Tibet

Of unclear origin, but probably from Old Turkic 𐱅𐰇𐰯𐰇𐱅 (Töpüt) ('hilly, mountainous place') via Classical Persian تبت (tabbat, tubbat). In one proposed etymology the ultimate origin is Tibetan བོད (Bod), used in the compound name sTod-bod (pronounced Tö-pöt), meaning “Upper Tibet”. In another proposal, the name comes via Mongolian Töpüt from an alteration of Old Turkic 𐱅𐰇𐰯𐰇 (töpü, “height, summit”). Bialek instead derives the name from Old Tibetan དཔོན (dpon, “leader, ruler”), with addition of the Old Turkic plural suffix -𐱅 (-t²) and a epenthetic vowel to break up the non-Turkic initial consonant cluster [tp]; according to her, Middle Chinese 吐蕃 (tʰuo^X pʉɐn) comes from the same source.

شِيزَانْغ

shorthand for the Tibet Autonomous Region

Tibet Autonomous Region
Tibet Autonomous Region#English

An autonomous region of China. Official name: Tibet Autonomous Region. Capital: Lhasa.


Yangtze

An irregular romanization of the Mandarin pronunciation of Chinese 揚子 /扬子 (Yángzǐ) and 揚子江 /扬子江 (Yángzǐ Jiāng), a former name for the lower stretches of the Yangtze derived from 揚子津 (Yángzǐjīn)(zh-wikipedia), a former ferry crossing near Yangzhou, applied by foreign visitors to the entire length of the river. The folk etymology that it means "Son of the Ocean" derives from the homophonic misnomer 洋子江 which was apparently given to Matteo Ricci, whose posthumously published journals popularized the river in Europe as Latin Iansu and Iansuchian.

That Riuer of Nanquin which I called (Yamſu or) Ianſu, the ſonne of the Sea, goeth Northward to Nanquin, and then returning ſomewhat Southward, runneth into the Sea with great force; fortie myles from which it paſſeth by Nanquin. And that from hence to Pequin there might bee paſſage by Riuers, the Kings of China haue deriued a large Channell from this to another Riuer, called the Yellow Riuer, ſuch being the colour of that troubled water. This is the other famous Riuer of that Kingdome, in greatneſſe and note, which ariſesth without the Kingdome to the Weſt, out of the Hill Cunlun, conjectured to bee the ſame whence Ganges ariſeth, or one neere to it.

1625, Samuel Purchas, Pvrchas His Pilgrimes, volume III, London, →OCLC, page 340:

You will perceive that the British and French commissioners ascend the Yangtze at pleasure, and have the steamers of their respective countries at their disposal. I was compelled, for the want of other conveyance, to come hither in a little British steamer which plies between Shanghai and Hong Kong.

1853 December 8, Humphrey Marshall, Documents Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States with Other Countries, number 37, Macao: A.O.P. Nicholson, published 1854, →OCLC, pages 323–324:

The Bishop of Shanghai desires that the bounds of his jurisdiction shall be more clearly expressed, and that therefore his title shall hereafter be, "The Bishop of Shanghai, having jurisdiction in the lower valley of Yangtze." The jurisdiction will be sufficiently large. The Yangtze River is three thousand miles in length, and the population on its borders numbers one hundred millions. As there are already three Bishops of the Church of England, with a large Missionary force of English Clergy, in that empire, Bishop Boone desires that his jurisdiction be limited to the population on the lower Yangtze, a line of eight hundred miles.

1887 [1886 October 19], G. T. Bedell, Thomas H. Vail, B. W. Morris, Geo. F. Seymour, Wm. J. Boone, “Fourteenth Day's Proceedings”, in Journal of the Proceedings of the Bishops, Clergy, and Laity of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, Chicago, page 99:

It is not till the Yangtze reaches Sha-shih that its character completely changes. The first note of change is a great embankment, thirty feet high, which protects the region from inundation. Below Sha-shih the vast river becomes mixed up with a network of lakes and rivers, connected by canals, the area of the important Tungting Lake being over 2000 square miles.

1900, Isabella L. Bird, The Yangtze Valley and Beyond, volume 1, pages 9-10:

Of the northernmost one of these folds, the writer has some faint recollection of seeing the folded strata. They form the hills to the west of Han-yung and the central ridge across the city of Wu-chang and extends further east; the west-easterly course of the Yang-tze below Yang-lo (lat. 30° 30' N.) is in all probability determined by this E-W fold.

1918, J.S. Lee, The Geology of China, University of Birmingham, →OCLC, page 320:

Aside from the Turfan depression in Hsin-chiang (Sinkiang) province, the hottest part of China lies in the middle and lower Yangtze Valley. Maximum temperatures of 43°-44°C (110°-112°F) have been recorded in Ch'ang-sha and Nan-ching.

1969, Yi-Fu Tuan, China, Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, page 22:

Early in the summer of 1127 the emperor was located near the city of Nan-ching just south of the Yangtze River.

1974, John H. Winkelman, The Imperial Library in Southern Sung China, 1127-1279 : A Study of the Organization and Operation of the Scholarly Agencies of the Central Government, page 12:

The Chinese Communists destroyed natural resources by widening the Yangtze River, and brought natural disasters to the mainland, including the worst floods in Szechwan province and other areas.

1982 January 3, “News Stories of Year on Peiping Selected”, in Free China Weekly, volume XXIII, number 1, Taipei, page 3:

The rains swelled the Yangtze River, raising record water levels on July 19 at the Three Gorges Dam, upriver from the city of Wuhan.

2020 August 10, “Worst Rains in Decades Cause China Flooding”, in Time, volume 196, numbers 5-6, page 10:

The building, on the outskirts of Ezhou, a city on the southern bank of the Yangtze River, is hailed as the world’s biggest free-standing pig farm, with a second, identical hog high-rise opening soon.

2023 February 8, Daisuke Wakabayashi, Claire Fu, “China’s Bid to Improve Food Production? Giant Towers of Pigs.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-02-08:

The chief river of central China and the third longest river in the world, flowing a total of 6300 km.


srang

The monetary unit of Tibet from 1909 to 1959.


lamaism

Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism#English

(dated, potentially offensive) Synonym of Tibetan Buddhism.


Vajrayana

Borrowed from Sanskrit वज्रयान (vajrayāna, literally “Diamond/Thunderbolt Vehicle”), in reference to the supposed power, clarity, and difficulty of its methods for attaining Buddhahood.


Tibetan Buddhism

The body of Buddhist religious doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet, Mongolia, Tuva, Bhutan, Kalmykia, Buryatia and certain regions of the Himalayas, including northern Nepal, and India.

ဝဇိရယာန

body of Buddhist religious doctrine characteristic of Tibet and surrounding areas


Tibetology

The study of Tibet and its history and culture.

藏學 /藏学

the study of Tibet and its history and culture


snow lion

A Tibetan national emblem and religious and cultural icon, depicted as a white lion with green manes and a green tail.


myriarchy

/ˈmɪɹiˌɑɹki/

From myriarch + -y, after the pattern of heptarchy etc.; see myriarch for more. As a military unit, Calque of Mongolian түмэн (tümen).

(obsolete, rare) A government of 10,000 people.

(military) A regiment of 10,000 soldiers, especially (historical) a Mongolian toman.

(historical) An area controlled by a Mongolian myriarch and theoretically comprising 10,000 households.


Kham

In the summer of 1956, Chinese troops bombed a large monastery in the eastern Kham region. The Chinese had begun to destroy the religious and cultural artifacts of Tibet.

1996, Whitney Stewart, “The Chinese Takeover”, in The 14th Dalai Lama: Spiritual Leader of Tibet, Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 86:

The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader told the French newspaper Le Monde that the army opened fire during a protest in the eastern Tibetan region of Kham on Monday.[…]
“We know about disturbances in the Kham region. But we do not have any details or figures about injuries or deaths,” said the aide, Chhime Chhoekyapa, in the northern town of Dharamsala.[…]
“The military presence in Tibet is old, but the frenzy of new construction in the Amdo and Kham regions makes me say that this colonisation by the army is designed to last,” he said.

2008 August 21, “China to crack down on use of leanness enhancers in cattle and sheep”, in Reuters, archived from the original on 2022-05-17, Top News:

For Samdhong Rinpoche, this tour around the world is also his last trip as PM, now that his term is over and cannot be extended. He has decided to take his future after March 20 as it comes. If he could do what he wanted, he would go back to his home monastery in Kham, where he has not returned since 1959 and where he used to sit under the trees and meditate as a young man. He said, "they are wonderful and they are still standing."

2011 February 23, Adrienne Woltersdorf (sb), “Tibetans searching for a future beyond the Dalai Lama”, in Thomas Baerthlein, editor, Deutsche Welle, archived from the original on 2021-05-25, Asia:

Tibet Autonomous Region
Tibet Autonomous Region

One of the three traditional regions of Tibet covering a land area largely divided between eastern parts of the Tibet Autonomous Region, western parts of Sichuan, and smaller parts of Qinghai and Yunnan.


Ü-Tsang

Borrowed from Tibetan དབུས་གཙང (dbus gtsang).

The Northern Plain (U-Tsang)
The Northern Plain is the largest region of the country. This vast area called the Changthang, covers a large portion of the country. To the extreme north is a cold, desolate desert quarter neighboring on the Chinese-Turkestan border that is mostly uninhabited. The western part of this region, which borders on Ladakh, supports a small number of nomads who live off the scant vegetation. In the 1950s, U-Tsang was sectioned off by the Chinese and named the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) (See photo, pg. 37).

1998, Robert Z. Apte, Andrés R. Edwards, “The Geography of the Land of Snows”, in Tibet: Enduring Spirit, Exploited Land, 1st edition, Heartsfire Books, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 20:

The government-in-exile calls Tibet “Cholka-sum”, meaning “The Three Provinces”. These historic areas are U-Tsang, which roughly corresponds to the TAR, Amdo centred around Qinghai Province, and Kham centred around Sichuan in China’s southwest.

[2008 March 21, “Who are the Tibetans, what is Tibet?”, in Reuters, archived from the original on 2022-06-27, Global Coverage 2:

The Tibetan plateau — the geographic and cultural region associated with Tibet — has traditionally been divided into four historical regions. Three are almost entirely in China: Amdo in the north, now associated mostly with Qinghai and Gansu provinces in China, Kham in the east, split between Sichuan province and TAR, and Ü-Tsang, or central Tibet, the region is generally identified with the idea of Tibet, both culturally and administratively, although parts of Ü-Tsang extend to northern Nepal and the Indian states of Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.

2020 July 11, Akhilesh Pillalamarri, “History of Tibet-Ladakh Relations and Their Modern Implications”, in The Diplomat, archived from the original on 2020-07-13:

One of the three traditional regions of Tibet covering a land area largely corresponding to most of the Tibet Autonomous Region.


Amdo

安多

one of the three traditional regions of Tibet

One account of a religious movement organized around spirit-possession and magical practices with millenarian overtones comes from official Chinese sources. A report was distributed among Party officials in 1982 documenting the suppression of the "Heroes of Ling" (gling gi dpa' brtul) movement in Amdo county, a nomadic area 300 km. north of Lhasa.

1994, Ronald D. Schwartz, “Conclusion: The Dimensions of Tibetan Nationalism”, in Circle of Protest: Political Ritual in the Tibetan Uprising, New York: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 227:

A county of Nagqu, Tibet Autonomous Region, China.

安多

county in Tibet Autonomous Region, China


Kunlun

Kunlun
Kunlun (mythology)#Name
Wikipedia
Zhengzhang Shangfang

From the Mandarin 崑崙 /昆仑 (Kūnlún) and 崑崙山／昆仑山 (Kūnlún Shān), with the character 山 (shān) being an ambiguous reference to any raised place, inclusive of islands, hills, mountains, and mountain ranges. The characters 崑崙 /昆仑 (Kūnlún) are phono-semantic compounds adding 山 (shān) as a semantic component (形旁 (xíngpáng)) to the characters 昆 (kūn) and 侖／仑 (lún), which were presumably also homophones for Kunlun in Old Chinese—Zhengzhang's reconstructed pronunciation being /*kuːn.run/—but leaving its further development or original meaning uncertain. See also the Name section of the Wikipedia entry on the mythological Kunlun.

zh-l

崑崙山／昆仑山 (Kūnlún Shān)

崑崙 /昆仑

Mythological Chinese mountain or mountain range

That Riuer of Nanquin which I called (Yamſu or) Ianſu, the ſonne of the Sea, goeth Northward to Nanquin, and then returning ſomewhat Southward, runneth into the Sea with great force ; fortie myles from which it paſſeth by Nanquin. And that from hence to Pequin there might bee paſſage by Riuers, the Kings of China haue deriued a large Channell from this to another Riuer, called the Yellow Riuer, ſuch being the colour of that troubled water. This is the other famous Riuer of that Kingdome, in greatneſſe and note, which ariſesth without the Kingdome to the Weſt, out of the Hill Cunlun, conjectured * to bee the ſame whence Ganges ariſeth, or one neere to it.

[1625, Samuel Purchas, Pvrchas His Pilgrimes, volume III, London, →OCLC, page 340:

Crossing the Altyn Tagh had proved hard enough, but no sooner had the travellers left those mountains behind and crossed the border into Tibet than they had plunged into the recesses of the Kunlun Mountains.

1822, C. Bernard Rutley, “Zong”, in The Forbidden Land, Blackie & Son, →OCLC, page 90:

Between the Himalaya and the Kunlun to the north lies the very high plateau of Tibet, which is traversed by a number of smaller mountain chains.

1944, Bernhard Haurwitz, James M. Austin, “Asia (Including Russia)”, in Climatology, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., →OCLC, page 269:

Brodie lent only half an ear. He was eying the wall map, comparing it with what he had seen from the chopper. He picked out the three nearest towns—Yarkand, Karghalik, and Kokyar—running north to south. Everything inside a huge semicircle bounded on the west by the Yarkand River and the southeast by the Kunlun Mountains was shaded. That must be the barbed-wire zone guarded by the army.

1978, Hugh McLeave, A Borderline Case, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 148:

I joined an AMICAL expedition to the previous unclimbed 7129-meter-high Kokodak Dome, also known as Kokodak II. The peak is part of the Kongur Range in the Kunlun mountains in the region Xinjiang.

2014 August 30, “First ascent of Kokodak Dome”, in Deutsche Welle, archived from the original on 2022-08-09:

Observing Lake Yaniugol, rising high in the steppe, he writes: “It settled like a sacred host of jade upon the sand. It appeared to us at twilight, in the hollow of a ledge, flanked to the north by the sharp incisors of the Kunlun peaks soaring to 6,000 meters, and to the south by the Changtang. Behind this shimmering disk, the secret plateau.”

2021 December 3, Liesl Schillinger, quoting Sylvain Tesson, “Books That Satisfy Your Yearning for Far-Off Places”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2021-12-03, Travel:

A mountain range in China forming the border between the Tarim Basin to its north and the Tibetan Plateau to its south, extending across the Chinese provinces of Xinjiang, Tibet, and Qinghai.


Five Poisons

(politics) Five groups regarded by the Communist Party of China as threats to their rule: Uyghur and Tibetan supporters of respective independence movements, Falun Gong adherents, and supporters of Chinese democracy and the independence of Taiwan.


Kashag

Borrowed from Tibetan བཀའ་ཤག (bka' shag).

bor+

(historical) The governing council of Tibet from 1721 to 1959.


Gyallu

Borrowed from Tibetan རྒྱལ་གླུ། (rgyal glu, literally “Victorious Anthem”).

China’s state-controlled television and radio in Tibet is surprising visitors to a newly launched website with a music video of the banned Tibetan national anthem. The song, called ‘Gyalu’^([sic]) in Tibetan, is sung by exile Tibetans across the world but has been banned in Tibet for more than 50 years.

2013 November 6, VOA News, “Oops: China State Media Website Plays Banned Tibetan National Anthem”, in Voice of America, archived from the original on 2024-04-20:

The second Tibetan national anthem was composed in 1950 by Trijan Rinpoche. This anthem is known as ‘Gyallu’ and is strictly banned by the Chinese, especially in the Tibet Autonomous Region. The anthem sung that night was Gyallu.

2021 December 1, Kalman Dubov, His Holiness, The Dalai Lama: My time with the Tibetan community, Los Angeles, California, June 2001, page 53:

A Tibetan patriotic song which serves as the de facto national anthem of the Tibetan government-in-exile.