Facts about Tibet
Nevertheless, many small restaurants serving traditional Tibetan dishes persist in both cities and the countryside.
Chinese contact helped shape the Tibetan bureaucracy, army, and mail service.
China, which presently controls Tibet, maintains it is a province-level entity, the Tibet Autonomous Region.
The CTA exercises many governmental functions in relation to the Tibetan exile community in India, which numbers around 100,000.
Manchu troops quelled a civil war in Tibet in 1728, restored order after the assassination of a political leader in 1750, and drove out Gurkhas, who had invaded from Nepal in 1792.
The Indus River, known in Tibet as the Shih-ch'ьan Ho, has its source in western Tibet near the sacred Mount Kailas, and flows west across Kashmir to Pakistan.
Tibet's tourism industry has grown, especially following the completion of Qingzang Railway in July 2006.
Tibetan is also spoken by approximately 150,000 exile speakers who have fled from modern-day Tibet to India and other countries.
According to tradition the original ancestors of the Tibetan people, as represented by the six red bands in the Tibetan flag, are: the Se, Mu, Dong, Tong, Dru and Ra.
The Qinghai-Tibet Railway (Xining to Lhasa) is also a major concern, as it is believed to further facilitate the influx of migrants.
The Manchu wanted good relations with Tibet because of the Dalai Lama's prestige among the Mongols.
The eighteenth century brought more Jesuits and Capuchins, who gradually met opposition from Tibetan lamas who finally expelled them in 1745.
Tibetan exiles, in turn, consider the maintenance of this arrangement from the eighteenth century as part of a divide-and-rule policy.
When the native Chinese Ming dynasty evicted the Mongols, Tibet regained its independence, and for more than 100 years the Phag-mo-gru-pa line governed in its own right.
The Tibetan calendar lags approximately four to six weeks behind the solar calendar.
Linguists surmise that Chinese and the "proto-Tibeto-Burman" language may have split sometime before 4000 B.C.E., when the Chinese began growing millet in the Yellow River valley while the Tibeto-Burmans remained nomads.
Tibetan music is religious music, reflecting the profound influence of Tibetan Buddhism on the culture.
The music of Tibet reflects the cultural heritage of the trans-Himalayan region, centered in Tibet.
According to Annals of Lake Manasarowar, at one point the Zhang Zhung civilization, which started sometime before 1500 B.C.E., comprised 18 kingdoms in the west and northwest portion of Tibet, centered around sacred Mount Kailash.
Northern Tibet is subject to high temperatures in the summer and intense cold in the winter.
Before the Chinese occupied Tibet in 1951, the country had a theocratic government with the Dalai Lama the spiritual and temporal head.
The Tibet Autonomous Region in 2000 had 2,427,168 Tibetans (92.8 percent), 158,570 Han Chinese (6.1 percent) and 30,595 others (1.2 percent) according to the PRC Department of Population figures.
Tourists buy handicrafts including hats, jewelry (silver and gold), wooden items, clothing, quilts, fabrics, Tibetan rugs and carpets.
The government of India allows the CTA to exercise effective jurisdiction in these matters over the Tibetan communities in northern India.
Tibet was forcibly incorporated into the People's Republic of China in 1950.
The English word Tibet, is derived from the Arabic word Tubbat, which comes via Persian from the Turkic word Tцbдd (plural of Tцbдn), meaning "the heights."
The government of the People's Republic of China and the Government of Tibet in Exile disagree over when Tibet became a part of China, and whether this incorporation is legitimate according to international law.
The modern Chinese name for Tibet, ?? (X?zаng), is a phonetic transliteration derived from the region called Tsang (western Ь-Tsang).
According to Tibetan legend, the Tibetan people derived from the mating of a monkey and an ogress in Yarlung valley.
The Buddhist wheel, along with two dragons, can be seen on nearly every gompa (Buddhist temple) in Tibet.
According to Quintilian, Pericles would always prepare assiduously for his orations and, before going on the rostrum, he would always pray to the gods, so as not to utter any improper word.
The 14th Dalai Lama, only 15 years old, was invested as leader, but poorly equipped Tibetan troops were soon crushed.
In 2006, Sherwood Hu made Prince of the Himalayas, an adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet, set in ancient Tibet and featuring an all-Tibetan cast.
Other styles include those unique to the various schools of Tibetan Buddhism, such as the classical music of the popular Gelugpa school, and the romantic music of the Nyingmapa, Sakyapa and Kagyupa schools.
In 1904, a British diplomatic mission, led by Colonel Francis Younghusband and accompanied by a large military escort, forced its way through to Lhasa, killing 1,300 Tibetans in Gyangzк.
Tibetan cultural influences extend to the neighboring nations of Bhutan, Nepal, adjacent regions of India such as Sikkim and Ladakh, and adjacent provinces of China where Tibetan Buddhism is the predominant religion.
The PRC government exempts Tibet from all taxation and provides 90 percent of Tibet's government expenditures.
After 1959 a group of Tibetan Muslims made a case for Indian nationality based on their historic roots to Kashmir and the Indian government declared all Tibetan Muslims Indian citizens later that year.
Tibetan laymen traditionally were divided into two classes – the gerba (lords) and mi-sey (serfs).
A sonar target is small relative to the sphere, centered around the emitter, on which it is located.
The Tibetan uses rugs for almost any domestic use, from flooring, wall hangings, to horse saddles.
Kekexili, or Mountain Patrol, is a film made by the National Geographic Society about a Chinese reporter who goes to Tibet to report on the issue involving the endangerment of Tibetan antelope.
Over the next two centuries the Sakya monastery grew to a position of prominence in Tibetan life and culture.
Increased interest in Tibetan Buddhism has helped make tourism an increasingly important sector, and this is actively promoted by the authorities.
Surveys of western Tibet in the 1930s and 1940s discovered goldfields, deposits of borax, as well as radium, iron, titanium, lead, and arsenic.
The 14th Dalai Lama and other government principals then fled to exile in India, but isolated resistance continued in Tibet until 1969 when the CIA abruptly withdrew its support.
The Mekong River has its source in southern Tsinghai as two rivers—the Ang and Cha—which join near the Tibet border to flow through eastern Tibet and western Yunnan to Laos and Thailand.
The soundtrack to Kundun, by Philip Glass, has helped to popularize Tibetan music.
Secular Tibetan music has been promoted by organizations like the Dalai Lama's Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts.
The traditional Tibetan solution for a situation when a mother died before her son married, was to have the son and father share a new wife.
Tibetan men have been described as idle and lazy, while Tibetan women are strong and healthy.
Meanwhile, Tibet clashed with Bhutan in 1646 and 1657, and with Ladakh up to 1684.
The initial identification of this culture is the Zhang Zhung culture which is described in ancient Tibetan texts and is known as the original culture of the Bцn religion.
The Tibetan folk opera, known as ache lhamo (sister goddess), is a combination of dances, chants and songs.
The Tibetan language is generally classified as a Tibeto-Burman language of the Sino-Tibetan language family.
Population control policies like the one-child policy only apply to Han Chinese, not to Tibetans.
Both of these films were banned by the Chinese government because of Tibetan nationalist overtones.
Composers like Philip Glass and Henry Eichheim are most well-known for their use of Tibetan elements in their music.
In 1241 the Mongols may have been ready to invade western Europe as well, having defeated the last Polish-German and Hungarian armies at the Battle of Legnica and the Battle of Mohi.
Tibet, called “Bod” by Tibetans, or ?? (X?zаng) by the Chinese, is a plateau region in Central Asia and the indigenous home to the Tibetan people.
Tibetans have been forcibly recruited into regular, security, and militia regiments.
The Chinese government claims that the line will promote the development of impoverished Tibet.
Tibet has a rich culture that shows a pervasive influence of Mahayana Buddhism, Tantric Buddhism, also known as Vajrayana Buddhism, as well as the indigenous shamanistic religion of the Himalayas is known as Bцn.
Tibet enters recorded history in the Geography of Ptolemy under the name batai (?????), a Greek transcription of the indigenous name Bod.
The Salween River flows from east-central Tibet, through Yunnan to Myanmar.
The Tibetan opera was founded in the fourteenth century by Thangthong Gyalpo, a lama and a bridge builder.
Other films include Samsara (2001), The Cup and the 1999 Himalaya, a French-American produced film with a Tibetan cast set in Nepal and Tibet.
Gaoyuan Hong in particular has introduced elements of Tibetan language rap into their singles.
Tibet is also home to the original spiritual tradition called Bцn, the indigenous shamanistic religion of the Himalayas.
Infuriated, Manchu Emperor K’ang-hsi (who reigned 1661–1722) found an ally in Mongol Lha-bzang Khan, the fourth successor of Gььshi, who sought to assert rights as king in Tibet.
The population for the greater Tibet region, including Xining and Haidong, was 10,523,432, and without Xining and Haidong was 7,282,154.
Kцden recognized the Sakya lama as temporal ruler of Tibet in 1247, an event claimed by modern Chinese historians as marking the incorporation of Tibet into China.
Mustard seeds are mentioned in the Bible; they were cultivated in Palestine, from where they made their way to Egypt, being found in the pyramids (McNulty 2002).
Livestock raising is the primary occupation mainly on the Tibetan Plateau, including sheep, cattle, goats, camels, yaks (large, long-haired oxen) and horses.
Tibet is rich in mineral resources, but its economy has remained underdeveloped.
The administration runs schools, health services, cultural activities and economic development projects for the Tibetan community.
Tibetan scholar Dkon-mchog rgyal-po established the Sakya Monastery in Lhokha in 1073.
The Monlam Prayer Festival follows it in the first month of the Tibetan calendar which involves dancing, sports events and picnics.
Lakes T'ang-ku-la-yu-mu, Na-mu, and Ch'i-lin are the three largest lakes and are located in central Tibet.
The Tibetan Empire came into existence in the seventh century when Emperor Songtsдn Gampo united numerous tribes of the region.
In 1265, Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, who was in rebellion against Henry III, summoned a parliament of his supporters without any or prior royal authorization.
The Qinghai-Tibet Railway which links the region to Qinghai in China proper was opened in 2006.
Tibetans are conservative in their dress, and though some have taken to wearing Western clothes, traditional styles abound.
Tibetan Buddhism is also practiced in Mongolia, the Buryat Republic, the Tuva Republic, and in the Republic of Kalmykia.
The most important crop in Tibet is barley, and dough made from barley flour called tsampa, is the staple food of Tibet.
The government of Tibet in exile says that the issue is that of the right to self-determination of the Tibetan people.
Traditionally, Tibetan women not only did far more physical labor than men in the fields and shouldered household tasks, but also engaged in traditional handicraft and commercial activities.
Tibetan architecture contains Oriental and Indian influences, and reflects a deeply Buddhist approach.
Ultimately, taking into consideration this wider understanding of Tibetan dialects and forms, "greater Tibetan" is spoken by approximately six million people across the Tibetan Plateau.
Lhasa is Tibet's traditional capital and the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region.
A convention at Simla in 1914 provided for an autonomous Tibet, and for Chinese sovereignty in the region called Inner Tibet.
The collapse of the Mongol Yuan dynasty in 1368 led to the overthrow of the Sakya in Tibet.
The design of the Tibetan chцrten (burial monument) can vary, from roundish walls in Kham to squarish, four-sided walls in Ladakh.
The Chinese government repudiated the agreement, and in 1918, strained relations between Tibet and China exploded into armed conflict.
Mongol forces entered Tibet to push this claim, opposed by the Karma-pa sect and Tibet's secular aristocracy.
The issue of the proportion of the Han Chinese population in Tibet is a politically sensitive one.
Tibet's economy has had an average growth of 12 percent per year from 2000 to 2006, a figure that corresponded to the five-year goal issued at the start of the period.
Chinese figures for Greater Tibet without Xining and Haidong were: Tibetans 5,021,231 (69 percent), Han 1,470,209 (20.2 percent) and others 790,714 (10.9 percent).
The Brahmaputra River, which flows across southern Tibet to India, separates this range from the Himalayas.
The Central Tibetan Administration says that the People's Republic of China has actively swamped Tibet with Han Chinese migrants in order to alter Tibet's demographic makeup.
Central rule was largely nonexistent over the Tibetan region from 842 to 1247, and Buddhism declined in central Tibet, surviving surreptitiously in the region of Kham.
Lobsang Gyatso, the fifth Dalai Lama, (1617-1682) was the first Dalai Lama to wield effective political power over central Tibet.
Tibetan rugs were traditionally hand-made, but a few aspects of the rug making processes have been taken over by machine primarily because of cost, and the disappearance of expertise.
Early Tibet was divided into princedoms, which in the sixth century were consolidated under a king, Gnam-ri srong-brtsan (570-619 C.E.
Tibetan refugees took their knowledge of rug making to India and especially Nepal, where the rug business is one of the largest industries in the country.
Trained Indian surveyor-spies disguised as pilgrims or traders counted their strides on their travels across Tibet and took readings at night.
Nyima-Gon, a representative of the ancient Tibetan royal house, founded the first Ladakh dynasty, in the Kashmir region, to the east of present day Ladakh.
The Tibet Autonomous Region is divided into the municipality of Lhasa, directly under the jurisdiction of the regional government, and prefectures (Qamdo, Shannan, Xigazк, Nagqu, Ngari, and Nyingchi), which are subdivided into counties.
A treaty was concluded between Britain and Tibet, and the Anglo-Chinese Convention in 1906, that recognized Chinese sovereignty.
India recognized Tibet as part of China in 1954 and withdrew its troops from two Tibetan frontier trading posts.
Spoken Tibetan includes numerous regional dialects which, in many cases, are not mutually intelligible.
The Uyghur state to the North collapsed under pressure from the Kirghiz in 840, and many displaced persons fled to Tibet.
The first incident from recorded Tibetan history which is confirmed externally occurred when King Namri Lontsen sent an ambassador to China in the early seventh century.
The Tibet Autonomous Region covers the Dalai Lama's former domain, consisting of Ь-Tsang and western Kham, while Amdo and eastern Kham are part of Qinghai, Gansu, Yunnan, and Sichuan, traditionally part of China.
During the Cultural Revolution, Chinese Red Guards inflicted a campaign of organized vandalism against cultural sites in the entire PRC, including Tibet.
Losar is the Tibetan New Year Festival, and involves a week of drama and carnivals, horse races and archery.
Tibet received 2.5 million tourists in 2006, including 150,000 foreigners.
Standing at 117 meters in height and 360 meters in width, the Potala Palace is considered to be the most important example of Tibetan architecture.
The CTA is headquartered in Dharamsala, India, where the Dalai Lama settled after fleeing Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.
Some accounts claim Tibetan women had equal rights with men and enjoyed a higher status than women in India and Burma.
A ten-year doctoral degree program in Buddhism is available at the state-run Tibet Buddhist College.
The Tibetan empire collapsed, either as the result of a war of succession, or war between rival generals.
The Tibetans commonly give a kind acknowledgment of tashi delek (good luck) at the time of presenting.
Tibetan rugs are primarily made from virgin wool of Tibetan highland sheep.
Other ethnic groups in Tibet include Menba (Monpa), Lhoba, Mongols and Hui Chinese.
Tibetan music has had a profound effect on some styles of Western music, especially New Age.
The first such fusion was Tibetan Bells, a 1971 release by Nancy Hennings and Henry Wolff.
The CTA is not recognized as a government by any country, but it receives financial aid from governments and international organizations for its welfare work among the Tibetan exile community in India.
In 2005, exile Tibetan filmmaker Tenzing Sonam and his partner Ritu Sarin made Dreaming Lhasa, the first internationally recognized feature film to come out of the diaspora to explore the contemporary reality of Tibet.
In 1642, Gььshi enthroned the Fifth Dalai Lama as ruler of Tibet.
Tibet occupies about 471,700 square miles (1,221,600 square kilometers) on the high Plateau of Tibet surrounded by enormous mountains.
All governments recognize the PRC's sovereignty over Tibet today, and none have recognized the Government of Tibet in Exile in India.
Thank You Walt Disney, Inc., a non-profit corporation in Kansas City, Missouri was formed to preserve Disney's original animation studio "where the mouse was born."
Tibet has various festivals which commonly are performed to worship Buddha throughout the year.
In 1935, Tenzin Gyatso was born in Amdo in eastern Tibet and was recognized as the latest reincarnation — the 14th Dalai Lama.
Tibetan Buddhism is a subset of Tantric Buddhism, also known as Vajrayana Buddhism, which is also related to the Shingon Buddhist tradition in Japan.
By virtue of its claim over all mainland Chinese territory, Tibet also has been claimed by Taiwan.
That would convert to $1,233, which would place Tibet between Mali (164th) and Nigeria (165th) on the International Monetary Fund list.
The word for Tibet in Medieval Chinese, ?? (Pinyin T?f?n, often given as Tubo), is derived from the same Turkic word.
Butter tea is very popular to drink and many Tibetans drink up to 100 cups a day.
Pro-Tibetan historians argue that China and Tibet remained two separate units within the Mongol Empire.
Foreign styles of popular music, including Indian ghazal and filmi are popular, as is rock and roll, an American style which has produced Tibetan performers like Rangzen Shonu.
Kцden, the younger brother of Mongol ruler Gьyьk Khan, invited the leader of the Sakya sect, to come to his capital and formally surrender Tibet to the Mongols.
The Tibet Autonomous Region covers the Dalai Lama's former domain, consisting of Ь-Tsang and western Kham, while Amdo and eastern Kham are part of Qinghai, Gansu, Yunnan, and Sichuan, traditionally part of China.
The Dalai Lama is believed to be the embodiment of a spiritual emanation of the bodhisattva—Avalokitesvara, the mythic progenitor of Tibetans.
British colonial officials in India attempted to secure a foothold in Tibet, who saw the region as a trade route to China, then as a way to counter Russian advances towards India.