Religion in Tibet

According to estimates from the International Religious Freedom Report of 2012, most

Bön

Bön, the indigenous animist and shamanic belief system of Tibet, revolves around the worship of nature and claims to predate Buddhism.^[10]

According to Bon religious texts: three Bon scriptures – mdo 'dus, gzer mig, and gzi brjid – relate the mythos of Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche.^[11] 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.^[12] 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.^[13] 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.^[14]

Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche visited Kongpo and found people whose practice involved spiritual appeasement with animal sacrifice.^[15] 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.^[16]

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.^[17] 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.^[18]

Tibetan Buddhism

Religion is extremely important to the Tibetans and has a strong influence over all aspects of their lives.

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

• 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.^[23]
• 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.^[24]
• 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.^[25]
• 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.^[26]

Chinese Ethnic Religions

Main article: Chinese folk religion

Most of the

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.^{[27][28][29][30]}

Built or rebuilt between 2014 and 2015 is the Guandi Temple of Qomolangma (Mount Everest), on Ganggar Mount, in Tingri County.^[31][32]

There is a Tibetan folk religious sect in

Gesar,^[33] which was later banned as a disruptive and "splittist" sect.^[34]

Islam

Great Mosque of Lhasa

.

Main article: Tibetan Muslims

Tibetan Muslims, also known as the Khache (Tibetan: ཁ་ཆེ་, lit. 'Kashmiris'), are Tibetans who adhere to Islam.^[35][36] Many are descendants of Kashmiris, Ladakhis, and Nepalis who arrived in Tibet in the 14th to 17th centuries.^[37] There are approximately 5,000 Tibetan Muslims living in China,^[38] over 1,500 in India,^[35] and 300 to 400 in Nepal.^[39] The government of the People's Republic of China does not recognize the Tibetan Muslims as a distinct ethnic group; they are grouped with Tibetan adherents of Buddhism and Bon. In contrast, the Chinese-speaking Hui Muslims are distinguished from the Han Chinese majority.^[40]

Christianity

See also: Catholic Church in Tibet

Antonio de Andrade

The first Christians documented to have reached Tibet were the

Karma Pakshi (1204/6-83), head of the Karma Kagyu order.^[41][42] Desideri, who reached Lhasa in 1716, encountered Armenian and Russian merchants.^[43]

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.^[44][45] By 1627, there were about a hundred local converts in the Guge kingdom.^[46] 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.^[47]

In 1661 another Jesuit,

Gelugpa sect in the 17th century until in 1745 when all the missionaries were expelled at the lama's insistence.^{[50][51][52][53][54][55]}

In 1877, the Protestant James Cameron

China Inland Mission walked from Chongqing to Batang in Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province, and "brought the Gospel to the Tibetan people."^[57]

During the

1905 Tibetan Rebellion Tibetan Buddhist monks attacked, tortured and murdered French Catholic missionaries including Fr. André Soulié and massacred ethnic Tibetan Catholics,^[58] including both recent converts and those whose ancestors converted to Catholicism.^[59][60]

In 1949, after driving him from his

beatified Fr. Tornay as a martyr for the Catholic faith on May 16, 1993.^[61]

As far as

Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association and the pro-Vatican Underground Church have a presence, although statistics for the latter are understandably hard to come by.^[62][63][64]

With regard to Protestantism, both the Caesaropapism Three-Self Patriotic Movement and the independent House Church Movement also have a presence in Tibet, mostly in Lhasa.^{[citation needed]}

Hinduism

See also: Mount Kailash

Tantric school of Nepalese Hinduism and Buddhism reach to Tibetan region through Nepal route, buy very few in Nepal's border region with China.^[65][66]

See also

• Buddhism in China
• Religion in China

References

1. ^ 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. ^ 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^{[permanent dead link]}. 2014-11-04
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32. ^ World Guangong Culture: Wuhan, China: Yang Song Meets Cui Yujing to Discuss Qomolangma Guandi Temple.
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36. ^ "The Tibetan Muslims who have made Kashmir their home". BBC News. 1 December 2017.
37. ^ Cabezon, Jose Ignacio (February 1998). "Islam on the Roof of the World". Aramco World. Retrieved 8 January 2022.
38. ^ "Tibet". United States Department of State.
39. ^ Hennig, Clare (11 July 2014). "A minority within a minority". Nepali Times.
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45. ^ Sir Edward Maclagan, The Jesuits and The Great Mogul (London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne Ltd., 1932), pp. 344–345.
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47. ^ 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.
48. ^ 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.
49. ^ Stein 1972, p. 85
50. Lin Hsiao-ting. "When Christianity and Lamaism Met: The Changing Fortunes of Early Western Missionaries in Tibet". Pacificrim.usfca.edu. Archived from the original
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52. ^ 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.
53. ^ Cornelius Wessels, Early Jesuit Travellers in Central Asia, 1603–1721 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1924), pp. 80–85.
54. ^ Maclagan, The Jesuits and The Great Mogul, pp. 349–352; Filippo De Filippi ed., An Account of Tibet, pp. 13–17.
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