Inheritance and Development of Tibetan Traditional Culture: the Historical Inspiration

　　——focused on Tibetan historic work rgya-bod-yig-tshang

　　Zhang Yun (China)

　　1. The records about the alien culture’s influence on Tibetan culture in rgya-bod-yig-tshang（《汉藏史集》）

　　（1）、the records about the alien culture in btsan-po-Gyal-rabs

　　（2）、the records in the Story of Tea and Bowl Appeared in Tubo

　　（3）、the records in the Tubo History of Medicine

　　（4）、the records in the Spread of swords in Tubo

　　（5）、the records in the Varieties of the Tea

　　（6）、the records in the Knowledge to Examine the Bowls

　　（7）、the records in the Seven Virtuous Officials

　　2. The historic perspectiveandculture perspective reflected in rgya-bod-yig-tshang

　　（1）Identification with the Grand Unification historic perspective

　　The advocator of the Grand Unification in Yuan dynasty is phags-pa, the political and religious leader of Saskya sect. During 1273-1274, the Mongolian Prince Jinggim escorted phags-pa to return to saskya. Phags-pa explained the Darma to Jinggim on the way and finished the work shes-bya-rab-gsal（《彰所知论》）. In this work, phags-pa combined the Mongolian 王统with Indian and Tubo 法统，tried to make Yuan dynasty’s ruling the whole country legalize and found the theoretical argument for Yuan dynasty to administrate the political and religious affairs in Tibet, which made a theoretical response of Tibet local government to the Grand Unification of Yuan rulers.

　　There is a theory that all ethnic groups constituted a big family in Yuan dynasty, which was reflected in the work rgya-bod-yig-tshang, as follows:

　　“nang gi mivu rigs bzhi ni, gi shang rgya dang, gyim zhang hor, kha le mon dang, spu rgyal bod bzhivo. Devi nang nas, rgya la grol cha gnyis su gyes pa ni, rmu rus dang ke lavo; hor yang gnyis su gyes pa ni, srin tsha dang lha tshavo; mon pa rigs gsum byung ba ni, mon rang rgyud pa dang, rgya bod mtshams kyi mi nyag, rkong po dang gsum mo. Bod la mivu rgyud drug tu grol te, devnga sngon dang po, yul dmav ka shu gyag zhur gyi gong kha bya bar, srid pavi rgyal bu thing gi zhes pa la, bu gsum byung ba, rgya bod hor gsum du gres pavi. Bod mi khri do chen po bya ba de la, bu drug byung ba ni, dbrav vgru ldong gsum, lga dang bzhi, nu bo dbas brdav gnyis dang drug. Bod kyi mivu rgyud drug des.”

　　（2）historic representation and Identification

　　While the work rgya-bod-yig-tshang（《汉藏史集》）recorded Tibetan local rgyal rabs, it also recorded the rgyal rabs in Hotan (lies in today’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region), rgyal rabs of rgya in inner land, rgyal rabs of mi nyag in today’s juncture of Ning Xia, Gan Su and Shaan’xi provinces and the rgyal rabs of hor, which reflected the author’s historic knowledge of big China at that time.

　　Another historian in Yuan dynasty named tshal-pa-kun-dgav-rdo-rje also expressed the similar idea in his famous work Red Annals（《红史》）. Except introducing the rgyal rabs of the origin of Buddhism: India and the history of India, the author emphasized the history of rgyal rabs of rgya, the Tubo history in Tang dynasty in Tang Annals which was translated into Tibetan, the history of rgya from Liang dynasty to South Song dynasty, the history of mi nyag, the history of Mongolia and the history of Tubo, which actually composed a big China history at that time.

　　（3）the reflected information about the ethnic groups’ cultural psychological identification

　　The stories in the work rgya-bod-yig-tshang （《汉藏史集》）reflected that the political unification of Yuan dynasty is the big close family of Tibetan, Han Chinese, Mongolian and Monpa in Tibetans’ eyes, which also expressed an idea in an easy and accessible way: that the Yuan China is the China of all ethnic groups and all those ethnic groups are brothers in a big family.

　　3. The inspiration to modern Tibetan traditional culture from the records of rgya-bod-yig-tshang（《汉藏史集》）

　　The development of Tibetan traditional culture has both the regional feature and the times feature. It evolved and changed with different eras. There is nothing unchangeable in history, so is Tibetan historic culture. There are a few points about how to inherit, develop and create the Tibetan traditional culture.

　　（1）inheriting the excellent part of Tibetan traditional culture

　　After the democratic reform, the Tibetan social system has undergone a fundamental change. Parts of Traditional culture have been abandoned such as the feudal serfdom system, the caste system and the theocracies. Millions of serfs have become the legal citizens with properties and rights. The facts that the number of monks occupied one third of the whole Tibetan population has changed. The right of religious belief has been guaranteed. The knowledge structure has changed.  Originally, the Buddhism ruled the education field, but now the science takes the place of it. The above-mentioned contents require us to inherit the best part of the traditional culture instead of accepting them all without any distinction. The way we treat the Tibetan traditional culture should be using it for today, discarding the dross and selecting the essential. We still have a long way to go.

　　（2）learn from the alien culture

　　The Tibetan historic works such as rgya-bod-yig-tshang show us that learning from the best culture from other places and ethnic groups play an very important role in the forming and developing of the Tibetan traditional culture. That’s also why Tubo culture was so brilliant and the great development of Tibetan local culture in Yuan dynasty also benefit from it. At present, Tibetan traditional culture face both a big challenge and precious opportunity. One of the way to strengthen its developing ability and vitality is to abandon the preservative thoughts and learn from others actively.

　　（3）cultivate the scientific thoughts and scientific spirit

　　Cultivating the scientific thoughts and scientific spirit is the very important step for Tibetan traditional culture turning into modern culture. This is a long term, hard task, and also a challenge that we must face. Only by scientific spirit can we clear the traditional culture. Therefore we may have ability to develop it and let it have beautiful prospects.

　　（4）the spread of scientific knowledge and the application of scientific technology

　　The main inheritor and beneficiary of Tibetan excellent traditional culture should be the Tibetan people, which is also the biggest difference from the old serfdom times. How to improve the scientific and cultural level of Tibetan people, especially farmers and herdsman, and how to satisfy their material and spiritual needs, will be a significant and meaningful question.

　　（5）let the excellent traditional ethical culture into the ordinary families

　　The harmonious social construction and the progress of spiritual civilization may learn a lot from the best part of Tibetan traditional culture. Especially, the traditional ethical culture will play an active role in building today’s social morality. The Confucian culture in Shandong Province walking into the ordinary family, occurs to me that if the good traditional Tibetan ethical culture walk into farmers and herdsman’s daily life in Tibet, it may richen their spiritual culture and respond to the shock from ideas of the modern market economy, which may improve the human and social harmony.

　　（Zhang Yun, Head of the institute, researcher, History Institute of China Tibetology Research Center）