The Tibetan serfs were something more than superstitious victims, blind to their own oppression. As we have seen, some ran away; others openly resisted, sometimes suffering dire consequences. In feudal Tibet, torture and mutilation--including eye gouging, the pulling out of tongues, hamstringing, and amputation--were favored punishments inflicted upon thieves, and runaway or resistant serfs. Journeying through Tibet in the 1960s, Stuart and Roma Gelder interviewed a former serf, Tsereh Wang Tuei, who had stolen two sheep belonging to a monastery. For this he had both his eyes gouged out and his hand mutilated beyond use. He explains that he no longer is a Buddhist: “When a holy lama told them to blind me I thought there was no good in religion.”21 Since it was against Buddhist teachings to take human life, some offenders were severely lashed and then “left to God” in the freezing night to die. “The parallels between Tibet and medieval Europe are striking,” concludes Tom Grunfeld in his book on Tibet. 22
西藏的农奴并不都为迷信所蒙蔽，看不到自己所受的压迫。正如我们所知，不时有农奴逃窜的情况发生；部分还会聚集反抗，但是失败的后果十分严重。封建制的西藏，刑讯和残害——包括挖眼、拔舌、挑断经脉和截肢——常被施加于小偷、逃窜或者反抗的农奴。在20世纪60年代的西藏之旅里，Stuart和Roma Gelder采访了一个前农奴Tsereh Wang Tuei，他偷走了两只寺院的羊。为此，他的双眼被挖，手也被残害，不能用了。他说他已经不再是一个佛教徒：“当一名神圣的喇嘛指示把我的眼睛弄瞎的时候，我再也不相信宗教有什么好处。”[注21]因为佛教认为夺取人生命是不符教义的，那些罪犯们只是被折磨得不成人形，然后被抛弃在寒冷的夜晚里等死，让“上天裁决”。“西藏和中世纪的欧洲很相似。”Tom Grunfeld在关于西藏的著作里得出结论。[注22]
In 1959, Anna Louise Strong visited an exhibition of torture equipment that had been used by the Tibetan overlords. There were handcuffs of all sizes, including small ones for children, and instruments for cutting off noses and ears, gouging out eyes, breaking off hands, and hamstringing legs. There were hot brands, whips, and special implements for disemboweling. The exhibition presented photographs and testimonies of victims who had been blinded or crippled or suffered amputations for thievery. There was the shepherd whose master owed him a reimbursement in yuan and wheat but refused to pay. So he took one of the master’s cows; for this he had his hands severed. Another herdsman, who opposed having his wife taken from him by his lord, had his hands broken off. There were pictures of Communist activists with noses and upper lips cut off, and a woman who was raped and then had her nose sliced away.23
1959年，Anna Louise Strong参观了一个刑具展，这些刑具都被以前的西藏领主使用过。这里有各种型号的手铐，包括给小孩用的小型号，还有各种切鼻割耳、挖眼、砍手、断腿的刑具。还有各种烙铁、鞭子和不同的挖取内脏的工具。展览还展出了一些照片和因偷窃曾被弄瞎、伤残和截肢的受害者的证词。有一个牧民，因为主人欠了他的银元和小麦却不肯偿还。所以他抱走了主人家的一头牛。就因为这个，他的双手被砍。另一个牧民，因为反抗领主带走他的妻子，双手被废。还有照片显示，一些共产主义分子被割掉鼻子和上嘴唇，以及一名妇女除了被割掉鼻子，之前还遭受强奸。[注23]
Earlier visitors to Tibet commented on the theocratic despotism. In 1895, an Englishman, Dr. A. L. Waddell, wrote that the populace was under the “intolerable tyranny of monks” and the devil superstitions they had fashioned to terrorize the people. In 1904 Perceval Landon described the Dalai Lama’s rule as “an engine of oppression.” At about that time, another English traveler, Captain W.F.T. O’Connor, observed that “the great landowners and the priests… exercise each in their own dominion a despotic power from which there is no appeal,” while the people are “oppressed by the most monstrous growth of monasticism and priest-craft.” Tibetan rulers “invented degrading legends and stimulated a spirit of superstition” among the common people. In 1937, another visitor, Spencer Chapman, wrote, “The Lamaist monk does not spend his time in ministering to the people or educating them. . . . The beggar beside the road is nothing to the monk. Knowledge is the jealously guarded prerogative of the monasteries and is used to increase their influence and wealth.”24 As much as we might wish otherwise, feudal theocratic Tibet was a far cry from the romanticized Shangri La so enthusiastically nurtured by Buddhism’s western proselytes.
更早一些访问西藏的学者还关注了神权专制。1895年，英国的A. L. Waddell博士曾描写道，藏民们生活在“难以置信的神权专制下”，僧侣们编造的恐怖的迷信笼罩着人们的心智。1904年，Perceval Landon描述达赖喇嘛制定的规定就像“专制的发动机”。同一时期，另一名英国游士W.F.T. O’Connor上尉发现，“大地主和僧侣们……在自己的领地里执行着不容反抗的专制”，而人们则“被不断膨胀的寺庙势力和僧侣残酷压迫”。西藏的统治者“宣扬着恐怖的传说，在大众心中建立迷信的地位”。1937年另一位访者Spencer Chapman写道，“喇嘛们并没有为帮助和教育人们作任何工作……路边的乞丐跟喇嘛们没有任何关系。知识是喇嘛们守护着的特权，并用于增加自己的影响力和财富。”[注24]和我们期许的正好相反，封建神权统治下的西藏远非浪漫的香格里拉，那个西方佛教徒们歌颂的地方。
