Professor Tuttle investigates the ways in which Tibetan Buddhists shaped the making of modern China, exploring the failure of nationalism and race-based ideologies to maintain Tibetan territories as integral to the Chinese nation-state. His work illuminates the critical role of pan-Asian Buddhism in Chinese efforts to hold onto vast Tibetan regions. Further research delves into the institutional growth of Tibetan Buddhism from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, examining how economic development in Sino-Tibetan borderlands fueled the expansion and renewal of these institutions into the contemporary period. His teaching focuses on modern Tibetan history and the complex relationship between Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism.
Reveals the role Buddhism and Buddhist leaders played in the development of the modern Chinese state and in fostering relations between Tibet and China from the Republican period (1912-1949) to the early years of Communist rule. This book offers insights on the impact of modern ideas of nationalism, race, and religion in East Asia.
The most comprehensive collection of Tibetan works in a Western language, this volume illuminates the complex historical, intellectual, and social development of Tibetan civilization from its earliest beginnings to the modern period. Including more than 180 representative writings, Sources of Tibetan Tradition spans Tibet's vast geography and long history, presenting for the first time a diversity of works by religious and political leaders; scholastic philosophers and contemplative hermits; monks and nuns; poets and artists; and aristocrats and commoners. The selected readings reflect the profound role of Buddhist sources in shaping Tibetan culture while illustrating other major areas of knowledge. Thematically varied, they address history and historiography; political and social theory; law; medicine; divination; rhetoric; aesthetic theory; narrative; travel and geography; folksong; and philosophical and religious learning, all in relation to the unique trajectories of Tibetan civil and scholarly discourse. The editors begin each chapter with a survey of broader social and cultural contexts and introduce each translated text with a concise explanation. Concluding with writings that extend into the early twentieth century, this volume offers an expansive encounter with Tibet's exceptional intellectual heritage.