Tibet under Yuan rule refers to the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty's rule over Tibet from approximately 1270 to 1354. During the Yuan dynasty, Tibet was administered by an organization that was structurally, militarily and administratively subordinate to the Yuan court. Tibet was conquered by the Mongols led by a general titled doord darkhan in 1240 and Mongol rule was established after Sakya Pandita obtained power over Tibet through the Mongols in 1244. This period and administration has been called the Sakya dynasty (Tibetan: ས་སྐྱ་, Wylie: sa skya, Chinese: 薩迦王朝; pinyin: Sàjiā Wángcháo) after the favored Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism.
The region retained a degree of political autonomy under the Sakya lama, who was the de jure head of Tibet and a spiritual leader of the Mongol Empire under the priest and patron relationship. However, administrative and military rule of Tibet remained under the auspices of the Yuan government agency known as the Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs (Xuanzheng Yuan), a top-level administrative department separate from other Yuan provinces, but still under the administration of the Yuan dynasty. Tibet retained nominal power over religious and political affairs, while the Yuan dynasty managed a structural and administrative rule over the region, reinforced by the rare military intervention. This existed as a "diarchic structure" under the Yuan emperor, with power primarily in favor of the Mongols. One of the department's purposes was to select a dpon-chen, the de facto administrator and imperial representative in Tibet, usually appointed by the lama and confirmed by the Yuan emperor in Dadu (modern-day Beijing).
Terminology
In the Yuan dynasty, the most commonly used named for Tibet and Tibetans were Tufan, Xifan, and Wuzang/Wusizang. Tufan is derived from Böd, the native Tibetan name for Tibet. Xifan (Western Böd) is a Sino-Tibetan term and Wuzang/Wusizang are Chinese transliterations of Ü-Tsang, which in Yuan and Ming times referred to Central Tibet. According to Tibetan sources, the center of Ü was Lhasa and Tsang's center was Shigatse. Other Yuan dynasty Chinese renderings of Tibetan terms include Tuosima (Amdo) and Tuogansi (Kham). Tibetan monks were called Xiseng (Western Monks), a term used to collectively describe Tibetan, Nepali, Indian, and Tangut monks.
History
Conquest of Tibet
Tibet was invaded by the Mongol Empire in 1240 and 1244. The first invasion was by Prince Köden or Godan, grandson of Genghis Khan and son of Ögedei Khan. The second invasion by Möngke Khan resulted in the entire region falling under Mongol rule. Kublai Khan incorporated the region into his later Yuan dynasty, but left the legal system intact. Drogön Chögyal Phagpa, the Sakya lama, became a religious teacher to Kublai, who made him the nominal head of the region.
Administration
Tibetans who reached positions of power under the Yuan dynasty were all invariably religious figures. When Tibetan tribal chieftains are mentioned in the History of Yuan, they are not described as part of the permanent and direct government of the Yuan dynasty. The Mongols did set up administrative units in Tibet starting from the 1260s: in 1264 the Mongols created Anxi Prefecture out of 18 Tibetan clans, in 1268 Anxi Prefecture was subordinated to Tuosima Route (Amdo), in 1269 the Pacification Office and General Military Command for Tibet and Other Places was subordinated to the Branch Secretariat for Shaanxi and later the Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs (Xuanzheng Yuan). Other administrative structures were known by the History, but the editors note that they lacked the information on these structures. The Da Ming Yi Tong Zhi says that Kublai set up lower tiers of local government in Tibet that were under the overall authority of the Imperial Preceptor Phagpa.
Military
The majority of Yuan offices in Tibet were military posts. Tuosima (Amdo) and Tuogansi (Kham) were organized into Routes/Circuits. Postal stations were created in these regions and Wuzang (Ü-Tsang). These offices were held by local and regional commanders who were loosely supervised and directed by members of the Yuan imperial clan. Kublai's offspring were given Tibet as part of their dominion. According to Rashid al-Din Hamadani, Kublai gave Tibet to his son Aurughchi. Chinese sources state that Kublai's third son Mangghala ruled over Tibet, Hexi, and Sichuan. Rashid says that Mangghala's son Ananda was given the lands of the Tangut which correspond to Hexi and the Tibetan borderland.
The Mongols used military force to rule Tibet when their Tibetan intermediaries were insufficient. In 1268, an expedition led by Manggudai was sent to put down a rebellion in Tibet and Jiandu (modern Xichang). Another campaign was undertaken in 1275 by Prince Aurughchi in Tibet. By 1280, Mongol rule over Tibet was secure enough for Kublai to organize expeditions to be sent in search for the source of the Yellow River. Despite the military campaigns and administrative structures set up in Tibet, the Mongols never gained uncontested control over Tibet. As late as 1347, Tibetans attacked a caravan transporting wine from Gaochang to the capital. In 1354, members of the Yuan imperial clan were being instructed to lead a punitive expedition against Tibetan bandits in Hexi. The Basic Annals (Benji) contain numerous mentions of rebellions by Tibetan tribes, attacks on Mongol garrisons, and punitive campaigns.
Tibet was often a place of refuge or exile for individuals in the Yuan dynasty. A certain Zhang Lidao got into trouble in Yunnan and fled to Tibet. In 1336, a former official of Henan was exiled to Tibet and became a monk. Emperor Gong of Song was sent to Tibet in 1288 and became a monk in 1296. In 1322 he was ordered to commit suicide.
Sakya rule
The religious institution of Tibet under the Yuan dynasty traces back to a letter written by Godan, the son of Ögedei Khan, to the Sakya sect's Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyeltsen in 1244. Godan invited Sakya Pandita to visit him. One possible reason why the Sakya lama was chosen over other Buddhist sects is because they specialized in magic rituals and in spreading Buddhist morality. Sakya Pandita died in 1251 and Godan died soon after as well.
Sakya Pandita was succeeded by his nephew Phagpa. Phagpa was invited to meet Kublai in 1253 and helped him and his lineage develop a theory of theocratic rule, incorporating the Kublaids into a line of Buddhist universal rulers. Under Phagpa's influence, Genghis Khan's birth was interpreted as an event that heralded the salvation of the world according to the teachings of the Buddha. Chinese, Tibetan, and Mongol sources all agree that Kublai was given a consecration in 1253 and initiated to the rites of Hevajra, who was given special prominence by the Sakya monasteries. The rites of Hevajra and Mahakala became customary for the enthronement of every yuan emperor and Mahakala became the national protector deity of the Mongols.
In 1260, Kublai appointed Phagpa as "Guoshi", or State Preceptor. The title was later changed to Imperial Precetor (Dishi). Phagpa was the first "to initiate the political theology of the relationship between state and religion in the Tibeto-Mongolian Buddhist world". Khublai established a system in which a Sakya lama would be Imperial Preceptor, who would reside in China and supervise all the Buddhists of the empire, and a Tibetan called dpon-chen (Ponchen) or "Civil Administrator" would live in Tibet to administer it. This system also led to conflicts between the Sakya leaders and the dpon-chens.
Phagpa expounded on a theory for ruling the world defined by "two orders", one order based on the religious and one order based on the secular. He embodied the Buddha whereas the Yuan emperor embodied the chakravartin universal ruler, each presiding over their domains of religion and secular state rule. Although this was never fully implemented in either the Yuan dynasty or later Mongol states, Phagpa's family did marry into the Yuan imperial clan. His younger brother married princess Megalung in 1265 and a son was born to them in 1268, and the son later married a daughter of Jibig Temur, the third son of Godan. Phagpa and other lamas occupied the role of something similar to court chaplains to the Yuan emperors. The lamas were also quite influential in Ilkhanate.
Phagpa was honored by the Yuan state after his death in 1280. He was given a posthumous title, a stupa was built for him in 1282, and memorial halls, clay statues, and paintings were created for him in the 1320s. Phagpa's position as Imperial Preceptor was succeeded by Tibetan lamas, most of whom were his close relatives.
Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs
The Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs, or Xuanzheng Yuan (Chinese: 宣政院; pinyin: Xuānzhèng Yuàn; lit. 'Court for the Spread of Governance') was a government agency of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China to handle Buddhist affairs across the empire in addition to managing Tibet. It was originally set up by Kublai Khan in 1264 under the name Zongzhi Yuan (simplified Chinese: 总制院; traditional Chinese: 總制院; pinyin: Zǒngzhìyuàn) or the "Bureau of General Regulation", before it was renamed in 1288. The name was chosen because during the Tang dynasty, the Tibetans were received in the Xuanzheng Hall. The History of Yuan gives a straightforward description of its functions: "It handled Buddhist monks as well as the territory of Tufan (i.e. Tibet) and they were under its jurisdiction and governed by it". The deputy director of the bureau was always a Buddhist monk.
The bureau was set up in Khanbaliq (modern Beijing) and was named after the Xuanzheng Hall where Tibetan envoys were received in the Tang dynasty. In the Yuan dynasty, Tibet was managed by the Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs, separate from the other Yuan provinces such as those established in the former territories of the Song dynasty. While no modern equivalents remain, the political functions of the Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs might have been analogous to the India Office in London during the British Raj. Besides holding the title of Imperial Preceptor or Dishi, Drogön Chögyal Phagpa, the fifth leader of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism, was concurrently named the director of the Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs.
One of the department's purposes was to select a dpon-chen ('great administrator', a civilian administrator who governed Tibet when Sakya Lama was away), usually appointed by the lama and confirmed by the Yuan emperor in Beijing. The lamas like the Imperial Preceptors were given Chinese noble titles and the regents of the Sakya monastery ruled by imperial command through seals given to them by the Mongol emperors. Tibet was ruled by lamas sanctioned by the imperial court through the bureau. However these positions were hereditary and the granting of Chinese noble titles was only a formality. The Yuan emperor did little or nothing to interfere with their rule. The bureau was staffed by only Tibetans and Mongols.
Tibetan Buddhism was not only practiced within the capital Beijing but throughout the country. Apart from Tibetan affairs, the Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs managed the entire Buddhist clergy throughout the realm (whether they were Han, Tibetan or Korean etc.), and supervised all temples, monasteries, and other Buddhist properties in the empire, at least in name. According to scholar Evelyn Rawski, it supervised 360 Buddhist monasteries. To emphasize its importance for Hangzhou, capital of the former Southern Song dynasty and the largest city in the Yuan realm, a branch (行, Xing, "acting") Xuanzheng Yuan was established in that city in 1291. In public and official meetings, Tibetan Buddhism was practiced alongside Han Buddhism.
Sometimes these bureau offices were created in order to deal with emergencies such as in 1357 when a bureau branch was established to counteract Tibetan brigands. A joint punitive expedition was organized by both the Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs and the Bureau of Military Affairs in 1311. In the same year an imperial decree clarified that the bureau had the authority to oversee military affairs in Tibet as well as the management of postal stations.
There was another Buddhist Affairs Commission that existed by 1280 when a supervisor was installed to report on Buddhist monks and Tibetan affairs. This commission's role was limited to the supervision of Buddhist rituals. Its personnel was cut in 1294 and the commission was abolished in 1329 with its responsibilities were taken over by the bureau.
The Lifan Yuan (also known as the Board for the Administration of Outlying Regions and Office of Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs etc.) was roughly a Qing dynasty equivalent of the Xuanzheng Yuan, instituted by the Qing Empire for administering affairs in Tibet and other border regions.