Early History
Evidence of human habitation dating between 12,000 and 11,000 years ago has been found in NW Tibet, and in S Tibet the Yarlung Zangbo valley was, over the centuries, the focus of ancient trade routes from India, China, and Central Asia. Tibet emerged from an obscure history to flourish in the 7th cent. a.d. as an independent kingdom with its capital at Lhasa. The Chinese first established relations with Tibet during the T'ang dynasty (618–906), and there were frequent wars of conquest. The Tibetan kingdom was associated with early Mahayana Buddhism, which the scholar and mystic Padmasambhava fashioned (8th cent.) into Tibetan Buddhism. Toward the end of the 12th cent. many Indian Buddhists, fleeing before the Muslim invasion, went to Tibet. In the 13th cent. Tibet fell under Mongol influence, which was to last until the 18th cent. In 1270, Kublai Khan, emperor of China, was converted to Buddhism by the abbot of the Sakya lamasery; the abbot returned to Tibet to found the Sakya dynasty (1270–1340) and to become the first lama to rule Tibet. In 1720, the Ch'ing dynasty replaced Mongol rule in Tibet. China thereafter claimed suzerainty, often merely nominal.
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