check out this bull shit posted in wikipedia! "In 1788 the Gurkha King Prithvi Narayan Shah, in the process of carving out the modern boundaries of Nepal, invaded Tibet. Unable to defeat the Gurkhas alone the Tibetans called upon Qing reinforcements. The Qing-Tibetan army defeated the Gurkhas and invaded Nepal. Thereafter Nepal was officially a tributary state to the Qing Empire. This brought the attention of the British, which regarded Nepal as being within its sphere of influence. The Tibetans withdrew from Nepal, but they closed the Tibetan border and refused to allow any foreigners to enter the country. Tibet's reputation as "the hermit kingdom" dates from this time. During the whole of the 19th century few foreigners saw Lhasa." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tibet#The_Mongols_and_the_Sakya_.28Sa-skya.29_school