Tibetan Buddhism Influence On Tibetan Customary Law

Religion and law are products in the process of historical development, which belong to the area of social ideology. Religion has its corresponding religious ceremonies, doctrine, organizational and normative system, which, through the inner world and the ultimate belief, regulate and control people's behavior. This normative role of religion imparts it internal relation with law. There is no denying that the interpenetration of religion and law did exsit during the process of social and historical development in East and West. Tibetan customary law as an important component of the Tibetan culture system was closely related to religion from the date of birth and formed a close combination in the course of its development. This paper first deals with the historical evolution process of Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan customary law and then introduces the impact Tibetan Buddhism had on Tibetan customary law before and after the democratic reform,and figures out both positive and negative factors of influence Tibetan Buddhism have done to Tibetan customary law. There is a profound significance of the consolidation and development of national unity, safeguard social stability and the construction of socialism to treat such influence with correct and positive attitude.In addition to introduction and conclusion,this paper devided into three parts.The first part of this paper deals with the historical evolution process of Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan customary law.Through the analysis of the origion and the development of Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan customary law, this paper comes to the mutual dependence and interpenetration of Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan customary law.The second part of this paper introduces the impact Tibetan Buddhism had on Tibetan customary law before democratic reform, which is analized in several aspects, such as criminal, civil, administrative,environmental resources law and procedural, respectively and discusses the influence Tibetan Buddhism have done to Tibetan customary law after the democratic reform by focusing on "Prices of payment for a life", the environmental resources protectation and folk mediation analysis.The third part points out that a correct attitude toward the influence Tibaran Buddhism have done to Tibetan customary law shoud be taken, and inlustrates the significance of Tibetan Buddhism for Tibetan customary law. Finally, this paper promotes some practical proposals of bettering and applying Tibetan customary law in conjunction with the development of the modern concept of Legal System .