Place · first Tibetan Buddhist monastery · China
Samye Monastery
Also known as Samye, Samye Ling
Samye in Lhoka prefecture, founded between 775 and 787 CE under king Trisong Detsen, is the first Buddhist monastery built in Tibet. The mandala plan with central temple surrounded by four continent-shaped shrines was designed by the Nalanda abbot Śāntarakṣita, and the consecration was performed by Padmasambhava, who was summoned from Uddiyana (modern Swat) to subdue the local pre-Buddhist mountain-spirits. The Samye Debate of c.792-94 CE, where the Indian gradualist Kamalaśīla defeated the Chinese Chan subitist Heshang Moheyan, settled Tibetan Buddhism in favour of the Indian scholastic lineage. The monastery is where the first seven Tibetan monks were ordained and the Tibetan Buddhist Canon began to be translated.
- Function
- Learning & scholarship
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 29.327, 91.500
Connections (5)
- Site adjacencyLhasa
Samye monastery sits in Lhoka prefecture about 150 km southeast of Lhasa on the Yarlung Tsangpo — within the Yarlung valley heartland of pre-imperial Tibet. The Lhasa-Samye road is the oldest motorable Tibetan pilgrim route; the ferry across the Tsangpo at Samye was replaced by a bridge in the 1990s.
- FoundedPadmasambhava
Padmasambhava, invited from Uddiyana (modern Swat, Pakistan) by king Trisong Detsen in the 760s, subdued the pre-Buddhist earth-spirits of the Yarlung valley and consecrated the Samye monastery between 775 and 787 CE with Śāntarakṣita. He is remembered as the Second Buddha of Tibet and the founder of the Nyingma 'Ancient' school.
- FoundedŚāntarakṣita
Śāntarakṣita designed Samye monastery as a three-dimensional mandala in the Yarlung valley, ordained the first seven Tibetan monks (the sad-mi mi-bdun) in 779 CE, and set up the translation bureau that produced the first authoritative Tibetan Buddhist canon in collaboration with the Indian paṇḍitas and Tibetan lotsawa translators.
- Institutionalised atNyingma — the Ancient Translation school
Samye Monastery on the Tsangpo at Dranang, consecrated 779 by Padmasambhava and Śāntarakṣita under King Trisong Detsen, is the mother house of the Nyingma school and the oldest Tibetan Buddhist monastery. Its three-storey main temple is laid out as a Mount-Meru maṇḍala, with four continents arranged around a central shrine. Every Nyingma lineage traces to this consecration.
- InfluencedOdantapuri
Tibetan sources name Odantapuri in Bihar as the architectural and curricular model on which Samye was planned.
On these journeys
Sources
Standard reference.
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