Person · Gelug school founder · India
Je Tsongkhapa
Also known as Tsongkhapa, Lobsang Drakpa, Je Rinpoche
Lobsang Drakpa (1357-1419), posthumously known as Je Tsongkhapa ('Lord of the Onion Valley', after his birthplace Tsongkha in Amdo), was the founder of the Gelug ('Virtuous') school of Tibetan Buddhism, the youngest of the four main schools and the dominant one for the last five centuries. He studied under some fifty masters across all four existing schools, then systematised the entire Buddhist path in his Lamrim Chenmo ('Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path'), still the Gelug training foundation. He founded Ganden monastery in 1409 as the Gelug seat and inaugurated the Great Prayer Festival (Mönlam Chenmo) at Lhasa's Jokhang in 1409. The Dalai Lama lineage, the Panchen Lama lineage and the Ganden Tripas all descend institutionally from Tsongkhapa; his pupil Gendun Drup was recognised posthumously as the First Dalai Lama.
- Date
- 1357–1419
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Connections (5)
- FoundedGanden Monastery, Lhasa
Je Tsongkhapa founded Ganden monastery on Wangbur mountain east of Lhasa in 1409 as the first and senior Gelug seat; the abbot of Ganden (the Ganden Tripa) has remained the formal head of the Gelug school ever since. Tsongkhapa's relic stupa inside Ganden was the central reliquary of the Gelug tradition until its destruction in the Cultural Revolution.
- PatronageDrepung Monastery, Lhasa
Drepung monastery was founded in 1416 by Jamyang Choje, Tsongkhapa's direct disciple, under Tsongkhapa's blessing and became the largest monastery in the world before the Cultural Revolution. It was the primary seat of the Dalai Lamas before the fifth Dalai Lama shifted to the Potala in the 1640s.
- PatronageSera Monastery, Lhasa
Sera monastery was founded in 1419 by Jamchen Choje Shakya Yeshe, another of Tsongkhapa's direct disciples, after Shakya Yeshe's return from the court of the Ming Yongle emperor. Sera is best known for its vigorous open-courtyard debating tradition.
- Founder ofGelug — the Yellow Hat school
Je Tsongkhapa founded the Gelug school in the early 15th century.
- Founder ofGanden Monastery, Lhasa
Tsongkhapa founded Ganden Monastery in 1409 on the Wangbur mountain east of Lhasa — 'Ganden' is the Tibetan rendering of Tuṣita, the heaven of Maitreya. Ganden was the mother house of the Gelug school he inaugurated, and its abbot (the Ganden Tripa) remains the formal doctrinal head of the school, in that office outranking even the Dalai Lama.
On these journeys
Sources
Standard biography.
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