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 The Luther of Tibet. 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, 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 yet been translated or analysed. But the principal lines on which his reformation proceeded are sufficiently 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 first disciples to hold the so-called Vassa or yearly retirement, and the public meeting of the order at its close. In all these respects he was simply following the directions of the Vinaya, or regulations of the order, as established probably in the time of Gotama himself, and as certainly handed down from the earliest times in the piṭakas or sacred books. Further, he set his face against the Tantra system, and against the animistic superstitions which had been allowed to creep into life again. He laid stress on the self-culture involved in the practice of the pāramitās or cardinal virtues, and established an annual national fast or week of prayer to be held during the first days of each year. This last institution indeed is not found in the ancient Vinaya, but was almost certainly modelled on the traditional account of the similar assemblies convoked by Asoka and other Buddhist sovereigns in India every fifth year. Laymen as well as monks take part in the proceedings, the details of which are unknown to us except from the accounts of the Catholic missionaries—Fathers Huc and Gabet—who describe the principal ceremonial as, in outward appearance, wonderfully like the high mass. In doctrine the great Tibetan teacher, who had no access to the Pāli Piṭakas, adhered in the main to the purer forms of the Mahāyāna school; in questions of church government he took little part, and did not dispute the titular supremacy of the Sākya Lāmas. But the effects of his teaching weakened their power. The “orange-hoods,” as his followers were called, rapidly gained in numbers and influence, until they so overshadowed the “red-hoods,” as the followers of the older sect were called, that in the middle of the 15th century the emperor of China acknowledged the two leaders of the new sect at that time as the titular overlords of the church and tributary rulers over the realm of Tibet. These two leaders were then known as the Dalai Lāma and the Pantshen Lāma, and were the abbots of the great monasteries at Gedun Dubpa, near Lhasa, and at Tashi Lunpo, in Farther Tibet, respectively. Since that time the abbots of these monasteries have continued to exercise the sovereignty over Tibet.
As there has been no further change in the doctrine, and no further reformation in discipline, we may leave the ecclesiastical history of Lāmāism since that date unnoticed, and consider some principal points on the constitution of the Constitution of Lāmāism. Lāmāism of to-day. And first as to the mode of electing successors to the two Great Lāmas. It will have been noticed that it was an old idea of the northern Buddhists to look upon distinguished members of the order as incarnations of Avalokiteśvara, of Mañju-śrī, or of Amitābha. These beings were supposed to possess the power, whilst they continued to live in heaven, of appearing on earth in a Nirmāna-kāya, or apparitional body. In the same way the Pantshen Lāma is looked upon as an incarnation, the Nirmāna-kāya, of Amitābha, who had previously appeared under the outward form of Tshonkapa himself; and the Dalai Lāma is looked upon as an incarnation of Avalokiteśvara. Theoretically, therefore, the former, as the spiritual successor of the great teacher and also of Amitābha, who occupies the higher place in the mythology of the Great Vehicle, would be superior to the latter, as the spiritual representative of Avalokiteśvara. But practically the Dalai Lāma, owing to his position in the capital,[3] has the political supremacy, and is actually called the Gyalpo Rinpotshe, “the glorious king”—his companion being content with the title Pantshen Rinpotshe, “the glorious teacher.” When either of them dies it is necessary for the other to ascertain in whose body the celestial being whose outward form has been dissolved has been pleased again to incarnate himself. For that purpose the names of all male children born just after the death of the deceased Great Lāma are laid before his survivor. He chooses three out of the whole number; their names are thrown into a golden casket provided for that purpose by a former emperor of China. The Chutuktus, or abbots of the great monasteries, then assemble, and after a week of prayer, the lots are drawn in their presence and in presence of the surviving Great Lāma and of the Chinese political resident. The child whose name is first drawn is the future Great Lāma; the other two receive each of them 500 pieces of silver. The Chutuktus just mentioned correspond in many respects to the Roman cardinals. Like the Great Lāmas, they bear the title of Rinpotshe or Glorious, and are looked upon as incarnations of one or other of the celestial Bodhisats of the Great Vehicle mythology. Their number varies from ten to a hundred; and it is uncertain whether the honour is inherent in the abbacy of certain of the greatest cloisters, or whether the Dalai Lāma exercises the right of choosing them. Under these high officials of the Tibetan hierarchy there come the Chubil Khāns, who fill the post of abbot to the lesser monasteries, and are also incarnations. Their number is very large; there are few monasteries in Tibet or in Mongolia which do not claim to possess one of these living Buddhas. Besides these mystical persons there are in the Tibetan church other ranks and degrees, corresponding to the deacon, full priest, dean and doctor of divinity in the West. At the great yearly festival at Lhasa they make in the cathedral an imposing array, not much less magnificent than that of the clergy in Rome; for the ancient simplicity of dress has disappeared in the growing differences of rank, and each division of the spiritual army is distinguished in Tibet, as in the West, by a special uniform. The political authority of the Dalai Lāma is confined to Tibet itself, but he is the acknowledged head also of the Buddhist church throughout Mongolia and China. He has no supremacy over his co-religionists in Japan, and even in China there are many Buddhists who are not practically under his control or influence.
The best work on Lāmāism is still Köppen’s Die Lamaische Hierarchie und Kirche (Berlin, 1859). See also Bushell, “The Early History of Tibet,” in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1879-1880, vol. xii.; Sanang Setzen’s History of the East Mongols (in Mongolian, translated into German by J. Schmidt, Geschichte der Ost-Mongolen); “Analyse du Kandjur,” by M. Léon Feer, in Annales du Musée Gaimet (1881); Schott, Ueber den Buddhismus in Hoch-Asien; Gutzlaff, Geschichte des Chinesischen Reiches; Hue and Gabet, Souvenirs d’un voyage dans la Tartarie, le Tibet, et la Chine (Paris, 1858); Pallas’s Sammlung historischer Nachrichten über die Mongolischen Völkerschaften; Bābu Sarat Chunder Das’s “Contributions on the Religion and History of Tibet,” in the Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society, 1881; L. A. Waddell, The Buddhism of Tibet (London, 1895); A. H. Francke, History of Western Tibet (London, 1907); A. Grünwedel, Mythologie des Buddhismus in Tibet und der Mongolei (Berlin, 1900).
(T. W. R. D.)
[1] Watters’s Yūan Chwāng, edited by Rhys Davids and Bushell, i. 210, 356, 271.
[2] Published with facsimile and translation and notes in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1879-1880, vol. xii.
[3] This statement representing the substantial and historical position, is retained, in spite of the crises of March 1910, when the Dalai Lāma took refuge from the Chinese in India, and of 1904, when the British expedition occupied Lhasa and the Dalai Lāma fled to China (see [Tibet]).
