The seventeenth century represents something of a watershed moment in Tibetan history when the Central Tibetan region saw the rise of two new systems of governance in the form of the Ganden Phodrang government of the Fifth Dalai Lama Ngawang Lozang Gyatso (1617-1682) and the Drukpa state of Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyel (1594-1651), known today as the Kingdom of Bhutan. In many ways, both the Ganden Phodrang and the Drukpa state of the Shabdrung reconceived previous models of authority and governance and articulated a Buddhist vision of rule, enthroning religious hierarchs conceived as Buddhist divinities incarnating in the world during an age of strife for the explicit purpose of ushering a new fortunate eon for the benefit of sentient beings. These two systems of governance have often been termed “theocractic,” and owing to them, the Tibetan region is often referred to as the lone, anomalous Asian and Buddhist example of a premodern theocratic state. Focusing on the early articulation of the Bhutanese state of Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyel, my paper investigates what theocracy, as a descriptive and analytical category, might help elucidate about notions of governance in the Tibetan region during the seventeenth century, and vice versa, what the Tibetan experiment with the union of religious and temporal domains (chos srid zung ’brel) might contribute to our understanding of theocracy as an organizing principle for social and political life.
The coinage of “theocracy” is usually ascribed to the first century Jewish priest and historian Flavius Josephus. Etymologically, the term suggests the rule of theos (God or gods) as opposed to the one, few or many, and was used by Josephus to describe the peculiar nature of Jewish government as devised under divine direction by Moses. Josephus’ restrictive notion of theocracy as the sole rule of theos however poses an important problem: the rule of God, or gods, however total, still requires the mediation and intervention of humans. Such an admission has often led scholars to define theocracy not simply as the rule of God or gods, but rather a system of government in which humans rule in the name of God or gods. As political economist Mario Ferrero puts it, “Since, however, God is not known to have ruled worldly government directly, the word is usually understood to mean government by a clergy, or a self-appointed group who claim to speak and act on God’s behalf.” In this understanding, theocracy typically refers to a political arrangement - sometimes termed “ecclesiocracy” or “hierocracy” - in which the main functions of secular government are discharged by a priesthood who double as secular officials. A yet even looser definition of the term usually references a form of government whose rule is in accordance with religious prescriptions, with the specification that the implementation or satisfaction of these prescriptions should be public rather than private. The major difference between this understanding of theocracy and hierocracy above is that a priestly class need not be the only ones who rule on God or gods’ behalf. The most common example of this type of theocratic regime in the premodern context is, of course, the case of the anointed king ruling on God’s behalf, and such a loose understanding of theocracy as a system of government ruling in accordance to religious prescriptions is broad enough to include a large majority of premodern political regimes.
While the vast majority of historical situations described as theocratic typically fall within these two looser understandings of theocracy (hierocratic government and rule in accordance with religious prescriptions), my paper interests itself in the more restrictive formulation of theocracy by Flavius Josephus, arguing for its affinity with the theoretical articulation of the Drukpa state of Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyel. While, for Josephus, only a political system in which theos is recognized and invested as complete and total sovereign without any human representatives can be described as theocratic, the important problem of human mediation and representation suggests Josephus’ definition as perhaps less invested in describing an actual empirical reality than the conjuring of an ideal world. I argue in my paper that such an ideal world, where an omnipotent theos is sovereign ruler over a perfect commonwealth, is akin to Thomas Moore’s original coinage of the term utopia in 1516, intended to be a Greek pun on the words eu-topia meaning ‘good place,’ and ou-topia meaning ‘no-place.’ In other words, the restrictive understanding of theocracy as iterated by Josephus represents an ideal system of government that is aspirational; an imagined or envisioned utopia manifested in a sovereign theos. As I explore in my paper, it is precisely this understanding of theocracy as theotopia that Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal and his apologists sought to conjure and, remarkably, realize in Bhutan during the seventeenth century.
The articulation of the theoretical foundations of the Bhutanese state can be traced to the writings of Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyel’s contemporary apologist and biographer Tsang Khenchen Jamyang Palden Gyatso (1610-1684). Focusing on Tsang Khenchen’s articulation of the Bhutanese theocracy in his celebrated biography of Bhutan’s founder entitled The Song of the Great Dharma Cloud, my paper explores the literary construction of Bhutan as a Buddhist utopia governed by an omnipotent theos in the figure of Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyel. Through Tsang Khenchen’s dinstinct conception of the union of religious and temporal domains (chos srid zung ’brel) in The Song of the Great Dharma Cloud, Bhutan is conceived as an earthly paradise and priviledged space for the achievement of Buddhist soteriology owing to its association with a deified Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyel qua Avalokiteśvara. More than three centuries after this initial conception of the Bhutanese state, I would argue that Tsang Khenchen’s theocratic theorization of Bhutan and its founding figure still perdure in significant ways in Bhutan today.
Key source:
’Jam dbyangs dpal ldan rgya mtsho, Dpal ’brug pa rin po che ngag dbang rnam rgyal gyi rnam thar rgyas pa chos kyi sprin chen po’i dbyangs / The Song of the Great Dharma Cloud: The Extended Biography of the Glorious Drukpa Rinpoche Ngawang Namgyel (Delhi: Topden Tshering, 1974)
Tibet is often referenced in brief and passing notes in the literature on theocracy as the lone and somewhat anomalous Asian example of a premodern theocratic state. Focusing on the founding of the Drukpa theocracy of Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyel (1594-1651) known today as the Kingdom of Bhutan, my paper investigates what theocracy, as a descriptive and analytical category, might help elucidate about notions of governance in the Tibetan region during the seventeenth century, and vice versa, what the Tibetan experiment with the union of religious and temporal domains (chos srid zung ’brel) might contribute to our understanding of theocracy as an organizing principle for social and political life.