Independence

As I was leaving the institute, today, a young woman approached me on the corridor. She explained making short interviews for a Chinese newspaper (her being an Austrian) and had come to our institute because of the question being: “Tibet: Independence yes or no?”. …She probably couldn’t have chosen a more difficult question to answer just like that, standing on the corridor. Even pramana (Buddhist logic) might have been a subject easier to explain.

Tibetan independence is, in fact, a topic hardly discussed at our institute (at least not in classes) but obviously of high interest to anybody occupied with the subject of tibetology (and a number of sinologists too, for that matter).

So, what are my thoughts on Tibetan independence; what is my point in this ongoing and politically heated discussion? It is a subject I have been thinking about and reviewing quite a lot recently. Partly because of my growing interest in Tibet’s historical situation during the first half of the 20th century (along with interesting figures such as dge ‘dun chos ‘phel) and partly because of my advance into sinology and thus the history of China in the 20th century. That is not to say the older Tibetan (and Chinese) history isn’t as important in the whole discussion, of course.

As I biked home after giving my little statement on the topic, a million things came to my mind and I wish I had asked for her name and email address, so I could write them to her (and correct some of my mistakes… it is friday after all). So now I’m writing some thoughts here, to get them off my mind.


To me, the topic of Tibetan independence is clearest the farther you go back in time. In the times of the great Tibetan empire under the rule of kings, the country did not only reach its biggest expansion but also quite probably had the most active contact (be it in war, trade, or else) with it’s neighbours. A glance at Silk Road history in the region of today’s 新疆 (Xinjiang), most of all roughly in Tang Dynasty times, shows clearly how much influence the Tibetan kings waged on those far away lands and kingdoms, Khotan, Miran, Loulan, Dunhuang… the list is long. Heather Stoddard, among others, speaks of the "Doring” (rdo ring) in discussing dge ‘dun chos ‘phel. These “long stones” seem to have existed not only in Tibet (specifically Lhasa) but also Chang’an. The famous doring of Lhasa, standing in front of the Jhokhang temple’s main entrance is engraved bilingually in Tibetan and Chinese with the 821-822 peace treaty between Tibet and China. Not that this treaty had any long-lasting effect, but nevertheless it shows the active political relations between two countries. Also, in discussion about dge ‘dun chos ‘phel, I stumpled about the mchod rten dkar po, “white Chörtens (Stupas)” that were set up as markers of the Tibetan borders (to Bhutan, India, Nepal, but also China and others) and found, for example, at the Kokonor.

But after the fall of the rule of kings, the topic of Tibetan independence seems to get more and more difficult to answer clearly. Over the course of time, Chinese influence in Tibet grew (for example with the post and influence of the ambans). From the Chinese point of view, Tibet (successively) albeit slowly became part of the emperor’s influence and thus, theoretically, a tributary state. The Tibetan view of this was, of course, different and over time it is clear that the Chinese influence gradually diminished again until it had almost faded by the beginning of the 20th century.

The beginning of the 20th century truly was a period of great hope and chance for Tibet. The 13th, and afterwards even the 14th Dalai Lama had great plans for reformation and renewal of the country, organisations were forming in and without connection to movements in China, and so forth. In 1910, Chinese troops made their way to Lhasa but were defeated (the 13th Dalai Lama had taken temporary refuge in India). In 1911/12, the Qing Dynasty fell and together with that many of it’s more remote or tributary provinces declared independence. In 1912, the 13th Dalai Lama proclaimed Tibet’s independence (as did Mongolia; just recently the original of a document has been found in which Mongolia and Tibet assure each other’s independence as states having freed themselves from the oppression of the Qing Dynasty) which sadly was hardly recognise by other states around the world.

The reactions to 1911/12 over the whole of China and it’s periphery are very interesting, in themselves. As was typical for the end of Chinese Dynasties, tributary and remote provinces and countries declared their independence from the court, which in turn further weakened the court’s power and caused it fall. Throughout Chinese history, this has happened times and times again, but it must be clear, too, that this was always followed by a new dynasty arising and incorporating those far regions, again. Thus, a proclamation of independence from 1912 is difficult to judge, considering the overall political situation and dynamics in east Asia at that time.

1927, after the establishing of the Nanjing government, 蔣介石 (Chiang Kai-shek) proposed the separation of Tibet into three regions (Amdo and Kham had already been largely unconnected to the Lhasa-governed central Tibet for a longer time) which was administratively completed by 1936 with the establishing of the regions Xikang (parts of Kham) and Qinghai (Amdo).

Even after that, though, there were still strong Tibetan movements for reform, for independence or for cooperation with the Chinese (communists). The Tibetan Improvement Party, for example, was formed 1939 in Kalimpong, India, or the world’s first Tibetan Newspaper, the Melong, based in Kalimpong, kept trying to shake Tibet out of it’s long and blind slumber of conservative ignorance.

Finally, the conservative system resisted change and closed its eyes to the danger approaching swiftly. It was Tibetans, finally, who built roads for the “liberating” Chinese tanks…

In conclusion, I have no side in this discussion. Tibetan independence keeps being an incredibly difficult subject, partly caused by the fact that there still is too little scientific discussion of new Tibetan history that would have to take account of all the surrounding factors and influences. What is clear, though, is how incredibly political this whole issue has become. The Chinese (CCP) on the one hand and the (exile) Tibetans on the other both almost always approach this from a very subjective perspective. A Tibetan not wishing for Tibetan independence would be “betraying his cultural heritage”, a Chinese not following the party’s (hard)line on Tibet will be silenced with the same charges – betrayal of the motherland, political splittism.

One thing, though, must be noted without doubt: the situation as it is now, in Tibet, is wrong. Without discussing independence of real autonomy, the every day violations of human rights, martial law and cultural genocide planned on a large scale are delicts that many future generations will have to take responsibility and find answers for, either way.

University woes

This semester, I’m attending a class on a subject I’m very interested in: The Silk Road. And even though the course’s scope is formally limited to the “Western Regions” (西域), the area largely confined to the Tarim Basin and today’s Xinjiang, all the other parts of the Silk Road and the countries it bound together can hardly be left unmentioned.

This great “highway” of cultural, economical, spiritual and linguistic exchange connecting places as far from each other as Nara, in Japan, and Damascus at the Mediterranean sea fascinates me greatly. The lecture’s title is “A journey to the Western Regions. Art and Archeology of the Silk Road”, it is being held by Erika Forte of the department of art history Vienna and mainly focuses on the time of greatest activity along the Silk Road in that region, being between Han and Tang Dynasty times (roughly 3rd – 8th cent. a.d.).

When in the first lecture miss Forte explained she means her course to be, apart from two introductory lessons, be held on the basis of student presentations, my heart sank. Student presentations are something I don’t hold in much high regard since we all are merely striving for knowledge, while the teacher most often has so much more knowledge to give.

Also, student presentations are a time when the unprofessional and often unscientific behaviour and methodology of students gets exposed maybe the most easily. Thus, our first lesson of student presentations has left me quite disappointed and a little annoyed.

Be it the young Chinese boasting in his booming voice about how Xuan Zang was the greatest of the Chinese Buddhist Pilgrims who went over the Silk Road to India, solely basing his presentation on information gathered from Buddhist sources and publications, taking every myth and religious exaggeration for unquestioned truth, or the apparent Inability of people not specifically studying Indology to at least more or less correctly pronounce words like Sanskrit or Nālandā Vihār. Thus teachers can almost ruin a very interesting topic by almost completely giving it into the hands of the students.

Of course, I know I am being harsh in my judgement and high in my expectations, but this is, after all, the university. And that is another thing that has been on my mind of late. These days, the university of Vienna is “burning”, meaning student protests have erupted, auditoriums occupied, and the like. Students in other parts of Austria have joined in and even in Berlin students are talking about joining out of solidarity.

While I do not oppose protesting, and agree with a number of the issues being discussed (like gender equality, anti-discrimination, better funding of institutes and personnel, etc), I find some of the most loudly voiced slogans of these protests rather ridiculous. It isn’t very clever or educated protesting against the re-establishing of student fees with slogans like “Education is a basic human right”, living in a very developed country with a very thorough school system. University education must be seen for what it is: an exclusive science. Certainly, this cannot be called a “basic human right” and thus be demanded as available freely to anyone – in a country, where you pay for your child’s kindergarden! Where is the “basic”, there?

A feeling that has grown inside me over the course of my studies is that so many people at the university in fact would be better off not being students. With that, I don’t want to label them inferior in any way, but everyone has own talents and abilities and let’s face it, university is and should be tough learning. These people are at the university studying something they might or might not be interested in because both expectations of their family and our culture are forcing them to. Doing an apprenticeship is regarded the lower choice and studying the key to every high and well paid job.

This unrealistic and ridiculous trend shows itself well in the recent adoption of the so called “Bologna System” by all European universities. This system, being essentially the bachelor-master system, seems heavily dictated by the economy, streamlined to churn out people with easily classifiable skills, unified for the international market. The curricula, now rigidly structured, dictate the student what he or she has to study and leave very little freedom of pursuing own interests and finding a field of specialisation. Selecting one of five available masters at our institute doesn’t quite seem like specialising, does it?

Parallel, introductory phases have been introduced. These, most often limited to the first semester, mean you have a certain number of classes you must all pass in order to be allowed to go on studying in the following semester. Should you fail any of the required classes, you’ll have to wait and try again in the next round (note that most of those classes have 2 or 3 successive exams, giving you lots of chance to better your marks). Similarly, the new university law (which was the cause of the current protests) also gives institutes the possibility of filtering the students admitted to their studies in any way they find suitable (that might be exams, grade point average, etc). With courses like journalism, law or medicine sometimes being overrun by foreign students (mostly Germans fleeing from the grad point average limited universities at home) this seems rather realistic and badly needed than unfair and evil. Testing the fresh students’ dedication for a subject and their overall ability of studying also seems rather beneficial to them, in my opinion. Better to find out you might not be so ideally qualified for a subject in the first semester than somehow dragging along for years until you finally abandon it or fail.

Maybe, if students were un-trendy and anti-social individuals again, all these problems would be solved easily.

More Music

A glance into the media section of my homepage (the navigation is on the right-hand side of the blog) reveals that I have just added three new songs, embedded as Youtube videos. These songs are own compositions, fairytale and ostinato being from 2008 and movement & repetition from 2006 and recently re-recorded.

There are actually some more songs among those I did several years ago (when I began making songs) which I am thinking about uploading these days. As with everything released publicly, one is afraid of it being neglected or rejected. Therefore, I’ll ponder a little longer.

Otherwise, I’m busy being back at the university, studying and working. Among my classes this semester is a very interesting one about the Silk Road in Chinese territory (the so called 西域 western regions), another one about the life and works of dge ‘dun chos ‘phel and one about Rahul Sankrityana’s travels to Tibet (reading his travel diaries मेरी जीवन यात्रा).

And now, without further ado, have a listen.

Back from India

After six weeks of heat, cold, height, humidity, crowds, emptiness, sun, snow, good and bad I’ve returned from India. My laundry hangs outside to dry in the sun, my face is shaved and my body washed. Things from my journey, both old and new, are scattered around and just as, it seems, the threads left here to be picked up.

The pictures (1690) have been transferred to my computer and await being looked through and sorted out. The black book I carried and wrote in, my India Book and one of the most important accessories of my days, has been used and filled, bruised and enriched. Therein lie the days that passed with writing for each, and the cities and languages, maps and notes. Out of those, other things I wrote and every little thing stored in my head I will write a retrospective, though it will take time.

There is so much to do – there is so little time!

Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen, Mit der ich sonst viele Zeit verdorben, Sie hat so lange nichts von mir vernommen, Sie mag wohl glauben, ich sei gestorben! Es ist mir auch gar nichts daran gelegen, Ob sie mich für gestorben hält, Ich kann auch gar nichts sagen dagegen, Denn wirklich bin ich gestorben der Welt. Ich bin gestorben dem Weltgetümmel, Und ruh' in einem stillen Gebiet! Ich leb' allein in meinem Himmel, In meinem Lieben, in meinem Lied! - Friedrich Rückert

leaving on a jet plane

Off to India
have a wonderful summer everyone 
– I’ll be back in autumn. Until then
take care.

Thoughts on a beautiful morning

The call of my father woke me in the morning, and I, still half in the world of dreams, replied in Hindi. Rising and wiping the sleep out of my eyes, the most beautiful fresh morning was streaming in through the open windows. Last night, late and already the next day in fact, he had picked me up from the platform after my many hours on the train, where I had watched the light illuminate brightly the beautiful landscapes passing outside and then to draw away again with the setting sun, casting the veil of dusk on the land until the darkness left me only staring at reflections in the glass.
Our morning so clear and bright, we had our breakfast outside looking into the garden with all flowers and plants ablaze in bloom and light with that sunlight of a fresh clean morning, not tainted by the hustle of the day and the air still fresh and scented from the night. A million crystals of dew hidden in the grass and plants, the mighty trees swaying gently in the breeze and us on the terrace, talking and eating, sipping tea and awaking with all things around us.

Soon thereafter, my father left to work and I resumed my position on the terrace with my tea and bread and all the beauty of the world. Little birds, busy with their routine that had already began hours ago, rushing through the gardens catching this, gathering that. So I sat in utter peace and beauty and enjoyed a morning so fair it made the world and life therein seem utterly and act of pure aesthetics.

Not, however, was my silent peace long lasting. A short while after I had sat there alone, one man and another trotted over from the next garden and the one adjunct to occupy themselves with business for the old lady living on the left, who I hold very dear and close to my heart. Trees, they said, were they to be cut, and so had brought all kind of gear and tool. And as is the way with older men retired from work, like children busy with their fascinations I saw the beauty of the morning was utterly unseen by them. For they, the two of them, soon stirred the most exquisite of noise and stirrup with their chainsaws and their great business.

So I watched them and not much later greeted my dear neighbour, who came out and much excused herself of having slept too long and them to start without her – which in the light of her old age and great compassion all, of course, instantly forgave. Collecting fallen apples from her garden and exchanging smiles about the busy men, we watched and listened how, with much noise and attention as it pleases them, they wrought down an old an mossy apple tree and went about their business of cutting it up into small pieces and, I am sure, already making plans to split the loot for their fireplaces in the winter.

Thus I watched and thus I sit here, as the sun has crept higher in the sky of pure blue and the change of light has changed the world, as my beautiful morning has quietly (and noisily) faded into the auspicious and merry beginning of what seems to become a lovely day. My stomach filled and the tea consumed I cannot yet make myself get up and leave this observatory of the fine and busy, happy life of mornings in these dearest gardens.

---

I spent all yesterday on the train reading Kim, which I finished in the one day, drawing me far into the mesmerizing beauty of colonial India and the language of Rudyard Kipling. Enchantment after enchantment, and not far ahead lies my journey the those very same places, not Lahore but Delhi, Benares, the mountains of Himachal Pradesh. Oh, beauty awaits and wonder, I daresay.

stereopoetry

With the sound of incredible heat and the thoughts of busy holiday life, I returned from Budapest to Vienna today. On my table, right where we left it, was waiting a little piece of paper filled with lines in two hand writings, alternating. The other poem I carried in my notebook, for we wrote it in the Budapest metro. These are two poems Cecilie and I wrote together, line by line by turns:

like the lid of a sunbed, the morning descends on me as memories, birds, out of the shadow of an eye lying next to me, still closed and flocking grains of light, remnant-like calmly caught in a sunbeam all the while, next to me, and slowly rising to the light, two half-eyes 02.07.2009

Bright lights flashing, grainy air, dusty wind the sound of an ambulance crying feet brushing the ground, warm gusts of air and in the eye of the storm, your face, serene smiling from a myriad of screens, ceaselessly repeating my name and pointing to that fragile pocket of time, our mingled breath when we whispered together and drifted, as leaves bustle, so silently across the shifting floor of a club people, as emotions, brushing by while we turn to nothing and each other 04.07.2009

lately

I have not been tending this virtual garden for such a very long time. First and foremost, the busy life of study and exam got so in the way that everything else seemed utterly obstructed and out of reach. Now however, those woes lie behind me (along with the satisfaction gathered in the process) and though one might think the outlook on three long months of summer holidays seems vast and relaxing, many plans are keeping me busy.
Right now, I’m spending time together with dear Cecilie, visiting from Denmark. She arrived in Vienna, where we walked and talked until the bus carried us to Budapest, where we now walk and talk as a group of three, together with the my dear count.

All my recent days are accompanied by the strangest moods of weather. First, while the semester drew to its demanding close, the monsoon seemed to have gotten hold of Vienna (and Budapest). A never ending stream of thick drops pouring out of the sky while the temperatures and rivers climbed. These days, the monsoon seems to have exhausted itself and made way to days of humid heat with burning sunshine and at least one apocalyptical rainstorm per day.

One just never knows when to carry that fragile paper parasol…

A very regrettable symptom of my life during the semester is the fact I hardly read other books. Not caused by a lack of interest, I simply cannot get myself to read something for pleasure after having to read and work with written materials all day. Therefore, I have carried a rather large amount of books with me to the count’s residence and hope to finally finish a few and begin some more.
Currently, I mostly read in a collection of chinese short stories (in German translation) called new dreams from the red chamber (another book I have yet to finish). These at times a little bewildering but always fascinating stories cast an interesting light onto modern China and the small and big people living therein.

The soothing summer morning is getting old, and I should concentrate on my morning tea until the flat gets too warm for it to be enjoyable. Whilst I sip this gentle morning’s kiss (as my dear Mexican put it), the sounds of the city, rather different from the Viennese ones I’ve grown used to, drift to my interested ears.

these are the things

Here is a poem I wrote in December 2008. Conveniently, both the English and Sablung versions are given along with a few notes.

lauluṭuŝtain titābaudīt mil. phūjhutain isu tinesüntālānūt. cūt prachtaine khānī lhaplheīt. rōṣ, fahuch. nāhau rōroṅaras, ho mikus haplim.

 I might do a recording, until then watch the others for a feeling of Sablung’s sound

the shirt you slept in now hugs me in your stead. the towel that you used is there to caress, like you were. the dust you touched is settling slow, a residue or breath. these are the things you left, these are the things i have.

While both versions are structured in 4 verses, the Sablung is of a noticeably more condensed character. Drawing a sentence into one composite word is a prominent feature of Sablung, and even more so of its poetry. For this the language has several means, including the possibility to substitute pronouns with postfixes. Similarly, the 8 cases of Sablung (which are normally indicated by conjugation) can be replaced by prefixes.
While these features are also widely used in all forms of Sablung writing, poetry furthermore has its own set of linguistic devices. One of those is the contraction of verbs into a single syllable, a root syllable if you will (though Sablung does not have a system of root syllables as founding and developed as languages like Sanskrit, for example). The monosyllabic form lacks person and number, though tense and aspect are (/can) still be indicated. Mostly, this feature applies to widely used verbs.

A scientific translation of the Sablung version would read:

sleep-shirt-your / fromyou-embraces forme / /
towel-your here / byyou-like(/as if)from-caresses / /
dust touch-byyou slow(ly) / lands. remnant, breath. / /
thing-the(plural) (you)left / the(plural) things (i)have. / /

…but that wouldn’t be very nice to read, would it?

What I mean when I talk of ‘writing’

In my daily life, I deal with four different writing systems.

Firstly, of course, I use the latin writing with its modifications and oddities for writing my mother tongue and those others which use it and for transcribing the other languages i deal with. The character set as we use it nowadays, enhanced with a plethora of diacritic signs, proves to be the most versatile for correctly and adaptively rendering basically any language. Of course, due to being used by so many different languages natively, the utterance of its characters is a huge discussion in itself (which makes me understand and sympathise with the dream that gave life to the phonetic alphabet).


Secondly, I use the Devanagari script for reading and writing Sanskrit and, in its slightly modified form, for Hindi. Apart from marvelling at its age and history, I particularly like this script’s quite unified appearance. As one of my Hindi teachers once explained:

your script is slender and fine-lined, looking good and elegant in italic. our script, on the other hand, needs its curves and voluptuous writing.

In that moment, I realised how beautifully this description also fitted the difference of appearance between us Europeans and her, being from Nepal.
(Later, I dedicated her a poem. That, though, speaks rather of her reciting poetry.)

one of Devangari’s main characteristics is the connective top-line


Thirdly, I use the Tibetan dbu can script for reading and writing both classical and modern Tibetan. About this script, I particularly like the calligraphic style of each individual character. Also, it is always cool to show your friends a writing system that seems to resemble Klingon writing, to the untrained eye.

the dbu can script was derived from the Indian Gupta writing


And finally, the fourth writing system I use are the Chinese characters. Since beginning to study Mandarin last Oktober, each week between 15 and 30 new characters are being (or should be) cramped into my head. With hanzi, I obviously love their pictographic character and, beyond all, their calligraphic possibilities.

sometimes I start thinking pictographically even about other scripts…


Apart from learning some of the world’s fascinating languages and slowly accessing the literary traditions they hold, I myself create an own language. Sablung, which also is the origin of this blog’s title, is a project that has been beautifully growing since quite some time now. My dictionary as well as the grammatical compendium are filling with content, and slowly but surely some organic elements are appearing in the language. While the talk about its nature would fill another post, the thing that concerns me here is my seemingly endless strive for an appropriate script.

When creating an own language, it goes without saying that one would also want to create an own script for it. Since my childhood, I have been creating and using new scripts.
For Sablung, though, none of these are even remotely suitable or good enough. Firstly, Sablung’s alphabet is wide and different from the latin alphabet for which I created scripts in my younger years. Secondly, having learned my share of other writing systems, I don’t just want to recreate latin script with differently shaped characters. A script being a writing system, I want the new script to be an own system. And thirdly, I want it to please me, aesthetically. That means being both effective (in using space, the ability to be written in small size [my handwriting is very small] and readability) and artistic.

Over the time I’ve spent with Sablung, I have created several scripts, all of which were quickly discarded. Aesthetically, there are several existing scripts I’d want my script to be influenced by (among them Persian/Arabic writing and Tolkien’s Tengwar).
After so many failed attempts, I’m left to wonder if I’ll ever be able to create something which will please me so much I’d want to stick to it possibly for the rest of my life. Would that require the own genius to be more genial than itself?

So for now, I’ll go on trying and trying. Maybe one fine day, the perfect (perfect for me, that is) pattern will reveal itself in the face of a rose or the ripples of a moonlit pond.