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Lcang skya Rol pa’i rdo rje (Changkya Rolpe Dorje)

Lcang skya Rol pa’i rdo rje (Changkya Rolpe Dorje)

Lcang skya Rol pa’i rdo rje (1717-1786) was an important Buddhist figure in the Qing court, a teacher and close associate of the Qianlong emperor and an important intermediary between the court and Inner Asia. Over the course of his career he acted as Qianlong’s main Buddhist translator, tutor, and National Preceptor. He was of Mongour descent, born in Northeastern Tibet and raised for the most part within the imperial court. He was recognized as a reincarnation of the previous Lcang skya lama (1642-1714) in 1720 and taken to court in 1724, after his home monastery was destroyed by Qing troops in response to a rebellion led by Lobjang Danjin. He would also later be identified as an incarnation of ‘Phags pa. At the Yongzheng Emperor’s court, he was educated in close proximity to the boy who would become the Qianlong emperor. This relationship would prove significant in later years, since Rol pa’i rdo rje served as Qianlong’s main Buddhist teacher and advisor in matters related to Buddhism, including art, literature, religious initiations and practices, and diplomacy. His education included training in most of the languages in use under the Qing as well as Buddhist topics suited to his role as a lama.

In 1734 Rol pa’i rdo rje made his first trip to Lhasa when Yongzheng permitted him to accompany the 7th Dalai Lama on his return to the Tibetan capital. This trip gave Rol pa’i rdo rje the opportunity to meet and study with the Dalai Lama as well as to make offerings to Lhasa’s major monasteries and present gifts from the Qing emperor. In 1735 Lcang skya lama traveled to Shigatse, where he met the Panchen Lama Blo bzang ye shes at Tashilhunpo monastery. Lcang skya took the vows of a novice at this time with the Panchen Lama, who gave him a new Dharma name, Ye shes bstan pa’i sgron me. A few days later he took the vows of a fully ordained monk, under the supervision of the Panchen Lama and other major lamas. When Yongzheng died in 1736, Lcang skya gave up his plans to stay on and study under the Panchen Lama and had to return to Beijing. The Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama offered religious statues and other significant gifts as parting presents.

When Lcang skya arrived in Beijing, the new emperor, his childhood peer the Qianlong, named him chief administrative lama in Beijing. Early in his career as administrator, Lcang skya urged the emperor to grant disputed border areas to the Dalai Lama. While the emperor refused to grant the land, he did follow Lcang skya’s advice in part, by granting the Dalai Lama a yearly allowance of five thousand taels (taken from the Dajianlu revenue). After the internal political tensions in Lhasa came to a climax in 1751 (with the execution of the secular leader ‘Gyur med rnam rgyal), Qianlong named the Dalai Lama the political and religious leader of Tibet. Lcang skya’s biographer Thu’u bkwan asserts that this significant decision was largely due to Lcang skya’s advice.

After the death of the 7th Dalai Lama, the Qianlong sent Lcang skya on a second mission to Lhasa. There was debate among Tibetan officials over whether the new Dalai Lama’s regent, De mo, would have both religious and secular power. The bka’ blon or cabinet members aimed to take over secular control and let the Dalai Lama manage religious matters. Lcang skya advised the emperor to entrust De mo with full religious and secular authority in order to avoid conflict among the cabinet members. The emperor granted De mo religious authority and relied on the ambans to limit the power of the lay elite cabinet members. In 1757, Lcang skya departed for Lhasa again, this time with a large entourage including a minister, several officials, and two Imperial physicians. During this stay, Lcang skya performed various religious and political tasks for the emperor, keeping the Qianlong apprised of the situation in various Inner Asian locales, as far west as Ladakh. He was closely involved with identifying the 8th Dalai Lama and wrote the 7th Dalai lama’s biography. At the same time, Lcang skya studied under major lamas, most significantly the Panchen Lama. In 1779, Lcang skya arranged for the Panchen Lama to undertake a trip to Beijing to celebrate the Qianlong’s birthday. A monastery modeled after Tashilhunpo was built in Jehol in honor of the visit. During the Panchen Lama’s visit Lcang skya performed religious and diplomatic functions such as instructing the lama on how to approach the emperor and translating Dharma teachings between the two. The Panchen Lama contracted smallpox and passed away during this visit.

Lcang skya’s work as a translator was by no means limited to oral translations – he also oversaw the creation of (Mongolian, Tibetan, Manchu, Chinese, and Chagatay language) dictionaries and translations of Buddhist teachings in textual form. As a Buddhist administrator in Beijing, he played an important role in founding Yonghegong, a monastic college for Mongol, Manchu, and Chinese monks. Like Wutaishan, this college combined an Imperial palace and a Tibetan Buddhist monastery. He was also instrumental in developing the systems of iconography, cataloguing, and inscribing that would prove so important to the Qianlong’s projects in Buddhist art.

Sources:
Berger, Patricia. Empire of Emptiness: Buddhist Art and Political Authority in Qing China.
Tuttle, Gray. Tibetan Buddhists in the Making of Modern China.
Wang Xiangyun. The Qing Court’s Tibet Connection: Lcang skya Rolpa’i rdo rje and the Qianlong Emperor.

Entry by Dominique Townsend

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Bsod nams rgya mtsho–The Third Dalai Lama

Bsod nams rgya mtsho (Sonam Gyatso), The Third Dalai Lama (1543–88)

Bsod nams rgya mtsho was the leading hierarch of the Dge lugs pa (Gelugpa) school of Tibetan Buddhism during a time when competition from rival sects within Central Tibet, especially the bKa’ rgyud pa, drove them to seek political and religious patronage from sponsors outside the Tibetan cultural regions. Such a practice of Tibetan Buddhist leaders seeking support from non-Tibetan patrons stretched back to the Yuan and had become established by the end of the Ming. This was due to the decentralized power of the Mongols that allowed different Tibetan Buddhist leaders to gain support from different branches of the Mongol imperial family. While the Tibetans did not have a centralized missionary aim, their own quest for patronage took place within the broader context of struggles between Mongol, Manchu, and Chinese groups over political and territorial primacy in Inner Asia.

Within such a context, the Mongols revived the lama-patron relationship in the late sixteenth century in an attempt to expand their political authority using Tibetan Buddhism. Altan Khan (1521–82), ruler of the Tumed Mongols, then the most powerful group in Inner Asia, met with Bsod nams rgya mtsho in the region of Kokonor (Tib. Mtsho kha/Mtsho sngon, Ch. Qinghai) in 1578. During this meeting, Altan Khan accepted Bsod nams rgya mtsho as his “spiritual guide and refuge” and gave him the title of “Dalai Lama.” In return, Bsod nams rgya mtsho gave Altan Khan the title of “Protector of the Faith.” Altan Khan’s conversion to the dGe lugs pas can be seen as part of a broader attempt to subvert his nominal superior, Tumen Khan (1558–92) of the Chakhar Mongols, who had cultivated relationships with the Sa skya pa, and who were allied with the declining Ming against the new Manchu state. Meanwhile, Bsod nams rgya mtsho gained for the Dge lugs pa the support of a powerful and wealthy patron, which enabled him to consolidate Dge lugs pa strongholds in Tibetan and Mongol regions as well gain the attention of the Ming court in Beijing.

The year after this meeting, Bsod nams rgya mtsho sent Stong ‘khor chos rje Yon tan rgya mtsho, the first Chahan lama, to Altan Khan as his representative to the Mongols. In 1583, Bsod nams rgya mtsho embarked on a second mission from Central Tibet, which took him first to the birthplace of Tsong kha pa (1357–1419), the founder of the Dge lugs pa school, in A mdo. Here, he founded an innovative Dge lugs pa school at Sku ‘bum (Kumbum Monastery) that later produced many Dge lugs pa missionaries to northeast Asia for the next two centuries. He also visited monasteries linked to Tsong kha pa’s disciple, Shakya Ye shes, and ensured their legacies as Dge lugs pa institutions. In 1585, Bsod nams rgya mtsho went to Koke khota (Tib. Mkhar sngon, Ch. Guihuacheng), the capital of Tumed Mongol territory, at the request of Altan Khan’s son. Here he established a translation school near the Chinese border. The next year, Bsod nams rgya mtsho visited the territory of the Kharchin Mongols, where he established another translation school. In 1588, he traveled further northeast at the invitation of the Khorchin. There he gave the Khorchin khan a Hevajra empowerment and consecrated the establishment of a monastic community. Owing to his reputation and activities among the Mongols, Bsod nams rgya mtsho was invited to the Ming court in 1588 by the Wanli emperor (r.1572–1620), who gave him the title of the Great Imperial Preceptor who Confers Initiations (Guanding tai guoshi). Bsod nams rgya mtsho was intending to accept this invitation when he fell ill and died in Mongol regions in 1588.

Before his death in 1588, bSod nams rgya mtsho predicted he would be reincarnated in Mongolia (indeed, the fourth Dalai Lama was recognized in the nephew of Altan Khan), thus beginning the line of Dalai Lama reincarnations that continues to play an important role in Tibetan religion and politics.

Sources:
Tak-sing Kam. The dGe-lugs-pa Breakthrough: The Uluk Darxan Nangsu Lama’s Mission to the Manchus. Central Asiatic Journal. 44:2 (2000) p. 161-176.
Evelyn S. Rawski. 1998. The last emperors: a social history of Qing imperial institutions. Berkeley: University of California Press. 244-262.
Gray Tuttle. “A Tibetan Buddhist Mission to the East: The Fifth Dalai Lama’s Journey to Beijing, 1652-1653.” In Tibetan Society and Religion: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Bryan Cuevas and Kurtis Schaeffer, eds. Leiden: Brill, 2006; 65-87.
Gray Tuttle. “Imperial Traditions” from Tibetan Buddhists in the Making of Modern China.

Entry by Eveline S. Yang, 3/27/07

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