Buddhism in Tibet by Rebecca McClen Novic

There were three most kind to Tibet:

the Precious Guru, Padmasambhava;

the Lord Master, Atisha; and

Precious Master, Tsong Khapa. ¨

—Tibetan saying

Buddhism in Tibet has a history that spans more than a thousand years. The trade routes of Asia skirted Tibet’s mountains, never penetrating her natural barriers, and for centuries the country remained largely isolated from the rest of the world. Little is known about Bon, Tibet’s indigenous pre-Buddhist

religion. Many scholars suggest that it was originally shamanic in nature, and indeed its magical and animistic practices and the ritual use of human bones suggest shamanic influence. Bon still survives today and has been reinterpreted within a Buddhist framework.

Tibetans view the history of Tibet as the story of how the Buddhist Dharma tamed their country’s primitive energies. In a Tibetan myth, the land of Tibet rose above the waters of the ocean (an event that actually took place forty million years ago when the Indian subcontinent collided with Asia). The only

inhabitants were a monkey and an ogress. The monkey, who was an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of compassion, was a peaceful being and enjoyed meditating by himself in his cave. The ogress, on the other hand, had a wild and passionate nature. She had no idea that the monkey existed, and she

desperately desired a companion. When, from the silence of his cave, the monkey heard her howls of loneliness, he felt enormous compassion for her and agreed to become her mate. This unlikely couple became Tibet’s Adam and Eve. They had six children together, and it was from them that the

entire population of Tibet descended. The ogress and the monkey are said to symbolize the conflicting character traits of the Tibetans themselves, who throughout history have been both aggressive and peaceful.

By the sixth century, Tibet began to develop militarily. At this point in history, the country was completely surrounded by Buddhist nations. These became the focus of raids by Tibetan fighters, who were known as the “red faces” because of their custom of using war paint made from red ochre. Under the

leadership of the emperor, Songtsen Gampo, Tibet became a powerful empire that lasted for two hundred years. The “red faces” conquered vast regions of Central Asia between Tibet and China, and were considered such a threat that the rulers of the Chinese and Ottoman Empires united to try to halt the Tibetan expansion.

In 635 c.e., Tibet attacked China and later annexed Nepal. Songtsen Gampo married both a Chinese and a Nepalese princess from his conquered lands. These women, who were later regarded as incarnations of the goddess Tara—the emanation of all the Buddhas’ wisdom and compassion who is often called the “mother

of the Buddhas.” The princesses were both devout Buddhists and brought Buddhist ideas and images from their homelands. Their influence on the king, and through him Tibetan society, largely inspired the spread of the Dharma in Central Asia.

While Europe was plunged into the cultural turmoil of the “Dark Ages,” Tibet was undergoing a renaissance. It was the thirty-eighth Tibetan King, Trisong Detsen (740-798 c.e.), who established Buddhism as the state religion. The king was an enthusiastic convert to the new philosophy, and he asked the Indian

tantric yogi, Padmasambhava, to come to Tibet to give teachings. Padmasambhava was a dynamic and charismatic character who is said to have possessed superhuman powers. He wandered the Tibetan countryside, subjugating the local demons and deities, instructing the local people and converting them to

Buddhism. Together with Trisong Detsen, he founded the first Tibetan monastery at Samye, where he supervised the early translations of the Buddha’s teachings from Sanskrit into Tibetan.

Later, around the middle of the ninth century, the great conqueror king, Relbachen, continued to spread the Buddhist faith throughout the

land. During his reign, the great spiritual exchange that began with Padmasambhava reached new heights. Many Indian scholars came to Tibet to help translate Buddhist texts, and Tibetans went to India to study Buddhism. Relbachen was murdered by his ministers, who replaced the king with his brother,

Lang Darma, an ardent supporter of the old Bon religion. Lang Darma destroyed Buddhist scriptures, closed down monasteries, and forced the monks to marry. He was eventually assassinated, but before his death he had almost succeeded in wiping out Buddhism from Tibet. The mighty Tibetan empire collapsed into

chaos as tribal conflicts led to instability and separatism, and China was able to take back the areas it had lost. Tibet did not unite around a common leadership again for another three hundred years.

The second dissemination of Buddhism in Tibet was brought about by Yeshe O, a monk-king who ruled a western region of the country. In 1042, he invited the renowned Buddhist scholar, Atisha, to Tibet. Atisha had a profound impact on Tibetan society. He reformed the monasteries and emphasized the mentor-student

relationship of lamas and disciples. He was dearly beloved by the general population, who embraced his teachings, and by the end of his career Buddhism was firmly established in Tibet. Dawa Norbu writes, “Perhaps no religion in the world has changed a people’s way of life so dramatically as Buddhism did in Tibet. The Tibetans, who had been the most dreaded and fiercest warriors in Central Asia, literally ‘put down their weapons at the lotus feet of lamas’ and followed the ‘white path of peace’ pointed to by the Buddha.”

Indigenous Buddhist schools emerged as Tibetans began to interpret the dharma in slightly different ways. Four of these schools survive today: the Nyingma, founded by Padmasambhava, the Kagyu, the Sakya, and the Gelug (see Chapter 20). In the twelfth century, Genghis Khan led Mongolia to a position of total

dominance in Central Asia. In the middle of the thirteenth century, the Mongolian army invaded and overran the militarily vulnerable Tibet. In 1244 c.e., the Mongolian warlord Prince Godan, grandson of Genghis Khan, invited the head of the Sakya school, Sakya Pandita, to his camp. Sakya Pandita was a

legendary and learned lama reputed to be the holiest monk in Tibet, and when Godan met him, the prince was so impressed that he converted to Buddhism. This marked the beginning of the extraordinary priest-patron relationship between the two countries, where Mongolia offered military protection in

exchange for Tibet’s spiritual knowledge. However, although the Mongols were nominally the rulers of Tibet, they left the day-to-day affairs of the country to the Tibetan people.

In 1253, Sakya Pandita’s nephew, Pagpa, became the spiritual teacher of Kublai Khan, who installed him as the ruler of Tibet. Kublai Khan later became the Mongol emperor of China and declared Buddhism the state religion of Mongolia. The Tibetan lamas and Mongol khans continued their close relationship, but by 1307 the Mongols had lost much of their interest in Tibet, which was rife with internecine conflicts. Sakya power began to wane, and the country again fell to the rule of Tibetan warlords. Mongol power too began to decline, and in 1368, China was in a position to overthrow the Mongolian dynasty.

Around 1400, Tsong Khapa spearheaded a renaissance of Buddhism in Tibet and founded the Gelug school, whose name means “system of virtue.” This school, known as the “Yellow Hats,” became extremely popular in Mongolia as well as in Tibet. In 1578, a profound event occurred in Tibetan history, when Sonam Gyatso, the second reincarnation of Tsong Khapa’s main disciple, visited the court of the Mongol ruler, Alta Khan. Echoing the auspicious meeting three hundred years earlier between Prince Godan and Sakya Pandita, the monk’s demeanor, learning, and spiritual accomplishment deeply moved the great khan. He

became a Buddhist and bestowed the title “Dalai”—the Mongolian word for ocean—on Sonam Gyatso, as a gesture acknowledging the depth of the lama’s knowledge. Thus the priestpatron relationship was reestablished and the institution of Dalai Lama was created.

Sonam Gyatso is known as the Third Dalai Lama, as his previous two incarnations (Gendun Gyatso and Gendun Druba) were given the title posthumously. The Fourth Dalai Lama came from Alta Khan’s own family, and this cemented the relationship between the two countries. By the end of the sixteenth century,

Tibetan warlords had become increasingly defensive against the rise of monastic power, and they began a period of religious persecution. The Mongols came to the aid of the monastics and, buoyed by huge popular support, the Fourth Dalai Lama became the political as well as spiritual leader of Tibet. The “Great Fifth” founded a government in 1642, and became the first Dalai Lama to lead a united Tibet. He wrote numerous books, mastered

the tantric arts, and was a powerful ruler. He abolished serfdom by dismantling the private forces of the nobility and revoking their rights to determine the fates of the peasantry, who were at that time no better off than the medieval serfs of Europe. While monastic power in Northern Europe was dwindling

and its military was on the rise, in Tibet the opposite was true. Tibet was the only place in the world where religious leaders gained hegemony over the military. The first Manchu emperor invited the Fifth Dalai Lama to his palace; he became, as did many subsequent Dalai Lamas, the spiritual guide to the

Chinese leaders. As Tibet stabilized, it began to shut itself off from the countries surrounding it, and for three hundred years an uninterrupted succession of Dalai Lamas ruled peacefully in Tibet. China, which now ruled Mongolia, left Tibet more or less alone, only interfering in periods of civil tension. The religious landscape in Central Asia had completely reversed, and Tibet was now the only Buddhist nation in the region.