Abstract
Buddhism provided legitimating ideas for political authority in Tibet from at least the eleventh century.1 The Ganden Potrang government of the Dalai Lamas, which administered central Tibet from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, explicitly promoted a concept of harmony between the religious and the political. However, what place did law occupy within this ideological scheme, and what were the practical links between religious and legal practices? In a book on The Legal Cosmology of Buddhist Tibet, French (1995, pp. 345–46) suggests that “religion permeated the secular legal system in the form of Buddhist standards, logic, factoring, jurisprudential concepts, and reality shifts that moved argument into otherworldly reasoning”. Religion, in her account, dominated Tibetan attitudes to conflict, which they related to incorrect vision caused by one of the six root afflictions in Buddhist philosophy (1995, p. 73), leading them to interpret legal cases in terms of inner morality, afflicted mental views, and the true nature of reality (1995, p. 288).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ahmad, Z. A History of Tibet by the Fifth Dalai Lama. Bloomington: Indiana University, 1995.
Bacot, J., F. W. Thomas, and C. Toussaint. Documents de Touen-Houang Relatifs a l’Histoire du Tibet. Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1940.
Bodde, D., and C. Morris. Law in Imperial China: Exemplified by 190 Ch’ing Dynasty Cases. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967.
Bottéro, J. Mésopotamie: l’Ecriture, la Raison et les Dieux. Paris: Gallimard, 1987.
Cassinelli, C. W., and R. Ekvall. A Tibetan Principality: the Political System of Sa sKya. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969.
Cüppers, C. “Some Aspects of Tibetan Administration under the Dga’ ldan Pho Brang Government.” In Tibetan Studies, edited by H. Krasser, M. T. Much, E. Steinkellner, and H. Tauscher. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1997.
Dawa Norbu. Red Star over Tibet. London: Collins, 1974.
Dotson, B. “Administration and Law in the Tibetan Empire: the “Section on Law and State” and its Old Tibetan Antecedents” (DPhil thesis, University of Oxford, 2006).
—. “Divination and Law in the Tibetan Empire.” In Contributions to the Cultural History of Early Tibet, edited by M. Kapstein and B. Dotson. Leiden: Brill, 2007.
Dreyfus, G. “Proto-nationalism in Tibet.” In Tibetan Studies, vol. 1, edited by P. Kvaerne. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture, 1994.
Frechette, A. “Review of ‘The Golden Yoke.’” Himalayan Research Bulletin 16, no. 1&2 (1996): 54–57.
French, R. The Golden Yoke: the Legal Cosmology of Buddhist Tibet. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995.
Goldstein, M. A History of Modern Tibet, 1913–1951: The Demise of the Lamaist State. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
Huber, T. “A Foreigner at the Judge’s Feet: Review of ‘The Golden Yoke.’” Tibet Journal 23, no. 3 (1998): 78–91.
Ishihama, Y. “On the Dissemination of the Belief in the Dalai Lama as a Manifestation of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara.” Acta Asiatica 64 (1993): 38–56.
Johnson, W. The T’ang Code. Princeton: University Press, 1979.
Kapstein, M. The Tibetans. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006.
Kelly, F. A Guide to Early Irish Law. Dublin: Institute for Advanced Studies, 1988.
MacCormack, G. The Spirit of Traditional Chinese Law. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996.
Macdonald, D. Twenty Years in Tibet. London: Seeley, 1932.
Meisezahl, R. O. “Die Handschriften in den City of Liverpool Museums.” Zentralasiatische Studien des Seminars für Sprach und Kulturwissenschaft Zentralasiens 7, (1973): 221–84.
—. “Die Ta’i Si Tu Fassung des ‘Kodex der 13 Gesetze.’” Oriens 33, (1992): 307–37.
Michael, F. Rule by Incarnation. Boulder: Westview Press, 1982.
Pasang Wangdu and H. Diemberger. dBa’ bzhed. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2000.
Pirie, F. “Secular Morality, Village Law and Buddhism in Tibetan Societies.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 12, no. 1 (2006): 173–90.
—. Peace and Conflict in Ladakh: The Construction of a Fragile Web of Order. Leiden: Brill, 2007a.
—. “Order, Individualism and Responsibility: Contrasting Dynamics on the Tibetan Plateau.” In Order and Disorder: Anthropological Perspectives, edited by K. von Benda-Beckmann and F. Pirie, 54–73. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2007b.
—. “Violence and Opposition among the Nomads of Amdo: Expectations of Leadership and Religious Authority.” In Conflict and Social Order in Tibet and Inner Asia, edited by F. Pirie and T. Huber, 217–40. Leiden: Brill, 2008.
Pocock, J. G. A. The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law: A Study of English Historical Thought in the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge: University Press, 1957.
Richardson, H. Tibet and its History. London: Oxford University Press, 1962.
—. “Early Tibetan Law Concerning Dog-bite.” Bulletin of Tibetology 25, no. 3 (1989): 5–10.
—. “Hunting Accidents in Early Tibet.” Tibet Journal 15, (1990): 5–27.
—. “An Early Judicial Document from Tibet.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1, no. 3 (1991): 383–88.
Samuel, G. Civilized Shamans: Buddhism in Tibetan Societies. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993.
Schuh, D. Urkunden und Sendschreiben aus Zentraltibet, Ladakh und Zanskar, 1. Teil: Faksimiles. Sankt Augustin: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag, 1976.
—. Grundlagen tibetischer Siegelkunde: Eine Untersuchung über tibetische Siegelaufschriften in ’Phags-pa-Schrift. St Augustin: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag, 1981.
—. “Recht und Gesetz in Tibet.” In Tibetan and Buddhist Studies Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Alexander Csöma de Körös. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1984.
—. Das Archiv des Klosters bKra-shis-bsam-gtan-gling von sKyid-grong, 1. Teil. Bonn: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag, 1988.
Schuh, D., and J. K. Pukhang. Urkunden und Sendschreiben aus Zentraltibet, Ladakh und Zanskar, 2. Teil. Sankt Augustin: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag, 1979.
Snellgrove, D., and H. Richardson. A Cultural History of Tibet. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968.
Stein, R. A. “Tibetica Antiqua IV: la Tradition Relative au D é but du Bouddhisme au Tibet.” Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient 74, (1986): 169–96.
Tambiah, S. “The Galactic Polity in South East Asia.” In Culture, Thought and Social Action, 252–86. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985.
Thomas, F. W. “Law of Theft in Chinese Kan-su.” In Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft. Stuttgart: Verlag Ferdinand Enke, 1936.
Toussaint, G.-C. Le Dict de Padma. Paris: Librairie Ernest Leroux, 1933.
Tucci, G. Tibetan Painted Scrolls, vol. 2. Roma: Libreria dello Stato, 1949.
Uray, G. “The Narrative of the Legislation and Organization of the Mkhas pa’i dga’ ston.” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 26, no. 1 (1972): 11–68.
van der Kuijp, L. “The Yoke is on the Reader: A Recent Study of Tibetan Jurisprudence.” Central Asiatic Journal 43, (1999): 266–92.
White, J. C. “Sikhim Laws.” In The Gazeteer of Sikhim, edited by H. H. Risley. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press, 1894.
Wormald, P. Legal Culture in the Early Medieval West: Law as Text, Image and Experience. London: Hambledon Press, 1999.
Wylie, T. V. “A Standard System of Tibetan Transcription.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 22, (1959): 261–76.
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2013 Franz von Benda-Beckmann, Keebet von Benda-Beckmann Martin Ramstedt, and Bertram Turner
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Pirie, F. (2013). Law and Religion in Historic Tibet. In: von Benda-Beckmann, F., von Benda-Beckmann, K., Ramstedt, M., Turner, B. (eds) Religion in Disputes. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137318343_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137318343_14
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-45824-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-31834-3
eBook Packages: Palgrave Media & Culture CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)