History of European exploration in Tibet

Tibet has attracted European explorers for well over 100 years, when the country was forbidden to all foreigners. Many European explorers were serious about reaching the city of Lhasa across the Tibetan Plateau by all conceivable means including missionaries, scholars, geographers, soldiers and mystics.

History

Tibet, however was not always forbidden to foreigners. The first Europeans to arrive were Portuguese missionaries in 1624 who were welcomed by the Tibetans and allowed to build a church.

The first information that reached western civilization about the mystical country of Shambhala, came from the Portuguese Catholic missionaries João Cabral and Estêvão Cacella who had heard about Shambhala (which they transcribed as "Xembala"), and thought it was another name for Cathay or China. In 1627 they headed to Tashilhunpo, the seat of the Panchen Lama and, discovering their mistake, returned to India. [Bernbaum, Edwin. (1980). "The Way to Shambhala", pp. 18-19. Reprint: (1989). Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc., Los Angeles. ISBN 0-87477-518-3.]

The 18th century brought more Jesuits and Capuchins from Europe who gradually met opposition from Tibetan lamas, finally being expelled from Tibet in 1745. Not all Europeans were banned from the county at that time, however – in 1774 the English nobleman George Bogle came to Shigatse to investigate trade for the British East India Company. He not only befriended the Panchen Lama at Tashilhunpo but married a Tibetan woman and introduced the first potato crop into Tibet. [Teltscher, Kate. (2006). "The High Road to China: George Bogle, the Panchen Lama and the First British Expedition to Tibet", p. 57. Bloomsbury, London, 2006. ISBN 0374217009; ISBN 978-0-7475-8484-1; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York. ISBN 978-0-374-21700-6]

19th century

However by the 19th century the situation of foreigners in Tibet grew more precarious. The British Empire was encroaching from northern India into the Himalayas and Afghanistan and the Russian Empire of the tsars was expanding south into Central Asia. Each power became suspicious of the other's intent in Tibet, a country they knew nothing about. China, which claimed Tibet as a protectorate, fanned Tibet's fears that foreigners in the country threatened its gold fields and established religious faith of Buddhism. By the 1850s Tibet had banned all foreigners from the country and shut its borders to all except the Chinese. Mutilation, death and torture awaited any Tibetan who unwittingly gave assistance to a foreigner, as it was believed it would affect the fate of the country and eventually destroy its culture and religion.
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thumb|right|150px|Nain Singh]

In 1865 Great Britain began secretly mapping Tibet. Trained Indian surveyor-spies disguised as pilgrims or traders counted their strides on their travels across Tibet and took readings at night. Nain Singh, the most famous, measured the longitude and latitude and altitude of Lhasa and traced the Yarlung Tsangpo River far westward without being discovered.Seven years later in 1872, Nicholas Przewalski, a great Russian explorer and colonel in the Russian army entered Tibet from the north and gathered much scientific information but never reached Lhasa in his three attempts across the plateau. From the 1870s to 1900 many tried to cross Tibet across the high plains but failed and tales of incredible physical hardship, ferocious weather, avalanches, bandits and monks escorting any explorers back to the Indian borders began to emerge in Europe.

The first American to attempt to trek to Lhasa was William Rockhill, a young diplomat in Beijing in 1889. Disguised as a Mongolian, speaking Tibetan and Chinese, he failed because his guides deserted him in a vast uninhabited plateau. Two years later in 1891 he tried again and was repelled only 177 km (110 miles) from Lhasa. However he gathered much information on his travels about Tibetan culture and religion.

In 1895, George Littledale, an English nobleman and his wife, nephew, and dog (a fox terrier named Tanny) set out for Lhasa from northern India. Fearing detection they travelled at night, and were stopped by 500 armed Tibetans only 49 miles from Lhasa. Neither a bribe or the insistence that Littledale's wife was Queen Victoria's sister would spare them and they were expelled. However the Royal Geographical Society awarded Littledale a gold medal and his dog Tanny was made an Honorary fellow with a silver collar.

In 1892 Annie Taylor, a frail English missionary, became the first European to approach Lhasa in modern times. She came within only three days' march of the capital, surviving bandits, betrayal, and illness, and finally persuading a Tibetan judge to let her live if she turned back.

British experience in Tibet (particularly the instructions by Sarat Chandra Das) was used by the first Japanese explorer of Tibet, zen monk Ekai Kawaguchi, who crossed into Tibet in 1899 disquised as a Chinese monk, reached Lhasa and stayed for long enough to serve the Dalai Lama as a therapist. First Russian explorers to reach Lhasa several months later, in 1900, were Gombojab Tsybikov and Ovshe Norzunov, officially "Mongolian pilgrims" (who had the advantage of using both Nain Singh's publications and Lhasa pilgrimage experiences of their native Kalmuk and Buryat kinsmen). They also became the first photographers of Lhasa.

Twentieth century

The beginning of the 20th century saw violence. British India became frustrated over souring relations with Tibet and was concerned that Tibet might favor Russia during this period of Anglo-Russian rivalry. In 1904, a military expedition led by Francis Younghusband, a British colonel, forced its way to Lhasa leaving hundreds of Tibetan soldiers dead. After imposing a treaty the brigade withdrew; the British wanted Tibet to remain closed to all foreigners except themselves. Sir Charles Bell, who was installed as the political representative for Tibet became a scholar of Tibetology and advisor and close friend of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama.Neverless other explorers continued to attempt to cross the Tibetan Plateau including Swedish explorer Sven Hedin who defied the British and continued a decade-long task of mapping out western and southern Tibet. Alexandra David-Neel, a French Buddhist scholar and mystic arrived in Shigatse, where she was ordained by the Panchen Lama. Later aged 53 disguised as a beggar she became the first European woman to reach Lhasa. Brigadier-General George Pereira was the first European to walk from Peking to Lhasa, and the first to describe the Amne Machin massif in eastern Tibet in 1921-2; his journals were edited by Sir Francis Younghusband. Giuseppe Tucci, an Italian archaeologist began a 20 year study of Tibet in 1927, travelling thousands of miles on foot to produce some of the definitive European books on Tibetan religion and culture.

At the start of the Second World War, two Austrian mountaineers in the Himalayas became prisoners of war at Dehra Dun in northern British India. Heinrich Harrer and his companion Peter Aufschnaider escaped prison and crossed the border, reaching Lhasa across the mountains. Whilst in Lhasa, Harrer became a close friend of Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama while Aufschnaider undertook some important cartography and geographical mapping of the area. Ultimately returning to Austria, Heinrich Harrer documented his story in the book "Seven Years in Tibet" published in 1953, which aroused great interest and became a popular travel book. The Dalai Lama, still a boy, also invited well-known American commentators Lowell Thomas and Lowell Thomas Jr. to visit Tibet in 1949. As he hoped, their films created world-wide sympathy and gestures of good will to the country which was facing invasion, and eventually a complete takeover by the PRC. After 1951, the Chinese invited several foreign journalists to report favorably about progress in the country, but with minimal effect.

Since the 1970s Tibet has gradually become more open to foreigners and today is open to all and is attracting more and more tourists to the region.

Footnotes

ources

"Passport Books:Tibet" 1986 Shangri-La Press