Nirupama Rao October 13, 2016 UPDATED: October 14, 2016 13:21 IST FOLLOW�  EMAIL AUTHOR

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Maps of a lost land

Chinese troops conduct a flag-raising ceremony at the Potala Palace in Lhasa. Photo: AP

historical atlas of Tibet has been long in coming. This is in essence because there is a collective, global

amnesia about the civilisation, the culture and politico-socio-economic history of the region, apart from

occasional nostalgic eruptions of the Shangri-La sort which fictionalise and romanticise rather than educate and

inform (the preservation of Tibetan tradition and cultural and religious beliefs and practices among the Tibetan

community in exile in India is a notable exception). Therefore, the publication of A Historical Atlas of Tibet by Karl E.

Ryavec (University of Chicago Press, 2015) comes as a much-needed and welcome work of scholarship that should

benefit and enlighten committed scholars and Tibet aficionados alike.

This is a 200-page atlas that is a revelation in itself. The writer is an associate professor of

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world heritage at the University of California, Merced. The work took over two decades to

complete ("12 years of research and 8 years of mapmaking"), beginning with the author's

work as a geographer at the US Defense Mapping Agency in the early 1990s. The inspiration

was his growing interest in Tibet, sparked by two visits to the region. His goal in creating this

atlas was practical: the desire to "map the major patterns" in Tibetan culture, history,

government, natural resources and trade, among other areas, in a "concise, handy reference

volume for the benefit of students and scholars new to Tibetan studies". In the process,

Professor Ryavec was privileged to interact with several academicians on Tibet as well as

historic Tibetan figures living in exile in Dharamsala. Joseph Schwartzberg, author of the classic 1978 study A

Historical Atlas of South Asia (unfortunately out of print) was another inspiration. Ryavec's training as a geographer

enabled him to make all the digital maps needed for the atlas project. His ability to integrate GIS (Geographic

Information System) into the study of historical and cultural geography, thus building a regional systems model for

the study of Tibetan history, using the founding of Buddhist temples and monasteries as one key measure of local

economic development (for want of better data), provides for an excellent compendium of knowledge about Tibet.

The atlas comprises 49 maps, including those of major regions of Tibet and its natural features; the historical

Tibetan world and its main trade routes, religious sites, the development of regions during different historical

periods with special focus on the Ganden Podrang, or Kingdom of the Dalai Lamas (Map 33). The "Tibetan culture

region" in itself is two thousand miles from west to east, and one thousand miles from north to south (Map 1), a

huge expanse that is a veritable heart-lung of Asia. Despite its remoteness, however, this was not an isolated

culture because Tibet was influenced in varying degrees by India, China and Persia.

The history of Tibet is, according to the author, a history of localities: localities where Buddhist monasteries, major

temples and trade routes converged. The author was able to delve into a fascinating trove of accounts that

document route descriptions and pilgrimage itineraries to sacred sites in Tibet, India and China, and proved to be a

rich source in the compilation of the atlas. Throughout Tibetan history, there were few towns, let alone cities or

monasteries that functioned as centres of political and economic activity. Prior to the 1950s, approximately one-

quarter of Tibet's male population consisted of Buddhist monks. Religion and the politics surrounding religion

ruled supreme.

Spatial concepts have traditionally treated the geography of Tibet as consisting of the western region of Ngari

(which merges geographically into Ladakh) , U-Tsang or the middle region (bordering Nepal, Bhutan and Northeast

India) and the 'lower' regions of Kham (eastern Tibet, which merges into Sichuan and Yunnan) and Amdo (which

merges into Northwest China). (The author acknowledges that areas like Ladakh and Baltistan, which were also

heavily influenced historically by Tibetan culture and language, are not studied in the atlas.) These four core, macro

regions were further sub-divided into smaller regions, upper and lower, in what are regarded in folk or vernacular

terms, as 'perceptual regions' (Map 3). Tibetan civilisation was spread over these four regions, and as the author

notes, was "integrated between its cores, peripheries and bordering cultures mainly by long-distance trade". Map 6

in the atlas is a fascinating delineation of the travel time and main trade patterns in the historical Tibetan world,

circa 1900, showing the travel time from Lhasa in weekly increments, based on an average daily rate of 12 miles

per day by foot and/or caravan with horses, mules, yaks or camels. In the historical period, and even up until the

late 1950s, the main Lhasa to India route over the Himalaya into Sikkim was Tibet's shortest route to the outside

world. In the early 1900s, Tibetan officials took this route to China by boarding steamers at Calcutta for Nanjing.

British Indian Rupees were used in nineteenth century Tibet to buy tea from China, and when the supply of rupees

was reduced in 1902, copies of Victorian rupees were made in the mints in Sichuan, China, for circulation in the

Kham macro region until 1932.

In the context also of these four core macro-regions, the author makes the important observation that central

Tibet, or U-Tsang, is the only one completely surrounded by a periphery (Map 5). In contrast, Ngari, Kham and

Amdo merge into the East, Southeast and South Asian civilisational space along descending river valleys. Buddhism

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took root in U-Tsang (brought there by the Indian monk from Uddiyana in the historical region of Gandhara,

Padmasambhava), although when it declined in the latter location after the fall of the Tibetan Empire in the ninth

century, it survived in the monasteries of Kham and Amdo. Monks from these regions were responsible for later

restoring the monastic traditions that had been interrupted in central Tibet.

That historical Tibet is juxtaposed against a present that is geo-political rather than the geo-civilisational is clear

throughout this work. A vivid representation is provided in Map 48, which shows the Tibetan population circa 2000,

when a Chinese census was conducted. Employing pie chart symbols to map the numbers and proportions of

Tibetans, Han Chinese, Muslims and related Mongolian and Tibeto-Burman peoples, while the map does not claim

to provide a completely accurate demographic picture, it does visualise the shifting patterns of the demography of

Tibet, post-1950. The total 2000 Tibetan population of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), Qinghai, and Tibetan

autonomous prefectures and counties in Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan, was 5,224,980. In these same areas, Han

Chinese totalled 3,629,115, Muslims 928,673, and Mongolian and Tibeto-Burman peoples 724,760. Similar data for

the 2010 census is not available, although the latter reveals that the total population of the TAR alone increased

from approximately 2,620,000 to 3 million, representing a total increase of 14.6 per cent.

Towards the end of the book, the author raises the question whether Tibet's political system and territorial extent

would be what it is today if the region existed outside China's territorial boundaries. Whether the indigenous

Tibetan system would have been conducive to long-term sustainable development is the issue here. Culturally

similar neighbouring states like Bhutan have demonstrated their success in creating their own paths to

modernisation and harmonious development without significantly disturbing cultural traditions and belief,

allowing space for visualisation of a Tibetan capacity to similarly adapt. The world may not see a credible answer to

this, for Tibetan circumstances have radically altered over the last six-and-a-half decades. Around the body of the

history of Tibet, to paraphrase Shelley, the "lone and level sands stretch far away".

The author is a former foreign secretary and ambassador of India

 

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