Armchair Academics is an independent educational video production company that specializes in making entertaining, informational video essays and mini-documentaries on social scientific topics. Our content is published on and made freely available through KZread, as well as the channel’s official website. Armchair Academics exists to provide general audiences - and potential or current undergraduate students in the social sciences - with easy-to-understand, entertaining videos that demonstrate how social scientists approach and answer essential questions regarding culture, religion, and society.
Become a subscriber and help us promote social scientific literacy!
The host, Alexander K. Smith, holds a PhD in the anthropology of Tibet and the Himalayas from the University of Paris (EPHE - PSL) and a Master's in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies from the University of Oxford.
Пікірлер
Alex: this is a great series! Very informative and the maps really help to explain the geographic power struggles. Compliments to your whole creative team (and its fun to hear your voice-overs again!) I have passed this on to my Buddhist friends.
Fact: Tibet was never a part of china, china invaded them in 1950! Tibet was only occupied twice by mongol & manchu, neither race r consider chinese.
This is great, thank you for doing such a wonderful job and researching.
Glad you enjoyed it!
where's the serfdom?
Wow, this is an amazing contextual example - thank you so much!! If possible can you do a video on how to write a "thick description" and ethnographic research paper?
thank you very much..... wish you could make videos on all four sect in tibetan Buddhism ....nyima ,khagu, sakya and ghaluk....
Hey there! Thanks so much. We'll be discussing the Kagyu and Sakya in a bit of depth next episode and then focusing on the Geluk in episode five, but we don't have the time to go into the depth that each sect deserves in this particular series. But I 100% plan on making a video in the future that focuses specifically on the origins, founders, and early history of each of the major sects (including Bon).
The great gods of Bonn
Great content!
I am ex muslim now buddhist❤
Om Namo Buddha ❤🙏❤🙏❤🙏
Waiting for moree. Cant Thank you enough ❤❤❤
Isn't Baltistan -pakistan ones part of Tibet before arrival of Islam?
It was indeed! We actually cover that time period in episode two. In short, though, during the mid-to-late 8th century, the Tibetan Empire expanded as far West as Samarkand, going so far as to *briefly install a Tibetan governor in the city before they were pushed back to the Wakan Corridor by the armies of the Abbasid Caliphate. The historian Christopher Beckwith, who uses both Tibetan and Arabic-language sources, is probably still the best resource for learning about the Tibetan-Abbasid campaigns of the 8th century. I'd recommend his "The Tibetan Empire in Central Asia" as an entry-point (although it's a pretty dense read). If you're interested, you'll find a wealth of primary source material there that discusses the brief Tibetan occupation of a number of cities across modern-day (North) Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Eastern Kazakhstan. Thanks for watching!
Hello, I am an Tibetan American living in the US. I’ve always been surrounded by Buddhism from my parents to my relatives and always wondered what tibet would be like rn if we weren’t so obsessed with religion. Don’t get me wrong, I think Buddhism is great but it collides with the ideas of war and expansion and obviously values peace over violence. However, this in my opinion is why Tibet is in the state its in today, if we had held the beliefs of Ancient China and continued to trade and expand rather than settle for peace I believe Tibet would be a major power house today. I’m sometimes ashamed Tibet is not on most major world maps and is thought of a region in China. I love history, especially war and expansion, there is a side of me that wishes we had done more back then, at the same time I am proud to be Tibetan and carry as much peace around me as I can.
I suggest you read Tibetan history books of differing perspectives. From western scholars to ordinary Tibetans. You will learn that it is the power mongers who created this downfall of our country. Not religion. Religion and religious figures like even the Dalai Lama have been used for centuries to push the narrative and power of a few families. And these people sided with both Chinese and the English. Whoever benefited them personally the most.
Same feeling here, man. 💯
Why was my response deleted by admin?????
Thank you very much !❤🙏
Excellent. Thank you
I was just wondering why is Nepal not marked in this Map ???
Hey there! Tldr... that was an oversight that a lot of people commented on in the first two episodes, which led to us changing the formatting of the maps in episode three, as well as for the rest of the series. Our original map of Asia only included the names of the locations in which we would spend the majority of our time in episodes 1-3 . This was admittedly quite shortsighted on my part (I'm Alex, by the way). It meant that the names of ancient empires wouldn't appear (which is not ideal) and resulted in some blow-back from audiences who were disappointed about the names of several Himalayan and Southeast Asian nations not appearing on our maps (particularly Nepal and Bhutan). At the moment, our approach to mapping Asia is significantly different (and, I think, much better). We tend to mark the location of the Tibetan Plateau as a reference for audiences and then, rather than using the names of modern nations, we limit the text that appears on our maps to the names of the kingdoms, petty states, or empires that we're discussing in the episode in question. That's a much better way to communicate the complexities of the political world of Asia across different time periods, and it also avoids the issue of representing (or failing to represent) modern nation states. In any case, thanks for asking! Very glad you're enjoying the series so far and I'd be happy to hear your thoughts on how we've adjust our maps in future episodes.
👍👍Wonderful job!! Deeply Appreciated!! Thanks!!🙏🏻🙏🏻❤️
🙏🏻🙏🏻❤️❤️
This series is so great! What is the music at 11:05?
Hey! Thanks so much. And thanks for commenting on the music! It's something I put a lot of time into. The track at 11:05 is a combination of several samples that we licensed from Splice and mixed together with a little Midi keyboard. There's a longer version of the same track at the end of ep3 part 1 (The Fall of the Tibetan Empire).
What a fantastic series. I have a question: when you get to the point of the downfall of Tibet, do you plan on discussing the corruption of the aristocrats and lamas, and the serfdom of common Tibetan people? Michael Parenti wrote a great article called, "Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth" which does a really good job at debunking a lot of the myth that pre-Communist Tibet was this Shangri-la of Buddhism. Torture, enslavement of serfs, and children being forced into monasticism (or as consorts to lords if they were pretty girls), was pretty common. I'm a Vajrayana Buddhist myself, but I do think it's important to present all aspects of Tibetan society. The Chinese invasion did plenty of awful things, but I do think it's important to not just tell the story purely from the perspective of the aristocracy class.
Who is Michael Parenti ? Is he a Tibetologists or a hack ? There was no serfedom In tibet ... TIbet was more than 80 percent nomadic ... how can there be serfes
@@superbhandle You can search his name easily. He is "an American political scientist, academic historian and cultural critic who writes on scholarly and popular subjects" and if you search that article in question, all the sources are listed below the article.
@@sarakajira I have read his backgroud ... there is nothing about being a Tibetologist or have been to tibet and or speaking TIbetan ? He is a discredited hack and his sources are very very problematic
@superbhandle there are CCP bots. They'll never accept truth 😢😢
@@superbhandle he is a journalist. And one does not need to be a Tibetanologist to research and write about Tibetan history, anymore than one needs to be an "Americanologist" to write about American history. Do you have some sources that show he's a "discredited hack" or are you just claiming that? I'd highly suggest reading the article in question. It's fine if you don't agree with things in the article but it is very well-sourced and cited from a wide variety of sources. Calling such a thing a "hack" seems pretty disingenuous. And look, I'm an ordained Tibetan Buddhist myself. I am fully on board with many aspects of Tibet. But every culture, including Tibetan culture has its issues. That's the case in every culture throughout history. To deny that seems a bit silly.
Beautifully made 😊
Thank you! Cheers!
how they easily forget Ladakh. once a powerful western tibet kingdom, territories of which included guge purang and ngari skor sum.
Ladakh in those days was known as Maryul. King Kyide Nyimagon who was a grandson of Tibetan king Lang Dharma established Purang and Maryul was part of Purang. After Nyimagon’s death, his kingdom was divided between his three sons and thus establishing three separate kingdoms: Maryul(Ladakh), Guge-Purang, and Zanskar.
Thank you very much for making such lovely videos about Tibetan history
Amazing content
May Tibetan Buddhism spreads far and wide, reach roots deep and solid, for the Benefits and Happiness of all!
☸☸☸
Please compile all of your videos related to Tibetan history into a single playlist. Thanks !
Just set it up! Can't believe that we hadn't done it yet. I very much appreciate the reminder.
Not an empire in the conventional sense but a Buddhist based hierarchical regime.
I love the animation!
Thank you very much for making such lovely videos about Tibetan history, these videos are so very valuable in an age where our culture is being subsumed and forgotten, your efforts are greatly appreciated ❤️
Thanks so much! That's really kind of you to say -- and it's much appreciated.
Tashi Delek Armchair academics. Thanks for this research and presentation. Yeshe Ö was indeed a great king and for us Tibetans, he’s an emanation of an enlightened being therefore his name is said with “Lha Lama” Yeshe ö ལྷ་བླ་མ་ཡེ་ཤེས་འོད།
Hello there! I hope you are all having a good time. I want to know something, I know this is not relating to the current era but i want to know it well, Will Gustaf Mannerheim be mentioned and shown in the Animated history of Tibet ep 8 or 7? I have heard that he had met the 13th Dalai lama at Wutai mountain while he was spying for Russia. He chatted with the Dalai lama for a while and Dalai lama explored the idea of Russia helping to free Tibet from Qing and there were mentions of Russian Buddhist meeting Tibetan buddhist. After talking with the 13th Dalai lama, Gustaf Mannerheim possibly gave and taught him how to use a pistol. The pistol that the 13th Dalai lama was given was called Browning Revolver. And is this incident true? That Gustaf Mannerheim Met the 13th Dalai lama and gave or taught him how to use a pistol? I would like to know about if this fact is true or false? I hope that i am annoying you all with these questions. I hope you all have a great day
Cool! Never heard of that!
Hey there! No worries at all. Off the top of my head I don't know if the Mannerheim story is corroborated by any first hand Tibetan accounts; but I've seen it mentioned in passing in relation to Gustaf Mannerheim's biography (Clements 2012). I'll ask a few of my old colleagues and get back to you on that one. It would be interesting to know if there are Tibetan-language accounts that mention the pistol incident.
Amazing video ❤
Thank you so much 😀
Yeey! I thought the last one was the end :) Thank you!
Great series!
Learn something new every video I watch.
Great
Thanks for watching! Feel free to ask questions about the time period covered in the episode (there's a wealth of history that we can't include in this format and we'd love to share). Also remember to check below in the pinned comment for corrections. Corrections: 2:04 I'd like to thank my former colleague Dr. Yannick Laurent for pointing out that, during the lifetime of Yeshe O, the capital of Guge was located in the nearby monastic fortress of Tholing (mTho lding) and not in Tsaparang proper. For more on Guge-Purang and kingship in Western Tibet, I can wholeheartedly recommend Yannick Laurent's recent "The Ancient Monastic Complexes of Tholing, Nyarma and Thabo: Buddhist Architecture in the Western Himalayas" or, if you're willing to parse the author's dense prose, then Roberto Vitali's works on Western Tibet are still classics and worth reading today. 2:43 I'm aware that there's a little (and quite frustrating) visual hiccup at the bottom of the frame. No idea what caused this, but it seems to have happened as part of the upload to YT. We'll try to get to the bottom of it to avoid that in the future. Thanks!
Tibet never had an empire. It was a serf - landlord and monasterial society spread out over a large area. There was never a centralised state organised in this so called “empire”.
Since when Sichuan and Hunan became Tibetan?
So fascinating history, I wondered why we never heard about such important and powerful faction of human history
Keep up the great work! I like your videos :) 👍
The Tang must have really underestimated the Tibetans for them to move their capital directly onto the border with them lmao
Keep going bro, we need more. Thank you so much
What was the religion that the rebellious factions preferred to Buddhism?
Hey there! That's a great question. Thanks for posting... Later Tibetan chroniclers make the case (which tends to be supported by modern Western historians) that Langdarma's clan allies advocated the Bon religion over Buddhism, which may well be true. As it is used today, however, that argument is deceptively simple and creates a false equivalency between the contemporary Bon religion (e.g. Yungdrung Bon) and the Bon ritual traditions of the imperial period. The former emerged during the Renaissance in the 10th and 11th centuries as a clerical movement with its monastic seat in Central Tibet, which created a synthesis of indigenous imperial-era beliefs and Renaissance-era philosophical innovations. Regarding the later, we actually know very little about imperial-era Bon, aside from the fact that there were numerous funerary specialists that referred to themselves as 'Bon gShen'. The historical record strongly suggests that there was no centralized monastic tradition that described itself or could be described as 'Bon' during the Tibetan Empire. As such, it's more accurate to say that Langdarma's clannish allies favored what you might call the eclectic, pre-Buddhist indigenous religious traditions of Tibet (which, again, should not be confused with the Yungdrung Bon religion of today) and probably saw the emergence of Buddhism as a foreign religious export that was eroding what they believed to be the ancient traditions of the countryside. Hope that helps! My response is a bit of a simplification and the question of Imperial-era Bon is actually a highly political one that strikes a nerve with some Buddhist (and Bon) practitioners. If you're interested in learning more, however, I highly recommend Samten Karmay's "The Arrow and the Spindle" (ch. 8-9), as well as Per Kvaerne's work on Bon. You could also check out my own book on Bon ritual and history, titled "Divination in Exile" (2020), which has a handy chapter on Bon history and historiography... Although my book was so obscenely over-priced by the publisher that I would recommend you sail the high seas to find a 'more affordable' digital copy (though I would never officially condone such a thing, of course!). Have a good one!
@@ArmchairAcademics Thank you for your prompt reply. I had recently watched a different video about Manicheism which had spread along the Silk Road, and thought maybe that was in the area as well. Always trying to find connections between things. Bon is totally new to me, I will look into the best I can, always interested in learning about new religions.
^^ Regarding Manicheism specifically, many of the historians that have worked on Yungdrung Bon have noted that the it's cosmology and early mythology share themes with Manicheism, Zoroastrianism, and Nestorian Christianity (Charles Ramble, for example, makes that argument in much of his work on Bon, as does Samten Karmay, who is actually a former Bon monk himself). As such, it is likely that Manicheism was actually present (in some limited capacity) in Western Tibet during the pre-Buddhist period. This is most likely due to trade with Persia and other Western regions along the Silk Roads, as you noted above. The Tibetan-language records from that time, though, are so sparse (and the later Buddhist conversion was so systemic) that it's impossible to say how extensive that influence might have been. Thanks again for the great question!
@@ArmchairAcademics Watched a few videos discussing Tonpa Shenrab, but it seemed to be mostly from the perspective of the art than the theology. Will dig further. Thanks for the update, Manicheism is pretty interesting.
Your pronunciation of the names is pretty good! Good job it really shows you did the research really appreciate it!
The clothes of the characters in these animated pictures are all ancient Chinese.
The clothes of the characters in these animated pictures are all ancient Chinese.
大波特将回乎。
I LOVE this series!!
Imagine allowing delusional cultists("religious" people) to rule your nation. Looking at you Iran... People need to be educated. Delusions/lies/cults("religions") are only needed by the poorly educated.