Tibetan Buddhism
by Tenzin Peljor
A historical overview of Tibetan Buddhism – The development of the new schools
As every other religion Tibetan Buddhism owns legends of its origin. The first appearance of Buddhism is said by Tibetan historians to have occurred at the year 233 C.E.
According to Tibetan legends, in this year Buddhist scripts in Sanskrit and relics fell from the sky to the roof of king Totori Nyentsens palace.¹ Another Tibetan account indicates that these articles actually were brought from India. After having a dream indicating that four generations later a king would be able to read and understand these books, Totori Nyentsen hid their origin.²
The first successful transmission of Buddhism into Tibet occurred during the reign of Songtsen Gampo (ca. 604 – 650).³ (By the way: In Tibetan Legends he is said to have been a incarnation of Avalokitesvara, who deliberately took rebirth as an emperor purely in furtherance of the dissemination of Buddhism. But from now on we focus on history rather than on legends.) Before he came to power, Tibet was culturally and politically heterogeneous. Under his military guidance, Tibet became a major power in Central Asia and by the end of his rule the process of cultural unification was well under way. He is said to have sent the scholar Thönmie Sambhota and some students to establish a Tibetan alphabet on the model of Sanskrit scripts to India. (He adapted a northern form of the Indian Gupta script to the oral Tibetan language and he modified the rules of the Sanskrit language in order to apply them to the much less complex grammar of the indigenous Tibetan language. This system developed by Tönmie Sambhota later became by declaration of the king the standard throughout the area ruled by Songtsen Gampo). This system of writing and the codification of the languages grammar produced a new intellectual culture and created a sociocultural and political foundation.⁴ Tibetan historians recognized Songtsen Gampo later as the first of the three religious kings. The two others were Trisong Detsen and Relbachen.
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