Tibetan Empire?

Onyx

Banned
A really interesting thing I found, Tibet used to be an Empire, around its Greatest Extent in 800 A.D.
Supposedly, they adopted Buddhism and that caused Tibetan to decline and become the region it is today.

So what would happen if Tibet continued as an Empire?
 
A really interesting thing I found, Tibet used to be an Empire, around its Greatest Extent in 800 A.D.
Supposedly, they adopted Buddhism and that caused Tibetan to decline and become the region it is today.

So what would happen if Tibet continued as an Empire?
Actually I think a dynastic conflict did more than anything else to create a lot of petty rulers. If the Empire can stay together who knows what happens?

Buddhism does seem to kill powerful states though.
 
So what would happen if Tibet continued as an Empire?

Same that happened to Goguryeo, the Hsi-Hsia, the Manchu, the Vietnamese. China takes an interest. It is even barely possible that there will be a Tibetan dynasty at one point, but in the long run, geography and demography are not going to be argued with.
 
Same that happened to Goguryeo, the Hsi-Hsia, the Manchu, the Vietnamese. China takes an interest. It is even barely possible that there will be a Tibetan dynasty at one point, but in the long run, geography and demography are not going to be argued with.
Hsi-Hsia? What an odd way to put it. You mean XiXia? Conquered by the Mongols like all the other polities listed.
 
Hsi-Hsia? What an odd way to put it. You mean XiXia? Conquered by the Mongols like all the other polities listed.

Atlases tend to be inconsistent with transliteration. Anyway, the point is, look at where those states used to be and you find Chinese culture, often Chinese dominance. I don't see how a Tibetan Empire can escape that fate in the long run. Even if it were to remain independent, it would more likely than not end up heavily sinicised, and independence is iffy with a strong dynasty in power.
 
Atlases tend to be inconsistent with transliteration. Anyway, the point is, look at where those states used to be and you find Chinese culture, often Chinese dominance. I don't see how a Tibetan Empire can escape that fate in the long run. Even if it were to remain independent, it would more likely than not end up heavily sinicised, and independence is iffy with a strong dynasty in power.
Well, if the Mongols were to focus on China as opposed to the states around it at first it might be interesting. To my understanding the initial claims of China over Tibet have to do with their joint rule under the Yuan. Since the Yuan were Chinese (I guess) China ruled Tibet and so should always rule Tibet or something like that.

Yes, Tibetan independence largely depends on a weaker China until the modern day but it could take some of the western regions during a long enough period of Balkanization without too much sincizing I think.
 
Well, if it manages to keep competent leaders and not fall for the Pacifistic beliefs that are part of Buddhism (maybe a form of Buddhism where militarism is'nt seen as bad forming) I don't see why it could'nt remain.

The Tibetan Empire at it's height was pretty massive, coming close to the size of modern China and including some pretty good areas in terms of resources and manpower.

Now, if we're talking a smaller Tibet, perhaps one including OTL Bhutan, Sikkim, Bhutan and Northern India and some of Central Asia, even with a smaller population it has a good chance.

One of the reasons the status of Tibet remained vague for so long, and why it remained independent until the 60's is geography, Tibet is really the kind of place that's incredibly difficult to conquer, and in the past would have been seen as not worth the effort.
 
Well, if the Mongols were to focus on China as opposed to the states around it at first it might be interesting. To my understanding the initial claims of China over Tibet have to do with their joint rule under the Yuan. Since the Yuan were Chinese (I guess) China ruled Tibet and so should always rule Tibet or something like that.

Yes, Tibetan independence largely depends on a weaker China until the modern day but it could take some of the western regions during a long enough period of Balkanization without too much sincizing I think.

A politically independent Tibet is not all that improbable, really. The Chinese claim is not terribly strong and there is a good chance that if there had been competition, it would not have been pressed. A stronger, more aggressive Indian state taking over, or a more open, diplomatically linked-in Lhasa, or even an earlier British land grab could be enough. I just don't see any of this stopping Tibet's drift into the Sinosphere.
 

ninebucks

Banned
Buddhism isn't a problem. For all the talk about pacifism, Buddhism has never impeded a society's ability to wage war and brutalise their neighbours.

Tibet's best chance to stay out of China is probably to focus south. I think the idea of a Tibetan Empire uniting a large chunk of India is pretty interesting.
 
Tibet's best chance to stay out of China is probably to focus south. I think the idea of a Tibetan Empire uniting a large chunk of India is pretty interesting.

I find that interesting to. But isn´t there a huge rocky obstacle in the way?
 
Problem with going south is you have the Himalayas in the way acting has a barrier.

himalaya.png


Tibet has gone South. A few times they have gone to war with small Bhutan and the Bhutanese always won.

Tibetan armies invaded Bhutan around 1629, in 1631, and again in 1639, hoping to throttle Ngawang Namgyal's popularity before it spread too far. The invasions were thwarted
Bhutan's troubles were not over, however. In 1643 a joint Mongol-Tibetan force sought to destroy Nyingmapa refugees who had fled to Bhutan, Sikkim, and Nepal. The Mongols had seized control of religious and civil power in Tibet in the 1630s and established Gelugpa as the state religion. Bhutanese rivals of Ngawang Namgyal encouraged the Mongol intrusion, but the Mongol force was easily defeated in the humid lowlands of southern Bhutan. Another Tibetan invasion in 1647 also failed.
Lesson is do not mess with the Bhutanese. :D

But supposedly Tibet at least in 1294 did include part of what is today extreme Eastern India and Western Burma all the way to the Ocean.

Found the Map:
1294.ASA-CWA153.jpg
 
Problem with going south is you have the Himalayas in the way acting has a barrier.
Interesting. That's the only map I've ever seen in my entire life that shows a Bengalese Tibet at the time of the Mongols. That is almost certainly an inaccuracy... where did you find that map?
 
Interesting. That's the only map I've ever seen in my entire life that shows a Bengalese Tibet at the time of the Mongols. That is almost certainly an inaccuracy... where did you find that map?

The map comes from the internet site of the University of Oregon. Think they got it from the second book on this page:
http://uolibraries.worldcat.org/search?q=su%3AKublai+Khan%2C+1216-1294+Historical+geography+Maps.&qt=hot_subject.


I do know that area parts of Bengal and Burma were budhist. So some of those tribes in that area had connections with budhist Tibet.

The following map is from Wiki. Year the map represents is 800. Has you can see we have Tibet connected to the Bay of Bengal.

Old_World_820.png



Found out that there was an ancient route called "“Tea and Horse Caravan Road" that ran via Bengal and Burma to China and Tibet. They say compared to the Silk Road this route which was of importance is not really mentioned much. So if Tibet happened to control parts of Bengal and Burma then they could control the trade between India and China.

Map of that Caravan Road:

route_map.jpg
 
Last edited:
Problem with going south is you have the Himalayas in the way acting has a barrier.

himalaya.png


Tibet has gone South. A few times they have gone to war with small Bhutan and the Bhutanese always won.

Lesson is do not mess with the Bhutanese. :D

But supposedly Tibet at least in 1294 did include part of what is today extreme Eastern India and Western Burma all the way to the Ocean.

Found the Map:
1294.ASA-CWA153.jpg

Come on guys.

Stop looking at the map of Tibet and look at the map of Asia. Green is the color the map uses for non-states, the places where no government or organized political body rules an area. Tibet is simply one of three named places and groups in one of the green zones.

A glance at the map of Tibet's Burmese hegemony reveals that the area controlled doesn't even match the map of the caravan road (which is, with the geographic one, the only map here I completely trust). This should be required viewing for everyone in the map thread.

As to the wiki map, all it shows is that we're not the first people to misinterpret maps that use blanket colors for the stateless areas.
 
Wouldn't a big issue with a Tibetan Empire be the fall in gloabal temperatures around 1300 or so? For maybe 400 years they'd fare alright, but once temperatures fall and suddenly the heartland of the empire on the Tibetan Plateau can't support nearly as large a population, wouldn't they collapse?
 

ninebucks

Banned
Wouldn't a big issue with a Tibetan Empire be the fall in gloabal temperatures around 1300 or so? For maybe 400 years they'd fare alright, but once temperatures fall and suddenly the heartland of the empire on the Tibetan Plateau can't support nearly as large a population, wouldn't they collapse?

Indeed. A Tibetan Empire that controlled large swathes of India territory could just readjust its centre of gravity further south.

Such an empire though, even if it did still maintain control of Tibet proper, would quickly become about as Tibetan as the Mughal Empire was Mongol.
 
Top