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Amdo (Tibetan: ཨ༌མདོ, Chinese transliteration: 安多, Pinyin: Ānduō) is one of the three traditional provinces of Tibet, the other two being Ü-Tsang and Kham; it is also the birth place of Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama. Amdo encompsses a large area from the Yellow River northeastward to Gansu province. While culturally and ethnically a Tibetan area, Amdo was separated from Ü-Tsang in the Mongol Yuan dynasty and has not been under the direct political control of the Dalai Lama in Lhasa, but rather has been administered by a series of local rulers, and, in recent centuries, has been administered as part of Qinghai (predominently), Gansu, and Sichuan.

Amdo was and is the home of many important Tibetan Buddhist monk (or lama) scholars who had a major influence on both politics and religious development of Tibet including the 14th Dalai Lama, the 10th Panchen Lama, and the great reformer Je Tsongkhapa. It was traditionally a place of great learning and scholarship and contains many great monasteries including Kumbum Jampa Ling (Chin. Ta'er Si) near Xining, Labrang Tashi Khyil south of Lanzhou, and the Kirti Monasteries of Ngaba and Tewo (Taktsang Lhamo).

There are many dialects of the Amdo language due to the geographical isolation of many tribal groups. The ethnically Tibetan inhabitants in Amdo call themselves Amdowa (a mdo pa), and not Böpa (bod pa), which is the Tibetan name for Central Tibetans.

The region of Amdo is distributed mainly among the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, with smaller parts in Gansu and Sichuan. While identically named, the sparsely-populated Amdo County in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) is not part of the Amdo cultural province. It was directly administered by the Dalai Lama from Lhasa and is today a part of the Changthang region administered by Nagqu in the northern part of the TAR.

History

Amdo was traditionally inhabited by the Qiang people. From the 3rd century AD, the area was controlled by the Tuyuhun Kingdom, a Xianbei people whose descendants have assimilated into the Mongol ethnic group. In 663, Tuyuhun was conquered by the Tibetan kingdom, and over the following centuries the local Qiang people became assimilated by Tibetans. Attempts by the Chinese Tang Dynasty to rescue Tuyuhun and later wrest control of the area failed finally after a defeat at the hands of the Tibetan army in 670.

The southern portion of what became Amdo (in modern-day Gansu and Sichuan) was controlled by the Tangut. After their defeat by Tibet, the Tangut dispersed, with some fleeing north, later founding the Western Xia empire in the modern-day provinces of Gansu, Shaanxi, and Ningxia. In Mongol and Manchu documents, the inhabitants of Amdo continued to be referred to as "Tangut" for many centuries afterwards.

The Tibetan-Qiang-Tangut confederation continued to expand to the north and east, sacking the Tang capital Chang'an in 673. Subsequently, the confederation controlled the Silk Road, forcing Tang trade routes into the Gobi, leading eventually to the collapse of the Tang empire. However, the Tibetan empire itself collapsed in the 9th century AD, and parts of the former empire became controlled by local administrations. Parts of Amdo came under the influence of the Western Xia, founded by the Tangut who broke from the Tibetan confederation. The Western Xia itself became a vassal of the Jurchen Jin Dynasty in the 12th century. Xining, today the capital of Qinghai, was etablished in 1103 as a prefecture by the Song Dynasty.

The Mongol Empire took over Tibet in the 12th century, and conquered eastern Amdo in 1227., before making both Tibet and China subject nations of the Mongol Empire While some historians see this incorporation as the legal incorporation of Tibet, including Amdo, into the Chinese state from the Yuan Dynasty onwards, the Tibetan Government in Exile see the relationship between Tibetan religious leaders and Mongol Khans as a "patron-priest" relationship, whereby Tibetan religious leaders exchanged political control for religious submission.

Under the Mongol Yuan Dynasty of Kublai Khan, Amdo and Kham were split into two commandaries, which, along with Ü-Tsang, were collectively referred to as the three commandaries of Tibet. Eastern Amdo was placed under the administration of Gansu province in 1281. The following Ming Dynasty nominally largely maintained the Mongol divisions with some sub-division. However, from the middle of the Ming era, the Chinese government lost control in Tibet, and the Mongols again seized political control, and it was also in this period that Tibet Buddhism won spiritual domination in Mongolia, which continues to this day. Power struggles among various Mongol factions in Tibet led to a period alternating between the supremacy of the Dalai Lama (nominally) and Mongol overlords. In 1705, with the approval of the Kangxi Emperor of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, Lobzang Khan of the Khoshud deposed the regent and sent the 6th Dalai Lama to Beijing; the 6th Dalai Lama died soon after, probably near Qinghai Lake (Koko nur) in Amdo. The Dzungar Mongols invaded Tibet during the chaos, and held the entire region until their final defeat by the Qing imperial army in 1720. The Qing forces withdrew from Tibet proper, but not from Amdo, most of which became Kokonor, or Xining Prefecture, under Gansu province.

The Yongzheng Emperor seized full control of Tibet from 1726-1728. The boundaries of Xining Prefecture, which contains most of the old Amdo, with Sichuan and Tibet-proper was established following this. The boundary of Xining Prefecture and Xizang, or central Tibet, was the Dangla Mountains. This roughly corresponds with the modern boundary of Qinghai with the Tibet Autonomous Region. The boundary of Xining Prefecture with Sichuan was also set at this time, dividing the Ngaba area of the former Amdo into Sichuan. This boundary also roughly corresponds with the modern boundary of Qinghai with Sichuan. Other parts of old Amdo was administered by the Administrator of Qinghai. Kokonor Mongols from northern Xinjiang moved into Qinghai in this period.

In all these predominently culturally Tibetan areas, the Qing Empire used a system of administration relying on local, Tibetan, rulers. A 1977 University of Chicago PhD. thesis, described the political history of the Tibetan region in Gansu (which region was part of the old Amdo) during the Qing dynasty as follows:

In the time of the Manchu dynasty, the entire region was administered by a viceroy of the Imperial Government. That portion of the country occupied by Chinese Moslems and some other, smaller, racial units was under traditional Chinese law. The Tibetans enjoyed almost complete independence and varying degrees of prestige. The Chone Prince ruled over the forty-eight "banners" of one group of Tibetans; other Tibetan rulers or chiefs held grants or commissions- some of them hundreds of years old- from the Imperial Government. At that time the ethnic frontier corresponded almost exactly with the administrative frontier.

Proposals to establish Qinghai as a province were first raised in 1907, but lapsed when the imperial government fell to a revolution in 1912. After the collapse of the Qing empire, Yuan Shikai, President of the Republic of China, appointed Ma Qi as garrison commander in Xining in 1912. In 1915, the governor of Xining prefecture was removed and replaced by Ma Qi. In 1925, the National Army under Feng Yuxiang took over Gansu. In the same year, Ma Qi's troops were incorporated into the National Army. In 1928, after its victory in the Northern Expedition, the Kuomintang-controlled government established Qinghai as a province of the Republic of China, which encompassed most of the old Amdo.. Ma Qi and his family Ma Lin, and the more famous Ma Bufang, who though nominally served as governors for the Republican government and commanders of National Revolutionary Army units, in truth ruled as autonomous warlords. During this period, Ma Bufang's troops put down several rebellions by local Tibetans, Kazakhs, and Communists. In May 1949, Ma Bufang was appointed Military Governor of Northwest China, making him the highest-ranked administrator of the Amdo region. However, by August 1949, the advancing People's Liberation Army had annihilated Ma's army, though residual forces took several years to defeat. The Communist Party of China took full control in the region in 1952.

Present demographics

Today, ethnic Tibetans predominate in the western and suthern parts of the old Amdo, which are now administered as various Tibetan, Tibetan-Qiang, or Mongol-Tibetan autonomous prefectures. The Han Chinese are a majority in the eastern part of Qinghai and the provincial capital Xining. While geographically small compared to the rest of Amdo, this area has the largest population density, with the result that the Han Chinese outnumber other ethnicities in Qinghai generally. The northern part of Qinghai has a Mongol majority. For details on the demographics of various Tibetan entities in Amdo and Tibet generally, see Tibet - Major ethnic groups in Greater Tibet by region, 2000 census.

References & Notes

1. 史海钩沉：羌人是青海最早的土著居民 (The Qiang were the earliest indigenous inhabitants of Qinghai), Xinhua Net, 2006-03-23
2. Li, Shifa. (2004) 青海史话 (History of Qinghai). China Wenlian Press. ISBN: 7-5059-2905-4
3. ^ Qinghai provincial government, 历史沿革----青海史志 (History of changes: chronicles of Qinghai), Qinghai Economic Information
4. Petech, L. Central Tibet and The Mongols. (Serie Orientale Roma 65). Rome: Instituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente 1990: 6. Shakabpa, 61.
5. Shirokauer, Conrad. A Brief History of Chinese Civilization Thompson Higher Education, (c) 2006. ISBN 0-534-64305-1, 174.
6. The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama, by Thomas Laird, Grove Press, 2006, ISBN 0802118275 at 105
7. The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama, by Thomas Laird, Grove Press, 2006, ISBN 0802118275 at 108
8. The Three Dharma Kings of Tibet
9. Petech, L. Central Tibet and The Mongols. (Serie Orientale Roma 65). Rome: Instituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente 1990: 85-143
10. Richardson, Hugh E. (1984). Tibet and its History. Second Edition, Revised and Updated, pp. 48-9. Shambhala. Boston & London. ISBN 0-87773-376-7 (pbk)
11. Schirokauer, 242
12. "A-mdo". (2006). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved December 7, 2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online
13. 民国时期的青海 (Qinghai during the Republican period)
14. 青海解放：1950年1月1日青海省人民政府正式成立中央任命赵寿山为主席 (Liberation of Qinghai: January 1, 1950: Qinghai Provincial People's Government established. Central government appoints Zhao Shoushan as Governor)

• Andreas Gruschke: The Cultural Monuments of Tibet’s Outer Provinces: Amdo, 2 Bände, White Lotus Press, Bangkok 2001 ISBN 974-7534-59-2
• Toni Huber (Hg.): Amdo Tibetans in Transition: Society and Culture in the Post-Mao Era (Brill's Tibetan Studies Library, Proceedings of the Ninth Seminar of the Iats, 2000) ISBN 90-04-12596-5
• Paul Kocot Nietupski: Labrang: A Tibetan Buddhist Monastery at the Crossroads of Four Civilizations ISBN 1-55939-090-5

http://www.case.edu/affil/tibet/booksAndPapers/EKVALL.htm

External links

• The East Tibet Website
• The Huge Thangka of Amdo
• The Skor lam and the Long March: Notes on the Transformation of Tibetan Ritual Territory in Southern A mdo in the Context of Chinese Developments

http://www.case.edu/affil/tibet/booksAndPapers/EKVALL.htm

• Tibet