Timeless Rapture: Inspired Verse from the Shangpa Masters

The Shangpa Masters and Their Lineage 341
teaching of the Shangpa lineage, but it is easy to imagine that the climate
for passing on Taranata’s works in public was inauspicious.
Had the Mongolians not put the Dalai Lamas on Tibet’s throne, the
Shangpa lineage’s cohabitation with the Jonang monasteries might have
changed its character to that of a worldly, earthbound school. We can compare
its marginal existence to that of the Gélug tradition, which grew exponentially
after assuming power. Consider this: A census report by Dési
Sangyé Gyatso, the Fifth Dalai Lama’s regent, in 1694 (thirteen years after
the Fifth Dalai Lama’s death), reveals that there were 1,807 monasteries of
all schools in Tibet, of which 534 were Gélugpa. Those monasteries housed
97,538 monks and nuns, of whom less than a third, 26,789, were Gélugpa.
Forty years later, in 1733, another census reveals an astounding change.
Monasteries under the Dalai Lama numbered 3,150 institutions housing
342,560 monks and nuns; institutions affiliated with the Panchen Lama
numbered 327, with 13,670 ordained members. 53
It would be tempting to think of this more than tenfold increase in the
Gélug school’s monastic population in terms of a religious revival on a
grand scale, but these were not times of love and light. Those who had
reviled Taranata undoubtedly witnessed with horror the Sixth Dalai Lama’s
joyful libertine lifestyle, which could have seemed to them to have more
in common with the evil uncle than the good nephew. Relations with the
Mongol powers behind the throne soured and Tibet saw a period of sad
destruction. Beginning in 1717, accounts with the Nyingma monasteries
were settled—many monasteries of that school, including Dorjé Trakgön
and Minling, were destroyed and many lamas were executed, including
the Dotrak Tulku Péma Trinlé (1614–1717) and two wonderful lamas of
Minling Monastery, Péma Gyurmé Gyatso (1686–1718) and Lochen Dharmashri
(1654–1718).
The only coherent explanation for the Gélug school’s rapid development
during this dark time is the building of the national government’s
administrative structure and its need for workers, bureaucrats, and administrators.
This marriage of church and state had its effects on the Buddhist
life of these institutions. As with the previous Sakya administration, the
monasteries’ inner organization now conformed to secular codes; Buddha’s
rules and regulations for the life of his monks and nuns were confined
to history. Lozang Trinlé, a historian and Gélug reincarnate master, comments,
“The customs of law according to the regulations of Buddhism’s