Amban

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Tibetan name
Tibetan script :
བོད་ བཞུགས་ ཨམ་ བན །
Wylie transliteration :
bod bzhugs at the ban
Pronunciation in IPA :
[ pʰøɕuk ambɛ̃ ]
Official transcription of the PRCh :
Poixug Ambain
THDL transcription :
Pözhuk Amben
Other spellings:
Amban
Chinese name
Traditional :
駐藏 大臣 、 欽差 大臣
Simplified :
驻藏 大臣 、 钦差 大臣
Pinyin :
zhù Zàng dàchén, qīnchāi dàchén

Amban was the name of an imperial Chinese envoy in Lhasa, Tibet , in the 18th to early 20th centuries . Its legal status can best be viewed as that of residents of a protecting power. This office was mostly entrusted to Manchurians , more rarely Mongols or Chinese .

The first amban and its deputy were installed in Tibet in 1727 after an imperial military intervention . They were put on the side of the Tibetan government. Its powers were expanded in 1751 after a state crisis. They were able to intervene directly in Tibetan politics because important personnel decisions only took effect with their consent. The deputy was also able to make independent decisions, especially on inspection trips. They helped to find the respective Dalai Lama . The government was not even allowed to send letters without Ambane's consent. Communications from the Tibetan government to the imperial government had to be submitted to the amban. He could refuse to forward it. Attempts to bypass the Amban were viewed as a kind of high treason and could lead to the removal and punishment of those responsible. A protest by the 13th Dalai Lama Thubten Gyatso against the ban on going directly to the imperial court was rejected in 1909, two years before the Chinese revolution collapsed the empire.

Francis Younghusband with the Amban in 1904

literature

  • Karl-Heinz Golzio, Pietro Bandini: The fourteen rebirths of the Dalai Lama. The rulers of Tibet - how they come back, how they are found, what they have left behind. OW Barth, Bern / Munich / Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-502-61002-9 .
  • Josef Kolmaš: The Ambans and Assistant Ambans of Tibet. (A chronological Study) (= Archive Orientální. Supplementa 7, ISSN  0570-6815 ). The Oriental Institute, Prague 1994.