Glossary

An aimag is a traditional social-geographical grouping in Mongolian regions, traditionally led by a khan. In modern states like Mongolia or the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in China, an aimag is the equivalent of a prefecture or district.

Brahmins are the highest caste in Hinduism. According to Hindu scriptures, brahmins are supposed to be temple priests who maintain ritual purity, although in practice they have always worked in many trades.

The British Empire was the largest empire in world history, ruling almost a quarter of the world’s land area and population at its height in the mid-twentieth century. The British achieved hegemony in India after the Battle of Plassey in 1757, and soon came to rule large areas of the Himalayas, including Kashmir and Ladakh. Several small Himalayan kingdoms, including Nepal, Bhutan, and Sikkim, were allowed to maintain semi-independence as buffer-states against Qing-controlled Tibet. The British briefly invaded Tibet in 1903–1904. After the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1912, the British became a major cultural and military influence on the Ganden Podrang government in Lhasa. India achieved independence in 1947, ending British rule in the Himalayas.

Historians roughly divide human prehistory into three ages according to individual civilizations’ use of technology: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. According to archaeologist John Vincent Bellezza, the Himalayan Bronze Age lasted from about 2000 to 700 BCE, while the Iron Age lasted from 700 to 100 BCE.

The Ganden Podrang was the government system that ruled Central Tibet, in one form or another, from 1642 to 1959. Headed by the Dalai Lamas, the Ganden Podrang had a dual system that included both powerful Geluk monastic officials and secular members of the Central Tibetan noble families. From the eighteenth century onward, the Ganden Podrang had a central governing council called the “kashag,” or “parliament.”

The Gupta empire was a state centered in northeastern India. The Gupta empire expanded from the fourth century CE to control much of central India and the Ganges valley regions, receiving tributes from other rulers as well. Under the strain of military invasions from the northwest, the empire declined in the late sixth century. The Gupta period is considered a classical age of Hindu and Buddhist art and culture, which produced many of India’s greatest philosophers, playwrights, and artists. Elite patronage of Buddhist institutions was also a major feature of the age, and sculpted Buddhist images are among the most famous and representative images of that time.

Jyapus are the largest caste among the Newar people of the Kathmandu Valley, often thought to be among the oldest urban inhabitants of the region. Jyapus are primarily known as farmers, but they also engage in other trades.

Kathmandu Mandala is a term used to describe the political and religious landscape of the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal, traditionally inhabited by Newar people. Politically, the Kathmandu Mandala consisted of the three city-states of Kathmandu, Bakhtapur, and Patan, as well as smaller settlements around them. Religiously, the Kathmandu Mandala was a network of Hindu and Buddhist sacred sites that marked the center and boundaries of the region. From 1768 the Kathmandu Valley was unified under the rule of the Shah dynasty from outside of the valley.

The Khalkha are one of the major historical subgroupings of the Mongols. Historically ruled by leaders descended from Chinggis Khan, the Khalkha inhabited a territory roughly the same as the country called Mongolia today. Other important Mongol groups after the fall of the Mongol Empire include the Chahars, who lived in what is today the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in China, the Oirat or Dzungars, who lived in Central Asia, and the Khoshut, who lived in the northern Tibetan Plateau.

The Khasa Malla were a kingdom in what is now western Nepal and Tibet, centered on the Karnali River valley. While a Himalayan people called Khasa are mentioned in ancient Indian texts, the organized Khasa Malla kingdom flourished roughly between the twelfth and the fourteenth centuries. Little is known about this kingdom, as written sources are limited to a few inscriptions and mentions in Tibetan chronicles, in which they are known as the Yatse kingdom. Nevertheless, the Khasa Malla had a unique culture of Buddhist bronze casting that combined Indic and Tibetan cultural elements. The Khasa Malla are not to be confused with the Malla Dynasty based in the Kathmandu Valley.

The “early diffusion” refers to the first period in which Buddhism entered Tibet, roughly from the seventh to the ninth centuries CE. This period roughly corresponds to the age of the Tibetan Empire, and came to an end with the chaos and destruction of the empire’s fall. The Nyingma or “ancient” tradition of Tibetan Buddhism traces its teachings and doctrines to this early diffusion. The “later diffusion” refers to a second period, roughly from the late tenth to the fourteenth centuries CE, when Buddhism re-entered Tibet, the Mahayana and Vajrayana canon was fully translated into Tibetan, and monasteries grew to cover the land. The Kagyu, Sakya, Jonang, and Geluk traditions of Tibetan Buddhism all trace their origins to this period.

Licchavi is a name for an ancient Indic people. In the time of the Buddha Shakyamuni (sixth-fifth century BCE), the Licchavis inhabited the northern bank of the Ganges river in the area around the city of Vaishali, their capital. In the mid-fifth century CE, a branch of the Licchavis formed a dynasty in the Kathmandu Valley, and ruled there until the mid-ninth century, retaining close ties with Indian kingdoms and establishing close cultural, trade, and diplomatic relationships with both Tibet and China. The Licchavi period is known as the earliest great age of Nepalese art, with many Buddhist and Hindu bronzes and stone sculptures surviving today.

The Malla dynasty ruled the Kathmandu Valley in central Nepal from the early thirteenth century until 1769. For most of this period, there was not one single Malla ruler; rather, different branches of the Malla family formed a Newar-speaking noble class that ruled the three city-states of Kathmandu, Bakhtapur, and Patan. Due to the cultural competition between these cities and courts, the Malla period is remembered as a great age of Hindu and Buddhist art and architecture in Nepal. The Malla period came to an end when the Gorkha ruler Prithvi Narayan Shah (1723–1775) conquered the area of present-day Nepal. (The Malla dynasty is not to be confused with the Khasa Malla.)

Manchus are an ethnic group originating in northeast Asia, roughly the area known as Manchuria. Historically known as Jurchens, in 1635 the ruler Hong Taiji (1592–1643) proclaimed the Qing Dynasty and officially changed the ethnic group’s name to “Manchu.” Qing emperors were said to be emanations of the bodhisattva Manjushri, and the name “Manchu” may relate to this. The Manchus formed the military aristocracy of this empire, which came to rule most of China, Mongolia, Tibet, and Eastern Central Asia until 1912. Many Manchus, including Qing emperors, had close political and spiritual relationships with Tibetan and Mongol lamas. Today the Manchus remain a major ethnic group within China, although very few people now speak the Manchu language.

The Ming dynasty was a Chinese state that existed from 1368 to 1644 CE. The Ming founder, Zhu Yuanzhang (1328–1398), led an army that defeated the Yuan dynasty of the Mongol Empire and restored ethnic Chinese rule in China. Unlike the Mongols before them or the Qing dynasty after them the Ming never seriously attempted to rule the Tibetan regions, preferring instead to manage border affairs by granting titles and trading rights to friendly Tibetan monks and secular leaders. Nevertheless, several early Ming emperors had close personal relations with Tibetan lamas, and relations of trade and cultural interchange flourished between Chinese and Tibetan regions.

The Mongol Empire (ca 1206–1368) was the largest contiguous empire in world history, founded by Chinggis Khan (1162–1227), which at its height controlled most of Eurasia, from the Korean peninsula to Central Europe. The Mongols conquered the Tanguts in 1227 and absorbed Tibetan regions in the 1240s, granting power over central Tibet to the Sakya Buddhist hierarchs in what is characterized as a priest-patron relationship. In 1260, Qubilai Khan declared himself Great Khan, which was contested, fracturing the Mongol Empire into four independent regimes. Qubilai remained the ruler of most of Asia establishing the Yuan dynasty. Mongol rulers of Yuan, and the first six rulers the Ilkhanate in the Middle East, starting with its founder Hülegü, were also patrons of Tibetan Buddhism.

The Newars are traditional inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal. The Newars speak a Tibeto-Burman language (Newari) and practice both Hinduism and Buddhism. The Newars are inheritors of one of the oldest and most sophisticated urban civilizations of the Himalayas, and Newar arts and artisans have been celebrated all across the Himalayan world since the Licchavi period.

The Nyingma are a tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. The Nyingma trace their lineages back to the first introduction of Buddhism into the Himalayas in the time of the Tibetan Empire, most importantly to the legendary Indian yogin Padmasambhava. The Nyingma are known for their “treasure revealers” (Tib. terton), lamas who travel the Himalayas, revealing ritual texts, objects, and hidden lands thought to be concealed within the Tibetan landscape. The Nyingma are also famed for the Dzogchen teachings, a set of meditative practices focused on the bardo states, and the nature of the mind as pure, self-arising consciousness. Unlike other Buddhist traditions, many Nyingma practitioners are not celibate and can marry, raise families, and grant Vajrayana initiations and teachings to their children.

The Oirats are a major western branch of the Mongol people, dating from at least the time of Chinggis Khan (1162–1227 CE). The Oirats have several historically important sub-branches. The leader of Khoshud branch, Güüshi Khan (1582–1655), allied with Gelukpa monasteries and occupied Tibet in the 1630s–40s, and was named king. Together, they established the Ganden Podrang government in Lhasa with Dalai Lamas at its head. The Zunghar branch established a state in eastern Central Asia in the early seventeenth century, and played a significant role in the political and religious affairs of the eastern Khalkha Mongols, as well as Tibet in 1717–20. The Kalmyk branch, which migrated to what is now southwestern Russia in 1607–30, are the only majority-Buddhist ethnic group on the European continent.

The Pala dynasty ruled in northeastern India from the eighth to the twelfth century, and is known for its patronage of the great north-Indian monastic universities of Nalanda, Vikramashila, and Odantapuri. Pala kings and queens were patrons of Buddhist art. Pala period sculpture, paintings, illuminated manuscripts, and sites inspired Newar and Tibetan artistic production in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries. A famous Pala period Indian scholar figure was Atisha, who traveled and taught in Sumatra and in Tibet, where his teachings led to the founding of the Kadam tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.

The Palola Shahis were a Buddhist kingdom that flourished between the sixth and eighth centuries CE in what is now the Hunza Valley of northern Pakistan. Military control over this strategic kingdom was contested between the Tang Dynasty of China and the Tibetan Empire, and most of what we know about the Palola Shahis comes from the chronicles of these outside forces, as well as the travel accounts of East Asian pilgrims. The Palola Shahis are known for their patronage of elegant bronze sculptures, a sculptural tradition shared with the nearby Swat Valley and Kashmir.

Historians divide the past into prehistoric periods—before the invention of writing, and historic periods, which we can know by reading the texts people wrote. On the Tibetan Plateau, the historic period proper begins in the seventh century CE, when the Tibetan script was developed, and Tibetans began to write about their own present and past. Historians also speak of a long “proto-historic” period, during which we have writings in the languages of surrounding cultures like India and China, who sometimes described their Himalayan neighbors. Events in the “proto-historic” period sometimes appear as legends and tales in later histories.

The Qing dynasty was a state that ruled in Eastern Asia from 1636 to 1912. Founded by the Manchus in 1644, the Qing armies crossed the Great Wall and began their conquest of the rest of the Chinese cultural region. By the 1750s the Qing empire had expanded to rule all of Mongolia, Tibet, and eastern Central Asia (including today’s Xinjiang), laying the groundwork for the modern state of China. The Qing governed Tibet and parts of Mongolia indirectly, in which the Manchu armies provided military support for local Buddhist governments like the Ganden Podrang. Tibetan and Mongol lamas were also extremely important in Qing court culture, and had close relationships with several Qing emperors.

The Rinpungpa were a regional power based in west-central Tibet (Tsang) that flourished from the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries. Patronizing the Kagyu sect and the Karmapas, the Rinpungpa lords were engaged in a series of conflicts with Pakmodru and other Tibetan principalities. In the 1560s, the declining Rinpungpas were defeated and their realm absorbed by the kings of Shigatse.

Sakya is the name of a monastery and of a major tradition of Tibetan Buddhism that originated there during the Later Diffusion of Buddhism. Sakya Monastery was the seat of power during Sakya-Mongol rule in Tibet (1260–1350s), founded on the priest-patron relationship. Notable Sakya figures include Sakya Pandita (1182–1251), who played an instrumental role in establishing Tibetan relations with the Mongols; Drogon Chogyel Pakpa (1234-1280), who served as Qubilai Khan’s imperial preceptor and invented the Pakpa Script; and Buton (1290–1364), who compiled the Tibetan Canon. The Sakya are particularly known for their Lamdre teachings. In the 1350s, Pakmodru replaced the Sakya political prominence.

The Sasanian dynasty was a state that ruled in Persia (modern Iran, Iraq, and neighboring countries) from 224 to 651 CE. While the Sasanian state religion was Zoroastrianism, the empire also contained major Christian, Jewish, Manichaean, Buddhist, and Hindu populations. In 637, the Sasanians were decisively defeated by the Arab Muslims, paving the way for the conversion of most of Central Asia to Islam. Sasanian traders and envoys (including Sogdians) reached from India to the Mediterranean to China, and their culture and arts continued to be a major influence on Central Asian civilization even after the empire fell. In Tibetan, Inner Asian, and Chinese contexts, Sasanian metalwork, such as silver and gold vessels, and silks with distinctive intricately woven patterns were prized and often emulated.

The Shah dynasty was a family that ruled Nepal from 1769 to 2008. Originating from the Nepali-speaking Gorkha Kingdom in what is now west-central Nepal, in the seventeenth century the Shah kings unified the area of present-day Nepal, defeating the Malla-dynasty Newar kingdoms of the Kathmandu Valley in 1768–9. Ruling in Kathmandu as Hindu monarchs, the Shah dynasty fought several wars against the British and Qing empires. The monarchy was abolished in 2008, and Nepal was declared a republic.

In Newar Buddhism, the Shakya are a hereditary caste descended from Buddhist monks. The name originates from the term Shakya-bikhshu, “Monks of [The Buddha] Shakyamuni.” Shakyas dwell in and manage the former monasteries (Newar: baha, bahi) in the Kathmandu Valley, and some are known metalworkers and makers of religious images.

The Sogdians were a historic Central Asian people who originated in the region of present-day western Tajikistan and surrounding areas of Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. The Sogdians spoke a language related to Persian and were major players in the medieval Central Asian caravan trade, forming crucial contacts between Persia, China, and Tibet. They were important conduits of artistic traditions and material culture, including Sasanian metalwork and Central Asian silk weaving. After the Arab conquest of their homeland in the eighth century, the Sogdians mostly disappeared from history, although the Sogdian language is still spoken by a few thousand people in the mountains of Tajikistan.

The Song dynasty was a state that ruled in China from 960 to 1279 CE, with its capitals at modern Kaifeng and then Hangzhou. While militarily unsuccessful against their northern and western neighbors (the Tangut Xixia, the Khitan Liao, the Jurchen Jin, and finally the Mongol Yuan), the Song period is remembered as one of the great ages of Chinese art and intellectual life, when Chinese Buddhism, Neo-Confucianism, and associated painting, printing, and silk weaving traditions reached their greatest sophistication. Although the Song had limited direct contact with the Himalayan world in its own time, the art of the Song period would be influential for centuries afterwards .

Sthapits are a caste among the Newar people of Kathmandu. Historically practicing Newar Buddhism, the Sthapits are known as architects, woodworkers, and craftsmen.

The Tang dynasty was a state that ruled in east Asia between 618 and 907 CE, with its capital at modern Xi’an. The Tang dynasty was militarily expansive, conquering much of eastern Central Asia before an internal rebellion that began in 755 broke its power. The Tang dynasty also fought major wars and conducted several treaties with the Tibetan Empire. The Tang dynasty was an important time in the history of Buddhism, when many Indian and Central Asian monks traveled to China to teach, while Chinese and Korean monks traveled to India for pilgrimage and study, or taught Chinese Buddhist doctrines in Tibet. Many paintings and documents from the Tang dynasty and immediately afterwards are preserved at Dunhuang.

The Tanguts were an ethnic group in medieval East-Central Asia, who called themselves Minyak and spoke a language distantly related to Tibetan. Between 1038 and 1227 CE the Tanguts ruled a state in what is now the Chinese provinces of Ningxia, Gansu, and Qinghai. This state took the Chinese dynastic name of Xia, also called Xixia “Western Xia.” The Tangut-Xixia emperors were major patrons of Buddhism, inviting both Chinese and Tibetan monks to teach in the capital, and instituting major Buddhist translation and printing projects in three languages. The Tangut state was destroyed by the armies of Chinggis Khan, leading to their absorption into the Mongol Empire, where many Tanguts served as officials.

The Thakuri Period was an era of Nepalese history that lasted roughly from the ninth to the twelfth centuries CE. “Thakuri” is a term of respect given to historical kings in much later chronicles, not the name of a governing dynasty or ethnic group. For this reason some scholars prefer the terms the “post-Licchavi” or “transitional” period. Very few secular records survive from this period, and little is known about its political history. Nevertheless, the many Buddhist and Hindu pothi manuscripts and bronze statues attest to Nepal’s continued cultural output. During the Thakuri Period, Vajrayana teachings rose to dominance among Buddhists in the Kathmandu Valley.

In the early seventh century, a line of kings from the Yarlung Valley united disparate people on the Tibetan Plateau into a powerful, centralized state. With their capital at Lhasa, these kings proclaimed themselves emperors, or tsenpo. Their armies conquered much of the Himalayas, Central Asia, and western China. Tibetans developed a written script for the Tibetan language and Buddhism was adopted as a state religion. The conversion to Buddhism was contested by an indigenous group of ritualists called Bon, creating political turmoil. After the assassination of emperor Langdarma in 842, the Tibetan empire fragmented and collapsed. Nevertheless, the myths and memories of the empire continue to be a central part of Tibetan identity.

The Tibetan Government-in-Exile is a reconstituted form of the Ganden Podrang government that now resides in Dharamshala, India. In 1951, Tibet was formally incorporated into the People’s Republic of China under Mao Zedong (1893–1976). In 1959, an uprising against the Chinese communist rule led to the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and surviving members of the Tibetan government flight to India, where they rebuilt a government-in-exile, with a democratically elected parliament (Tib. kashag) and a president. In 2011, The Dalai Lama formally relinquished his political leadership role in Tibetan exile government. This government represents the roughly 150,000 Tibetans who form an exiled diaspora in India, Nepal, and worldwide.

Tibetans are an ethnic group who live on the Tibetan plateau, as well as neighboring parts of northern India, Nepal, and around the world. Traditionally, Tibetans have combined agriculture in the river valleys with pastoral animal husbandry on high plateaus. Most Tibetans are Buddhists, but there are also followers of Bon, Islam, and other indigenous ritual traditions. Today, there are about seven million Tibetan people globally.

Turkic languages. The Old Uyghur Empire was a semi-nomadic Buddhist and Manichaean state that ruled in modern-day Mongolia between roughly the 740s and 840s CE. After the destruction of the Uyghur Empire by the Kyrgyz, many Uyghurs fled to the oasis city-states of eastern Central Asia, including Dunhuang. These Uyghurs played an important role in the rise of the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century, when they provided scribes for the imperial administration. Much later, the word “Uyghur” came to refer to the Turkic-speaking Muslims who live in what is now Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the far northwest of China.

The Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) is the branch of the Mongol Empire in Asia. In 1260 when Qubilai Khan declared himself Great Khan, his realm included Mongolian, Chinese, Tangut, and Tibetan regions. In 1271 emperor Qubilai Khan proclaimed the Yuan dynasty on a Chinese model, employing Tibetan and Tangut monks. Tibetan Buddhism played an important role in the state, establishing a political model that would be emulated by later dynasties, including the Chinese Ming and Manchu Qing dynasties. The Mongols were major patrons of Tibetan institutions, and many Mongols converted to Tibetan Buddhism, though their interest declined with the fall of the empire.

The Zhamarpas are an important tulku lineage within the Karma Kagyu branch of the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, second after the Karmapas. Founded in the fourteenth century, the Zhamar and Karmapa lineages have a close teacher-student relationship, when one passes away the other takes charge of identifying and educating the new incarnation. In 1788, the Tenth Zhamarpa became involved in a conflict between the Shah synasty of Nepal, the Dalai Lamas’ Ganden Podrang, and the Qing dynasty. As result the Geluk-led Ganden Podrang government banned the Zhamar lineage, which went underground until being formally pardoned by the Fourteenth Dalai Lama in 1963.