The Tibetan Army of the Dalai Lamas (1642-1959)

Project Information

TibArmy

Grant agreement ID: 677952

DOI

10.3030/677952

Project closed

EC signature date 5 April 2016

Start date 1 October 2016

End date 31 March 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 499 875,00

EU contribution

€ 1 499 875,00

Coordinated by

CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS
France

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - TibArmy (The Tibetan Army of the Dalai Lamas (1642-1959))

Reporting period: 2021-04-01 to 2023-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The project “The Tibetan army of the Dalai Lamas, 1642-1959” (TibArmy, ERC Starting Grant 2015 n°677952, 2016-2023) was hosted by the CNRS at the CRCAO (UMR 8155) in Paris. The PI and her team have undertaken the study of the previously unresearched history of the Tibetan army during the period of the Buddhist government of the Dalai Lamas, the Ganden Phodrang (1642-1959). This government was the heir to a robust military culture with long experience in the defence of Buddhism since the Imperial Period (7th-9th c.); however, from its inception in the 17th century, it decided to partly rely on foreign armies for its protection, while also levying soldiers on its territory according to different means varying at times of peace and war and evolving over the three centuries under consideration. On the basis of two distinctive features of this period—the creation and maintenance of the first Tibetan standing army and the relatively limited number of these permanent troops (3,000 to 13,000)—the project has explored the enduring ambivalence of the Dalai Lamas’ government towards having its own army, as well as its reasons, consequences and expressions in discourses and practices.
The methodology, inspired by the “New military history”, followed a multifaceted approach taking into consideration social, economic, political, legal, religious and cultural aspects. It has also focused on the connected historical context of their evolution and the incorporation of elements from foreign military cultures and models.
Based on written and oral sources in Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese, Mongol, Japanese, English, the project was structured along 5 thematic axes:
1. History of the army institution (17th-20th c.): social, economic and political aspects
2. Interactions with Mongol, Sino-Manchu troops and other foreign (mainly Japanese and British) influences on the Tibetan army
3. Cultural and discursive aspects: integration of the army within the Buddhist frame
4. Material culture and photographs: a visual history of the army (photograph exhibition)
5. An online lexicon of military terminology
By analysing the links between Buddhism and the military in Tibet, TibArmy has worked towards a clearer understanding of the links between State building, religion and army, and shed light on the past and current geo-political situation in Asia.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Results were presented by the TibArmy team in the monthly TibArmy seminar, international conferences and workshops, along with external participants invited to contribute.
The project convened 4 international conferences (Paris 2017, Oxford 2018), workshops (Paris 2019) and panels (IATS 2019 Paris), which resulted in the publication of 4 collective volumes: A. Travers and F. Venturi (eds), Buddhism and the Military in Tibet during the Ganden Phodrang period (1642-1959) (Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 27, 2019); G. FitzHerbert and A. Travers, Asian Influences on Tibetan Military History between the 17th and 20th C. (RET 53, 2020); F. Venturi and A. Travers (eds), Defence and Offence: Armour and Weapons in Tibetan Culture (Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie orientale 2, 2021); R. Kobayashi and A. Travers (eds), The Many Wars of the Ganden Phodrang (1642-1950) (Lexington, forthcoming).
The project organised an exhibition in Prague, Paris and Dharamsala, featuring 168 photographs of Tibetan soldiers and militia drawn from a variety of archives in Europe, North America and Asia. Along with its catalogue (A. Travers, Marching into View: The Tibetan Army in Historic Photographs 1895–1959, Potsdam, Edition-tethys, 2022), it uses archival photographs to discover the history of the material military culture (soldiers’ uniforms, insignia, flags and banners, music band), that scarcely appear in written sources. A TibArmy Online Lexicon (TOL) of Tibetan military terminology was created which gathers for each entry 1)definitions in existing “reference works” (printed and online dictionaries) when available or new definitions and 2) examples of occurrences/uses of these terms in Tibetan historical sources. A monograph on the social history of Tibetan soldiers and officers in the 19th and 20th c. is being finalised by the PI (Brill, forthcoming).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Far from being antithetical, the religious and military projects have constantly supported each other. Buddhism supplied the Tibetan army with both its end and its means: its end and justification were the protection/defence of the Buddhist government, as stated in the writings of the 5th Dalai Lama; its means were human through monastic manpower with the participation in war of monk soldiers and of monk government officials; discursive means to justify war and with the role of “war magic” as a form of pre-modern war propaganda; ritual means when it came to destroy enemies, enhance the efficiency of weapons by calling the “enemy god” into them, or protect soldiers before battle.
Tibetan military culture was deeply connected to other Asian military cultures, Tibetan soldiers operating with Mongols in the 17th c. and Sino-Manchu troops in the 18th c.-20th c.; with Japanese in the early 20th c., and with Indians, Sikkimese and British actors between 1904 and 1950. A significant element of transfer between Sino-Manchu and Tibetan military cultures was the incorporation into the pantheon of Tibetan Buddhist deities of the Chinese god of war Guandi, also indigenised as an analogue of the Tibetan/Mongolian culture-hero Gesar.
Qing military policy in Tibet from the 18th to the 20th c. mostly aimed at Tibet’s military autonomy, in order to ensure that the Tibetans had no need to turn to the Qing for their protection and defence. The reforms implemented by Tibetan and Sino-Manchu authorities in the 18th c., culminating in the 29-point reform in 1793, tried to modernise and professionalise the 3000 standing Tibetan troops. The last phase of Sino-Manchu presence in Tibet in the early years of the 20th century was marked by renewed attempts under amban Zhang Yintang, largely influenced by German and Japanese-style militarism. In the very first years of the 20th c., before the already known British influence, the Japanese influence strongly marked the military training, flags and uniforms of the Tibetan Army.
Repeated attempts to upgrade the firearm’s local production for the Tibetan army were started in the end of the 19th c. and the early years of the 20th c. under the 13th Dalai Lama, with the support of the Sino-Manchu authorities and later of the British. Thus, the 13th Dalai lama’s endeavours to reform and modernise the army and its firearms equipment after the fall of the Manchu dynasty were in the direct continuity with earlier policies, though in the new and more pressing context of the de facto independence between 1913 and 1950.
Last, the general military development of the Ganden Phodrang period can be understood in a new light (and thus overcome the “backwardisation biais” produced by British sources): rather than Tibet following a unique path compared to its Asian neighbours, in particular as far as the development of modern weapons is concerned, Tibet actually followed a trend shared by Manchu China with a delay that can be explained rather by Tibet’s geographical position than by supposedly specific cultural/religious traits.

"First regiment (Kusung) in 1951, Lhasa", photograph by TseTen Tashi, Newark Museum, 2000.36.3.43