Even before Mr Younghusband invaded their land, the Tibetans had developed a certain dislike of the British. This is obvious, for example, in a “Correspondence Relating to the Anglo-Tibetan War of 1888″ dealt with by N. L. Nornang and L. Epstein in the Journal of the Tibet Society, vol. 2, pp. 77-104.
In a letter to the krong dpon of Bhutan we read:

lhag tu rang cag nang ba sangs rgyas kyi bstan lar log par ‘khu bas
“Especially, because they have perversely insulted our Buddhist doctrines and mores” (p. 78).

Just a little marginal note on the lha log vs. lta log question raiesed above. I think the bottle of ɡəˈvʏɐtstʁaˈmiːnɐ goes to the gentleman from the other place.

Cheers,

Arno

P.S. The beginning of the letter is also worth considering (could it contain a prophecy about a former Prime Minister who also made the British invade a country?):

“[T]hey are widely known to be evil deceivers, not of the sort that have learnt contentment to their desires and the good customs of shame, modesty and prudence which are suitable as the mark of a great nation.”

Yours, Arno

Now back to the usual mistakes of historians. They often generalize: “Person-X was such-and-such and so-and-so.” Whereas people who live long periods often have varying and sometimes opposing phases. That is the mistake here on Younghusband and others. Younghusband was just another typical pathetic middle class on the make who ended up in the Raj. The East India Company in a way took over the British establishment and even Curzon was not too happy about it as the real evil historians with access know only fully well. Curzon though with some backbone in going up against the new powerbase to some extent, was more miserable than Younghusband. Younghusband massacred the local under-armed local army in the usual inglorious tradition of the evil empire. Tibet always had the mystique even back then, hence the greed of men like Younghusband for fame. On his return to Blighty he was no Kitchener or Gordon of Khartoum as that age had ended and he was no hero. However he was transformed and became one of the founders of what we now call the New Agers. He regretted his cowardly massacre and it does not say it in the wiki article but he later claimed to have seen deities in Tibet as well as Extra-terrestrials with their crafts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Younghusband

So he, like Curzon and most figures, had a few periods and can’t be simply generalized in the usual haphazard way. The real reason for the immoral invasion by the new power base back in London was to do with the “Great Game”. However there are certain evil spirits and forces behind them, still, and other lowly functionaries too as Tibetan Buddhists believe. But the Great Game is another whole story and this was the tail end of it. Agvan Dorzhiev who dreamed of the larger Mongolics union, including Tibetans and a few other areas, in alliance with Russia is seen as a Tulku. Curzon might have claimed it was him who pushed him over the edge but if he wasn’t there the invasion would have been sooner and more total.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agvan_Dorzhiev

Even the Japanese had their man in Lhasa for a while. Like I said before things are deep and be careful of the decisions you make in your life as you might suffer a long time after death for it.

Finally s Dilgo Khyentse said about the loss of Tibet: “attachment to an illusory country, how pointless.” And this is no ordinary country but Tibet which makes Buddhas and Bodhisattvas for many world systems. Take care.

Did things turn out ‘great’ for Japan? Who can say? Did they do better than the TAR of China in the last half of the twentieth century? It depends how you want to quantify it. The TAR comes out on top using what measure?

The trajectory of the British Empire and its need to justify its actions on moral grounds is interesting. In India, moralizing seems to increase as the interests of the East India Company were taken over by the British government itself. And along with moralizing comes the unattractive streak of racialism, “the white man’s burden.” I rather like the way Kate Teltscher, in her book on George Bogle, contrasts the attitudes of Bogle, Hastings and their contemporaries, with Curzon, Younghusband, and that lot.

The Younghusband expedition comes right at the end of the British Imperial era, and there was a lot of resistance to it from the British government, as against the Indian colonial government. With striking parallels to the buildup to the war in Iraq in 2003, strategic arguments came foremost (Russian guns in Lhasa, etc.), but moral arguments (oppression of the people by the lamas etc.) were used to strengthen the case.

Did the oracle actually call the British theists? Have a look at Dan’s comments above. Perhaps the phrase was not “false god” but “false views”. It seems to me that the prevelant view in Lhasa at the time was that the British were enemies of religion (read Buddhism), and as you say, there was little interest in learning anything more specific about their belief system (compare and contrast again the eighteenth century, when the Panchen Lama was keen to learn about Christianity from Bogle).

S.

It is interesting that the Tibetan oracle chose to characterize the British as theists. Although Christians were prominent among early English-language commentators on Tibet, the British colonial project was overwhelmingly secular in orientation, and missionaries (who always risked stirring up local resentment) were more tolerated than encouraged. If the Tibetans had been as keen to learn about the invaders as, say, the Japanese, the twentieth century might have turned out very differently for them.

‘Apocryphal’ was the term I used myself in referring to this quote but then censored myself: deleted it because lamas do not want to offend other lamas who embrace that concept… the deferential style of writing can be a little inhibiting.

I had read some of links given, and I have to say I love this blog and those others. Yes, the Iron Bird prophecy should have been in Prisoners of Shangri-la, a great book.

I too assumed the red-faced people were Tibetans because I have heard references to brown skin and rosy cheeks and know some monks who fit that description. Photographs of Tibetans in Tibet now sometimes show them with flaming red cheeks. Is it the cold air or altitude?

Tibetans also describe themselves as “the black-haired” — at least I assumed they were referring to themselves, as in “king of all the black-haired.” It adds a nice touch of poetry.