Full Text: Development and Progress of Tibet (3)

Email|Print|Comments       twitter     facebook     Sina Microblog     reddit    

The Canadian Tibetologist A. Tom Grunfeld published The Making of Modern Tibet in 1987. In it he wrote:

"Tibetans were ruled by an unusual form of feudal theocracy.... The heads of the feudal estates maintained a monopoly of power over all local matters. Serfs were 'tied' to their masters.... So powerless were they that they required permission to enter a monastery and even to marry. If two serfs of different lords married, the male offspring reverted to the father's lord, while the female offspring went to the mother's. Permission to leave the estate - even for the briefest period - for such matters as family visits, pilgrimages or for some sideline trading required the consent of the lord. Historically there was very little class mobility in Tibet, and for the most part serfs were forced to accept the position they found themselves in upon birth. There is no evidence to support the images of a utopian Shangri-la."

Two Chinese officials, Shen Zonglian and Liu Shengqi, who worked at the Chinese government' s Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission's Tibet office before 1949, wrote in their 1953 book Tibet and Tibetans:

"The men who have been running the Lhasa government are drawn from the top class of fewer than a hundred still flourishing noble families and an ecclesiastical hierarchy of equal size. To them the Tibetan masses are the 'hewers of wood and drawers of water.' Cut off completely from world trends and from all the dormant social forces in Tibet, and basking in the waning sunshine of a theocratic-feudalistic autocracy, this privileged class can exist only on the ignorance and political lethargy of the Tibetans. Their privileged status is bound to collapse in this fast-changing world, and the process is only going to be accelerated."

For centuries Tibetan society was mired in stagnation due to its backward serfdom and the isolated geographic location of Tibet. By the middle of the 20th century, when humanity was leaping toward modern civilization, Tibet still lagged far behind the rest of the world.

We Recommend

• No news of survivors in Lao Airlines crash
• Five fighters in flight training
  
• London mayor hails free trade, subway system on China tour
• Different eye catching shows at housing fairs in China
• Chalk it up to great courage
• Tibetan girl helps mobilize volunteers onlin
• Lingerie show dazzles Wuhan Motor Show 2013
• Chinese screen goddesses from Beijing Film Academy
• Weekly Sports Photos