THERE WAS A TIME WHEN TIBET RULED CHINA
and/or www.mantra.com/jai
By Arabinda Ghose
The Organiser
Page 30/42
November 8, 2009 issue
The Tibetans had never accepted Chinese suzerainty, and remained a
sovereign nation forcibly under occupation and control by the
Chinese. In fact Tibet had once occupied China and sacked its capital
too. The time, therefore, has come to tell the people of India as
also the world, that China must grant full sovereignty to Tibet and
leave the Tibetans to their own fate.
It is most disconcerting for any Indian to watch the Government of
India reacting in an abject manner to the objections by China to the
visit by our Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh visiting Arunachal
Pradesh as if this country is a client state of China.
Instead of quoting the Constitution of India for asserting that this
State is an inalienable part of India, as Finance Minister Pranab
Mukherjee did in Kolkata recently, the country wants this Government
to tell China to shut up and vacate their occupation of Tibet,
What is more, it is time for India and the democratic world to demand
that Tibet be given back her sovereignty because the "fact " of
Chinese suzerainty over Tibet, which this country had gullibly
swallowed during the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Chinese had
exercised control over Tibet by fraudulent and even murderous means,
as will be revealed in the following paragraphs quoting reliable
authorities. In fact Tibet had once occupied China and sacked its
capital too.
We have in our hands two or three very reliable sources to support
our views-one is a book by Nepalese scholar-politician Balchandra
Sharma referring to cultural influence of Nepal over China, the
second is the book Chronology and History of Nepal from 600 BC to 880
AD by Dr Kashi Prasad Jaiswal and lastly, Lhasa Vols I and II by
Perceval Landon, Special Correspondent of the Times, London, who had
accompanied the 1903-04 British expedition to Lhasa led by Sir
Francis Younghusband.
We will briefly take up the writings of these three authors.
Shri Sharma who was a leading light of the Nepali Congress in the
1950s and the 1960s, had led a cultural delegation to China in the
1960s when he saw the remnants of the several architects built by a
Nepalese sculpture-builder Arniko, spelt Aniko in Chinese. One of
them is a monastery near Bejing, still standing. One may remind
readers that the Kathmnadu-Kodari Highway which takes one to Lhasa
and built by the Chinese in 1964-67, is called the Arniko Rajmarga.
in Nepal.
One will find on page 79 of the book Chronology and History of Nepal
from 600 BC to 880 AD the following lines: "The T'ang History, gives
the contemporary history of Tibet, which had been translated by Dr
S.W. Bushel, physician to the British Legation in Peking, in the
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,1880 p.433ff. According to it,
Strong-stand-Gampo (Chinese Ch/it-sung-lungtsan) died in 650 and was
succeeded by his grandson aged 8,whose son Chi'nu Shsilung was killed
in this expedition against Nepal and was succeeded by a minor son
aged 7 in 703 A.D. It was no until 755-756 (two successions later)
that the Tibetan King once more rose in military greatness by
attacking China and taking its capital in 736 A.D."
So it is the T'ang history that says that a Tibetan King had actually
attacked China and taken its capital. We have more evidence in the
two books by Perceval Landon who incidentally, had authored a book on
the ancient history of Nepal too by discovering a "vamsavali"
(genealogy).
Landon's Vol.1 has this to say about the Tibet-China relationship,
abridged for want of space: "This history is not one of great
interest and may be chiefly dismissed as one of continued hostility
with China, but on hostility on equal terms. That the result of these
border skirmishes was by no means as uniformly satisfactory to China
as one may imagine from her version of the events, is clear but about
the 640 A.D, the King of Tibet, Srong-tsan-Gambo, succeeded in
obtaining the hands of a princess of the imperial house of the Tang
against the will of the emperor and after some years of fighting.....
Strong-tsan-gambo's grandson, Ti-strong-de-stand, resumed hostilities
with China and in 763 actually sacked the capital Changam or Hsia-
Fu....."
Vol II has more details of how the Chinese had controlled Tibet. One
recalls that this distinguished journalist had accompanied the
Francis Younghusband mission of the British to Lhasa in 1903-04.
Referring to this, in Chapter I of the Vol II, Landon says
:..."Before taking up again the story of the Expedition, I propose to
sketch the internal affairs of Lhasa for the last few years with
somewhat greater detail than before.
The key to the situation in Tibet, which was now becoming desperate,
is to be found in the deliberate and steady determination of the
Tibetans to do away with Chinese suzerainty. This is a policy of long
standing. Thirty-five years ago, the spirit of independence was
already abroad in Tibet, and there was a recognized progressive
party, headed by no less a dignitary than the treasurer of the Gaden
monastery. Under the old regime, as is well known, a consistent
policy of regency, made possible only by the equally systematic
assassination of each successive young Grand Lama before he reached
the age of eighteen, resulted in a continual regency ,and therefore,
also a continued opportunity for the assertion and reassertion of the
Chinese suzerainty, for no regent could be appointed without the
sanction of the Chinese emperor."
The very election of the Dalai Lama himself was theoretically subject
to the approval of Peking, but this prerogative was seldom or never,
exercised. In other parts of the his dominions the Chinese emperor
made undoubted use of his rights, Without going into more details at
this stage, we would like to quote Landon once again here: "China had
been of no use to them in their dispute with India (prior to the
Younghusband expedition) and to have the "reincarnated" the Dalai
Lama at that moment meant a repetition of the usual opportunity for
the exertion of Chinese influence which would have peculiarly
inappropriate and even disastrous. He was, therefore, allowed the
survive maturity, but only as a religious pontiff, the temporary
power remaining in the hands of the regent. But as soon as the Treaty
was signed, the last vestige of Chinese influence in Tibet was thrown
off by a coup d'etat, in 1805 (The Treaty was with Russia, if one is
not mistaken)."
These references show clearly that the Tibetans had never accepted
Chinese suzerainty, and remained a sovereign nation forcibly under
occupation and control by the Chinese. The time, therefore, has come
to tell the people of India as also the world, that China must grant
full sovereignty to Tibet and leave the Tibetans to their own fate.
End of forwarded article from:
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=316&page=30
Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
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