Kinlore
c. 779 (Samye) – 1409 (Ganden)

Buddhism comes to Tibet

Tibet's emperors invite Indian masters and found the monastery of Samye; after the empire's fall, a second wave of teachers from India creates the great schools of Tibetan Buddhism.

  • The Tibetans — Matthew T. Kapstein, Blackwell (2006)
  • Tibet: A History — Sam van Schaik, Yale University Press (2011)
  • Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism (rev. ed.) — John Powers, Snow Lion (2007)
  • An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices (2nd ed.) — Peter Harvey, Cambridge University Press (2013)

Traditional account faithscriptureidentityculture

Part of the story of Tibetans and Buddhism.

Buddhist images and temples reached Tibet in Songtsen Gampo’s time, but Tibetans date the real founding of their Buddhism to Emperor Trisong Detsen (reigned 755–c. 797). He invited the Indian scholar Shantarakshita, and, as the tradition tells it, when local spirits resisted, the tantric master Padmasambhava came and subdued them. Around 779, Samye, Tibet’s first monastery, was completed and the first Tibetans were ordained as monks.

  • The Tibetans — Matthew T. Kapstein, Blackwell (2006)
  • Tibet: A History — Sam van Schaik, Yale University Press (2011)
  • Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism (rev. ed.) — John Powers, Snow Lion (2007)

The great debate

Tibetan histories describe a debate at Samye in the 790s between the Indian Kamalashila, who taught a gradual path to awakening, and the Chinese Chan monk Moheyan, who taught sudden awakening. The Indian side is said to have won, and Tibet looked to India rather than China for its Buddhism. Historians think the reality was messier, but Indian scholasticism did become Tibet’s model.

  • The Tibetans — Matthew T. Kapstein, Blackwell (2006)
  • Tibet: A History — Sam van Schaik, Yale University Press (2011)

Translation

The emperors sponsored an enormous project to translate Indian texts into Tibetan, creating a standard vocabulary so precise that scholars today use Tibetan translations to reconstruct lost Sanskrit originals. These translations later formed the two parts of the canon: the Kangyur, the words of the Buddha, and the Tengyur, the commentaries.

  • The Tibetans — Matthew T. Kapstein, Blackwell (2006)
  • Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism (rev. ed.) — John Powers, Snow Lion (2007)
  • An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices (2nd ed.) — Peter Harvey, Cambridge University Press (2013)

The second spread

After the empire collapsed in 842, monastic Buddhism in central Tibet faded for more than a century, though lay tantric practitioners kept their lineages alive. From the late tenth century, a “later spread” (chidar) began. Tibetans travelled to India to study, and Indian teachers came to Tibet, above all the Bengali scholar Atisha, who arrived in 1042. In these years the main schools took shape: the Kadam, from Atisha’s disciples; the Sakya, around Sakya monastery founded in 1073; and the Kagyu, from the translator Marpa and his disciple, the poet-yogi Milarepa. Those who kept the older translations became known as the Nyingma, the “Ancient Ones”.

  • The Tibetans — Matthew T. Kapstein, Blackwell (2006)
  • Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism (rev. ed.) — John Powers, Snow Lion (2007)
  • Tibet: A History — Sam van Schaik, Yale University Press (2011)

As Buddhism collapsed in India around 1200, Tibet became its heir. Monks fleeing the destruction of Nalanda and Vikramashila brought texts and teachings with them.

  • The Tibetans — Matthew T. Kapstein, Blackwell (2006)
  • Nalanda — Encyclopaedia Britannica
In 1409 Tsongkhapa founded Ganden monastery, and his followers became the Gelug school, which would later produce the Dalai Lamas.
  • Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism (rev. ed.) — John Powers, Snow Lion (2007)
  • Tibet: A History — Sam van Schaik, Yale University Press (2011)

Buddhism and the old religion

The new faith did not simply replace older beliefs. Local mountain gods and spirits were enlisted as “protectors” of the Dharma, and Bön, the religion Tibetans associate with pre-Buddhist times, reorganised itself with its own canon and monasteries, closely resembling Buddhism.

  • The Tibetans — Matthew T. Kapstein, Blackwell (2006)
  • Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism (rev. ed.) — John Powers, Snow Lion (2007)
The result was a civilisation in which Buddhist monasteries became centres of learning, wealth and, eventually, political power.

Why it matters today

Tibetans

Buddhism became the centre of Tibetan identity. The four schools that grew out of these centuries, Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya and Gelug, still organise Tibetan religious life in Tibet and in exile, and Padmasambhava, "Guru Rinpoche", is loved as the second Buddha who tamed Tibet's demons.

Buddhism

When Buddhism died out in India, Tibet preserved the late Indian tradition of Nalanda more completely than anywhere else, in a vast canon of translations. Through Tibetan teachers in exile since 1959, it has become one of the best-known forms of Buddhism in the West.