15th Karmapa Khakyab Dorje

1838 No term of the 11th Dalai Lama (1838 – 1856)

1863 – 1865 During the 19th century, the opposition between Central Tibet (where the Gelugpas were politically predominant) and the Eastern Tibet province Kham became stronger. The Karma Kagyü Lineage had a difficult standing in Central Tibet during the 18th and 19th century - especially after both the 12th Karmapa and the 8th Sharmarpa had died in China. In Kham there were monasteries of the Kagyüs, Nyingmas and at some places also from the Sakyas. The Gelugpa Lineage was hardly represented there.

The great 8th Situpa Chökyi Nyungne (1700 - 1774) had founded the Palpung monastery in the 1720s. Along with Tsurphu, it became the most important center of the Karma Kagyü transmission, well known amongst others of the Karma Gadri school of painting and both its significant printing works and library. In Palpung, more exactly at a hermitage above the monastery, the famous Rimay-master Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Thaye (1813 - 1899) settled down there.

During that time Gönpo Namgyal from the remote region Nyarong set himself up as a rebel-leader and brought some regions of Eastern-Tibet under his control. Also, the small kingdom of Derge belonged to it, where the famous monastery Palpung was located. The queen of Derge and two of her sons were kidnapped by the guerillas. Also, the young 10th Situpa was kidnapped. When the rebel-leader finally brought the trading-route between Tibet and China under his control, the central government followed an appeal for help from Derge in 1863, intervened and defeated Gönpo Namgyal in 1865. Thus, Lhasa was mainly under control of Eastern Tibet again. The renowned Jamgön Kongtrul was engaged, and he actually supported the intervention from Central Tibet. In turn, he succeeded that the status of the monasteries were not touched in this region and none of them was converted into Gelugpa-places. Not only spiritually but also diplomatically they contributed in a high degree so that the variety within the Tibetan Buddhism was maintained. 1874 Jamgön Kongtrul had to leave Palpung due to several factors related to political and religious tensions in the region. He used the time for traveling, collecting and passing on empowerments. He returned in 1866.

No term of the 12th Dalai Lama (1856– 1875).

1878 – 1933  Thubten Gyatso, the 13th Dalai Lama (1876 – 1933) was enthroned in 1879, in 1895 was introduced into his worldly functions. His reign marked significant political and social changes in Tibet. He introduced postal services, telegraph lines, currency notes and coins. He sent students abroad for education and established small industries and hydroelectric plants. He fled Tibet twice due to foreign invasions—first to Mongolia during British advances in 1904 and later to India during Chinese incursions in 1910. After the fall of the Manchu dynasty in 1911, he expelled remaining Chinese forces from Tibet. On February 13, 1913, he issued a proclamation reaffirming Tibet's independence. Thubten Gyatso's leadership brought stability and prosperity to Tibet during his reign. His efforts to modernize the country while preserving its cultural identity left a lasting impact. He passed away on December 17, 1933. The regent resigned. During Dalai Lama's office a lot of intrigues happened behind his back. 

 

1896 - 1910 Clashes between local chieftains, sometimes supported by Chinese troops, occurred regularly in Eastern Tibet.  The frequent turmoils in Kham had also its cause because the Khampas wanted to become more independent of the Tibetan central government. The tendency to arrange with the Chinese, was stronger in Lhasa where Chinese troops were deployed. At the same time the increasing weakness and instability of the Chinese emperor's state became noticeable.

1903 The new Amban (representative of the Chinese emperor) made remarks that too many monks are in the monasteries, they better should work in agriculture. Monks killed the Amban and his escort. Chinese soldiers took revenge and killed more than 1500 monks and laymen.

1904 Invasion of British troops into Tibet (Francis Younghusband – his soldiers killed ~ 500 Tibetan soldiers at Gyantse). The 13th Dalai Lama escaped to Mongolia in 1904/05 when the British troops came. Having returned to Lhasa by the end of 1909, he left Tibet again only two months later to Darjeeling/Kalimpong in 1910.


 

1906 Monks who were welcoming the Chinese general Ma Ti-t’ai were executed on the spot outside their monastery. Raiding and looting of monasteries were common during these campaigns, as military control was violently enforced and monasteries were seen as centers of power and potential opposition.

 

1910 Chinese troops attacked Lhasa (and the Potala); many were killed. The Dalai Lama was able to escape to India (until his return to Tibet in 1912/to Lhasa in 1913). Tibetan police were replaced by Chinese.

1911 The people of Tibet rose up against the Imperial troops in Lhasa; a guerilla war was started against the Chinese everywhere in Tibet; many died. Tibet regained independence.  The main reason that the Chinese troops of the headstrong general Chao Erfeng lost, was not the resistance of the Tibetans but the overthrow in Beijing. The empire had fallen, the republic proclaimed. Chao Erfeng was ordered back to China and sentenced to death because of treason. Cut off of ordnance and on their own, the haggard Chinese soldiers had to leave via India. The Dalai Lama returned to Tibet and proclaimed Tibet's independence.

1913/14 Tibetan-British-Chinese convention in Simla (Northern India: Great Britain functioned as a mediator between Tibet and the new Republic of China. The negotiations results were:

Central Tibet and the Western part Kham form the „Outer Tibet“ as a de facto independent state under Chinese sovereignty (Tibet would act independently for itself but coordinates foreign relations and politics with Beijing).

The Eastern part of Kham and the province Amdo form „Inner Tibet“ and would remain under the jurisdiction of the Chinese government.

Tibet and British India fixed a border between the two countries, the so-called „McMahon-line“. China, however, did not ratify the agreement (The „Outer Tibet“ acted completely independently internally until 1950 but did not cultivate any contacts regarding foreign affairs – except to Great Britain and Mongolia. After the last Ambans had been banished in 1912 the Tibetan government did not directly communicate with China -rarely only through a British intermediary until the 1930s. In 1962 the Chinese took control south of the border to India in 1962 and up to today they annoy their southern neighbors with territorial claims.

1914-1918 World War I 


 

1917/18 Sino-Tibetan War - China, having never accepted Tibet's independence, sent troops into eastern Tibet in 1918. This conflict is considered as a stalemate, and ended due to British diplomacy.  After Tibets declaration of independence, the status of the Eastern Tibetan provinces Amdo and Kham remained unclear. Both parts of the population wanted to be ruled from afar - neither the Gelugpa-aristocracy in the far distant Lhasa nor from the Chinese. In 1917 Chinese troops attacked Kham. The Tibetans had armed for a couple of years already and repulsed the enemy behind the river Yangtse. By persuading through British mediators, the Tibetan commander-in-chief stopped the military action so that the eastern part of Kham officially remained under Chinese rule. Obviously, the central government in Lhasa didn't want a strong military Eastern Tibet - it might have become independent.

1920 Foundation of the League of Nations

1923 The Panchen Lama and many followers fled to China (the new taxation on large estates have severely increased; they saw the tax-rise as a punishment for cooperation with the Chinese)

1930-1932 Sino-Tibetan War - A Tibetan army attacked Sichuan Province in China, which was then ruled by a warlord named Liu W en-Hui. China was at the time divided among dozens of "Warlords" who often fought among themselves as well as against the central Chinese government. Liu Wen-Hui battled the Tibetans for several years, sometimes with the aid of other warlords, such as the Qinghai province's warlord Ma Bu-Fang. A peace agreement was finally signed in 1932, setting Tibet's eastern border at the Yangtse River.  Actually, the Tibetans were forced back. The treaty from 1932 said that not the Yantse river but the Jinsha river would be the border. This borderline in general corresponded to the border between the "Inner" and "Outer" Tibet, as it was stipulated during the Simla-conference in 1914. 

The Picture shows the border between Lhasa-controlled ("Outer Tibet") and Chinese-controlled ("Inner Tibet") regions in Kham, 1912–1945. The dark blue line represents the boundary proposed in the 1914 Simla Convention and the red line the overall boundary of Tibet. The remaining lines represent actual control: the dotted blue line up to 1910; the light blue line during 1912–1917; and the dark brown line during 1918–1932.

1939 – 1945 World War II

1940 – 2011 Term of Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama  (*1935) who served as both the resident spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet before 1959 and subsequently established and led the Tibetan government in exile represented by the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala, India. 1947 the first Tibetan passports were issued.

1945 Foundation of the United Nations 
1947 Beginning of the Cold War 
1949 Foundation of theNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

1949 Radio Beijing under Communist regime announced that Tibet was a part of China and that the People’s Liberation army would march into Tibet to liberate the Tibetans from foreign imperialists.

1950 On October 7, the People’s Liberation Army invaded the Tibetan area of Chamdo from eight different directions. The subsequent occupation and consolidation of Communist control over the Buddhist kingdom resulted in the destruction of thousands of Buddhist temples and the deaths of at least tens of thousands of Buddhist monks and other Tibetan civilians.

 

1951 ~ 20.000 Chinese troops arrived in Lhasa. Seventeen Point Agreement > People’s Republic of China’s sovereignty over Tibet including the power to rule there; some members of the Tibetan government including the Tibetan prime minister never accepted the “agreement”. It became clear that this agreement was signed under duress.  The signing happened on May 23, 1951. Only thereafter the Chinese troops, arched into Lhasa. The young Dalai Lama, who was instated as the head of state under pressure, enforcedly acknowledged the treaty in October 1951 and ratified it despite the resistance of some ministers and advisors. Content: Tibet accepts the Chinese sovereignty and grants access for the troops; in return, Tibetan traditions - culture, language, religion etc. - would be respected and protected. The latter commitments were soon broken by the Chinese. After the Dalai Lama had escaped in March 1959, he at once terminated the 17-points-treaty formally after his arrival in India.


 

1952 The pre-Communist government of China already exerted pressure on the Tibetans and intervened in the choice of the 10th Panchen Lama. At the end of the 1930s/beginning of the 1940s the Tibetans wanted to appoint another boy as the Panchen Lama. They have already brought the person in question to Lhasa. Upon the pressure of the Kuomintagng-party (Republic of China), which then ruled in Amdo/Xinghai, they were imposed another child-candidate. After some back and forth this boy (Chökyi Gyaltsen, 1938 -1989) was enthroned as the official Panchen Lama in Jun 1949 – but not in Lhasa but in the Kumbum-monastery in the furthest Northeast of Amdo, which was governed by China. A couple of months later – the Communists have already seized the region – the 10th Panchen Lama was politically misused by them: On October 1, 1949, in his name congratulatory telegrams were sent to the new Communist governance in Beijing, in which the 11-years-old boy welcomed the overthrow and expressed the expectation that Tibet soon will be “liberated”. The child who should have been actually appointed as the 10th Panchen Lama later became a great scholar under the name Panchen Otrul Rinpochen (otrul = candidate). He still lives in Ireland.

 

1954-55 The Dalai Lama met Mao Tse-tung, Chou En-lai, Nikita Khrushchev and India’s Prime Minister Nehru during his visit to Beijing in 1954-1955. These interactions were part of his attendance at the First National People's Congress, where he engaged with key figures of the Chinese Communist Party and other international leaders.

1956  Armed conflict between Tibetan rebels and the Chinese army (PLA) in Kham and Amdo, triggered by the implementation of socialist reforms, including land redistribution, which disrupted traditional Tibetan society. The Chinese attempted to disarm the Khampas, provoking violent backlash. This led to PLA reprisals, including bombing monasteries like Litang and conducting brutal "search-and-destroy" operations. These regions were outside the administrative control of Lhasa and were treated as regular Chinese provinces, leading to widespread resentment among local Khampas and Amdo nomads. The guerilla warfare spread all over Tibet but only in its lightest version.

 

1959 China’s socialist land reforms and military crackdown on rebels in Kham and Amdo led to the Tibetan uprising for an independent Tibet on March, 10, starting in Lhasa. In 1960 the International Commission of Jurists gave a report where the Chinese were accused of the crime of Ethnic Genocide (nine years full occupation, massacres, tortures, killings – estimated death-toll 1.2 – 1.5 million -, bombardment of monasteries extermination of nomad camps, cultural destruction – among them 6250 monasteries- etc., violating 16 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Appraisals about the number of victims and the cultural destructions do not originate from 1960, but from the times of the "Cultural Revolution" between 1966 and 1976). Thus, the Diamond Way was completely destroyed in Tibet and its 1000 years of history ended.

Many Tibetans escaped out of Tibet mainly to Bhutan, Nepal and India, among them the 16th Karmapa (to Bhutan; March 13 – April 2) and the Dalai Lama (to India; March 17 - 30). Not long after his arrival in India, the 14th Dalai Lama set up a Tibetan government-in-exile in McLeod Ganji, later in Dharamsala (name since 2022: “Central Tibetan Administration”).

1960 – 1980 The destruction of Tibet’s culture and oppression of its people was brutal during the years following the uprising. 1.2 million Tibetans, one-fifth of the country’s population, died as a result of China’s policies; many more languished in prisons and labor camps; and more than 6000 monasteries, temples and other cultural and historic buildings were destroyed and their contents pillaged. In 1980, Hu Yao Bang, General Secretary of the Communist Party, visited Tibet – the first senior official to do so since the invasion. Alarmed by the extent of the destruction he saw there, he called for a series of drastic reforms and for a policy of “recuperation”. His forced resignation in 1987 was said to have partially resulted from his views on Tibet. Relaxation of China’s policies in Tibet came very slowly after 1979 and remains severely limited.


 

1962 China attacks India in the Himalayas. The “North Eastern Frontier Area” (NEFA) is under temporary control of Chinese troops. They withdraw due to a lack of supply through Tibet with it’s at that time weak infrastructure. A part of Ladakh (Aksai-Chin) remained under Chinese control since. Up until today China regularly claims parts of India, Sikkim and Bhutan as Chinese territories. 


 

1966 – 1976 Cultural Revolution in China (actually “destruction of culture-revolution”) – At the beginning of the 1980s the redevelopment was permitted again. Some Tibetan in exile were allowed to visit their homeland again (some lamas did with foreign passports). Careful revival of Buddhism but under state-supervision and with political guidelines. In the middle of the 1970s the 16th Karmapa had already predicted that there would be a limited revival for Buddha’s teachings. But the conditions for a profound practice would not appear. There would be no place for Kagyü-lamas and the Kagyü-transmission. That’s why it’s so important to continue the Tibetan culture in diaspora and to build up Buddhist centers in the West (see https://:youtube.com/watch?v=hcsXt58x6zQ, esp. from 20’30’’ on > interview with Gendün Rinpoche).


 

1967 ~ 1972 Hippie-time; drugs; rock-music; new forms of living; (violent) political protest; turning away from many traditional values; Black Power (USA); many Westerners visited Nepal (a lot of them because of drugs). The escaped Tibetans, among them many Lamas, got in contact with Western lifestyle.

 

1989 Collapse of the Warsaw Pact/Expanding of the EU. The 14th Dalai Lama is awarded with the Nobel Price of Peace. 

1995 After the 10th Panchen Lama had died at the beginning of 1989, it came to blows between the PR China and the Dalai Lama about the official rebirth of the tulku. Both appoint different boys the 11th Panchen Lama. Dalai Lama chose the candidate Gendün Chökyi Nyima who, together with his family, was kidnapped and has disappeared since then. Gyaltsen Norbu (Chinese Gyaincain Norbu) was appointed by the Chinese and lives in Beijing; he had rarely visited Tibet since his nomination and connections to Tibetans in Tibet hardly exist.

2001 Terror attack against the World Trade Center

2007 – 2009 Global financial crisis

2013 Since Xi Jinping has taken office, each practice of religion is subjected to stronger pressure. Religious symbols have to disappear in Chinese public. Big Buddha-statues, stupas, shrines and temples were demolished, prayer-flags were banned. Monasteries were equipped with camera surveillance (inside and outside), the number of nuns and monks heavily limited. Observers already talk of a new version of the Cultural Revolution. Tibetan children in kindergartens and schools are only taught in Chinese; the Tibetan language gradually vanishes. Even the ritual texts in monasteries shall be recited in Chinese.


 

2020 Worldwide Corona pandemic
Countries implemented travel restrictions, lockdowns, mask mandates, social distancing, widespread testing and contact tracing. Vaccines were developed and deployed rapidly with high social pressure. Strongest economic recession since the great depression 1929. Telework and remote learning became widespread. 
 

 

2022 Russian invasion into the Ukraine