Early Religious Representations

Seventeenth-century Jesuit missionaries provide the earliest European reports on Tibet. These missionaries bore immense difficulties to reach their goals, and their avowed aims were to convert the Tibetan people to Christianity. The ancient history of Tibetan rulers was not usually one of their foci, except for those who searched for the fabled Christian king, Prester John, and came away disappointed by reality. Most Jesuits' reports

instead detail the journey to Tibet, the contemporary practices of the people they observed and the doctrines found in their religious literature. Ippolito Desideri, who visited Tibet from 1712 to 1727, first mentions Khri Srong lde brtsan in the context of these religious beliefs and indigenous literature. He says:

I wished to give a rather detailed account of what the Thibettans believe about their principal idol, and an idea of the style of the book in which I found these stories.

Desideri names this “idol” Urghien, though he is more popularly known today as Padmasambhava. He is a character of monumental importance in the traditional Tibetan narratives of the reign of Khri Srong lde brtsan. The book that Desideri recounts in some detail appears to be a later version of

his rnam thar or hagiography, perhaps the Padma bka' thang that I discuss in more detail in Chapter Two. Khri Srong lde brtsan is a secondary character in this hagiography of Padmasambhava. He is a Buddhist king, whereas Padmasambhava maintains a higher status as almost a “second Buddha” in this text.

Desideri portrays Khri Srong lde brtsan as a good man and royal role model, like an indigenous missionary trying to civilise the wild people of Tibet:

Since time immemorial there had been no sort of religion in the kingdom of Thibet, the inhabitants were like brute beasts, undisciplined, ignorant, riteless, without laws, and disobedient to the Kings who tried to rule them. When Urghien was at Torce-ten (Bodh Gaya in India) the King of Thibet,

called Tri-kiongh-teu-zen, was a man of great intelligence and sagacity, large hearted and liberal; in short, possessed of all the qualities which make a good ruler. Hearing that temples existed in other Kingdoms where a power greater than any existing on earth was worshipped, he was seized with a desire to introduce such laws into Thibet and to found a Religion.

Desideri here adapts Tibetan history to speak to his own European context and audience. Parts of his depiction of Khri Srong lde brtsan follow the traditional Tibetan narrative, contrasting the untamed Tibetans with a devout but possibly ineffective king. Yet Desideri also praises him for possessing certain characteristics that he thinks befit a king. These qualities do not include his status as an emanation of Manjusri, which

traditional Tibetan histories ascribe to Khri Srong lde brtsan. Nor does he mention the military aspects of Khri Srong lde brtsan's reign, which become more important in later European works on Tibet. In this, the first European depiction of Khri Srong lde brtsan of which I am aware, Desideri already misrepresents traditional Tibetan historical literature in order to comment on what he believes to constitute the “universal features” of a religous king.

Desideri evidently feels more sympathy for the king than he does for Padmasambhava. He seems to believe that Khri Srong lde brtsan's ardent faith led to his downfall:

A short-sighted and inexperienced man feels a pain in his hand, but does not perceive that the red and fragrant rose which he was tempted to pick is armed with thorns. Thus the hearts of the unhappy King and the unfortunate Thibettans were pierced by the horrible deeds of the infamous magicians, but they failed to understand that the Master [[[Padmasambhava]]] was the one to fear, and that under the colour of religion and the fragrance of prayers, temples and sacrifices, lay hid error and malefic thorns.

According to Desideri, religion was necessary to pacify the wild Tibetans, but heretical Buddhism was the wrong choice for Khri Srong lde brtsan. This portrayal of Buddhism, as bringing peace, passivity and decline to Tibet, can be traced in many descriptions of Khri Srong lde brtsan's reign, even into the twenty-first century.

Other works of the same period focus on the Tibetan empire rather than its Buddhism. Yet European depictions fail for a long time to combine the religious and military sides of Khri Srong lde brtsan's character. Jean-Baptiste Du Halde wrongly ascribes early Tibetan history to the inhabitants

of a valley west of Sichuan, named the Si fan or Tou fan. This is apparently because ancient Chinese histories refer to Tibet as Tou fan, while there was also an East Tibetan group, contemporary with Du Halde, called the Tou fan or Si fan. This error notwithstanding, Du Halde mentions Khri Srong lde brtsan (whom he names Sou si) in very different terms to Desideri:

Ki li so (Khri lDe gtsug brtsan?) did nothing to disturb the Peace, which he had with his Empire [of China] and all his Neighbours, ... Sou si, his next Heir and Successor, was of a more warlike disposition; he was called-in, with his Tartarian Confederates, to assist the Emperor When tsong (713-762?), obliged at the time to quit his court at Chang gan fu (Xi'an) and abandon it to the rebel Gan lo shan (An lu shan) ... But, whether through

Covetousness or Pride, or whether policy engaged them to take advantage of the Weakness of the Empire, which was worn out by too many civil wars, as soon as they heard of the Emperor's death, they set forth with a formidable Army. [Finally, in 763,] the victorious Army entered the Palace without Resistance, and having carried-off the immense riches, set the City on-Fire.

Du Halde's history is based on some ancient Chinese source rather than traditional Tibetan histories. It therefore offers a very different depiction of Khri Srong lde brtsan to Desideri's account. Du Halde describes him as a wild and unpredictable enemy at the gates of imperial China. It is not surprising that he fails to recognise that both names, Sou si and Tri-kiongh-teu-zen, refer to the same person. Thomas Astley quite understandably also fails to spot the mistake, despite quoting both Desideri and Du Halde. He omits the “Tibetan” Khri Srong lde brtsan from his precis of Desideri's account of Padmasambhava. He then quotes Du Halde almost verbatim on the “Chinese” Khri Srong lde brtsan, the proud and war-like leader of the Tou fan or Si fan. Joseph de Guignes corrects this latter mistake, without naming either Du Halde or Astley, in 1756. However, he omits any mention of the religious king, Khri Srong lde brtsan. In Astley's work it is possible to see the beginnings of a long tradition of treating of two Tibets, one religious and depicted according to the Tibetan tradition, the other military and described with the aid of Chinese sources.