03.21.08
Parenti on Tibet
The link on Parenti on Tibet, cf. earlier post today.
I welcome Parenti’s attempt to explore the ‘real’ history of Tibet, and I have been so critical myself, in a slightly different vein. But the full history of Tibet, indeed of Buddhism (and Hinduism) remains untold and a class analysis of Tibetan culture, while it looks plausible on one level, and is legitimate in and of itself, is a bit of a Marxist ‘idee fixe’, missing the point in many ways. What was the point? Actually Tibet is an enigma. As is the history of Buddhism. I had a post a while back on the history of Buddhism in the Axial period and after, in relation to neo-brahminism, Role of the Bhagavad Gita in Indian History. The author of this book tried hard to cut through the hype here, and was a leftist of some kind who told the history of Axial/post India from a ‘curiously leftist’ point of view, the ‘Buddhist Revolution’ in the Axial Age, and the counterrevolution of the Brahmins.
Tibetan feudalism was a rather late stage of the radical Buddhist initiative in world history after Buddhism was destroyed in India, and in desperation the movement, as far as I can determine, used its power to take over Tibet as a refuge and to park its ‘celebrity’ bodhissatwas (who never appear in public) behind the charade of lamaism and ‘reincarnation’ tulkus or whatever. These desperation tactics need to be seen in their historical moment, if we could ever arrive at the facts.
Perhaps it was at this stage that some kind of degeneration took place as the Tibetan phenomenon generated a reactionary mentality in a premodern context.
To simply destroy this whole history without any commentary on its essential character as a Buddhist world is a tragedy that will return to haunt the left.