The Christian Discovery of Tibet

Appendix V

PADRE FRANCISCO DE AZEVEDO’S LETTER – SPRING 1632

Appendix VI

BIOGRAPHY OF THE TSAPARANG MISSIONARIES

Bibliography

Books and Periodicals

Letters

INTRODUCTION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BACKGROUND

For centuries, practically the only travelers to enter Tibet were merchants who supplied the Tibetans with food stuffs and goods that Tibet did not have. Information about the mysterious country behind the mountains came from these merchants. Some also came from the invading armies of the countries surrounding Tibet, as well as the armies of the kingdoms in Tibet that carried out raids outside of Tibet. These raids were usually successful and included the areas of China and northern India. Another important source of information came from the Buddhist monks who traveled to other countries and were instrumental in developing the close relationship between Tibet and Mongolia.

Christian clerics traveling from the west heard about the land hidden behind the snowy mountains from other travelers along the road. Some were in the form of stories about fantastic kingdoms, peoples and animals. The earliest missionaries came from the Middle East, but the stories reached as far as Europe and over the centuries the number of Christian missionaries coming from Western Europe became dominant. Nevertheless, there is no record that any of these early Christian travelers reached the Tibetan plateau other than touching just the edge of the country.

As the stories passed from one person to another they changed slightly, as in the childhood game of telephone, and some came closer to flights of the imagination than reality. Among the stories were those about Christian realms hidden in the high mountains and other isolated areas. The search for these lost realms became one of the primary aims of the missionaries.

Travelers thought that some of the hidden kingdoms were in Tibet and the countries surrounding it. One of the missionaries who were certain that there was a Christian kingdom in Tibet was the Portuguese Jesuit Padre António de Andrade who was the Padre Superior in the Mogul region of northern India. This book is about his journey from northern India over the Himalayas to the city of Tsaparang in the Kingdom of Guge, a powerful kingdom in western Tibet, where he founded a mission that continued to function even after his death. The period covered is 1625 to 1641.

The scope of this book is narrow. After describing the earlier history of Tibet and the Orient, it starts with Padre Andrade’s very difficult journey over the Himalayas accompanied by lay brother Manuel Marques and two native companions. Their journey took them to Tsaparang, which was the capital city of the Kingdom of Guge. There they befriended the King and learned about western Tibet and the people that lived there. After a short stay they returned to northern India after promising to return the following year.

On their return the following year Padre Andrade renewed his friendship with the King, who expressed interest in Christianity. The King helped with the construction of a church and houses for the padres. For several years missionaries came to Tsaparang to work in the mission for varying lengths of time and different degrees of dedication. Some of them learned the Tibetan language, something Padre Andrade considered essential to their work. In 1630, the King of Ladakh, the neighboring kingdom, attacked and conquered the Kingdom of Guge. The King of Guge was taken to Ladakh and may of the Christian converts fled or were taken prisoner. The padres were not allowed to preach and in the early 1630s the padres at the Tsaparang mission were asked to leave. The last attempt to reactivate the mission was in 1641 and the two missionaries who went were captured. One escaped and the other died in captivity.

The story of the Tsaparang mission has never been told in its entirety in one place. Other authors have focused on one part of the story in accordance with their area of specialization. This book ties together the different lines of investigation and hopefully will prompt some new areas of research.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

The information about the mission in Tsaparang and what was going on in Tibet and northern India mostly came from the letters written by the padres at the Tsaparang mission, the Jesuit mission in the Mogul Empire and the Jesuit headquarters in Goa. There were also a few letters from other Jesuit missions in India, the Jesuit headquarters in Vatican City and the rare letters from the native rulers in Tibet and Northern India.

The main source of primary information is the letters in the Jesuit Archives in Vatican City and those consulted are listed in the Bibliography. The letters were translated from the original 17th-century Portuguese and Italian into modern Portuguese and English. The English versions of the letters, or more correctly reports, written by Padre António de Andrade and Padre Francisco de Azevedo are included in Appendices. However, besides the letters that are in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, there appears to be no other repository of documents relating to the Tsaparang mission.

Several secondary sources were consulted, but these were mostly about the history of Tibet, about Christianity or Buddhism in Tibet and India or about individuals and groups active in the 16th and 17th century. The secondary sources providing the most information about Padre Andrade and the Tibet mission are by Hugues Didier and Father C. Wessels. While providing excellent information, as well as a broader historical view of Tibet, they did not describe the complete history of the Tsaparang mission.

In addition to the texts mentioned above, there are other books from the 17th to 20th centuries that mention the Tsaparang mission each adding a piece of information adding to the story of the principal events that took place. However, some texts contain errors, which, unfortunately were copied by others and only corrected in the most recent documents.

LINGUISTIC CONSIDERATIONS

One of the problems facing both the missionaries and researchers working on the Tsaparang mission, but also as well as on anything to do with Tibet, is how to express Tibetan in other languages. Written Tibetan has remained basically the same since the 11th century. However the pronunciation has changed over the centuries, as it has in other languages, including English.

A system for transliterating Tibetan using the letters on an English-language typewriter was developed by Turrell V. Wylie. While the Wylie transliteration method helps with studies involving written Tibetan, it was not intended to deal with the sounds of spoken Tibetan.

As a result, oral Tibetan creates problems with speakers of other languages because the words are heard and understood based on the sounds of the listener. When the words are written in the other language, the letters/characters may not have equivalent sounds and the word comes out with a different sound by someone who has not heard the original. This would get more aggravated as it enters even more languages. In the end, two people may be talking about kings or places and not realize they are talking about the same person or place because of the difference in perceived pronunciation.

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

The complications that arose in writing the book were not due only to the problems of language. Authors consulted disagreed about names, places and dates involved with the mission, Tibet, northern India and the lands surrounding these areas. The information used in the text was selected by using that which was accepted my most authors

There were also problems with the archive letters. As an illustration, it was not always possible to tell how many missionaries were at the Tsaparang mission, or possible secondary missions, at any given time or when they were there. For example, in one letter there is a reference to two missionaries in Tibet and in another letter written shortly afterward the same author refers to five, without any mention of arrivals or names. Although it is uncertain if all the missionaries who served in the Tsaparang mission have been identified, a short biography of those known to have been part of the mission is in Appendix 1.

In addition, beginning in the late 1830s the padres in the Tsaparang mission wrote conflicting reports on the success of the mission and the distribution of funds used to support the functioning of the missions. One padre even accused Padre Andrade of falsifying his claims of success and is covered in more detail in the text.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my great appreciation to the staff of the Archives of the Order of Jesus in Vatican City. They were most helpful in helping me find the documents about the Tsaparang mission, as well as those in the archives of the Jesuit administrative headquarters and missions.

I would also like to thank Enzo Gualtiero Bargiacchi for his helpful suggestions, Sara Campbell, Ronnie French and Willow Hale for their comments on the text that have made it clearer and easier to follow a complex story.

CHAPTER I

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Tibet. Just hearing the word brings to mind a land of rich social and religious customs, a land of mystery, a land taken over by outsiders that have no concern for Tibet’s people and their lives. The curiosity about Tibet is nothing new. Far back in history people knew of the Land of the Snows, which is located on a high plateau behind the barrier of the highest mountain range in the world along with others not quite so high.

There are different versions of the very early history of Tibet, which are beyond the scope of this book to evaluate. What is significant is that all the versions intimately link Tibet’s history to the religions practiced there and the story is often passed on through the village storyteller. As Francke states in his book, A History of Western Tibet,

Different from the national epic of other nations, the Tibetan national epic has not been preserved in one single version. Almost every village of Western Tibet has a version of its own which generally differs much from the version of the next village. But there is a version in existence which we may call the official version. Lamaism took hold of this famous topic, and a poem was composed in which the ancient pre-Buddhist religious system was reconciled with Buddhism. The poem has, however, not achieved any popularity in Western Tibet. Here people prefer to listen to the village bard, when he sings to them the ancient songs, quaintly intermingled with passages in prose. [A History of Western Tibet, p. 53.]

This does not meant that nothing was known about Tibet. From the earliest times knowledge about Tibet and life behind the mountains gradually came over the passes to the surrounding kingdoms. Most of it came from merchants traveling over the high passes into Tibet to provide the many things needed by people who could not grow much and did not have the resources to produce a lot. In addition, to a lesser extent information came when the armies of one or more of the Tibetan kingdoms attacked a neighbor, as well as from Tibet’s merchants trading their merchandise to their neighbors.

During the 11th century BCE, Tanpo (Lord) Shenrab Miwo made changes in the animism practiced by the indigenous population and established the Bön religion in a large part of the Zhang Zhung kingdom in western Tibet. Bön was the original Tibetan religion and was organized out an earlier native collection of beliefs and rituals. It was shamanistic and the adherents believed that the world was filled with good and evil spirits, and that the gods Dagpa, Salba and Sepa guide humanity and bring the teachings of Bön in three successive eras.

The Zhang Zhung kingdom became powerful and spread across all of Tibet and Bön became the religion throughout the Tibetan plateau. There were 18 Zhang Zhung kings, but over the centuries the kingdom’s power decreased. In the eighth century CE, the central Tibetan King Songtsen Gampo conquered Zhang Zhung and created the Kingdom of Bod, the name Tibetans still use for their country. In order to ensure unification of his kingdom, the king married three princesses: first was a believer in Bön from Zhang Zhung and later he married a Buddhist from China and a Buddhist from Nepal. The king was influenced by his Buddhist wives and established Buddhism as the royal religion; however, it did not spread to the general population at this time.

The main manifestation of the foreign faith was a set of thirteen Buddhist temples the Emperor had built on specially chosen geomantic sites around his realm, including Bhutan. With Tibet conceived as a demoness lying on her back and locations for the temples carefully selected according to the rules of Chinese acupuncture applied to the body of the demoness, Songtsen-gampo hoped to neutralize any opposition to his rule from local malevolent spirits. [History of the Early Period of Buddhism and Bön in Tibet, Berzin.]

The most important of the thirteen temples was built 80 miles from the Tibetan capital in the Yarlung Valley. It was located at Rasa, which means place of the goats, but was later renamed Lhasa, or place of the gods.

Buddhism and Tibet

Siddharta Gautama was born in northern India in 563 BCE and died around 483 BCE. His father was ruler of the kingdom of Sakhya. When Siddharta was born his father asked astrologers about his future. They told him his would be a monarch or a monk, the latter if he saw an old man, an ill man, a dead man and a monk. As a result his father kept him enclosed in the palace grounds where he enjoyed all the comforts his family’s riches could provide. At the age of 16 he married princess Yashodâra with whom he had a son, Rahula, and they continued living in the palace. One day shortly after his son was born, Siddharta decided to see what life outside the palace was like and went into the town.

While exploring, he came across an old man, an ill man and a dead man, as well as a monk who had a manner that greatly impressed Siddharta. The misery he saw among the people shocked and disgusted him. Consequently, at the age of 29 he decided he would learn how to overcome human suffering and left his kingdom and took up an ascetic life while he studied a variety of religions, none of which met his needs. After 6 years, the story says he attained his enlightened answer while sitting under the Bodhi Tree. From then on, at age 35, he became known as the Buddha and gave his teachings to five companions. For another 45 years he gave his teaching about the path to follow to all who cared to learn.

Buddha, which means awakened in Sanskrit, is someone who has become enlightened, has experienced Nirvana and helps all humanity to achieve enlightenment. After his enlightenment, Gautama, also known as Sakyamuni, became the principal spiritual teacher and founder of Buddhism.

There are a great number of stories about the life of Gautama and many of his discourses and tenets were collected and passed on orally until about 400 years after his death when they were written down. These are readily available for persons who are interested; however, they are not the main aim of this book. The point of interest in this text is the spread of Buddhism, with a focus on Tibet.

While both Bön and Buddhism made attempts to overcome each other, Buddhism eventually became the religion accepted by the greater part of the population. Nevertheless, along the way, Tibetan Buddhism absorbed some aspects of Bön and the leaders of the Bön religion took steps to modify their religion so that it would not be wiped out. The Tibetan expert Berzin attributes the anti-Buddhist activities to xenophobia against a foreign religion rather than opposition to the religion itself. Despite efforts of early Buddhist Tibet to eliminate the Bön religion, it still exists today among some groups in Tibet and the Dalai Lama has recognized it as the fifth religious tradition of Tibet.

Under Songtsen Gampo, Tibet became a military power in central Asia and even conquered part of China and countries northwest of Tibet. Aside from using force to unify his kingdom, Songtsen Gampo sent his minister Tonmi Sambhota to obtain an alphabet in Khotan, a kingdom north of western Tibet. As the minister was passing through Kashmir, he came across Li Chin, the master from Khotan. After he had learned the writing system from the Khotanese master, Tonmi Sambhota took it back to Tibet, where it was used to translate Buddhist texts from Sanskrit. Songtsen Gampo died in the year 650.

In 755, a xenophobic group wary of too much influence by the Chinese poisoned the king, whose son was still a child. They began a purge of Buddhism in 755 that lasted for six years. In 756, Trisong Detsen took the throne, but did not take control of the government until he came of age in 761. He declared himself a Buddhist and made it the state religion. He also asserted Buddhist Tibet’s authority over their lands in Central Asia and invaded China, capturing the capital Chang-an, present-day Xian. The king expelled the Chinese school of Buddhism and accepted the Indian tradition as the one to be followed. In 766, Trisong Detsen constructed the Samye Monastery, the first Buddhist monastery in the country devoted to use by Tibetans. [The History of the Early Period of Buddhism and Bon in Tibet, Berzin] The first seven native Tibetan monks were ordained and the number of native monks grew to more than 300 by the time the monastery was completed in 775.

Although the monks were ordained in the Indian tradition, Trisong Detsen tried to follow a policy of a synthesis of the Tibetan, Indian and Chinese cultures. This led to both Indian and Han Chinese teachers being invited to Samye. [The History of the Early Period of Buddhism and Bön in Tibet, Berzin] The policy of cultural blending possibly extended to Christians, at least in western Tibet. Groups had been there since the 6th and 7th centuries and were relatively strong. Patriarch Timothy I wrote a letter in the eighth century referring to the need to appoint another bishop for Tibet, which he considered a significant community of the Eastern Church.

Despite Trisong Detsen’s efforts, the royal court still had a xenophobic faction that opposed some of his efforts. Most of the xenophobes supported the Bön religious doctrine, but their opposition was more political than religious. No Tibetan source says that followers of the native tradition

Were forced to renounce their customs and beliefs and convert to Buddhism. It is much more likely that the Tibetan indigenous tradition and Buddhism had been mixed with each other since at least the time of Emperor Songtsen-gampo… The mutual influence of each religious system on the other would in any case have naturally occurred and grown due to the presence of spiritual masters of both at Samyay. [The History of the Early Period of Buddhism and Bön in Tibet, Berzin]

This indicates that the religious problems were resolved by a intermingling of beliefs and that the problems between the groups arose from their political differences.

The tug-of-war between the Buddhist and Bön factions went on for many years. In addition to the domestic conflicts, Tibet had to confront external pressures from the Uighers to the north and the Kyrgyz to the northwest, as well as the Islamic Arabs and eastern Turks to the west. Tibet also continued its on and off conflicts with China.

In 815, Tri Relpachen became ruler and was one of the strongest supporters of Buddhism in Tibet’s history. He was considered one of the three main royal patrons of Buddhism, along with Songtsen Gampo and Trisong Detsen. He had a Sanskrit-Tibetan dictionary produced and worked on standardizing the Buddhist texts. Under his rule, Tibet and China signed a peace treaty in 821, ensuring peace for more than twenty years. However, Tri Relpachen was probably too zealous in his support of Buddhism and the Bön supporters of his brother Langdarma, and as a result Langdarma assassinated him. [The History of the Early Period of Buddhism and Bön in Tibet, Berzin]

Langdarma began to persecute the Buddhists, closing all the monasteries and making the monks disrobe and killing those who refused. [The Revival…, Berzin] However, he did not destroy the monasteries, nor did he destroy their libraries. His reign was short and ended in 842 when the former abbot of Samye monastery assassinated him. [The History of the Early Period of Buddhism and Bön in Tibet, Berzin]

After Langdarma’s death, there was no strong central power in Tibet. Because of the large number of conflicting factions, the country split into numerous, small autonomous regions. Not until around 400 years later did central rule return to Tibet.

Nevertheless, Buddhism survived and the monastic tradition was maintained by three monks that fled Lhasa. Mongol sources say they fled north to Lake Baikal in Siberia where they practiced their religion. Other sources say that they went to the Tsongka Kingdom in northern Amdo, which is located in northeastern Tibet. [The Revival…, Berzin] After a few years they went to Kham Tibet, where over the years young men went to study to become monks and prepared to return to central Tibet.

Another area where Buddhism was able to seek refuge was with the Ladakh dynasty founded by Nyima-Gon, with its center located east of present-day Ladakh, a rocky, desert area located on the western boundary of the Tibetan plateau between the Himalayas on the south and the Karakoram mountains on the north. Nyima-Gon’s younger sons ruled in western Tibet and founded the kingdoms of Guge and Pu-hrang. At a later time, the son of the King of Guge became a Buddhist and sent scholars to Kashmir to study and establish a new course for Buddhism in west Tibet. The royal line continued to rule in this Buddhist kingdom for many years. This was to be where the Jesuits founded their mission several hundred years later in the 17th century. In 1624 Jesuit Padre António de Andrade arrived in the city of Tsaparang, capital of the kingdom of Guge, and set up a mission which lasted almost 20 years. He and his fellow Jesuits converted a number of the population and had the goodwill of the king. The king’s brother was head of monastery and did not like the Christian influence and finally approached the king of Ladakh to send his troops against his brother. As a result the kingdom of Guge was destroyed. The mission and subsequent events are described in the letters after the introductory material.

While western Tibet provided a remote location for the rebirth of Buddhism, the eastern part of the country was much more important in the history of the country. Some of the monks being trained at Kham in southeastern Tibet were sent to Amdo in northeastern Tibet for further study before going to Central Tibet. Among them was Sherab Tshulthrim, head of the

Khon family. His younger brother Konchog Gyalpo was sent from the eastern schools to India for further study. He returned to Tibet and in 1073 built an important temple called Gorum Zimci Karpo, but known as Sakya because of the white patch of land above it (sa-skyn means white earth in Tibetan). Sherabs’ son was Sachen Kunga Nyingpo, who became an exceptional monk. Sachen had four sons, with his third son, Jetsun Dakpa Gyaltsen, also becoming an exceptional monk. Jetsun Dakpa’s most important student was Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyaltsen, who was his nephew, son of his youngest brother. Sakya Pandita was an extraordinary student and became a monk at age 27. He produced numerous translations and writings that were important in Tibetan Buddhism.

In 1244, Koton Khan invited Sakya Pandita to Mongolia. Koton was grandson of Ghengis Khan, son of his successor Ogodei and brother of Guyug Khan who was the Great Khan at this time of the invitation. The old monk traveled to Mongolia with his nephews Drogon Chagyal Phagpa and Chagma Dorj. Sakya Pandita taught Koton and converted him to Buddhism. Despite earlier contacts between the Mongols and Tibetans, this was the real beginning of the two cultures influencing one another.

The first Gelug sect monastery was founded in 1409 by Tsong Kapa Losong Dragpa, who organized the sect to practice Buddhism as it is practiced in Tibet today. This was the point at which the idea of successive incarnations was developed and defined in Lamaism. Two of the conceptions about reincarnation are the appearance of a divine person in human form and the rebirth of a great teacher in a monastery, school or sect. Often the reborn soul is identified with an incarnation of Buddha or Bodhisattva. A good example is the Dalai Lama.

The Dalai Lama is a member of the Gelug sect, however he is not the head of the sect. This position belongs to the Ganden Tripa. The Dalai Lama is temporal head of the Gelug sect and is one of the many incarnations of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion.

Tsong Kapa died in 1417 and Gendum Drupa, his nephew and successor, claimed the same right of leadership of the sect because he was an incarnation of the divine head of thechurch. [Hinduism and Buddhism, p. 226.] As such, he was the first Dalai Lama, but did not actually bear the title because it was given to him long after he had died. The second given the title Dalai Lama, also posthumously, was Gendum Gyatso. The third Dalai Lama, and the first named while living was Sonam Gyatso of the Gelug sect, who was born in 1543.

After Sonam’s death, his incarnation appeared in Yonten Gyatso (1589-1616), who was part of the Mongolian royal house as great grandson of Altan Khan. The fourth Dalai Lama died in 1616, but the fifth Dalai Lama did not obtain his title until 1642 because of political unrest in Tibet. Coincidentally, it was during this twenty-six year period that António de Andrade and the Jesuits entered western Tibet and established a mission at Tsaparang in the Guge Kingdom.

The religions of Tibet continued their traditions and practices to the present day despite the arrival of Francisco de Andrade and other missionaries who arrived later and in other parts of Tibet. Currently there are five religious traditions in Tibet. One is Bön and the other four are schools of Buddhism. All of them were in existence before the Jesuits entered Tibet in the early 17th century.

The current Dalai Lama has paid tribute to Tibet’s original religion Bön by recognizing it as the fifth religion of Tibet. As described above, Buddhism changed over the centuries, however, the detailed differences among the four sects, some with sub-sects, is beyond the scope of this text. In any event, the sects are based on principles from the teachings of masters. These diverged from the earliest teachings, but all used as their basis the teachings of Buddha, with some lines of teaching coalescing into sects.

There are some uncomplicated methods of classifying the different sects, perhaps too simplistic since they do not consider the differences in their beliefs. The oldest of the Buddhist sects is the Nyingmapa, the Kagyupa is a sect whose teachings are passed on only orally, the Sakyapa are recognized for their scholarly approach and all the Dalai Lamas have been chosen from the Gelugpa.

One of the divisions used is Old Translation and New Translation. The division is based not only on the translations used, but also on their lineage. Nyingmapa is the only Old Translation school with the other three all being New Translation. Another classification is Red Hat, including Nyingmapa, Kagyup and Sakyapa, and Yellow Hat, the Gelugpa. The sects are named for the color they use, especially for hats and girdles; the unreformed sects use red for the same clothing.

Christians and Muslims believe each other to be infidels and even within Christianity and Islam the different sects within do their utmost, sometimes violently, to maintain that their version of the faith is the correct one, disparaging those who believe otherwise. Tibetan Buddhists choose a school, but after reaching a sufficiently high level, they may begin to study in a monastery or with a teacher of another sect, or possibly more than one over the years. As a result the Tibetan Buddhists are tolerant of those whose principal allegiance is to another school, all recognizing that their basic belief is in the teachings of Buddha.

This tolerance was not limited to other sects of Buddhism, but extended to those who practiced other religions, specifically Islam and Christianity. Muslim traders and Christian missionaries were allowed into Tibetan territory to work or preach. However, there were problems at times, in particular when, as mentioned above, the Chief Lama brother of the king of Guge called on the king in neighboring Ladakh to get the Christians out of Guge, which resulted in the destruction of the Jesuit mission formed by António de Andrade.

The Mongols and Tibet

Buddhism and Tibetan tolerance were important in Tibet’s dealings with other kingdoms. None of these was more significant than dealings with the Mongol tribes. Tibetans and

Mongols developed important connections that began when the tribes were still in their northern lands, while the ruled China during the Yuan Dynasty from 1276 to 1368, and until the Mongols moved into northern India, establishing the Mogul Empire, and Tibet, one becoming a Dalai Lama. For the Jesuits in India, the Mogul Empire was important and their access to the Himalayan region and Tibet was controlled by them.

Until the end of the 12th century the Mongols were a collection of independent, nomadic tribes that were often at war with one another. In 1162, Temuchin, later to have the title Genghis Khan, was born to the tribal chief Yesugei Baatur. In 1197, Temuchin began to forge alliances with other tribes that then joined him in conquering still other tribes. As the result of his military skill and success, the other tribes declared Temuchin their leader. In 1206, he summoned the leading Mongol figures and formally established the Mongol Nation and took the name Genghis Khan. [The Mongols and Tibet¸ p. 5.]

The Mongols practiced a shamanistic religion, but allowed other religions into their territory, including Christianity. A number of monks traveled into Mongolia and lived with the tribes and others crossed the country on their way to China. These Christians converted some of the Mongols to mainly Nestorian Christianity, the belief that Jesus exists as two persons, the man Jesus and the divine Son of God. Among the Christian Mongols was Sorghaghtani Beki, one of Genghis Khan’s daughters-in-law.

The first recorded contact between the Mongol tribes and Tibetans occurred in 1205 when Genghis Khan sent his troops into Tangut, a Tibetan tribal area, because they had inadvertently provided shelter to one of the Khan’s enemies. The Tangut kingdom was also interesting to the Mongols because it was on their southwest border and could provide access to China’s southern Jin Empire and Sung Empire.

In 1207 and 1209 the Mongol Nation attacked Tangut again and this time also attacked Amdo in eastern Tibet, defeating both; these were independent regions within Tibet at the time. Tangut rebelled periodically and Genghis Khan led a punitive assault which decimated the kingdom with a great number of the inhabitants fleeing to northeastern Tibet. [The Mongols and Tibet, p. 7.]

Genghis Khan died on August 18, 1227, and his empire was divided among his four sons. Genghis Khan’s third son, Ogedei, succeeded his father as the Great Khan. He led successful expeditions against the Jin Kingdom in China and also against Korea. Ogedei died in 1241 and his son Guyuk ascended the throne after resolving the disagreement between him and his four brothers about who should be the successor.

In 1240, Ogedei’s son Koton Khan invaded Tibet, burned Reting monastery and Gyal temple, among others, and killed around 500 monks. The spiritual master Drigung Chen-nga Rinpoche interceded and negotiated a peace treaty with the Khan and agreed to pay tribute. Koton subsequently decided he wanted a spiritual teacher to give him and the Mongols spiritual direction. His search focused on the high plateau of Tibet. In his book Hinduism and Buddhism: an Historical Sketch, Sir Charles Eliot explains why the Mongols looked for a Tibetan Buddhist teacher rather than one from China or even India.

But why did he prefer Lamaism to Chinese Buddhism? The latter can hardly have been too austerely pure to suit his ends, and Tibetan was as strange as Chinese to the Mongols. But the Mongol Court had already been favourably impressed by Tibetan Lamas and the Emperor had a just feeling that the intellectual caliber of the Mongols and Tibetans was similar and also that it was politic to conciliate the uncanny spiritual potentates who ruled in a land which it was difficult to invade. [Hinduism and Buddhism: an Historical Sketch, p. 224.]

The above shows that the Mongols were interested in different religions and the pros and cons of each. Since both Tibet and Mongolia had shamanistic religions before the appearance of Buddhism, it would not be unexpected that any influence on Buddhism by the older religion could have made Tibetan Buddhism more acceptable to the Mongols. Furthermore, there are some authors who allege that Buddhism in Mongolia was also influenced by Christianity, which also might have been carried back to Tibet, but there is no specific documentation regarding this.

After considering the various Tibetan teachers, Koton selected Sakya Pandita, considered the most learned, and invited him to Mongolia in 1244. The sixty-three year old Sakya accepted the invitation and set off for Mongolia with his 10-year old nephew Drogon Chogyal Phagpa and his six-year old nephew Chagna Dorji. They arrived in Liangshou in northeastern Tibet in 1247. [The Mongols and Tibet, p. 11.]

Koton received the teaching of Sakya Pandita and converted to Buddhism. The king then elevated Sakya Pandita to a position in his court higher than that of his leading shaman and his oracle. Buddhism attained an esteemed position in Koton’s territory and he continued to study and become more devoted, particularly after Sakya Pandita cured him of a serious illness.

Both Sakya Pandita and Koton Khan had already died when Kublai Khan returned to his capital at Shagdu in Inner Mongolia in 1253 from a military expedition. Kublai Khan was the grandson of Genghis Khan through his fourth son Tolui. Kublai’s older brother Mongke was made Great Khan after Guyuk’s death and he made Kublai responsible for the Chinese campaigns.

Similar to Koton, Kublai Khan decided he needed a spiritual advisor. He believed that the Mongols needed to have a definite religion because he was not happy with central Asian religions, Confucianism, Islam or Christianity, the latter being too distant and unimportant.

He looked for someone who would be a worthy teacher and decided on the older of Sakya’s nephews, Drogon Chogyal Phagpa. He requested that Phagpa come to Shangdu from Lianzhou. Phagpa accepted the invitation and traveled to Kublai Khan’s court where he was submitted to many questions about Tibet, its culture and its religion. After much discussion, during which Phagpa disagreed with some of the ways Kublai Khan wanted to deal with Tibet, Kublai decided his wife, Queen Chabu, would be taught by Phagpa and then he would decide about himself.

The queen was impressed by the teaching she received and suggested that the Khan also receive it. However, Phagpa told him:

If you receive the initiation, the lama will have to sit at the head, you will have to prostrate to him physically, you will have to listen to whatever the lama says, and you should never go against the wish of the lama. [The Mongols and Tibet, p. 13.]

Needless to say, Kublai Khan considered this impossible. Through the mediation of the queen, they reached an acceptable compromise. This created a Cho-Yon, or Priest-Patron" relationship between Phagpa and Kublai rather than that of ruler-subject. From Kublai Khan’s acceptance of this relationship in 1253, their association was to continue between them and also between leading Tibetans and Mongols in the future. [The Mongols and Tibet, p. 14.]

Kublai Khan, along with 25 members of his court, began a three-stage initiation with Phagpa. After completing the first stage of his initiation, Kublai Khan gave Phagpa control over the 13 trikhors (administrative districts comprising about 10,000 families) in central Tibet. After completing the second stage, Kublai gave Phagpa a white dharma conch shell and the three provinces that made up all of Tibet to rule. The third stage saw Kublai Khan promising to abandon the annual mass sacrifice of Chinese. This was done by throwing a large number of people into a lake as a method of population control in China, even though he was not yet Emperor. [The Mongols and Tibet, p. 14.] As the result of Kublai Khan’s gifts during the year 1253, Tibet was once again unified under its own leader.

In 1260, Kublai Khan became the Great Khan of the Mongols after his brother Mongke died. Kublai Khan moved his capital in 1264 from Shangdu to the city called Khanbaliq in Mongolian and Dadu in Chinese and the site of present-day Beijing. In 1271 he established the Yuan Dynasty to rule the Chinese territory he had conquered and within a few years had added his new conquests in southern China. Kublai Khan died in 1294 and, with the exception of his son, the following Emperors were weak rulers and after less than a century the Yuan Dynasty fell in 1368 to be replaced by the Ming Dynasty. The Mongols claimed that Kublai Khan and the Yuan Dynasty had become too Chinese and the Chinese never accepted the Yuan as a legitimate dynasty.

Except for the period from 1240 to 1253 under Koton, the Tibetans were ruled by Tibetans, regardless of the country having been divided into small political areas. Even during the period under Koton, the country was not an integral part of the Mongol Empire. In 1253 Kublai Khan made Phagpa leader over an independent Tibet, well before Kublai had created the Yuan Dynasty in 1271 and took full control of China in 1279, which did not include Tibet.

After 1253, the Sakya monastery became a powerful force in Tibet and a series of Sakya monks ruled, not without some opposition, until 1350. Following legal and military struggles, the Phagmodru family was successful in taking over the leadership of Tibet. The Phagmodru’s remained in power until 1434 when the fifth Phagmodru leader, Drakpa Gyaltsan, died. The rule then passed to the Rinpung family, related to Drakpa Gyaltsen by marriage, which held the power until 1566. From 1566 to 1642, Tseten Dorje, a former servant of the Rinpung family, and two successors ruled Tibet with the help of local tribes and Mongols.

In the meantime, the first Gelug sect monastery was founded in 1409 by Tsong Kapa Losong Dragpa. He was one of Tibetan Buddhism’s greatest scholars and studied with many teachers and in several monasteries. Losong Dragpa organized Buddhism in Tibet as it is practiced today and reformed Lamaism so that it was in harmony with the Buddhist scriptures. At this time the concept of successive incarnations was developed and defined in Lamaism and the leaders of the Gelugpa are considered incarnations of their predecessor.

Tsong Kapa died in 1417 and Gendum Drupa (1391-1474), nephew of Tsong Kapa, claimed he should be the head of the sect since he was an incarnation of the divine head of the sect. Gendum was posthumously given the title the first Dalai Lama at the time the third Dalai Lama was chosen. All Dalai Lamas have been members of the Gelug sect. The second given the title Dalai Lama was Gendum Gyatso (1475-1541). He is recognized for having gotten the hierarchy in Tibet in good order. [Hinduism and Buddhism, p. 226]

The third Dalai Lama, and the first named while living, was Sonam Gyatso of the Gelug sect, who was born in 1543. He became a great, wise and spiritual scholar and was the most distinguished lama of the time. Sonam mediated among the warring groups in Tibet and went to Mongolia in around 1570 at the request of Altan Khan of the Tumed tribe. The Mongols had become lax in their Buddhist beliefs after the death of Kublai Khan and the later fall of the Yuan dynasty when many left China for their homelands. Sonam Gyatso spoke and taught among the Mongols and Altan Khan strengthened the relationship between religion and the state. In 1578, Altan Khan gave Sonam Gyatso the title Dalai Lama (Ocean of Wisdom teacher). Soon afterward he returned to Tibet with the allegiance of the Mongols and died in 1588.

Since Sonam Gyatso was the third incarnation in his line, he was actually the third Dalai Lama and his two previous incarnations were also given the title Dalai Lama posthumously as mentioned above,

After Sonam’s death, his incarnation appeared in Yonten Gyatso (1589-1616), who was part of the Mongolian royal house as great grandson of Altan Khan. The fourth Dalai Lama lived in Mongolia until he was fourteen and when he moved to Lhasa, a lama was appointed as his vicar and primate of Mongolia. It appears that the Yonten Gyatso was not fully accepted as a leader in Tibet. [Hinduism and Buddhism, p. 227.]

The fourth Dalai Lama died in 1616. Although the fifth Dalai Lama, Lobsang Gyatso, was born in 1617, he did not receive his title until 1642 because of political unrest in Tibet. This was brought about when Chog-thu Khan, a minor Mongolia king who belonged to the White Hat sect, sent an army of 10,000 men with the intention of destroying the influence of Gelug sect in collaboration with Tsanba Khan, and Beri-Tusi, the ruler of the Kang region (near Szechuan) who believed in Bon and intended to conquer Tibet for Bon. In support of the Tibetans, Gu-shri Khan, another minor Mongolia king, led his troops into Tibet. He conquered Beri-Tusi and followed that with the conquest of Tsangpa Khan and Chog-thu Khan in 1642. The fifth Dalai Lama was declared and the Gelug-pa sect became the most influential branch of Buddhism in Tibet from then on. It was during this twenty-six year period that António de Andrade and the Jesuits entered western Tibet and established a mission at Tsaparang in the Guge Kingdom.

As a Dalai Lama, Lobsang Gyatso is considered the most outstanding of the line. With the help of the Gelug-sect Buddhist Mongolian Gushir Khan, Chief of the Qoshot Mongols, Lobsang was able to overcome the rival monastic sects and conquer the secular ruler of Tibet, the Prince of Shang, who had previously captured Lhasa. With these victories he was able to unify the country under the Gelug sect, thus establishing the present system of government in Tibet.

Lobsang Gyatso began construction of the Potala palace on Marpo-ri (Red) hill as the royal residence. While it was under construction he moved the governmental center from Drepung monastery to the red fort built long before on the hill by Songtsen Gampo. [Hinduism and Buddhism, p. 229.]

In 1644, the Manchu dynasty began in China. The Chinese Emperor Shunzhi invited the fifth Dalai Lama to visit him in Beijing in 1652-53. Lobsang accepted the offer and was treated as an independent sovereign by the Emperor, [Hinduism and Buddhism, p. 229.] a continuation of the Priest-Patron relationship begun between Phagpa and Kublai Khan. When Lobsang returned to Tibet he again took up his rule of Tibet. He was also recognized as a great scholar and teacher, established two educational institutions and influenced rulers beyond the borders of Tibet.

After the death of Lobsang Gyatso in 1682, there was a period of unrest. In addition, the Potala Palace was still under construction. To prevent interference from the Manchus and be able to finish the Potala, the Desi (Prime Minister) Sangye Gyatso kept the death of the fifth Dalai Lama secret for fifteen years saying he was on a long retreat. The sixth Dalai Lama, Tsangyang Gyatso, was born in 1682 and brought in 1688 to a place near Lhasa where he was educated. In 1697 the Desi announced the death of the fifth Dalai Lama and the discovery of the sixth.

The account presented up to this point has covered the internal history of Tibet, as well as the country’s interactions with external forces up through the period of the Jesuit mission in west Tibet, the period which is the focus of this book. Although, two Belgian Jesuits, Johannes Gruber and Albert Dorville stayed in Lhasa for two months in 1661, and there were other Jesuit and Capuchin monks that visited Tibet for varying purposes and lengths of time, they will only be mentioned as they relate to the mission in west Tibet. The history after the 17th century about the characters, political interests and external relationships in Tibet that underwent many changes over the following years that ended with the situation created by the assumption of control over Tibet by China in the mid-20th century, has been covered in a number of history texts.

Christianity – The Journey East

As described above, Buddhism moved north from India and spread throughout Tibet, China and Mongolia where it became the principal religion. A little over 500 years after the death of Buddha, the death of Christ resulted in believers moving outward from its Middle-East birthplace throughout the world. Initially, independent Christians traveled along the trade routes and met peoples they had never heard of and attempted to convert them to Christianity. With some tribes they were successful; with others they were welcomed, but achieved nothing even though they spent the rest of their lives there; and yet other tribes killed the visitors. Over the centuries missionary work changed and became more organized with small groups sent out by the Church in Rome along routes that had become known. However, they met the same types of welcome as their predecessors.

Looking towards the regions to the east, according to some accounts the first visitor claimed by Christianity was Jesus Christ himself. There are allegations that during the period of Jesus’ life about which there is no information, he traveled to India and studied the local religions, primarily Buddhism. One of the claims is that Jesus spent time in the Hemis Monastery in Ladakh, which is an area west Tibet and sometimes referred to as little Tibet. However there is no reliable documentation of this eastern visit and its truth has yet to be verified. However, the similarity between the teachings of Jesus and Buddha has been noted, even by later Christians, and led to some of the confusion among the 17th-century missionaries to India, China and Tibet who thought that they had found communities of lost Christians.

Following the death of Christ, some of the Apostles of Jesus traveled long distances to spread the teachings of Jesus. The most famous of the Apostle missionaries to the east is the Apostle Thomas who is said to have arrived on the southwestern coast of India in the year 52 after a voyage from Basra. In Basra he is credited with converting a number of persons and is considered the revered founder of the Christian Church in that area. Documents from the second and third century provide details of Thomas’ Christian activities in India and his travels throughout southern India where he died. There are still Saint Thomas Christians living in India today that say their congregations originally converted from Hinduism to Christianity by Thomas. There worship and traditions may have changed over the years, but they remain loyal to the founder of their church.

In his writings in the 13th century, Marco Polo mentions the tomb of the Apostle Thomas in southern India near the east coast. The early Christian communities in India appear to have also extended to north India and along the west coast of India.

A letter from East Syrian Patriarch Timothy I in the ninth century shows the Christians spread over a large area of the east:

In all countries of Babylon, of Persia, and of Assyria and in all countries of sunrise, that is to say – among the Indians, the Chinese, the Tibetans, the Turks, and in all provinces under the jurisdiction of this Patriarchal See there is no use of Crucified for us. [Before the Portuguese arrival: The Thomas Christians before the Portuguese Arrival]

As the above comment indicates, there is a possibility that the missionaries reached Tibet as early as the ninth century. However, the names of areas north of India – Tibet, China, Cathay – were often confused and sometimes referred to the same area or areas, some of which were mythical. The places named could also have meant areas that have different identities today; for example, the Tibet mentioned by Patriarch Timothy may have referred to the Turfan kingdom, which held a large part of Central Asia from the ninth to eleventh centuries.

In 1498, approximately two centuries after Marco Polo and 600 after Patriarch Timothy, the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrived in Calicut, and the Portuguese missionaries in spreading the Gospel found Indian Christians in southwestern India. The Catholic Church actively attempted to Latinize the local rites because they did not recognize that those dating back to the beginnings of Christianity with modifications by the East Syrian Church were acceptable. However, they found indications of Christianity where, in fact, none existed and went into Hindu temples they thought were churches and venerated idols they mistook for the Virgin Mary. [Encounter of Cultures, p. 85] To administer their activities in the area, the Church established one of the synods in India in the area

The missionaries that traveled to the east in the early centuries after the Apostle Thomas were not connected to the major western Church centers in Antioch or the Roman Empire. They went south of the Himalayas into the countries near India or north of the mountains and the Gobi desert through the Mongolian tribal lands. One of these early eastern missionaries was an Assyrian named Olupun, who arrived in China in the year 635. This Nestorian Christian translated the Bible into Chinese and the Chinese Emperor Taitsung had an Assyrian Church built. Churches were built throughout China during the reign of the next emperor, Kausung. [Assyrian Christian Missions] Nestorianism is the belief that Jesus exists as two persons, the man Jesus and the divine Son of God, and not a single person or a trinity. Nestorius (c386-c451) was Patriarch of Constantinople, but the Council of Ephesus in 431 made his belief a heresy and, consequently, the Assyrian Church split from the Byzantine.

In addition to China, Christians entered into the areas controlled by the Mongol Tribes in Central Asia. There were several contacts over the centuries between these warlike tribes and Christian missionaries who traveled along both the Silk Road and north of the Gobi Desert. Knowledge of these early Christians comes from documents written by them, and other documents are known from references made in these same documents. The information available indicates that the missionaries found converted Christians, almost all of whom were Nestorian Christians and living among the Mongols before the seventh century.

The Persian-speaking Sogdians were a tribe of merchants along the Silk Road. There is a reference to a rock in Ladakh in west Tibet that has three Nestorian crosses on it and also has inscriptions in both the Sogdian and Tibetan languages and about a man on his way to Lhasa.[Nestorian Christianity in Central Asia-Dickens] The Portuguese Jesuits who visited Ladakh in the early 17th century make no reference to this rock, however they could not read either language and the Tibetans may have kept it hidden from them.

In addition to coming across small groups of Christians, the Portuguese missionaries believed that there was an entire Christian Kingdom ruled by King Prester John. The search for this Christian kingdom among the many tribes was a major reason behind the organization of expeditions by the Church and a few countries, such as Portugal, to go to Central Asia. The existence of a Christian Kingdom was partially based on the belief that the Three Wise Men came from one of the tribes. Another reason for the belief that one or more of the eastern tribes was Christian was that there were tribes, possibly Mongols, that fought against the pagans and Muslims, who were the same enemies against whom the west fought. Many people believed these warriors were from the mythical kingdom of Prester John, a very wealthy and powerful ruler of a Christian kingdom.

Prester John and his magical kingdom full of treasure and marvels was famous throughout Europe. The Byzantine Emperor received a letter allegedly from Prester John and it spread throughout Europe. Pope Alexander III sent a letter to Prester John, but the messenger was never heard from again. There were various ideas put forth concerning where the kingdom of Prester John was located, some with credibility, others purely mythical.

One of the rulers who was considered as a possibility to be Prester John was Toghrul, a Nestorian Christian and Genghis Khan’s foster father. This may have been the reason that Toghrul refused to allow the children of Genghis Khan to marry his children. Later on Genghis conquered Toghrul’s tribe, killed Toghrul and captured his Christian daughter, whom he gave in marriage to his son Tolui. One of this couple’s children was the future great Mongol leader and ruler of China, Kublai Khan.

Despite the extensive search for Prester John in Asia, he was never found there and eventually Central Asia lost favor as the location for his kingdom. Later, the Portuguese believed they had discovered Prester John’s kingdom in what is Ethiopia today. However, no person or place has ever been definitively identified with this ruler and his mythical kingdom that caught the imagination of early European explorers.

Once they got east of the Muslim kingdoms, the early European Christian travelers came across many peoples and religions that they did not know existed. There were, Buddhists, Hindus, Zoroastrians, shamanistic tribes of nomads, as well as other pagan religions and, of course, the Nestorian Christians.

In China the missionaries found something completely unexpected. When the Christians asked the Emperor about the presence of other Christians, he informed them that in Kai Feng there were worshippers of the same God. When the Christians arrived in Kai Feng they found a community of Jews who had settled there in the 8th or 9th century and intermarried with the Chinese. Marco Polo also mentioned meeting Jews during his stay. Traces of this Jewish community existed in the 19th century and only remnants remained into the 20th. Descendants can be identified by the unique Chinese names that were given to the original Jewish arrivals by the emperor. Nevertheless, the present day descendents have no cultural memory of their origin in China.

Throughout the Middle Ages the Nestorian Christians were the most common Christian group along the routes to the Orient and within China. However, in the 13th century this began to change when the European monastic orders came into existence and took up missionary activities in pagan Europe as well as outside of Europe. The Franciscans provided a major impulse to monastic missionary work when Saint Francis of Assisi sent his followers out in pairs to preach Christianity in the 13th century. From this period through the Age of Discoveries, the Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, Carmelites and Jesuits sent members as missionaries to areas that were being explored and colonized by Portugal and Spain in Asia and the Americas.

One of the important events during the 13th century was the effect Christianity had on the Mongols at the highest levels. Temujin, later Genghis Khan, practiced a shamanistic religion as ruler of the Mongol Empire. Genghis married his youngest son Tolui to the Nestorian Christian Sorghahtani Beki, daughter of the Kereit tribal leader Toghrul, who had cared for the young Temujin after his father had been killed. Tolui and Sorghahtani had four sons, Mongke, Hulagu, Ariq Bake and Kublai, who grew up with the influence of Christianity and the Mongol practice of religious tolerance, thereby allowing missionaries into their territories. The Christians considered the Mongols allies because they had fought the Muslims and were opposed to their presence in their lands.

A notable exception to the Mongol antagonism toward Muslims was the Muslim Mogul Empire in northern India, Mogul being the Persian word for Mongol. However, unlike other Muslims, the Moguls were not opposed to the presence of Christians. In fact, the Jesuit missionaries visited the Mogul King Akbar (1556-1605) in Agra and were allowed to stay there.

The search for the lost Christian communities, some established over a millennium earlier, had not been neglected. In the 17th century stories continued of their wealth and peaceful existence, as well as about their persecution by the Muslims or other non-Christian groups. Over the centuries, some of the communities were discovered by Christian missionaries, but others were never found. Among the latter are those known today to have been erroneous reports or even myths, the most famous being the kingdom of Prester John, as mentioned above.

Among the communities that were discovered, some practiced different forms of Christianity considered heretical in the 17th century. There were other communities in which the Christian travelers found what they thought were people who were practicing a mixture of Christianity and another religion. In some instances this was true, but in others the explorers confused the practices of other religions with those of Christianity.

Wherever they were proselytizing throughout the Orient, missionaries used a variety of techniques to convert the population to Christianity or from their form of Christianity to Roman Catholicism. Many missionaries did not understand the culture in which they were living and working and many of these made no effort to do so. In some instances they even confused local religious art and ceremonies with what they thought were the rites of ancient Christians and were happy they had discovered a lost Christian community. Some missionaries learned the languages, ate the local food, tried to understand the local religion and a few even took to dressing like the local population. Nevertheless, no matter how conscientious the missionaries were, the Portuguese army and unscrupulous merchants caused the local people to react negatively to all Portuguese, thus making things difficult for the missionaries.

The missionaries approached their task of converting in different manners. While there were those who acted honestly and straight forward, other missionaries are alleged to have used threats or tricks, such as saying they wanted to speak about one topic and then turning it to religion. Ruthless measures increased as Rome discouraged, or even did not allow, attempts to fit in with the culture and the Inquisition came into being.

The rate of success among the missions varied from area to area. Furthermore, the number of Christian converts decreased, or disappeared, if the missionaries were not diligent in following up on their flock. Aggravating this problem was that there were not enough missionaries to handle the increasing number of new converts. Getting new converts appears to have been more important than ensuring that those already converted continued to practice Christianity, and in the long run they defeated their purpose and the total number of Christians stopped increasing and in some areas decreased.

Missionaries faced some serious problems on their journeys. A number were killed and some of their deaths were most excruciating. Tribes expelled some as the result of political changes or the concern of