a treaty with the then emperor of China (the twelfth of the Tang dynasty), a record of which was engraved on a stone put up in the above-mentioned great convent of La Brang (Jokhang), and is still to be seen there.[1] He is described in the church chronicles as an incarnation of the evil spirit, and is said to have succeeded in suppressing Buddhism throughout the greater part of the land. The period from Srong Tsan Gampo down to the death of Lang Darma, who was murdered about A.D. 850, in a civil war, is called in the Buddhist books “the first introduction of religion.” It was followed by more than a century of civil disorder and wars, during which the exiled Buddhist monks attempted unsuccessfully again and again to return. Many are the stories of martyrs and confessors who are believed to have lived in these troublous times, and their efforts were at last crowned with success, for in the century commencing with the reign of Bilamgur in 971 there took place “the second introduction of religion” into Tibet, more especially under the guidance of the pandit Atīsha, who came to Tibet in 1041, and of his famous native pupil and follower Brom Ston. The long period of depression seems not to have been without a beneficial influence on the persecuted Buddhist church, for these teachers are reported to have placed the Tantra system more in the background, and to have adhered more strongly to the purer forms of the Mahāyāna development of the ancient faith.
For about three hundred years the Buddhist church of Tibet was left in peace, subjecting the country more and more completely to its control, and growing in power and in wealth. During this time it achieved its greatest victory, and underwent the most important change in The temporal sovereignty of the Lāmas. its character and organization. After the reintroduction of Buddhism into the “kingdom of snow,” the ancient dynasty never recovered its power. Its representatives continued for some time to claim the sovereignty; but the country was practically very much in the condition of Germany at about the same time—chieftains of almost independent power ruled from their castles on the hill-tops over the adjacent valleys, engaged in petty wars, and conducted plundering expeditions against the neighbouring tenants, whilst the great abbeys were places of refuge for the studious or religious, and their heads were the only rivals to the barons in social state, and in many respects the only protectors and friends of the people. Meanwhile Jenghiz Khān had founded the Mongol empire, and his grandson Kublai Khān became a convert to the Buddhism of the Tibetan Lāmas. He granted to the abbot of the Sākya monastery in southern Tibet the title of tributary sovereign of the country, head of the Buddhist church, and overlord over the numerous barons and abbots, and in return was officially crowned by the abbot as ruler over the extensive domain of the Mongol empire. Thus was the foundation laid at one and the same time of the temporal sovereignty of the Lāmas of Tibet, and of the suzerainty over Tibet of the emperors of China. One of the first acts of the “head of the church” was the printing of a carefully revised edition of the Tibetan Scriptures—an undertaking which occupied altogether nearly thirty years and was not completed till 1306.
Under Kublai’s successors in China the Buddhist cause flourished greatly, and the Sākya Lāmas extended their power both at home and abroad. The dignity of abbot at Sākya became hereditary, the abbots breaking so far the Buddhist rule of celibacy that they remained married until they had begotten a son and heir. But rather more than half a century afterwards their power was threatened by a formidable rival at home, a Buddhist reformer.
Tsongkapa, the Luther of Tibet, was born about 1357 on the spot where the famous monastery of Kunbum now stands. He very early entered the order, and studied at Sākya, Brigung and other monasteries. He then spent eight years as a hermit in Takpo in southern Tibet, where The Luther of Tibet. the comparatively purer teaching of Atīsha (referred to above) was still prevalent. About 1390 he appeared as a public teacher and reformer in Lhasa, and before his death in 1419 there were three huge monasteries there containing 30,000 of his disciples, besides others in other parts of the country. His voluminous works, of which the most famous are the Sumbun and the Lam Nim Tshenpo, exist in printed Tibetan copies in Europe, but have not yet been translated or analysed. But the principal lines on which his reformation proceeded are sufficiently attested. He insisted in the first place on the complete carrying out of the ancient rules of the order as to the celibacy of its members, and as to simplicity in dress. One result of the second of these two reforms was to make it necessary for every monk openly to declare himself either in favour of or against the new views. For Tsongkapa and his followers wore the yellow or orange-coloured garments which had been the distinguishing mark of the order in the lifetime of its founder, and in support of the ancient rules Tsongkapa reinstated the fortnightly rehearsal of the Pātimokkha or “disburdenment” in regular assemblies of the order at Lhasa—a practice which had fallen into desuetude. He also restored the custom of the first disciples to hold the so-called Vassa or yearly retirement, and the public meeting of the order at its close. In all these respects he was simply following the directions of the Vinaya, or regulations of the order, as established probably in the time of Gotama himself, and as certainly handed down from the earliest times in the piṭakas or sacred books. Further, he set his face against the Tantra system, and against the animistic superstitions which had been allowed to creep into life again. He laid stress on the self-culture involved in the practice of the pāramitās or cardinal virtues, and established an annual national fast or week of prayer to be held during the first days of each year. This last institution indeed is not found in the ancient Vinaya, but was almost certainly modelled on the traditional account of the similar assemblies convoked by Asoka and other Buddhist sovereigns in India every fifth year. Laymen as well as monks take part in the proceedings, the details of which are unknown to us except from the accounts of the Catholic missionaries—Fathers Huc and Gabet—who describe the principal ceremonial as, in outward appearance, wonderfully like the high mass. In doctrine the great Tibetan teacher, who had no access to the Pāli Piṭakas, adhered in the main to the purer forms of the Mahāyāna school; in questions of church government he took little part, and did not dispute the titular supremacy of the Sākya Lāmas. But the effects of his teaching weakened their power. The “orange-hoods,” as his followers were called, rapidly gained in numbers and influence, until they so overshadowed the “red-hoods,” as the followers of the older sect were called, that in the middle of the 15th century the emperor of China acknowledged the two leaders of the new sect at that time as the titular overlords of the church and tributary rulers over the realm of Tibet. These two leaders were then known as the Dalai Lāma and the Pantshen Lāma, and were the abbots of the great monasteries at Gedun Dubpa, near Lhasa, and at Tashi Lunpo, in Farther Tibet, respectively. Since that time the abbots of these monasteries have continued to exercise the sovereignty over Tibet.
As there has been no further change in the doctrine, and no further reformation in discipline, we may leave the ecclesiastical history of Lāmāism since that date unnoticed, and consider some principal points on the constitution of the Lāmāism of to-day. And first as to the mode of Constitution of Lāmāism. electing successors to the two Great Lāmas. It will have been noticed that it was an old idea of the northern Buddhists to look upon distinguished members of the order as incarnations of Avalokiteśvara, of Mañju-śrī, or of Amitābha. These beings were supposed to possess the power, whilst they continued to live in heaven, of appearing on earth in a Nirmāna-kāya, or apparitional body. In the same way the Pantshen Lāma is looked upon as an incarnation, the Nirmāna-kāya, of Amitābha, who had previously appeared under the outward form of Tshonkapa himself; and the Dalai Lāma is looked upon as an incarnation of Avalokiteśvara. Theoretically, therefore, the former, as the spiritual successor of the great teacher and also of
- ↑ Published with facsimile and translation and notes in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1879–1880, vol. xii.
