Sacred Arts of Tibet (.pdf) - Asian Art Museum | Education

unification.
Sacred Arts of Tibet
Chinggis (Genghis) Khan (1162-1227) was the founder and first ruler of the Mongol empire, the largest
empire in human history. He sent emissaries to Tibet in 1189, and established relations with Tibet
in 1207, when a Sakyapa monk was sent as ambassador to the Mongol court (see Slide 17). By accepting
outside influence, Tibet was able to preserve its internal autonomy and escape destruction, unlike
the Chinese who resisted bitterly and were devastated by the Mongols and put under iron rule. The
Sakyapa abbot so impressed Chinggis Khan that he was invited to teach Buddhist doctrine in Mongolia
and throughout the empire. This established the “priest-patron” relationship, which continued until the
period of the decline of Mongol influence at the end of the fourteenth century. This relationship not only
brought Tibet a valuable patron of Tibetan religion and art in Chinggis Khan and the Mongol court,
and gave temporal power of Tibet to the Sakyapa Order, but succeeded in causing Tibetan Buddhism to
spread and prosper throughout the vast Mongol empire.
Ironically, Tibet’s close relationship with the Mongols was used by the People’s Republic of China as justification
for their invasion of Tibet in 1959. China was crushed under the weight of Mongol occupation
for several centuries as part of the Mongol Empire (in China known as the Yuan dynasty), while at the
same time Tibet enjoyed an honored position of providing spiritual and educational leadership to the
Mongols. Tibet was never occupied and never lost its sovereignty until the 1950s. Tibet, China and most
of Asia as well as large portions of Eastern Europe and the Middle East where all in some way part of the
Mongol Empire. By Communist China’s logic, this would give them claim to Tibet, Eastern Europe and
the Middle East.
Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), the Great Religious Reformer
After a century of temporal entanglements, there appeared on the scene a great religious reformer,
Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), who founded the Gelukpa Order in 1403. The Gelukpa Order continued
Atisha’s work of four centuries earlier by enforcing strict religious practices for monks. He insisted on the
need for morality and the traditional monastic disciplines taught by the Buddha. He taught the graduated
path to the attainment of enlightenment, rejecting false “shortcuts” and the variety of spiritual conceits
that had strayed from the orthodox teachings of the Buddha. Tsongkhapa had studied in monasteries of
all the major traditions and from this came the special stamp of the Gelukpa Order—its comprehensiveness
in collecting Buddhist teachings into one cohesive system. Under his guidance came the founding of
the three largest monasteries in the world, the “Three Pillars” of Tibetan Buddhism: Ganden, Sera, and
Drepung, with 10,000 monks in Drepung alone.
After Tsongkhapa’s death in 1419, the Gelukpa Order spread widely through Tibet and became far
more popular than the other orders. Tsongkhapa was viewed as a great scholar, yogin, and debater in his
time and received recognition as a true living Buddha not only in Tibet but also throughout China and
Mongolia. Paradoxically, it was his strict religious emphasis and avoidance of temporal affairs that gained
his new Gelukpa Order powerful patrons and ultimately put political control of Tibet in the hands of his
disciples.
The Sakyapa Order had fallen from political power with the decline of Mongol influence at the end of
the fourteenth century. This ushered in a short period of secular rule in Tibet under the King of Tsang
(the Southwestern province of Tibet). He tried to reinstate the glories of the ancient kings, foster a sense
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