Tibetan Ethnic Group Enters "Modern Time"

25 janvier 2026

New Year's Edition of the Tibetan "Mirror" Newspaper in 1932

Dual Calendars in Parallel: Entering World Time

The new year has arrived, and we have officially entered 2026. In the contemporary Tibetan society’s perception of time, the traditional Tibetan calendar and the Gregorian calendar coexist seamlessly—the Tibetan calendar carries the intrinsic rhythm of festivals, rituals, and agrarian civilization, while the Gregorian calendar marks the modern coordinates of administration, economy, and external exchanges. The coexistence of these two calendrical systems is far from a mere conversion of dates; at its core, it represents a crucial marker of Tibetan civilization actively adapting its temporal concepts and integrating into the global order of modernity.

Looking back at history, we find that the Tibetan encounter with "modern time" runs much deeper than one might imagine—starting over three centuries ago, it quietly took root in Tibetan scholars' absorption of Western calendrical calculations, progressed through the Qing court’s gifts of clocks and timepieces, and ultimately crystallized on the pages of modern media as a declaration of the coexistence of dual calendars. Every collision between traditional Tibetan temporal views and external temporal systems has been a historical imprint of this ancient civilization re-anchoring its relationship with the world.

Carl Gustav Jung
(C.G. Jung 1875–1961)
Image: Jungian Center

Jesuits and Tibetan Calendrical Calculations

In the winter of 1653, the Fifth Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso, was traveling on the official road to Beijing. After a sudden snowstorm, the royal officials who came to greet him couldn't help but exclaim: this snowfall was exactly as predicted by Johann Adam Schall von Bell (interestingly, in the Fifth Dalai Lama's diary, he was mistakenly recorded as an "Indian pagan"). When the Fifth Dalai Lama inquired about the calendar used, a Qing court official responded that it was "quite similar" to the Tibetan Pu tradition calendar (though in reality, they were quite different). At the time, the monastic leaders had yet to realize that this "new Western method," capable of accurately predicting celestial phenomena, would quietly seep into the knowledge system of the snow-covered plateau in a subtle and indirect way.

The Fifth Dalai Lama and Emperor Shunzhi
Image source: Internet

How did the Jesuit calendar ascend to the official stage of the Qing Empire? Scholar Huang Mingxin pointed out: the errors of the *Datong Calendar*, which continued to be used in the Ming dynasty, had gradually increased, endangering the authority of imperial rituals and celestial interpretations. Missionaries represented by Johann Adam Schall von Bell, relying on Tycho Brahe’s precise astronomical system, provided a more accurate solution. In 1645, the Qing court adopted the *Shixian Calendar* compiled by them, not only for the purpose of “revering heaven and determining the seasons” but also to centralize the authority of calendar reform as a symbol of the new dynasty’s legitimacy.

Johann Adam Schall von Bell

The most large-scale dissemination of this knowledge began in 1714. Emperor Kangxi decreed that the astronomical work *Lüli Yuanyuan*, which included the Tychonic system, first be translated into Mongolian. It was then taken to Outer Mongolia by eminent Tibetan monks such as Ngawang Lobsang, and ultimately, under the guidance of the Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, the extensive Tibetan translation project was completed. This resulted in the *Tibetan Translation of the Kangxi Emperor's Comprehensive Chinese Calendar*.

Lüli Yuanyuan
Image source: Internet

Around 1744, a monk at the Yonghe Temple compiled the *Essentials of the Chinese Calendar*, a mere 16-page work. Later, Sopa Gyeltsen of Mayang Monastery completed the translation of *The Calculation Method for Eclipses Primarily Based on the Beijing Region in the Chinese Calendar*. These manuscripts traveled along the Tea-Horse Road into Amdo, sparking transformations at academic centers such as Labrang Monastery and Mayang Monastery. Monks began using the new methods to verify the traditional Kalachakra calendar, and even competed in measuring latitude and longitude by Qinghai Lake. The precision from Europe, after undergoing translations through Han, Mongolian, and Tibetan cultures, ultimately took root within the halls of Buddhist monasteries.

"The Calculation Method for Eclipses Primarily Based on the Beijing Region in the Chinese Calendar"

The Sixth Panchen Lama's Clock

If the transmission of calendrical science was a silent revolution among the intellectual elite, then the arrival of mechanical clocks gave modern time an audible and visible form. In the 18th century, European clocks entered Tibet via the Mongol-Russian trade routes and as imperial gifts from the Qing court. The journey of the Sixth Panchen Lama, Erdeni, to Beijing in 1779 became particularly legendary. En route, he received a gold watch delivered swiftly by imperial courier from the Qianlong Emperor, accompanied by a letter expressing reverence. Upon arriving in Rehe, he was gifted an exquisitely crafted "striking clock." Yet the most symbolic gift was a specially made "Kalachakra clock"—crafted by Jesuit artisans at the imperial court according to the *Kalachakra Tantra* system, dividing a full day and night into 60 periods, thus merging Tibetan Buddhist cosmology with European mechanical craftsmanship.

The Sixth Panchen Lama
Rubin Museum Collection

European clocks not only introduced new artifacts but also drove conceptual renewal within Tibetan academia. The astronomer A-ja Lobsang Tanpai Gyaltsen pointed out the significant errors in traditional sundials, advocating that "one must observe day and night using clocks to achieve precision." The Amdo scholar Sumba Yéshé Paljor also explicitly recorded in his writings that he used a "Beijing-crafted Western clock" for astronomical calculations. These practices mark the beginning of Tibetan scholars incorporating mechanical timekeeping into their scientific observational systems.

Gilt Bronze Hand-Warming Clock from the Qianlong Period
The Qing Emperors and Western Clocks

Dual Calendars Coexisting in Newspapers

In 1925, at Kalimpong on the border between British India and Tibet, the Tibetan Christian intellectual Dorje Tarchin used a discarded mimeograph machine to establish one of the world's earliest Tibetan-language newspapers, the "Mirror" (meaning "mirror"). In the newspaper, the Gregorian calendar was referred to as "དབྱིན་ཟླ" (English time) and printed alongside Tibetan calendar dates. This seemingly ordinary typesetting can, in fact, be interpreted as an epoch-making cultural declaration: the Tibetan-language world actively embedded itself into the globally recognized chronological sequence while holding fast to its local temporal coordinates. The newspaper's content, ranging from international current affairs to local reformist thought, both reflected the world and introspected upon itself. Gendün Chöphel's articles in the paper criticizing traditional cosmological views further stirred the public intellectual sphere.

Founder of the "Mirror" Newspaper
Dorje Tarchin

From the accurately predicted snow outside the Fifth Dalai Lama's tent, to the clock held by the Sixth Panchen Lama that integrated the wisdom of the *Kalachakra Tantra*, to the dual calendars standing side by side in the masthead of the *Mirror* newspaper, the process by which Tibetan society embraced modern time was a profound cultural adaptation—evolving from passive encounter to active assimilation, and from palace treasures to public media. This alignment in time was not a move toward homogenization, but rather a wisdom in defining one’s own position and rhythm on a more refined global scale.