Tibet under Yuan rule in the context of "Administrative divisions of the Yuan dynasty"

The Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), often shortened to Tibet, or referred to in Chinese as Xizang, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It was established in 1965 to replace the Tibet Area, a former administrative division of the Republic of China.

The current borders of the Tibet Autonomous Region were generally established in the 18th century and include about half of cultural Tibet, which was at times independent and at times either under the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty or Qing dynasty rule. The TAR spans more than 1,200,000 km (460,000 sq mi) and is the second-largest province-level division of China by area. Due to its harsh and rugged terrain, it has a total population of only 3.6 million people or approximately 3 inhabitants per square kilometre (7.8/sq mi).

Drogön Chogyal Phagpa (Tibetan: འགྲོ་མགོན་ཆོས་རྒྱལ་འཕགས་པ།, Wylie: ʼgro mgon chos rgyal ʼphags pa), who lived from (26 March 1235 – 15 December 1280), was the fifth leader of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism. He was also the first Imperial Preceptor of the Yuan dynasty and was concurrently named the director of the Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs, serving during the reign of Kublai Khan.

Historical tradition remembers him as the first vice-ruler of Tibet under the Yuan emperor as well as one of the Five Sakya patriarchs (Tibetan: ས་སྐྱ་གོང་མ་རྣམ་ལྔ་, Wylie: sa skya gong ma rnam lnga). Although this is historically disputed, he played a very important political role.

The Imperial Preceptor, or Dishi (simplified Chinese: 帝师; traditional Chinese: 帝師; pinyin: Dìshī; lit. 'Teacher of the Emperor'; Tibetan: གོང་མའི་སློབ་དཔོན, Wylie: gong mavi slob dpon), was a high title and powerful post in the Yuan dynasty. It was created by Kublai Khan as part of Mongol patronage of Tibetan Buddhism and the Yuan administrative rule of Tibet.

The title was originally created as the State Preceptor or Guoshi (simplified Chinese: 国师; traditional Chinese: 國師; pinyin: Guóshī; lit. 'Teacher of the State'; Tibetan: གོ་ཤྲི, Wylie: go shri) in 1260, the first year of Kublai Khan's enthronement. In that year he appointed the Sakya lama Drogön Chögyal Phagpa to this post and soon placed him in charge of all Buddhist clergy. In 1264, he founded the Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs and appointed Phagpa as the first director of this important new agency. The lama was offered nominal rule over all Tibet and also supervised Mongol relations with the Buddhist clergy. In 1270, Phagpa became Imperial Preceptor (Dishi) when the title was renamed. As Imperial Preceptor, he was authorized to issue letters and proclamations to the temples and institutions of Tibet, and he advised the emperor regarding official appointments in Tibet. Kublai Khan dispatched the lama to Tibet in 1264 to help persuade his people to accept Mongol rule.

There were several Mongol invasions of Tibet. The earliest is the alleged plot to invade Tibet by Genghis Khan in 1206, which is considered anachronistic; there is no evidence of Mongol-Tibetan encounters prior to the military campaign in 1240. The first confirmed campaign is the invasion of Tibet by the Mongol general Doorda Darkhan in 1240, a campaign of 30,000 troops that resulted in 500 casualties. The campaign was smaller than the full-scale invasions used by the Mongols against large empires. The purpose of this attack is unclear, and is still in debate among Tibetologists. Then in the late 1240s Mongol prince Godan invited Sakya lama Sakya Pandita, who urged other leading Tibetan figures to submit to Mongol authority. This is generally considered to have marked the beginning of Mongol rule over Tibet, as well as the establishment of patron and priest relationship between Mongols and Tibetans. These relations were continued by Kublai Khan, who founded the Mongol Yuan dynasty and granted authority over whole Tibet to Drogon Chogyal Phagpa, nephew of Sakya Pandita. The Sakya-Mongol administrative system and Yuan administrative rule over the region lasted until the mid-14th century, when the Yuan dynasty began to crumble.

In the early 17th century, the Oirat Mongols again conquered the region and established the Khoshut Khanate. Since then the Mongols had intervened in Tibetan politics until the Qing conquest of Mongolia and Dzungaria.

The priest and patron relationship, also written as priest–patron or cho-yon (Tibetan: མཆོད་ཡོན་, Wylie: mchod yon; Chinese: 檀越關係; pinyin: Tányuè Guānxì), is the Tibetan political theory that the relationship between Tibet and China referred to a symbiotic link between a spiritual leader and a lay patron, such as the historic relationship between the Dalai Lama and the Qing emperor. They were respectively spiritual teacher and lay patron rather than subject and lord. Chöyön is an abbreviation of two Tibetan words: chöney, "that which is worthy of being given gifts and alms" (for example, a lama or a deity), and yöndag, "he who gives gifts to that which is worthy" (a patron).

During the 1913 Simla Conference, the 13th Dalai Lama's negotiators cited the priest and patron relationship to explain the lack of any clearly demarcated boundary between Tibet and the rest of China (ie. as a religious benefactor, the Qing did not need to be hedged against). According to this concept, in the case of Yuan rule of Tibet in the 13th and 14th centuries, Tibetan Lamas provided religious instruction; performed rites, divination and astrology, and offered the khan religious titles like "protector of religion" or "religious king"; the khan (Kublai and his successors), in turn, protected and advanced the interests of the "priest" ("lama"). The lamas also made effective regents through whom the Mongols ruled Tibet. According to Sam van Schaik, the Mongols ruled Tibet not as an administrative province of the Yuan dynasty but as a Mongol colony. The Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs and Imperial Preceptor in Khanbaliq were at the top of the Tibetan administration, but due to the great distance from Tibet, they had little direct influence on daily governance. Hence, the highest authority in Tibet was the administrator of the Sakya who deferred to the abbot in religious matters.

The Phagmodrupa dynasty (Tibetan: ཕག་མོ་གྲུ་པ་, Wylie: phag mo gru pa) was a dynastic regime that held sway over Tibet or parts thereof from 1354 to the early 17th century. It was established by Tai Situ Changchub Gyaltsen of the Lang (Wylie: rlangs) family at the end of the Mongol led Yuan dynasty. The dynasty had a lasting importance on the history of Tibet; it created an autonomous kingdom after Yuan rule, revitalized the national culture, and brought about a new legislation that survived until the 1950s. Nevertheless, the Phagmodrupa had a turbulent history due to internal family feuding and the strong localism among noble lineages and fiefs. Its power receded after 1435 and was reduced to Ü (East Central Tibet) in the 16th century due to the rise of the ministerial family of the Rinpungpa. It was defeated by the rival Tsangpa dynasty in 1613 and 1620, and was formally superseded by the Ganden Phodrang regime founded by the 5th Dalai Lama in 1642. In that year, Güshi Khan of the Khoshut formally transferred the old possessions of Sakya, Rinpung and Phagmodrupa to the "Great Fifth".