Tibet before China

 https://www.nytimes.com/1979/12/09/archives/journey-to-tibet-hidden-splendors-of-an-exiled-deity.html#

The monks ruled through fear. Tibetans lived in terror of the “Yidaz,” or demons, depicted in the temples by images of monsters with big stomachs and wearing necklaces of human skulls. The Yidaz infested not only the earth but also all of the 18 hells that awaited sinners. All bad deeds, which included disrespect of the monkhood and the nobility, and the refusal to pay taxes, were not only punished on earth by whipping, eye gouging and maiming, but also in the 18 hells. These hells included eight hot ones, where people were tortured by boiling and by fire, and eight cold ones, where they were frozen by various ingenious methods. Suicide was no escape, for that led one to the worst hell of all — there, people were torn apart and rejoined and torn apart again, forever and ever.

Most Tibetans over 30 are still illiterate, because there were no public schools until the 1960's. The idea of sending a peasant child to lay school was as inconceivable as sending a yak to college. There is now free education for all children, but it is still difficult, in rural areas, to persuade the parents to send their children to school.

In Tibet, the so‐called legal practices were often barbaric. No civil law governed the treatment of the serfs or peasants, who were considered property of the monasteries and landowners. Later we visited the museum in Lhasa to see an exhibit of the horrors found in the dungeons. On display were the gruesome instruments of torture that were found. The hideous evidence includes severed hands, pickled human heads, boxes of thighbones and skulls, and skins of children flayed alive as sacrifices. Ghastly photos show starved and mutilated victims.

Now the thought of the dungeons beneath the splendor threw the Potala into a sinister light. We entered an eerie cavern. As our eyes adjusted to the darkness, we could see the vibrating golden hues emanating from jewelled Buddhas on all sides. The mystery of it all was enhanced by the grotesque shadows cast by the guardian ogres, monsters and fiends. Climbing up, we arrived at the “Temple of the Guardian of the Law,” intended to teach “impermanence and suffering,” where the shrine was decorated by fearsome deities presiding over sadistic scenes of death and mutilation.