Sakya Monastery

Foundation

The Khon family claimed descent from nobles of the Tibetan empire. In 1073 Khon Konchog Gyalpo, a student of the translator Drogmi, founded a temple in a valley with grey earth, sa skya, which gave the monastery and the school its name. Leadership passed within the family, from uncle to nephew or father to son, rather than through reincarnation. The school's distinctive teaching cycle is the Lamdre, "path and fruit", derived from the Indian adept Virupa.

Sakya Pandita and the Mongols

Sakya Pandita, Kunga Gyaltsen, was the most learned Tibetan of his time, a writer on logic, grammar and poetics. His Treasury of Logic adapted the Indian epistemology of Dignaga and Dharmakirti for Tibetan students, and his collection of verse maxims, the Sakya Legshe, became one of the most widely read works of Tibetan literature. In 1244 he was summoned by the Mongol prince Koden, grandson of Chinggis Khan, who commanded the western frontier of the Mongol empire. He went with his nephews, met the prince in 1247, and negotiated the submission of Tibet in exchange for protection. He died in Mongol territory in 1251.

His nephew Phagpa became the spiritual teacher of Kublai Khan, who made him imperial preceptor. Phagpa devised a script, adapted from Tibetan, for writing Mongolian and other languages of the empire, adopted by imperial decree in 1269. Kublai gave the Sakya lamas authority over Tibet, administered through a civil official, the ponchen. The arrangement, a relationship of priest and patron, became a model invoked in later Tibetan and Chinese claims about their historical relationship.

The monastery

The Sakya complex lies on both sides of the Trum river. The northern monastery, on the hillside, was the original foundation and grew into a large complex of temples and residences; it was largely destroyed in the twentieth century and is partly rebuilt. The southern monastery, built in 1268 under Phagpa's administration, is a fortress-like square with high walls, corner towers and a moat. Its great assembly hall holds large images and has a library of scriptures famous for its size, much of which survived.

Decline and later history

Sakya rule weakened after Phagpa's death and was ended in 1354 by Changchub Gyaltsen of the Phagmodrupa family, who took power in central Tibet. The Sakya school continued as one of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, led by the Khon family, which later divided into two palaces whose heads alternated as leader. After 1959 the head of the school, the Sakya Trizin, went into exile in India, and the school's main seat in exile is at Dehradun. The southern monastery was restored after the Cultural Revolution.