History of Tibet

The Situation of the East-West Trade Routes The overland Silk Route from China to the West passed from East to West Turkistan, and on through Sogdia and Iran to Byzantium and Europe. An alternative route passed from West Turkistan through Bactria, the Kabul and Punjabi...

Tangut Thwarting of Qarakhanid Plans for Further Expansion After the fall of Khotan, the Qarakhanids could not press further eastward in their campaign to capture the rest of the southern Tarim. Mahmud of Ghazni attacked from the south and war ensued between the two Turkic...

Tibetan Relations with China Tibet and China had first established diplomatic relations in 608 when Emperor Songtsen-gampo’s father, Namri-lontsen (gNam-ri slon-mtshan), had sent the first Tibetan mission to the Chinese court at the time of the Sui Dynasty. Songtsen-gampo, in...

When al-Salit bin-Abdullah al-Hanafi arrived in Tibet, there were already two religious traditions sponsored by the imperial court, so-called “Bon” and Buddhism. The former was the native faith of Tibet, while the latter had been introduced by Tibet’s first emperor,...

The Establishment of the Jurchen Empire The Jurchen were a Tungusic Manchu people whose homeland was in northern Manchuria and the adjacent region of southeastern Siberia across the Amur River. They were for­est dwellers whom the Khitans conscripted for their ritual hunts....

A report on the situation of the Buddhist monasteries in Central Tibet and in the region of Amdo in 1994.

Before 1959, Tibetan Muslims living in Central Tibet were the descendents of Muslim merchants who spoke Tibetan and followed most Tibetan customs. In Indian exile as well, the Muslim and Buddhist Tibetan communities live in harmony, with religious tolerance.

Several postwar writers on the Occult have asserted that Buddhism and the legend of Shambhala played a role in the German-Tibetan official contact during the Nazi era.

Many people, especially idealistic newcomers to Buddhism, would like to believe that Buddhism has been immune to the phenomenon of conversion.

Secondary sources on the history of Islam in Tibet.