抄録
This study aims to re-examine the institution of mi bogs or “Human Lease”that was practiced in traditional Tibet under the Dalai Lama’s government until 1959. This institution was studied by an anthropologist, M. Goldstein,based on oral historical data collected in a Tibetan refugee camp in the 1960s. According to Goldstein, the status of mi bogs was granted when the serfs requested it from their lords. They then gained control over their own bodies; that is, they became free from their original estate and could travel anywhere and find new jobs. In return, they had to pay a fixed amount of money to their lord as an annual fee. Goldstein argued that the institution helped to maintain the ideology underlying the estate system while providing flexibility. Although this institution seems important because it concerns the nature of traditional Tibetan society, its study was never developed until recently. This article, based on recently disclosed first-hand documents in the Tibet Autonomous Region Archive, attempts to clarify the institution of mi bogs and discusses the nature of traditional Tibetan society. By examining mi bogs documents, the author argues that mi bogs was not always granted through petitions. Rather, it was granted as an ex post facto approval for those subjects who had already run away, married out, or emigrated. The author further argues that Goldstein’s assumption seems too static, that this custom was practiced in an ad hoc manner without consistency and insists that this ad hoc nature itself could be understood as one of the most salient aspects of traditional Tibetan society.
