Religion in Tibet, China (estimates as of 2012)[1]

  Tibetan Buddhism (78.5%)
  Bon (12.5%)
  Chinese folk religion and others (8.58%)
  Islam[2] (0.4%)
  Christianity (0.02%)
Maitreya Buddha statue of Tashilhunpo Monastery in Shigatse

The main religion in Tibet has been Buddhism since its outspread in the 8th century AD. As of 2022 the historical region of Tibet (the areas inhabited by ethnic Tibetans) is mostly comprised in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) of China and partly in the Chinese provinces of Qinghai and Sichuan. Before the arrival of Buddhism, the main religion among Tibetans was an indigenous shamanic[3] and animistic[4] religion, Bon, which would later influence the formation of Tibetan Buddhism and still attracts the allegiance of a sizeable minority of Tibetans.

According to estimates from the International Religious Freedom Report of 2012, most Tibetans (who comprise 91% of the population of the Tibet Autonomous Region) are associated with Tibetan Buddhism, while a minority of 400,000 people (12.5% of the total population of the TAR) profess the native Bon religion. Other groups in Tibet practise folk religions which share the image of Confucius (Tibetan: Kongtse Trulgyi Gyalpo) with Chinese folk religion, though in a different light.[5][6] The statistics do not cover the government-sponsored atheist[7] proportion of the Tibetan population. According to some reports, the government of China has been promoting the Bon religion, linking it with Confucianism.[8][9]

Four mosques operate in the Tibet Autonomous Region[10] with approximately 4,000 to 5,000 Muslim adherents,[11] although a 2010 Chinese survey found a higher Muslim proportion of 0.4%.[2] In 2012, there was a Catholic church with 560 parishioners, which was located in the traditionally Catholic community of Yanjing in the east of the region;[1] in 2018, it was noted that there are 700 Catholics in the region.[12]

Main religions

Tibetan Buddhism

View of Jokhang, one of the most important monasteries of Tibet.
Interior of Ganden Monastery.
Yak butter candles in front of the Shakyamuni Buddha, they are supposed to be some of the finest examples in the world. At Baiju Monastery, Gyangtse.

Religion is extremely important to the Tibetans and has a strong influence over all aspects of their lives.[13][14] Bön is the ancient religion of Tibet, but nowadays the major influence is Tibetan Buddhism, a distinctive form of Mahayana and Vajrayana, which was introduced into Tibet from the Sanskrit Buddhist tradition of northern India.[15] Tibetan Buddhism is practiced not only in Tibet but also in Mongolia, parts of northern India, the Buryat Republic, the Tuva Republic, and in the Republic of Kalmykia and some other parts of China. During China's Cultural Revolution, nearly all Tibet's monasteries were ransacked and destroyed by the Red Guards.[16][17] A few monasteries have begun to rebuild since the 1980s (with limited support from the Chinese government) and greater religious freedom has been granted – although it is still limited. Monks returned to monasteries across Tibet and monastic education resumed even though the number of monks imposed is strictly limited.[16][18] Before the 1950s, between 10 and 20% of males in Tibet were monks.[19]

Tibetan Buddhism has four main traditions (the suffix pa is comparable to "er" in English):

  • Gelug(pa), Way of Virtue, also known casually as Yellow Hat, whose spiritual head is the Ganden Tripa and whose temporal head is the Dalai Lama. Successive Dalai Lamas ruled Tibet from the mid-17th to mid-20th centuries. This order was founded in the 14th to 15th centuries by Je Tsongkhapa, based on the foundations of the Kadampa tradition. Tsongkhapa was renowned for both his scholasticism and his virtue. The Dalai Lama belongs to the Gelugpa school, and is regarded as the embodiment of the Bodhisattva of Compassion.[20]
  • Kagyu(pa), Oral Lineage. This contains one major subsect and one minor subsect. The first, the Dagpo Kagyu, encompasses those Kagyu schools that trace back to Gampopa. In turn, the Dagpo Kagyu consists of four major sub-sects: the Karma Kagyu, headed by a Karmapa, the Tsalpa Kagyu, the Barom Kagyu, and Pagtru Kagyu. The once-obscure Shangpa Kagyu, which was famously represented by the 20th-century teacher Kalu Rinpoche, traces its history back to the Indian master Niguma, sister of Kagyu lineage holder Naropa. This is an oral tradition which is very much concerned with the experiential dimension of meditation. Its most famous exponent was Milarepa, an 11th-century mystic.
  • Nyingma(pa), The Ancient Ones. This is the oldest, the original order founded by Padmasambhava. Both the Nyingma and Kagyu maintained and developed instructions on the nature of mind, and on meditations cultivating recognition of that nature, known as the mind teachings of Tibet.
  • Sakya(pa), Grey Earth, headed by the Sakya Trizin, founded by Khon Konchog Gyalpo, a disciple of the great translator Drokmi Lotsawa. Sakya Pandita 1182–1251 CE was the great-grandson of Khon Konchog Gyalpo. This school emphasizes scholarship.

Bön

Khyungpori Tsedruk Bon Monastery in the Tibet Autonomous Region.

Bön, the indigenous animist and shamanic belief system of Tibet, revolves around the worship of nature and claims to predate Buddhism.[21] Although Bön was initially in conflict with Buddhist practice in Tibet, it now has been recognised as a legitimate religion by the 14th Dalai Lama.

According to Bon religious texts: three Bon scriptures – mdo 'dus, gzer mig, and gzi brjid – relate the mythos of Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche. The Bonpos regard the first two as gter ma rediscovered around the eleventh century and the last as nyan brgyud (oral transmission) dictated by Loden Nyingpo, who lived in the fourteenth century. In the fourteenth century, Loden Nyingpo revealed a terma known as The Brilliance (Wylie: gzi brjid), which contained the story of Tonpa Shenrab. He was not the first Bonpo tertön, but his terma became one of the definitive scriptures of Bon religion. It states that Shenrab established the Bon religion while searching for a horse stolen by a demon. Tradition also tells that he was born in the land of Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring (considered an axis mundi) which is traditionally identified as Mount Yung-drung Gu-tzeg ("Edifice of Nine Sauwastikas"), possibly Mount Kailash, in western Tibet. Due to the sacredness of Tagzig Olmo Lungting and Mount Kailash, the Bonpo regard both the swastika and the number nine as auspicious and as of great significance.

Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche visited Kongpo and found people whose practice involved spiritual appeasement with animal sacrifice. He taught them to substitute offerings with symbolic animal forms made from barley flour. He only taught according to the student's capability with lower shamanic vehicles to prepare; until with prayer, diligence, devotion and application they could incarnate to achieve sutra, tantra and Dzogchen.

Bon teachings feature Nine Vehicles, which are pathway-teaching categories with distinct characteristics, views, practices and results. Medicine, astrology, and divination are in the lower vehicles; then sutra and tantra, with Dzogchen great perfection being the highest. Traditionally, the Nine Vehicles are taught in three versions: as Central, Northern and Southern treasures. The Central treasure is closest to Nyingma Nine Yānas teaching and the Northern treasure is lost. Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche elaborated the Southern treasure with shamanism.

Chinese ethnic religion

Most of the Han Chinese who reside in Tibet practice their native Chinese folk religion (Shendao 神道, "Way of the Gods"). There is a Guandi Temple of Lhasa (拉萨关帝庙) where the Chinese god of war Guandi is identified with the cross-ethnic Chinese, Tibetan, Mongol and Manchu deity Gesar. The temple is built according to both Chinese and Tibetan architecture. It was first erected in 1792 under the Qing dynasty and renovated around 2013 after decades of disrepair.[22][23]

Built or rebuilt between 2014 and 2015 is the Guandi Temple of Qomolangma (Mount Everest), on Ganggar Mount, in Tingri County.[24][25]

Folk religious sects

There is a Tibetan folk religious sect in Amdo County named the "Heroes of Ling", which was founded in 1981 by a Tibetan called Sonam Phuntsog, who claimed to be an incarnation of the legendary hero Gesar.[26] At its peak in the 1980s the movement had attracted converts among local communist leaders.[26] It was later banned as a disruptive and "splittist" sect.[26]

Hinduism

Tantric school of Nepalese Hinduism and Buddhism reach to Tibetan region through Nepal route. [27]

Christianity

Antonio de Andrade.

The first Christians documented to have reached Tibet were the Nestorians, of whom various remains and inscriptions have been found in Tibet. They were also present at the imperial camp of Möngke Khan at Shira Ordo, where they debated in 1256 with Karma Pakshi (1204/6-83), head of the Karma Kagyu order.[28][29] Desideri, who reached Lhasa in 1716, encountered Armenian and Russian merchants.[30]

Roman Catholic Jesuits and Capuchins arrived from Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. Portuguese missionaries Jesuit Father António de Andrade and Brother Manuel Marques first reached the kingdom of Guge in western Tibet in 1624 and was welcomed by the royal family who allowed them to build a church later on.[31][32] By 1627, there were about a hundred local converts in the Guge kingdom.[33] Later on, Christianity was introduced to Rudok, Ladakh and Tsang and was welcomed by the ruler of the Tsang kingdom, where Andrade and his fellows established a Jesuit outpost at Shigatse in 1626.[34]

In 1661 another Jesuit, Johann Grueber, crossed Tibet from Sining to Lhasa (where he spent a month), before heading on to Nepal.[35] He was followed by others who built a church in Lhasa. Italian Jesuit missionary Fr. Ippolito Desideri (1716–1721) gained a particularly deep knowledge of Tibetan culture, language and Buddhism. In his many extant writings in the Classical Tibetan literary language, Fr. Desideri sought to demolish those foundations of Tibetan Buddhism, especially the doctrines of reincarnation and nihilism, that prevented Tibetan belief in the Christian God and conversion to the Catholic Church in Tibet. Fr. Desideri also deftly used conventions from Tibetan literature and passages from the dharma and vinaya to defend his thesis. Fr. Desideri was joined by Capuchins in 1707–1711, 1716–1733 and 1741–1745,[36] Christianity was used by some Tibetan monarchs and their courts and the Karmapa sect lamas to counterbalance the influence of the Gelugpa sect in the 17th century until in 1745 when all the missionaries were expelled at the lama's insistence.[37][38][39][40][41][42]

In 1877, the Protestant James Cameron[43] from the China Inland Mission walked from Chongqing to Batang in Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province, and "brought the Gospel to the Tibetan people."

During the 1905 Tibetan Rebellion Tibetan Buddhist monks attacked, tortured and murdered French Catholic missionaries including Fr. André Soulié and massacred ethnic Tibetan Catholics, including both recent converts and those whose ancestors converted to Catholicism.[44]

Fr. Maurice Tornay, Roman Catholic martyr

In 1949, after driving him from his parish in Yerkalo, Tibetan Buddhist monks from the Karma Gon Monastery ambushed and murdered Fr. Maurice Tornay C.R.S.A., who was travelling in disguise to Lhasa to appeal directly to the Dalai Lama for religious toleration to be granted to Tibetan Christians. Pope John Paul II beatified Fr. Tornay as a martyr for the Catholic faith on May 16, 1993.[45]

Despite both militant state atheism and severe religious persecution that has followed since the Annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China, Christianity still has followers among ethnic Tibetans.

As far as Roman Catholicism is concerned, Tibet officially belongs to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kangding, which has been without a Bishop since 1962. Meanwhile, in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, both the Government-controlled Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association and the pro-Vatican Underground Church have a presence, although statistics for the latter are understandably hard to come by.[46][47][48]

With regard to Protestantism, both the Government controlled Three-Self Patriotic Movement and the independent House Church Movement also have a presence in Tibet. But as with Underground Catholics, accurate statistics regarding the numbers of House Church Protestants is very hard to come by.

Islam

Great Mosque of Lhasa.

Muslims have been living in Tibet since as early as the 8th or 9th century. In Tibetan cities, there are small communities of Muslims known as Kachee (Kache), who trace their origin to immigrants from three main regions: Kashmir (Kachee Yul in ancient Tibetan), Ladakh and the Central Asian Turkic countries. Islamic influence in Tibet also came from Persia. After 1959 a group of Tibetan Muslims made a case for Indian nationality based on their historic roots to Kashmir and the Indian government declared all Tibetan Muslims Indian citizens later on that year.[49] Other Muslim ethnic groups who have long inhabited Tibet include Hui, Salar, Dongxiang and Bonan. There is also a well established Chinese Muslim community (gya kachee), which traces its ancestry back to the Hui ethnic group of China.

Freedom of religion

Religion in Tibet is regulated by the laws of the People's Republic of China, which prohibits religions or use of religions for disrupting social harmony. Buddhist leaders are often detained in prison; Buddhist leader Tenzin Deleg died in prison in 2015 and Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, who is recognized as the 11th Panchen Lama, has been missing since 1995.[50]

In 2023, Tibet was scored zero out of 4 for religious freedom.[51] Chinese authorities view loyalties to Buddhism as a threat to Chinese rule; as such, detention and re-education programmes for monks and nuns, and surveillance units inside temples – particularly the Palyul Thartang Gonchen Monastery in Qinghai Province – are used to curtail freedom of worship.

References

  1. 1 2 International Religious Freedom Report 2012 by the US government. p. 20: «Most ethnic Tibetans practice Tibetan Buddhism, although a sizeable minority practices Bon, an indigenous religion, and very small minorities practice Islam, Catholicism, or Protestantism. Some scholars estimate that there are as many as 400,000 Bon followers across the Tibetan Plateau. Scholars also estimate that there are up to 5,000 ethnic Tibetan Muslims and 700 ethnic Tibetan Catholics in the TAR.»
  2. 1 2 Min Junqing. The Present Situation and Characteristics of Contemporary Islam in China. JISMOR, 8. 2010 Islam by province, page 29. Data from: Yang Zongde, Study on Current Muslim Population in China, Jinan Muslim, 2, 2010.
  3. ↑ Ermakov, Dmitry (2008). Bø and Bön: Ancient Shamanic Traditions of Siberia and Tibet in Their Relation to the Teachings of a Central Asian Buddha. Jyatha, Thamel, Kathmandu: Vajra Publications. ISBN 9789937506113. Retrieved 7 November 2022.
  4. ↑ Smith, Warren W. (31 July 2019) [1996]. "Foundations of the Tibetan State". Tibetan Nation: A History Of Tibetan Nationalism And Sino-tibetan Relations. New York: Routledge. ISBN 9781000612288. Retrieved 7 November 2022. Jol Bon [pre-Bon] was animistic in beliefs and shamanistic in its ritual aspects.
  5. ↑ Te-Ming TSENG, Shen-Yu LIN. The Image of Confucius in Tibetan Culture Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine. 臺灣東亞文明研究學刊 第4卷第2期(總第8期) 2007年12月 頁169–207.
  6. ↑ Shenyu Lin. "The Tibetan Image of Confucius" Archived 2017-09-13 at the Wayback Machine. Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines.
  7. ↑ "China announces 'civilizing' atheism drive in Tibet". BBC. 12 January 1999. Retrieved 7 November 2022. The Chinese Communist Party has launched a three-year drive to promote atheism in the Buddhist region of Tibet, saying it is the key to economic progress and a weapon against separatism as typified by the exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama.
  8. ↑ China-Tibet Online: Confucius ruled as a "divine king" in Tibet. 2014-11-04
  9. ↑ Confucius ruled as a "divine king" in Tibet
  10. ↑ Tibet House US website (dated 2021)
  11. ↑ US State Dept 2018 report
  12. ↑ US State Dept 2018 report
  13. ↑ "Culture and religion".
  14. ↑ "Tibet | History, Map, Capital, Population, Language, & Facts | Britannica". 19 August 2023.
  15. ↑ Conze, Edward (1993). A Short History of Buddhism. Oneworld. ISBN 1-85168-066-7.
  16. 1 2 Tibetan monks: A controlled life. BBC News. March 20, 2008.
  17. ↑ Tibet During the Cultural Revolution Pictures from a Tibetan People's Liberation Army's officer Archived February 13, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  18. ↑ Tibet's Buddhist Monks Endure to Rebuild a Part of the Past New York Times Published: June 14, 1987.
  19. ↑ Goldstein, Melvyn C. (2007). A History of Modern Tibet: Volume 2 The Calm before the Storm, 1951–1955. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
  20. ↑ Avalokitesvara, Chenrezig
  21. ↑ United States Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. China: International Religious Freedom Report 2007.
  22. ↑ World Guangong Culture: Lhasa, Tibet: Guandi temple was inaugurated.
  23. ↑ China-Tibet Online: Tibet's largest Guandi Temple gets repaired. 2013-03-13
  24. ↑ World Guangong Culture: Dingri, Tibet: Cornerstone Laying Ceremony being Grandly Held for the Reconstruction of Qomolangma Guandi Temple.
  25. ↑ World Guangong Culture: Wuhan, China: Yang Song Meets Cui Yujing to Discuss Qomolangma Guandi Temple.
  26. 1 2 3 The Heroes of Ling: The Elimination of a Tibetan Sect. Bod sjongs 'phrin deb 1982. Translation first published on: Background Papers on Tibet – September 1992, part 2, London: Tibet Information Network, 1992, pp. 30–33.
  27. ↑ Huang Xinchuan (1986), Hinduism and China, in Freedom, Progress, and Society (Editors: Balasubramanian et al.), ISBN 81-208-0262-4, pp. 125–138
  28. ↑ Kapstein 2006, pp. 31, 71, 113
  29. ↑ Stein 1972, pp. 36, 77–78
  30. ↑ Françoise Pommaret, Françoise Pommaret-Imaeda (2003). Lhasa in the Seventeenth Century: The Capital of the Dalai Lamas. BRILL. p.159. ISBN 90-04-12866-2
  31. ↑ Graham Sanderg, The Exploration of Tibet: History and Particulars (Delhi: Cosmo Publications, 1973), pp. 23–26; Thomas Holdich, Tibet, The Mysterious (London: Alston Rivers, 1906), p. 70.
  32. ↑ Sir Edward Maclagan, The Jesuits and The Great Mogul (London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne Ltd., 1932), pp. 344–345.
  33. ↑ Lettera del P. Alano Dos Anjos al Provinciale di Goa, 10 Novembre 1627, quoted from Wu Kunming, Zaoqi Chuanjiaoshi jin Zang Huodongshi (Beijing: Zhongguo Zangxue chubanshe, 1992), p. 163.
  34. ↑ Extensively using Italian and Portuguese archival materials, Wu's work gives a detailed account of Cacella's activities in Tsang. See Zaoqi Chuanjiaoshi jin Zang Huodongshi, esp. chapter 5.
  35. ↑ Narratives of the Mission of George Bogle to Tibet, and of the Journey of Thomas Manning to Lhasa, pp. 295–302. Clements R. Markham. (1876). Reprint Cosmo Publications, New Delhi. 1989.
  36. ↑ Stein 1972, p. 85
  37. ↑ Lin Hsiao-ting. "When Christianity and Lamaism Met: The Changing Fortunes of Early Western Missionaries in Tibet". Pacificrim.usfca.edu. Archived from the original on June 26, 2010. Retrieved 2010-03-26.
  38. ↑ "BBC News Country Profiles Timeline: Tibet". 2009-11-05. Retrieved 2009-03-11.
  39. ↑ Lettera del P. Antonio de Andrade. Giovanni de Oliveira. Alano Dos Anjos al Provinciale di Goa, 29 Agosto, 1627, quoted from Wu, Zaoqi Chuanjiaoshi jin Zang Huodongshi, p. 196; Maclagan, The Jesuits and The Great Mogul, pp. 347–348.
  40. ↑ Cornelius Wessels, Early Jesuit Travellers in Central Asia, 1603–1721 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1924), pp. 80–85.
  41. ↑ Maclagan, The Jesuits and The Great Mogul, pp. 349–352; Filippo De Filippi ed., An Account of Tibet, pp. 13–17.
  42. ↑ Relação da Missão do Reino de Uçangue Cabeça dos do Potente, Escrita pello P. João Cabral da Comp. de Jesu. fol. 1, quoted from Wu, Zaoqi Chuanjiaoshi jin Zang Huodongshi, pp. 294–297; Wang Yonghong, "Luelun Tianzhujiao zai Xizang di Zaoqi Huodong", Xizang Yanjiu, 1989, No. 3, pp. 62–63.
  43. ↑ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-02-03. Retrieved 2016-01-28.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  44. ↑ Coleman, William M. (2014), Making the State on the Sino-Tibetan Frontier: Chinese Expansion and Local Power in Batang, 1842–1939 (PDF), Columbia University pages 247–248.
  45. ↑ Filoni, Cardinal Fernando (May 1, 2013). "Missionary Audacity – the Mission to Tibet". Marist Messenger National Catholic Monthly. Translated by Brian Quin sm (from “Missions Etrangeres de Paris” No 478, December 2012. Marist Messenger. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
  46. ↑ Wine, prayer and song: China's tiny Catholic Tibetan community's uneasy truce with the Communist Party by Sophie Yan, The Telegraph, 18 December 2021.
  47. ↑ Easter in China: rebirth in a Tibetan Catholic village by Chris Helali, South China Morning Post, 5 Apr. 2015.
  48. ↑ "The only Catholic church in use in Tibet". China Daily. 11 March 2014. Retrieved 2022-01-16.
  49. ↑ Masood Butt, 'Muslims of Tibet' Archived 2006-09-10 at the Wayback Machine, The Office of Tibet, January/February 1994
  50. ↑ US State Dept 2018 report
  51. ↑ Freedom House website, retrieved 2023-08-08
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