While people have a general understanding of the tragedy of the Cultural Revolution on the mainland, either through personal experience or through a number of books, little is known about the destruction of Tibet and Tibetan culture by the Cultural Revolution. in May 1962, a window was opened for us by the Seventy Thousand Words Letter of the Tenth Panchen.
The Truth in the Book of Seventy Thousand Words
In the “Book of Seven Ten Thousand Words,” the Tenth Panchen put forward “seven realizations” and argued that the mistakes and problems in the “pacification of rebellion” and “democratic reform” of the Chinese Communist Party were extremely serious.
The 10th Panchen pointed out that “we Tibetans cannot bear to see Buddhism suffer a great decline and be on the verge of extinction after the reform.” “(The Chinese Communist Party) set off a monstrous wave of annihilation of statues, sutras, stupas, etc., burning, throwing into water, throwing to the ground, demolishing and melting countless statues, sutras, stupas, destroying monasteries, halls, mani walls, stupas, etc. …… stealing many ornaments of Buddha statues and valuable items inside the stupa …… blatantly and unscrupulously insulting religion, using the Dhammapada as raw material for composting, specifically using many Buddhist paintings and scriptures as raw material for shoe making, etc. without any justification. As a result of doing many acts that even a madman can hardly do, thus making people from all walks of life surprised to the core, confused to the extreme, extremely discouraged, tears in their eyes, mouths saying: our place has become a black place (Tibetan proverbially called a place without religion as a black place), etc. and mourning.”
What makes Tibetans most painful is also that the dead are not allowed to overtake: “According to our Tibetan custom, if people do not perform overtaking after death, it is seen as ungrateful, cruel and extremely bad to the deceased.” Thus for some time people said, “We died too late; if we had died a little earlier, we would have been able to receive the superlative; now death is like a dead dog, and as soon as our breath is broken, we will be thrown out the door.”
In the process of implementing the dictatorship of the proletariat, Panchen pointed out that “if one wants to carry on the struggle, even though the person being fought against has no particularly serious faults, one has to fabricate many serious crimes and exaggerate them, exaggerate them at one’s own will, turn right and wrong upside down, and not only make false accusations without any basis, one more sharply and fiercely, more brutally, more arrogantly and more boastfully than the other, thus wronging many And for those who are crazy, but to be rewarded and praised, and the true and false without investigation, etc., without due control, this is one of its frenzy. …… at the beginning of the struggle, shouting and roaring a few times, while pulling hair and pulling beard, punching and kicking, wringing flesh and pinching shoulders, pushing around, and some people also use big keys and sticks to beat them severely, causing the people being fought to bleed from seven orifices, lose consciousness and faint, breaking limbs, etc., and seriously injured, and some even died on the spot during the struggle, this is the second of its fierce wind “, “Many prisoners in custody died tragically, and for several years, there was a great decrease in the Tibetan population, which is a very dangerous problem for the Tibetan people.”
Panchen also said that when the Communist Party expanded its counterinsurgency, some parts of the Tibetan areas of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan “except for the old and young women who could not fight, most of the young and strong men and reasonable people were arrested and imprisoned.”
In addition to “The Book of Seventy Thousand Words,” the book “Killing and Robbery,” written by Tibetan writer Vesel and his father Zeren Dorjee, portrays for us, through words and photos, the tragedy that occurred in Tibet at that time.
The book mentions that after the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, a large number of lamas were forced to return to their monasteries, and a large number of precious scriptures were burned, and as of 1976, only 8 of the original 2,700 monasteries in Tibet remained, of which the Dazho Monastery, known as the “soul of Tibet”, was undoubtedly the epitome of the situation of those 2,700 monasteries during the Cultural Revolution.
Dazho Monastery was looted
Dazhao Monastery, also known as “Zulakang”, “Jokhang” (Tibetan meaning Buddha Temple), located in the center of the old city of Lhasa, Tibet, is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery, has the supreme status. He was built in the 21st year of the Tang dynasty (647), the heyday of the Tubo dynasty, is the Tibetan king Songtsen Gampo to commemorate the Nepalese Princess Shakyamun into Tibet and built to enshrine the princess brought from her hometown Shakyamuni eight-year-old Buddha statue, but the current monastery is dedicated to the Princess Wencheng into Tibet brought Shakyamuni 12-year-old Buddha statue.
In 1409, the founder of the Tibetan Gelugpa sect, Master Tsongkhapa, gathered monks from all schools of Tibetan Buddhism to glorify the merits of Shakyamuni and held a great puja at the monastery in the first month of the Tibetan calendar: Merangchenmo, which lasted 15 days. After the monastery was renamed as Dazhao Monastery. However, there is also the view that as early as the 9th century has been renamed Dazho Monastery. During the Qing Dynasty, Dazhao Temple was called “Ike Zhao Temple”. Through successive generations of repairs and additions, a large complex has been formed, now covering an area of more than 25,100 square meters. It is a fusion of Tibetan, Tang, Nepalese and Indian architectural styles and has become a model of Tibetan religious architecture for thousands of years.
As a religious sanctuary, Dazho Monastery is a sacred monastery respected by all denominations, and its “Merangchenmo” is very famous. Back then, because of the large number of monks and lay people who came to attend the puja, Tsongkhapa moved the Dharma seat to the square on the south side of Dazho Monastery to continue to teach the Dharma, from then on, successive generations of Dalai Lamas and Ganden Chepa have been teaching the Dharma here, and called “Songchai round the tile”, meaning “the place of Dharma transmission”. The puja has also become a practice, when tens of thousands of monks from the three major monasteries of Lhasa, Drepung Monastery, Shala Monastery, Ganden Monastery and other monasteries gather here to hold Dharma practice, sutra debate, exorcism, and welcome the future Qiangba Buddha. Later pujas were presided over by the Dalai.
The importance of Jokhang Temple is not only reflected in the religious but also in the secular aspect. Historically, it was also one of the seats of the Tibetan Kashagai regime. Since the 5th Dalai Lama established a regime of unity of church and state, the Kashag subdivision of finance, taxation, food, justice, foreign affairs and other departments were located on the second floor of the Jokhang Temple. Later, the Qing government on the reincarnation of the living Buddha’s “Golden Vase” activities are also held here.
In August 1966, the Red Guards in Lhasa came to Dazhao Monastery with red tassels and looted it.
According to the pictures and text in “Killing and Looting”, the Dazhao Monastery experienced unprecedented destruction: a large number of vestments, scriptures, Buddha statues, mani wheels, etc. were smashed, destroyed and burned; the statue of Shakyamuni Buddha was put on a high hat with all kinds of insulting language written on it, and all the gold, silver, jewels and silk on its body were lost, even the gold painted on its body and face were scraped clean, and even an incomparable gemstone set in the brow of the statue and the ancient gold earrings were taken away by unknown people; and all the hidden things inside the statue were also taken away, among which the barley was transported to the warehouse of the Food Bureau and ground into tsampa ……
Dazhao Monastery was used as a pigsty
It is also revealed in “The Killing and Robbery” that the Chinese Communist army, after entering the Dazho Monastery in 1967, transported the remaining Dharma vessels and Buddha statues away to be destroyed. It is said that all the Buddha statues were smashed except for the statue of Shakyamuni. Many of the monastery’s first-floor Buddhist halls were turned into pig pens, where many pigs were kept, while the upstairs Buddhist halls were turned into dormitories for soldiers, with a ladder built between the upstairs and downstairs. A monk who delivered pig feed at the time said, “They made a corner of the Dazho Monastery into a latrine, and we could see them pissing on the floor; another part of the Dazho Monastery was converted into a livestock slaughterhouse.” Another Red Guard from that year also said, “In addition to being used as a pigsty, the Dazho Monastery was also used as a slaughterhouse in which pigs were killed and their hair plucked.”
In the seventies, after the withdrawal of the army, the Dazhao Monastery was turned into the second guest house of the Lhasa Municipal Committee, where cadres and ordinary people from all regions of Tibet and nearby counties who came to Lhasa could stay. As a result, the frescoes on the walls of the temple were torn by the fires and vapor from burning ghee tea. in 1972, because of the changing international situation, Sino-Japanese and Sino-American relations improved, and the top echelon of the Chinese Communist Party ordered the restoration of the Dazhao Monastery in order to change its international image. However, the restorers did not know exactly what Buddha statues should be placed in the temple, and eventually restored the first floor of the temple with the help of a senior monk who had been criticized as a “cow devil and snake god”. 1980 completed the entire reconstruction project.
After the reconstruction of the Dazho Monastery has resumed the scene of incense and fire until today. But the Buddha statue is not the old Buddha statue, the frescoes are not the old frescoes, and those who manage the monastery are not the old monks.
The Guru was criticized
While the Tibetan monasteries were suffering from the calamity, the lamas, who were the “teachers” or “gurus” of the Tibetan people guiding the believers to the path of Buddhahood, as the “Four Olds”, naturally could not escape the fate of being criticized.
One of the few female gurus in Tibet, Sangding Dorjee Pam Dechen Choekchen, was born in 1940 to a father named Ridhan Jebu and a mother named Solang Drolma. At the age of 6, she was recognized as the reincarnated spiritual child of the 11th Sangding Dorje Pam and entered Sangding Monastery. On the auspicious day of the eighth day of the second month of the Tibetan calendar in 1952, Dechen Trizin held a bed-riding ceremony and became the twelfth Dorje Pam.
Dorje Pam spent her childhood in rituals, chanting sutras and practicing Dharma, and many senior monks have been her teachers. Every year, she also had to go to the ancient city of Gyantse and other places to give sutras and teach Dharma and pray for the blessings of her disciples.
After 1955, under the influence of the mainland movement, the cadres and army in Tibet destroyed a large number of monasteries in the name of overthrowing the “three lords” and forced the monks to return to their monasteries, thus arousing the discontent of Tibetans. The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan government and a large number of Tibetans were forced to flee to India where a Tibetan government-in-exile was established, and Dorje Pam was among them, but the young woman did not seem to be willing at the time.
After fleeing to India, Dorjee Pam, who did not recognize the Chinese Communist Party, believed in its policy of “no killing, no imprisonment, no sentencing and no fighting” and contacted the Chinese Communist Party’s Commercial Office in India and, with its help, returned to Tibet, which laid the groundwork for her subsequent misfortunes.
After his return, Dorjee Palme was again received by the Chinese Communist Party at a high level in Beijing, and was called a “patriot” who had “abandoned the darkness for the light” and enjoyed a high political status and generous material benefits. Dorjee Palme’s parents were also considered “patriots” by the Chinese Communist Party for actively helping the Chinese army to “fight against bandits”.
After returning to Tibet, Dorje Palme was placed in Lhasa by the Chinese Communist Party, where he changed from monastic practice to home practice and started his own family, which was not precedent in the reincarnation system of Guru Dorje Palme.
After the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, the Sangding Monastery was razed to the ground, Dorje Pam’s practice was suspended, and she was subjected to unprecedented humiliation and criticism. This is described in detail in the pictures in “Killing and Robbing”.
The pictures show the first criticism that began in August 1966. Many people have formed a circle and are criticizing Dorjee Pam. Dorjee Pham, who was in the center of the fight, was wearing a valuable black Dharma hat, bending deeply, with her back piled with silk and silk, and holding a precious vase called “ponpa” in her hands, looking overwhelmed. It is said that she had just given birth to her son at that time. Accompanied by Dorje Pam was criticized by her parents, from the facial expressions, the two are full of sadness, trembling.
From then on, Dorjipam’s life fell into the abyss, and she was forced to work and reform, digging toilets, making adobe, and planting vegetables. Her French hat was thrown into the fire and burned to ashes by the “revolutionary masses” after the first fight, and “Pangba” has not been seen since.
During the years when Dorje Pam was being fought, her father, Ridhan Jebu, was also criticized and imprisoned for saying “Chairman Mao’s pinchbasso” when he was drunk (meaning Mao go eat shit). Nidan Jebu was beaten and broke his shoulder, and was released from prison, where he was again put under the label of “Class 4 elements” and put under mass supervision for “reformation”. It is said that he regretted his “patriotic” actions back then, that is, his experience of helping the Chinese Communist Party to arrest Tibetans. He died soon after the end of the Cultural Revolution. Dorje Pam’s mother was also sent to labor for “reform” because of her daughter and husband, and did not dare to say a word.
At the end of the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese Communist Party began to restore the destroyed monasteries in Tibet out of political necessity. In the 1980s, the Sangding Monastery was rebuilt and Dorje Pam resumed the annual “Gompa Sa” puja in the Sangding Monastery, but she chose to stay in Lhasa and practice at home. On the other hand, the Chinese Communist Party gave her many official titles for the purpose of unification. Will she regret her choice as much as her father did after this ordeal?
Conclusion
What happened to Dazho Monastery and Guru Dorje Palme is the epitome of the Chinese Communist Party’s destruction of Tibetan culture. Remember that “Killing and Robbery” also tells the story of an old man named Qiangba Rinchen. He was once a monk who, in the heat of the moment when the hostility of the Cultural Revolution blew into Tibet, followed the Chinese Communist Party in smashing monasteries, burning scriptures and doing many bad things. However, when everything returned to silence, his faith in God and Buddha made him feel restless inside again. Unable to put on the robe again, he chose to voluntarily work as a cleaner in Dazhao Monastery for the rest of his life.
He said, “If there had been no revolution, no Cultural Revolution, I would have been a very good monk all my life and would have worn the robes all my life. I would have been a good monk and would have worn the robe all my life. The monastery would have been fine and I would have been dedicated to reading sutras in the monastery. But when the revolution came, the robe could no longer be worn. Although I have never sought a woman and have not returned to the monks, I am still not qualified to wear the robe anymore, which is the most painful thing in my life ……” “Hurry up and repent while you are still alive, or else you will not even eat the eagle and vulture when you go to the sky burial platform in the future, that is really pathetic. “
There is no doubt that the Cultural Revolution launched by Mao and the CCP not only completely destroyed the traditional culture of the Central Plains and Tibet, but also destroyed the lives, dreams, and beliefs of countless people, including the monks, including Qiangba Rinchen. How can the sins of Mao and the Chinese Communist Party be put into words?
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