A Research On Monk Tusi System Of Northwest Region In The Ming And Qing Dynasties

Monk Tusi was a type of Tusi widely existed in Gansu and Qinghai of Northwest China who dominated local military and civil administration power of the minority by inheriting the post of monk officers. They were the same as the mundane Tusi who owned their land, administrated their people, ruled their soldiers, inherited their posts for generations and greatly impacted on the social development of minority areas. As a unique type of Tusi,the academic circle rarely touches upon the monk Tusi issues of northwest areas in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.monk Tusi is a weak point in Tusi study and has a large research space.The thesis discusses the contents, general situation and analyzes the characteristics of monk Tusi of northwest areas based on the previous studies and historical documents. And the thesis clarifies the distribution of the monk Tusi in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, holds that this type of Tusi genre mainly distributed in Hezhou, Minzhou and Taozhou areas in Gansu of today, Xining areas in Qinghai and part areas of Sichuan, all of which were not only the minority regions but also deeply influenced by Tibetan Buddhism. The inheritance of monk Tusi had its own unique traits, it affected by the dual effects of the religious rites of Tibetan Buddhism and the Tusi political conventions and mainly inherited within the family, monk Tusi connected with many aspects as an important political genre of northwest areas, this thesis analyzes the comparatively important relationship among monk Tusi and central government, the monastery, local power and the people in order to clarify the status and role of monk Tusi in the system of local authority.