was known as dun-gyu. At the present time the abbots are Tantrik lamas from Khams. I was told that neither the lamas nor the nuns of Sakya are held by the people to be exceptionally virtuous, and, to tell the truth, the laity of Sakya has a similar unsavoury reputation in Tibet.
The Emperor Kublai made the hierarch Phagpa ruler of Tibet,[1] and it was the latter’s deputy (or Panchen[2]), Kunga zangbo, who began building the Lha-khang chenpo of Sakya, which was completed by one of his successors in office, Anglen tashi. This latter proved himself an able and vigorous administrator, and annexed Tagpo to the Sakya principality. Zangpo-pal, the then reigning hierarch, sent him on a mission to the Emperor of China, Buyantu,[3] who granted to him and his heirs in perpetuity the Yamdo lake country. The Sakya Panchen have, down to the present time, been taken from this family. The last Sakya Panchen, Kunga nyingpo, died on June 20, 1882; his tomb, at the time of my visit to Sakya, was almost finished, and his wife was still wearing mourning.
It is told of the late Sakya Panchen that, some sixteen years ago, after the death of the two famous Dayan khanpo, the treasurer of the Gadan gomba of Lhasa, when his wicked spirit was causing various dire calamities to Tibet, every endeavour to expel it from the country proved abortive. So finally the Government of Lhasa, at the suggestion of the oracles, requested the Sakya Panchen to visit Lhasa to drive the fiend away. At the foot of Mount Potala he had lighted a great fire, and, by the potency of his charms, drove the evil spirit into a lay figure prepared for the occasion, whereupon it fell straight-way into the fire. Then the Panchen drove his charmed phurbu[4]
- ↑ Phagpa (or Dro-gon Phagpa) is said to have been born A.D. 1233, and became ruler of Tibet in 1251. Csoma, 'Tib. grammar,' p. 186. The latter date is, however, inconsistent with facts, as Kublai only mounted the throne in 1260, and became actually seated on the throne of China in 1280, and it was he who made him Kuo shih, or "Preceptor of the realm." H. H. Howorth, 'History of the Mongols,' i. p. 506 et sqq., makes no mention of Kublai raising Phagpa to be ruler of Tibet.
- ↑ Abbreviation of Ponbo chenpo, or "great officer." The Sakya monastery was founded in A.D. 1071, according to Csoma, op. cit., p. 197. Phagpa was a nephew of the famous Sakya Pandita, the author of many standard works of Tibetan literature.
- ↑ Buyantu reigned from 1312 to 1320. Ssanang Ssetsen says that the lama Sakya Sribadra was head of the church under him. I. J. Schmidt, op. cit., p. 121. The Saskya-pa sect was, prior to the rising of the present Gelugpa sect, the most powerful of the reformed schools of Tibetan Buddhism.—(W. R.)
- ↑ A spike of iron or bronze with a triangular section. The top of it terminates in a dorje. It is used in exorcisms. Emil Schlagintweit, 'Buddhism in Tibet,' p. 257 et sqq., and Waddell, op. cit., pp. 341, 483, and 488.—(W. R.)
