Люди и боги Страны снегов. Очерки истории Тибета и его культуры

SUMMARY

«People and Gods in the Country of Snows» is a popular-scientific book on Tibet and Tibetan culture — a region with a remarkable and eventful history of fifteen hundred years. During the period stretching from the eighth to the ninth century, it attained political dominion in Central Asia. Tibetan culture exerted a far-reaching and deeply-rooted influence on the development of several Central-Asian peoples and their culture. The aim of the authors is to describe for the wider circle of readers, including those engaged in oriental studies and other fields of research, the past of this country, its people and their rich culture. The description is based upon the most recent results achieved in Tibetan studies, both Soviet and foreign.

Orientalists conducting researches in this field are aware, of course, that in the last ten or fifteen years a series of important works, both of a specialized and of a popular-generalized nature on traditional Tibetan civilization, have appeared in European languages. There is no necessity to enumerate them here. Books on the subject have also been published by Tibetan authors, written in some cases in collaboration with European and American scholars; they reflect the views of present-day Tibetan emigrants regarding their country’s history and its cultural-historical role in Asia. As may be supposed, these have been studied with the closest attention, particularly since some are found to contain a wealth of factual material hitherto unknown, or available to only a narrow circle of readers.

The book consists of five chapters: the first — «The Country of Snows», gives a concise geographical description of Tibet, its principal districts and their natural features; the second chapter, «People», is historical — beginning with archeological discoveries in a region which until 1950 was forbidden ground to archeologists — and ethnographical. The third chapter, «Gods», is an account of the two main religions traditional in Tibet — Bon and Buddhism. «People and Gods» (the fourth chapter) describes the culture of Tibet as the synthesis of its people’s cultural-historic life and religious conceptions.

A popular-scientific work written for the wider public must provide material of sufficient interest to hold the attention of readers with different tastes and demands. With this in mind, the authors have interwoven with the main fabric of the text the story of the life and work of Tsanyan Jamtso, the Sixth Dalai-Lama. The religious hierarch of Tibet was a poet of originality and importance, and also a politician of tragic destiny who perished in the struggle waged against him by Ching China to establish and strengthen her influence in Tibet.

The authors hope that the sections on Tsanyan Jamtso — brief as they are, but presented with a certain literary inventiveness, while keeping within the bounds of known facts — and also the purely informative «scientific» chapters (which may seem rather dry) will encourage readers who know Russian to glance into the amazing world of the Tibetan past and its culture.

It is thought that readers abroad, including Tibetans will share the authors’ feeling of profound respect for the Tibetan people, who living in the harshest and most difficult natural conditions, yet created a civilization of their own, unique, original, a notable contribution to the cultural treasury of all mankind.