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Introductory History of the Five Tibetan Traditions

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Introduction of Buddhism by Emperor Songtsen-gampo:

The history of the five Tibetan traditions of Buddhism and Bon. The four Buddhist traditions are Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, and Gelug, while the pre-Buddhist Tibetan tradition of Bon makes the fifth. Often we hear the syllable „pa“ at the end of these names. It means a follower of that tradition; for instance, Gelug pa means someone who follows the Gelug tradition.

To survey the history, we need to go back to the seventh century of the Common Era. At the beginning of that century, a king from Central Tibet named Songtsen-gampo conquered the Western Tibetan kingdom of Zhang-zhung and created the first unified Tibetan Empire. The custom in those days to unify an empire was for the king to marry princesses from nearby kingdoms – neighboring kings were less likely to attack the palaces where their daughters lived. Emperor Songtsen-gampo married princesses from China, Nepal, and Zhang-zhung. These princesses brought with them the religions of their native countries. The Chinese and Nepali princesses brought Buddhist texts and the Zhang-zhung princess brought her Bon beliefs. Bon was the Zhang-zhung native religion.

If we look from a Western historical viewpoint, Buddhism did not have much of an impact in this earliest period. The main development was that this first emperor built thirteen Buddhism temples in his domain. The map of Tibet was seen as a female demon lying on the earth. Choosing thirteen spots on the body of the demoness, like acupuncture points, the emperor commissioned temples built on each of them to subdue and control the energy of the demoness of Tibet. That is how Buddhism came to the Land of Snows.

To unify his empire further, Songtsen-gampo wished to have an alphabet for writing the Tibetan language. Thus, he sent his minister, Togmey-sambhota, to obtain the alphabet from Khotan – not from India, as is often explained in the traditional Tibetan histories. Khotan was a Buddhist kingdom north of Western Tibet in Central Asia. The route to Khotan that the minister took passed through Kashmir. When he arrived there, he discovered that the master he was going to meet in Khotan happened to be in Kashmir at the time. This is how the story evolved that the Tibetan writing system came from Kashmir. Orthographic analysis reveals that the Tibetan alphabet actually follows features distinctive only to the Khotanese script. Afterwards, there was much more contact with Buddhism in China and Khotan then there was with Indian Buddhism. The Bon religion, however, remained stronger in Tibet than Buddhism during this earliest period. It provided the ceremonies used in state rituals.

The Old Transmission Period (Nyingma)

In the mid-eighth century, another great emperor, Tri Songdetsen, ascended to the throne. He received a prophecy about future Buddhist teachings in Tibet and, in accord with this prophecy, he invited a great Buddhist teacher from India, Shantarakshita. Soon after the arrival of the Indian Abbot, a smallpox epidemic broke out. The court ministers, who were against all foreign influences in Tibet, blamed the smallpox on Shantarakshita and expelled him from Tibet. Before leaving, Shantarakshita advised the Emperor to invite Guru Rinpoche, Padmasambhava, to come and subdue the adverse conditions and problems. Tri Songdetsen followed this advice, and Padmasambhava came and rid Tibet of the interferences. The Emperor then invited Shantarakshita to return. There were already several Buddhist temples in the land, but now they built the first monastery in Tibet, at Samyay, just south of Lhasa. The Indian Abbot ordained the first monks.

Guru Rinpoche taught a little, but actually did not teach very much in Tibet. He mostly buried texts, thinking that the Tibetans at that time were not yet receptive. These texts were of the highest tantra teachings called dzogchen, the great completeness.

After this, many Chinese, Indian, and Zhang-zhung scholars worked together harmoniously at Samyay monastery, mostly compiling and translating texts from their own traditions. Soon, Buddhism was made the state religion. The Chinese had the largest influence at this time. Every second year, the Chinese emperor sent two monks to Samyay. The form of Buddhism the Chinese monks followed was Chan, the Chinese predecessor of Japanese Zen.

Shantarakshita predicted some conflict with the Chinese. Please keep in mind that the religious history did not happen in a vacuum; it happened in connection with the political history and there were a lot of wars between China and Tibet at this time. Shantarakshita said that they should invite his disciple, Kamalashila, to settle whatever problems might arise.

Meanwhile, Emperor Tri Songdetsen sent more Tibetans to India to bring back teachings and invite more Indians to his land. More texts were buried. Because there were so many wars with China and Central Asia and because the ministers were against any foreign influence in Tibet, it makes sense that there was a persecution of the Bonpos in Samyay and at the court. After all, the Bonpo faction was primarily from Zhang-zhung.

There was also a Dharma debate between Kamalashila, representing the Indians, and the Chinese representative. The Chinese lost. Of course, there was no way that a Chan master could defeat, in logical debate, a master in logic from India. It was no contest: Chan practitioners have no training in logic. For many reasons, one could postulate that the debate was a political move taken to provide an excuse for expelling the Chinese and for adopting Indian Buddhism as the main form of Buddhism in Tibet. Of all the kingdoms and empires neighboring Tibet, the Indians posed the least military threat.

I like to present history not from the standard devotional Tibetan point of view but a little bit more from a Western, scientific viewpoint, since I do have that training. I think it indicates a little more clearly what happened. It makes more sense.

Many more translations took place after this. In the early ninth century, under imperial sponsorship, the scholars compiled a Sanskrit-Tibetan dictionary and standardized the translation terms and style. It is quite interesting that the scholars did not include any tantra terms in the dictionary; tantra was already quite controversial.

In the mid-ninth century, the infamous persecution of Buddhism by the Emperor Langdarma took place. Rather than making Langdarma into the devil, as devotional histories tend to do, it may be more objective to see this persecution as a reaction to the abbots and monks at Samyay who were trying to assert too much influence on the government. Too much of the taxes raised by the state went for supporting the monasteries, and the economic burden had become untenable.

Actually, what Langdarma did was shut down the monasteries; it was not that he destroyed Buddhism. He did not destroy the Buddhist libraries, because Atisha found them when he came to Tibet a century later. Buddhism continued outside the monasteries. What had started before and continued during this so-called „old transmission period“ (old translation period) later became known as „the old tradition,“ the Nyingma tradition.

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