Khangchenne

Khangchenne Sönam Gyelpo ( Tibetan ཁང་ ཆེན་ ནས་ བསོད་ ནམས་ རྒྱལ་ པོ Wylie khang chen nas bsod nams rgyal po , Lhasa dialect - IPA : [kʰɑ́ŋt͡ɕẽ́nɛ᷈ː sǿnɑ᷈m cɛ̀ːpó] ; * 17th century in Khangchen ; † August 5th 1727 in Lhasa ) was the first important representative of the noble house Gashi (Tib .: dga 'bzhi ) in Tibet . He headed the Tibetan Council of Ministers (Tib .: bka 'shag ), which ruled the Chinese protectorate of Tibet from 1721 to 1727 . His assassination by his colleagues on the Council of Ministers resulted in a bloody civil war, from which Pholhane emerged victorious and later ruler of Tibet.

Rise to power

Khangchenne ("The one of Khangchen"), also often called Daicing Batur in Tibetan sources, did not come from any of the ancient noble houses of Tibet. He owed his rise to Lhabsang Khan , in whose service he was appointed governor of western Tibet ( Ngari ) around 1715 . Possibly he owed this appointment to the marriage to one of the daughters of Lhabsang Khan.

When the Djungarians suddenly invaded Tibet, he was the first to warn Lhabsang Khan , but had no opportunity to intervene in the defensive struggle from distant western Tibet.

After the conquest of Tibet by the Djungars and the establishment of a government under Tagtsepa, he stayed in Ngari and began to break the lines of communication between the Djungars stationed in Tibet and the Djungarian region . In 1719 he successfully attacked a troop of Djungarian horsemen who were supposed to kidnap veteran officers of Lhabzang Khan to the Djungarian region. He then organized the Tibetan military resistance against the Djungars with Pholhane.

Because of his merits, he was entrusted by the Chinese Emperor Kangxi with the management of the Tibetan Council of Ministers in 1721 , but retained control over Ngari as his own power base.

Leadership of the Council of Ministers

One of the two official seals of the Khangchenne

Rule of the Khangchenne from 1725

The new Tibetan government faced numerous difficulties from the start. In addition to the extremely high inflation, there was the problem of supplying the three thousand-man Chinese garrison, which resulted in a heavy additional tax burden on the Tibetan population. This problem was solved in 1723 with the withdrawal of the Chinese troops.

Furthermore, Khangchennes frequent absence from Lhasa was disruptive to the affairs of government. He preferred to stay in distant Ngari. In 1723 he even successfully interfered in a war between the Kingdom of Mustang and the Kingdom of Jumla in Nepal by sending 100 of his Mongolian horsemen to South Mustang to besiege the fortress of Kagbeni together with troops from Mustang and Ladakh . In 1725 the Chinese emperor ordered his permanent residence in Lhasa. The administration of Nagri was transferred to Khangchenne's older brother, Gashipa Tsheten Trashi (Tib .: gda 'bzhi pa tshe brtan bkra shis ).

An edict of the Chinese emperor Yongzheng , in which he ordered the persecution of the Nyingma -pa school of Tibetan Buddhism in 1726 , ultimately contributed to the unpopularity of Khangchenne . Although all other members of the Council of Ministers, including Pholhane, spoke out against this edict, Khangchenne tried to implement the emperor's orders. As a result, it became increasingly unpopular among the Tibetan population.

Enmity between the ministers

The Tibetan Council of Ministers was split into two hostile camps from the start. On one side stood Khangchenne and Pholhane, both representatives of a new class of nobility and supporters of the Chinese emperor. Both were regionally rooted in Western Tibet and Tsang .

On the other side, supported by the father of the 7th Dalai Lama, Ngaphöpa Dorje Gyelpo (tib .: nga phod pa rdo rje rgyal po ) and Lumpane Trashi Gyelpo (tib .: lum pa nas bkra shis rgyal po ), the representatives of old-established people stood Tibetan aristocratic families. Regionally, they were representatives of the aristocratic classes of southern and central Tibet.

The Khangchenne Assassination and the Consequences

The open hostility between these two groups has hampered smooth government activity from the start. Ultimately, the representatives of the long-established aristocratic class decided to eliminate Khangchenne and Pholhane.

The murder was apparently planned well in advance. Pholhane, who was not in Lhasa but at his ancestral home in Pholha because of a serious illness in his wife , received a letter from the teacher of the 7th Dalai Lama warning him not to be in Lhasa in July / August 1927. He was also supposed to see that his eldest son stayed away from Lhasa during this time. Immediately afterwards, Pholhane sent Khangchenne warnings through friends, but Khangchenne ignored them.

A meeting of the Council of Ministers was routinely held on August 5, 1727, and Khangchenne attended in a good mood. Unexpectedly, one of the participants in the meeting clutched him from behind while all the ministers present drew their knives and stabbed Khangchenne. The two main assistants of Khangchennes were also murdered, all other supporters present were tied up and taken away. The next day, the killers had Khangchenne's wife and sister arrested and then killed.

A troop sent by the murderers who had withdrawn to Pholha with the task of eliminating Pholhane had to return without having achieved anything. The result was a year-long civil war, from which Pholhane emerged victorious.

The noble house Gashi, better known under the name Doring (Tib .: rdo ring ), survived this attack on their main representative. His relatives served the changing Tibetan governments until the 1950s.

literature

• Luciano Petech: China and Tibet in the Early XVIIIth Century. History of the Establishment of Chinese Protecturate in Tibet. Leiden 1972.
• Luciano Petech: Aristocracy and Government in Tibet. 1728-1959. Rome 1973.
• Dieter Schuh : Basics of Tibetan sealing knowledge. An investigation into Tibetan seal inscriptions in Phags-pa script. VGH Wissenschaftsverlag, Sankt Augustin 1981.
• Luciano Petech: The Kingdom of Ladakh.c. 950-1842 AD Rome 1977.
• Dieter Schuh: Rulers' documents and private documents from western Tibet (Ladakh). International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, Halle 2008.

Web links

Commons : Khangchenne  - collection of images, videos and audio files