From Landscape to Polity in Tibet

Recent years have shown a growing interest in the subject of sacred landscape among students of Tibetan religion and anthropology. Research in this field by members of the project has resulted in numerous publications, drawing on both ethnographic and literary data from Tibet and the Himalaya region. To a great extent, this research took as its point of departure Nebesky-Wojkowitz`s pioneering work "Oracles and Demonms of Tibet" (1956), examining a variety of cults of local divinities within their social context. An important consequence of this anthropological approach was the conclusion that the study of place-gods could not readily be detached from local and wider political considerations, and that the subject of sacred landscape was only one aspect of the far more complex notion of territory. Prior to its absorption by the People`s Republic of China, the Tibetan nation was not a unitary state with an effective centralised bureaucracy, but consisted of a great number of principalities, kingdoms and dukedoms, as well as noble, ecclesiastical and government estates, all with varying degrees of autonomy from Lhasa and often existing in local confederations or relations of regional vassalage. Some of these polities had a clear territorial base, while others transcended territory altogether and achieved their coherence through ritual and economic ties between geographicallly unconnected communities. The concept of territory forms a crucial bridge between the two extrems of non-politicised sacred landscape and the "transcendent", non-territorial model of polity. The aim of the project was to explore the concept of territory in Tibet, combining studies of sacred landscape with examinations of the political and economic organi-sation of selected areas, as well as historical perspectives on the developement of the Tibetan state. The research programme involved investigations in a number of locations, both in Tibet and the Himalaya, using the methods of field anthropology as well as analyses of Tibetan religious and historical works and local archival material relating to the administration of minor principalities. Enquiries carried out in Tibet by the research team have yielded a large body of ethnographic data as well as numerous unpublished manuscripts, some of them of great importance for the study of Tibetan history and political organisation. These findings have been made at a time of unprecedented oppotunity for research in Tibet, within the framework of an agreement between the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Tibetan Academy of Social Sciences.