TII3ET, a region in Central'Asia, lying between lat. 27° and 37° N., and long. 72° and 105° E. ; extends from Badakhshan in the N.1V. to Sze-ehuen in the S.E. The Gobi desert on the N. separates it from the eastern portion of Chinese Turkestan ; it has the territory of the Elutlis of Koko Nor on the N.E., the territory of the Si-fan or Tu-fan and Sze-chuen on the E. Yunnan is on the S.E., on the S. is tho valley of'Assam, Burma, Bhutan, Nepal, and British India, and on the W. is Little Tibet.
Tibet WAS reckoned by Gutzlaff in his Life of the Emperor Taou Kwang, p. 227, to comprise an area of 30,200 square miles and to have a popula tion of about six millions. 'Its table-land in the E. is about 4000 feet above the sea, but in Little Tibet it is between 11,000 and 12,000 feet.
Tibet is called by the Chinese Tsang or Si Tang, the word Tibet being from Tii-peh-teh (Tu-Bod). The Tibetruis also designate their country Bod Yul, as the Chinese likewise name it Fu-Kwoh, the land of Buddha. Mr. Trelawney Saunders explains that the Indian name is Bliot. Its native name is pronounced Pot, but properly Bod, which denotes both the nation and the country ; but for distinction the country is called Bod-yul (Bod land), a man of the country Bod-pa, and a woman Bod-mo.
The Tibetans, however, apply the name Pot or Bod to Middle Tibet, or to the two provinces U and Tsang (Duus-Otsang, pronounced U-tsang), the capitals of which are Massa. and Zhikatse ; hence a native of these two provinces is called by them especially Pot-pa.
The eastern part of Tibet is called Kliam or K'ham Yul, also Great Tibet.
The N.W. part, towards Ladakh, is called Nari.
Bhutan is, however, known to the Tibetans by several names, — Lho-pa-to, Lho-mon-k'ha-zhi, and Lho-bruk-pe-yul, or simply Lho, the south.
According to these divisions, Pot-pa or U-tsang pa means a native of Middle Tibet ; Kham-pa or Kham-Ixa, one of Eastern Tibet ; Nari-pa, oue of Western Tibet ; and Lho-pa, a native of Bhutan.
The Chinese Government divides Tibet into two provinces, Anterior Tibet and Ulterior Tibet ; but their maps retain the three divisions above mentioned.
U and K'harn nre now styled Taien Tung, while Tsang and Nari (or Ari) are called Hall Tsang, i.e. Ulterior Tibet.
Nari (31nahris) is the most elevated, and gives rise to the sources of the Indus, Sutlej, Gogra, and Brahmapntra.
The Turk and Mongol races, on the north of Tibet aro called by the Ebetans Hor and Sok Po (Hor-Sok). China (Gyanak, Tin.) is on the past ; India (Gyagar, Tni.) is on the south. The hill people of India who dwell next to the Tibetans, aro called by them by the general name of Mon, their country Mon Yul, a man Mon-pa or simply Mon, and a wonaan Mon-mo.
U-tsang is Tibet proper, and lies north of Assam, 13hittan, and Nepal, and has about 130,000 families. Its capital is !Massa.
K'harn - Yul (K'hams - Yul), called also Pot chlien or Great Tibet, has China on its ea.st. Its people are called Pon or Bon.
Tho northern part from Tsang to Ladakh is called Nari. The people aro said to number 10,000 families.
Its four territorial provinces are— Tsien Tsang, or Anterior Tibet, also known as Kham and Kham-do. It is nearest to the Chums° frontier.
Wei or Chung Tsang, Central Tibet, containing the seat of government, Illness, and the residence of the Dalai Lama, the great monastery of Potala.
How Tsang, Ulterior Tibet, or simply Tsang, containinc, the seat of government of the Panshen Lama, atTeshilumbo or Chashilumbo.
Gnari, Western Tibet.
Tibet is now governed by China through the Buddhist hierarch, tho Dalai Lama, and in this manner it is a dependency of China.
It,s present limits comprise only a part of the ancient region of T'u Fan the people of which, the Si Fan and Tang-ku-teh (Truagut) were for many centuries the dreaded enemies of the Chinese. Legends attribute to the Sakya the civilising of the races, but their first historic king was Srongtsau Gampo, the seventh of the Sakya rulers, who introduced Buddhism, and brought all Tibet under his sway. He married a daughter of the Nepal sovereign (Pai-pu or Pa-pn-leh Kwob, i.e. the Parbattiah kingdom), aiad rase in A.D. 641 the princess Wen-Cheng, daughter of the emperor Tai Tsung of the Tang dynasty in China. For many centuries his descendants, with the title of Gialbo (in Chinese Tsan-pu) ruled over Tibet, but the Buddhist hierarchy gradually encroached, aud in the 11th century the Sakya relinionists began to usurp the exclusive power of dire state. From that period the Sakya priesthood have been known as the Brug-pa, though also now desig nated Hung Kiao or the Red Church. The Sakya priesthood introduced marriage ; but in the 15t11 century, Tsong-kha-ba, born A.D. 1417 at Si King, preached the celibate views of Sakya Muni, and insisted on the adoption of yellow robes.
Before his death (A.D. 1478) he was the recognised spiritual leader of the Lamaist majority, and was acknowledged by the Ming emperor, who gladly welcomed him, as the Red Hierarchy had favoured supporters of the descendants of Kublai. The reformer left behind him two eminent disciples, on whom he laid commands, enjoining upon them that they should be born again generation after generation, as hubil'han, to practise the doctrines of the Great Conveyance (Ta-ch'eng, iu Sanskrit 3fahayana, the esoteric form of Buddhism). Ilu bil'han in Chinese Hwa-shen means transformed body, 'transformation, re-embodiment. The two disciples were designated respectively Dalai Lama and Panshen Lama. From that time the spiritual and a large portion of tho temporal authority in Tibet, which had previously been engrossed by the Red Hierarchy, ha.s been wielded by the sue cessive re-embodhnents of Tsong-kha-ba's. disciples, whose identity, on their reappearance in human form, has been merged, according to the leg-ends that have subsequently arisen, in the personahty of the two most exalted and revered of the divin ities proceeding from the essence of Buddha him self. In the senior of the two, the Dalai Lama, the Bodhisattwa Avalokiteswara (the Chinese Kwan Yin) is believed to appear on earth ; and in the_ person of the second, the Bodhisattwa Manchusri is recognised, this deity having pre liminarily occupied the form, it is also fabled, of Tsong-kha-ba himself. The second in succession of the Dalai Lamas, in the course of a long career, laid the foundation of the existing hierarchical system in Tibet, establishing his seat of eccle siastical rule at Lhassa, and organizing a bcdy of lesser spiritual dignitaries, under the designation Hut-ukht'u, who, like the two supreme religions chiefs, were to be continued by a series of re embodiments. Like the Dalai and Panshen Lamas, these spiritual chiefs of the Tibetan priest hood became popularly knovrn as 'living Buddhas,' in Chinese Hwoh Fu, a term by which they are at present commonly designated. During the latter half of the 17th.century, the authority of the Dalai Lama gained entire predominance in the greater portion of Tibet ; the Ghillie or descendants of the ancient kiugs appear to have gradually faded int,o insignificance, whilst the authority of the Mongol princes grew more and more direct. Already, at a somewhat earlier peiiod, Gushi Khan, the reigning prince of the Khoshot Mongols, had supported the Dalai Lama of the period against the claims of the reigning sovereign, and had been rewarded with the title of Nomen 'Han, or Prince (khan) of the Religious Law, an equiva lent t,o the Sanskrit Dharma Raja. By the in fluence of Gushi Khan, the Dalai and Panshen Lamas, in A.D. 1642, were induced to despatch an embassy with tinders of allegiance to the Mancini sovereign, whose forces were then on the eve of effecting the overthrow of the Ming dynasty in China ; and from this period relations of intimacy took their rise, developing themselves in time into the assumption, on the part of the Chinese emperors, of the sovereign tutelag,e of the Buddhist papacy in Tibet. This consummation was hastened by the wars undertaken towards the dose of the 17th and in the early part of the 18th centuries by the Sungar chieftains, for the subversion of the authority of the Dalai Lama. The temporal administrator who, as regent under the Dalai Lama, had long conducted the government of Tibet, with the title of Deba, ruler or chief, was invested by Kang Hi in A.D. 1694 with the title of Tu-peh-teh-kwoh-wang or king of Tibet. But the authority thus established was ere long attacked by an invasion of the Sungars, and the Chinese armies which were despatched hereupon for the liberation of Tibet remained as conquerors of the country. For a time the Government remained in the hands of puppet nominees of the Chinese emperor, but in 1725 an outbreak directed against one of these gave a pretext for the appointment of two High Commissioners to control the affairs of Tibet on behalf of the Chinese Government. Further attentpts at revolt led, in 1750, to the entire suppression of the temporal sovereignty in Tibet, and the government of the country was placed, thenceforward, in the hands of the Dalai and Panshen Lamas, aidtxl by a council of four laymen, entitled Kalon or Kablon, Le. Ministere of State, under the direction in chief of the two Imperial Commissioners or Residents appointed from Pekin. The govern ment there, from that thne forward, continued to be conducted on this basis, the authority of the Chinese administration being rendered the more complete by the long minorities which are entailed at each successive re-embodiment of the two supreme ecclesiastical dignitaries.