Overlapping Empires: Religion, Politics, and Ethnicity in Nineteenth-Century Qinghai

In the early 1820s, two men possessed of substantial administrative experience produced treatises on the governance of Kökenuur (Ma. Kūke noor, Ch. Qinghai), a strategic yet troubled region at the crossroads of China, Tibet, and Mongolia.1 The first author was the Geluk hierarch and reborn lama Belmang Pandita Könchok Gyeltsen (Dbal mang 02 Dkon mchog rgyal mtshan, 1764–1863), who served as the twenty–fourth abbot of Labrang monastery from 1804–09. Between 1819 and 1821, Belmang Pandita completed The Ladder for Guiding the Youth, Lessons Summarizing the History of India, Tibet, Eastern and Western Mongolia (hereinafter “History”), a kind of “mirror for princes” addressed simultaneously to the lay Mongol nobility of Kökenuur and the rulers of monastic domains.2 The second author was the Qing official Nayanceng