻开喇嘛经文，到处都是魔鬼，按照德国藏学家Matthias
Hermanns的话：“佛教中良性的一面全被盖住了。”(参阅Matthias Hermanns: Das Nationalepos der Tibeter,
Gling Koenig Ge Sar, Regensburg 1965)这种杀人巫术不是什么少见的例外，也不局限于私事上，正相反，它通常是喇嘛的主要任务。所谓的“鬼学”是西藏喇嘛寺庙里面的一门重要“科学”，有关这些魔鬼所举行的各种各样的仪式，是喇嘛政权的一项重要工作。想要招唤魔鬼现身，必须给魔鬼献上其喜欢的贡品，不同种的魔鬼有不同的口味。下面列了几项喇嘛的贡品：
---用黑面和人血制成的饼；
---五种肉的混合，其中人肉；
---一个乱伦而生出的小孩的头颅骨，装满血和芥子；
---小男孩的皮；
---人血和人脑装在碗里；
---人油灯，灯芯由头发做成；
---用人胆，脑，血及内脏做成的大面团。
(参阅Rene de Nebesky-Wojkowitz: Oracles and demons of Tibet, the cult and Iconography of the Tibetan
protective deities, Kathmandu 1993)
如果魔鬼接受了这些牺牲，它就会听命于作法的人。有个四只手的魔鬼Mahakala 被认为是很有助的杀敌者，它的六只手的变种，更血腥的Kshetrapala则在有国家大事时被呼唤。魔法师用金墨水或刀刃上滴下来的血把咒语和愿望写在一张纸上，法力就应起作用了。
解放西藏前夕黄教喇嘛曾唤Kshetrapala来打解放军，喇嘛把这个魔鬼关进一个三米高的大饼(Torma)里，放在拉萨郊外点燃，这个魔鬼冲出牢笼后就带着它的手下奔往边界，和一条“九头怪龙”打了起来。为了完成这个仪式有二十一人被杀，他们的内脏被用来做牺牲大饼(Torma)。(参阅A. Tom Grunfeld: The making of modern Tibet, New York,1996)
本世纪中期黄教的桑耶寺(Samye)曾受当时西藏政府之命造了四个巨大的“十字网”去抓一个教Tsan的红色魔鬼军，以用它来攻打“西藏的敌人”。这是一张四方形的大网，由四种颜色的线织成，网上挂满了密宗的神秘物质：
---墓地的土；
---人头；
---杀人武器；
---不自然死亡的男人的鼻尖，心，嘴唇；
---毒草等等。
这些混合物据称对Tsan有吸引力，就象蜡烛对飞蛾有吸引力一样，Tsan来了以后就会陷在网里。一个活佛大喇嘛坐关七天后说，这些魔鬼现在可以受命去攻打敌人(汉人)了！(参阅Rene de Nebesky-Wojkowitz: Oracles and demons of Tibet, the cult and Iconography of the Tibetan protective deities, Kathmandu 1993)
据称相似的作法以前也曾奏效，如当尼泊尔人攻入西藏的时候，尼泊尔就发生了地震。但是法术经常要很常时间才能生效，如1904英国人入侵西藏，二十年后，在印度比哈尔发生地震，几个英国士兵死亡，藏人称这是活佛以前所做之法的结果。
Voudou法术
大家都知道海地的Voudou，做一个和敌人相象的玩偶，毁掉或折磨这个玩偶，使敌人的真实肉体也受到同样的打击。这种法术其实在藏文化中是极普遍的。通常需要在玩偶中附上敌人的头发或衣物，有时也需要更多，如下面描绘的一个仪式：“划一个红色的半月形的魔力图案，在一个痨病鬼的裹尸布上，写上那个人的名字和家谱，墨水是一个黑皮肤的小女孩的血。把这块布举在黑烟里，同时呼唤你的守护神。然后把布放进魔力图案里，手里晃动着痨病鬼骨头做成的匕首，念十万遍咒语。然后把这块布放到那人睡觉的地方。”这一方法可以置敌死命。(参阅Rene de Nebesky-Wojkowitz: Oracles and demons of Tibet, the cult and Iconography of the Tibetan protective deities, Kathmandu 1993)
另一个使敌人变疯的方法：“在一个山顶上划一个白色的魔圈，把用有毒的树叶做成的敌人偶像放进圈里，在这个偶像上用白树浆写上敌人的名字和家谱。把偶像举在人油灯的烟里，当你念咒语的时候，用右手握着骨头做的匕首摩擦偶像的头部。最后把偶像放在魔鬼Mamo喜欢出没的地方。”(参阅Rene de Nebesky-Wojkowitz: Oracles and demons of Tibet, the cult and Iconography of the Tibetan protective deities, Kathmandu 1993)
这些巫术绝不是什么少见的宁玛巴或Bonpo的歪道，它是自五世达赖起国家最高政策的一部分。五世达赖制作了一本“方法书”(《金册》)，用黑色唐卡做成，内容全是用巫术杀人。比如其中所绘的gan tad法术：一个圆圈中间画着一男一女，是作法的对象，手上和脚上系着铁链，人物的四周是密宗喇嘛写下的咒语：“命被割掉，心被割掉，身子被割掉，权力被割掉，来源被割掉(意为敌人的亲属也要被灭绝)。”然后将娼妓的经血滴在图案上，将头发和指甲放在图案里的人物上，做法的喇嘛将图案折起来，和一些藏文化中特有的物质，一起塞进一个□牛角里。(至于这些藏文化中特有的物质是什么，大家读到这里一定也可以想象了，我就不再数罗了)做这个法必须戴着手套进行，否则对法师身体有害。在一个墓地里，行法者将大群魔鬼呼唤进牛角，再将牛角埋在敌人的领地里。敌人便会死去。(参阅Rene de Nebesky-Wojkowitz: Oracles and demons of Tibet, the cult and Iconography of the Tibetan protective deities, Kathmandu 1993)
五世达赖曾在甘丹寺作法，毁灭Kagyupa和藏巴汗，藏巴汗的像被放进大面饼里(Torma)，面里还有一个被杀死的年轻男子的血，人肉，啤酒，毒药等等。(参阅Zahiruddin Ahmad: Sino-Tibetan relations in the seventeenth century, in: Serie Orientale Roma XL, Roma 1970)
十八世纪时，对尼泊尔作战期间，西藏喇嘛也曾对尼泊尔军队指挥官实施此类巫术。
关于La(bla)
藏巫术认为每个生命有一个叫La(bla)的能量源泉，这个源泉不一定在体内，而在别的地方如山上，湖里，野兽身上。一个人可以有不止一个La(bla)。大人物如大喇嘛，贵族的La(bla)在高贵的动物身上，如雪狮，熊，虎和象；中等人的动物是牛马羊驴之类；下等人的动物是老鼠，狗，蝎子之类。La(bla)也是一个家族，一个部落，一个民族生命的源泉，比如羊卓雍湖就被称为是藏人的能量源泉，传说如果它的水干枯了，藏人就会全死光。流亡藏人曾经传播谣言，说汉人要排干羊卓雍湖水。(参阅Tibetan Review, Januar 1992)如果想消灭敌人，应将敌人的La(bla)摧毁。每个喇嘛都应该有能力通过占星和算命的方法算出一个人的La(bla)的所在。
超级武器
据称五世达赖曾有极其利害的武器，八齿之轮，可以在一瞬间将敌人成百上千地杀死。(参阅Rene de Nebesky-Wojkowitz: Oracles and demons of Tibet, the cult and Iconography of the Tibetan protective deities, Kathmandu 1993)
另一件超级武器，在十四世达赖手中也曾使用过，就是在拉萨城外的黄教寺院Kardo Gompa里，被称为“魔鬼之磨”的两块圆石。据Nebesky-Wojkowitz称，1950年当时西藏政府曾用此武器来攻击解放军：“一个精通黑巫术的喇嘛受命操作此物。在好几个星期的坐关里，他试将敌人的能量源(La)引入几个芥子中去。当他从征兆里发觉成功后，他就把芥子摆进石磨里碾碎。。。石磨的巨大毁灭力使行法者都受到伤害，有些喇嘛在转过石磨后死去了。” 五世达赖是一个疯狂的巫术崇拜者，他的巫术仪式，分为每年定期举行的，和突发举行的(杀敌法)。他认为他政治上的胜利主要是由于他的巫术，而蒙古人的帮助则是次要的。(参阅Zahiruddin Ahmad: Sino-Tibetan relations in the seventeenth century, in: Serie Orientale Roma XL, Roma 1970)Kagyupa的文件则称五世达赖将九个恶魔从牢笼中放了出来，让它们将蒙古军队引入西藏进行屠杀。五世达赖的巫术记载在他编写的两本书里：《密封的秘密传记》和《金册》，有兴趣者可以去看Samtsen Gyaltsen Karmay所写的 Secret visions of the fifth Dalai Lama. The gold manuscript in the fournier collection, London 1988.
五世达赖是当今十四世达赖的最高榜样，那么十四世达赖的巫术作法是如何呢？这是西藏流亡政府中一个讳末如深的秘密，但我们仍能从蛛丝马迹中看到它的踪影。在达赖的自传中有这样一段，描述他在毛泽东去世时所做的和《天轮经》(Kalachakra Tantra)有关的仪式:“在三天的作法中，毛死于第二天，第三天的早上一直下着大雨，然而到了下午，却出现了我一生中所见到过的最美丽的彩虹。我相信，那是一个很好的征兆。”(参阅Dalai Lama XIV, Das Buch der Freiheit, Bergisch Gladbach 1993)达赖的宫廷御用文人Claude B. Levenson说此次仪式是“一个很严格的法事，事前有几个星期的隔绝坐关，特别按照五世达赖定下的法则进行。”(参阅Claude B. Levenson所写的《达赖喇嘛传》)在喇嘛教的圈子里确实是将毛的死亡“归功”于达赖的巫术。
邓小平死于1997年2月12日，而在此之前不久他曾见过达赖的兄弟，Gyalo Thondup，此人也是“活佛”( Tulku)，按照喇嘛教的教义，这之间是有必然联系的。
西藏文化谈(二)：热振喇嘛(Reting)
耶律大石real，并注耶律大石
本来热振喇嘛不是我要谈的内容，但这几天七世热振坐床，算是新闻人物，所以谈一段热振喇嘛。十三世达赖死后，五世热振喇嘛掌权，主持寻找十四世达赖。十四世达赖原名Lhamo Dhondup，这是一个女孩子的名字，意为“满足愿望的女神”，这暗合喇嘛教的最高宗旨：阳阴人。十四世达赖的官方描述是这样的：当热振喇嘛带领人找到这个男孩时，男孩要喇嘛手中的原属十三世达赖的念珠，喇嘛问男孩：“你知道我们是什么人吗？”男孩用拉萨方言答道：“你们是色拉寺的喇嘛！”而事实上男孩根本不会说藏语，他一家的日常用语是汉语甘肃方言。德国藏学家Matthias Hermanns那时候正好在甘青地区，他认识十四世达赖的一家。他说，当他问那小男孩叫什么名字时，男孩答道：“祁！”(男孩住的村子叫祁家沟)(参阅Matthias Hermanns：Mythen und Mysterien.Magie und Religion der Tibeter, Koeln 1956) 五世热振喇嘛成了十四世达赖的第一个老师，1941年，热振喇嘛将管理政府的权力交给了另一个喇嘛Taktra Rinpoche。但热振喇嘛后来又想夺回权力，他和十四世达赖的父亲，Choekyong Tsering联合起来。1947年，四十七岁的Choekyong Tsering在一次吃饭时突然死去。十四世达赖的兄弟Gyalo Dhondup等认为是当时的西藏政府下的毒。(参阅Mary Craig:Kundun, a biogrphy of the family of the Dalai Lama, London 1997)热振喇嘛于是打算武装夺权，但阴谋失败被Taktra 喇嘛抓了起来。这是色拉寺的喇嘛们准备来救热振喇嘛。他们先把本寺的主持(Taktra 喇嘛的亲信)杀了，然后由一个十八岁的喇嘛Tsenya Rinpoche (在藏教中他是凶恶的 Dharmapala的转世)率领杀进拉萨，Taktra 喇嘛命令藏军用大炮轰击，结果两百多名色拉寺的喇嘛被炸的尸骨无存。
救兵没了，热振喇嘛只有在布达拉宫的地牢里受着无休无止的酷刑，最后，被“捏碎睾丸”而死。另一西藏政府的高级官员(可能是隆夏，我不确定，待查)被处以剜眼之刑，行刑人从眼眶四周慢慢往里按，直至眼球迸出来为止。(参阅Melvyn Goldstein, A history of modern Tibet 1913-1951.The Demise of the Lamaist state, Berkely, 1989)
以下帖子发言人均为耶律大石real,无注。——信天游buddy
西藏文化谈(三)：金刚乘
小乘，大乘佛教之后，在佛教内部的演变中，产生了所谓的金刚乘(Vajrayana, Tantrayana or Mantrayana)，这就是喇嘛教的起源。汉语世界里所称“佛教”这个词的意义，基本上是根据大乘佛教的内容。所以我认为，为了有所区别，最好不要对喇嘛教冠以“佛教”的称呼。金刚乘自认是佛教的最高阶段，如黄教将佛教的派别划分为这些等级：小乘，大乘，金刚乘；而金刚乘内部则为宁玛巴，萨加巴，喀举巴，格鲁巴；后一级高于前一级，等级森严。喇嘛教的僧侣，喜欢到别的教派那里去宣传自己的教义，但绝对不会请非喇嘛教的其它派别到喇嘛教的地头来。大乘佛教的戒律，堪称是僧侣道德的典范，金刚乘表面上也称颂这些戒律，但金刚乘有一种特殊的“翻转条例”，即对任何一条戒律，如果反其道而行，反而算是大澈大悟地遵守了此戒律。
举个例子，如果僧侣要求讲究清洁，那么那个最不讲卫生，最肮脏不堪的却有可能是最清洁的。或者说色戒，那么一个僧人可能以荒淫无度为最高修行。一个喇嘛教的高僧，不一定要遵守什么清规戒律，而可以无度地放纵自己，从而使自己达到最高的境界。
有一个“通过大乱而达到大治”的法则(好象四人帮用过这个说法)，即在一种混乱的局面下，喇嘛不会去制止或清理这种混乱，而会去推动加剧这种混乱，使事物在极度混乱中而毁灭，从而在毁灭中建立喇嘛教的大治的法则。那么什么是喇嘛教意义里的“大治”呢？喇嘛教的“大治”就是建立一个等级森严，政教合一的喇嘛强权。这里就可以看出金刚乘和大乘的巨大区别：大乘的僧侣是厌世的，要求远离世俗的是非；而金刚乘则要求喇嘛去积极地夺取并维护世俗的一切权力。这种对政治的截然相反的态度大概就是为什么大乘佛教在宫廷辩论中每每落败于金刚乘的原因。汉地历史上很多政治斗争中的失败者往往削发为僧，遁迹江湖而求安，这在西藏是根本不可理解的，因为喇嘛正是政治舞台上的大主角。理解了这点，就会明白如果用汉地的僧人概念来解释喇嘛是多么的荒谬可笑；就会明白，为什么藏人那么喜欢把自己的孩子送去做喇嘛，因为做喇嘛不是内地意义上的去做“出家人”“苦行僧”，而是去做统治人们心灵及肉体的那一阶层的一员，是去做人上人！那么这个“由大乱而大治”的法则就是喇嘛在自己未占上风时的一个重要手段，这时喇嘛会去鼓励那些不稳定(乱)因素，尽管这些因素和喇嘛教的“治”根本不是同一路。明白了这个法则，就知道为什么在西方那些绿党，嘻皮之类的无政府主义者却常常为喇嘛教这个极端腐朽的封建势力所驱使，这一点的确是十四世达赖运用“由大乱而大治”法则的一个杰作。
仔细观察喇嘛教(西藏)的历史，就能体会到这个法则不仅是教条上的存在，而是在实际中具体被运用了。当然这个法则并不只被用在政治层面上，私人领域里同样可以运用。金刚乘的经文，重要的有：Guhyasamaya Tantra, Hevajra Tantra, Candamaharosana Tantra, Kalachakra Tantra 等等，这些经文中，最早的(Guhyasamaya Tantra)写成于四世纪，最新的(Kalachakra Tantra)成书于十世纪。按喇嘛教的自称，这些经文都是佛祖释迦摩尼所写，而在释迦摩尼死后千年出现于世。
所有喇嘛教的正式经文都写成于印度，而在西藏写成的文字都只是对这些经文的注释解说。经文汇编在两大集里：甘珠尔(佛语录，13世纪)丹珠尔(教科书，14世纪)
那么这些经文里面到底写的是什么？读过佛经的人都知道那文字的隐讳混乱，更何况喇嘛经。这些古老的文字本身就是另一个世界的产物，加上多少种语言翻译来翻译去，于是解读，注释这些经文就是许多人毕生的事业(也许这就是所谓的“神秘”与“高深莫测”吧)。我当然也只有读那些专家们的解释。那么不管怎样，我在这里先下个结论吧：
这些经文的形式都是一个模子，它们的内容就是通过某种仪式(做法)以取得精神领域及世俗领域里的权力。那么这个仪式(做法)具体是什么？容我以后再慢慢介绍。
这些经文的最高峰就是《天轮经》(Kalachakra Tantra，这是我给它起的汉语名，当然也可以起别的名， Kala=时间，chakra=轮)，这部经文和其它经文相比，以它宏大的权力取得术和对未来的预测和定论而突出。这部经文可以看作是一个超政治运作的工具，即通过某些象征意义的仪式修行来影响世界的走向，使其为使法者所掌握。《天轮经》的秘密教义是达赖喇嘛政治运作的根据，只有理解了《天轮经》，才能理解喇嘛教。
写完了这一段我觉得太抽象了点，但这似乎是不可避免的，下次我想具体讲讲《天轮经》里面到底写了些什么。
西藏文化谈(四)：从Kailash的说法谈开去
Kailash的贴子里谈了些佛教发展史，本来我不打算系统地谈历史，但完全绕过去也不可能，因为喇嘛教的本质自然是和它的历史发展相关联的。正好Kailash的贴子谈了一些相关的问题，我就在她的说法上讲一下我的观点。所谓的“金刚乘”不是我的发明，汉语书籍中也有这样的称呼，喇嘛教更是这样称呼自己。上一篇里我提到的三个称呼(Vajrayana, Tantrayana or Mantrayana)中，Vajra是金刚的意思，Tantra可以翻译为“密”，Mantra是“语言”，“咒语”的意思。至于金刚乘是产生于四世纪，还是如Kailash所说的七世纪，这样的枝节问题应不是我们讨论的重点。我们知道，佛教最初产生的目的之一，就是要抛弃当时印度教中所充斥的神鬼崇拜。那么这些无数的神鬼恶魔，为什么会再次进入佛教，而成为金刚乘的主体呢？据说在当时大乘佛教的两个哲学支派产生了这样的观念：Madhyamika派将“空”(Shunyata)这个概念极端化，认为既然一切都是空，那么这些神鬼也都是空的幻觉，于是修行者便可以使用这些神鬼恶魔，如同使用一个工具一样，用过后可以再扔掉。Yogachara派认为世上所有的一切(包括神灵)都是精神上的感觉，那么修行者就可以通过他的思维和意志来影响和控制宇宙。既然宇宙中的一切都只存在于思维之中，那么任何物质与现象都可以通过意志使其产生，毁灭或转化。神鬼自然也在其列。
我们再来看看喇嘛教是怎样征服西藏的。虽然佛教早已传入西藏，但真正将金刚乘带入西藏的应是莲花生(Padmasambhava)，他来自印度有名的巫术之乡Uddiyana，780年受藏王Trisong Detsen(赤松德赞？)之邀入藏，传说他与藏王相见时，藏王要求他鞠躬，而他从指中射出闪电，反而使藏王跪倒。他所带来的喇嘛教，是一种疯狂外露的原始状态，是“乱”的象征。在摧毁了当时西藏统一的王权以后，此种状况下的喇嘛教并不能建立一个僧侣强权，西藏的状况反而更加混乱。于是就有了所谓的阿底峡(Atisha)的改革，阿底峡来自孟加拉地区，1032年受古格王邀请入藏，1050年阿底峡招集宗教会议，制订戒律，使当时泛滥成灾的喇嘛疯狂修行(杀人，抢劫，乱交，黑巫术等等)有所控制，他还试图建立一个宗教组织(Kadampa)，以严明纪律，并时喇嘛教组织化。但阿底峡的改革并不完全成功，一个僧侣强权仍建立不了。在这个意义上，宗喀巴可以说是阿底峡的继续者。宗喀巴的改革，在教义上对喇嘛教并无大变动，它的意义是政治上和组织上的。宗喀巴的本人的十六部著作，都是些对古经文的注释。黄教本身也不以“创造性”为长处，而习惯于死记硬背。宗喀巴建立了一个等级森严的金字塔形的宗教组织，并制订了严格的纪律，那些秘密的修行法只能由这个组织的高层使用，广大的中下层僧侣必须遵守纪律。这个组织就象军队一样(实际上喇嘛的确常常参与武装战斗)，一层管一层，将权力凝聚在最高层手中。有了这样一个严密的组织，喇嘛就具备了建立一个政教合一的僧侣强权的条件。然而要再过二百多年，到五世达赖之时，喇嘛教的这个愿望才第一次得以实现。这个愿望(建立一个政教合一的僧侣强权)不是某一个人的个人想法，而是来自喇嘛教的基本教义，是“神”的意旨。
回顾喇嘛教的发展史，我们看到其中“乱”与“治”的相辅相成，“乱”是达到“治”的手段，而喇嘛教本身(“治”)则又包含着“乱”的根源，“乱”与“治”将轮回反复。而喇嘛教的统治术就必须对这些“乱”与“治”的因素加以平衡利用。明白了这些道理之后，我们就来窥探一下喇嘛教现在的情况。我们知道，五十年代的西藏，喇嘛教虽然受到压力，但并没有到过不下去的地步。那么达赖的自行出走，将西藏推入大乱的地步，他的目的何在？我上面所谈的喇嘛教的建立一个政教合一的僧侣强权的最终目的，这个强权是不受地区限制的，那么这个最终的强权，必将是宇宙的强权(Chakravartin)！那么如下的推断：
达赖将西藏推入混乱之中，实际上是将西藏作为献给“神”的牺牲，最终目的(还会有什么呢？！)是要去建立一个全球的喇嘛教僧侣强权！！在现代人眼里，这个举动实在是有点不可思议，但请大家记住，喇嘛教是一个古老时代的产物，它的逻辑是不需要现代人的认可的。我们现在回头看当年法西斯主义的逻辑是多么的荒诞，但当你身在其中时，才能体会到这种神秘主义的教义僵尸复活后的巨大灾难。同法西斯主义一样，喇嘛教产生于人类思想启蒙运动以前，这两者之间千丝万缕的联系，我有空将另写一篇。
我们明白了喇嘛教的这个内在目的之后，再来看达赖的全球性活动，他在世界上几乎每个地区都招集信徒，积极发展势力，真的只是为了重新夺回西藏？反过来，如果按照我的推论去理解达赖的行动，就很好解释了，所谓“西藏自由”，和中国斗都只是手段而非目的，在这个烟雾弹之下，达赖正在全世界扩充势力，为他的最终目的做准备。那么他和中国政府的虚与委蛇的谈判就很好理解了。从政治上来看，达赖暂时放弃了西藏，而打开了西方的大门，的确是一个高招，否则是无论如何也不可能取得今天喇嘛教在世界上的巨大发展的。当笑眯眯的达赖喇嘛说：“我，一个来自喜马拉雅山的普通僧侣。。。”我们应该怎样理解这话的意义呢？记得我上次所提到的“翻转法则”？最美丽的来自最丑恶的，最淫荡的变为最纯洁的，那两手空空四处乞讨的“普通僧侣”在一瞬间转化为拥有无上权力的辉煌的世界最高统治者！还有比这更完美的幻象吗？
现在再谈谈喇嘛教在汉地的情况。汉地的根深蒂固的王权思想始终是阻挡宗教发展的力量，佛教在中国历史上并非没有尝试过去夺取政权，《华严经》可算是大乘佛教在这一方面的发展。最显著的一次就是武则天的夺权，最终失败于强大的中国王权势力面前。但从总体上看，大乘佛教无论从教义，组织上都没有统治的能力。而喇嘛教未能在中土形成势力，并非是由于大乘佛教的先到，而是因为：
一：强大王权的阻隘；
二：早期喇嘛教的不成熟；
喇嘛教在西藏也是通过暴力推翻王权(刺杀朗达尔玛Langdarma)以后才能发展，在喇嘛教多次进入中土的尝试中，它都不得不在王权面前退让，达赖甚至于必须把佛教最高统治者的称号(Chakravartin)让给清帝。这些历史上的挫折不代表今天仍然无望，实际上喇嘛教进据中土的工作早已大规模地展开了，中国今天的信仰危机给各种各样的“宗教”带来了肥沃的土壤，法轮功这样的无名之辈尚且能发展到这个地步，更何况披著正式宗教外衣的“神圣”“纯洁”的喇嘛教？(不知道旅游论坛里谁肯承认自己是喇嘛教信徒，我看肯定有)还记得“五明佛学院”吗？那里的门槛大概已经被踏破了。事实上，喇嘛教对今天的汉人的确是很有吸引力的，它既躲在佛教(大乘佛教)良好的声誉伞下，又有干枯的大乘佛教所没有的那些“神秘”玩意儿，说句不好听的话，修练者是既可立牌坊，又可当婊子，何乐而不为？更何况喇嘛教现在都由洋人来中国宣传，这份洋气，在某些人眼中平添了许多优越感。
在达赖的全盘计划中，台湾是进入中土的跳板，据海外流亡藏人自称，现在台湾已有五十万喇嘛教信徒，一百多个寺庙。每个月有上百个藏僧来台湾，为“世界上其它地方的喇嘛寺募捐”。台湾现在已经有四个转世的喇嘛(1987，1990，1991，1995)，据喇嘛Lobsang Jungney称：“台湾可以有四十个转世喇嘛。”(参阅Tibetan Review, May 1995)
在高雄的集会上达赖面对着五万徒众，到处飘扬着流亡藏人的“国旗”，随后由台湾政府资助建立了达赖喇嘛的“联络处”，这个“联络处”被流亡藏人称作“大使馆”。后来还有臭名招著的“佛牙”事件。
达赖本人曾多次提到过“喇嘛教的信仰将给汉人社会带来幸福与和平”(如1995在波士敦与中国学生的对话)。达赖提出要去五台山朝圣，五台山是供俸文殊菩萨(Manjushri)的地方，喇嘛教中中国皇帝是文殊菩萨的化身。那么按照喇嘛教这个地方就是汉文化的能量源泉(La)，达赖可以用某种仪式(法术)使此一能量源泉为他所控制。达赖的确计划在五台山做《时轮经》(Kalachakra Tantra)的沙盘仪式( sand mandala)。1987年西藏喇嘛Khenpo Jikphun曾在五台山做《时轮经》(Kalachakra Tantra)仪式，表演了“悬浮术”(Levitation)。
关于Kalachakra Tantra，依据Kailash，汉语中已有翻译为《时轮经》，那么为了不产生混淆，我也将这样称呼它。另外我未曾自封“大师”(否则我和那些喇嘛岂不成了一丘之貉？！)，请不要如此称呼。
西藏文化谈(五)：阴阳理论
了解汉文明的人自然对阴阳理论不陌生，但藏文化中的阴阳理论要走的更远，不仅所有实物可以归类阴阳，精神领域的现象也可以划分阴阳。如欢与悲，仰慕与蔑视，感性与理性都可以划分为阴阳。按照喇嘛教的理论，阴阳两极的结合创造了这世界，那么什么是阴阳两极的结合？最基本的就是男女性结合。
在Hevajra Tantra经文中我们可以诸佛诸菩萨是怎样在性交合中产生的，五元素(空间，气，火，水，土)是怎么产生的：接触产生了土；精液产生了水；摩擦产生了火；运动产生了气；欢乐产生了空间。(参阅Farrow and Menon: The concealed essence of the Hevajra Tantra with the commentary Yogaratnamala, Delhi 1992)
比如我们可以读宗喀巴对经文的解释：从这些物质：头发，骨头，胆，肝，体毛，指甲，牙齿，皮肤，肉，神经，屎，垢，脓中专产生了神山MERU，大陆，大山以及各种地貌；从泪，血，经血，精液，淋巴和尿中产生了海洋与河流；从头，心，肚脐和下体产生了外在的火焰；等等。(参阅Alex Wayman: Yoga of the Guhyasamajatantra, The Arcane lore of forty verses, Delhi 1977)同样，所有的感觉与能力也产生于此交合。我在这里就不一一列举了。
总而言之，宇宙的一切都产生与性交当中。那么修行者如果能通过法术控制性交，他就控制了宇宙权力的源泉。这里我们可以看到喇嘛教与大乘佛教的天壤之别，大乘佛教对于性持一种“避之犹不及”的态度，因为大乘佛教认为性交产生再生(轮回)，而轮回是苦难，修行者的目的就是为了跳出轮回，脱离苦海。所以对于大乘佛教来说性和性器官都是不祥之物。
喇嘛教的态度可以说是一百八十度的大转弯，喇嘛教认为性交是一切的源泉，生命的源泉，将控制性交看做成佛的大门。从这种思想发源性器官就成了崇拜的对象。男性器官的称号就是金刚(或宝石，Vajra)，藏语词译为Dorje，并加上了许多其它的意义(如勇士，雷电等等)。女性器官称莲花(Padma)或铃铛(Gantha)。金刚棍和铃铛是每个喇嘛必备的法器。(还记得那句真言“Om mani padma hum”吗？)所有的密宗经文都以此句开头：“我听说：从前最高的神逗留在金刚女的阴道里，所有佛祖的身体，语言，知觉都体现于金刚女。”据称这句话包含着密宗的最高真谛。
我们略去一些喇嘛教对普通佛教概念的解释(因为讲起来实在篇幅太长)而来看看这阴阳理论中最神秘的一对：智慧(Prajna)与方法(Upaya)，智慧为阴，方法为阳，这里的确需要一些解释为什么这两个概念是阴阳对立的，智慧是独立存在的，智慧是这世界本身，那么方法可以独立存在吗？方法与智慧结合，应是一种怎样的结合？我们知道，按照喇嘛教的教义，阴和阳作为对立面，单独的存在都不是完美的，奥妙在于结合，阴与阳的结合而产生世界的真理。事实上智慧和方法的确是喇嘛教阴阳法则概念组中最高的一对，理解了这一对，就理解了喇嘛教的最高修练宗旨。这里留点给大家玄想的余地。
我们了解了喇嘛教对世界的分析，喇嘛的“密”就是通过修练以取得对宇宙的操纵与控制，那么这个修练到底是怎么一回事？喇嘛的“神秘”修练术大概是他们最重要的秘密了，我将在以后的几级里从多方面讲给大家。
西藏文化谈(六)：化神术
我们渐渐接近了喇嘛教的核心之处：“密”的所在。喇嘛们整天，整年地在“修练”什么？这就是密宗之所以“密”，不外传的东西。但经过一百多年来国际藏学界的努力，这些“密”物早已不再是只有喇嘛才知道的秘密了，有兴趣的人都可以去找相应的著作阅读。那么为什么一般人对这些秘密毫无了解呢？应该归功于西方喇嘛教圈子宣传战的成功，他们出版了扑天盖地的西藏书籍(都是些歪曲真相的宣传品)，每有一本有关西藏的学术著作出版，就会有一百本宣传品，在此种攻势下，真正有价值的学术著作就被掩埋了，到达不了大众那里。再者此类学术著作通常也要求有丰富的知识和相当的理解力。在这里我将我所了解的这些“秘密”修练法，挑重要的分几讲解说给大家。一个修练法就是化神术，就是在意念中将自己变成一个神(魔鬼)，这个修练分为两步：首先修练者在意念中努力达到“空”的状态，他在意念中将自己的肉体，思想，灵魂通通毁灭掉，使自己变为一个“空”的所在，此一段的核心就是在冥想中将自己的个性完全消失；然后修练者在意念里塑造那个事先确定的神的形象，并使此神(魔鬼)变为活物(Yiddam)。请注意这里，这个神(魔鬼)不是由修练者自己艺术发挥创造的，而是必须每一个细节都得按照秘密经文中的描述去做。每个神(魔鬼)的躯体，颜色，衣物，动作，表情都在经文中精确到最细微之处写好的，修练者必须在意念中精确地按照经文中的描述将神(魔鬼)塑造出来。当修练者能够完成上述任务后，他可以将意念中的神体现出来，使神(魔鬼)出现在自己的眼前。但这只是此法术的第一阶段。第二阶段修练者必须在意念中将自己与塑造出的神(魔鬼)合为一体。此时，修练者的个人思想与灵魂完全消失了，替代的是在意念中被塑造的神(魔鬼)，修练者的每个细胞都与此神(魔鬼)合为一体，他的动作，表情都由此神(魔鬼)的思想所控制。
这时，一个古老经文中的灵魂，突然占有了一个有血有肉的躯体，复活了。
上面提到，这些神(魔鬼)不是可以随意凭空创造的，而是在喇嘛教的经文中写死的，他们的思想，行为，本领，好恶，感情，服装，乃至于每一个细微的表情，每一个手势都被规定的清清楚楚。这些神(魔鬼)的数目和各自的形象自十二世纪以来已不再有什么变化(只有很少几个地位低的神灵被添进来，如十七世纪的Dorje Shugden)，今天喇嘛教的信徒，无论是在美洲或欧洲，仍然在呼唤着这些千百年前的来自印度或西藏的神灵恶魔。
我们再沿着喇嘛教的教义往前走，我们发现，喇嘛教的法师使这些神鬼再现，运作，再将其毁灭，此一本领，并非是一种天生的能力，而是极其复杂的一层层的修练结果。这一修练，使修练者具有能量转换的法力。但是这一修练不能完全在意志内部完成。修练者需要取得某种原始“物质”，才能进行修练。而修练者提取此种“物质”于它自然的储存点----异性。这将是我在下一讲里所要叙述的内容。
西藏文化谈(七)：采阴术 (上)
我已经谈到过喇嘛教的阴阳信仰，这里再深一步，讲一讲此信仰对喇嘛教修练的指导作用。我们看到被归为“阴”性的物质：知识，物质，感情，语言，光明---以至于整个宇宙都是阴性的。阴性的能量(Shakti)和智慧(Prajna)是产生现实世界的来源，那么一个喇嘛教的修行者，为了大彻大悟地成佛，必须取得所谓的“阴精”。为了取得此种原始的能量，喇嘛教的修练者必须掌握相应的“方法”(Uppaya)。法术高深的大喇嘛，是个大魔法师，他万能的本领来源是他对阴性能量源泉的操纵。在他身体内部存在着一个吸收，修练而成的阴性，大法师使自己体内两性同时存在，这就是他巨大法力的源泉。严格来讲，大法师是一个超跃了自然的“性”的生灵，他既具有男性又具有女性的能力，而他体内这两性的对立与交合是他施法的关键。他是一个阳阴人，请注意，这两性在他的身上并不是平等存在的，而是有分明的等级：男在上，女在下；男为“方法”(Uppaya)，女为“智慧”(Prajna)。阳性统治着阴性。这个“两性合一”的教义是每个密宗经文的中心论断。一个修练者的目的就是要在自己体内实现这一阴阳合一的双性神性。
请注意，这个体内的阴阳合一的双性，不是说修练者的性被中和了，正相反，这两性在他的体内加倍地交合而产生巨大能量(在某种意义上可以想像成电的两极)。
我们知道，按照密宗教义，整个宇宙能量的源泉是两性的交合，那么现在修练者本身拥有男女两性之后，他就拥有了生育的能力----生育万物的能力。在这里我们来看一个历史上的有趣巧合：传说历史上的佛祖身体上有三十二个象征，比如脚板上有日轮图案等。
第十个象征是西方医学上叫做Cryptorchidie的症状，即阳具为一皮肤皱折所盖住，“掩藏在阴道里，犹如雄马一样”。
在大乘佛教里这被解释成佛祖的无性，因为大乘佛教认为性本身就是罪恶，而双性人更是双重的罪恶。在喇嘛教里自然就是佛祖天生的具有两性一体，而他的阳性能力并不因此而有缺乏，真相反，“犹如雄马一样”的强壮。
言归正传，上篇就曾说到喇嘛教的修练者为了练成此一阴阳合体，需要异性，我们就具体看看他是怎样的“需要”。修练所需的女性分为三种：
实女(Karma Mudra)，这是有血有肉的真实女性。
灵女(Inana Mudra)，她是由修练者的意念所塑造出来的。
内女(Maha Mudra)，修练者自身内部的阴性。
现来看“实女”，修练者应选择什么样的女子？密宗经文里有各种各样的说法，比如“选择一个漂亮的，有大眼睛的，苗条的少女，黑色的皮肤。。。”喇嘛Geduen Choepel(1895-1951，著有《性术六十四式》)的说法：西康的女孩肉软；卫藏的女孩性技术好；喀什米尔的女孩笑的好；等等。(参阅Geduen Choepel: Tibetan Arts of Love, Ithaca 1992)
有的经文要求采用经过Kama Sutra技巧训练的女孩。年轻是另外一个重要条件，我们来看看密宗的大法王(Maha Siddha) Saraha做的分类：
八岁的叫Kumari；
十二岁的叫Salika；
十六岁的叫Siddha，已有经血；
二十岁的叫Balika；
二十五岁的叫Bhadrakapalini(意为“烤焦的肥肉”)；
(参阅Alex Wayman: The Buddhist Tantras, New York 1973)
喇嘛Geduen Choepel警告和太年幼的“智慧女”行仪式所可能带来的外伤，并教导了一些减轻的方法。他并推荐，在与十二岁的“智慧女”行仪式前给她吃糖果和蜂蜜。密宗的大法王(Maha Siddha) Dombipa原是一个国王，他有一天看到一个流浪歌手的女儿，就把她买了下来，她是一个“无罪的处女，没有任何此世界的污染，是极罕见的，极贵重的莲花女(Padmini)”。(参阅Keith Dowman: Die Meister der Mahamudra, Leben,Legenden und Lieder der vierundachtzig Erleuchteten,Muenchen□1991)
仪式后“莲花女”的命运如何，书上没有记载。“八岁处女仪式”(Kumaripuja)是这样的：选出一个女孩，为灌顶仪式准备，不要让她知道将会发生什么。仪式时，让她裸体在祭坛上，接受信徒崇拜，最后由大法师或一个弟子破她。(参阅Benjamin Walker: Tantrismus. Die Lehren und Praktiken des linkshaendigen Pfades, Basel 1987)
印度教和西藏喇嘛教的密宗修练者都举行八岁处女仪式，萨迦巴的寺庙主持举行过此仪式，有明文记载。由于对数字的迷信，西藏的修练者喜欢十二岁活十六岁的“智慧女”，根据宗喀巴，只有在找不到上述女子的时候，才可以采用二十岁的。“智慧女”的岁数还可以和元素结合起来看：
十一岁的代表气；
十二岁的代表火；
十三岁的代表水；
十四岁的代表土；
十五岁的代表音；
十六岁的代表触觉；
十七岁的代表味觉；
十八岁的代表形状；
二十岁的代表嗅觉；
和二十岁以上的女人不可以再举行仪式，因为她们反而会倒吸大法师的能量。当然这些年龄级的女人在喇嘛教中也都有名称，比如：21-30岁叫最黑的，最肥的，最贪婪的，最傲慢的，暴虐，电击，咆哮，铁链和怪眼；39-46岁叫狗嘴，吸盘嘴，豺狼爪，虎口，怪鸟脸，猫头鹰脸，秃鹫嘴等等等等。这里就不再一一列举了。
那么喇嘛的这些“智慧女”是从哪里得来的？通常情况下是由弟子献给法师的。实际上在喇嘛教里信徒最重要的任务之一就是为“大师”物色“智慧女”。我们可以在喇嘛教的经文里读到：“信徒应该将他的姐妹，女儿或者妻子献给法师。”(参阅Alex Wayman: The Buddhist Tantras, New York 1973)
这个“智慧女”对弟子来说越珍贵，就越应将她献出来。自然喇嘛教中还有很多这方面的咒语法术，比如：Om hri savaha!修练者将此咒语念上一万遍，一个“智慧女”就会出现在他面前并听命于他。
《时轮经》(Kalachakra Tantra)上介绍的方法：通告含酒精的饮料可以使“智慧女”更利于行仪式。有的经文则建议，如果“智慧女”不顺从，应以武力进行。(参阅Bhattacharyya: History of the Tantric religion, Manohar 1982)
“智慧女”需要有什么知识？这个问题说法不一，基本上来说，她应该对密宗有所了解。宗喀巴要求“智慧女”必须发誓，不对外泄密，他警告不要和不称的女人行法：“如果一个女人没有表现出高质量，那么她就是一个低级的莲花。不要和她在一起，给她一点贡品，表示一点尊敬，把她打发走，不要和她行法。”(参阅Miranda Shaw: Passionate Enlightenment, Women in Tantric Buddhism, Princeton 1994)
在Hevajra Tantra中要求行法前对“智慧女”要有一个月的准备期。
行法之后，“智慧女”对于修练者来说，不再有意义。就如吃完花生米后，将壳丢去。
我们从教义上了解了喇嘛教的性仪式后，再来看看其现实中的运行。既然喇嘛以佛教僧侣的面目出现，他们的这些性仪式当然是秘密中的秘密。我们就来看看这露出水面的冰山之角。英国的一个女作家Jane Campbell，她曾是Kagyupa大喇嘛Kalu Rinpoche(1905-1989)的翻译。有一天大喇嘛忽然要求她做他的“智慧女”，她虽然很吃惊但不得不服从师父(那时已年近八十)。后来她逃出了喇嘛教的圈子，所以我们今天能通过她的描述来窥视现代喇嘛教的“智慧女”仪式。西方的女子为什么甘心做“智慧女”并且保守秘密？一个原因是“大法师”是以神的形象站在她们的面前，当她们深信其宗教时，这个力量是不可抗拒的；第二个原因作为“智慧女”，她在信徒的小圈子里会忽然享有很高的地位，会被信徒们象女神一样地崇拜，因为她和大法师(活佛)行法。“智慧女”必需下毒誓，如果她不遵守誓言，她就会发疯而死并下千年地狱！为了吓她，Kalu Rinpoche曾对Jane Campbell说，他前世曾将一个泄密的女人通过咒语杀死。根据Jane Campell，此类手段在现代喇嘛教圈子里很有效的。“智慧女”在她与大喇嘛行法的期间，被信徒们当做女神般崇拜，但完后便被废弃，自然有更新鲜的“智慧女”出现。Jane Campbell描述，当她和Kalu Rinpoche行法期间，Kalu Rinpoche还和另一不到二十岁的女子行法，她突然死去了，据称是心脏病。当时Jane Campell受到严重的惊吓，以至她完全和外界失去了联系而成为大喇嘛的奴隶。(参阅June Campbell: Traveller in space, In search of female identity in Tibetan Buddhism, London 1996)
根据另一个英国女作家Mary Finnigan在她所在的喇嘛教圈子里“活佛”同时和几个女学生做法，并使他们各自以为自己是惟一被选中的。当被问到圈内的藏族女性是怎样看这个问题时，她说：“她们觉得是荣幸和任务，被喇嘛选中；我想藏族女人大概根本就没有性侵犯这个概念吧。”
《西藏死亡书》的注释者Sogyal Rinpoche被控告到法庭上，多位女性要求他赔偿一千万美金。后来他们庭外达成交易，据Sogyal Rinpoche的信徒称，这是Sogyal Rinpoche一次长时间做关冥想的结果。
由于此类时间不断暴露，某些喇嘛采取了另一辩解法，称这种法术并无不妥之处，并公开承认，他们是：Jattral Rinpoche, Dzongsar Khyentse, Dilgo Khyentse, Ongen Tulku。
如果我们不了解喇嘛教的教义，这些事件也许可以被掩饰成普通的桃色新闻。实际上它是喇嘛教修练的核心。
我们看到，这些喇嘛教义不仅仅是“某一古老经文里的某一句话”，而是活生生的现实，很遗憾。
西藏文化谈(八)：采阴术 (下)
上篇谈到了修练所需的女性分为三种：实女(Karma Mudra)，这是有血有肉的真实女性。灵女(Inana Mudra)，她是由修练者的意念所塑造出来的。内女(Maha Mudra)，修练者自身内部的阴性。
灵女(Inana Mudra)是修练者在意念中塑造出来的，和在《化神术》中所讲的一样，这个“意念塑造”不是由修练者自由发挥，而是必须精确地按照经文中所描述的形象使她在意念中再现。通常修练者需要长时间地坐关冥想，才能用第三只眼(灵眼或慧眼)看见意念中的灵女(Inana Mudra)。
通过与实女(Karma Mudra)和灵女(Inana Mudra)的交合，修练者自体内集聚了阴精而转化成内女(Maha Mudra)，她是修练者自身的一部份，她就是修练者自己。此时，修练者就可以在自己身体内部再现孕育万物的交合，他以此具有了操纵宇宙的能力。
这里出现了一个问题，既然此交合可以在意念中完成，那么实女(Karma Mudra)和灵女(Inana Mudra)的意义有什么不同？为什么和实女(Karma Mudra)仪式是不可少的？根据喇嘛教教义，实女(Karma Mudra)和灵女(Inana Mudra)的意义都在于使修练者看穿这世界的虚幻(空)，他澈悟之后，便可以用意念塑造由他控制的宇宙。在这个意义上，要将有血有肉的实女(Karma Mudra)看穿为虚幻是更困难的考验。所以实女(Karma Mudra)比灵女(Inana Mudra)更重要。看穿了这世界的虚幻本质后，修练者便不再受此虚幻世界的法则(自然法则，人为法则)所约束，因而便具有超自然的法力。根据黄教创始者宗喀巴：“在大澈大悟的道路上，“女伴”是必不可少的”，灵女(Inana Mudra)适合于地位比较低的修练者，或者作为仪式前的练习。另一个为什么实女(Karma Mudra)必不可少的原因是：喇嘛教的魔法需要取得所谓的“阴精”。
这里我们再温习一下喇嘛教的“翻转法则”，这是喇嘛教最本质的原理之一，它的解释就是，既然这世界是虚幻的，那么就没有什么法律，而当修行者故意地去触犯社会的禁忌之时，他更能看清这世界的虚幻性，更能大澈大悟。所以对于一个密宗修行者，破坏世上的一切准则，禁忌是他天赋的任务。看到这里我想大家可以明白，为什么我以前说“乱”是喇嘛教本身的特征之一，喇嘛教也不可能将自身的“乱”的因素克服，因为“乱”深深扎根在喇嘛教的教义里。当然这些翻转一切的权力，只有那些“有正确方法的人”才具有，那么什么人是“有正确方法的人”？当然就是喇嘛教的修行者。为什么一般人没有这个权力？这其中原因我想大家自己也能够想明白。
理解了这个翻转法则，我们就能明白为什么性在喇嘛教修行者大澈大悟的道路上是这么重要。正因为性对于以往的佛教僧侣是个最深的禁忌，所以喇嘛一定要去破坏这个禁忌，才能使自己的修练提高。正因为女人是这个虚幻世界的源泉，她在佛教眼中是罪恶的象征。这在喇嘛教的教义中就是：只有控制了这个罪恶的源泉，才能控制整个世界。所以在喇嘛教的所有宗教仪式中，性仪式是最高的，所有其它仪式都是其铺垫。那么根据翻转法则，修行者是否应该与外貌最丑恶，性格最暴虐的女人交合？经文中确实有此先例，比如大法王Tilopa就和一个臭气熏天的，有十八种丑恶象征(且不管这些丑恶是什么)的老妇交合。他的弟子Naropa也曾和一个麻风病的老妇行仪式。Naropa的弟子Marpa和一个坟地老女人行灌顶仪式，“她的乳房干瘪下垂，性器官巨大而有著极恶心的颜色。”但在大多数情况下都要求选年轻美貌的“智慧女”，对处女更有偏好。在实际运行中更是如此。对此喇嘛教的辩解是，年轻美貌的处女对修行者的诱惑力更大，也就更危险，修行者要看穿世界的虚幻，就需要更大的法力。
我们看到在容貌上翻转法则运用不彻底，但在智慧女的出生上确很彻底。基本上，智慧女的出生越低越好，如侍女，卖肉女，戏子，歌女，酒女，洗衣女等等。但这并不是说地位高的女人不合适，我想大家都明白难易是个重要问题。特别那些结了婚的贵族女人是灌顶仪式的理想智慧女，因为这里一个禁忌又被打破，表现了喇嘛的无上权威。同理乱伦也是喇嘛教修行者所追求的。
我们再看看翻转法则的一些具体运用：因为传统上僧侣禁酒肉，所以喇嘛教修行者就要去吃禁肉，这就是所谓的五种肉，其中人肉(称Maha mamsa，意为“大肉”)。通常这些人肉来自死尸或者来自那些“因为自己的孽源(Karma)而死，如在战场上因为因果报应而被杀死的人”。人肉可以制成丸药，以便服用。有些经文详细描写了人肉各部份的作用，比如脑，肝，肺，内脏，睾丸等在相应的仪式上的作用等。
Candamaharosana Tantra列了一些修行者和他的智慧女在灌顶仪式上吃的东西：屎，尿，唾液，残留在她牙齿间的食物，呕吐物，洗过屁眼的水。(参阅Christopher George:The Candamaharosana Tantra,New Haven 1974)
Hevajra Tantra的灌顶仪式上修行者用人头骨盛着经血饮下，其它食物还有臭鱼，狗屎，死尸体内的油，死尸体内的屎，月经布等等。(参阅Benjamin Walker: Tantrismus. Die Lehren und Praktiken des linkshaendigen Pfades, Basel 1987)
一个重要的原则是，当喇嘛教的修行者在吃这些物质时，不可以有任何恶心的感受，无论他吃什么，他都应该如美味地咽下。顺便提一下，屎尿之类不仅在喇嘛教的灌顶仪式上出现，它更是藏医药里的重要成份。大喇嘛(活佛)的屎尿是万能的良药，这些屎尿被做成药丸而买卖，这是现在西藏和流亡藏人社会中的一项重要经济。最珍贵的当然就是达赖喇嘛的屎尿了，1954年他到北京来时，他的屎尿都被收集在金盆里送回拉萨做成药丸。(参阅Tom Grunfeld: The making of modern Tibet, New York 1996)
言归正传，再回到灌顶仪式里的性交合上，这里一个重要的技术，就是修行者必须闭精。为什么？那就得了解一下藏文化中对人体的解释。当然我不想在这里讲解整个藏医学，只稍微解释一下相关的部份。在密宗里，男子的精液叫做Bodhicitta，这个词还有另外一个意思：灵光。什么是灵光？灵光就是修行者在大澈大悟时的体验。这里我们看到精液在喇嘛教信仰中的意义。在藏文化里，普通人认为大喇嘛血管里流淌的不是血液，而是精液。那么要大澈大悟就必须掌握控制精液的技术。喇嘛教的人体学，认为精液原储存于颅骨以下一个月亮形的空腔里，当人性亢奋时，精液便一滴滴地流出此腔，通过五个人体内的能量中心(Chakras)，此一过程给人带来强烈快感。精液最后流至阴茎尖端，修练者必须将整个意念集中于此一点，不使精液流失。如果修练者能控制住不射精，那么他就走向大澈大悟了。如果控制不住，他就有下地狱的危险！！此时他必须将精液挖出吞下。这里喇嘛教有个例外，闭精是在修练的弟子必须遵守的，但作为师父的大法王却不需要，因为大法王已经大澈大悟了！闭精的技术必须通过长期的，痛苦的练习才能掌握。
同男子的精液一样重要，女性拥有所谓的阴精。阴精是指经血或者其它阴道分泌物。男子的精液称“白色”，女子的精液称“红色”。我们知道经血在绝大多数文明里都是不洁的象征，这里自然又是喇嘛教的翻转法则运用的好地方。所以灌顶仪式最好在智慧女来经血之时举行。当然藏文化里对经血也有详细的分类，如处女的经血，出身卑贱的女人的经血，结了婚的女人的经血，寡妇的经血等等，等级不同。参阅Bhattacharyya: History of tantric religion, Manobar 1982)
按照喇嘛教的观点生命产生于男子的精液和女子的精液的混合。这个混合物就是密宗信仰里神秘的仙露(Sukra)。因为此混合物是生命的源泉，那么如果喇嘛教的修行者能不断地摄取此物，他就得到了永生。因为他的身体内有此混合物，他就可以自生，从而脱离了再生轮回。那么要产生这个混合物和闭精是否相矛盾？这里有一个更高的技巧，即所谓的Vajroli方法：修练者在射精以后将此混合物再通过尿道吸收回去，此时他口念：“通过我的力量，通过我的精液提取你的精液---你没有了精液。”
要掌握这一技巧需要更痛苦更长期的练习，比如将金属棍插入尿道等等。(参阅Mircea Eliade: Yoga, Unsterblichkeit und Freiheit, Frankfurt 1984)
如果修练者掌握不了这个高超的技术，那么还有一个方法，他必须将此混合物接入一个骷髅头骨然后饮下。也有的经文要求将此混合物用管子通过鼻孔吸入。
现在我们了解了喇嘛教秘密修练术的动机和基本运做，在以下的几篇里，我将具体地解释《时轮经》的灌顶仪式。《时轮经》作为喇嘛教的最高经文，它的仪式象征具有代表意义。
西藏文化谈(九)：时轮大法(Kalachakra Tantra)(大纲)
产生于十世纪的《时轮经》是密宗最后一个经文，它代表着密宗教义的最高峰。同其它经文相比，《时轮经》对密宗的世界观有著最复杂最权威的解释。我们可以将《时轮经》称为密宗的最高教义，黄教创始人宗喀巴认为，理解了《时轮经》的人，可以毫无困难地掌握其它任何密宗经文。虽然每一个喇嘛教的教派都演习《时轮经》，但只有很少的专家有权威举行复杂的《时轮经》仪式。传统上黄教里只有达赖和班禅有权举行此仪式，Namgyal学院作为专门研究《时轮经》的机构，负责为达赖喇嘛做理论上和礼仪上的准备工作。《时轮经》的仪式分为公开的和秘密的两部分，理论上任何人都可以参加《时轮经》公开的仪式。但高层的，重要的仪式只有喇嘛教内部人士才能参加。经文表明上称每个人都有可能通过《时轮经》的修练在一生之内达到大澈大悟，但实际上只有极少数喇嘛能得到中层以上的灌顶。
尽管如此，近年来达赖常开群众大会式的《时轮经》低层仪式并声称，来参加仪式的人都能结良缘，虔诚者会再生于香巴拉(Shambhala)。根据达赖的描绘，《时轮经》的灌顶仪式会“解放整个人类”，“维持世界和平”，大批参与仪式的群众和很少的确实被灌顶的人都是人类道德的表率。
我想大家看了这些崇高的言辞，都想了解《时轮经》的内容是什么，《时轮经》的灌顶仪式是怎么举行的？这将是这几篇西藏文化谈的所要详细解答的问题。
密宗的经文基本上可以分为父经，母经和无性经。父经最主要的内容是教导修练者在自身体内塑造一个神体的方法，核心就是化神术。母经最主要的内容是塑造一个“空”的境界与极乐的感觉，以及使“灵光”出现，这里修练者使用的方法就是采阴术。无性的经文是父经和母经的结合，修练的目的是使喇嘛既变成万能的神又达到涅般(Nirvana)的境界。《时轮经》被有些人看做无性经，但也有将其看做母经。《时轮经》可以分为内，外，转换三部分。外部《时轮经》描述宇宙的产生与毁灭，解说天文地理，分析世界历史，预测未来，特别预测宗教战争。这里有重要意义的是有关香巴拉的描述，另一个重点是占星学和与其相关的数学计算。西藏的历法与时间定义就是根据《时轮经》的天文和占星部份制定的。内部《时轮经》讲解神秘的能源躯体学。按照密宗的观点，人体中存在着许多“能量中心”，“能量中心”通过秘密管道相连接，体液和“风”川流于此复杂的管道系统中。最重要的体液，在男性是精液，在女性是经血。转换部《时轮经》讲解神秘躯体内部与宇宙星体之间的联系，教授通过对躯体内部的控制而操纵宇宙的技巧。
《时轮经》属于密宗最高的神秘经文(Anuttara-Yoga-Tantra)，它的秘密内涵是喇嘛教千方百计想要隐藏的，比如我们在喇嘛Ngawang Dhargyey关于《时轮经》的书中读到：“要限制此书的扩散，只有受过《时轮经》灌顶的人才可以阅读。不小心而产生的后果对本教的影响将是很负面的。”(参阅Lharampa Ngawang Dhargyey: A commentary of the Kalachakra Tantra, New Delhi 1985)
这种装模作样的恫吓是神秘主义宗教惯有的“秀”手段，今天，如果想要了解这个经文的禁秘内容，只要去西方的大图书馆就可以了。当然，在旧西藏是另一番景象，那时，密宗最高的神秘经文是不许印刷的，而只能由手抄，即使是僧侣也很难得到较高的《时轮经》灌顶。而修练者需要付出长的多的时间，群众大会式的灌顶仪式是几乎没有的。
本篇是《时轮经》的大概介绍，下篇开始我将具体讲解《时轮经》的灌顶仪式。
西藏文化谈(十)：时轮大法(Kalachakra Tantra)七级低层灌顶
什么是灌顶仪式(Abhisheka)？灌顶仪式的目的是将能量和思想从大喇嘛传到弟子身上。师父和弟子之间的关系是绝对的等级关系。而师父当年也曾是弟子，也有自己的师父，这条家谱线可以一直追溯到历史上的佛祖。师父和弟子之间的传授通常是由嘴对耳，但语言不是唯一的传授方法，通过手势和图形象征同样可以进行。这两种传授方法(用嘴的和无言的)还都是人对人的传授。所谓的“佛祖亲授”则是由神灵直接对弟子传授，没有师父。还有一种“女魔传授”即由女飞天(Dakini)指点给弟子经文秘藏之处(通常在荒野山洞里)，这种秘经(Terma)据称是古时先知或神灵所埋藏的。正统的喇嘛对这种非人对人的传授非常讨厌，因为这使他们的传授特权受到损坏。当然这种非人对人的传授一般人也无可能采用，只有象五世达赖这样的才有资格宣称。
《时轮经》的灌顶仪式是按照印度的国王登基仪式(Rajasuya)设计的。通过Rajasuya王储得到国王的权威，同样，通过灌顶仪式喇嘛教的修练者教得到作为神的光芒而出现的权力。当然这里施灌顶的大喇嘛(更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net