Rare Color Photos of Tibet from the 1940s–1950s: A World Preserved in Time

In early 1946, Heinrich Harrer and Peter Aufschnaiter reached the city of Lhasa. They had spent twenty-one months traveling through the dangerous mountain passes after escaping a prison camp in British India. The high-altitude plateau was almost entirely closed to foreigners at the time. Local officials initially told the men to leave, but they eventually allowed them to stay. Lhasa was a city of stone buildings and narrow streets dominated by the Potala Palace. This massive structure stood on a hill and housed thousands of monks along with the young Dalai Lama.

Harrer and Aufschnaiter integrated into the local society during their seven-year stay. They used their engineering skills to help the city improve its infrastructure. They helped build a sewer system and created detailed maps of the capital. Most Tibetan people lived according to ancient religious traditions and slow-paced routines. Citizens wore heavy wool robes called chubas to protect themselves from the thin, freezing mountain air. Religious festivals filled the streets with bright colors and traditional music throughout the year.

In 1948, the teenage Dalai Lama sent for Harrer. The young leader was curious about the world outside the Himalayas. Harrer became his tutor, teaching him subjects like geography, science, and math. They met in a private room inside the Potala Palace. Harrer also helped the Dalai Lama build a small cinema so he could watch films from other countries. The young ruler had a keen interest in Western technology and mechanical objects like watches and cameras.

By 1950, the isolation of Tibet ended as political tensions rose. The Chinese army invaded the eastern regions of the country, and the news caused great anxiety in Lhasa. The Dalai Lama took on full political power earlier than expected to lead his people. Harrer realized that his time in the country was ending. He helped the Dalai Lama prepare for a potential escape toward the Indian border. The tranquil life of the previous years was replaced by military preparations and high-stakes diplomacy.

#1 Cheeks ballooning, monks force sirenlike blasts from silver trumpets as they clear the way for their king.

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#2 The Potala, fortress of Tibet’s god-king, broods over the flooded Kyi Valley.

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#3 In summer the Dalai Lama quits his winter quarters at the Potala and journeys to the Norbu Lingka (Jewel Park), two miles away. Here, at the ruler’s return in autumn, townspeople throng the poplar-lined lane to watch the royal cavalcade.

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#4 The Dalai Lama’s mother and sister defy convention with Western glasses. Dekyi Tshering (right), once a humble farm wife, rose to an awesome position as Tibet’s “Great Mother” when her son became Dalai Lama in 1940. She and her daughter wear brocade hats fringed with silk. Eyeglasses were taboo in the god-king’s presence.

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#5 Top Tibetan officials marvel at a souvenir from America. A finance secretary peers through a slide viewer, memento of a Tibetan trade delegation’s mission to the United States in 1948.

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#6 Mother and child pray on Chagpori’s crest, a pilgrim shrine. Incense smolders beneath prayer flags.

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#7 Clouds of dust and incense veil the Dalai Lama’s flight to safety. When China’s troops entered Tibet in 1950, the Living Buddha fled to the Sikkim border. Here in a sedan chair, he rides between rows of stones designed to ward off demons.

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#8 Monks and nuns since birth, Red Hat children await their god. The Dalai Lama fled Lhasa in secret, but the news swept before him. At Jang Monastery, a day’s journey from the holy city, thousands of weeping monks threw themselves into the road before their ruler, begging him not to leave. Here youngsters wave banners, while their elders pray to the sound of drum and cymbal. Unlike the celibate Yellow Hat order, monks of the Red Hat sect may marry; children follow their parents into religious seclusion.

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#9 Monks and nobles prepare for the arrival of the Dalai Lama at Dungkhar Monastery, in Chumbi. Each place the god-king slept on his trek immediately became a consecrated chapel, where no mortal man may ever again dwell.

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#10 In sublime reverence, the Dalai Lama cradles his faith’s holiest relic. When this young man was two years old, mysterious signs revealed him as the incarnation of Tibet’s patron god, Chanrezi, and the previous 13 Dalai Lamas. Here at Dungkhar Monastery he receives a gold-encased bone which Tibetans believe to be that of Gautama Buddha, who founded the religion on which Lamaism is based.

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