Tibet invaded northern
China in the 600s. When
Buddhism was carried to Tibet in the
800s,
monks involved in the Transmission were considered especially
fearless because the
Tibetans were considered to be extremely
blood-thirsty. Once the
Dharma was established there, the various clan disputes were simply re-iterated along
religious grounds. At one point the Sakya school was prominent. Enemies were killed. One of the
Karmapas of the
Karma Kagyu school made a deal with
Kublai Khan for
dictatorship over Tibet. However, the fifth
Dalai Lama seized control over the capital,
Lhasa. For the following centuries the Dalai Lamas as representatives of the Gelug school ruled Tibet.
All of Tibet's history is a matter of small and very vicious internecine wars. During the 1920s and 1930s many Nyingma and Kagyu monasteries were razed, their possesions stolen, and their monks killed by order of Pabhongkapa, the teacher of the present Dalai Lama's tutor. They had evidence of Chinese art, manuscripts, and statuary and thus were denounced as Chinese spies.
The last few floors of the Dalai Lama's palace, the Potala, were prison cells. The current Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso was working for reforms when he fled before the Chinese invasion in the 1950s. At that time, a common punishment was having one's head and hands locked in a wooden construction called a "cangue" which rested on the shoulders. Once locked into one of these, one could not eat or defecate without assistance. Unless the family of the condemned felt moved to help, one simply starved and/or died in a mass of urine or feces. No one else would be likely to help. The Tibetans ate prodigious quantities of meat, primarily from yaks but refused to slaughter it themselves, reserving this for the Muslims, who were regarded as damned in any case.