• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
  • HOME
  • ABOUT CHINA
    • NEWS
    • TESTIMONIES
    • OP-EDS
    • FEATURED
    • GLOSSARY
    • CHINA PERSECUTION MAP
  • FROM THE WORLD
    • NEWS GLOBAL
    • TESTIMONIES GLOBAL
    • OP-EDS GLOBAL
    • FEATURED GLOBAL
  • INTERVIEWS
  • DOCUMENTS AND TRANSLATIONS
    • DOCUMENTS
    • THE TAI JI MEN CASE
    • TRANSLATIONS
    • EVENTS
  • ABOUT
  • EDITORIAL BOARD
  • TOPICS

Bitter Winter

A magazine on religious liberty and human rights

three friends of winter
Home / China / Featured China

Zhangzhung: How China Reinvents Ancient Tibetan History

01/20/2023Lopsang Gurung |

A “Kingdom of Zhangzhung” perhaps existed in ancient times, but the CCP’s false claim that it was “Chinese” is used in anti-Tibetan and anti-Indian propaganda.

by Lopsang Gurung

A recently discovered Zhangzhung burial site, “Quta Cemetery,” Ngari prefecture, Western Tibet. From Weibo.
A recently discovered “Zhangzhung” burial site, “Quta Cemetery,” Ngari prefecture, Western Tibet. From Weibo.

Did you ever hear of Zhangzhung? Western readers who would be tempted to jump to Wikipedia for an answer should consider that China employs an army of trolls to constantly rewrite the popular online encyclopedia and further the CCP’s interests. Tibetans who go to school in the so-called Tibet Autonomous Region, on the other hand, are increasingly exposed to the notion of Zhangzhung, and there are well-funded CCP programs to promote “Zhangzhung Studies” through lectures and conferences both in China and internationally.

As told in schools in Tibet and China, the story goes as such. In the Iron Age (but in fact with much earlier origins), a powerful kingdom arose called Zhangzhung that included Western Tibet, most of the present-day Indian union territory of Ladakh, and portions of what are today Nepal and Pakistan. It had an advanced culture and its own religion, Bon. It also had a book defining its culture, the “Zhangzhung (or Shangshung) Tripitaka,” which despite the Buddhist-sounding name predated the arrival of Buddhism in the area. Its earlier versions may date back to some 4,000 years ago. Remember, this is what Tibetan school pupils are told, not the real story.

According to this story, Zhangzhung flourished for more than one thousand years before it was conquered by the Tibetans of Western Tibet and incorporated into their Buddhist kingdom between the 7th and the 8th century CE. And Zhangzhung, while representing a crossroad of civilization, was not an “Indian” but a “Chinese” culture, although its history has been hidden and falsified by Tibetans and Westerners, until Chinese archeologists rescued it.

The CCP is preparing a Chinese translation of the “Zhangzhung Tripitaka,” in which the government-controlled China Buddhist Association is heavily involved. Bai Gengsheng, secretary of the Party-sponsored Chinese Writers Association, told the “People’s Daily” that “Although we [Chinese] have the ‘ownership’ of the ancient Zhangzhung culture, its ‘discourse power’ has long been in the hands of foreigners.”

A “Zhangzhung” stele with a Bon inscritption found in Dêqên Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan. Dating it is uncertain, though. From Weibo.
A “Zhangzhung” stele with a Bon inscription found in Dêqên Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan. Dating it is uncertain, though. From Weibo.

Important resources are devoted to find archeological evidence confirming this story, and Xi Jinping’s own passion for archeology is well-known. The story of Zhangzhung, however, is taught for its propaganda value. It tells Tibetans that their most remote origins are “Chinese,” it separates Tibet from Indian culture, and it supports China’s border claims against India (in fact, arguing that all Ladakh was originally “Chinese”).

The problem with this story is that it is largely invented. We know precious nothing about the Kingdom of Zhangzhung except that it probably existed before it was incorporated into Tibet. But we do not know exactly where it was located, its extension, and its history.

As for the Bon religion, what is well-documented is its late version that developed in conversation with Buddhism, and later as a branch of it, long after Zhangzhung had ceased to exist. Of Bon’s previous incarnation as a pre-Buddhist shamanistic tradition, again, not much is known, unless legends are taken at face value. We know the so-called “Zhangzhung Tripitaka” through later post-Buddhist versions and that it is a thousand-year-old text is a matter of legends.

A version of the so-called “Zhangzhung Tripitaka.” Source: Chinese Communist Party.
A version of the so-called “Zhangzhung Tripitaka.” Source: Chinese Communist Party.

Archeology has found rock art, tombs, and remains of stone structures in Central and Western Tibet that documents an Iron Age civilization, but connecting these discoveries to the “Kingdom of Zhangzhung” is much more problematic. If anything, scholars believe that Zhangzhung was a civilization with strong Indian, rather than Chinese, connections and features.

The problem is not Zhangzhung, which is surely a legitimate object of scholarly and archeological study, just as Bon is a fascinating subject for religious scholars. The problem is China’s “political archeology” and manipulation of the past to boost its imperialistic territorial claims and falsify Tibetan identity by representing it as “Chinese.”

Tagged With: Communist Propaganda, Tibet

bw-profile
Lopsang Gurung

Uses a pseudonym for security reasons.

Related articles

  • The Fate of Tibet After the Inevitable: A Tibetan Opinion

    The Fate of Tibet After the Inevitable: A Tibetan Opinion

  • China’s New Directives on Law Schools: They Should Teach that Separation of Powers Is Wrong

    China’s New Directives on Law Schools: They Should Teach that Separation of Powers Is Wrong

  • “Socialist Spiritual Civilization”: The Great Comeback of an Old CCP Concept

    “Socialist Spiritual Civilization”: The Great Comeback of an Old CCP Concept

  • Communist Parties and Religion: The Japanese Communist Party’s “Final War” Against the Unification Church

    Communist Parties and Religion: The Japanese Communist Party’s “Final War” Against the Unification Church

Keep Reading

  • United Nations: “One Million Tibetan Children Forcibly Separated From Their Parents”
    United Nations: “One Million Tibetan Children Forcibly Separated From Their Parents”

    In November, three UN Special Rapporteurs wrote to China. There has been no satisfactory answer, and they have decided to go public.

  • The Weaponization of the CCP’s “Zero COVID” Against Tibet
    The Weaponization of the CCP’s “Zero COVID” Against Tibet

    Have the Chinese lockdown measures been a tool for more surveillance and control? And are the antigenic tests on Tibetans connected with organ harvesting?

  • Die Anti-Vereinigungskirchen-Kampagne in Japan: Der Schatten der Kommunistischen Partei
    Die Anti-Vereinigungskirchen-Kampagne in Japan: Der Schatten der Kommunistischen Partei

    In einem brisanten journalistischen Bericht wird behauptet, japanische Kommunisten spielten eine Schlüsselrolle beim Schüren der Feindseligkeit gegen die antikommunistische religiöse Gruppe.

  • Where is Hu Xinyu? A New Scandal Rocks the CCP
    Where is Hu Xinyu? A New Scandal Rocks the CCP

    Three months ago, a 15-year-old student disappeared from a private school in Jiangxi. Because of the lack of action by the police, all sort of rumors are circulating.

Primary Sidebar

Support Bitter Winter

Learn More

Follow us

Newsletter

Most Read

  • Blaming the Victims: The Hamburg Shooting and the Jehovah’s Witnesses by Massimo Introvigne
  • The Donnie Yen Fiasco: A Uyghur View by Rebiya Kadeer
  • Abduxaliq Uyghur, 1901–1933: Uyghurs Remember Their Beheaded Poet by Abdurehim Gheni Uyghur
  • The “Buddhist and Taoist Clergy Database,” Another CCP Imposture by He Yuyan
  • The Suicide of the Pink-Haired Girl: How the CCP Exploited a Tragedy by Zhou Kexin
  • Second-Generation Unification Church Believers Discriminated in Japan. 1. A Tale of Two Petitions by Masumi Fukuda
  • Second-Generation Unification Church Believers Discriminated in Japan. 3. Media Slander Leads to Discrimination by Masumi Fukuda

CHINA PERSECUTION MAP -SEARCH NEWS BY REGION

clickable geographical map of china, with regions

Footer

EDITORIAL BOARD

Editor-in-Chief

MASSIMO INTROVIGNE

Director-in-Charge

MARCO RESPINTI

ADDRESS

CESNUR

Via Confienza 19,

10121 Turin, Italy,

Phone: 39-011-541950

E-MAIL

We welcome submission of unpublished contributions, news, and photographs. Each submission implies the authorization for us to edit and publish texts and photographs. We reserve the right to decide which submissions are suitable for publication. Please, write to INFO@BITTERWINTER.ORG Thank you.

Newsletter

LINKS

orlir-logo hrwf-logo cesnur-logo

Copyright © 2023 · Bitter Winter · PRIVACY POLICY· COOKIE POLICY