Day 25

Covering the 9th to 11th centuries, this chapter describes the beginnings of what Tibetans call the Era of Fragmentation, a during which centralized political control declined and centralized religious authority had yet to emerge. It was a tumultuous time in which a great many cultural forms were in flux. This chapter, like the previous one, includes detailed information on the transmission of Indian Buddhism to Tibet. Extending the account of the early religious history, Shakabpa explains how the ordination lineages that had come from India were perpetuated and extended throughout Tibet by Tsang Rapsel , Yo Gewajung , and Mar Śākyamuṇi, among others. As was mentioned in the introduction to chapter two, contemporary historians have argued that Buddhism was probably not suppressed as thoroughly as the legendary accounts would have it. But Shakabpa does not interrogate those traditional accounts; instead, he indicates that monastic Buddhism was virtually unknown in Ü Tsang for seventy years.

Lama Yeshé Ö (b. middle third of the 10th century), a monk born among the remnants of the royal family in the emerging petty kingdom of Gugé in western Tibet, played a significant role in the revitalization of Buddhism. Depicted as regarding Buddhism to have become corrupted— a recurrent theme in Tibetan history—he sent twenty-one young men to India to restore the purity of the Buddhist teachings in Tibet. Led by Rinchen Zangpo (958–1055), this later dissemination (spyi dar) of the teachings is said to have surpassed the earlier dissemination (snga dar). Shakabpa examines some rival accounts of the two disseminations, seeming to accept that the later dissemination commenced in 978 when ten people were ordained in Ü Tsang. Throughout that period, paṇditas continued to arrive from India to assist in translating core Buddhist texts from Sanskrit into Tibetan.

Still, few of these figures are well-known in Tibet. However, it is safe to say that most Tibetans in the past thousand years could tell the story of Jowo Atīśa (982–1054), a noted Bengali abbot from Vikramalaśīla Monastery. When the fame of this guru reached Yeshé Ö, he resolved to invite him to purify and revitalize Buddhism in Tibet. When the initial invitation was declined due to Atīśa’s responsibilities at his monastery, Yeshé Ö decided to renew his request with an even greater offering, an amount of gold equal to his own body weight. When a Muslim king from Garlok to the north of his kingdom kidnapped him in the midst of his labors to procure this offering, his own nephew, Lama Jangchup Ö (b. 11th century), continued the sacred task, finally securing Atīśa’s assent and redirecting Tibet’s religious history onto a new trajectory.

Atīśa spent much of the remainder of his life in Tibet playing a pivotal part in establishing the form of monastic Buddhism that would continue to thrive thereafter. An examination of the colophons of canonical literature attests to his vigorous efforts to help Indian Buddhism take root in the Land of Snows. He also wrote an extremely important text on Buddhism, called Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment, which was meant to reform practices that were regarded as degenerate and corrupt by clearly specifying the various stages of progress and by identifying the vows to be taken at each level. b He died in Tibet at the age of seventy-two.

Dromtön Gyelwé Jungné (1004/1005–1064), the foremost disciple of Atīśa and the founder of the Kadampa tradition, founded a monastery at Radreng in 1047 that would become the primary seat of the Kadampa School that would spring from him and would continue to figure in Tibetan history into the 20th century.

~~One Hundred Thousand Moons- An Advanced Political History of Tibet -by- Tsepon Wangchuk Deden Shakabpa -translated by- Derek F. Maher