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Cultural Brokerage on the Sino-Tibetan Frontier
Organizer: Cynthia Col, Graduate Theological Union
Chair: Tsering Shakya, University of British Columbia
Discussants: Tsering Shakya, University of British Columbia and Alexander Gardner, Rubin Museum of Art
Throughout history, international, national and local methods of trade and exchange have facilitated the movement of material goods, ideas and persons between divergent cultural centers. A close examination of the rich and varied nature of cultural brokerage can provide a key to understanding the significance of how economically, politically and culturally diverse groups interacted and evolved via these engagements. This panel examines various aspects of ‘cultural brokerage’ as it has evolved on the Sino-Tibetan frontier. As we look at exchange in the context of historical, religious, mercantile and artistic evolutions we will see how the notion of cultural brokerage takes on different meanings in new contexts. As we look at exchange from the perspective of the establishment of informal networks, the founding of monastic institutions, the process of canonization, and the unfolding of artistic expression we will consider questions such as: What were the nodes of communication and what was exchanged? How did particular exchanges benefit participating parties and what effect did the exchange have on the cultures that were bridged? To what extent were particular activities representative of important cultural indicators giving voice to larger or more general political and cultural interactions and exchanges or indicative of evolving incipient new trends?
Traders as Cultural Brokers on the Sino-Tibetan Frontier
Yudru Tsomu, Stanford University
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, new opportunities arose for merchants operating on the Sino-Tibetan border. Former Chinese soldiers with incipient business skills, savvy Tibetan inn-keepers as well as well-established Chinese businessmen seized the moment to take leading political and economic roles in significant border towns. This paper examines various strategies used by individuals to forge cross-cultural and linguistically diverse business networks. One method was the establishment of networks between Tibetan and Chinese merchants via Tibetan inn-keepers, who provided financial guarantees that not only eased the flow of trade and communication, but also fostered mutual loyalty that stabilized trade partnerships. Another method was through interethnic marriage liaisons, mainly between Chinese traders and local Tibetan women. Another strategy used by well-established Chinese businessmen was to form close alliances with the local nationalist government controlled by Chinese warlords. By accepting official Chinese these Chinese merchants further strengthened their economic and political position in border towns. This paper will consider: What was exchanged between parties participating in such networks? What were the benefits for participants and what were the barriers? Sources include books on the history, ethnography and economy of the Sino-Tibetan frontier of East Tibet by Chinese official/scholars and intellectuals published during the Republic Period. These books will be complemented by articles (mainly in Chinese) devoted to the study of immigration, assimilation, trade and inter-ethnic relations in Eastern Tibet in frontier studies journals published the period.
Go East Young Lama: Lhasa and the Creation of New Monastic Polities in Kham in the 17th-Century
Jann Ronis, University of Virginia
This paper explores religious and economic exchange between Kham and Lhasa in the second-half of the seventeenth century as transacted through the founding and patronage of a network of monasteries in central Kham. It is also concerned with the impact of the exchange on Kham society. In the 1660s Ngawang Puntsok (b. 1644), on orders from the Fifth Dalai Lama (1617-1682), founded 13 monasteries in his native Hor region of Kham. By opening this area up to the cultural, economic, and political resources of the Fifth Dalai Lama's burgeoning kingdom, and through dramatically altering the political and social organization of the area via the founding of a large network of monasteries in relative proximity to one another, this event transformed the religious, social, and political landscape of the Hor region and beyond.
Ngawang Puntsok was the descendant of an important Mongolian chief who settled in the thirteenth century in Hor, Kham (which lies within present-day Ganzi, Luhuo, and Daofu counties, Sichuan). While studying in Lhasa he became a close associate of the Fifth Dalai Lama (1617-1682). The Dalai Lama's material and moral support, and Ngawang Puntsok's connections in the region combined to allow for the latter's momentous founding of the network of monasteries. My primary sources include contemporaneous auto/biographies and monastic histories. This research is part of the Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library's "Tibetan and Himalayan Historical GIS [Geographical Information Systems] Project."
Buildings and Canons on the Move: The Derge Parkhang as Culture Broker
Cynthia Col, Graduate Theological Union
This talk will present an analysis of the murals of the Derge Parkhang [Derge Religious Text Printery] which was constructed between [1729-1756]. Based on photographs taken in 2005 and 2006 together with primary sources in Tibetan, I will examine the iconographic program as an expression of the combined aspirations of Derge's political and religious leaders. Looking closely at the depiction of patrons and other prominent persons, the strong presence of respected translators from the past, as well as the choice to represent particular dieties, and illustrations taken from particular sutras will clarify what is unique about the visual program of this building. The canonization process is a legitimation strategy that functions to forward the representation of a culture as a whole by emphasizing a part of it. While canons have the stated purpose of stabilization, here I will consider how the making of the Derge Canon and the building of the Printery to house it effectively fostered change. At a very basic level the project employed a heterogeneous team of artisans to construct and ornament the monastery printing house both inside and out, but cultural exchange does not end here. Looking at how visual art partakes in such a dynamic process reveals insight into the agency of visuality in a given culture but also provides an alternative to texts for evidence substantiating the positions of powerful persons and institutions.
Circulating Buddhist Narratives in Eighteenth-Century Tibet
Nancy Grace Lin, University of California, Berkeley
My paper explores networks of religious and aesthetic exchange based in eighteenth-century Derge (now straddling the Sichuan-TAR border) through a Buddhist narrative anthology, The Wish-Granting Vine of Bodhisattva Accomplishments (Tib. Dpag bsam ‘khri shing). Through the sponsorship of the Derge royal family, the first half of the eighteenth century was an intense period of Buddhist cultural production that included extensive temple construction as well as the editing and publication of the Tibetan Buddhist canon. This fostered an elite culture of connoisseurship that valued established traditions of Sanskrit learning, fine painting, and ornate poetry. Representations of The Wish-Granting Vine became an object of desire embodying all these elements. Especially popular was a series of scroll paintings designed by the court chaplain and chief editor Situ Pa?chen Chökyi Jungné (1700-1774). Situ’s series was repeatedly used as a model by his successor at court, Zhuchen Tsultrim Rinchen (1697-1774), for commissioned temple murals and scroll paintings. I discuss how Situ’s and Zhuchen’s work were informed by—and re-circulated through—travel networks of education, patronage and connoisseurship that extended across Tibetan political borders. In addition to visual material, my primary sources include textual versions of The Wish-Granting Vine, contemporaneous auto/biographies, and monastic histories.