In earlier times, from somewhere in the 6th and 7th centuries up to around the 9th century AD, Tibet was a warring empire which invaded many countries around it. This period is known as the Time of the Kings. They were feared everywhere in that part of the world. They even invaded China and conquered its capital at the time, Ch’ang-an (Sian). It was towards the end of this period that Buddhism came to Tibet from India, and the first great monastery was set up: Sam-yas.
Later, after this early favourable era, Buddhism was suppressed in Tibet, as was Bon. They both continued to transform and spread nonetheless, and from out of this period a type of Buddhism survived which forms one of the great Tibetan Buddhist schools: Nyingmapa. This is not really a school as such, as it was only much later, during the time of the Fifth Dalai Lama, that it coalesced into a teaching tradition. Originally it was a loose collection of methods taught by individual enlightened yogins who travelled the land and lived in secluded places.
By the time the Mongols invaded China, and everywhere else, in the 13th century, the great Buddhist traditions were well ensconced in Tibet, but not the Dalai Lama or his school. They came much later. The primary schools in existence by that time were:
Nyingmapa
Sakya (Sa-skya-pa) order founded by Brog-mi (992-1072)
Kargyud order founded by Marpa (1012-96)
Kadampa order founded by Atisa (982-1054)
The Kargyud order had some famous sub-sects, one of which was the Karmapa, founded by Dus-gsum mkhyen-pa (1110-93).
The Grand Lamas of these schools (except the Nyingmapa) began to have relationships with the Mongol overlords, who never destroyed Tibet like they did everywhere else. This brought the concept of material power back to Tibet, and also the idea of fighting. Those who were favoured by the Mongols had power in the land. From this time forward monasteries and orders began to war between each other, and the concept of Tibetan Kingship was rekindled. This is important, as it was a factor in the later rise to power of the Dalai Lama’s sect.
The Mongols were very impressed by the magical and spiritual powers of the Tibetan Lamas, and tended to look upon them as their spiritual advisors. This marked the beginning of a long association between the Mongol warlords and the great monastic orders of Tibet. At first the Lamas had little interest in the Mongol invaders - what the Mongols wanted was temporal power and material wealth, which was not of great concern to the Buddhists. However, once tentative relations began, the Lamas learnt the value of prestige bestowed by the wealth and patronage of the Mongol lords.
After the passing of the great Mongol emperors, the Tibetan monasteries and orders maintained their warring ways, which provided fertile space for the arrival of a new sect which took no interest in this power struggle. At first it was not a sect nor an order, but simply one man: Tsongkhapa (1357–1419).
Tsongkhapa studied at all the main schools, as was customary for many aspiring monks, until finally at the age of forty he joined the great Kadampa monastery of Radreng, sanctified by both Atisa and Brom-ston. There he had a vision of Atisa. He authored the Lam-rim and many other important works. He became very popular through his teachings and his reputation spread. His followers were known as the new Kadampas. Only much later did they become known as the Gelugspa order (’Model of Virtue’).
It is important to realise that Tsongkhapa was the spiritual fountainhead of the Gelugspa Order, and his principle monastery was Ganden (Ri-bo dGa’-ldan, ‘The Joyous Mountain’). He was not a Dalai Lama. But his spirituality infused the entire Gelugspa tradition with basic and admirable qualities: monastic simplicity, religious devotion and calm austerity. It was due to this that the Gelugspas flourished, as they contrasted to the selfish and worldly involvements of the older Orders, and by eschewing political interests for a long time they avoided the ire of these old Orders.
The Dalai Lamas belong to the Gelupsgas and are considered the head of that Order, but should not be seen as the originators of the Order. The remained a subtle distinction in this aspect. In fact, Tsongkhapa’s tomb in Ganden was refused entry to the thirteenth Dali Lama but the Ganden Abbot. Ganden jealously treasures its position as the monastery of Tsongkhapa, and thus the original home of the Gelupsga Order. The monastery of the Dalai Lamas is Drepung (’Bras-spungs).
The succession went like this: the first two successors of Tsongkhapa were his close disciples Gyaltsab Dharma Rinchen and Mkhas Grub Rje. Then came the First Dalai Lama, who was thus titled retrospectively: Gedun Drupa (1391 - 1475), possibly Tsongkhapa’s nephew. It was Gedun Drupa who really expanded the Order dramatically. He also founded the monastery Tashilhunpo which later became the seat of the Pan-chen Lamas.
Gedun Drupa seemed to have an eye to the future glory of the Gelupsga Order, and most likely it was he who arranged to have his successor found through the reincarnation method. This was already practised by the older sects, and is generally seen as a way to gain prestige and secure powerful patronages, not a spiritual purpose. It had significant drawbacks and has come under a lot of critique, as it does not allow for a succession based on merit.
At any rate, his reincarnation successor was discovered, Gedun Gyatso, who continued to build the Order into one of prestige and authority, which finally aroused the enmity of the powerful Karma-pa prelates and their lay patrons. Gedun Gyatso was also retrospectively titled, the Second Dalai Lama. In his time the principle seat of the Dalai Lamas, the monastery Drepung, became the largest monastery in Tibet, with at least 1,500 monks.
It was Gedun Gyatso’s child successor, Sonam Gyatso, who changed the direction of the Gelupsga Order, and transform it from a purely religious to a political religious force of exactly the same kind as the others. He accepted an invitation in 1578 to visit Altan Khan, chief of the Tumed branch of the Mongols. As with the Mongol lords in Genghiz Khan’s time, affiliation with outside worldly powers changed the nature of the Orders who allowed, or sought, it.
There has always been a question surrounding whether the spiritual should enter into the worldly-political. It’s not just a question of church vs state, but of what role a spiritual person has in the affairs of the world. At the end of the Mongol domination period, there was a chance for Tibet to return to secular rule, when the concept of the old Tibetan Kingdom resurfaced, but it was not to be. No secular leadership was able to unify all of Tibet, and it fell back into the rivalry between the great monasteries and Orders. It is hard to know if Tibet would have been better off with a separation between church and state. Given that Tibet remained dominated by the religious factions, it could be argued that the rise to power of one of those, which exercised its power in a fairer and more balanced way, is not a bad use of the spiritual impetus into the worldly. It certainly could have gone much worse for them. The role of an individual spiritual person and how it affects their spiritual path when faced with worldly crises, was actually played out in the personages of two men during the final supremacy of the Gelupsga Order over its rivals. I will get to that later.
The die was cast, and destiny set, when Sonam Gyatso accepted the invitation to visit the Mongol lord, Altan Khan. Ever since Genghiz Khan, monasteries had leveraged power within Tibet from external military patronage and intervention. Now it was the turn of the Dalai Lamas. Even more, it was the Mongol lord himself who gave Sonam Gyatso his title, ‘Dalai Lama’. It is curious, that Sonam Gyatso’s name, rGya-mtsho, means ‘Ocean’, and the title Ta-le (written ‘Dalai’ by westerners) also means ‘Ocean’. Sonam Gyatso gave to Altan Khan the title, ‘King of Religion, Majestic Purity’.
Sonam Gyatso, the Third Dalai Lama, embarked on an extensive and extremely successful missionary campaign in the Mongol and Oriat confederacy lands, never returning to Tibet. He died at the age of 45. His reincarnation, Yonten Gyatso, was discovered in a great-grandson of Altan Khan, which sealed further the support of the Mongol ruling family.
Events began to take a downward turn with Yonten Gyatso, the Fourth Dalai Lama, especially in his relationship with the then King of Tsang, the principle secular ruler in Tibet at the time. Yonten Gyatso died at the age of 25, most likely poisoned, and many considered this not such a bad thing politically.
The matter of ‘Hats’: ‘Yellow Hats’ is a Chinese term which has been adopted by Westerners for the Gelupsga Order, which is an accurate attribution. However the term ‘Red Hats’ has been erroneously applied by some westerners to all the earlier Orders. In fact ‘Red Hats’ applies to one of several lines of reincarnating lamas of the Karma-pa Order. The Zhva-nag sect are the ‘Red Hats’ and the Zhva-dmar sect the ‘Black Hats’.
A young reincarnation-successor was found, Lobsang Gyatso, born in 1617: the Fifth Dalai Lama. With this man, things finally turned for the Gelupsga Order. The Fifth Dalai Lama is a special case, as he was pivotal to the future of Tibet. To begin, I will sketch the geo-political situation at the time, which fortuitously fell to Lobsang Gyatso’s favour.
The King of Tsang was pretty much the ruler of Tibet at the time, although the great monasteries still held substantial power, and the King really only exercised his control with the support of the Red and Black Hat Karma-pas. The previous Dalai Lama had already caused trouble between the Gelupsga Order and the King, particularly by the Mongols trouping in repeatedly. The King then had the upper hand. By the time of the Fifth Dalai Lama, the King was now only a young man, recently come to the throne. Again repeated incursions by the Mongols purportedly to visit and support the Dalai Lama caused trouble, and only intervention by the Pan-chen Lama and others avoided war. But eventually war did break out.
Outside Tibet, the Mongols had not been unified under strong leaders like Altan Khan, who was now dead, but at this time a new power, the Qosot branch of the Oirats established an organised governance on the boarders of Tibet. Their leader, Gu-shri Khan, had no previous association with Tibetan lamas, but he had undertaken a secret pilgrimage to Lhasa in 1638, and had been impressed with the personage of the Fifth Dalai Lama. Thus when the Gelupsgas, many of whom had their minds set on political domination, asked him to intervene, he needs little encouragement.
Meanwhile, the King’s traditional allays were in a politically and militarily weakened state. There was a temporary vacancy in the Red Hat hierarch, and the head lama of the Black Hats was a very spiritual man who wanted no truck with politics or fighting. This Black Hat hierarch was an interesting man. He stood for the kind of spirituality which eschewed pomp and pretence, and instead valued gentleness, humility, simplicity, austerity, and the love of beauty in wild animals and religious painting. When the war came he escaped and wandered disguised as a poor monk, accepting hardships of all kinds. Towards the end of his life he was reconciled with the Dalai Lama, also a spiritual man, whose behaviour after the war testifies to his higher vision.
One man saw as his destiny, to brutally grasp the reins of worldly power, backed by the savagery of the Mongols, and then rule with tolerance and wisdom. The other said, “No! This is not the way.” and he demonstrated his view by walking out and disappearing into obscurity until the end of his life. Who was correct? Certainly the world remembers men like Lobsang Gyatso, the victorious, but that is no guide to correctness. In our times, influenced by the permeation through our culture of humanism, we tend to value that which is of benefit to the greatest number of people. In that case Lobsang Gyatso, once the ruthlessness of the war was over, may have had the best outcome, but we can’t know that for sure. The Kings of Tsang were reasonably tolerant and through their defeat, Tibet lost its last chance of what we would call the separation of church and state, until the Chinese invaded centuries later.
When the Mongols attacked, at the instigation of the ambitious Gelupsgas, not only did the young King not have his past allays, the Red and Black Hat sects, to support him, but for some reason the King of Ladakh embarked on a totally unprovoked attack on Central Tibet. By 1640, Gu-shri Khan and Lobsang Gyatso emerged victorious, although it took a long time to finally subdue the whole of Tibet. They were only stopped at Butan where the Brugpa branch of the Kagyupas held their own, and remain in control to this day.
The Fifth Dalai Lama with Gu-shri at his side, completely reordered the entire monastic structure of the whole of Tibet. He fostered in a great age for Tibet, and during his lifetime, it seemed his grab for power and the method of using foreign forces was worth the risks and costs. With this man, based on the military might of his foreign Mongol friend (a point quietly forgotten by later Gelupsgas historians), the true temporal and mystical glory and status of the Dalai Lamas was firmly established. He was in all respects a Religious King. He transformed the hill above Lhasa from a small collection of forts into the fabulous Potala that we know of today, he met with the new Manchu Emperor of China as an equal (Chinese political theory always excluded entirely the possibility of equality with any other country whatsoever), and with him begins the dual concept of the Dalai Lamas as manifestation of the deity Avalokitesvara, as well as the reincarnation of previous Dalai Lamas. This quality of deity manifestation had been applied to others in Tibet: the Three Religious Kings from the past, as well as the Sa-skya lamas and many others.
This raises a very interesting connection. The Dalai Lama is actually the incarnation of Shiva. The Potala is named after a holy mountain of the same name in South India, sacred to Shiva in his aspect as ‘Lord of the World’ (Lokesvara), The Tibetans always saw this mountain as the non-geographical, mystical, divine place of Lokesvara, in his Buddhist manifestation as Avalokitesvara, the ‘Lord who looks down in compassion’.
If the Fifth Dalai Lama stood as an indisputable divine king of Tibet, reigning in wisdom and glory from his stunning magical castle in the sky, the Potala, then it is salutary to know it was all down hill after that. The powerful and clever Regent at the time of the Dalai Lama’s death, kept this fact hidden for seventeen years. You see, to have a spiritual lineage succeed through reincarnation is not such a problem, but to have a ruler of a country succeed in this manner presents significant difficulties. Particularly, what to do in the interregnum? But even more, what if the successor is unsuitable for secular leadership? Both disadvantages to this succession method now brought Tibet into despair.
To give credit where due, the Regent did the best he could under the circumstances. Alas, forces were moving outside Tibet’s boarders, and his protégé, the young Sixth Dalai Lama, Tsangyang Gyatso, was not up to the task. There was trouble and instability among the Mongols, as well as problems for the Emperor of China, K’ang Hsi, in his own empire.
In short, K’ang Hsi backed a rival Mongol leader, who invaded Tibet and killed the Regent, then took Tsangyang Gyatso (willingly) with him to China, whereupon along the way, the young Dalai Lama died. It should be noted here that Tsangyang Gyatso was a romantic libertine, who wrote love-sick poetry about beautiful women and took no interest in spiritual dignity or the affairs of state, whatsoever. Nonetheless, in one of his poems, he foretold of the place of birth of his succeeding incarnation, where the Seventh Dalai Lama was duly found.
Subsequently, the old Mongol friends of the Gelupsgas reasserted themselves, counter invaded Tibet, slaughtering the other Mongol clan, and turned into terrorisers of the Tibetan people. Out of the frying pan into the fire. They tried to grab the child Seventh Dalai Lama, Kelzang Gyatso, along the way, but fortuitously the Chinese Emperor had not only the foresight to have him brought up in Kumbum monastery in Eastern Tibet, but having wind of the Mongol troubles, defeated those who came to snatch him, and brought him to Tibet along with a large victorious army. It should be noted though, that the first Chinese army of five thousand soldiers was completely wiped out. It was the second much larger army that marched into Tibet, while the Mongols scattered without a fight.
The Emperor of China then concocted a strategic deception, claiming Tibet had been a vassal state of China for eighty years, on the flimsy basis of some letters sent to the earliest Manchu leader before they conquered China, which they self-interestedly interpreted as evidence of submission. What did it matter? They had the military ascendancy, and could justify it any way they liked.
After the death of the Fifth Dalai Lama, there were no significant personalities in the succession line until the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. They became a sideline to the affairs of state. A nobleman by the name of Pho-lha distinguished himself as a young resistance fighter against the invading Dzungar Mongols after affairs fell apart on the belated discovery of the death of the Fifth Dalai Lama. Once the Chinese Emperor reasserted his power in Tibet, Pho-lha came to power and presided over a golden age of lay administration of Tibet. He respected the Seventh Dalai Lama, despite his obvious subordination and at times exiling of the Dalai Lama. It was a disrespectful incident to the person of the Dalai Lama by a convert to the Capuchin Christian missionaries, which caused Pho-lha to finally close down the Christians in Tibet.
But what happened on the death of Pho-lha in 1747, is characteristic of Tibet’s history, and that of most nations for that matter. He was succeeded by his son, who was not of the quality of his father, proving irresponsible, arrogant and cruel. He intrigued with the dreaded Dzungar Mongols, causing anxiety to the Chinese Ambans - representatives of the Chinese Emperor - who had him killed. A mob of Tibetans then killed the Ambans and it was only by the direct intervention of the Dalai Lama that serious trouble with the Chinese Emperor was avoided.
The Emperor decided that this system of succession in Tibet, of father-son or reincarnated Lama, was too unstable. He set up a system of authority by a council of four ministers, one of who would be monk. This led to 130 years of rule by Gelupsga regents, some good and some bad, but on the whole, peace prevailed. The Dalai Lamas during this period tended to be of little consequence to the rule of Tibet, and died young. One at least was murdered by the power clique in the Gelupsga hierarchy, who were jealous of their privileged position.
This brings us to a point where some reflection can be gained on what this whole Dalai Lama experiment was about.
The thrust of all this Dalai Lama business was an unashamed avarice for supremacy over the other Tibetan Buddhist Orders, for both political and spiritual power. From the First Dalai Lama on, we can see the machinery working to bring this new Order into complete dominance in Tibet. It could be argued that the founder of the Gelupsga Order, Tsongkhapa, would have been horrified by what his sect had morphed into after him. He always avoided any involvement in worldly affairs or inter-Order power struggles and intrigues. He was about spirituality. But here we are again - what is spirituality?
Tsongkhapa was an evangelical teacher of Buddhism. He worked hard to spread his purer, reformed teachings to as many people as he could during his lifetime. The earliest yogins who formed the basis of the old school, Nyingmapa, never taught to more than a small handful of students, if any. By Tsongkhapa’s desire to spread his teachings widely, wasn’t he laying the foundations of social influence? How can that be kept separate from the worldly environment of these people? When you seek to convert masses to your views, you are on the path of politics, like it or not. Though he himself avoided worldly matters, like Jesus Christ, nonetheless his very action in appealing to as wide a group of people as possible, is political in essence, and it is only inevitable his tradition would continue to seek worldly power.
But was Pho-lha spiritual? He was a wise, courageous and good ruler. Yet he is mostly forgotten while the Dalai Lamas are famous. Is ‘spirituality’ a reflective, contemplative, mystical knowledge, or is it the ability to manifest wisdom within the world?
The reason we have to ask this question is because this is the nub of what the Dalai Lama tradition is all about. It is precisely the marrying of the mystical-internal, with the mundane-external, and was supposedly achieved in it’s acme in the personage of the Fifth Dalai Lama. Basically from earliest days, the Gelupsgas sought political power, and the Dalai Lamas were their mascot of power. When he was not up to leading himself, they nonetheless leveraged off his wide popular prestige, to retain the reins of power. No other figure, except the Panchen Lama, came close to the Dalai Lama’s level of popular devotion and status. Succession after succession, no matter the character, it would seem, of the man, the people loved the Dalai Lama. This was no doubt sealed into popular consciousness by the aura of the Fifth Dalai Lama, but it also seemed to symbolise the very spirituality of the Tibetan people themselves.
Despite the intrigues and often murderous machinations of those who held actual political power, it could be argued that the experiment of a spiritual-political figurehead acted as a rallying point for a nation’s soul. And not without positive effects when compared with the alternatives of despotic rulers, or the disintegration of national cohesion which did happen from time to time in Tibet with disastrous consequences for the well-being of the people in general.
Whether the spirituality of the religion is well served by this direct involvement in worldly affairs, for a nation or an individual, is debatable. In terms of Buddhism, Buddha did emphasise the Sangha as a critical component of his spiritual path, so he acknowledged the importance of community even for individual aspirants to enlightenment. Another interesting aspect of Buddhism, is that with Mahayana came a shift of emphasis from enlightenment to compassion. That also laid the foundations of direct involvement to the material well-being of the people.
The case is a little harder to make when compared to what might be termed ‘deep’ spirituality: that which is absolutely dedicated to individual attainment of the highest spiritual achievement. Across the world, such people tended to restrict their ‘community’ to a minimum of highly committed people. Every time they sought to influence the masses or take a hand in worldly affairs, it either led to trouble or at least undermined the quality and intensity of the spirituality. This is only natural, as the masses in general are never going to be compatible with the level of knowledge and intensity of practice necessary for the highest spiritual aspirations. For a system to serve both the wide and narrow paths, it has to split into an outer and an inner teaching. It could be argued that Tibetan Buddhism under the Gelupsgas did provide such a composite system. However, there are questions about that. Many serious aspirants in Tibet’s history scorn the politicised Gelupsgas Order, with it’s lack of direct mystical focus. For example, even the Fifth Dalai Lama practised Nyingmapa meditational techniques himself. Then there are the Naljorpas, spiritual shamans who exist outside the lama orders, and are much respected and feared by the people as the true masters of the unseen, those who have a real relationship with the infinite. But this has always been the case in every culture across the globe - those who hold the greatest personal power only gain it by ‘leaving the world’.
This also raises the question of system verses personality. The concept of succession by reincarnation has not had a happy history. Tibet, along with all other countries, experienced the contrast of supreme heights through the leadership of outstanding personalities, with the disaster wrought through familial succession. Strength and quality of character are everything in any kind of non-merit based linage. A system approach, even one as simple as that set up by the Chinese Emperor of a council of ministers, lacks the possibility of delivering outstanding leadership and encourages the dissipation of energy in petty intrigues and power struggles, but does seem to provide some degree of longer term stability. The great epochs of flourishing and development of all kinds of human qualities are generally aligned with the rise to power of people of outstanding character in positions of absolute rule. Unfortunately, in so many, though not all, cases, this is followed by devastation predicated upon the death of such a leader.
The Dalai Lama model fell prey to exactly the same fate, even though it offered the mystical assurance of not just a reincarnated being, but an incarnated deity. The presence of a semi-secular system of governance in the hands of regents, seems to have served the Tibetans well throughout the period of the Eighth Dalai Lama to the Thirteenth. Not so the Chinese. In the 1790s, the death of the great Chinese Emperor Ch’ien Lung, resulted in the complete collapse of China, as she entered the most ruinous century of her history. That, and the Gorkha ascendancy in Nepal, sealed off Tibet into isolation throughout the nineteenth century - it then, and only then, became the ‘forbidden land’.
During this time the Gelupsgas settled themselves into established control and administration, which, on the whole, served Tibet very well. Interrupted only by two invasion wars from the Dogras Indians of Jammu and Gorkhas again from Nepal, both of which were resolved one way or another. The last great event of the nineteenth century was the birth of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, who survived an assignation attempt by his Regent, to go on to become the only great Dalai Lama since the Fifth, to order the destiny of his country.
The Thirteenth Dalai Lama, Thupten Gyatso, went on to take the reins of his country through a very difficult time. He struggled mightily with the array of shifting forces aligned dangerously outside Tibet. He appears to be one of the few in Tibet who had any idea of the fragility of their situation, while everyone else carried on as if nothing was changing, right up until the Chinese invaded in 1959.
He tried to move towards the British, and established secular schools, police and military. The Tibetans were impressed with the British after the Younghusband incursion in 1904, as they only requested an Agreement be signed, then basically left. Tibetans were not accustomed to such International Law approach by invading forces. Certain high ranking British officials developed close relations with Thupten Gyatso. Unfortunately the British did not take much interest in helping Tibet, and anyway, left India in 1947.
Thupten Gyatso didn’t hold power in his own right like the Fifth Dalai Lama. At the time of his ascendance, the country was firmly in control by the monastic infrastructure, which on the whole functioned very well. Thupten Gyatso didn’t assume total control of the government until 1950, by which time it was too late. After much criticism from the monastic orders he allowed the new secular changes to fall into neglect. His primary position became one of seeking balance between the great forces surrounding Tibet, in particular the British and the Chinese.
This didn’t work, because changes were afoot in the world which no one could foresee, and they eventually completely and utterly overwhelmed the Tibetans.
The British left India, and after trouble from the Manchus in China and Gorkhas in Nepal, Communism swept into power in China with an agenda that could not have been anticipated in its level of aggression and destruction. The Tibetans, after a century of isolation, were completely unprepared. They were consumed with their own doctrinal obsessions, their elaborate and extensive administrative structures, and their comfortable and pleasant life style. Only Thupten Gyatso seemed to see the storms coming, and he was basically powerless in the face of powerful monastic self-interests. The Panchen Lama had at an earlier time escaped to China after troubles with the Dalai Lama, from where he never returned.
The Chinese went on to slaughter and destroy, almost absolutely, every element of the Tibetan culture. Those most affected were the common people, who did not have the capacity for adaptation that the elite strata of society had.
The Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, fled Tibet for India, and has been completely unsuccessful in mitigating the suffering of his people back in Tibet, which, it can only be assumed, has been a cause of profound despair for him.
