Review of Lhasa in the Seventeenth Century,by Pommaret et al.

Arthur McKeownHarvard University

Françoise Pommaret, et al., Lhasa in the Seventeenth Century.Translated by Howard Solverson. Boston: Brill, 2002. 248 pp.,10 illus. $99 hard.

In editing this volume, Françoise Pommaret has brought together an outstandingrange of Tibetological voices from the fields of history, art, and medicine, whicheffectively challenges the notion that Tibet was ever a country sealed off from therest of the world. While this may not be remarkable in a volume aimed at scholarsof Tibet, it remains a rare and noteworthy accomplishment in an introductory text.While better known to English readers for her studies, both scholarly and popular,of Bhutan, Françoise Pommaret’s work on Tibet is no less worthy of translation.Lhasa in the Seventeenth Century demonstrates her concern with the sweep ofTibetan history, focused here on Lhasa.

This work was originally published in 1997 under the title Lhasa, Lieu du Divin;La Capitale des Dalaï-Lama au 17e siècle, which more accurately reflects itscontents than the English title. From the initial map of modern Lhasa (completewith designation of the Lhasa hotel and Drapchi prison), Pommaret’s introductionmakes clear that her engagement with Lhasa will not be confined to the seventeenthcentury. Citing Alexandra David-Néel and Heinrich Harrer, Pommaret highlightsher desire to include non-specialists among her interlocutors. Indeed, this volumerepresents a valuable resource for an undergraduate course in Tibetan history, ora supplement to an undergraduate or graduate course in Asian history.

The initial chapter by Jeanne Mascolo de Filippis builds on Pommaret’sintroductory remarks, recapitulating seven centuries of Western explorers’involvement with Tibet. This brisk and lively account could have benefited fromgreater explication, or more footnotes. If one is intrigued to learn about Herodotusreferencing Tibet, but confused howHerodotus’ mention of “a region of the Upper

Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, no. 1 (October 2005): 1-5.www.thdl.org?id=T1227.1550-6363/2005/1/T1227.© 2005 by ArthurMcKeown, Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library, and International Association of Tibetan Studies.Distributed under the THDL Digital Text License.

Indus where gold-digging ants live” (2) indicates Tibet, one could have referredto Boulnois’ article (143) where this theme is reintroduced.

Anne-Marie Blondeau and Yonten Gyatso present the early history of Lhasa inthe second chapter. Beginning with its legendary founding in the seventh centuryby Srong btsan sgam po (ca. 618-650), the co-authors trace the capital’s historicaland mythological development. Blondeau and Gyatso argue that the Gstug lagkhang is the heart of Buddhist Tibet, drawing on both textual and epigraphicalsources, and indeed this temple is the heart of their article. They begin byquestioning “lha sa” as signifying the nascent city or the enclosure of a deity, inparticular the Gstug lag khang and Ra mo che. Their argument for the latter isconvincing, though again more citations would have been desirable. The twoexamine the etymologies of the city’s names, analyzing “lha sa” as “Land (orPlace) of the Gods” and “ra sa” as a possible contraction of “ra ba’i sa” meaning“place surrounded by a wall” (21-22). While they also understand “ra sa” as “Placeof the Goats” (19), one would have liked to know how this toponym relates to thegoat statue in the Ra sa ’phrul snang gtsug lag khang, which is the subject of astudy by Tsering Gyalpo.

There follows a brief history of the struggles for hegemony over the city ofLhasa, which always focused on controlling the Jo khang, until the seventeenthcentury, when the city of Lhasa became the capital proper. Included in this summaryis an interesting discussion of Tsong kha pa’s (1357-1419) possible motives forinstituting the Great Prayer Festival (Smon lam chen mo) in Lhasa instead of e.g.in Sne’u gdong.

Moving a short distance from the Jo khang to the po ta la in chapter three, AnneChayet continues the work of Blondeau and Gyatso by focusing on the Potala inthe seventeenth century. After a brief reflection on the palace as mountain andsymbol of power, illustrated with reference to Tibet’s own Voldemort, Rdo rjeshugs ldan, Chayet establishes the historical basis of the Potala as a site of spiritualand political authority. She begins with the ascension of the Fifth Dalai Lama(1617-1682) and the building of the White Palace, and proceeds through the reignof Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho (1653-1705) and the completion of the Red Palace.Throughout, Chayet brilliantly interweaves the power struggles between thehierarchs of Tibet, Mongolia, and China with the construction of the Potala Palace– a fitting creation for a historian of politics and art, such as Chayet.

Gilles Béguin marvelously rounds out this section of articles by noting thesalient monuments of Lhasa in chapter four. While including the Potala and Jokhang, he provides details about these sites complementary to the previous twochapters, as well as detailing a number of other structures. Béguin focuses on twothang kas extracted from the collection of the Musée Guimet, and featured in hisLes Peintures du Bouddhisme tibétaine. This chapter presents a wonderfulintroduction to a genre of painting which takes cityscapes as its subject. As anaddendum, onemay note that themchod rten comprising the western gate of Lhasahas been rebuilt.

2McKeown: Review of Lhasa in the Seventeenth Century, by Pommaret et al.

In the fifth chapter, Samten Karmay presents a Tibet divided between Karmabka’ brgyud pa and Dge lugs pa factions vying for the attention and patronage ofMongol lords. In the style of a true raconteur, Karmay relates the adventurous lifeof Blo bzang rgya mtsho, the Fifth Dalai Lama, and his relationship with Bsodnams chos ’phel (1595-1657) and Gushri Khan (1582-1655), two figures centralto the rise of the Dge lugs pa school as a political power. Karmay also describesBlo bzang rgya mtsho’s first visit with the Chinese emperor, the creation of theBhutanese state, as well as his purges of and later reconciliation with the Karmabka’ brgyud pa and Bon po schools.

If Chayet and Karmay note the damage inflicted by the wraith formerly knownas Grags pa rgyal mtshan, Amy Heller focuses on the strength the Dalai Lamasderived from their protective deities. She reports the use of these protector cultsby the Fifth Dalai Lama to curry support for a centralized government, and tolegitimize his control. In particular, the niceties surrounding four major figures areexplicated: Dpal ldan lha mo, Beg tse, Mgon po bram ze, and Rdo rje grags ldan.For each of these deities, Heller provides a physical description, both verbal andpictorial, as well as a short mythology and history of worship. She concludes thisintriguing article with a summary of the Fifth Dalai Lama’s own experiences withthese four illustrious personages.

One hill over from the Dmar po ri stands the Lcags po ri, which FernandMeyeruses as the starting point for his illuminating treatment of Tibetan medical historyin chapter seven. In particular, he describes the great efforts shouldered by theFifth Dalai Lama to further the study of medicine, including the sponsoring ofmedical texts and the creation of medical institutes in and around Lhasa. Thispurpose was continued by the regent Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho, who instituted themedical college on Lcags po ri in 1696. The breadth of knowledge assimilated bySangs rgyas rgya mtsho is staggering. Meyer outlines his dissatisfaction withteachers of the Zur medical lineage and consequent search for authentic medicalknowledge, which brings him into interaction with the Jang lineage’s Lhun ldingrnam rgyal rdo rje (b. 16th century), who was also a great scholar of theKālacakra.In revising his enormous Bai dūrya sngon po, Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho not onlydrew from various texts, but also consulted local pharmacologists, Nepalese andIndian therapists, and aboriginal physicians. The iconography associated with theBai dūrya sngon po is quite extraordinary, numbering 79 paintings.Meyer concludeswith the founding, organization, festivals and rituals of the Lcags po ri medicalcollege.

In chapter eight, Elliot Sperling revisits themes introduced in Karmay’s article,focusing here on Tibeto-Mongol relations in the seventeenth century. Sperling alsomakes brief forays into the history of the Dalai Lamas’ relationship with Mongollords, characterized as priest-patron (mchod yon). Interestingly, drawing from thework of Ishihama Yumiko, Sperling posits that various Mongol lords, includingGushri, began appending “khan” to their names only after that title had beenbestowed by the Dalai Lama, thus pointing to the importance of the priest-patron

3Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies 1 (October 2005)

relationship. This relationship is then extended to the Qing, but ends in shamblesafter the death of Blo bzang rgya mtsho.

Luce Boulnois describes a Lhasa filled with Armenian, Chinese, Indian, andNepali traders in chapter nine. This interesting contribution delineates two kindsof trade: regional barterage, such as the salt trade, which remained largely unaffectedby the changing fortunes of Lhasa hierarchs; and the import-export trade betweennations which was so affected. Boulnois focuses on the seventeenth century, notingthe great demand for Tibetan musk, gold, medicinal plants, yak tails, and wool.Of particular interest for the author is the worldwide demand for musk, whichvalued the Tibetan variety above all. Boulnois then explores aspects of the otherexports mentioned before turning to the import trade. This is a fascinating accountof a Tibet which sold low and bought high. Even their own currency was importedfromNepal. Foreignmerchants from every nation recognized the profit to be madein Lhasa, and were tolerated as long as their business was trade, not proselytizing,which brought them into conflict with Christian missionaries, who did preciselythe opposite.

In chapter ten, Katia Buffetrille returns to the theme of Lhasa as a religiouscenter, writing on the theme of pilgrimage. With this new point of view, the authorrevisits sites described previously in this volume, the Potala and Jo khang, takingcare to describe the particular rituals of pilgrimage. She takes the reader throughthe various chambers of the Jo khang, out to the Bar skor, and beyond to Bsamyas Monastery. In effect, she describes the route illustrated by Béguin’s paintings.

One well-known pilgrimage site surrounding Lhasa is ’Bras spungs monastery,which Ngawang Dakpa studies in chapter eleven. Though some of the author’sstatements regarding the preeminent position of ’Bras spungs may be doubted, hiscontribution to the volume represents a fine introduction to the workings of aTibetan monastery. The major posts in the monastery are named and described, asis the code of conduct and academic career of an average monk.

Concentrating his study on the artistic and scholarly flourishing ofseventeenth-century Lhasa, Erberto F. Lo Bue, in chapter twelve, recalls that despitethe political division of Tibet, artists from all over Asia gathered in Lhasa. He turnsspecial attention to the Potala in terms of its architecture and interior painting asan example of the Sman ris school. In his description of the illustrations to the Baidūrya sngon po, the author questions the notion of Tibetan art as both static andphantasmagorical. Lo Bue concludes his essay with an extensive description ofTibetan festivals, culled from the reports of Cassiano Beligatti.

This translation is supplemented by an original postscript by Robert Barnett.Here, he begins with the founding of the Jo khang, tracing stages of Lhasa’s growththrough the five-stage urban development instituted by the Chinese. While theintention of this planmay have been to wash out the filth of Lhasa withMao Zedongthought, something seems to have gone awry.While a flood of Communist ideologyand infrastructure swept into the city, the smells seem to have stayed. Throughoutthis detailed and worthwhile contribution, Barnett examines Lhasa from multiple

4McKeown: Review of Lhasa in the Seventeenth Century, by Pommaret et al.

perspectives: as viewed by British colonialists, Chinese communists, Tibetanfunctionaries, and others.

In all, despite some translation problems from the French resulting ingrammatical inaccuracies in the English, Lhasa in the Seventeenth Centuryrepresents a fine introduction to the various facets of Tibetan history, and assuresLhasa a place among the great cities of Asia. While this may be intended as anintroductory text, there are many gems to be discovered even by the seasonedTibetologist. Such a reader may benefit from supplementing this volume with ’Grophan sman rtsis khang gi byung rabs brjod pa ka la ping ba’i gre ’gyur, Pho brangpo ta la’i lo rgyus phyogs bsgrigs, and Lasa shi. One is hopeful that Tibet’scharacterization in the popular imagination as a lost horizon will be overcomewiththe aid of such books as this.

Arthur McKeownHarvard University

Cambridge, Massachusetts

5Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies 1 (October 2005)