Legal Ideology in Tibet: Politics, Practice, and Religion

法律与宗教的关系是历史法学的伟大主题之一，但西藏神权统治的法律领域几乎没有从社会历史的角度加以考虑。它也没有被拿来与伊斯兰、印度、基督教和中国法律传统的学术进行比较。这个项目正在追踪西藏法律思想在其形成时期之一出现的不同线索。这些都是在其社会背景下考虑的，并与历史法学中更广泛的主题进行了比较分析。西藏的神权国家建立在17世纪宗教与政治和谐的基础上。早在一千年前引入的佛教，为藏族作家发展政治和法律意识形态提供了思想和概念。宗教法律的理想出现在历史叙述和为达赖喇嘛后来的政府创建的法典中；从理论上讲，法律思想既使政治权力合法化，也使“犯罪”和惩罚的管理合法化。然而，法律思想仍然没有系统，在很大程度上与实践相去甚远，从印度引进的各种想法和文本以及刑罚实践的要求和佛教伦理之间的紧张关系使法律思想变得复杂。虽然已经对个别文本进行了详细的学术研究，特别是从后来的时期开始，但还没有成功地尝试绘制出西藏法律思想的更广泛的线索。这个项目的成员正在研究从11世纪到17世纪西藏法律思想发展的形成时期的文本、思想和意识形态。他们正在追踪法律思维的不同来源和线索，探索它们之间的紧张关系，并试图调和宗教、伦理和法理理想。这种方法是社会历史的，涉及对文本来源的密切审查，但在其社会和政治背景下考虑法律、伦理和宗教思想。他们正在调查在蒙古族长期统治期间对藏族作家的限制和目标，以及这些法律思想对随后的政府和行政文本的影响，最终建立了达赖喇嘛领导下的西藏神权政府。社会历史学和人类学的见解正被运用到一个以文本学术为主导的领域，目的是发展对西藏法律思想的新视角。该项目的成员正在与藏族学者、藏族法律文本方面的顶尖专家以及新兴的社会历史学家网络成员密切合作，以确保他们的结论和出版物最大限度地与藏族和法律学术的相关分支产生共鸣和影响。他们还与其他法律传统进行跨文化比较，以探索西藏法律领域和意识形态的独特之处，并为更广泛的法律主义和法律思想学术做出贡献。除了有关西藏法律传统的出版物外，该项目还将最终建立一个网络资源，其中将包括目前分散在不同档案馆和藏品中的相关文件的副本、摘要、翻译和索引。英文和藏文摘要将为其他学者和藏族人本身了解他们的历史和法律传统提供宝贵的材料。

The relationship between law and religion is one of the great themes of historical legal scholarship, yet the legal realm of Tibet's theocracy has barely been considered from a socio-historic perspective. Nor has it been brought into comparison with scholarship on Islamic, Indic, Christian, and Chinese legal traditions. This project is tracing the different strands that emerged in Tibetan legal thought during one of its formative periods. These are being considered in their social contexts and analysed comparatively, in relation to broader themes in historical legal scholarship. Tibet's theocratic state was founded in the seventeenth century on the basis of harmony between religion and politics. Buddhism, introduced a millennium earlier, provided ideas and concepts with which Tibetan writers developed political and legal ideologies. An ideal of religious law emerged in historical narratives and in lawcodes created for the later government of the Dalai Lamas; legal ideas in theory legitimated both political power and the administration of 'crime' and punishment. Legal thought remained unsystematic, however, largely distant from practice, complicated by a multiplicity of ideas and texts introduced from India, and tensions between the demands of penal practice and Buddhist ethics. While detailed scholarship has been undertaken on individual texts, particularly from later periods, no successful attempt has yet been made to map out broader strands in Tibetan legal thinking. The members of this project are examining texts, ideas, and ideologies dating from a formative period in the development of Tibetan legal thought, the eleventh to the seventeenth centuries. They are tracing the different sources and strands of legal thinking, exploring tensions between them and attempts to reconcile religious, ethical, and jurisprudential ideals. The approach is socio-historical, involving close examination of textual sources, but considering legal, ethical, and religious ideas in their social and political contexts. They are investigating the constraints on, and goals of, Tibetan writers during a long period of Mongol domination, and the influence of these legal ideas on subsequent governmental and administrative texts, culminating in the establishment of Tibet's theocratic government under the Dalai Lamas. Socio-historical and anthropological insights are being brought to bear on a field dominated by textual scholarship, with the goal of developing new perspectives on Tibetan legal thought. The members of the project are working closely with Tibetan scholars, with leading experts on Tibetan legal texts, and with members of an emerging network of social historians to ensure that their conclusions and publications have maximum resonance with, and impact upon, related strands of Tibetan and legal scholarship. They are also undertaking cross-cultural comparison with other legal traditions, in order to explore what is distinctive about Tibet's legal realm and ideologies, and to contribute to wider scholarship on legalism and legal thought. As well as publications on Tibet's legal tradition, this project will culminate in the establishment of a web-based resource, which will incorporate copies, summaries, translations, and indexes of the relevant documents, currently scattered throughout different archives and collections. With summaries in both English and Tibetan, this will represent a collection of valuable material for other scholars and Tibetans, themselves, concerned to understand their history and legal traditions.