Land and polity in Tibet.

The research of which this monograph is the product was un dertaken as part of a wider research project of the Inner Asia Project of the Far Eastern and Russian Institute, University of Washington, which, when planned quite a few years ago, contem plated field research as a basic part of its program. If field re search in Tibet were now possible for Western scholars, this es say would have been described as a preliminary survey of the avail able literature in preparation for field work. As this is not now possible, it is offered as a provisional analysis, giving only ten tative answers to a wide variety of questions that will have to be studied in more detail when the area becomes accessible and when collections of relevant Tibetan documents become available for study.

I was drawn into the field of Tibetan studies by Paul Kirchhoff, former director of the Inner Asia Project, and I am especially grateful for his help and encouragement. The first draft of this essay was discussed at the meetings of the Inner Asia seminar, where I received valuable suggestions, especially from Hellmut Wilhelm, Franz Michael, and Karl A. Wittfogel. At the Inner Asia Project I also profited from a number of translations from Chi nese and Russian done there for the Human Relations Area Files. Although some of these translations were not finished and could not be used to full value, they provided some of the best material. for this study. In the first pages of my research the bibliography of Tibet prepared at the Inner Asia Project, mostly by Beatrice Miller, was very useful.