In the early decades of the Ming Dynasty, on what is now a vegetable patch on the western hill of the Songpan county seat, the Monastery of Great Compassion became the home of a Han Chinese Chan Buddhist monk appointed by the state to oversee local Bon and Tibetan Buddhist monasteries. This religious intermediary was expected to convert northern Sichuan's Tibetans into obedient subjects of the Ming state. Even with his temporary success, aided by the established military garrison and the enrollment of local leaders in the state's tusi system, the ability of the Ming to bring the region under its control was fleeting at best. By the mid-Qing Dynasty this indirect state rule would collapse, and the region known in Tibetan as the Shar khog would return to autonomous rule by local tsowa (Ch. buluo).
展开▼
