Samding Dorje Phagmo
69-487: Drepung Monastery ( Tibetan : འབྲས་སྤུངས་དགོན་པ , Wylie : bras spungs dgon pa , THL : drépung gönpa , "Rice Heap Monastery"), located at the foot of Mount Gephel , is one of the "great three" Gelug university gompas (monasteries) of Tibet . The other two are Ganden Monastery and Sera Monastery . Drepung is the largest of all Tibetan monasteries and is located on the Gambo Utse mountain, five kilometers from
138-630: A land area distributed in multiple province-level administrative divisions in present-day China, most of it in Tibet Autonomous Region and Sichuan , with smaller portions located within Qinghai and Yunnan . Densely forested with grass plains, its convergence of six valleys and four rivers supported independent Kham polities of Tibetan warrior kingdoms together with Tibetan Buddhist monastic centers. The early trading route between Central Tibet and China traveled through Kham, and Kham
207-562: A power struggle in the mid-9th century, Tibet separated into independent kingdoms. Kham was not controlled by a single king and remained a patchwork of kingdoms, tribes, and chiefdoms whose bases of authority were constantly shifting. A dual system of secular and Buddhist polities continued. In 1270, the Sakya school's lama Tonstul, a student of Sakya Pandita , established a monastery in Kham while both Kagyu and Sakya monasteries were located in
276-502: A result, in all modern Tibetan dialects and in particular in the Standard Tibetan of Lhasa , there is a great divergence between current spelling, which still reflects the 9th-century spoken Tibetan, and current pronunciation. This divergence is the basis of an argument in favour of spelling reform , to write Tibetan as it is pronounced ; for example, writing Kagyu instead of Bka'-rgyud . The nomadic Amdo Tibetan and
345-628: A somewhat useful analogy to think of Drepung as a university along the lines of Oxford or the Sorbonne in the Middle Ages , the various colleges having different emphases, teaching lineages, or traditional geographical affiliations. According to local sources, today the population at the monastery in Lhasa is about 300 monks, due to population capping enforced by the Chinese government. However,
414-564: Is a segmental writing system, or abugida , derived from Brahmic scripts and Gupta script , and used to write certain Tibetic languages , including Tibetan , Dzongkha , Sikkimese , Ladakhi , Jirel and Balti . It was originally developed c. 620 by Tibetan minister Thonmi Sambhota for King Songtsen Gampo . The Tibetan script has also been used for some non-Tibetic languages in close cultural contact with Tibet, such as Thakali , Nepali and Old Turkic . The printed form
483-589: Is called uchen script while the hand-written cursive form used in everyday writing is called umê script . This writing system is used across the Himalayas and Tibet . The script is closely linked to a broad ethnic Tibetan identity, spanning across areas in India , Nepal , Bhutan and Tibet. The Tibetan script is of Brahmic origin from the Gupta script and is ancestral to scripts such as Lepcha , Marchen and
552-706: Is credited with commissioning Buddhist structures while traveling through Kham in 640–641, from her home in China to Central Tibet. During the Imperial era, both Nyingma school and Bon monasteries were located, especially in Nyarong Valley , among pastoral and agricultural-based polities ruled by local chieftains, polities which included merchant as well as Mongol and Chinese populations. Notable Tibetan Buddhist art from this era, dating from 804 or 816, includes carved stone statues of Buddha Vairocana . Following
621-666: Is designed as a simple means for inputting Dzongkha text on computers. This keyboard layout was standardized by the Dzongkha Development Commission (DDC) and the Department of Information Technology (DIT) of the Royal Government of Bhutan in 2000. It was updated in 2009 to accommodate additional characters added to the Unicode & ISO 10646 standards since the initial version. Since
690-633: Is in the middle of the consonant and vowel, it is added as a subscript. On the other hand, when the ར /ra/ comes before the consonant and vowel, it is added as a superscript. ར /ra/ actually changes form when it is above most other consonants, thus རྐ rka. However, an exception to this is the cluster རྙ /ɲa/. Similarly, the consonants ར /ra/, and ཡ /ja/ change form when they are beneath other consonants, thus ཀྲ /ʈ ~ ʈʂa/; ཀྱ /ca/. Besides being written as subscripts and superscripts, some consonants can also be placed in prescript, postscript, or post-postscript positions. For instance,
759-400: Is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being Domey also known as Amdo in the northeast, and Ü-Tsang in central Tibet. The official name of this Tibetan region/province is Dotoe ( Tibetan : མདོ་སྟོད་ ). The original residents of Kham are called Khampas ( Tibetan : ཁམས་པ་ , Wylie : khams pa ), and were governed locally by chieftains and monasteries. Kham covers
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#1732765427450828-480: Is said to be the inspiration for Shangri-La in James Hilton's novel. Settled as Tibet's eastern frontier in the 7th century, King Songtsen Gampo built temples along its eastern border. In 1939, an eastern area of Kham was officially established as Xikang Province of China. Kham has a rugged terrain characterized by mountain ridges and gorges running from northwest to southeast, and collectively known as
897-528: Is simply read as it usually is and has no effect on the pronunciation of the consonant to which it is subjoined, for example ཀ་ཝ་ཟུར་ཀྭ (IPA: /ka.wa.suː.ka/). The vowels used in the alphabet are ཨ /a/, ཨི /i/, ཨུ /u/, ཨེ /e/, and ཨོ /o/. While the vowel /a/ is included in each consonant, the other vowels are indicated by marks; thus ཀ /ka/, ཀི /ki/, ཀུ /ku/, ཀེ /ke/, ཀོ /ko/. The vowels ཨི /i/, ཨེ /e/, and ཨོ /o/ are placed above consonants as diacritics, while
966-615: Is solely for the consonants ད /tʰa/ and ས /sa/. The head ( མགོ in Tibetan, Wylie: mgo ) letter, or superscript, position above a radical is reserved for the consonants ར /ra/, ལ /la/, and ས /sa/. The subscript position under a radical can only be occupied by the consonants ཡ /ja/, ར /ra/, ལ /la/, and ཝ /wa/. In this position they are described as བཏགས (Wylie: btags , IPA: /taʔ/), in Tibetan meaning "hung on/affixed/appended", for example བ་ཡ་བཏགས་བྱ (IPA: /pʰa.ja.taʔ.t͡ʃʰa/), except for ཝ , which
1035-408: The 2008 Tibetan uprising anniversary was on 10 March 2008, when a group of 300-400 monks from Drepung monastery marched to Lhasa 's center demanding religious freedom and the release of Drepung monks arrested a year earlier. Chinese police blocked their route, and a sitting protest began. Reportedly, some monks were thrown to the ground and kicked, and up to 60 monks were arrested. Drepung monastery
1104-843: The Chinese Civil War . The Kuomintang formulated a plan where three Khampa divisions would be assisted by the Panchen Lama to oppose the Communists. Kuomintang intelligence reported that some Tibetan tusi chiefs and the Khampa Su Yonghe controlled 80,000 troops in Sichuan, Qinghai, and Tibet. They hoped to use them against the Communist army. The Chinese Kuomintang (Nationalists) also enlisted Khampas to join their military. The Chinese Kuomintang also sought
1173-595: The Hengduan Mountains . Numerous rivers, including the Mekong , Yangtze , Yalong River , and the Salween River flow through Kham. Under the modern administrative division of China, Kham includes a total of 50 contemporary counties , which have been incorporated into the Chinese provinces of Sichuan (16 counties), Yunnan (three counties), and Qinghai (6 counties) as well as the eastern portion of
1242-583: The Hor States , Litang , Degé , the Chakla and Batang , becoming the paramount power in the region. China sent troops in against Namgyal which were defeated in 1849, and additional troops were not dispatched. Chinese military posts were present along the trading route, but "did not have any authority over the native chiefs". By 1862, Namgyal blocked trade routes from China to Central Tibet, and sent troops into China. Local chieftains had appealed to both
1311-898: The Latin script . Multiple Romanization and transliteration systems have been created in recent years, but do not fully represent the true phonetic sound. While the Wylie transliteration system is widely used to Romanize Standard Tibetan , others include the Library of Congress system and the IPA-based transliteration (Jacques 2012). Below is a table with Tibetan letters and different Romanization and transliteration system for each letter, listed below systems are: Wylie transliteration (W), Tibetan pinyin (TP), Dzongkha phonetic (DP), ALA-LC Romanization (A) and THL Simplified Phonetic Transcription (THL). The first version of Microsoft Windows to support
1380-527: The Pabonka Hermitage . This occurred c. 620 , towards the beginning of the king's reign. There were 21 Sutra texts held by the King which were afterward translated. In the first half of the 7th century, the Tibetan script was used for the codification of these sacred Buddhist texts, for written civil laws, and for a Tibetan Constitution. A contemporary academic suggests that the script
1449-669: The Tibetan Empire sent troops east from Lhasa to the reaches of the Tibetan Plateau , where they interacted with local cultures and languages to establish eastern Tibet, or Do Kham ('Do', the convergence of rivers and valleys; 'Kham', frontier). Kham was traditionally referred to as Chushi Gangdruk , i.e. 'The Four Rivers and Six Ranges' and 'The Four Great Valleys'. Responsible for introducing Buddhism to Tibet, King Songtsen Gampo (reign 629–649) built twelve 'border-taming' temples in Kham, and his 4th wife Wencheng Gongzhu
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#17327654274501518-399: The 4th incarnation of Panchen Sonam Dragpa). It seems to be commonly accepted that Dragpa Gyaltsen was the fourth holder of the gzims khang gong ma incarnation line. According to Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center gzims khang gong ma 04 grags pa rgyal mtshan has been his "primaryTitle". Since the search for his reincarnation has been banned, he has been the last one. Chapman reported that in
1587-547: The British Military Expedition to Lhasa and subsequent retreat [and consequent power vacuum within Tibet] were primarily responsible". In 1932, an agreement signed between Chinese warlord Liu Wenhui and Tibetan forces formalized the partition of Kham into two regions: Eastern Kham, which was administered by Chinese forces, and Western Kham, which was administered by Tibet. Eastern Kham subsequently became
1656-589: The Governor of Xining , where he earned the nickname of "the Butcher of Kham". In 1905 or 1908 Zhao began executing monks and destroying many monasteries in Kham and Amdo , implementing an early "sinicization" of the region: He abolished the powers of the Tibetan local leaders and appointed Chinese magistrates in their places. He introduced new laws that limited the number of lamas and deprived monasteries of their temporal power and inaugurated schemes for having
1725-781: The Hor States. In 1717, the Mongol Dzungar Khanate invaded Tibet and other Asian regions. The Qing Chinese army likewise invaded and defeated the Dzungars. This led to the redrawing of the Sino-Tibetan boundary of 1677, which had followed the edge of the Tibetan Plateau. The frontier line changed in either 1725 or 1726 to follow the Dri River (Jinsha River, Upper Yangtze ), while the Kham region on
1794-519: The Indian subcontinent state that the classical orthography should not be altered even when used for lay purposes. This became an obstacle for many modern Tibetic languages wishing to modernize or to introduce a written tradition. Amdo Tibetan was one of a few examples where Buddhist practitioners initiated a spelling reform. A spelling reform of the Ladakhi language was controversial in part because it
1863-734: The Khampas help in defending Sichuan from Japan during World War 2, since the temporary capital was located there. A Khampa member of the Mongolian Tibetan Academy was Han Jiaxiang. 300 "Khampa bandits" were enlisted into the Kuomintang Consolatory Commission military in Sichuan, where they were part of the effort of the central government of China to penetrated and destabilize the local Han warlords such as Liu Wenhui. The Chinese government sought to exercise full control over frontier areas against
1932-743: The Khampas, whose relationship with the Dalai Lama's government in Lhasa were deteriorating badly. The Khampa revolutionary leader Pandatsang Rapga founded the Tibet Improvement Party to overthrow the Tibetan government and establish a Tibetan Republic as part of China. In addition to using the Khampa's against the Tibetan Government in Lhasa, the Chinese Kuomintang also used them against the Communists during
2001-654: The Lhasa and the Qing Manchu governments for help against Namgyal. The Tibetan authorities sent an army in 1863, and defeated Namgyal then killed him at his Nyarong fort by 1865. Central Tibet reasserted its authority over the northern parts of Kham and established the Office of the Tibetan High Commissioner to govern. Tibet also reclaimed Nyarong, Degé and the Hor States north of Nyarong. China recalled their forces. It appears to have been accepted by
2070-598: The Manchu Tongzhi Emperor . Then in 1896, the Qing Governor of Sichuan attempted to gain control of Nyarong valley during a military attack. After his defeat, the Qing agreed to the withdrawal of Chinese forces and the "territory was returned to the direct rule of Lhasa". From 1904 to 1911, China decided to reassert its control over the previously re-ceded section of Kham, and to push further into
2139-547: The Qing, the Beijing-appointed amban Zhong Ying invaded Lhasa with the Chinese army in February 1910 in order to gain control of Tibet and establish direct Chinese rule. The 13th Dalai Lama escaped to British India , and returned before China surrendered via a letter from the amban to the Dalai Lama in the summer of 1912. On 13 February 1913, the Dalai Lama declared Tibet an independent nation, and announced
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2208-583: The Seat of the Upper Chamber established in 1554. According to TBRC his successors referring to the estate of the Zimkhang Gongma were Sonam Yeshe Wangpo (1556–92), Sonam Gelek Palzang (1594–1615) and Tulku Dragpa Gyaltsen (1619–1656) - closely connected to the famous story of Dorje Shugden . (Some say that Drakpa Gyeltsen was Sönam Drakpa’s second reincarnation, but usually he is considered to be
2277-544: The Throne of Ganden ( Ganden Tri ) and was considered the most prolific and important Geluk thinker of his time. His successor was none other than Sönam Gyatso (1543-1588 CE), the lama who would receive the official title of the Third Dalai Lama (Talé Lama Kutreng Sumpa). Before his death in 1554, Sönam Drakpa established his own estate, the Upper Chamber (Zimkhang Gongma), which was named because of its location at
2346-520: The Tibet Autonomous Region (25 counties). The people of Kham, the Khampas, are reputed warriors renowned for their marksmanship and horsemanship. References state many Khampas in the Hor States include mention of their Mongolian heritage. There are significant differences in traditions and beliefs—even physical appearance—between the peoples of Kham and Lhasa. Most of Kham's residents speak Khams Tibetan while at least one-third of
2415-467: The Tibetan government established by the 5th Dalai Lama came from the name of this estate. Penchen Sönam Drakpa (1478-1554 CE) in 1535 succeeded Gendün Gyatso (1476–1541) on the Throne of Drepung, both of them being major figures in the history of the Geluk tradition. By the time Sönam Drakpa was appointed to the Throne of Drepung (Drepung Tri), he was already a famous Geluk master. He had already occupied
2484-732: The Tibetan keyboard layout is MS Windows Vista . The layout has been available in Linux since September 2007. In Ubuntu 12.04, one can install Tibetan language support through Dash / Language Support / Install/Remove Languages, the input method can be turned on from Dash / Keyboard Layout, adding Tibetan keyboard layout. The layout applies the similar layout as in Microsoft Windows. Mac OS -X introduced Tibetan Unicode support with OS-X version 10.5 and later, now with three different keyboard layouts available: Tibetan-Wylie, Tibetan QWERTY and Tibetan-Otani. The Dzongkha keyboard layout scheme
2553-410: The Tibetan script is that the consonants can be written either as radicals or they can be written in other forms, such as subscript and superscript forming consonant clusters . To understand how this works, one can look at the radical ཀ /ka/ and see what happens when it becomes ཀྲ /kra/ or རྐ /rka/ (pronounced /ka/). In both cases, the symbol for ཀ /ka/ is used, but when the ར /ra/
2622-401: The Tibetan script it is /a/. The letter ཨ is also the base for dependent vowel marks. Although some Tibetan dialects are tonal , the language had no tone at the time of the script's invention, and there are no dedicated symbols for tone. However, since tones developed from segmental features, they can usually be correctly predicted by the archaic spelling of Tibetan words. One aspect of
2691-487: The actual area of control of China's Xikang province. The border between eastern and western Kham is the Upper Yangtze – Dri Chu in Tibetan and Jinsha Jiang respectively, in Chinese. Tenpay Gyaltsan, a Khampa who was 5 years old, was selected as the fifth Jamyang Hutuktu in 1921. The Kham Pandatsang family led the 1934 Khamba rebellion against the Tibetan government in Lhasa. The Kuomintang reached out to
2760-509: The arrangement of keys essentially follows the usual order of the Dzongkha and Tibetan alphabet, the layout can be quickly learned by anyone familiar with this alphabet. Subjoined (combining) consonants are entered using the Shift key. The Dzongkha (dz) keyboard layout is included in Microsoft Windows, Android, and most distributions of Linux as part of XFree86 . Tibetan was originally one of
2829-407: The basic Tibetan alphabet to represent different sounds. In addition to the use of supplementary graphemes, the rules for constructing consonant clusters are amended, allowing any character to occupy the superscript or subscript position, negating the need for the prescript and postscript positions. Romanization and transliteration of the Tibetan script is the representation of the Tibetan script in
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2898-415: The c. 620 date of development of the original Tibetan script. Three orthographic standardisations were developed. The most important, an official orthography aimed to facilitate the translation of Buddhist scriptures emerged during the early 9th century. Standard orthography has not been altered since then, while the spoken language has changed by, for example, losing complex consonant clusters . As
2967-591: The close watch of the Chinese security services. All three were re-established in exile in the 1950s in the state of Karnataka in south-west India. Drepung and Ganden are in Mundgod and Sera is in Bylakuppe . Drepung Monastery was founded in 1416 by Jamyang Choge Tashi Palden (1397–1449), one of Tsongkhapa 's main disciples, and it was named after the sacred abode in South India of Shridhanyakataka. Drepung
3036-418: The consonants ག /kʰa/, ད /tʰa/, བ /pʰa/, མ /ma/ and འ /a/ can be used in the prescript position to the left of other radicals, while the position after a radical (the postscript position), can be held by the ten consonants ག /kʰa/, ན /na/, བ /pʰa/, ད /tʰa/, མ /ma/, འ /a/, ར /ra/, ང /ŋa/, ས /sa/, and ལ /la/. The third position, the post-postscript position
3105-634: The eastern bank became Qing domain. There, hereditary chieftains were bestowed honorific titles of tusi , and obligated to fight alongside the Qing army in other Kham battles between chieftains. Earlier in 1724, an area of Qinghai (Kokonor) was established within Do Kham. The eastern Kham Qing domain was later incorporated into neighboring Chinese provinces. In 1837, a minor chieftain Gompo Namgyal , of Nyarong in eastern Kham, began expanding his control regionally and launched offensives against
3174-565: The end of the historic "priest-patron" relationship between Tibet and China. The amban and Chinese army were expelled, while other Chinese populations were given three years to depart. By late 1913, Kham and Amdo remained largely occupied by China. Tibet proposed re-establishing the border between Tibet and China at the Dri River during the Simla Conference with Britain and China, while Britain countered with another proposal which
3243-571: The institution has continued its tradition in exile with campuses in South India on land in Karnataka given to the Tibetan community in exile by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru . The monastery in India today houses over 5,000 celibate monks, with around 3,000 at Drepung Loseling and some 2,000 at Drepung Gomang . Hundreds of new monks are admitted each year, many of them refugees from Tibet. The Ganden-Phodrang-Palace situated at Drepung Monastery
3312-468: The land cultivated by Chinese immigrants. Zhao's methods in eastern Tibet uncannily prefigured the Communist policies nearly half a century later. They were aimed at the extermination of the Tibetan clergy, the assimilation of territory and repopulation of the Tibetan plateaus with poor peasants from Sichuan. Like the later Chinese conquerors, Zhao's men looted and destroyed Tibetan monasteries, melted down religious images and tore up sacred texts to use to line
3381-533: The late 1930s Drepung was divided into four colleges, each housing monks from a different locality: "one being favoured by Khampas , another by Mongolians , and so on." Each college was presided over by an abbot who had been appointed by the late 13th Dalai Lama . Drepung is now divided into what are known as the seven great colleges: Gomang (sGo-mang), Loseling (Blo-gsal gling), Deyang (bDe-dbyangs), Shagkor (Shag-skor), Gyelwa (rGyal-ba) or Tosamling (Thos-bsam gling), Dulwa (‘Dul-ba), and Ngagpa (sNgags-pa). It can be
3450-402: The multilingual ʼPhags-pa script , and is also closely related to Meitei . According to Tibetan historiography, the Tibetan script was developed during the reign of King Songtsen Gampo by his minister Thonmi Sambhota , who was sent to India with 16 other students to study Buddhism along with Sanskrit and written languages. They developed the Tibetan script from the Gupta script while at
3519-403: The northern plains, including Gonjo and Lingtsang, which accompanied the earlier Nyingma and Bon monasteries of Kham. In 1639, Güshri Khan , a supporter of the Dalai Lama, invaded with Mongolian troops and defeated the powerful King of Beri in Kham. In 1655, Ngawang Phuntsok, a student of the Dalai Lama, founded Gonsar Monastery, the first of the 13 Gelug monasteries in the Hor States , with
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#17327654274503588-579: The region soon after the invasion of Tibet by the British army under Francis Younghusband in 1904. The British invasion alarmed the Qing rulers in China, and they sent Fengquan (鳳全) to Kham to initiate land reforms and reduce the numbers of monks. An anti-foreigner and anti-Qing uprising in Batang led to Fengquan's death, while Chinese fields were burned. The Qing then undertook punitive campaigns in Kham under Manchu army commander Zhao Erfeng , also
3657-519: The residents are speakers of Qiangic languages , a family of twelve distinct but interrelated languages that are not closely related to Khams Tibetan. As a frontier region, Kham integrated and "Tibetanized" early Mongolian and Chinese populations. After Güshri Khan's invasion of Kham in 1639, Mongolian people and Amdo's tribal people resettled to the region. The Khampas are known for their great height. Khampa males are on average 180 cm (5 ft 11 in). The Pugyal Dynasty (or Yarlung) of
3726-818: The scripts in the first version of the Unicode Standard in 1991, in the Unicode block U+1000–U+104F. However, in 1993, in version 1.1, it was removed (the code points it took up would later be used for the Burmese script in version 3.0). The Tibetan script was re-added in July, 1996 with the release of version 2.0. The Unicode block for Tibetan is U+0F00–U+0FFF. It includes letters, digits and various punctuation marks and special symbols used in religious texts: Kham Kham ( Tibetan : ཁམས་ , Wylie : khams ; Chinese : 康 ; pinyin : Kāng )
3795-557: The so-called lower chamber (Zimkhang 'og ma) associated with the Dalai Lamas-to-be, and the upper chamber (Zimkhang gong ma) associated with the descendants of Sonam Drakpa, an illustrious teacher who died in 1554. The estate of the Dalai Lamas at Drepung Monastery, called Ganden Phodrang , had been constructed in 1518 by Gendun Gyatso Palzangpo (1476–1541), retrospectively named and counted as 2nd Dalai Lama . The name of
3864-520: The soles of their boots and, as the Communists were also to do later, Zhao Erfeng worked out a comprehensive scheme for the redevelopment of Tibet that covered military training reclamation work, secular education, trade and administration. After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, Zhao was stripped of his post and executed by the revolutionary commander Yin Changheng . A year before the collapse of
3933-456: The support of the kingdom of Degé . By 1677, many Gelug monasteries had been built when the 5th Dalai Lama finalized Kham's Sino-Tibetan border location between China and a Tibet then reunified in the Khoshut Khanate , resulting in Kham being ascribed to Tibet's authority. The major independent polities included the Chakla , Degé , the Lingtsang , Nangchen and the Lhatok . Other important polities included Chamdo , Batang , Mili , and
4002-423: The top of Drepung, just below the Ngakpa debating courtyard "Ngagpa Dratshang". Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center attributes the following Name variants to Penchen Sönam Drakpa: "bsod nams grags pa [primaryName], paN chen bsod nams grags pa [title], khri 15 bsod nams grags pa [primaryTitle], rtses thang paN chen bsod nams grags pa [title], gzims khang gong ma 01 bsod nams grags pa [title], this last one referring to
4071-457: The vowel ཨུ /u/ is placed underneath consonants. Old Tibetan included a reversed form of the mark for /i/, the gigu 'verso', of uncertain meaning. There is no distinction between long and short vowels in written Tibetan, except in loanwords , especially transcribed from the Sanskrit . The Tibetan alphabet, when used to write other languages such as Balti , Chinese and Sanskrit , often has additional and/or modified graphemes taken from
4140-405: The warlords. The Consoltary Commission forces were used to battle the Communist Red Army but were defeated when their religious leader was captured by Communist forces. The Republic of China government also used Khampa traders to operate secret transports between different places. Kesang Tsering was sent by the Chinese to Batang to take control of Xikang , where he formed a local government. He
4209-472: The western dialects of the Ladakhi language , as well as the Balti language , come very close to the Old Tibetan spellings. Despite that, the grammar of these dialectical varieties has considerably changed. To write the modern varieties according to the orthography and grammar of Classical Tibetan would be similar to writing Italian according to Latin orthography, or to writing Hindi according to Sanskrit orthogrophy. However, modern Buddhist practitioners in
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#17327654274504278-420: The western suburb of Lhasa . Freddie Spencer Chapman reported, after his 1936–37 trip to Tibet, that Drepung was at that time the largest monastery in the world, and housed 7,700 monks, "but sometimes as many as 10,000 monks." Since the 1950s, Drepung Monastery, along with its peers Ganden and Sera, have lost much of their independence and spiritual credibility in the eyes of Tibetans since they operate under
4347-421: Was constructed by the 2nd Dalai Lama in 1518 and declared his chief residence/governmental palace until the inauguration of Potala Palace by the 5th Dalai Lama. Almost half of the older monastic buildings was destroyed after the Chinese arrived in Lhasa in 1951. The chief buildings including the four colleges, the Tsokchen, and the Dalai Lamas' residence were preserved. The first reported demonstration during
4416-467: Was first initiated by Christian missionaries. In the Tibetan script, the syllables are written from left to right. Syllables are separated by a tsek (་); since many Tibetan words are monosyllabic, this mark often functions almost as a space. Spaces are not used to divide words. The Tibetan alphabet has thirty basic letters, sometimes known as "radicals", for consonants. As in other Indic scripts , each consonant letter assumes an inherent vowel ; in
4485-505: Was initialed but not ratified. In 1917, the Tibetan army defeated China in battles at Chamdo , west of the Dri River, which were halted after Britain refused to sell Tibet additional armements. The official position of the British Government was it would not intervene between China and Tibet and would only recognize the de facto government of China within Tibet at this time. In his history of Tibet, Bell wrote that "the Tibetans were abandoned to Chinese aggression, an aggression for which
4554-428: Was instead developed in the second half of the 11th century. New research and writings also suggest that there were one or more Tibetan scripts in use prior to the introduction of the script by Songtsen Gampo and Thonmi Sambhota . The incomplete Dunhuang manuscripts are their key evidence for their hypothesis, while the few discovered and recorded Old Tibetan Annals manuscripts date from 650 and therefore post-date
4623-420: Was spread there for the purpose of propagating the Three People's Principle to the Khampa. In 1950, following the defeat of the Kuomintang rulers of China by communist forces in the Chinese Civil War , the People's Liberation Army invaded western Kham. Western Kham was then set up as a separate Qamdo Territory , then merged into Tibet Autonomous Region in 1965. Meanwhile, Xikang , comprising eastern Kham,
4692-512: Was the principal seat of the Gelugpa school and it retained the premier place amongst the four great Gelugpa monasteries. The Ganden Phodrang ( dga´ ldan pho brang ) in Drepung was the residence of the Dalai Lamas until the Great Fifth Dalai Lama constructed the Potala. Drepung was known for the high standards of its academic study, and was called the Nalanda of Tibet, a reference to the great Buddhist monastic university of India. Old records show that there were two centres of power in Drepung:
4761-656: Was under siege four days later by Chinese forces, on 14 March 2008. Reports state forces had blocked off water, electricity, food and health facilities in Drepung Monastery and at other monasteries active in the demonstrations, including Ganden and Sera monasteries. As a consequence, monks were suffering starvation. After the 7 April 2008 foreign press tour by Chinese authorities, 80 monks had disappeared from Drepung and two from Labrang had disappeared for speaking out to reporters. The International Herald Tribune reported that Drepung Monastery reopened in 2013 after being shut for five years. Tibetan script The Tibetan script
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