Tag: lamas

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Lama Shuo

Qianlong’s Pronouncement on Lamas (Lama shuo)

In this 1792 stele pronouncement found in the Yonghe Gong, the Qianlong emperor declared formal Qing patronage over the dGe-lugs-pa which was enjoying high popularity among its Mongol followers. This Pronouncement was inscribed in Chinese, Manchu, Mongol and Tibetan, signifying the Manchu’s (and ultimately Qianlong’s) claim to universal rulership as the Court officially recognised both the Dalai and Panchen Lamas. The Pronouncement claimed that unlike the Mongols, the Qing has never used the term “di shi” (imperial preceptor) to represent the relationship between the Emperor and the leading Tibetan Lama. However, the term “guo shi” or “Teacher of the Kingdom” was only reserved for Lcang Skya who was the Qianlong Emperor’s confidante, as well as the leading Lama representing the Qing Court in Tibetan affairs. Since Qianlong explicitly rejects claims that the Lama had any spiritual superiority over the Emperor and re-establishes the hierarchy of rulership between Lamas and patron. The pronouncement also declared that the process of picking the future Dalai Lama would no longer be concentrated within the hands of certain Tibetan or Mongolian lineages. Instead, the names of the potential incarnates would be placed in a golden urn and selected in a public ceremony to ensure impartiality. This was also in response to the accusations of the defeated Nepalese Gurkhas, (and some Chinese) who claimed that the Qing merely patronised the dGe-lugs-pa for the sake of political expediency in keeping the Mongols in check. However, Qianlong, in the edict, proclaimed in the Manchu inscription that as a devote Tibetan Buddhist, he not only understood but had the right to make the changes that he did as Emperor.

Sources:
Patricia Berger. 2003. Empire of Emptiness: Buddhist Art and Political Authority in Qing China. U Hawaii Press pp 34-5, James L. Hevia. 1995. Lamas, Emperors, and Rituals

Entry: 4/28/07

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Xumifushou Temple

Xumifushou 须弥福寿庙 (Blessings and Longevity of Sumeru)

In 1780, the 6th Panchen Lama, Blo bzangs dpal ldan ye shes (1738–80) arrived at Chengde (承德), the summer retreat complex of the Manchus, to participate in the seventieth birthday celebrations of the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736–95). As part of the celebrations, the emperor had ordered the construction of the Xumifushou Temple, which replicated Bkra shis lhun po (Tashi Lhunpo), the seat of the Panchen Lama in Central Tibet. The birthday celebrations, and the elaborate preparations and ritualized activities that accompanied it, were based on historical precedents (as well as creative innovations) and served as displays of the emperor’s righteous rule over his Inner Asian subjects.

The practice of constructing Buddhist sites honoring political victories harked back to the Kangxi emperor (r. 1662–1723) who built the Huizong Monastery in Dolonnor for the Khalka Mongols after their surrender to the Manchus in 1691. The Qianlong emperor adopted this practice and built two more temples commemorating the conclusion of political victories: the Puning Temple (普宁寺), which was modeled after Bsam yas Monastery, in 1755 at Chengde to honor the Manchu defeat of the Dzungar Mongols, and the Putuozongchengmiao (普陀宗乘庙), modeled after the Potala Palace in Lhasa, in 1771 at Chengde for the combined occasions of the Empress Dowager’s eightieth birthday, Qianlong’s sixtieth birthday, and the return of the Kalmuk (or Torghut) Mongols to the Qing empire. Thus the construction of replicated Buddhist sites was instilled as an appropriate commemoration of political expansion. The act of replication, which was utilized in many different ways during the Qianlong reign, has been discussed as ritual acts where semiotic reinterpretation and alterations produced effects in experienced reality as well as permanent alterations of the significance of the original form.

The Shunzhi emperor (1644–61) established the precedent of constructing elaborate residences for visiting Tibetan prelates. In 1652, he ordered the construction of Xihuang Monastery (西黄寺) in Beijing for the visit of the Fifth Dalai Lama, Ngag dbang blo bzangs rgya mtsho (1617–82).

Thus, since the Qianlong emperor viewed his seventieth birthday as an occasion to impress upon his Inner Asian subjects the legitimacy of his rule, he drew upon these precedents to create spectacular settings for such ritual enactments. In 1778, the Qianlong emperor was overjoyed at the news that the Sixth Panchen Lama wished to be present at his birthday celebrations (likely influenced by Rol pa’i rdo rje, the senior-most lama in the imperial court and guru to Qianlong), as he was then the highest ranking prelate in Tibet and his visit would mark the second most important state visit from Tibet since the visit of the Fifth Dalai Lama. The order to construct the Xumifushou was issued on 26 January 1779, just three days after the emperor issued the official invitation to the Panchen Lama. In another letter to the Panchen Lama, dated to 18 February 1779, the emperor mentions that the Xumifushou was being built following the precedent of the Fifth Dalai Lama’s visit to Beijing.
The emperor decreed that construction was to be completed before the fourth month in 1780 to allow time for accommodating the monks and massive amounts of luggage that would arrive ahead of the Panchen Lama’s entourage. Indeed, construction was finished in the spring of 1780. The Xumifushou was built, under the close supervision of Rol pa’i rdo rje, to the east of the Putuozongcheng (Potala replica) on a mountain slope. While the façade of the complex is in the Tibetan style, the actual layout was designed like a Chinese monastic complex, on a central north-south axis. The complex consists of a main hall, called the Miaogao zhuang yan (妙高庄严), Lofty and Solemn Hall, which was designed for the Panchen Lama to give teachings and use for meditation and devotions. The roof of the Panchen Lama’s residential building, the Jixiang Faxi (吉祥法喜), Auspicious Omen and Joy in the Law, as well as the roof of the main hall were gilded in copper twice by imperial command. Two smaller pavilions were located to the right and left of the main hall. The pavilion on the left was that of the Panchen Lama’s, while the pavilion on the right, the Yuzuo, or Royal Throne, was that of the Qianlong emperor, and where his throne was installed. To the rear of the complex is the Wanfa zongyuan (万法宗源), Source of Ten Thousand Dharmas, which was the dormitory of the Panchen Lama’s entourage.

Documents record that massive amounts of objects were tranferred to Xumifushou from the temples of the Forbidden City and imperial workshops of the Zaobanchu in Beijing. An inventory submitted in 1800 records that there were 21 thangkas of Buddhist images in the main hall, 84 thangkas in the Yuzuo (Qianlong’s pavilion), 5 thangkas of Amitayus and 5 thangkas of Shakyamuni on the north side of this same pavilion, 12 bronze images and two sets of glass wugong sets (an incense burner, two candlesticks, and two vases) on the alter of this pavilion, and embroidered thangkas of Lhamo and eleven-headed Avalokiteshvara that were hung in the Jixiang Faxi, where the Panchen Lama resided.

While the replica of Bkra shis lhun po at Chengde only superficially followed its original, the actual purpose of its construction was communicated by the emperor himself in the four-language stele located at the entrance to the complex. In Chinese, Manchu, Tibetan, and Mongolian, the emperor observed that the two greatest disciples of Tsong kha pa, the founder of the dGe lugs pa school, the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama occupied separate monastic seats located at great distances from each other. Under the auspices of Qing imperial birthdays, these two seats of Tibetan Buddhism were brought together side by side, in replication, at Chengde. The construction of the Xumifushou folowed the precedent set by the building of Xihuang Monastery for the Fifth Dalai Lama’s visit. Qianlong goes on to declare that beyond following precedents, all the temples at Chengde served political functions by uniting China and its frontiers into “a single family.” By using visual similiarity, analogy, and proximity, Qianlong could extol his own “nonaction” as the key to his successful rule and to radiate his merit outward for the benefit of others. Thus the replication of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries at Chengde served as a means for the emperor to re-order his empire in panoptic form in a way that legitimized his rule as a benevolent and meritorious monarch and in the language of his Inner Asian subjects.

Sources:
Patricia Berger. 2003. Empire of Emptiness: Buddhist Art and Political Authority in Qing China. U Hawaii Press
Terese Tse Bartholomew. 2001. Thangkas for the Qianlong Emperor’s seventieth birthday. In Cultural intersections in later Chinese Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i.

Entry by Eveline S. Yang 4/3/07

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Ba Erdeni Lama

Ba Erdeni Lama

According to an early nineteenth century work by an anonymous Mongol author entitled How It Came About That the Mongol Royal Family Descended from the Indian Kings, the Ba Erdeni Lama was invited in 1623 by Boshughtu Khan (also known as Nurghaci or the first Qing emperor, Taizu), said to be the first “Manchu Khan,” to Niu Ching on the Mukden river, said to be the site of Manchu origin. The Ba Erdeni Lama requested from the Dalai Lama a title for the Khan, and he was known thereafter as “Manjusri Khan.” According to this text, the designation “Manchu” derives from the sound of this title. The Ba Erdeni Lama also was said to have created the Manchu script from the Mongol and Tangut scripts.

Elverskog argues that this story reveals a late-Qing worldview of “the Mongols” as one subjugate component of the (Manchu) Qing state, as opposed to earlier notions of the Manchu (or Jurchen) and other Mongol tribes as various ulus or communities that could make up a toro or state without one ulus necessarily predominating. The story also reveals an attempt to legitimize this late Qing state through claiming Tibetan Buddhist connections at its very origin.

Source:
Johan Elverskog. 2006. Our Great Qing: The Mongols, Buddhists and the State in Late Imperial China. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

Entry by Stacey Van Vleet, 3/6/07

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Bagha Ba Lama

Bagha Ba Lama

A stele from 1630 refers to Bagha Ba Lama as the junior to Uluk Darhan Nangsu Lama, an important figure in bringing Tibetan Buddhism to the Manchus. Bagha Ba Lama was responsible for seeing through the construction of a stupa to house the relics of Uluk. The building of the stupa had been decreed by the Manchu ruler Nurghaci (who became the first Qing emperor, Taizu) after Uluk’s death in 1622. Uluk had converted Nurghaci to Tibetan Buddhism. Actual construction was delayed, however, due to frequent warfare during Nurghaci’s reign (which ended with his death in 1626), and Uluk’s relics were kept temporarily in a temple in Liao yang converted from the estates of Lieutenant Colonel (cang jiang) Han. In 1630 Bagha Ba Lama convinced Hong Taiji, the second Qing emperor and son of Nurghaci, to begin construction of the stupa in honor of his father’s commitment to the lama and to Tibetan Buddhism.

Tak-Sing Kam argues that because the stele inscription referring to Bagha Ba Lama is not in the Tibetan language, but only Manchu and Chinese that he was probably of Mongolian, not Tibetan, descent. His title appears as Bida, Bide, or Bi Lama in the Mongolian language version of the Qing Veritable Records. Kam notes that the title Bagha Ba, which appears in Manchu sources, should not be confused with the Tibetan title ‘Phags pa. The Mongolian term bagha means “small, young, or lower in rank,” and usually distinguishes a lama from his senior counterpart, as it distinguished Bagha Ba from his master the “Great” (Uluk) Darhan Nangsu Lama (Kam 168n.47, 169).

Source:
Kam, Tak-sing. The dGe-lugs-pa Breakthrough: The Uluk Darxan Nangsu Lama’s Mission to the Manchus. Central Asiatic Journal. 44:2 (2000) p. 161-176.

Entry by Stacey Van Vleet, 3/6/07

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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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Zanabazar Jebtsundamba Khutuktu

Zanabazar, the first Jebtsundamba Khutukhtu (Jetsun Dampa Khutuktu)

Zanabazar (1635-1723) was the initial incarnation of the Urga or Jebtsundamba (rje btsun dam pa) lineage of the western Outer Mongolian (Khalkha) monastery Erdeni Zuu. Recognized by the Fifth Dalai Lama when he was twenty-five, Zanabazar later held a close relationship with the Kangxi emperor and is credited with convincing the Khalkha Mongols to submit to the Qing empire – and not to culturally alien Russia – around 1691.[[#_ftn1|[1]]] After this, Kangxi bestowed upon Zanabazar the title “Da Lama,” and in turn the lama alluded to their reenactment of Khubilai Khan and Phakpa’s close relationship during the Yuan dynasty. In addition to his spiritual and political roles, Zanabazar was renowned in his own time up to the present for the intricate and elegant sculpture he created in a Nepali-derived style.

In 1639, at the age of fifteen, Zanabazar (son of the Khalkha Tshuyetu Khan Gombodorji) was accepted as an incarnate lama by a convocation of Khalkha nobles at Erdeni Zuu. The Khalkha Khan may have been trying to usurp some of the power of the Gelugpa (dge lugs pa) sect, and at the same time circumvent a potential alliance between the Tibetans and the newly founded Qing dynasty. The boy was sent to Tibet for recognition by the Dalai Lama in 1649, and he received many initiations and teachings over the next year from the Great Fifth and from the Fourth Panchen Lama Lobsang Chokyi Gyaltsen (blo bzang chos skyid rgyal mtshan). The Dalai Lama also gave Zanabazar the title Jebtsundamba Khutukhtu and recognized him as the reincarnation of Taranatha (1575-1634), a Jonangpa (jo nang pa) missionary lama who had traveled widely in Inner Mongolia and rivaled Gelugpa influence in the region. This recognition had astute political consequences. Besides transferring all the merit accumulated by Taranatha in Tibet and Mongolia to Zanabazar (and the Gelugpa), the Fifth Dalai Lama was also able to incorporate Taranatha’s monastery in Tibet, the center of the Jonangpa, Puntsokling (phun tshogs gling). The Great Fifth then “renovated” this monastery with murals by Nepali artists, thus materially inscribing there his ambition. Zanabazar did not preside over Puntsokling, however, but returned instead to Khalkha in the company of fifty painters and bronze casters (commanding both Nepali and Tibetan styles) to build a stupa for Taranatha’s remains, and to establish a new Gelugpa stronghold at Erdeni Zuu.

Zanabazar also never took up permanent residence at his seat of Erdeni Zuu, however, which was the largest stationary monastery of its time. His real establishment was in fact a traveling one; called orgoo (or in Russian, Urga) or Da Khuree or Ikh Khuree, which in Mongolian means Great Circle. With his traveling entourage, Zanabazar worked to carry out the proselytizing mission of the Gelugpas, especially the Fifth Dalai Lama. On the other hand, the Dalai Lama and Jetsundamba Khutukhtu sometimes acted like rival lords, investing, entitling, and providing seals for Mongol Khans, arbitrating disputes between the Khans, and – like emperors and Khans – receiving and dispatching embassies and commanding populations and sometimes even armies. Zanabazar’s Da Khuree ranged over at least seventeen different locations and five hundred kilometers between the mid-seventeenth and eighteenth century. The decoration of the lama’s roving temples reveals some of the techniques he employed towards his proselytizing and diplomatic ends, through his deep engagement with the elaborate artistic traditions and ritualism of his day. His tents were rich with painting, sculpture, textile hangings, and ritual objects created in his workshop. Zanabazar is also said to have composed ceremonial music and designed monks’ costumes and rituals, based on what he had seen at the Panchen Lama’s monastery Tashilunpo (bkra shis lhun po). His famous Nepali-influenced bronze sculptures are said to have been “created” at the unlikely place of Tovghuun, his retreat center on the outskirts of Erdeni Zuu. Patricia Berger argues that this reference mostly likely means that Zanabazar visualized the sculptures during meditation retreat after receiving various spiritual transmissions of texts (he was especially associated with Tara and Vajrapani), and that their later execution took place with the help of his artisan entourage. Actual production sites were spread over a wide geographic swath, unsurprisingly also linking sites of Zanabazar’s diplomatic and missionary endeavors: Beijing, Chengde, Dolonnor, Inner Mongolian Koke qota, and Amdo. Bronzes were sent to the court of the Kangxi emperor around 1655, and Zanabazar is also said to have produced sculptures in metal and gemstones while visiting Beijing in 1691. Continuing the tradition of Nepali-style artistry at the imperial court begun by Anige during the Yuan period, Zanabazar’s bronzes profoundly influenced Qing art.

Zanabazar’s visit to Beijing in 1691 came at a politically significant moment. The lama had just convinced the Khalkhas to submit to the Qing empire at Dolonnor, siding with the Kangxi emperor against the Western Mongolian Dzungars. Forging closer ties with the Manchu emperor – there is a story that Kangxi attempted to test the lama when he first arrived, but that Zanabazar revealed these tricks and also delighted the emperor with displays of his powers – Zanabazar again visited Beijing in 1721 to participate in Kangxi’s birthday celebrations. When the emperor passed away soon afterwards, Zanabazar came once more to conduct rituals for his death at Beijing’s Yellow Monastery (Huang si 黃寺). The lama passed away himself in Beijing only a few months later, in 1723. His body was sent back to Mongolia and mummified. Kangxi’s son, the Yongzheng emperor, ordered a Chinese-style monastery dedicated to Zanabazar’s main tutelary deity, Maitreya, to be built at the place where the lama’s traveling Da Khuree had stood at the moment of the his death. This monastery, called Amur-Bayasqulangtu or “Monastery of Blessed Peace,” resembles Yongzheng’s own palace Yonghegong in Beijing (converted by his son the Qianlong emperor into a Buddhist monastery). The monastery’s sophisticated construction in such a remote location – north of the modern city of Darkhan, near the northern Outer Mongolian border – demonstrates the far reach of the Qing empire in the early eighteenth century. Yongzheng pledged 100,000 liang of silver to the monastery’s construction, which was not completed until a year after his own death in 1736. Zanabazar’s body finally found its way there in 1779 (the project thus spanning three different reign periods), and remained at the monastery until being carried off and lost during the revolution in Mongolia of 1920s and 1930s.

Sources:
Patricia Berger. 2003. Empire of Emptiness: Buddhist Art and Political Authority in Qing China. University of Hawai’i Press.
Sabine Dabringhaus. 1997. “Chinese Emperors and Tibetan Monks: Religion as an Instrument of Rule,” in China and her neighbours. Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz Verlag.
James L. Hevia. 1995. “A multitude of lords: The Qing Empire, Manchu rulership and interdomainal relations,” in Cherishing men from afar: Qing guest ritual and the Macartney embassy of 1793. Durham N.C.: Duke University Press.
Wang Xiangyun. 2000. “The Qing court’s Tibet connection: Lcang skya Rol pa’I rdo rje and the Qianlong Emperor.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 60 (1): 125-163.

Entry by Stacey Van Vleet, 3/28/07

[[#_ftnref1|[1]]] The date of this event is contested; it is variously cited as 1688, 1691, or 1693.

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Jasagh Lama

Jasagh Da Lama-Jasagh Lama

The term jasagh or yasa originally designated the law code (sometimes referred to as “army order” or “army law”) developed among the Mongols under Chinggis Khan. In addition to laying out laws in general, the code was concerned with the distribution of power among tribal leaders, princes, etc and is described as having secured “secular” control as opposed to religious law (Togan, 149). In the Qing the term jasagh by itself came to refer to certain of the princes within a Mongol banner. These princes were recognized as the descendents of Chinggis Khan.

The terms jasagh dalama (grand prince of the church) and jasagh lama (prince of the church) evolved from the Mongol terms mentioned above. They were created by the Qing court and conferred on the head monks of imperial monasteries, augmenting traditional Tibetan monastic titles such as khanpo (which lack the secular tone of “prince”). Beginning in the Kangxi period, the Jasagh titles combined religious and secular power, drawing on models of combined religious-secular roles from the Ming and the Yuan. Introduced into the Tibetan/Mongolian Buddhist monastic context (in which a Tibetan lama would typically be placed in charge of a community of Mongolian monks) the titles also served to draw together Tibetan and Mongol concepts of authority. (So the titles were simultaneously secular and religious, and resonated strongly with Tibetans and Mongolians.)

Under the Qing, seven large monasteries run by jasagh lamas were designated banner units. They were distinct from secular banners. As the head of such a banner monastery, the jasagh lama or jasagh dalama had administrative and judicial control. In cases where a reincarnated lama presided over more than 800 people, a Jasagh lama was appointed to take charge of the secular aspects of the banner. (Rawski, 254). The jasagh lamas were especially significant in their roles at Wutaishan and at the imperial monastery Yonghegong in Beijing. Starting in the mid-seventeenth century, with the Fifth Dalai Lama’s visit to Beijing, these titles were conferred on Tibetans or Mongolians by Tibetan officials in Lhasa. The designated monks were often sent from Lhasa and served as important liaisons between the Dalai Lama’s government and the court. In addition to overseeing imperial monasteries, jasagh lamas also taught Tibetan language and Buddhism to the imperial families.

Sources:
Rawski, Evelyn. The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions
Togan, Isenbike. Flexibility and Limitation in Steppe Formations: the Kerait Khanate and Chinggis Khan.
Tuttle, Gray. Tibetan Buddhists in the Making of Modern China
Tuttle, Gray. “Tibetan Buddhist Intermediaries between the Qing Court and the Tibetan Government.” Presented at AAS Annual Meeting, China and Inner Asia Session 37.

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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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The Fifth Karmapa

The Fifth Karmapa

The Fifth Karma-pa, (1384~1415), De-Bzhin gShegs-pa or Helima (Halima) (Chin.: 哈立麻), is the reincarnated head of the Black –Hat (Zwa-nag) Karmapas. The fifth Karma-pa was invited by Yongle emperor (Zhu Di, 朱棣) of the Ming dynasty in 1407, to perform a mass of universal salvation (pudu dazhai) at Linggu Monastery in honor of the Yongle emperor’s late father, the Hongwu emperor, and his late putative mother, the Empress Ma. The Fifth Karma-pa received a title “Rulai dabao fawang xitian dashan zizai fo” (Chin.:如來大寳法王西天大善自在佛; Tathagata, Great and Precious Dharma King, Great Goodness of the Western Heaven, Self-Abiding Buddha) during his stay in Nanjing.

What is worth noting is that the title “dabao fawang” (Chin.: 大寳法王) was initially bestowed by Mongol’s Yuan court to Phags-pa (1235-1280), a member of the Sakya sect of Buddhism. That two distinct figures who represent two sectarian traditions in Tibet received the same imperial title from Yuan and Ming dynasty respectively suggests that the title “dabao fawang” was an emblem of importance of Tibetan Buddhism for both Yuan and Ming dynasties in terms of legitimacy. The Yongle emperor’s uncertain origin and his usurping the power made it necessary for him to employ Tibetan Buddhism (then, called Buddhism without any qualifications) for the purpose of legitimacy. Sources from both Tibetan and Chinese sides glorify, or rather, apotheosize the Fifth Karma-pa and his visit. The Fifth Karma-pa, at a matter of fact, was destined to perform the magical powers from the Tibetan’s perspective, because he was the fifth exponent of a lineage of lamas especially noted for their ecstatic visions and magical powers. A silk handscroll that was first kept in Tsurphu Monastery and transferred to Norbulingkha in Lhasa afterwards illustrates the Fifth Karma-pa’s visit to Nanjing. By adding glory to the emperor and the Fifth Karma-pa, the surreal, magical signs that were described in historical records in both China and Tibet were translated into a non-Buddhist idiom and made to serve the legitimation of imperial power.

However, it would be oversimplified to suggest that the Fifth Karma-pa’s visit to Nanking, the capital of Ming dynasty and Mt. Wutai afterwards was merely a religious activity. During the early Ming dynasty, the Ming government might have been trying to obtain horses in Khams, fighting Tibetan tribes in A-mdo and drawing support from Tibetan Buddhism in a hope of legitimizing the newly usurped throne (in the case of Yongle emperor, particularly.) These aspects of the visit of The Fifth Karma-pa and the role of Tibetan Buddhism in early Ming dynasty deserve more attention.

Sources:
Berger, Patricia, Miracles in Nanjing: An Imperial Record of the Fifth Karmapa’s Visit to the Chinese Capital, Cultural Intersections in Later Chinese Buddhism, UH.P. 200
Sperling, Elliot, The 5th Karma-pa and Some Aspects of the Relationship Between Tibet and Early Ming, Tibetan Studies in honor of High Richardson: Proceedings of the International Seminar of Tibetan Studies, Oxford 1979, Warminster: Aris & Phillips Ltd. & Did the Early Ming Emperors Attempt to Implement A “Divide and Rule” Policy in Tibet?, Contributions on Tibetan Language, History and Culture, Wien, 1983 & Si-tu Chos-kyi rgyal-mtshan and the Ming Court, Lungta 13, Winter 2000
Silk, Jonathan A, Notes on the History of the Yongle Kanjur, Suhrllekhah: Festgabe für Helmut Eimer. Swisttal-Odendorf: Indica et Tiebtica Verlag, 1996

Entry by Lan Wu, 2/18/ 07

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Ye Shes Rin Chen

Ye Shes Rin Chen/ Yi Lin Zhen (1248-1294)

The fourth Imperial Preceptor Ye shes rin chen was born in 1248 to the east of Sa skya Monastery in Central Tibet. He was a child prodigy and mastered his seminary studies at a young age. His specialty was the Kālacakra-tantra. In fact, in Tibetan historiography he is remembered more for his contribution to the Kālacakra lineage than his role as Imperial Preceptor. For instance, in a recently published who’s who of Tibetan historical figures his primary title is that of Kālacakra master (dus ‘khor ba), not Imperial Preceptor.

Ye shes rin chen was a close associate of ‘Phags pa. The latter lived in and around Sa skya from 1264-1269, while Ye shes rin chen would have been a monk at that great center of learning. Recognizing his scholarship and proficiency in ritual arts, ‘Phags pa invited him to Lintao in 1272. Ye shes rin chen accompanied ‘Phags pa to the Yuan court in 1275. There he met Kublai Khan and gained his favor. ‘Phags pa then returned to Tibet, while Ye shes rin chen remained behind in Dadu to serve as a chaplain at the court.

The office of Imperial Preceptor was created for ‘Phags pa in 1270. The ritual traditions ‘Phags pa was famous for were considered his family’s unique heritage, and the succeeding two Imperial Preceptors were members of his family. Most of the subsequent Imperial Preceptors were also relatives of ‘Phags pa. Nevertheless, Ye shes rin chen proved to be an outstanding diplomat and ritual specialist, and in 1268 this monk born outside of the Sa skya family was made Imperial Preceptor. His tenure lasted from 1268-1294. The fourth Imperial Preceptor – and Kālacakra master – Ye shes rin chen died at Wutai Shan in the last year of his reign, 1294.

Sources:
Luciano Petech. 1983. Tibetan Relations with Sung China and the Mongols. In China among equals: the Middle Kingdom and its neighbors, 10th-14th centuries. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 173-204
Rinchen trashi. “Tibetan Buddhism and the Yuan Royal Court.” Tibet Studies. pp. 1-26; Ming mdzod. 1992. Dus ‘khor ba Ye shes rin chen entry. p. 824.

Entry by Jann Ronis, 2/13/07

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