A “Concerto” for “Field Studies” and “History”

Guo Guanghui

Abstract:The book titled zangzu zongjiaoshi zhi shidi yanjiu(Field Studies on Tibetan Religious History) is a collected work written by Li Anzahi from the 1930s to the 1940s. The survey in Labrang made by him and his wife, Yu Shiyu, is “a beginning of our country餾 scientific field studies on Tibetan Buddhism ”, and it set a record for “the longest Chinese ethnological field work”.Their report on Labrang monastery is “the first comprehensivesurvey report on this famous Lama monastery”. When the book was published, it received a lot of praise from scholars. Generally speaking, Wang Furen stated that this book “is an important and significant work which filled in a blank in history”. He Beili stated that this book “is an outstanding work on Tibetology”, and “a classic anthropological work”. Meanwhile, some scholars understood this book from a disciplinary perspective. For instance, Chen Bo looked the work as “a text of symbolism”, and Zhang Yahui stated that the book “is a work filled with strong shades of sociology”. The analysis of these scholars and their understanding from various aspects has expanded the academic circle餾 understanding of this book.

We especially need to notice Li Shaoming餾 view on this book. Speaking from the perspective of Li Anzhai餾 academic path, Li Shaoming stated that this book reflected a great transformation. It reflects a transformation from the approach of the British Functionalist School to one that is “all-embracing”. Speaking specifically, one aspect of the book which is quite different from the Functionalist School is that “instead of only researching the situation of Labrang Monastery at that time, it takes religion as a social phenomenon, and conducts research by putting it within a specific historical context”. Later, Li Shaoming summarized that one characteristic of the West China school of Chinese anthropology was “the use of historical records in the research methodology”, and he used 獸ield Studies on Tibetan Religious History as an example to explain this characteristic. He stated that this book “is not only a field survey on Tibetan Buddhism represented by Labrang Monastery, but is also a historical research on Tibetan culture.” Obviously, this was only a summary on the content of this book, and indicated that this book included not only the content of field studies, but also a historical description of Tibetan culture and Tibetan religion. However, Li Shaoming actually did not explain the relationship between “field investigation” (or “field studies”) and “historical studies” in Li Anzhai餾 research. Moreover, he did not explain what kind of research methodology it was when he mentioned “the use of historical record”, or how Li Anzhai made “use of historical records”.

We can notice that Li Anzhai wrote not only about Tibetan history and the history of various Tibetan religious schools in his work, but also used a lot of historical literary sources, including historical records from the temples, the biographies of lamas, various local records and genealogies. He gained his historical understanding from the remains of ancient towns, constructions, inscriptions on stele, and place names etc. and had dialogue with historians. How did all these happen? How did he interpret and use these historical materials? What kind of change happened in Li Anzhai餾 concept regarding to “history”? What was the relationship between “field studies” and “history” in Li Anzhai餾 academic theory? What kind of enlightenment can his study bring to us? All these questions need to be answered. This will not only help us to understand Li Shaoming餾 above mentioned viewpoint, but will also help us to understand Li Anzhai餾 academic life—it might also bring a new inspiration to us.

When Chen Bo made an analysis of the Tibetan ethnography by Li Anzhai, he expressed that “ (I ) hope that we could see the relatively complicated and diverse anthropological theoretical path of Li Anzhai behind his field studies and writings on Tibet ”. This article, through an analysis of 獸ield Studies on Tibetan Religious History, tries to explore Li Anzahi餾 understanding and use of “history” while he was conducting his research on Labrang Monastery and Tibetan religion, analyzethe relationship between “field studies” and “history” within Li Anzhai餾 conceptual framework, and in so doing, obtain new understanding.

I. text analysis-a focus on the process of text formation and source of materials

Field Studies on Tibetan Religious History is a collected work written by Li Anzhai during a period of ten years, and is one which reflects his research process. Thus, in order to explore the possible changes in this process regarding the writing content and research approach, we should look each chapter or each article in this book as an “event”, while the book is a presentation of “a group of events”. The earliest writings of Li Anzhai in 1939 and 1940 are on the monks education system at and the monastery organization of Labrang monastery. The following writings discuss the public meetings and the protective deities (the symbolism of Buddhism) of Labrang Monastery written in 1941—The content of all of these articles is based on the investigation of Labrang monastery. Only in 玞ong labulengsi de hufashen kan fojiao de xiangzheng zhuyi—jiantan yinzang fojiao jianshi (Seeing the Symbolism of Buddhism from the Protective Deities of Labrang Monastery—Further Discussion on the History of Indian-Tibetan Buddhism), is the history of Indian Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism discussed. Before this article, his articles had not involved a discussion of history. Later, it is obvious that his article titled 玤uanyu zangwang(zangpu) shixi ji niandai kaozheng (An Exploration on the Genealogy and Time of Tibetan Kings[btsan-po]) is one with a focus on history. In his article titled 玞huan gan shuxian bianmin fenbu qingkuang (The Distribution Status of Frontier People in Several Counties of Sichuan and Gansu), he uses a large amount of materials from local records to explain the historical geography of various counties; the change of the Tusi system (native official system), and the change of population, etc. The content relating to various schools of Tibetan Buddhism (except for Gelug) were completed from 1945 to 1948. In general,the first part of these articles relates to history, and the second part introduces various systems of the monasteries. The content in the first chapter of the book was completed in 1948. Thus, we can see a general formation process of this book.

II. A “Concerto” for “Field Studies” and “History”—A Comparison between Li Anzhai and Gu Jiegang

In the first part of this article, we noted that Li Anzhai餾 understanding and use of “history” actually reflects a co-operative relationship between “history” and “field studies”. In this part of the article, we would like to do an analysis on the viewpoints and research methodologies of Li Anzhai and Gu Jiegang, from which we will notice a competitive relationship between “field studies” and “history”, as well as a mutual promotion role stimulated by the competition.

Li Anzhai stated that their (i.e. Li and his wife餾) field studies in Labrang monastery were actually suggested and encouraged by Tao Meng and Gu Jiegang. From 獹u Jiegang riji (Diary of Gu Jiegang), we know that Li Anzhai and his wife had a very close relationship with Gu Jiegang. On September 22, 1939, Li Anzhai and his wife left Chengdu for Gansu to visit Gu Jiegang; and on September 15, 1940, Gu Jiegang wrote an article 玹itled labuleng si gaikuang xu (A Preface to the General Situation of Labrang Monastery). From this, we know that during the course of his research, Li Anzhai must have had a lot of exchanges with Gu Jiegang. However, their personal relationship and exchanges did not mean that their research concept and methodology would conform to each other餾. This “non-conformity” and the cause of the formation of this “non-conformity” can just provide us with a detailed case for exploring the relationship between “field studies” and “history”. Moreover, we can also find the differences and those complementary areas between anthropologists and historians.

The debate between Li Anzhai and Gu Jiegang mainly concentrated on the ethnic origin and the historical source of Tibetans (called as “fanmin” before the Republican era). According to Li Anzhai餾 idea, physical anthropology and linguistics had not yet begun to be used in the research in this Tibetan area.Therefore, although it was not yet possible to trace the history it was a good time to do socio-anthropological field studies. He proposed a clear idea,namely that the Tibetans in this area were not the Qiang recorded in the historical texts before the Tang Dynasty. This idea was exactly the opposite of the historian餾 idea that “ Tibetans are the Qiang ”. Moreover, he was confident that “field research” could negate this “historical” conclusion. Although, in the end, he said modestly, “don餿 make any conclusions yet”, he still insisted on this concept. He threw out an important argument here. Although he did not explain where Tibetans came from, or where the Qiang in earlier times went, he provided more detailed arguments and explanations on this question.

What was the idea of the historian? Gu Jiegang went to Xiahe for a field trip from June 24 to July 12, 1938. He visited Labrang Monastery, and wrote the article 玪abuleng yipie (Some Observations on Labrang Monastery). Gu Jigang believed that the people who were called Tibetan (called as “fanzi” or “xifan” before the Republican era), found at the intersection of Gansu, Qinghai and Sichuan, were the ancient Qiang. It is only because during the Tang period they became the people of Tubo kingdom that they were called “fanzi” by the Han people, and were assimilated by Tibetan culture and Tibetan Buddhism, and became “real” Tibetans. It is not difficult to notice that the debate between Li Anzhai and Gu Jiegang focused on this question of the origin of Tibetans in this area. However there is a common point in their different concepts, namely that their ideas were all speculated according to the appearance of things and literary records, and there was no complete and accurate evidence.Hence, the conclusions were not very reliable.

It seems that Gu Jiegang was also not very confident about his conclusion. Hence, from 1940 to 1941, he continued further discussions on this question in three articles titled: 玠iqiang huozang (Cremation of the Di and Qiang); zang,fanchengzang, hanzu (Tibetan, Fan Tibetan, and Han); and 玅iang yu Xizang (Qiang and Tibet). Thus, it could be noted that Gu Jiegang tried to discuss the ethnic origin and historical source of Tibetans (xifan) in the frontier area of Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan based on methods including literary records, customs (cremation), language and comparison (the relationship of the Qiang in different areas with the Tibetan). Perhaps, in the end, he failed to confirm his own judgment, but he never changed his initial ideas.

Let us go back to Li Anzhai餾 point of view and see where this point of view was mentioned earlier. In the 玞huan gan shuxian bianmin fenbu gaikuang (the Distribution Status of the Frontier People in Various Counties of Sichuan and Gansu), he stated that “this Tibetan area already had Han culture before the Tibetans moved in—it was not like this originally.” Li Anzhai used many kinds of data, including the remains of ancient towns, terraced land, monastery construction (techniques), local historical records, place names,etc., to prove his idea.

From various historical remains and literature, Li Anzhai saw that “the history of cultural contacts and its processes” was a process of “cultural physiology”. He classified various remains and literature: one is “Han Chinese culture” (hinterland culture), and the other is “Tibetan culture”(frontier culture).

Li Anzhai summarized the composition of the people in Gansu and Qinghai area through the following process: (i) further penetration of hinterland (the Han ) culture and political power; (ii) the migration of the Tibetan people ; (iii) inward migration of the Hui ; and (iv) the arrival of more Han people. In the process summarized by Li, the Tibetan people餾 immigration occurred during the Tang Tubo period.The historical remains of Han people餾 cultural and political power dates to the Ming dynasty, but he did not say when Hui and the Han immigrated into this area. This confusion regarding time actually resulted from Li Anzhai餾 observations in the field.

Because he noticed the phenomenon of the Tibetan餾 assimilation of the Han, Mongolian, Salar and Muslim people when he did his field work in Labrang Mmonastery, he believed in the process of “Tibetanization”, and that this process was realized through blood relationships. Therefore, he considered that this assimilation force originated from the time when the Tubo Tibetan immigrated during the Tang dynasty. Meanwhile, this kind of immigration was necessary, otherwise there would have been no the source for the Tibetan blood. In addition, among the various ethnic minorities who are close to the Tibetan in northwest Sichuan, the culture and physical form of the Qiang are closer to the Han, but the Gyarong are closer to Tibetans culturally.The culture and physical form of Tibetans in Gansu and Qinghai are closer to the Tibetans in Tibet. Li Anzahi餾 judgment was further strengthened—the Tibetan in this area belong to Tibetans from the perspective of bloodlines, but not Qiang. This is the root reason why Li Anzhai insisted that a Tibetan immigration had to have happened. When Gu Jigang did his research in the northwest part of China, he noticed the phenomenon that Mongolians were assimilated into Tibetan because of their belief in Lamaism.Therefore, he insisted that the reason why the local people (originally Qiang) were called “fanzi” or “xifan” originated from the “Tubo”, and laterwas influenced by the Lamaism. Thus, they were not different from Tibetans. The difference between the two scholars is that one insisted on the assimilation of bloodlines, and the other insisted on the assimilation of culture.

According to Li Anzhai餾 attitude towards historical remains and literature, we can discover several characteristics: 1) symbolized or conceptualized the objects, such as remains of ancient towns, temples constructed in Chinese style, terraced land, stone stele inscriptions; did not concern on the concrete time of its building and being abandoned; and took them only as symbolism and evidences of “hinterland culture” and “Han Chinese culture”. 2) Although the author used stone stele inscriptions, he did not further follow-up the with the historical literature in orderto trace more clearly the historical events and related people which were inscribed on the stone stele. 3) Such method on handling and understanding the historical relics and historical literature lead to fuzzy concept and absence of “history”, leaving only a “structural” relationship with those things that had been symbolized and conceptualized —this is the cause and expression of a process during which the“structure”relationship blots out the “history”. 4) He drew conclusions based only on the observed objects and literature,and ignored the possibility of the existence of objects or records which were not observed. For example, although there were remains of activites of the Han, were there other tribal people in the area at the same time? Where did the Han Chinese in the ancient cities or terraced land go? Before Tibetan Buddhism entered the Gansu and Qinghai area, were there changes in the composition of the population in this area? Did the Qiang from Sichuan, whose body size and culture are closer to the Han Chinese than the Qiang in Gansu and Qinghai belong to the same tribe?

It might be that it is not possible to find the answers to all these questions, but some mistakes with regard to knowledge and logic can be avoided if we produce an overall “thinking” on the area餾 situation by putting it within a time sequence. Unfortunately, the bloodlines concept and structural relationship constructed from cultural contacts obscured one餾 eyes for exploring the specific historical process.

I am not trying to determine an answer to the ethnic source or the historical origin of the Tibetans in this area, and am not trying to explore the historical process of the area, but am trying to observe the differences between anthropologists and historians when they make use of historical materials and their understanding of history. Although the ethnic source of the Tibetans in Gansu and Qinghai is not the core issue of 獸ield Studies on Tibetan Religious History by Li Anzahi, his thinking and research method and theory areworth pondering. Compared with Gu Jiegang餾 research, we can find differences between the two scholars as well as between the two disciplines. It is interesting to note that both of them have a sense that “first impressions are strongest”. Li Anzhai was over confident with regard to the structural relationship of bloodline assimilation and cultural contact observed by him. He used his experience of “field studies” to explain the historical remains and literature. On the contrary, Gu Jiegang took historical literature as the main material, and compared everything he observed with it. Hence, he connected what he saw in the field with the historical records. Although the two scholars were unable to reach a consensus, they absorbed or learned much knowledge and many methods from each other.

From the case of Li Anzhai and Gu Jiegang, we see a “concerto” relationship“between”field research and “history”. On the surface, the contradiction seems to be between the concept of bloodlines and culturalism, and between structural relationships and the historical process. However, the contradiction actually resulted from their different foci on field studies and literature research, as well as their differences regarding epistemology. Each of them stuck to their own arguments, and were unable to convince the other, an indication that both of their views have strong vitality and possibility.Although Li Anzhai was faced with a dilemma with regard to his understanding, use of historical materials and gaining historical cognition, the experience and all other kinds of knowledge that he gained from field survey was an important basis on which for him to expand the breadth and depth of his research . From Gu Jiegang餾 research, we can also understand more about Li Anzhai餾 so-called “the history and process of cultural contact”, and revealed the historical information covered by the expression. In fact, their complementary relationship existed not only through exchanging knowledge and methods with each other, but also through the process of intense debate.

III. A Kind of Transcendence of Epistemology

Concerning the pursuit of Li Anzhai餾 academic schools or knowledge sources, it is defined either according to his educational background, or according to his translatedworks or articles. However, such a pursuit is not sufficiently accurate and comprehensive. From the research course of Li Anzhai mentioned above, we know that his research methods and epistemology shifted through praxis and gradually matured. Perhaps the right way is based on a clear understanding of his educational background and knowledge context to understand his books in his research practice and process, and find out the place that he transcended himself and others.

If we put Li Anzhai within the context of of mid-20th century Chinese anthropological and ethnological history, then, he was not the only one to use and analyze history. Instead, there were a lot of anthropologists and ethnologists who had a more outstanding ability in using and interpreting history. Some scholars even put forward the “Chinese school of history”. However this school did not include the name of Li Anzhai. If we put Chinese anthropology and ethnology at this time within the development context of western anthropology, its features would be highlighted. We can use case study of Li Anzhai and the analysis of his work made earlier in this article to understand what aspect of the “epistemological tone”had surpassed the British Functionalist School and American historical school.

Li Anzhai pointed out his reasons for study the Lamaism when he did his research on Tibetan religion. This is because Tibetan Lamaism is related to ethnic education, culture, and the economic and political system, through which we can see the whole situation of a community, and the mutual close relationship. Hence, his description of the various schools of Tibetan Buddhism in 獸ield Studies on Tibetan Religious History included descriptions on all of the aspects mentioned above. From the first part of this article, we know that after Li Anzhai walked into his field site, he explored the educational system of monks and organization system of monastery— this is a direct reflection of the practical functionalist school of anthropology. Later, he learnt the history of Labrang Monastery and understood the symbolic meanings of the protective deities. At this point his research process began to experience some change. This opportunity happened during the process of his understanding the deities.

To interpret deities or the various Lamanist systems from the historical angle was not familiar to Li Anzhai at first. Neither did he acquire the method of interpreting a system through history from the perspective of the British Functionalist School. This is because it was concerned more with structure and function. Nor did he adopt the method of interpreting social phenomena through a historical lens from the viewpoint of the American historical school. From the descriptions and research on a brief history of Indian-Tibetan Buddhism made by Li Anzhai to his writing of the history of various schools of Buddhism, we know that he gradually became mature in his use and understanding of history.

Why do we say that the explanation of social phenomena and social system from perspective of history surpasses the Functionalist School and American historical school? This can be understood from the criticism of these schools by later generations. According to Claude Lévi-Strauss, Bronislaw Malinowski and the functionalists gave up “understanding history”, and specifically focused on a synchronic analysis of social function and structurebecause they saw the American historical school餾 (as represented by Franz Boas) plight and loss when they searched for history and explored the nature of things. However, Franz Boas stated that even if we did a thorough analysis on system and culture, if we did not understand the social history as well, did this kind of analysis have complete significance? Hence, although Franz Boas recognized that a society was formed after experiencing various historical processes, the limitation was that we could not get more information of the “historical process”. However, the Functionalist School completely rejected the possibility of searching for explanation from history. Regarding the Functionalist School, except that it cannot manage the doubt stated by Franz Boas,there is more serious risk, i.e. it will change the research object into “ a reflection of our own society ” and “a reflection of our own categories and problems” .

Therefore, Li Anzhai餾 analysis of the history of the various schools of Tibetan religion not only realizes the wish that Franz Boas did not fulfill, but it also avoided the danger of transforming the objects of research into “ reflections of our own society” as the Functionalist School did. Within the research process of Li Anzhai, his cognition regarding the significance of the history of various religious schools had been changed.

The other criticism made by Claude Lévi-Strauss about the Functionalist School was that before they went to the field, they did not do research on any other material sources, and did not analyze local literature. Obviously, on this aspect, Li Anzahi also surpassed the Functionalist School. He not only used various Buddhist texts collected in the monasteries, but also used various other sources, including local records, genealogies and inscriptions on stele. During the process of tracing the history of various religious schools, although he took the narratives of important monks and monasteries as the leads, he included the connections betzween different religious schools, the relationship of the great lamas of Tibetan Buddhism with India and the central court , the connection of the great Lamas to the local areas, and the connections between myths or legends to historical events. He demonstrated the various relationships and their mutual roles and influences within the historical line, and considered “the surroundings which consisted of ever-changing rules and customs”.

V. A Brief Conclusion

In looking at the achievements of Li Anzhai on Tibetan religion, we notice that he stood within the sphere of sociology and anthropology, and never stepped into the field of history. He was not like scholars such as Yang Chengzhi and Ma Changshou, who straddled anthropology(ethnology) and historical studies (ethnic history). Yang and Ma paid a lot of attention to the collection of materials while doing their research so as to make up for the deficiencies in historical books, or to correct the mistakes in the official historical records. However, Li Anzhai never attempted to express this. What concerned him was religion and the entire situation of the area and social system, and he insisted on the important value of “field studies”. Moreover, he also had some differences with historians when he was reading and using of historical literature, and he could not grasp the literature as the historians.

Although Li Anzhai and many anthropologists were concerned with history and used historical materials, the relationship between anthropologists and historians was not as good as what we imagine. Li Shaoming recalled that in early 1950s, “there was an atmosphere in academic field, in which the scholars who conducted historical studies looked down on those who did sociology and anthropology. This was because they thought that they paid attention only to reality, and did not understand historical texts. And, the scholars who did sociology and ethnology looked down up those scholars who conducted historical studies thinking that they only paid attention on ”old piles of paper“and were separated from reality. When I just came to university, I also had some prejudice against historical studies. ” Actually, there exist a kind of unbalanced force between “lack of understanding of historical texts” and “separation from reality” —which cannot let the anthropologists and ethnologists grasp historical materials like historians, or wish the historians to do field work and write ethnography like anthropologists. However, instead of blaming each other, the two sides actually should play a “concerto” together—there should not only be competition, but also cooperation between them so as to use the advantages of each side and provide a foundation for in-depth discussions. This is just one significant inspiration to us from Li Anzhai餾 research experience on Tibetan religious history.

Key Words: Li Anzhai; Tibetan religion; field studies オ

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