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
Tibetan Buddhism is a form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet, Bhutan and Mongolia. It also has a sizable number of adherents in the areas surrounding the Himalayas, including the Indian regions of Ladakh, Darjeeling, Sikkim, and Arunachal Prades ...
and
Nyingma
Nyingma (, ), also referred to as ''Ngangyur'' (, ), is the oldest of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The Nyingma school was founded by PadmasambhavaClaude Arpi, ''A Glimpse of the History of Tibet'', Dharamsala: Tibet Museum, 2013. ...
monastery built in
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...
, during the reign of King
Trisong Deutsen. Khenpo
Shantarakshita began construction in 763, and
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...
an
Vajrayana
''Vajrayāna'' (; 'vajra vehicle'), also known as Mantrayāna ('mantra vehicle'), Guhyamantrayāna ('secret mantra vehicle'), Tantrayāna ('tantra vehicle'), Tantric Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism, is a Mahāyāna Buddhism, Mahāyāna Buddhis ...
founder Guru
Padmasambhava
Padmasambhava ('Born from a Lotus'), also known as Guru Rinpoche ('Precious Guru'), was a legendary tantric Buddhist Vajracharya, Vajra master from Oddiyana. who fully revealed the Vajrayana in Tibet, circa 8th – 9th centuries... He is consi ...
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
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...
then rebuilt after 1988.
Samye Monastery is located in the Chimpu valley (''Mchims phu''), south of
Lhasa
Lhasa, officially the Chengguan District of Lhasa City, is the inner urban district of Lhasa (city), Lhasa City, Tibet Autonomous Region, Southwestern China.
Lhasa is the second most populous urban area on the Tibetan Plateau after Xining ...
, 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
Bihar ( ) is a states and union territories of India, state in Eastern India. It is the list of states and union territories of India by population, second largest state by population, the List of states and union territories of India by are ...
, 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
A mandala (, ) is a geometric configuration of symbols. In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of practitioners and adepts, as a spiritual guidance tool, for establishing a sacred space and as an aid ...
. This idea is found in a number of temples of the period in South East Asia and East Asia such as the
Tōdai-ji
is a Buddhist temple complex that was once one of the powerful Nanto Shichi Daiji, Seven Great Temples, located in the city of Nara, Nara, Nara, Japan. The construction of the temple was an attempt to imitate Chinese temples from the much-admir ...
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
Padmasambhava ('Born from a Lotus'), also known as Guru Rinpoche ('Precious Guru'), was a legendary tantric Buddhist Vajracharya, Vajra master from Oddiyana. who fully revealed the Vajrayana in Tibet, circa 8th – 9th centuries... He is consi ...
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
The 5th Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso (; ; 1617–1682) was recognized as the 5th Dalai Lama, and he became the first Dalai Lama to hold both Tibet's political and spiritual leadership roles.
He is often referred to simply as the Great Fif ...
, 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
Nyingma (, ), also referred to as ''Ngangyur'' (, ), is the oldest of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The Nyingma school was founded by PadmasambhavaClaude Arpi, ''A Glimpse of the History of Tibet'', Dharamsala: Tibet Museum, 2013. ...
school sangha. Padmasambhava's
Tantra
Tantra (; ) is an esoteric yogic tradition that developed on the India, Indian subcontinent beginning in the middle of the 1st millennium CE, first within Shaivism and later in Buddhism.
The term ''tantra'', in the Greater India, Indian tr ...
Vajrayana thus became the third vehicle of Buddhism, after the
Sutra
''Sutra'' ()Monier Williams, ''Sanskrit English Dictionary'', Oxford University Press, Entry fo''sutra'' page 1241 in Indian literary traditions refers to an aphorism or a collection of aphorisms in the form of a manual or, more broadly, a ...
Mahayana.
Author Ellen Pearlman suggests a chart of the origin of the institution of the
Nechung Oracle
The Nechung Oracle () is the personal oracle of the Dalai Lama since the second Dalai Lama. The Medium (spirituality), medium currently resides in Nechung, Nechung Monastery established by the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, Dharamsa ...
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
Chan (; of ), from Sanskrit '' dhyāna'' (meaning " meditation" or "meditative state"), is a Chinese school of Mahāyāna Buddhism. It developed in China from the 6th century CE onwards, becoming especially popular during the Tang and Song ...
) 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
Kumbum Monastery (, THL Simplified Phonetic Transcription, THL ''Kumbum Jampa Ling''), also called Ta'er Temple, is a Tibetan gompa in Huangzhong County, Lusar, Xining, Qinghai, China. It was founded in 1583 in a narrow valley close to the vil ...
in Amdo (Ch. Qinghai
Qinghai is an inland Provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. It is the largest provinces of China, province of China (excluding autonomous regions) by area and has the third smallest population. Its capital and largest city is Xin ...
) 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
The Qianlong Emperor (25 September 17117 February 1799), also known by his temple name Emperor Gaozong of Qing, personal name Hongli, was the fifth Emperor of China, emperor of the Qing dynasty and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China pr ...
of Qing China
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the Ming dynasty ...
in Chengde
Chengde, formerly known as Jehol and Rehe, is a prefecture-level city in Hebei province, situated about northeast of Beijing. It is best known as the site of the Mountain Resort, a vast imperial garden and palace formerly used by the Qing e ...
, Hebei
Hebei is a Provinces of China, province in North China. It is China's List of Chinese administrative divisions by population, sixth-most populous province, with a population of over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. It bor ...
was modeled after Samye.
Architectural features of the monastery and their history
Samye Monastery is laid out on the shape of a giant mandala
A mandala (, ) is a geometric configuration of symbols. In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of practitioners and adepts, as a spiritual guidance tool, for establishing a sacred space and as an aid ...
; 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
Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe, the cosmos. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', with the meaning of "a speaking of the wo ...
. 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
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...
. 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
The 14th Dalai Lama (born 6 July 1935; full spiritual name: Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, shortened as Tenzin Gyatso; ) is the incumbent Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual leader and head of Tibetan Buddhism. He served a ...
of what he saw in 1982 from his airplane en route to Lhasa
Lhasa, officially the Chengguan District of Lhasa City, is the inner urban district of Lhasa (city), Lhasa City, Tibet Autonomous Region, Southwestern China.
Lhasa is the second most populous urban area on the Tibetan Plateau after Xining ...
, 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
A pilgrimage is a travel, journey to a holy place, which can lead to a personal transformation, after which the pilgrim returns to their daily life. A pilgrim (from the Latin ''peregrinus'') is a traveler (literally one who has come from afar) w ...
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
The Dalai Lama (, ; ) is the head of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. The term is part of the full title "Holiness Knowing Everything Vajradhara Dalai Lama" (圣 识一切 瓦齐尔达喇 达赖 喇嘛) given by Altan Khan, the first Shu ...
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
Padmasambhava ('Born from a Lotus'), also known as Guru Rinpoche ('Precious Guru'), was a legendary tantric Buddhist Vajracharya, Vajra master from Oddiyana. who fully revealed the Vajrayana in Tibet, circa 8th – 9th centuries... He is consi ...
, at Samye Gompa, and apparently funded by two Chinese devotees from Guangzhou
Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...
in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong
) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty ...
, 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
{{Authority control
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