Tibetan Lives: Three Himalayan Autobiographies / Edition 1

by Peter Richardus

Overview

In the early years of the 20th century, control over Tibet was contested by three major empires: those of China, Russia and Britain. The imperial powers and those who came in their wake - missionaries, scholars, traders and soldiers - employed local staff to assist in their dealings with the Tibetans, and these employees were in the vanguard of Tibet's encounter with the outside world. Yet they have been largely forgotten by history and most of the knowledge and understandings that they gained have been lost.
It was left to a Dutchman, Johan van Manen, and hence an outside observer of the British imperial system, to preserve the impressions of three who served on the periphery of the imperial system. The three autobiographies that make up this book, crowded with ethnographical, sociological and historico-religious data, offer a unique insight into the world of the intermediary class. In addition to being interesting and entertaining, they are an important contribution to our understanding of the history of Tibet and its opening up to cultures beyond its own.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780700710232
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/19/1998
Pages:	252
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Authored by Richardus, Peter

Table of Contents

Part I The Autobiography of Phun-tshogs Lung-rtogsPart II The Autobiography of sKar-ma Sum-dhon PaulPart III The Autobiography of Ts’an-chih Chen;

Editorial Reviews

...[T]hree life stories whose original composition was a direct product of a colonial knowledge-gathering practice current in India in the 1920s: collecting native life stories, or, in this case, getting the natives to record their own....supplemented by original plates and clear maps, plus an interesting set of naive sketches which accompany Ts'an-chih Chen's account....recommended reading for anyone interested in twentieth-century Tibet and its encounters with external forces of change.
— Journal of Buddhist Ethics \

Toni Huber

'These three autobiographies have been edited (and condensed?) with great skill by Peter Richardus from Leiden All three autobiographies abound with details illuminating daily life in the Tibetan world and its interactions with the British and Chinese imperial apparatus, and for this reason alone they make intriguing reading. This is, in its way, a delightful book; and it is further garnished by photographs.' - Alastair Lamb, Bulletin of SOAS

From the Publisher