清朝初期與西藏之間的資訊流通與政教關係

Information Circulation and the Patron-Priest Relationship Between the Early Qing Dynasty and Tibet

因藏傳佛教弘興於蒙古地區，滿洲人自十七世紀初期便開始通過蒙古接收西藏相關資訊，進而留意喜馬拉雅地區。在藏傳佛教普世話語的影響下，滿洲人最初形成將西藏視作「菩提伽耶」的神聖地理想像，並將《薩迦格言》與大元金佛等藏傳佛教文化象徵作為清朝政權建立之合法性依據。自崇德時期起，清朝通過與西藏的書信往返及物質交流，逐步建構其西藏知識。然而隨著雙方交往的開展，清朝逐漸暴露出其資訊蒐集的局限，最終反映在順治年間西藏政府利用帕木竹巴闡化王名義多次委派貢使而引發的爭議中。西藏冒貢案件的爆發，促成清廷派員對西藏進行實地調查，進而重塑清朝對西藏的認識，並對十七世紀後期以降清朝與西藏的交往產生深遠影響。

Due to the flourishing of Tibetan Buddhism in the Mongolian regions, the Manchus began receiving information about Tibet via Mongolia by the early seventeenth century, which fostered their growing interest in the Himalayan region. A universalist discourse within Tibetan Buddhism shaped the Manchus’initial conception of Tibet as a sacred geography akin to Bodhgaya, and they drew on Tibetan Buddhist cultural symbols—including the Sakya Lekshé(Sa skya legs bshad) and the golden Mahākāla statue inherited from the Mongol Yuan dynasty—as sources of legitimacy in founding the Qing dynasty. Beginning in the Chongde era (1636–1644), the Qing court gradually developed its knowledge of Tibet through epistolary and material exchanges. However, as bilateral interactions deepened, the limitations of the Qing’s intelligence-gathering capacity became increasingly apparent. These shortcomings culminated in a series of diplomatic disputes during the reign of the Shunzhi Emperor (r. 1643–1661), when the Tibetan government dispatched tribute envoys to China proper in the name of the Phagmodrupa ruler, referred to in Chinese sources as the“Chanhua wang”闡化王. The unauthorized tribute missions prompted the Qing court to dispatch officials to conduct on-site investigations in Tibet, a move which ultimately reshaped the Qing’s understanding of the region and had far-reaching implications for Qing-Tibetan relations from the late seventeenth century onward.