Tibetan monks paying a tribute to Ashoka Stupa in China is momentous
Nangchen is, in most ways, a rather unremarkable town in a corner of China. Sparse settlements dot a dusty valley sandwiched between the tall mountains of the Tibetan plateau. Grazing yaks stand motionless, scattered across barren hillsides. For the past week, however, this unremarkable town was quite unlike any other place in China.
On Tuesday, hundreds of Tibetans from all over the region - Kham in old Tibet, Qinghai province in today's China - descended on Nangchen for a one-of-kind event: the unveiling of a restored Ashoka Stupa, built in this town more than 2,000 years ago but forgotten by history and fallen to ruin. I travelled to Nangchen to witness this unique event, which underlined a lost link binding the histories of India, Tibet and China.
The event was unique in two respects. First, the Stupa that was unveiled is among only 19 out of the estimated 84,000 built during the reign of Ashoka that were reported to have been installed in China. Little is known about the 18 others, of which three are thought to be in central and eastern China, in Xi’an, Hangzhou and Nanjing. This is the only Stupa in China's Tibetan west, and the only one that has been restored and documented in detail, according to local monks I spoke to.
The history of this Stupa is itself fascinating. One local monk told me that texts from the monastery in Nangchen had recorded the presence of the Stupa over centuries, but the structure later fell to ruin, particularly at the time of Genghis Khan’s Mongolian invasion. There were also troubles of more recent vintage: when Mao Zedong’s Red Guards made their way to Nangchen in the 1960s during the decade-long Cultural Revolution (1966-76), many artefacts, including the Stupa, were attacked. Locals came together, I was told, to protect the Buddha’s relics, and kept them away from the clutches of the Red Guards.
The second unique feature of the Nangchen event was the incredible local response. The event was presided over by Gyalwang Drukpa, who is the Ladakh-based spiritual leader of the Drukpa school of Himalayan Buddhism. The Drukpa lineage goes back to the 11th century, starting with the Indian scholar-saint Naropa, born in 1016. It enjoys following in Ladakh, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet. Gyalwang, an Indian Buddhist, supported the restoration project from its inception in 2007.
It is indeed rare for India-based Buddhist leaders to visit Tibetan regions of China, which are viewed by Beijing as sensitive areas. Nangchen, in Yushu prefecture of Qinghai province, borders the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), and its population is predominantly Tibetan. Around half of China’s 6 million Tibetans live in the TAR, with the other half in neighbouring provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan.
Gyalwang has visited Nangchen before, and as the head of the Drukpa lineage, which has for centuries had following in monasteries in Nangchen and surrounding areas, is a very important figure in this part of the world. I met Tibetans, young and old, who were queueing for hours in the sun - despite the cool temperatures of the 4000 metre-high plateau, the sun often appears especially fierce, forcing locals to don Western-style cowboy hats for protection - with babies in tow, just for a blessing.
They were lining the streets from 9 am, waiting for his convoy to arrive. His arrival prompted the waving of hundreds of white scarves, the burning of incense and the blaring of trumpets and horns, presenting a magnificent site. Monks of the smoke-filled monastery bowed their heads and stretched out their hands just to touch Gyalwang. Devotion certainly remains undimmed in Tibet.
After the grand restored Stupa was unveiled - a tall structure of white and gold built around the original, which today is just a small mound of white stone - along with a towering new golden Buddha statue - monks made their way to make offerings. Only few were allowed inside. "If we opened the gates," one organiser told me, "there would be madness."
After the end of the ceremony, the gates were opened for an afternoon blessing. Gyalwang waited patiently, as locals from around the area, from Nangchen and Chamdo, came in one by one, seeking blessings. There were old ladies - some in their nineties - and fashionable girls in designer jeans. Young men in leather jackets rode into the monastery on motorbikes. The blessings went on all day: when I returned in the evening at 8 pm along with a small group of journalists who had travelled to Nangchen for an interview with Gyalwang, the crowd was still there. When the heavens opened, bringing down heavy drops of rain and cold, white hail stones that clattered on the wooden roofs, the crowd didn’t move a step. "Even the last time he came here, there was hail," said one local monk.
If the Drukpa spiritual leader was exhausted, he certainly didn't show it. Sprightly and energetic, he spoke at length about the significance of his visit and what it meant. "Ashoka was the biggest and most well-known Buddhist king of India. All over the world his name is well known. We are very proud to do a little bit of contribution to the Ashoka remains so today I am very happy," he said. This would also, he hoped, represent a new era of engagement between India and China by highlighting a cultural bond. Most Chinese are indeed aware that Buddhism came from India - Indian visitors to China are often greeted with this acknowledgement - but in restoring the Stupa, this link now has a tangible, solid representation.
One couldn’t help but wonder if Gyalwang’s visit would also hold greater significance for Tibet. It was tempting to ask whether by allowing an India-based Buddhist leader with strong patronage to come and meet with his followers in a Tibetan area of China, Beijing was showing new openness. There were indeed local police - almost all ethnic Tibetan - supervising the event, but their numbers were small and there was absolutely no sign of any tension. The officers on site did not interfere in any way, and spent much of their time taking photographs of the ceremony on their iPhones and helping older pilgrims.
This marked such a sharp contrast from Lhasa, where on a recent visit I noticed a rather sizeable police presence, whether at the Potala Palace, the historic home of the Dalai Lamas, or at the Jokhang monastery in the heart of the city. Asked about the situation facing Tibetans in China, Gyalwang replied slowly and thoughtfully. He was "in a position of confusion", he said. "Some of them say the situation is good, some say it’s not good. Obviously I feel some part of Tibet has a little bit of difficulty and some has a good life, so to speak."
Gyalwang isn’t the only India-based Buddhist leader with following here in Nangchen. While the Drukpa monasteries have held influence in one part of the region, the others follow the exiled Dalai Lama’s Gelugpa school and the India-based Karmapa’s Karma Kagyu school. The Karmapa, who ran away to India, is not seen as a sensitive figure by China, which never denounces him as it does the Dalai Lama, who has been in exile in India since 1959. Shops and hotels in Nangchen display photographs of the Karmapa, but the Dalai Lama’s portraits are kept hidden in back rooms, prayed to silently and fearfully. Yet, despite government campaigns to denounce him as a "separatist", the Dalai Lama remains revered, even among those who follow the Drukpa lineage and other schools. "He is the father of all," as one local, who also considers himself as a follower of the Drukpa school, put it.
It is hard to imagine the Dalai Lama ever returning to Tibet, although he has spoken of his belief that it may yet happen in his lifetime. Talks with the Chinese government remained stalled since 2010, and a confident Beijing, which has a firmer grip on the region compared with a decade ago when riots in 2008 shook Tibet, is in no urgency, especially with international interest declining with China's increasing economic swagger.
Even as areas in Qinghai appear to have opened up, other Tibetan areas of China, such as Aba in nearby Sichuan or the Labrang monastery in neighbouring Gansu, remain heavily fortified. Journalists are still barred from visiting either Aba or Labrang. On one attempt to visit Labrang, where monks have carried out self-immolation protests, I was stopped outside the monastery town by police and driven back to the provincial capital Lanzhou, and told to leave and never return.
Which was what, in some sense, made the event in Nangchen so unique and poignant. The sight of hundreds of Tibetans being able to pray freely, and seek the blessings of a far-away spiritual figure they hold so dear but get to rarely see, unavoidably held the promise - however dim the prospect - of another kind of future for China’s Tibetans.