Origin to 1976
Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution reached Tibet in February 1966 with the banning of the Monlam prayer festival, and over the decade that followed a campaign against religious practice generally is tallied, by the Tibetan government in exile's own count, as reducing more than six thousand monasteries and nunneries to fewer than ten still standing by 1976; the historian Fabienne Jagou disputes these precise figures, arguing that much of the destruction had in fact already occurred in the years before 1966, though she does not dispute the scale of loss or the persecution, forced disrobing and labor conscription of monks and nuns that intensified once the Cultural Revolution itself began. Temples were shuttered and texts burned elsewhere in China in the same years.
Facts
Disputed
Start YearSourced to the subject's own account1966 marks the Cultural Revolution's own arrival in Tibet, dated to the February 1966 ban on the Monlam festival; historian Fabienne Jagou argues most of the physical destruction of monasteries had already happened in the years before this, so the START year here marks the Cultural Revolution's own campaign rather than the whole of the institutional loss, which the article itself treats as a live scholarly disagreement over periodisation rather than degree. Dates
End YearSourced to the subject's own account StatusSourced to the subject's own account Learn More
How the Cultural Revolution Suppressed Buddhism in Tibet and China
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution reached Tibet in February 1966 with the banning of the Monlam prayer festival, the region's most important annual religious gathering. Over the decade that followed, a campaign against religious practice generally swept across Tibet, and temples were shuttered and texts burned elsewhere in China in the same years.
The Tibetan government in exile's own count tallies the destruction as reducing more than six thousand monasteries and nunneries to fewer than ten still standing by 1976, alongside the persecution, forced disrobing and labor conscription of monks and nuns that intensified once the Cultural Revolution itself began. The historian Fabienne Jagou has disputed these precise figures, arguing that much of the physical destruction had in fact already occurred in the years before 1966, though she does not dispute the scale of the loss or the persecution that followed.
What this changed for Buddhism's spread was the near total dismantling, within a single decade, of a monastic infrastructure that had taken centuries to build in Tibet, whatever the exact chronology of when each monastery actually fell. Even on the more conservative reading of when the destruction happened, fewer than ten of Tibet's thousands of monasteries and nunneries remained standing by the Cultural Revolution's official end in 1976.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names China directly: "Temples were shuttered and texts burned elsewhere in China in the same years."
Occurred In
Tibet, Regions Tibet, where the destruction is most heavily documented; the same suppression also reached Buddhist institutions elsewhere in China in the same years, named in the description rather than anchored to a second place entity.
Spread Event Of
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