Trial by Fire: The Transformations of Tibetan Buddhism since the Twentieth Century

Abstract

Popularly viewed by the outside world as ‘Shangri La' or sacred land, Tibet has always been perceived as a traditional and deeply spiritual Buddhist society. After 1949, when the Communist Party of China (CCP) led by Mao Zedong took over power in China and began to "liberate” the Tibetan regions, Tibetan Buddhism was the first casualty. There was a reason for this ire of the CCP against the clergy. The sanctification of Tibet initiated by the thirteenth Dalai Lama in 1913, forged a connection between the landscape of Tibet, its culture, art and history, the Tibetan people, and their religious and political leader”the Dalai Lama. Hence the attack on, and suppression of the religion was seen as an assault on the core of Tibetianness. The religious persecution forced a large number of Tibetans to flee their motherland as refugees, starting with the XIVth Dalai Lama. The Cultural Revolution of 1966 saw a further increase in the number of refugees fleeing Tibet.

When a symbiotic national community with specific political and geo-cultural boundaries gets dismantled, it leads to the collective construction of a sense of community among the members of the former national community. The Dalai Lama with the support of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) soon got on with the task of creating and sustaining the unification of the disparate Tibetan community. And Tibetan Buddhism became the best symbol of national unity of the community in exile. In this paper, I have attempted to depict how the keepers of the religion attempt a re-imagination and re-construction of their religion in exile. The paper concludes by portraying how Tibetan Buddhism, albeit with modifications, is undergoing a renaissance in exile.