What was Tibetan society really like in the 19th and early 20th centuries? I'd like to learn more about the aristocracy, monastic estates, class system, etc. How does it compare to feudalism in Imperial China?

The most detailed discussion i've been able to find on the internet so far has been the Michael Parenti article (http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html)

Does anyone know where I can find some more comprehensive information online?

I am not sure it is appropriate to apply the term Feudal/Feudalism in universal sense. The system called Feudalism is only applied to Western Europe from V-XVI century. A very comprehensive paper of Hou Jianxin discussed exhaustively why such a term should not be used to Chinese and any other oriental society. Political system in China and Tibet could be more appropriate to call, in some sense, Absolutist/Absolutism. Marc Bloch and Braudel are two historians who opposed the use of Feudal/Feudalism in even Western History. Such a term relfects ambiguity.

What about Japanese society during Warring State till Tokugawa?

I am not sure I would agree with my rather clever friend. There are many characteristics of Chinese society which were, over the centuries, clearly feudal. By saying that, I think of societies which are: agrarian; dominated by a small landholding elite; built on peasant or tenant farmers; and without universal suffrage.

I am not sure whether this applied to Tibet in the nineteenth century, but I believe it may have applied in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The chinese describes the society of Tibetan before 1959 as "farmer-serfdom" (or slavery system). It could be due to marxist interpretation of history. However, I'm not entirely sure how the Tibetan society works in the past. Certainly, it requires a research on vast volume of chinese tibetology which is currently available on the internet (will check on it if I have the time).

I think the main issue or problem is trying to get an accurate or at least 90% accurate history of Tibet. Because from what I see it there seem to be three set of history one base on Western authors that tend to paint Tibet as some kind of shangrila, the second one base on Tibetan that seem to neglect the serf side of Tibetan cultural history and the third base on Chinese version.

I would like very much to read the true history at least as I have mention 90% accurate.

You are so very right, and it is difficult to get some decent information on the History of Tibetan government and society. I went looking for information on this in various sources only to be frustrated. If anyone has some good source material, they should post it.

Of course any British claim to "protecting" the Tibetans needs to be seen in the light of Briatin's overwhelming interest in protecting its own colonial possessions in India first and foremost, and hence the need for buffer territories, like Tibet and Afghanistan.

Here's what said about Tibetan society in a book I mentioned in General Zhaoyun's post link he posted (edit: topic is closed?), it's written by a Chinese scholar who was the China's commissioner in Lhasa prior to World War 2.


He goes on to describe the poor agriculture that is practiced due to poor soil conditions and poor irrigation.






There is a lot more described but I just posted a few random bits. Ask me for any specifics and I'll post a few excerpts up (ex: marriage practices, etiquette, birth and death rituals, life in the monasteries, etc...). I have a few other books to draw from as well.

Parenti's essay is a really popular essay that most people get their perceptions of pre-1950s Tibet, especially many Chinese nationals take a liking to his work. The essay's thesis does have real truth to it since Tibet was not a Shangrila like many Western narratives depicted it as (Lost Horizon), but it doesn't really do any justice to the fairness of the way the society is depicted because for one he uses way to many individual cases of horrific things when people are trying to understand the natures of the Tibetan society as a whole. I think he also he states that Tibet was essentially no better than a medieval European society or that Buddhism has its "skeletons in the closet" like any other religion but then the way he hammers the point home overplays the whole situation but I've seen his other works and speechs against capitalism and everything and he does the same thing, I guess it sells.