The Fifth Dalai Lam a, Gyalwa Lobzang Gyatso, is usually referred to in Tibetan literature simply as Ngapa Chenpo, or “The Great Fifth.” There are hundreds of tulkus who have survived as reincarnate lama lineages for five lifetimes or more. For example, we see the Sixth Panchen Lama, the Tenth Karmapa Lama, the Twelfth Taktser Rinpochey, and so forth; but whenever one sees the words “The Great Fifth” in a Tibetan text, one knows that it can refer only to the Fifth Dalai Lama.1
This is because in the Water Dog Year, or 1642, when the Fifth Dalai Lama was only twenty-five years of age, he was awarded the position of spiritual and temporal leader of the Tibetan nation. At the time the Dalai Lama labrang, or reincarnate lama institution, had been one of the ten most popular (and thus influential) spiritual entities in Tibet for over two hundred years, but the events of 1642 led to a significant transformation in its status. It was then that the Dalai Lama institution as it exists today emerged, with the Dalai Lama becoming not just one among a number of equally great lamas, but a lama who stood head and shoulders above all the others.
In one of my meetings with His Holiness the present Dalai Lama, he spoke of the activities of the first four Dalai Lamas as being part of a great master plan. His Holiness explained this plan as follows:
“The First Dalai Lama had been born and spent much of his time in Tsang, or southwestern Tibet. He had, however, made a strong connection with central Tibet by studying there for twelve years in his youth, and later returning several times to teach and meditate in the sacred power places. He had crystallized his life by building Tashi Lhunpo Monastery near Shigatsey, the capital city of Tsang Kingdom. This monastery became the rock upon which his teachings were preserved and his life works continued long after his passing.”
His Holiness went on to say, “The Second Dalai Lama continued this connection by taking birth in Tsang, but in his adulthood he moved to central Tibet, where he established a residence in Drepung Monastery. This acted as his home base, and from here he taught, practiced meditation, wrote many spiritual texts, and made many teaching tours to the outlying regions. One of his favorite places to visit was the Yarlung Valley, the cradle of Tibetan civilization and home of all the early kings of the dynasty that eventually rose to govern all of Tibet, from Kashmir on the west to China on the east. He also frequently traveled south from Yarlung into the Dakpo regions, all the way to the borders of modern-day India, and built Chokhor Gyal Monastery near the Oracle Lake to serve these peoples. Thus he carried the Dalai Lama message from Tsang to central and southern Tibet.”
His Holiness continued, “The Third took birth in central Tibet and taught extensively throughout all the regions in which the First and Second Dalai Lamas had traveled, thus maturing the seeds that they had planted. He then traveled and taught extensively throughout the north and east, as well as in Mongolia and western China.” [As we will see in later chapters, many later Dalai Lama incarnations would receive their early education in monasteries established by the Third in the Amdo and Kham areas of the east.] “When he became the guru to the warlike Mongolian tribes, his role as peacemaker had begun, and this role has continued as an important facet of the Dalai Lama office until the present day.” His Holiness then spoke of how the Fourth was born not only as a Mongolian, but also as a direct descendent of Altan Khan, and of how he cemented the marriage of Mongolia to Buddhism and secured the spiritual friendship between Mongolia and Tibet that endured for the centuries to follow.
He concluded by saying, “Through these four incarnations, the Dalai Lama lineage established spiritual connections with almost every family in Central Asia. Most Tibetans had attended a teaching, initiation or public blessing ceremony led by one of these incarnations, or had studied with one or more of his immediate disciples. Thus in the early 1600s, when the wars of the Tibetan petty kings raged out of hand and the power brokers began looking around for someone who could serve as a unifying figure, the Fifth Dalai Lama emerged as the natural choice.”
This is how the present Dalai Lama explained the manner in which the Great Fifth rose from the position of being but one among many reincarnate lamas to the exalted position of being both spiritual and temporal chieftain of the Tibetan nation.
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The Great Fifth exited from his mother’s womb on the twenty-third day of the ninth month of the Fire Snake Year, i.e., 1617. He had been born near Tiger’s Peak of Chonggyey, at the head of the Yarlung Valley. Chonggyey is well known to all Tibetans, for it was here that the burial tombs of all the early kings of the Yarlung Dynasty were preserved. This dynasty, as we saw in an earlier chapter, had ruled much of central Tibet since long before the birth of Christ, and continued until the mid-seventh century, when Songtsen Gampo moved the capital to Lhasa. Much of Tibet’s ancient mythology is rooted in the Yarlung Valley, and centers around the activities and accomplishments of these early kings.2
The Great Fifth’s father’s family was of Zahori ancestry. Many years later the Great Fifth was to sign many of his writings as “the Zahor monk Lobzang Gyatso.” The word “Zahor” is of Bengali (Indian) origin, perhaps indicating a foreign marriage sometime in the distant past. Because Tibetans revere all things Indian, the name was kept for posterity. His father’s actual name was Miwang Dudul Rabten Tricham Kunga Lhadzey. The first of these particles, “Miwang,” indicates that he was a man of considerable standing. In fact he was a chieftain in the Lukhang clan, a name that appears frequently in Tibet’s historical annals.
As with all the Dalai Lama incarnations, many auspicious signs surrounded the birth of the Fifth, thus focusing attention on his presence.
The house kept a monk in residence by the name of Sangyey Gyatso. This was a common practice in large Tibetan homes, with monks of this nature performing numerous tasks. They served as tutors to the children, ritualists in the household shrines, and as spiritual advisors to household members. Just before the Fifth was conceived, this monk had a dream in which a lama appeared to him. The lama was carrying a statue of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion.
Sangyey Gyatso asked the lama, “What is this?” The lama in his dream replied, “It is the self-manifest Avalokiteshvara of Lhasa.” This was a reference to a sacred statue that had belonged to King Songtsen Gampo in the midseventh century, and was said to have been divinely manifested. As we saw earlier, King Songtsen Gampo was considered to be an early incarnation of the soul that would evolve into the Dalai Lamas, and Avalokiteshvara is the bodhisattva at the source of the line.
On another occasion just before the Fifth’s birth, Sangyey Gyatso dreamed that the mother tried to enter the house via a window. She couldn’t get in because she was so large from her pregnancy. Suddenly a goddess in beautiful robes and jewelry appeared and helped her. The mother was then able to enter with ease. Later pundits would state that this goddess was the female buddha Tara, who had been the First Dalai Lama’s principal meditation deity.
Throughout the time of his mother’s pregnancy the gardens of the household blossomed with many unusual flowers, and also rainbows surrounded the house. Rain frequently fell from the sky, without any clouds being present. Moreover, the local people, without any particular reason or tradition, began to include the house on their daily circumambulation route.
Many years later when the Great Fifth mentioned these events in his diary, he adopted a humble and self-effacing style of composition. The biography, which is edited from his diary, states, “People say these things about my birth, although I myself do not remember any of them. In fact I don’t know if they actually happened or are mere stories that emerged later. Moreover, even if these things did occur, I’m sure that they were connected with the birth or death of some other great being in the area, or were an indication that some local mystic gained realization at that time.”
Shortly after the boy’s birth his mother took him with her when she went to receive teachings and initiations from the great Nyingmapa lama Rigzin Ngawang Chogyal. Although the child was still too young to speak, from this time onward he imitated the ways of a lama and constantly pretended to give blessings to everyone he saw. He would blow mantras on sick people in order to heal them, and many claimed that they received miraculous cures in the presence of the infant. In this and many other ways the boy revealed that he was an extraordinary incarnation.
As we will see later, this early connection of the Fifth Dalai Lama with the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism was to ripen into a profound relationship, and he was destined to become a central figure in the preservation and transmission of Nyingmapa doctrines.
The child’s mother was related to the king of Tsang, who at the time was perhaps the singularly most powerful figure in central and southwestern Tibet. Her dowry had included the Chushur Lhashong estate, a property far more valuable than the home into which she had married. Consequently not long after the Fifth’s birth, the family moved from Chonggyey to Chushur Lhashong.
Meanwhile at Drepung Monastery, where the Fourth Dalai Lama had lived during his final years, efforts were underway to find the young reincarnation. A significant part of this process was consultation with Tibet’s important oracles and mediums.
First a delegation was sent to the oracle at Samyey. The medium entered into trance as he channeled the deity, and then stated, “In a period when the spiritual friend is absent, where can one direct one’s faith? We have to keep our ears turned in the direction of Yarlung Serma Zhung.” Thus he clearly identified Yarlung as the place of the rebirth.
Next the committee contacted the Tsangpa Oracle. This oracle always spoke in verse, and on this occasion stated,
The golden vajra of Chonggyey
Adorned with a red ruby
Should be decorated with an auspicious scarf.
There is no better color than gold.
If the name is Dorjey, how excellent.
With these words the Tsangpa Oracle confirmed the Yarlung Valley as the place of rebirth, and further narrowed the field of search to the Chonggyey area of Yarlung.
Because of these two oracular prophecies, the committee turned its search to Chonggyey. They soon heard stories of the child born with many auspicious signs and omens, and consequently went to examine him.
However, the child was not yet to be officially recognized and enthroned as the reincarnation. Tibet was in the throes of a minor civil war at the time, and also was experiencing bad relations with the Mongols. The king of Tsang had attacked the Lhasa area and sacked the great monasteries there, including Drepung and Sera. The Tsangpa king belonged to the Karma Kargyupa school of Tibetan Buddhism, and he forcibly converted many Gelukpa monasteries in central Tibet into Karma Kargyupa ones. He was especially harsh to the Ganden Podrang, the monastery in Drepung that served as the traditional residence of the Dalai Lamas.
Most of the institutions the Tsangpa king attacked also had numerous young Mongolian monks-in-training living in them, and as a consequence various Mongolian factions were drawn into the conflict. Moreover, the Fourth Dalai Lama had himself been of Mongolian descent, and thus the sacking of the Ganden Podrang in Drepung was an especially strong insult to the Mongols. Consequently, in the Iron Bird Year (1621), a large Mongolian army confronted the Tsangpa forces at Kyangtang, and it looked as though a full scale war was about to erupt.
Two lamas who were highly respected by both sides saved the day. The Panchen Lama, who had been the guru of the Fourth Dalai Lama, and the Ganden Tripa, or official head of the Gelukpa School, rushed to the site from their monasteries, and pressed both sides for a negotiated settlement. Due to their efforts a treaty was struck. The Tsangpa king returned what he had earlier looted from Drepung and Sera monasteries. All Gelukpa monasteries that had been forcibly converted were allowed to revert to the Gelukpa, and whatever property had been looted from them was returned.
Only when peace was established did the committee that was searching for the Dalai Lama reincarnation officially resume its work.
* * * *
The committee in charge of finding the Fifth Dalai Lama had narrowed its search to three candidates. All three of them had been born with many auspicious signs, and all three seemed to recognize objects of the Fourth Dalai Lama from among collections of similar items. Moreover, the somewhat cryptic words of the various oracles who were consulted could similarly be applied to all three of the candidates without contradiction.
The Panchen Lama, who had served as spiritual tutor to the deceased Fourth Dalai Lama, had risen to become the head of the Gelukpa reincarnate lamas of the time. Similarly, another lama by the name of Lingmey Zhabdrung had achieved high realization and widespread esteem. These two lamas were asked to decide which of the three boys should be recognized as the Fourth’s reincarnation.
The two lamas decided to go to Reteng Monastery, the home monastery of the early Kadampa lamas and a place where all the early Dalai Lamas had made meditation retreat several times during their lives. There the two lamas performed divinations in front of the sacred buddha image known as Jowo Jampel Dorjey that had been brought from India many years earlier, and was sacred to all the early Dalai Lamas. The divination method that they used was the “barley ball” technique. The names of the three candidates were written on small pieces of paper; these were then inserted into different dough balls made from roasted barley flour; and the dough balls were placed in a bowl.
The two lamas performing the divination then recited many mantras and offered prayers for a prophecy. Each of them in turn held the bowl containing the barley balls with the names of the three children, moving the bowl in such a way as to cause the barley balls to roll around inside the bowl until one of the balls came flying out. In both divinations—that by the Panchen Lama and then that by Lingmey Zhabdrung—the name to emerge from the bowl was that of the boy born near Taktser of Chonggyey. This child was consequently identified as the reincarnation of the Fourth Dalai Lama, the boy who would become the Great Fifth.
Many years later the Great Fifth, writing on these matters, relates that it was his tutor Kachupa Sangyey Sherab from the Ganden Podrang who had come to his childhood home with a group of monks in order to perform the tests. They had shown him possessions of the previous Dalai Lama, mixed in with similar items not belonging to the Fourth, and asked him to choose.
The Great Fifth, who often exhibits considerable wit in his writings, comments that when he was a child studying with Kachupa the latter often used to press him to work harder. As a method of intimidation, Kachupa would threaten to tell everyone that as a child the Great Fifth had not chosen any of the right objects in the identification tests, and instead had only been given the position of the Dalai Lama incarnation because his mother was related to the quarrelsome king of Tsang, and the search committee thought that by enthroning him the Tsangpa king might become less antagonistic toward the Gelukpa.
Tibetans regard this comment by the Great Fifth as a sign that indeed he was the true incarnation, for otherwise he would not have had the humility to mention the issue himself. Nonetheless the fact that the Great Fifth did mention it stands as testimony that there was a controversy surrounding his identification as the Dalai Lama.
It is ironic, if he was enthroned as a gesture of peace to the Tsangpa king, that events surrounding his life were to bring an end to the rule of the Tsangpa kings.
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During this period of Tibet’s history it was usually necessary to pay a large tax to the Tsangpa king if a reincarnate lama was recognized in his territory. Only then would the king grant permission to a monastery to claim a child as an official reincarnation and return him to his hereditary monastery for training.
However, this tax was waived in the case of the Great Fifth. When Lingmey Zhabdrung visited the boy’s family in order to inform them that their son had been recognized as the Fifth Dalai Lama, he said to them, “If anything bad should happen to the child while you wait for permission from the Tsangpa king, the negative karma will be on your head.”
This made the family very nervous, for they were strong Buddhists and took their karma seriously. The uncle, who was the head of the household, replied, “I cannot take responsibility for anyone’s life.” With these words he consented to the child being recognized as the Fifth Dalai Lama and being taken immediately to Drepung Monastery for installation, without the usual tax for the king of Tsang being paid.
In all probability this accelerated process was used because everyone was concerned about the recent friction between the Tsangpa king and the great Gelukpa monasteries of the Lhasa area. They feared that the Tsangpa king would use the child for political leverage rather than just charge the usual tax. No doubt the family was leery of being caught in the middle of such a tug of war, with their child in-between.
* * * +
Consequently, in the Water Dog Year, or 1622, the Panchen Lama of Tashi Lhunpo Monastery and Kachupa Sangyey Sherab of the Ganden Podrang came to the child’s home to receive him, together with representatives from many different regions, monasteries and aristocratic families of Tibet. On the day of their arrival, several hours before anyone had appeared, the child looked concerned and said, “The Panchen Lama will be quite late.” In fact the Panchen Lama did arrive several hours after the others. People took this as a sign of the boy’s clairvoyant powers. He was enthroned with great ceremony on the twenty-fifth day of the second month.
After the enthronement ceremony the boy gave blessings to all who had come. One of the crowd was a Mongolian monk by the name of Gendun Gyatso, coincidentally the same name as the Second Dalai Lama. When he arrived in front of the boy the child hesitated in giving him a blessing. The crowd gasped in awe, for this monk had often given problems to the late Fourth Dalai Lama. Again, with considerable wit the Fifth writes, “Although there was a lot of talk about this incident, in fact these were all new faces to me at the time, and my hesitation at that time was mere coincidence.”
On the eighteenth day of the third month—a date chosen for its astrologically auspicious qualities—the Panchen Lama cut the boy’s long hair and gave him preliminary monastic ordination. It was on this occasion that he received the name Lobzang Gyatso, with which he has become known to history. The Panchen Lama also gave him a large number of tantric initiations in order to place the karmic seeds of the lineages on his mindstream.
The boy then settled into the traditional chambers of his predecessors at the Ganden Podrang in Drepung Monastery, and his long period of training began.
* * * *
As we saw in an earlier chapter, the Second Dalai Lama had built Chokhor Gyal Monastery near the Oracle Lake, and this institution had become an important part of the Dalai Lama legacy. It was decided that the Fifth should make pilgrimage there while still a child.
Therefore, on the eleventh day of the third month of the Wood Mouse Year, or 1624, he left Drepung with a large entourage. An enormous delegation with representatives from all over the country gathered to see him off. The great lama Lingmey Zhabdrung traveled with him as his tutor. The group stopped in all the major monasteries, hermitages and villages on the way, so that he could give blessings to the people and renew his karmic links with them.
Traveling was slow, but eventually they arrived at Gyal. It was the tradition when visiting a temple to pass in turn before all the sacred images housed there, and therefore the elders led him into the presence of the main image. Here he held up a white silk scarf and was preparing to offer it, when suddenly a gust of wind picked up a scarf that was already on the statue and blew it directly into his hands. Everyone present was filled with awe, for the effect was as though the sacred image was offering a formal greeting to him before he had had the opportunity to offer one to it.
The group remained in Gyal Monastery for several weeks so that the boy could receive the tantric initiations and oral transmissions that were associated with the Second Dalai Lama and Gyal Monastery.
Between transmissions and teaching sessions he received the large crowds of local people who had come to receive his blessings. In this way he activated the karmic seeds that had been placed by his predecessors, and prepared to take up the mantle of his destiny. He remained in Gyal until the end of the fifth month, and then returned to Drepung.
The following year he sat at the head of the enormous gathering of monks and lay people for the Monlam Chenmo, or Great Prayer Festival. The Panchen Lama had come from Tashi Lhunpo in order to lead the ceremonies, which continued from pre-dawn until early evening for more than three weeks. Although it might be expected that a young boy would be unable to sit still and remain focused for this amount of time, the Fifth Dalai Lama seemed to be completely at home throughout the process. Tens of thousands of people had gathered from across Central Asia to attend, and everyone was impressed with the dignity of his presence. A large contingency of Mongolians had also come, for the boy was the reincarnation of the Fourth Dalai Lama, who had been one of them.
Later that same year he received novice ordination from the Panchen Lama. Earlier the Panchen Lama had given him the name Lobzang Gyatso. He now expanded it to Ngawang Lobzang Gyatso Jigmey Gocha Tubten Langtsodey. Quite the mouthful for a young boy. No doubt his friends continued to call him by the main ingredient in it, or “Lobzang.”
* * * *
The Panchen Lama had served as tutor to the Fourth Dalai Lama, and he was requested to do the same for the young Fifth. He accepted in principle, although there was a problem with the logistics. He did not want to leave his monastery of Tashi Lhunpo in Shigatsey, and the monks at Drepung did not want the young Fifth Dalai Lama to move to Tashi Lhunpo.
In the end, it was decided that the Panchen Lama would have the position of senior tutor, and would fulfill this duty by occasionally coming to Drepung to give intensive tantric transmissions to his ward, or have the boy visit Tashi Lhunpo. In the interim periods, Lingmey Zhabdrung Konchok Chopel would serve as his tutor on a daily basis in Drepung, and would guide him through all the Indian Buddhist classics.
The next years of his life were therefore spent in intensive study of the general Buddhist teachings. Here he covered the five principal Buddhist subjects—prajnaparamita, madhyamaka, pramana, abhidharma and vinaya. These five, all of which are based on the great Indian treatises, were used throughout Tibet as basic studies and as prerequisites to tantric practice. In brief, he received all the principal lineages that had come from India to Tibet, as well as the major Tibetan lineages. His tutors were all Gelukpa lamas, so he received these transmissions in accordance with the presentation of the “new” schools—Kargyupa, Sakyapa, Kadampa and Gelukpa—and with how these lineages were preserved within the Geluk monasteries.
In his seventeenth year he expressed a determination to receive the tantric lineages preserved outside of the new schools, i.e., as held by the Old Schools, or Nyingma. The early Dalai Lamas had all used a multi-sect approach in their training, and he wanted to continue the tradition. Moreover, both his mother and father were Nyingma, and he felt a responsibility to honor his roots in this regard. Therefore arrangements were made for him to meet with the esteemed Nyingmapa adept Khonton Lama, and receive the full pantheon of Nyingmapa lineages from him. From this time onward his interest in the Nyingma lineages continued to grow. In his twenty-first year he met the great Nyingma lama Zurchen Choying Rangdol, and his Nyingma connection shifted into high gear.
* * * *
During the next couple of years the Great Fifth demonstrated the fullness of his intellect and the vast expanse of his interests. Under the Thirty-fifth Ganden Tripa, a lama by the name of Jamyang Konchok Chopel, he once more intensely studied the five great Indian treatises and other major Indian commentarial works, as wells as numerous Tibetan classics.
In addition he undertook an intense study of classical Indian poetry, and achieved such excellence in formal poetics that he became known in poetry circles as Jamyang Gawai Shenyen, “Friend Delighting the Eloquent.” He also engaged in an intensive study of astrology and excelled in this sublime science. All of this he accomplished before reaching his twenty-first birthday.
In the Earth Tiger Year, or 1638, he received his complete monastic ordination from the elderly Panchen Lama, and thus fulfilled the legacy established by his predecessors in this regard.
Throughout this period of rigorous training, he continued to meditate for five or six hours a day, and also to undertake several retreats annually. These usually lasted several weeks to a month. He thus combined the best of the Buddhist academic and contemplative traditions. As the Dalai Lama, of course, he also had to set aside several hours a day for the vast throngs of pilgrims who came to Lhasa with expectations of receiving his blessings.
In between this intensive schedule he managed to undertake a complete study of Tibetan medicine and become a qualified medical doctor. In this way he laid firm foundations for the title that history was to posthumously award him, that of “The Great Fifth.”
* * * *
While the young Fifth Dalai Lama spent his time studying, meditating, composing poetry and giving blessings to large crowds, events in the world around him had begun to take on an ominous tone.
The king of Tsang, Karma Tenkyong Wangpo by name, was becoming ever more belligerent and aggressive. As we saw earlier, his father, Karma Puntsok Namgyal, had attacked and plundered numerous Gelukpa monasteries in the Lhasa area. This had occurred in 1618, a year after the Fifth Dalai Lama had been born. The hills above Drepung are said to have turned red from the blood of monks who were slaughtered as they attempted to escape into the mountains. This conflict had delayed the efforts of the search committee in finding and enthroning the young Dalai Lama. Only because of the arrival of a large tribe of Mongolians in 1619, and because of the peacemaking efforts of the Panchen Lama and Lingmey Zhabdrung, was Karma Puntsok Namgyal convinced to return to Tsang.
He continued, however, to control all of Tsang and western Tibet, as well as large parts of central Tibet. In fact there was considerable fear for the Dalai Lama’s safety during his early years, and his Mongolian followers had pressed to bring him to Mongolia for his studies.
Karma Puntsok Namgyal passed away in 1621 when the Fifth Dalai Lama was very young, and was succeeded by his son Karma Tenkyong Wangpo. This king was even more warlike than his father, and resolved to expand the extent of his rule. He was also a strongly sectarian man, and persecuted the Gelukpa monasteries wherever he could. In his hometown of Shigatsey he built a monastery above Tashi Lhunpo that he called Tashi Zilnon, “The Outshiner of Tashi (Lhunpo),” and thus fostered ill will between the two sects. He then made a pact with the king of Beri, in eastern Tibet, to persecute the Gelukpa monasteries there. Litang, the monastery built by the Third Dalai Lama, became the main target of this oppression.
The Gelukpa elders became strongly concerned with the security of their institutions and the safety of their monks. They sent a delegation to speak to the leaders of the Oirat, Dzungar and Chakkar Mongols, three tribes with many children in the Gelukpa monasteries of the Lhasa area. Gushri Khan, the chief of the Qoshot Mongols, was appointed to head a force in charge of establishing peace in Lhasa.
In all probability this peace would have been established by negotiation, but the Tsangpa king made a major mistake. In 1635 he hired ten thousand mercenaries from the Chogthu Mongols. This put Gushri Khan in a difficult position.
The Chogthu army was dispatched from Mongolia under the leadership of Arsalang Khan, a son of the Chogthu chief, with orders to attack and burn all Gelukpa monasteries in central Tibet. Had they succeeded, Tibetan history would have taken a decidedly different turn. Perhaps the names “Dalai Lama” and “Panchen Lama” would have melted into obscurity or disappeared altogether, for the Gelukpa School to which they belonged would have been destroyed. Instead the Tsangpa king’s plan backfired, and had an effect opposite to the one he desired.
Gushri Khan learned of the Chogthu force while it was on its way to Tibet, and intercepted it at the Kokonor, or Blue Lake. Here he called a conference with Arsalang and pressed him to abandon his gruesome undertaking.
The meeting had a profound effect on Arsalang. He left the main body of his army at the Namtso Lake and proceeded to Lhasa with Gushri Khan and only a small personal bodyguard. When he arrived in Lhasa and demanded a meeting with the young Dalai Lama, a wave of trepidation swept the valley. The meeting was arranged in the Ramochey, the temple that had been built a thousand years earlier by King Songtsen Gampo for his Chinese wife.
* * * *
To everyone’s surprise, Arsalang Khan, who had been hired to attack and destroy the Gelukpa monasteries in Lhasa, prostrated to the Dalai Lama and requested to become a Gelukpa monk under his tutelage. A more dramatic outcome of the Chogthu invasion could not have been imagined.
This was not the end of the affair, however. Arsalang’s father, who had made the contract with the king of Tsang, was furious at the manner in which his son had abandoned his duty and disobeyed orders. He sent a team of assassins to kill him, while he began gathering together an army to complete the task that had been undertaken.
Meanwhile Gushri Khan learned of the new development, and decided that his only option was to attack the Chogthu chieftain directly. He made his move in the spring of 1637, when the Chogthu chieftain was in the Kokonor region of Amdo. The maneuver was successful, and the Chogthu threat was eliminated.
The following year Gushri Khan and a large contingent of Mongolians journeyed to central Tibet on pilgrimage. They requested audience with and teachings from the Fifth Dalai Lama, who now was twenty-one years of age. The Fifth Dalai Lama gave them spiritual names, as well as his blessings. They remained in Lhasa for some time, and then returned to the Kokonor.
Things could still have worked out well for the Tsangpa king. Gushri had pressed the Dalai Lama for permission to lead a punitive expedition to Tsang, but the Fifth had convinced him to abandon the idea, stating that the whole episode had come about because of the Tsangpa king’s wounded pride. Many years earlier the king’s father had visited Lhasa and requested an audience with the Fourth Dalai Lama, at a time when relations with the Tsangpa aristocracy were fragile. The Fourth Dalai Lama’s manager had refused the request on the grounds that the master was in meditation retreat. This seemingly small slight, the Fifth Dalai Lama stated, was at the root of the Tsangpa king’s animosity. The insult had simmered and then boiled over into war. The real culprit was the Fourth Dalai Lama’s manager, and his insensitivity to a king’s pride.
Thus the king of Tsang was spared. However, he did not appreciate the gesture, and in 1640 made a pact with the king of Beri, a powerful warlord from Kham in eastern Tibet. The two would unite and attack the Gelukpa together, dividing the conquered territory and whatever spoils were attained. This was mistake number two, and the cause of his ultimate downfall. Gushri Khan learned of the plan and intercepted the Beri army, utterly laying it to waste. He then turned westward and united with the central Tibetan forces. Together they rode to Tsang and waged war against the Tsangpa king for almost two years. Eventually the Tsangpa army was routed and the Tsangpa king imprisoned for treason. In 1642 all the fighting was over. Tibet, which some seven centuries earlier had fragmented into three princedoms and then splintered into several dozen major and minor kingdoms, was once more reunited.
A major figure in the reunification of Tibet was a monk by the name of Sonam Chopel, who is often described in Western literature as the chief attendant of the Fifth Dalai Lama, and also sometimes as his regent. He was in fact the Dalai Lama’s changdzo, or manager, rather than a menial attendant, and was a great personality in his own right. Every incarnate lama has a monk of this nature in his entourage, and when the lama is in his youth the changdzo has near total control of his affairs. Many changdzos continue to run all affairs of the lama even after the latter’s maturity. It is also not uncommon for a changdzo to be placed in charge of the search for the reincarnation of his lama, after the latter’s death.
As has been previously noted, having a great changdzo is a key to a lama’s success, and an inadequate changdzo is a tremendous impediment. The changdzo not only controls all the money and property that comes to his ward but also serves as the lama’s public relations officer, screening those who request an audience and turning back those whom he feels are inappropriate. He organizes all travels, accommodations, building and publishing projects, and even public teachings. In the best scenario, the changdzo serves his lama well and does not bring personal ambitions, emotional prejudices or private agendas into his work. Instead, he accommodates the fluid and successful interactions of his lama with the general population of devotees and followers, as well as with other more secular concerns, such as the institutions of other lamas, the local aristocracy and power brokers, and visitors from foreign lands.
In the Fifth Dalai Lama’s time, this last aspect of the manager’s duty meant receiving long lines of kings, princes, tribal chieftains and warlords from Mongolia, Amdo, Kham, western China, Manchuria, and so forth. Sonam Chopel served the young Great Fifth very well indeed, and his good works were the most direct cause of the great success that the Fifth achieved. It was Sonam Chopel’s genius that brought the Great Fifth to the throne of Tibetan national leadership in 1642.
After this monumental event Sonam Chopel became known as Desi Sonam Chopel, with the title “Desi” meaning “Viceroy.” All principal changdzos of the Fifth Dalai Lama from this time onward were referred to by the title “Desi.” The tradition continued during the lifetime of the Sixth Dalai Lama.
There is little doubt that politically Sonam Chopel was more powerful than the Dalai Lama during these historically crucial years. For example, in 1640 the Desi had supported Gushri Khan’s invasion of Tsang, whereas the Fifth Dalai Lama had very publicly opposed it, and even attempted to leave Lhasa in order to intercept and stop Gushri Khan’s army. However, it was the Desi’s words that were followed, and not those of the Fifth Dalai Lama.
The Desi nonetheless realized his limitations, and when the wars were over and it came time to appoint a spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet, he knew that the Dalai Lama’s name held far greater weight than his own. Thus he did all that he could to ensure that the mantle of leadership went to the young Dalai Lama, and that he himself remained in the background.
Some modern Chinese historians claim that the role of the Mongolian leader Gushri Khan in reuniting Tibet and establishing the Dalai Lama as the supreme Tibetan leader means that at this point in history Tibet became a part of Mongolia. Furthermore, they claim that because Mongolia later gradually fell under the rule of Manchuria, and the Manchu emperor also conquered Han China, this gives modern Han China a legal claim to the ownership of Tibet. It is a rather convoluted logic.
The reality of the matter is that Gushri Khan was appointed by three different Mongolian chieftains to defend their interests in Tibet, and did not act on his own in the matter. None of these chieftains laid claim to Tibet as a result of his actions, nor did they empower him to do so. In fact, had either he or they attempted to do anything along these lines, the move would probably have been seen as a threat to the balance of powers, and could easily have resulted in a civil war among the Mongols themselves. As we will see later, this was to happen during the life of the Sixth Dalai Lama, when the Mongolian chieftain Lhazang Khan invaded and captured Lhasa. This lead to a war between rival Mongol clans and eventually resulted in his own death.
Gushri Khan, on the other hand, simply executed his commission, and for perks just asked blessings and initiations from the Fifth Dalai Lama, as well as names for his children. He then returned to the Kokonor region and continued his rule from there. He did remain a close disciple and devotee of the Fifth Dalai Lama, and for the remainder of his life spent a considerable amount of time in Lhasa, where he was shown great respect by the Tibetans, but it would be an exaggeration to say that he attempted to establish his personal rule over Tibet.
This is perhaps best indicated by the seating arrangements at the official enthronement ceremony of the Dalai Lama in 1642. Here the Dalai Lama was placed on the highest seat in the assembly, with Gushri Khan and Desi Sonam Chopel each sitting on thrones of equal height to one another, and dramatically shorter than that of the Dalai Lama. In traditional Asia, the height of the seat tells the whole story.
From his side, the Fifth Dalai Lama accepted the role of symbolic head of the newly formed Tibetan nation and agreed to help establish the infrastructure through which the country would be harmoniously ruled. The government that formed under him took the name of his residence in Drepung Monastery, i.e., the Ganden Podrang, which had been built by the Second Dalai Lama. This has remained the name of the Tibetan government until the present day.
In the Tibetan mystical world, however, the Fifth Dalai Lama’s dramatic and almost effortless rise to power is not seen as a play of mundane political dynamics. A deeper cause lay in a promise made a hundred years earlier, after the Second Dalai Lama passed away and was traveling in the afterworld. He had almost decided not to reincarnate in Tibet, but instead to take birth in another world, where his bodhisattva services would be more beneficial. Suddenly the great guru Padma Sambhava, who had come to Tibet in the eighth century and built Tibet’s first monastery, appeared to the Dalai Lama in a vision and requested that he continue to incarnate in Tibet. Padma Sambhava gave the Dalai Lama the Dharma Protector Pehar (i.e., Nechung) as his personal assistant. In addition, he proclaimed that if the Dalai Lama continued to work in Tibet, he would rise to the position of spiritual and temporal head of the land, where he would be in a position to bring great benefits that would continue for centuries. The Great Fifth became spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet exactly a hundred years after the Second experienced this vision and prophecy.
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In the Wood Bird Year, or 1645, the Great Fifth initiated the construction of the Potala, and the foundations were laid later that same year. This building, indeed a marvel of world architecture, remains one of the great wonders of the world and stands as a physical testament to the Fifth’s extraordinary vision. This was built around the fortress on Red Mountain that had been constructed approximately a thousand years earlier by King Songtsen Gampo, an earlier incarnation of the Dalai Lamas. The new structure envisioned by the Fifth Dalai Lama carefully incorporated the principal elements of Songtsen Gampo’s masterpiece.
Work on the Potala continued for the remainder of the Great Fifth’s life, and in fact was not completed until after his death. However, he dedicated tremendous energy to the project, and it stands as one of his great contributions to human achievement.
A Nyingma lama friend of mine once told me that according to oral tradition the enormous rocks used in the upper sections of the Potala were so large that they could not be set into place by ordinary means. Consequently the Great Fifth called a meeting of his Nyingma lama friends, and they all sat in meditation, recited their mystic mantras and floated the boulders into place by means of telekinesis.
The Great Fifth also commissioned numerous other building projects. Perhaps the most important of these was the construction of the National Medical College in Lhasa, which was built on Iron Mountain. Popularly known as the Mentsikhang, or “Medical and Astrological Academy,” this institution served as a medical university producing young doctors that were then sent out across the country to establish clinics. In other words, through this project the Great Fifth managed to establish what soon became a national medicare system.
He realized that the lack of maps of the country and of an accurate population census were impediments to effective government, and therefore ordered that a complete survey be made. This was accomplished as far east as Dartsedo, on the Chinese border. The population census was conducted by making a door-to-door count, the first in Tibetan history.
The Great Fifth also instituted a system of taxation, with the taxes being used to support educational institutions, temples, medical clinics and environmental projects. A treasury was established to process any surplus.
Protection of the environment was one of his priorities. No doubt the Mongolian wars that had spilled over into Tibet, as well as the war with Tsang, had wreaked considerable destruction on the fragile Tibetan habitat. A large body of traveling soldiers tends to strip forests for firewood, to hunt and kill wildlife as they move in order to supplement their diet, and to leave a trail of waste behind them. One of the Fifth’s first acts as head of state was to press for a law banning all hunting of wild animals. No doubt the stories of Lama Drom’s previous lives as related by Atisha were inspiring in this regard. He also had several kings of ancient Buddhist India to look to for his examples.3 This ban on hunting was somewhat tempered by later generations, allowing for seasonal hunting for wildlife population management and food foraging by nomads in remote regions, but remained largely in place.
In this way for several years the Great Fifth participated actively in establishing the legacy that was to become modern Tibet. He then largely passed the reins to an assembly, and returned to his Buddhist studies and practice.
He also began to dedicate an increasing amount of time to writing, and by the time he passed away had composed as much as all other Dalai Lamas combined. His complete works were gathered together after his death, and make up some twenty-eight volumes of texts, comprising hundreds of titles. Twelve of these volumes are classified as “outer,” and deal with the mundane or ordinary side of his teachings. Eight are classified as “inner,” and treat the purely spiritual side. A further eight are classified as “secret,” and resulted from his esoteric visionary experiences. These latter generally were not published for open distribution in Tibet, as were the outer and inner sections, but could only be obtained by arranging for hand copies to be made.
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In the Iron Tiger Year, or 1650, a delegation bearing gifts from the Manchu emperor Shun-chih arrived in Lhasa. These were to be offered to the Fifth Dalai Lama, together with a strong request that the Great Fifth visit Beijing. The Dalai Lama was reluctant to accept, for many Tibetans who had traveled to China had died there of smallpox or other diseases. However, he was reluctant not to go, for the meeting could establish friendly relations with this powerful neighbor to the east.
The Great Fifth, now the ruler of Tibet, was in a delicate position. Manchuria, a kingdom to the north of Korea that was populated by Tartar peoples (i.e., Mongolians), had invaded China and in 1644 had toppled the Ming Dynasty. The Manchus now ruled not only their own land, but also all that had been ruled by the Mings. By going to Beijing the Dalai Lama would be formally acknowledging the new rulers of China, to the chagrin of the many Ming Chinese friends that Tibet had cultivated over the past century. On the other hand, not to go could be perceived as an insult to and personal assault on the new rulers of China, thus inviting bad relations on the eastern borders of his country.
At first he was unable to decide what to do. Consequently he retreated to Chokhor Gyal Monastery near the Oracle Lake, and engaged in meditation. In accordance with tradition, many images and signs soon began to appear within the sacred waters. He watched these in silence and for long periods, contemplating their significance.
In the end he decided that the signs indicated he should go. Therefore he left for Beijing in 1652. The overland journey required many months of travel, for he had to stop in all the important sites along the way and give blessings and small initiations to the people. He also had to meet with all the spiritual and secular leaders of each region.
Meanwhile, the Manchu emperor had made elaborate preparations for him. He was met by official delegations at numerous stages of the journey. Several days’ journey from Beijing, he was met by the emperor himself, who no doubt wanted to spend a bit of informal time with him before they entered the high-protocol scene at Beijing.
In Beijing the emperor had had a residence especially constructed for him. Called the Huang-su, or “Yellow Palace,” it thereafter came to serve as a symbol of the good relations that were established between the Dalai Lama’s government and the Manchus at that time. It should be added that this positive relationship continued almost without interruption until the fall of the Manchu Dynasty in 1911.
The Great Fifth was received with tremendous fanfare, and accorded all the protocol not only of a visiting head of state, but of a living buddha. In accordance with custom, at their formal meeting the two leaders exchanged titles with one another, inscribed on golden plates. The Great Fifth gave the Manchu emperor the name “Namkyi Lha Jamyang Gongma Dakpa Chenpo,” or “Lordly Emperor Melodiously Wise Bodhisattva Sky Divinity.” The emperor chose the name “Tantric Buddha Ocean Lama,” or “Gyatso Lama Dorjechang,” for the Great Fifth. The “Gyatso” part of the epithet, of course, is the Tibetan equivalent of “Dalai,” the Mongolian word for “ocean.”
Some modern historians suggest that the emperor’s principal motives in inviting the Dalai Lama to Beijing and showing him such respect was to gain his peace-keeping influence with the tribal groups that lived along his western and northwestern borders. As the highest reincarnate lama in the Tibetan Buddhist world, the Great Fifth was held in great standing by the Tibetan and Mongolian tribes that lived in these regions. A good word from him would go a long way in mitigating conflicts. Indeed, when the Fifth Dalai Lama eventually left Beijing to return to Tibet, the emperor again showered him with honorific names and titles, one of them being “Keeper of Peace in the West.”
For the Tibetans, the meeting was more esoteric. Here there were two factors at play. The first was that long ago the Third Dalai Lama had prophesied to the Mongol chieftain Altan Khan that after eighty years his descendents would come to rule all of China. Tibetans believe that this prophecy was fulfilled with the Manchu emperor Shun-chih, who was a Tartar and thus a Mongol, and also, Tibetans believe, genetically connected to Altan through a marriage that had occurred in the interim. Thus both the Great
Fifth Dalai Lama and the Manchu emperor were now acting parts in a play they had begun two lifetimes earlier. The connection was essentially spiritual.
A second consideration was that Tibet held a special connection with Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, whereas Manchu China held a special connection with Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. These two bodhisattvas ranked high as Buddhist archangels transcending time and space, and as principal recipients of the inner teachings of the Buddha. The Dalai Lama was regarded as an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara, whereas several mystics had indicated that the Manchu emperor Shun-chih was an incarnation of Manjushri. The world could only be benefited by their meeting.
Be all this as it may, Tibet and China enjoyed a peaceful and mutually beneficial relationship as a result of the foundations laid at that time, and these auspicious conditions continued for many generations to follow.
While the Fifth Dalai Lama was in Beijing, the Manchu emperor informed him that he planned to build many Tibetan Buddhist temples and monasteries across the country, and requested the Great Fifth to create a monastic charter that would provide the basic guidelines to be followed in administering them. The Great Fifth complied, and over the decades to follow dozens of Tibetan Buddhist centers were established across Manchuria and China, using the Great Fifth’s monastic charter.
This dedication of the Manchus to Tibetan Buddhism continued over the generations that followed, with Tibetan Buddhism becoming the principal court religion of the Manchu rulers. By the mid-nineteenth century, knowledge of Tibetan language and literature had become a basic requirement of the Manchu intelligentsia. Thus the Great Fifth fulfilled a prophecy and also laid several major foundation stones through his visit to Beijing.
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After returning to Tibet from China, the Great Fifth went on a teaching tour through Tsang, where he met with the elderly Panchen Lama in Tashi Lhunpo Monastery. The two had become very close over the years, and the Great Fifth wished to receive whatever lineages the great master had not yet transmitted to him. Tashi Lhunpo Monastery had been built by the First Dalai Lama. The Great Fifth now requested the Panchen Lama to accept it as his multi-lifetime seat. It has remained so until the present day, with all of the Panchen Lama reincarnations being placed in Tashi Lhunpo for education, and their mummified bodies kept there as relics. They became so strongly associated with
Tashi Lhunpo Monastery that the Panchen Lama is referred to as the “Tashi Lama” by most eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British writers.
The Fifth Dalai Lama’s viceroy, Desi Sonam Chopel, died in the Fire Monkey Year, or 1657. Until then the Desi had carried out the day-to-day tasks of running the Ganden Podrang government, with the Fifth Dalai Lama only being consulted on major issues, or when the Desi was in doubt on the right course of action to take. Thus until the Desi’s passing, the Great Fifth had been only a figurehead leader, while Desi Sonam Chopel was the de facto ruler. The Great Fifth was now asked to take a more active role in the process.
In the Water Tiger Year, or 1662, the Panchen Lama passed away at the ripe old age of ninety-one. He had served as principal guru to both the Fourth and the Fifth Dalai Lamas, and in his old age had been the guru of almost every Gelukpa practitioner in the Central Asian world, including Manchuria and the Mongol regions. The Great Fifth sponsored a spectacular entombment ceremony at Tashi Lhunpo Monastery for the Panchen’s mummified body, with hundreds of pounds of gold as well as thousands of precious and semiprecious jewels being used in the stupa that was built to house his remains. This magnificent tomb endured until the mid-1960s, when it was robbed and destroyed by the Chinese Communists.
The Great Fifth then oversaw the search for the Panchen Lama’s reincarnation, who was discovered in the form of a boy born in Tobgyal, Tsang, in 1663. In 1665 the Great Fifth officially recognized this child as his guru’s reincarnation, and gave him the name Panchen Lobzang Yeshey. This young boy would grow up to become the guru of both the Sixth and the Seventh Dalai Lamas, and one of the most highly esteemed lamas of his time. He would later receive his early monastic ordinations as well as many tantric initiations and teachings directly from the Fifth Dalai Lama.
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Although the Great Fifth stands as one of the dominant figures in Tibets long history, his life was not without controversy. He had come to power due to the failed expansionist designs of the king of Tsang, a strong devotee of the Karma Kargyu School. This king, had he succeeded in his ploy to expand his territory and capture Lhasa, would have tried to eradicate the Gelukpa School altogether and make the Karmapa Lama, who was the head of the Karma Kargyu School, the spiritual head of his newly formed nation. Although there were twelve subsects in the Kargyu
School, the Karma Kargyu School had been politically the strongest of these for a number of years.
The Karmapa Lama was thought to have supported and encouraged the Tsangpa king. Consequently when the king’s ploy backfired, the Karmapa Lama’s name greatly suffered. It is said that he became so fearful over the role that he had played in the civil war that he went into hiding for several years, until the dust had settled.
Meanwhile the Fifth Dalai Lama had excellent relations with the Drikung branch of the Kargyu School. In fact, when the traditional system in the Drikung of appointing its head from among the sons of the Drikung ruling family failed because both brothers became monks and therefore would not produce an heir, the Fifth Dalai Lama ordered both brothers to establish reincarnation institutions, with whichever of the two was the elder serving as head of the school. Until today there is a Drikung Chetsang and Drikung Chungtsang lama, or “Drikung Older Brother” and “Drikung Younger Brother” incarnation.4 This brought stability to the Drikung School, which quickly eclipsed the Karma Kargyu in both size and political importance. Therefore the Drikung Kargyu School speaks highly of the Fifth Dalai Lama in its annals, whereas the Karma Kargyu School speaks about him with bitterness. Even today the monks of the Karma Kargyu Sect resent the Fifth Dalai Lama, whereas those of the Drikung Kargyu speak well of him.
Another controversy surrounds the uprising that emanated from Gyangtsey and Kongpo after the Great Fifth came to power. Following the war of 1640-42, the Tsangpa king was imprisoned at Neu for treason. Forces loyal to him rallied, however, and a major revolt emerged, plunging Tibet into civil war once more. Several monasteries came in on the Tsangpa king’s side, due to their affiliations with the Tsangpa aristocracy. The uprising failed, but the battles resulting from it led to hundreds of deaths on both sides. After peace had been restored the Fifth Dalai Lama closed thirteen monasteries that had actively supported the uprising, including the prestigious Jonangpa Monastery. The sects and institutions associated with these monasteries cried foul, and accused the Fifth Dalai Lama of sectarianism. Tibetans have a long memory, and this accusation still stands within certain circles.
I once asked the present Dalai Lama about this. He replied, “These monasteries were closed for political reasons, not religious ones, and their closing had nothing to do with sectarianism. They had supported the Tsangpa king in the uprising, thus committing treason. The Great Fifth believed that that they should be closed in order to insure the future stability of the nation, and to dissuade other monasteries from engaging in warfare.” His Holiness continued, “The fact is that the Great Fifth passed laws outlawing sectarian skirmishes, and passed laws ensuring the freedom of religion. This freedom was extended to not only the Buddhist schools, but also to the non-Buddhist ones. For example, he kept a Bonpo lama in his entourage to speak for the interests of the Bon movement. And on a personal level, he himself practiced so many non-Gelukpa lineages that the Gelukpas criticized him for straying from his roots.”
These words of His Holiness are supported by historical evidence. Not only did the Great Fifth ban sectarianism, he even went so far as to give a large piece of land in the Lhasa valley to the Muslim traders from Kashmir, so that they could officially practice Islam when in Tibet.
This last comment by His Holiness—that the Great Fifth practiced so many non-Gelukpa lineages that the Gelukpas criticized him for straying from his roots—introduces a third controversy about the Great Fifth.
From his late teen years he had begun to take up many spiritual practices of the Nyingma School. By the middle of his life he was spending almost all of his time with Nyingmapa lamas, engaged in tantric rituals, study, meditation, teaching and other activities. In fact he is listed as the major holder for his generation of the Jangter Tradition, one of the principal Nyingma lineages. He once complained, “Gelukpas call me Nyingma, and the Nyingmas call me Gelukpa. Neither accepts me as their own.” There is certainly some truth to this, at least insofar as the Gelukpas are concerned. For example, in the biographical encyclopedia of great Gelukpa lamas composed by Kachen Yeshey Gyaltsen, the guru of the Eighth Dalai Lama, considerable space is dedicated to the lives of the First, Second, Third and Seventh Dalai Lamas. The Great Fifth’s life, however, receives just a few short and rather dry pages.
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Another controversy surrounding the Great Fifth concerns the death of Tulku Drakpa Gyaltsen, a famous Gelukpa lama of the period. He was one of the most prominent lamas of his day, and in fact in some circles was held in even higher regard than was the Great Fifth, for the Fifth at the time was still in his youth.
One day Tulku Drakpa Gyaltsen was mysteriously murdered. His followers claimed that the culprits were followers of the Fifth Dalai Lama, although there was no suggestion that the Great Fifth was personally even aware of the plot.
The theory was that the Great Fifth was being eclipsed by the towering stature of Tulku Drakpa Gyaltsen, and thus would greatly benefit from his death. As long as Tulku Drakpa Gyaltsen was alive the Fifth Dalai Lama would be number two in the Gelukpa School; his death allowed the Great Fifth to rise to the position of number one.
Whether or not the followers of the Great Fifth were involved in Tulku Drakpa Gyaltsen’s murder was never proved, but the rumors persisted.
The tale, already somewhat bizarre, now takes an even more exotic twist. It is said that the soul of the murdered monk wandered in the hereafter for some time as a disturbed spirit, creating havoc for the people of Lhasa. Eventually the Great Fifth contracted a group of Nyingmapa shamans to exorcize and pacify it, but they failed. He then contracted a group of Gelukpa shaman monks.
As a result of the rituals of this second group the spirit of Tulku Drakpa Gyaltsen was eventually pacified and transformed into the Dharma Protector Dorjey Shugden.
This spirit was later adopted as a guardian angel by numerous Gelukpa monks who disapproved of the Fifth Dalai Lama’s manner of combining Gelukpa and Nyingmapa doctrines.
Although the Great Fifth tried to discourage the practice of worshipping this deity, it caught on with many monasteries. The practice continued over the generations to follow, and eventually became one of the most popular Protector Deity practices within the Gelukpa School. In particular, during the late 1800s, when four Dalai Lamas died young, it became an all-pervasive monthly practice within almost all provincial Gelukpa monasteries, and was especially popular with Gelukpa aristocratic families.
The controversy surrounding the murder of Tulku Drakpa Gyaltsen and the deity that emerged from his disturbed spirit has shadowed the Dalai Lama office until the present day. By the time the Tibetans came into exile in 1959i worshipping Dorjey Shugden was still a common monthly practice of most Gelukpas.
In recent decades the present Dalai Lama has attempted to discourage the practice, but with little success. It is as strong today as ever, if not stronger; for with the Dalai Lama discouraging it in India, the Chinese are fully promoting it in Tibet.
Tibet watchers will be aware of this bizarre controversy, as it has even found its way onto the pages of Time and Newsweek, and has dozens of web pages dedicated to it.
* * * *
Controversies aside, most Tibetans regard the Fifth as a truly great leader on both spiritual and secular fronts. Few blame him personally for the few small glitches that manifested during his lifetime.
After Desi Sonam Chopel passed away in 1657, a string of three viceroys followed, although none of them was as strong as Sonam Chopel had been. During this twenty-two-year period the Great Fifth participated strongly in the building of Tibet as a nation and the creation of the institutions that would ensure its cultural, political and spiritual success and prosperity.
He worked tirelessly as spiritual and temporal leader of the Tibetans until the Earth Sheep Year, or 1679, when he requested Sangyey Gyatso, who was the nephew of his second viceroy, to accept the position of Desi. This was the second time that the Great Fifth had requested Sangyey Gyatso to serve him as viceroy. Sangyey Gyatso had declined the earlier request on the grounds that he was still too young for public service and wished to continue his spiritual training. Now, however, he accepted, for he could see that the Great Fifth was of advanced years and was in need of his aid.
Not long after installing Desi Sangyey Gyatso as his viceroy, the Great Fifth officially retired from public life, passing all responsibility to the young Desi. From that time he left all temporal affairs to Desi Sangyey Gyatso, and dedicated the remainder of his life to meditation, teaching and writing.
Finally in the Water Dog Year, or 1682, the Great Fifth passed away.
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As said earlier in this chapter, the Fifth Dalai Lama was a most prolific writer. The body of his complete collected works is as large as the collected writings of all other Dalai Lamas combined. He composed treatises not only on all the great Buddhist subjects, such as philosophy, meditation and so forth, but in addition composed numerous works on history, poetics, and other secular disciplines.
He is, however, most famous for the works known in Tibetan as dak nang, which could be translated as “pure revelations” or “pure visionary experiences.” His texts of this nature continue to be used by lamas and monks today in teaching and initiation ceremonies, as well as for other purposes such as empowerment of medicines, exorcisms, and so forth. I have attended numerous ceremonies by the present Dalai Lama in which he used some of the “pure revelation texts” of the Great Fifth.
I decided to include a work of this nature by the Fifth Dalai Lama here. He does not sign it with his ordinary monastic name—Ngawang Lobzang Gyatso—but rather draws on one of his many tantric names: Gongpa Zilnon Zhepa Tsai, or “Radiant Playful Laughter.” He uses this name for himself throughout a set of twenty-eight pure revelation texts known to the Tibetans as Zabmo Sangwa Gyachen, or “Profound Dharmas Sealed in Secrecy.”
However, rather than just use a bare translation, I thought it might be interesting to use a version of the Fifth Dalai Lama’s text that I found in the collected works of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. The text in question is a tantric initiation manual. According to the colophon, the Great Thirteenth used the Fifth’s manual text for a tantric initiation ceremony that he led in Zhabgon Drochen Dekyiling Monastery of Nakchu. It was the Earth Bird Year, or 1909, and at the time the Thirteenth Dalai Lama was returning to Tibet after touring through Mongolia and China. Thus the Thirteenth essentially provides a reading of the Fifth’s esoteric work, set in the practice environment within which it was intended. The initiation manual itself is fun, but just as interesting is the attitude of the Thirteenth toward the Fifth, and his comments in this regard. It thus perfectly suits my purposes here. Fortunately some bright spark in the audience kept notes, and we can be grateful that these notes were published in the Thirteenth’s collected works after his death.
The Thirteenth Dalai Lama clearly states the traditional attitude toward the pure visionary experiences of the Great Fifth on which the original text is based. As he put it, “The outer, inner and secret biographies of the great lamas of the past speak of three types of pure visionary experiences: those received in dreams; those received in meditation; and those received as direct mystical communications. This particular tradition belongs to the last of these. In fact, Gongpa Zilnon Zhepa Tsai (i.e., the Fifth Dalai Lama) was continually absorbed in the wisdom dance that experiences all appearances as pure vision, and was in constant communion with the oceanic deeds of the great aryas who are purified in spirit. Thus all his visionary experiences were pure direct cognitions.”
As stated, the occasion of the Thirteenth’s reading (and initiation ceremony) was a visit to the Nyingma monastery Zhabgon Drochen Dekyiling in 1909. When there he was requested to lead a healing initiation from the lineage of the Fifth Dalai Lama’s mystical revelations. Thus the
Fifth’s original initiation manual, created from his personal meditational visions, was used as the basis of the ceremony.
Ordinary Tibetans prefer receiving initiations of this nature to listening to conventional Buddhist teachings. Generally the session is conducted as a guided group meditation, with the presiding lama reading from the initiation manual and adding his own comments to elucidate the meanings. Because the reading is performed in the context of an actual healing empowerment ceremony, it is punctuated by occasional ceremonial adornments such as monks playing horns, beating drums and ringing bells.
Because the Fifth’s text is born from his pure visionary experiences, the Thirteenth takes time to elucidate the extraordinary manner of their origin. As he explains, the Fifth received a vision of Guru Tsokyey Dorjey, or the great guru Padma Sambhava, the eighth-century founder of the Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism. Numerous other great lamas of the Nyingma lineage also appeared in the vision. Padma Sambhava then spoke the text to him directly, and the Fifth transcribed it.
This type of text is also referred to in the Nyingma School as Terma, or “Treasure text.” Guru Padma Sambhava spoke it to the Great Fifth as a treasure transmission. Thus it could be called a composition by Guru Padma Sambhava, with the Great Fifth serving as his mystical stenographer. Almost all texts accredited to Padma Sambhava are in fact of this nature; they were not actually written by Padma Sambhava, but by later revealers who experienced a vision or dream in which Padma Sambhava spoke to them and they consequently transcribed his words. For example, a Tibetan prophecy often accredited to Padma Sambhava states: “When the iron bird flies and horses run on wheels, the Dharma will go to the land of the red man.” This prophecy has become widely quoted in America, and people think of Padma Sambhava as speaking or writing these words back in the mid-eighth century. In fact they were written by a Nyingma lama in the 1930s, after he experienced a dream vision in which Padma Sambhava spoke them to him.
The Fifth Dalai Lama’s text can best be appreciated if approached as a piece of mystical theater. The reading should be paced and fluid, with the emphasis on grasping the overall vision being expressed by the Great Fifth, without getting bogged down in the occasional obscure name or term that appears. The emphasis is not on intellectual or philosophical understanding, or even literary appreciation. Rather, one aims at an immersion into the oceanic mysticism that was the Great Fifth’s second nature.