Samye Monastery

Samye Monastery (, ), full name Samye Migyur Lhundrub Tsula Khang (Wylie: ''Bsam yas mi ’gyur lhun grub gtsug lag khang'') and Shrine of Unchanging Spontaneous Presence, is the first Tibetan Buddhist and Nyingma monastery built in Tibet, during the reign of King Trisong Deutsen. Khenpo Shantarakshita began construction in 763, and Tibetan Vajrayana founder Guru Padmasambhava tamed the local spirits before its completion in 767. The first Tibetan monks were ordained there in 779. Samye was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution then rebuilt after 1988.

Samye Monastery is located in the Chimpu valley (''Mchims phu''), south of Lhasa, next the Hapori mountain along the greater the Yarlung Valley. The site is in the present administrative region of Gra Nang or Drananga Lhokha.

History

The Testament of Ba provides the earliest date for the construction of the temple, recording that the foundation was set in the "hare year" (either 763 or 775) and the completion and consecration of the main shrine taking place in the "sheep year" (either 767 or 779). The Blue Annals of 1476 use later dates of 787 and 791, but those dates contradict the historical dates of Shantaraksita's ordination of monks in 779, and his arrival in 763. All accounts concur that the patron was King Trisong Detsen.

Design

The building plan of Samye Monastery follows the arrangement of a mandala depicting the Buddhist cosmos, which is also the source for the design of Odantapuri, in present-day Bihar, India. The arrangement of the monastery had a main shrine building in the middle, enclosed by four symmetrical stupas of four different colors, and the whole surrounded by a circular wall with four openings at the cardinal points representing the Buddhist universe as a three dimensional mandala. This idea is found in a number of temples of the period in South East Asia and East Asia such as the Tōdai-ji in Japan. As at the Tōdai-ji, the Samye temple is dedicated to Vairocana. A seminal text of Vairocana is the '' Mahavairocana Tantra'', composed in India in the seventh century and translated into Tibetan and Chinese soon after.

The Samye Pillar, ་ and its inscription
The few accessible Tibetan historical records are pillar inscriptions of treaties and events, found in Lhasa and elsewhere. Samye Monastery has a stone pillar belonging to the eighth century proper—but not carrying an actual date— (རྡོ་རིང་) preserved in front of Samye. The pillar records the building of sSamye and other monasteries at Lhasa and Brag Mar, and records that the king, ministers and other nobles had made solemn oaths to preserve and protect the endowments of the monasteries. The term used for these endowments is 'necessities' or 'meritorious gifts' (Tib. ཡོ་བྱད་ Sanskrit ''deyadharma'').

The Samye bell inscription
A second dynastic record at Samye is on the large bronze bell in the entrance to the monastery. This gives an account of the making of the bell by one of the queens of King Trisong Detsen. The text has been translated as follows:
"Queen Rgyal mo brtsan, mother and son, made this bell in order to
worship the Three Jewels of the ten directions. And pray that, by the power of that merit, ''Lha Btsan po'' Khri Srong lde brtsan, father and son, husband and wife, may be endowed with the harmony of the sixty melodious sounds, and attain supreme enlightenment."

Samye Monastery's founding

According to the Testament of Ba and other accounts, such as that compiled by Bsod-nams-rgyal-mtshan (1312–1374), the Indian scholar and philosopher Khenpo Śāntarakṣita began constructing the monastery c.763 after accepting the king's invitation to come to Tibet, where he also taught his synthesis of Madhyamaka philosophical thought.Marie Friquegnon, "Santaraksita", ''Santaraksita References'', 2020. Finding the Samye site auspicious, he set about to build a structure there. However, the building would always collapse after reaching a certain stage. Terrified, the construction workers believed that there was a demon or obstructive spirit in a nearby river making trouble.

Following his advice, the king invited Shantaraksita's contemporary Padmasambhava to come to Tibet, and he arrived from the Nepali border and was able to subdue the energetic problems obstructing the building of Samye. According to the 5th Dalai Lama, Padmasambhava performed the Vajrakilaya dance and enacted the rite of namkha to assist Trisong Detsen and Śāntarakṣita clear away obscurations and hindrances in the building of Samye:

At the time in which Samye Monastery was built, it automatically became a Nyingma school monastery since this original school of Tibetan Buddhism was the only school, while the king, queens, students and subjects all belonged to the Nyingma school sangha. Padmasambhava's Tantra Vajrayana thus became the third vehicle of Buddhism, after the Sutra Mahayana.

Author Ellen Pearlman suggests a chart of the origin of the institution of the Nechung Oracle as it relates to Samye Monastery:

The Great Samye Debate

One of the important events in the history of Samye occurred after Shantaraksita passed and a dispute began among his followers, that grew into an debate between the Buddhist schools. Kamalasila represented Indian Buddhist theory and Hosang Mahayana represented Chinese Buddhist theory. The debate was hosted by Trisong Detsen in the early 790s. A source provides a five-year range when Kamalasila and Mahayana ( Moheyan of the East Mountain Teaching of Chan Buddhism) may have debated at Samye in Tibet. The outcome was that Kamalasila who was representing Shantaraksita's philosophical thought won the debate, as was decided by the king.

Jeffrey Broughton identifies the Chinese and Tibetan nomenclature of Moheyan's teachings and identifies them principally with the China's East Mountain Teaching:

A commemorative annual cham dance is held at Kumbum Monastery in Amdo (Ch. Qinghai) when the great debate of the two principal debators or dialecticians, Mahayana (Moheyan) and Kamalaśīla is narrated and depicted.

Influences

The 18th century Puning Temple built by the Qianlong Emperor of Qing China in Chengde, Hebei was modeled after Samye.

Architectural features of the monastery and their history

Samye Monastery is laid out on the shape of a giant mandala; in its center lies the main temple representing the legendary Mount Meru. Other buildings stand at the corners and cardinal points of the main temple, representing continents and other features of tantric Buddhist cosmology. The three-storied main building has been designed with the first floor in Indian style, the second in Chinese style and the third in Khotanese (Tibetan) style. The original building was completed in 780 CE.

In corners are 4 chörtens - white, red, green (or blue) and black.
There are 8 main temples:
* Dajor ling བརྡ་སྦྱོར་གླིང་ (brda sbyor gling)
* Dragyar ling སྒྲ་བསྒྱར་གླིང་ (sgra bsgyar gling)
* Bétsa ling བེ་ཙ་གླིང་ (be tsa gling)
* Jampa ling བྱམས་པ་གླིང་ (byams pa gling)
* Samten ling བསམ་གཏན་གླིང་ (bsam gtan gling)
* Natsok ling སྣ་ཚོགས་གླིང་ (sna tshogs gling)
* Düdül ling བདུད་འདུལ་གླིང་ (bdud 'dul gling)
* Tamdrin ling རྟ་མགྲིན་གླིང་ (rta mgrin gling)

The original buildings have long disappeared. They have been badly damaged several times — by civil war in the 11th century, fires in the mid 17th century and in 1826, an earthquake in 1816, and in the 20th century, particularly during the Cultural Revolution. As late as the late 1980s pigs and other farm animals were allowed to wander through the sacred buildings. Heinrich Harrer quoted his own words he said to the 14th Dalai Lama of what he saw in 1982 from his airplane en route to Lhasa, Each time it has been rebuilt, and today, largely due to the efforts of Choekyi Gyaltsen, 10th Panchen Lama from 1986 onward, it is again an active monastery and important pilgrimage and tourist destination. Samye still preserves the original design of Trisong Detsen the 8th century Tibetan monarch (Van Schaik 2013:36).

Recent events

Imprisonment and suicide

In 2009, the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) reports that after a protest held on 15 March 2008 at the Samye government administrative headquarters in Dranang County, nine monks studying at Samye Monastery had been sentenced to prison terms varying from two to fifteen years, for participating. The monks were joined by hundreds of Tibetans demanding religious freedom, human rights for Tibetans and the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet. The monks and others were held at the Lhoka Public Security Bureau (PSB) Detention Centre.

The TCHRD also reported that on 19 March 2008, a visiting scholar from Dorje Drak Monastery, Namdrol Khakyab, who claimed responsibility for organizing the 15 March protest had committed suicide, leaving a note speaking of unbearable suppression by the Chinese regime, citing the innocence of other monks of the monastery, and taking full responsibility for the protest.

Statue of Padmasambhava dismantled by Chinese Authorities

In May 2007, a 30 ft (9 metre) gold and copper plated statue of Guru Rinpoche, known as Padmasambhava, at Samye Gompa, and apparently funded by two Chinese devotees from Guangzhou in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, was reportedly demolished by Chinese authorities."Demolition of giant Buddha statue at Tibetan monastery confirmed by China." Downloaded from: http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=46,4316,0,0,1,0 on 28 October 2010.

See also

* Cham dance

Gallery

File:Samye Monastery cropped.JPG, A view of Samye from above
File:Entering the impressive Samye Monastery through its protective wall.jpg, The protective wall of Samye

Notes

References

* Dorje, Gyurme. (1999). ''Footprint Tibet Handbook with Bhutan''. 2nd Edition. Footprint Handbooks Ltd. .
* Dowman, Keith. (1988) ''The Power-places of Central Tibet''. Routledge & Kegan Paul. London & New York. .
* Rene de Nebesky-Wojkowitz, ''Tibetan Religious Dances'' (The Hague:Mouton, 1976)
* Yeshe Tsogyel, ''The Life and Liberation of Padmasambhava'', 2 vols., trans. Kenneth Douglas and Gwendolyn Bays (Berkeley: Dharma Publishing, 1978)
* Pearlman, Ellen (2002). ''Tibetan Sacred Dance: a journey into the religious and folk traditions''. Rochester, Vermont, USA: Inner Traditions.

Luke Wagner and Ben Deitle (2007). ''Samyé''
* Schaik Van, S. (2013). ''Tibet: a History''. London, Yale University Press.

External links

- Sacred Destinations


- by Travel China guide

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770s establishments
8th-century Buddhist temples
Buddhist temples in Shannan, Tibet
Nyingma monasteries and temples
Sakya monasteries and temples
Shannan, Tibet
Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Tibet
Buddhist schools in Tibet
8th-century establishments in Asia