While the Tibetan Plateau has been inhabited since pre-historic times, most of Tibet's history went unrecorded until the creation of Tibetan script in the 7th century. Tibetan texts refer to the kingdom of Zhangzhung (c. 500 BC– 625 AD) as the precursor of later Tibetan kingdoms and the originators of the Bon religion. While mythical accounts of early rulers of the Yarlung dynasty exist, historical accounts begin with the introduction of Tibetan script from the unified Tibetan Empire in the 7th century. Following the dissolution of Tibetan Empire and a period of fragmentation in the 9th–10th centuries, a Buddhist revival in the 10th–12th centuries saw the development of three of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism.
After a period of control by the Mongol Empire and the also Mongol led Yuan dynasty, Tibet effectively became independent in the 14th century and was ruled by a succession of noble houses for the next 300 years. In the 16th century, the Dalai Lama title was created by Altan Khan, and as requested by the family of Altan Khan, seal of authority was granted to the Dalai Lama by the Wanli Emperor.《明实录》又载："万历十五年（1587）十月丁卯......番僧答赖（即达赖）准升'朵儿只唱名号，仍给敕命、图书......" The Ming Shilu records: "In the 15th year of Wanli (1587), in October Dingmao...the monk Dalai was allowed to be promoted to the rank of Dorer, and given imperial edicts, books... In the 17th century, the senior lama of the Gelug school, the Dalai Lama, became the head of state with the aid of the Khoshut Khanate. Seal of authority and golden sheets were granted by the Shunzhi Emperor to both the Dalai Lama and the founder Güshi Khan of Khoshut Khanate in 1653. 皇上勝過締造萬物之如意寶，布仁慈於四海之濱；揚善抑惡，以足眾生之望。蒙天恩賞賜金冊、金印，封為遵行文義慧敏顧實汗，謹望闥跪接祗領，叩謝天恩。The Emperor is better than the wish-fulfilling treasure that created all things, spreading kindness to the shores of the four seas; promoting good and suppressing evil to satisfy the hopes of all living beings. I was rewarded with a gold book and a gold seal by Heaven's grace, and was named Obey Wenyi Huimin Gu Shihan. I sincerely hope that I will kneel down to accept the leader and kowtow to thank Heaven's grace.Karmay 2014, p. 309. In 1717, the Dzungar Khanate invaded Lhasa, killed Lha-bzang Khan of the Khoshut Khanate, which effectively destroyed the Khoshut Khanate. The Qing dynasty then sent military troops in the same year to fight the Dzungars, but failed.https://www.sohu.com/a/335359149_457251 1718年正月初二，清军驻守青海的侍卫阿齐图在柴达木带队巡逻时，遇到了侥幸从拉萨逃出的拉藏汗次子苏尔扎的妻子一行，确认了拉藏汗兵败被杀、西藏已落入准噶尔手中的结局。事态的严重，迫使清朝方面仓促地做出了武力解决西藏问题的决策。1718年三月，康熙皇帝命色楞与额伦特等“统率军兵征剿西藏”。 On the second day of the first lunar month in 1718, Aqi Tu, a Qing guard stationed in Qinghai, met the wife of Surza, the second son of Lazang Khan, who had escaped from Lhasa, while leading a patrol in Qaidam. He confirmed that Lazang Khan had been defeated and killed, and Tibet had fallen into the hands of the Dzungars. The seriousness of the situation forced the Qing dynasty to hastily make a decision to resolve the Tibetan issue by force. In March 1718, Emperor Kangxi ordered Seleng and Elunte to "lead the army to conquer Tibet."
In 1720, the Manchu led Qing dynasty sent troops for the second time and drove away the Dzungar army.https://www.163.com/dy/article/HHINUQN00553GONE.html 1717年准噶尔汗国攻入拉萨，杀拉藏汗，和硕特汗国灭亡。1720年清朝第二次出兵，赶走准噶尔军。不久，清朝快速平定罗卜藏丹津之乱，在青海建立直接管理体系。 Soon, the Qing dynasty quickly put down the rebellion of Lobsang Danjin and established a direct management system in Qinghai. An imperial edit for Imperial Stele Inscriptions of the Pacification of Tibet was written, and the term Xizang was officially used to designate the region. After the Thirteen Articles for the Settlement of Qinghai Affairs were proposed to Emperor Yongzheng, the borders between Tibet, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan were demarcated.https://www.163.com/dy/article/K15B94AA054403ZR.html 通过雍正时期的几次划界，西藏、青海和四川、云南之间的边界线基本被确定了下来，对后世影响深远。清朝的划界有三大优点：一，保障了云南、青海、四川三省入藏通道的安全；二，实现蒙藏分治，有利于国家的统一；三，尽可能因地制宜，因俗而治，以名山大川作为省界分野线，方便了地方的管理。Through several demarcations during the Yongzheng period, the borders between Tibet, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan were basically determined, which had a profound impact on later generations. The demarcation of the Qing Dynasty had three advantages: first, it ensured the safety of the passages from Yunnan, Qinghai and Sichuan to Tibet; second, it achieved the separation of Mongolia and Tibet, which was conducive to the unification of the country; third, it tried to adapt to local conditions and customs as much as possible, using famous mountains and rivers as provincial boundaries to facilitate local management. In 1959, the 14th Dalai Lama went into exile in India in response to hostilities with the People's Republic of China (PRC). The PRC annexation in 1951 and flight of the Dalai Lama created several waves of Tibetan refugees and led to the creation of Tibetan diasporas in India, the United States, and Europe.
The Tibet Autonomous Region was established in 1965 after the Agreement of the Central People's Government and the Local Government of Tibet on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet was ratified in 1951 by the Dalai Lama. Tibetan independence and human rights emerged as international issues, gaining significant visibility alongside the 14th Dalai Lama in the 1980s and 1990s. Chinese authorities have sought to assert control over Tibet and has been accused of the destruction of religious sites and banning possession of pictures of the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan religious practices. During the crises created by the Great Leap Forward, Tibet was subjected to mass starvation. The PRC disputes these claims and points to their investments in Tibetan infrastructure, education, and industrialization as evidence that they have replaced a theocratic feudal government with a modern state.
Geographical setting
Tibet lies between the civilizations of China proper and Indian subcontinent. Extensive mountain ranges to the east of the Tibetan Plateau mark the border with the Chinese heartland, and the Himalayas of the republics of Nepal and India separate the plateau from the subcontinent lying south. Tibet has been called the "roof of the world" and "the land of snows".
Linguists classify the Tibetan language and its dialects as belonging to the Tibeto-Burman languages, the non-Sinitic members of the broader Sino-Tibetan language family.
Prehistory
Some archaeological data suggest archaic humans passed through Tibet at the time India was first inhabited, half a million years ago. Impressions of hands and feet suggest hominins were present at the above 4,000 meters above sea level high Tibetan Plateau 169,000–226,000 years ago. Modern humans first inhabited the Tibetan Plateau at least twenty-one thousand years ago. This population was largely replaced around 3000 years ago by Neolithic immigrants from northern China. However, there is a "partial genetic continuity between the Paleolithic inhabitants and the contemporary Tibetan populations". The vast majority of Tibetan maternal mtDNA components can trace their ancestry to both paleolithic and Neolithic during the mid-Holocene.
Megalithic monuments dot the Tibetan Plateau and may have been used in ancestor worship. Prehistoric Iron Age hillforts and burial complexes have recently been found on the Tibetan Plateau, but the remote high altitude location makes archaeological research difficult.
Early history (c. 500 BC – AD 618)
Zhangzhung kingdom (c. 500 BC – AD 625)
According to Namkhai Norbu some Tibetan historical texts identify the Zhang Zhung culture as a people who migrated from the Amdo region into what is now the region of Guge in western Tibet. Zhang Zhung is considered to be the original home of the Bön religion.Helmut Hoffman in
By the 1st century BC, a neighboring kingdom arose in the Yarlung Valley, and the Yarlung king, Drigum Tsenpo, attempted to remove the influence of the Zhang Zhung by expelling the Zhang's Bön priests from Yarlung. Tsenpo was assassinated and Zhang Zhung continued its dominance of the region until it was annexed by Songtsen Gampo in the 7th century.
Tibetan tribes (2nd century AD) In AD 108, "the Kiang or Tibetans, a nomad from south-west of Koko-nor, attacked the Chinese posts of Gansu, threatening to cut the Dunhuang road. Liang Kin, at the price of some fierce fighting, held them off." Similar incursions were repelled in AD 168–169 by the Chinese general Duan Gong.
Chinese sources of the same era mention of a Fu state () of either Qiang or Tibetan ethnicity "more than two thousand miles northwest of Shu County". Fu state was pronounced as "bod" or "phyva" in Archaic Chinese. Whether this polity is the precursor of Tufan is still unknown.
First kings of the pre-Imperial Yarlung dynasty (2nd–6th centuries)
The pre-Imperial Yarlung dynasty rulers are considered mythological because sufficient evidence of their existence has not been found.; .
Nyatri Tsenpo is considered by traditional histories to have been the first king of the Yarlung dynasty, named after the river valley where its capital city was located, approximately fifty-five miles south-east from present-day Lhasa. The dates attributed to the first Tibetan king, Nyatri Tsenpo (), vary. Some Tibetan texts give 126 BC, others 414 BC.
Nyatri Tsenpo is said to have descended from a one-footed creature called the Theurang, having webbed fingers and a tongue so large it could cover his face. Due to his terrifying appearance he was feared in his native Puwo and exiled by the Bön to Tibet. There he was greeted as a fearsome being, and he became king.
The Tibetan kings were said to remain connected to the heavens via a dmu cord (dmu thag) so that rather than dying, they ascended directly to heaven, when their sons achieved their majority. According to various accounts, king Drigum Tsenpo (Dri-gum-brtsan-po) either challenged his clan heads to a fight, or provoked his groom Longam (Lo-ngam) into a duel. During the fight the king's dmu cord was cut, and he was killed. Thereafter Drigum Tsenpo and subsequent kings left corpses and the Bön conducted funerary rites.
In a later myth, first attested in the Maṇi bka' 'bum, the Tibetan people are the progeny of the union of the monkey Pha Trelgen Changchup Sempa and rock ogress Ma Drag Sinmo. But the monkey was a manifestation of the bodhisattva Chenresig, or Avalokiteśvara (Tib. Spyan-ras-gzigs) while the ogress in turn incarnated Chenresig's consort Dolma (Tib. 'Grol-ma). This article originally appeared in the Tibetan quarterly Bod-ljongs zhib-'jug (No. 1, 1986).
Tibetan Empire (618–842)
The Yarlung kings gradually extended their control, and by the early 6th century most of the Tibetan tribes were under its control, when Namri Songtsen (570?–618?/629), the 32nd King of Tibet of the Yarlung dynasty, gained control of all the area around what is now Lhasa by 630, and conquered Zhangzhung. With this extent of power the Yarlung kingdom turned into the Tibetan Empire.
The government of Namri Songtsen sent two embassies to China in 608 and 609, marking the appearance of Tibet on the international scene. From the 7th century AD Chinese historians referred to Tibet as Tubo (), though four distinct characters were used. The first externally confirmed contact with the Tibetan kingdom in recorded Tibetan history occurred when King Namri Löntsän (Gnam-ri-slon-rtsan) sent an ambassador to China in the early 7th century.