Sakya pandita biography of mahatma gandhi

Was one of the five forefathers of Sakya and the grand son of Kunga Nyingpo. He became a student of Drakpa Gyaltsenwho was his uncle, and began studying logic, languages, astrology, medicine, and many topics of buddha dharma. He mastered all the subjects he studied and became one of the most well-known thirteenth-century Tibetan masters and scholars.

The fact that they are not ultimate is not an excuse to experiment or play fast and loose with the rituals and their interpretation. Everything that we can do, everything that we can say, is only conventional; but that fact does not license the blurring of the lines between the effective, well delineated paths taught by the Buddha that can lead us to liberation if we follow them with care.

Yet for our purposes, the most significant aspects of the work are not in his construction of the path or his characterizations of bodhisattva practice, but in a number of philosophical excurses. He often criticizes an apparent knee-jerk decontextualization that others read out of the doctrine of emptiness. The view of emptiness does not wipe away the conventional.

Ultimate reality not relativize all things to it. On the contrary, it requires that actions be deemed meaningful or not, real or not, by virtue of their effectiveness and relevance within specifiable contexts. This is Buddhist contextualism. We can see immediately that this claim for this practice challenges and undermines the importance of the many doctrinal details, practices and contexts of the Buddhist tradition, paring it down to a single visionary experience.

From a historical perspective, it is important to distinguish the conceptual implications of the Self-sufficient Remedy claim from its actual use. Jackson In the Three Vows it is primarily a critique of the claim that a single practice can be causally effectivewhen in fact all attainments depend upon multiple causes. Jackson ff. He points out that study is necessary to understand the proper target of a meditation on emptiness.

The point that links these various concerns is the overarching worry about moral nihilism, which arises from the claim that all practices can be reduced to one, combined with the unbridled confidence in creative, doctrinal innovation. This allows the practitioner to forego the long and difficult moral training of the bodhisattva in favor of an easy, but delusory, instantaneous quasi-attainment.

JacksonD. JacksonKapstein 75—78 and van Schaik — As a result of these writings, he was valorized as a great scholar with deep mastery of Buddhist doctrine, but he was also often criticized and sometimes lampooned for being stodgy, conservative, and self-satisfied. He certainly believed that he had a clearer and more accurate view of the truth of the doctrine than most Tibetans of his time.

His learning provided him the means and the justification for defending the dharma against other teachers whose understanding was, by comparison, spotty. In the Gateway to Learning D. The Gateway is divided into three chapters, each dedicated to a category of scholarly learning: composition, exposition, and debate. In his analysis, the translations are shown to embody the cultural sakya pandita biography of mahatma gandhi between India and Tibet, between the true dharma and its likely misinterpretation, which can only be overcome by very precise linguistic expertise.

The dharma as translated is, in this way, a minefield of interpretive problems. It is very easy to make mistakes that can lead to false teachings. But it would be wrong to think that this linguistic and cultural distance makes for an essential distinction between the dharma as it originated in its unadulterated form from the mouth of a Buddha, and the dharma as received by Tibetans.

Such an essentialization would be to reify linguistic entities in a way that is non-Buddhist. The key to translation is not to uncover some essential nature of meanings embedded in the words. The key in transmitting the teachings from generation to generation is to preserve, as well as possible, the capacity of the teachings to have that effect. When he meditated or concentrated, nothing whatsoever could disturb him, even amidst a crowd of people.

You are yet unable to dedicate your body and all possessions to the lama. At the same time, my Dharma Lord manifested some discomfort for a few days. At that time, I served him day and night without rest, thought of sleep, or food. This seems to have purified some of my negativities.

Sakya pandita biography of mahatma gandhi

Then my Lord Jetsun Dragpa Gyaltsen bestowed upon me the guru yoga blessing. At that time, the attitude arose in my mind that my lama was the genuine Buddha, and I saw him as Arya Manjushri, the embodiment of all the Buddhas. Uncommon devotion arose in my mind, through this, I was completely liberated from my signs of death. My health was completely restored, and from that time on, I began to realize the unmistaken essential points of scripture and reasoning, such as the meanings of Sanskrit words, logic, poetry, rhetoric, composition, secret mantrayana, paramitayana, abhidharma, vinaya, sutra, and others.

I attained fearless courage concerning the meaning of the entire Tripitaka, and received kind consideration of deities, spirits, and human beings. Even self-conceited ones such as kings ofIndia desired to receive Dharma teachings from me. Some genuine realization inwardly arose in my mind. Based on this, countless good qualities of meditation arose in his mind.

We must celebrate it fully by making offerings. On the bank of the river, my Lord of Dharma Jetsun Rinpoche Drakpa Gyaltsen sat where the bank steps down to the water, listening to secret songs of the mantrayana Dharma, sung by Loppon Sodnam Tsemo, who held his head high. While I listened, I climbed the steps of the bank toward Sodnam Tsemo.

I heard that a similar dream had occurred to Shakya Shri Badhra, and when I asked him about it later, the dream had occurred to both of us on the same night. Some disciples with pure perception, such as Podon Rinpoche and others, perceived him as inseparable from Manjushri. My Lord was also clairvoyant. One example of this occurred when my Lord visited the north.

While he was there, in the middle autumn month of the wood female snake year, and again in the last autumn month of the iron male dog year, he declared that he would depart for another realm in the iron pig year. Some of his close disciples heard and recorded this, and it later occurred just as he had predicted. When composed primarily to benefit others, the words and meaning of his texts are flawless, logical, clear, in harmony with the sutras and tantras, and beyond criticism, even by the most learned.

Indeed, all of his writing is amazingly beautiful. Some of his works were composed primarily to demonstrate elegance in composition, such as Homage to the Sugatas, Beseeching the Compassion of the Enlightened Ones, and Elegant Speech. All of these works are beautifully composed, the words and meaning are in balance, and the metaphors do not contradict the meaning behind them.

Clear distinctions are made between the types of prose, heavy and light accents, and long and short sounds. The words and punctuation beautify and ornament the compositions. Although they are elegantly written, their meaning is clear, and the poetry is easy to recite and pleasant to hear. All of his writings are as works of pure gold, ornamented by jeweled tassels.

It could also be said that they are like a garden of perfect pearls, extremely beautiful and elegantly composed. When his compositions are read or heard by others, they delight the learned, are suitable for quotation by the intelligent, and are the object of admiration by the wise. His words were beyond criticism, and therefore, the courage of every challenger quailed.

He is held in the tradition to have been an emanation of Manjusrithe embodiment of the wisdom of all the Buddhas. Sakya Pandita was also known as a great scholar in TibetIndiaMongolia and China and was proficient in the five great sciences of Buddhist philosophy, medicine, grammar, dialectics and sacred Sanskrit literature as well as the minor sciences of rhetoric, synonymies, poetry, music, dancing and astrology.

He is considered to be the fourth Sakya Forefather and sixth Sakya Trizin and one of the most important figures in the Sakya lineage. Sakya Pandita was the nephew of Jetsun Dragpa Gyaltsen —and became the principal disciple of this prominent scholar. Legend has it that he visited Kyirong on his way back, and there defeated a brahman Shastri in a debate on logic.

He then overcome his opponent in a contest of supernatural powers. As he wanted to show his fellow Tibetans the peculiar dress of Indian Brahmin priests, he brought the Shastri to Tibet where he was killed by the protective deities of the land. The Shastri's head was then tied to a pillar of the great temple in Sakya which remained until modern times.

According to later Tibetan historiography, Genghis Khan subjugated a king of Tibet in and then sent a letter to the Sakya abbot. After the death of Genghis Khan inthe Tibetans stopped sending tribute. This is, however, a legend without historical foundation. In he sent an invasion force under Dorta into Tibet. The Mongols reached the Phanyul Valley sakya pandita biography of mahatma gandhi of Lhasakilling some monks and destroying and looting monasteries, villages and towns.

The Gyal Lhakhang Monastery went up in flames and many monks of the Reting Monastery were slaughtered by the horsemen. According to L. Chang, it was rather the Drigung abbot who made the proposal. Godan drew the conclusion that Sakya Pandita was an important and wise lama who could show the road to salvation, and ordered to send a letter of "invitation" and presents to him.

In fact, recent research has shown that the letter of summons sent by Godan is a later fabrication. The cleric left Sakya in the company of his two young nephews, the ten-year-old Phagpa and six-year-old Chakna Dorje. As he continually preached sermons along his way he did not arrive at Prince Godan's camp until He is also said to have cured Prince Godan of a serious illness, probably leprosy.

Tibetan historians quote a long letter by his hand to the various clerical and temporal lords in Tibet in In order to spare Tibet from devastating invasions, he wrote, it was necessary that the local regimes unconditionally accepted Mongol overlordship. A census was to be taken, and the lords must henceforth carry out the administration in consultation with envoys dispatched by Sakya and in accordance with Mongol law.

This left Tibetan affairs in a state of limbo for the time being.