Samye
Encyclopedia
The Samye Monastery or Samye Gompa ' onMouseout='HidePop("75914")' href="/topics/Chinese_language">Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
:桑耶寺) is the first Buddhist monastery
Monastery
Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...
built in Tibet
Tibet
Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
, was most probably first constructed between 775 and 779 CE under the patronage of King Trisong Detsen
Trisong Detsen
Trisong Detsän or Trisong Detsen ཁྲི་སྲོང་ལྡེ་བཙན , was the son of Me Agtsom and one of the emperors of Tibet and ruled...
of Tibet who sought to revitalize Buddhism, which had declined since its introduction by King Songtsen Gampo
Songtsen Gampo
Songtsän Gampo Songtsän Gampo Songtsän Gampo (Tibetan: སྲོང་བཙན་སྒམ་པོ་, Wylie: Srong-btsan sGam-po, 569–649?/605–649? was the founder of the Tibetan Empire (Tibetan: Bod; ), by tradition held to be the thirty-third ruler in his dynasty. In the Chinese records, his name is given as 'Sōngzàngānbù'...
in the 7th century. The monastery is located in Dranang, Shannan Prefecture
Shannan Prefecture
The Shannan Prefecture also known as the Lhoka Prefecture is a prefecture in the southeastern area of the Tibet Autonomous Region...
. It was supposedly modeled on the design of Odantapuri
Odantapuri
Odantapuri, also called Odantapura or Uddandapura, was a Buddhist vihara in what is now Bihar, India. It was established by king Dharmapala of Pala dynasty in the 8th century. It is considered the second oldest of India's universities and was situated in Magadha, Recently it is known as a Bihar...
monastery in what is now Bihar, India.
The 18th century Puning Temple
Puning Temple
The Punning Temple , or Temple of Universal Peace of Chengde, Hebei province, China is a Qing Dynasty era Buddhist temple complex built in 1755, during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor to show the Qing's respect to the ethnic minorities...
of Chengde
Chengde
Chengde , previously known as Jehol or Re He , is a prefecture-level city in Hebei province, People's Republic of China, situated northeast of Beijing. It is best known as the site of the Mountain Resort, a vast imperial garden and palace formerly used by the Qing emperors as summer residence...
, Hebei
Hebei
' is a province of the People's Republic of China in the North China region. Its one-character abbreviation is "" , named after Ji Province, a Han Dynasty province that included what is now southern Hebei...
, China was modeled after the Samye Compa.
History
According to tradition, the Indian monk ShantarakshitaShantarakshita
' was a renowned 8th century Indian Buddhist Brahmin and abbot of Nalanda University. Śāntarakṣita founded the philosophical school known as Yogacara-Svatantrika-Madhyamaka, which united the Madhyamaka tradition of Nagarjuna, the Yogacara tradition of Asanga and the logical and epistemological...
made the first attempt to construct the monastery while promoting his sutra
Sutra
Sūtra is an aphorism or a collection of such aphorisms in the form of a manual. Literally it means a thread or line that holds things together and is derived from the verbal root siv-, meaning to sew , as does the medical term...
-centric version of Buddhism. Finding the Samye site auspicious he set about to build a structure there. However, the building would always collapse after reaching a certain stage. Terrified, the construction workers believed that there was a demon or obstructive thoughtform
Thoughtform
A thoughtform is a manifestation of mental energy, also known as a tulpa in Tibetan mysticism. Its concept is related to the Western philosophy and practice of magic. links mantras and yantras to thoughtforms:...
in a nearby river making trouble.
However, when Shantarakshita's contemporary Padmasambhava
Padmasambhava
Padmasambhava ; Mongolian ловон Бадмажунай, lovon Badmajunai, , Means The Lotus-Born, was a sage guru from Oddiyāna who is said to have transmitted Vajrayana Buddhism to Bhutan and Tibet and neighbouring countries in the 8th century...
arrived from northern India, he was able to subdue the energetic problems obstructing the building of Samye. According to The Fifth Dalai Lama
Lozang Gyatso, 5th Dalai Lama
Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso, the Great Fifth Dalai Lama , was a political and religious leader in seventeenth-century Tibet. Ngawang Lozang Gyatso was the ordination name he had received from Panchen Lobsang Chökyi Gyaltsen who was responsible for his ordination...
(Pearlman, 2002: p.18), Padmasambhava performed the Vajrakilaya Dance and enacted the rite of 'thread cross' or Namkha
Namkha
Namkha , also known as De; is a form of yarn or thread cross composed traditionally of wool or silk and is metonymic of the Endless knot of the Ashtamangala. In certain rites, the Namkha becomes a pure land abode or temenos of a thoughtform...
to assist King Trisong Deutsen and Shantarakshita clear away obscurations and hindrances in the building of Samye:
"The great religious master Padmasambhava performed this dance in order to prepare the ground for the Samye Monastery and to pacify the malice of the lha [local mountain god spirits] and srin malevolent spirits in order to create the most perfect conditions." He went on to say that after Padmasambhava consecrated the ground he erected a thread-cross - a web colored thread woven around two sticks - to catch evil. Then the purifying energy of his dance forced the malevolent spirits into a skull mounted on top of a pyramid of dough. His tantric dance cleared away all the obstacles, enabling the monastery to be built in 767. The dance was memorialized by the construction of Vajrakilaya stupas - monuments honoring the ritual kilya (purba) daggers - at the cardinal points of the monastery, where they would prevent demonic forces from entering the sacred grounds.
The abovementioned quotation makes reference to the relationship of the Vajrakilaya/Phurba
Phurba
The kīla is a three-sided peg, stake, knife, or nail like ritual implement traditionally associated with Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Bön, and Indian Vedic traditions. The kīla is associated with the meditational deity The kīla (Sanskrit Devanagari: कील; IAST: kīla; , pronunciation between pur-ba and...
to the Stupa
Stupa
A stupa is a mound-like structure containing Buddhist relics, typically the remains of Buddha, used by Buddhists as a place of worship....
; and mentions torma
Torma
Torma are figures made mostly of flour and butter used in tantric rituals or as offerings in Tibetan Buddhism. They may be dyed in different colors, often with white or red for the main body of the torma. They are made in specific shapes based on their purpose, usually conical in form...
and namkha
Namkha
Namkha , also known as De; is a form of yarn or thread cross composed traditionally of wool or silk and is metonymic of the Endless knot of the Ashtamangala. In certain rites, the Namkha becomes a pure land abode or temenos of a thoughtform...
. Moreover, the building of Samye marked the foundation of the original school of Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism is the body of Buddhist religious doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet and certain regions of the Himalayas, including northern Nepal, Bhutan, and India . It is the state religion of Bhutan...
, the Nyingma
Nyingma
The Nyingma tradition is the oldest of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism . "Nyingma" literally means "ancient," and is often referred to as Nga'gyur or the "old school" because it is founded on the first translations of Buddhist scriptures from Sanskrit into Tibetan, in the eighth century...
. This also helps explain how Padmasambhava's tantric
Tantra
Tantra , anglicised tantricism or tantrism or tantram, is the name scholars give to an inter-religious spiritual movement that arose in medieval India, expressed in scriptures ....
-centric version of Buddhism gained ascendence over the sutra-based teaching of Shantarakshita
Shantarakshita
' was a renowned 8th century Indian Buddhist Brahmin and abbot of Nalanda University. Śāntarakṣita founded the philosophical school known as Yogacara-Svatantrika-Madhyamaka, which united the Madhyamaka tradition of Nagarjuna, the Yogacara tradition of Asanga and the logical and epistemological...
.
Pearlman (2002: p.94) succinctly charts the origin of the institution of the Nechung Oracle
Nechung Oracle
The Nechung Oracle is the State Oracle of Tibet. The medium of the State Oracle currently resides with the current Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India...
:
When PadmasambhavaPadmasambhavaPadmasambhava ; Mongolian ловон Бадмажунай, lovon Badmajunai, , Means The Lotus-Born, was a sage guru from Oddiyāna who is said to have transmitted Vajrayana Buddhism to Bhutan and Tibet and neighbouring countries in the 8th century...
consecrated Samye Monastery with the Vajrakilaya dance, he tamed the local spirit protector, Pehar Gyalp, and bound him by oath to become the head of the entire hierarchy of Buddhist protective spirits. Pehar, later known as Dorje Drakden, became the principal protector of the Dalai Lamas, manifesting through the Nechung Oracle.
The original buildings have long disappeared. They have been badly damaged several times - by civil war in the 11th century, fires in the mid 17th century and in 1826, an earthquake in 1816, and in the 20th century, particularly during the Cultural Revolution
Cultural Revolution
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...
, but as late as the late 1980s pigs and other farm animals were allowed to wander through the sacred buildings. Each time it has been rebuilt, and today, largely due to the efforts of the 10th Panchen Lama from 1986 onwards, it is again an active monastery and important pilgrimage
Pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith...
and tourist destination.
Debate at Samye or the Council of Lhasa
Adamek (2007: p.288) provides a circaCirca
Circa , usually abbreviated c. or ca. , means "approximately" in the English language, usually referring to a date...
five year range when Moheyan (of the East Mountain Teachings) and Kamalashila may have debated at Samye in Tibet:
As is well known, the fate of Chan [East Mountain Teachings] in Tibet was said to have been decided in a debate at the Samye monastery near Lhasa in c.792-797.
Broughton (1983: p.9) identifies the Chinese and Tibetan nomenclature of Mohoyen's teachings and identifies them principally with the East Mountain Teachings:
Mo-ho-yen's teaching in Tibet as the famed proponent of the all-at-once gate can be summarized as "gazing-at-mind" ([Chinese:] k'an-hsin... = [Tibetan:] sems la bltas) and "no examining" ([Chinese:] pu-kuan... = [Tibetan:] myi rtog pa) or "no-thought no-examining" ([Chinese:] pu-ssu pu-kuan... = [Tibetan:] myi bsam myi rtog). "Gazing-at-mind" is an original Northern (or East Mountain Dharma Gate) teaching. As will become clear, Poa-t'ang and the Northern Ch'an dovetail in the Tibetan sources. Mo-ho-yen's teaching seems typical of late Northern Ch'an. Mo-ho-yen arrived on the central Tibetan scene somewhat late in comparison to the Ch'an transmissions from Szechwan.
The monastery
Samye Monastery is laid out on the shape of a giant mandalaMandala
Maṇḍala is a Sanskrit word that means "circle". In the Buddhist and Hindu religious traditions their sacred art often takes a mandala form. The basic form of most Hindu and Buddhist mandalas is a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point...
, with the main temple representing the legendary Mount Meru in the centre. Other buildings stand at the corners and cardinal points of the main temple, representing continents and other features of tantric Buddhist cosmology
Cosmology
Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...
.
The main temple is full of Tibetan religious art in both mural and statue form, as well as some important relics. Many Tibetan Buddhists come on pilgrimage to Samye, some taking weeks to make the journey.
External links
- Samye Monastery - Sacred Destinations
- Samye - by Travel China guide