L A M A I S M
said to have spent his long reign in the building of reservoirs, bridges, and canals; in the promotion of agriculture, horticulture, and manufactures; in the establishment of schools and colleges; and in the maintenance of justice, and the encouragement of virtue. But the degree of his success must have been slight. For after the death of himself and of his wives Buddhism gradually decayed, and was subjected by succeeding kings to cruel persecutions; and it was not ,till more than half a century afterwards, under King Kir Song de Tsan, who reigned 740-786, that true religion is acknowledged by the ecclesiastical historians to have become firmly established in the land.
This monarch again sent to India to replace the sacred books that had been lost, and to invite Buddhist pandits to translate them. The most distinguished of those who came were Santa Rakshita, Padma Sambhava, and Kamala Sīla, for whom, and for their companions, the king built a splendid monastery still existing, at Samje, about three days' journey south-east of Lhasa. It was to them that the Tibetans owed the great collection of what are still regarded as their sacred books – the Kandjur. It consists of 100 volumes containing no less than 689 works, of which there are two or three complete sets in Europe, one of them in the India Office Library. A detailed analysis of these Scriptures has been published by the celebrated Hungarian scholar Csoma de Körös, whose authoritative work has lately been republished in French with complete indices and very useful notes by M. Léon Feer. These volumes contain about a dozen works of the oldest school of Buddhism, the Hīnayāna, and about 300 works, mostly very short, belonging to the Tantra school. But the great bulk of the collection consists of Mahāyāna books, belonging to all the previously existing varieties of that widely extended Buddhist sect; and, as the Sanskrit originals of many of these writings are now lost without hope of recovery, the Tibetan translations will be of great value, not only for the history of Lāmāism, but also for the history of the later forms of Indian Buddhism.
The last king's second son, Lang Darma, concluded in May 822 a treaty with the then emperor of China (the twelfth of the Thang dynasty), a record of which was engraved on a stone put up in the above mentioned great convent of La Brang, 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 tried his best to overthrow religion, and 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 eventually murdered about 850 A.D., 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 Pandita 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 then 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 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, who ruled over the greatest empire which has ever owned the sway of a single man, 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 comparatively purer teaching of Atīsha (referred to above) was still prevalent. About 1390 he appeared as a public teacher and reformer in Lhasa itself, 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 as yet been translated or analysed. But the principal lines on which his reformation proceeded are sufficiently well 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
- ↑ Published with facsimile and translation and notes in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1879-80, vol. xii.
