Concept · high plateau civilisation · Tibet
Tibet (Bod)
Also known as Tibet, Bod, Xizang, Thibet, Trans-Himalayan plateau
The high plateau north of the Himalaya that India's Buddhist, trading and manuscript traditions have reached across for more than a thousand years — Shantarakshita, Padmasambhava and Atisha carried Nalanda and Vikramashila into Tibet in the 8th to 11th centuries, Kashmiri painters and metalworkers reached Alchi and Guge in the 11th, and the Dalai Lama's residence at Dharamshala from 1959 made the exile relationship permanent. The Chumbi corridor through Nathu La, the Zoji La from Kashmir, the Lipulekh from Kumaon and the Mustang route via Muktinath are the historical crossings.
- Function
- Cosmology & sacred geography
- Tradition
- Standard reference; Diana Eck's India: A Sacred Geography; Tibetan monastic histories (Taranatha); Central Tibetan Administration records.
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Worth knowing
Chinese administration of Tibet since 1950 has closed the pilgrim and trade routes that had operated for a millennium, with limited reopenings since the 1980s. The Kailash-Mansarovar yatra from India across the Lipulekh is the principal surviving Hindu-Buddhist cross-border pilgrimage.
Connections (3)
- Missionary journey toSadhu Sundar Singh
Sadhu Sundar Singh crossed into Tibet more than twenty times between 1908 and 1929, from the Kashmir, Sikkim and Ladakh frontiers, carrying only the New Testament in Urdu and preaching through the villages of the high plateau. He wrote accounts of his encounters with Tibetan lamas and village households and spoke of Christ in terms deliberately adapted to the Vajrayana Buddhist listener. On his final journey in April 1929 he disappeared somewhere on the way to Mount Kailasa and was never seen again; the manner of his death remains unknown.
- Capital siteJokhang Temple, Lhasa
The Jokhang is the central temple of Lhasa, the capital and spiritual centre of Tibet.
- TransmissionMainpat
The plateau carries a Tibetan population, Tibetan weaving and Tibetan observance a thousand miles from Tibet, settled after 1959. It is the furthest south-east that the exile reached in any numbers.