During the 6th to the 9th centuries, Tibet was a powerful military empire, much unlike the spiritual, peaceful Buddhist domain as we acknowledge it today. Under the reign of King Songtsen Gampo and King Trisong Deutsen the empire of Tibet annexed and ruled over large territories. Later it renounced territorial claims, finding a path led supremely by Buddhism after King Trisong Deutsen brought teachers from India aiming to spread Buddhism in Tibet, which led to the establishment of Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism.
The event that marked the origin of the Tibetan diaspora was the defeat of the Tibetan army at the Battle of Chamdo in 1950 by the Chinese forces, and Chamdo was only the first step before advancing towards Lhasa, pivotal territory of Tibet. Communist China explained this invasion of Tibet as an attempt to ‘peacefully liberate’ Tibet but Tibetans felt that it not only was an attempt to seize their territory but also to erase its civilization. Uprisings against suppression and encroachment into a territory that was in no way interested in being a part of a military uprising led to the fourteenth Dalai Lama and around 80,000 Tibetans fleeing to seek refuge in India and Southern Asia, in fear of extinguishment of their culture and their persecution at the hands of the People’s Liberation Army.
After the establishment of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh in 1959, the region formed the abode for Tibetans coming to India. Majnu-ka-tilla, a colony in Delhi became an area densely populated by the 1960s referred to as ‘Delhi’s Little Tibet’. The foundation for the Namdroling monastery, one of the largest teaching centres of Nyingmapa lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, was laid in 1963 in Bylakuppe, Karnataka - the largest Tibetan settlement in southern India.
After Tibet, the highest Tibetan population exists in India even today, which is more than twice the Tibetan diaspora in all other countries combined. (source: 2009 CTA Demographic Survey of Tibetans in Exile).
By Meenakshi Prashanth
References :
https://www.britannica.com/place/Tibet/History
https://www.namdroling.net/Portal/Home
https://tibet.net/about-tibet/glimpses-on-history-of-tibet/
https://tibetanbuddhisminmanila.palyulph.org/king-trisong-deutsen/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-17046222
Chinmay Tumbe. (2018). India moving - a history of migration. Gurgaon, India Penguin Random House.
Photos - https://tibetpedia.com/lifestyle/religious-life/tibetan-buddhism/
http://www.vermonttibet.org/know-about-tibet/history-of-tibet-in-brief/
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