Recent riots in Lhasa has made people think that Chinese are far worse
than Tibet's former ruler: buddhist monks and their chief, the Dalai Lama.
"Journeying through Tibet in the 1960s, Stuart and Roma Gelder
interviewed a former serf, Tsereh Wang Tuei, who had stolen two sheep
belonging to a monastery. For this he had both his eyes gouged out and
his hand mutilated beyond use. He explains that he no longer is a
Buddhist: “When a holy lama told them to blind me I thought there was no
good in religion.” Since it was against Buddhist teachings to take human
life, some offenders were severely lashed and then “left to God” in the
freezing night to die. “The parallels between Tibet and medieval Europe
are striking,” concludes Tom Grunfeld in his book on Tibet.
Earlier visitors to Tibet commented on the theocratic despotism. In
1895, an Englishman, Dr. A. L. Waddell, wrote that the populace was
under the “intolerable tyranny of monks” and the devil superstitions
they had fashioned to terrorize the people. In 1904 Perceval Landon
described the Dalai Lama’s rule as “an engine of oppression.” At about
that time, another English traveler, Captain W.F.T. O’Connor, observed
that “the great landowners and the priests… exercise each in their own
dominion a despotic power from which there is no appeal,” while the
people are “oppressed by the most monstrous growth of monasticism and
priest-craft.” Tibetan rulers “invented degrading legends and stimulated
a spirit of superstition” among the common people.
As much as we might wish otherwise, feudal theocratic Tibet was a far
cry from the romanticized Shangri La so enthusiastically nurtured by
Buddhism’s western proselytes.
The theocracy’s religious teachings buttressed its class order. The poor
and afflicted were taught that they had brought their troubles upon
themselves because of their wicked ways in previous lives. Hence they
had to accept the misery of their present existence as a karmic
atonement and in anticipation that their lot would improve in their next
lifetime. The rich and powerful treated their good fortune as a reward
for, and tangible evidence of, virtue in past and present lives.
Drepung monastery was one of the biggest landowners in the world, with
its 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 great pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen.
The wealth of the monasteries rested in the hands of small numbers of
high-ranking lamas. Most ordinary monks lived modestly and had no direct
access to great wealth. The Dalai Lama himself “lived richly in the
1000-room, 14-story Potala Palace.”
Before liberation Tibet was hell on earth where labouring people
suffered for centuries under the darkest and most reactonary
serfdom...the serfs were treated as chattels and were in conditions of
hereditary servitude.
Physical mutilations did occur, and possibly even the burying of
children. Evidence was found by Sir Charles Bell (Tibet Past and
Present, 1929). He reported that a stupa being used as a boundary marker
between Tibet and Bhutan contained an urn which houses the blood and
bodies of an 8-year-old girl and boy who had been slain for the purpose
(pg 80)
'Slaves were sometimes stolen, when small children, from their parents.
Or the father and mother, being too poor to support their child, would
sell it to a man, who paid them _sho-ring_, "price of mother's milk,"
brought up the child and kept it, or sold it, as a slave. These children
come mostly from south-eastern Tibet and the territories of the wild
tribes who dwell between Tibet and Assam.' [Bell24]
The Dalai Lama and his supporters including groups such as Amnesty
International have yet to make a clean recognition of the fact of
slavery in Tibet. We fear that if he and his followers returned to
power, they would restore slave practices in the guise of Buddhist
mumbo-jumbo.
You might then think that buddhism in Mongolia is somewhat different
from Tibet. Not so.
strong monastic corporations preserved
the local system of social and economic
redistribution for centuries. In addition
the monasteries held a monopoly
on education. In short, any significant
event in the life of a Mongolian always
involved the presence of a lama.
At the beginning of the twentieth century,
Outer Mongolia was associated
with the head of its Buddhist sangha and
Shabinar, Bogdo-Gegen. The eighth
Bogdo-Gegen, Jebtsundamba Khutagt,
the Living Buddha, was a charismatic
political leader, who was highly popular
with the Mongols. As a result of the
national revolution against the Qing rule
in 1911 he became the first and last theocratic
monarch of Mongolia.
In 1924 he died with syphilis. Too much praying maybe? Wrong Mandala?
From the shamans' viewpoint buddhism has been utterly cruel.
I've had the chance to directly speak to one of them (she recently
passed away) and she confirmed all the stories i read and i'm telling you.
Many people were forced to serve as bondsmen to the monasteries. Bogdo
Gegen had 22,000 monks and 28,000 bondsmen. There were many complaints
of children being abused by monks. The monks themselves spread syphilis
all over the countryside.
_*Shamans were killed, murdered, burnt with dog droppings, and subjected
to many fines paid in livestock. Between the 1860’s and 1904, there were
three mass burnings at campfires around Horchin, at which it was said,
“The ones who have real powers will emerge unscathed, but the remainders
shall die.”*_
What concerns me is using recent riots in Lhasa as proof of how evil the
Chinese government is compared to peaceful buddhism that managed to make
Tibetans happy for centuries. Indecent lies! Buddhism is no better than
any other monoteistic religion, and has been used for centuries to
ensure economical advantages to the elites via the buddhist doctrine and
buddhist tortures.