Who Murdered the Sixth Dalai Lama? Part 1
- Jack Adrian
- Aug 31, 2024
- 23 min read
Part 1 of 6
On the 8th of August in the year 1100, King William II (1056-1100). William, who succeeded his father William I (1028-1087) to the throne of England and Normandy, perished in a hunting accident.
His younger brother, Henry (1068-1135), no doubt distraught at witnessing his brother’s untimely death, raced to Westminster and was crowned the next King.
Historians point out that Henry was gathering supporters in the months leading up to William’s death, and that he began minting currency with his face on it, an act that was traditionally done when one was crowned. So at this point, historians are generally agreed that while we do not know the identity of the bowman, or hold a smoking… er, arrow, that William’s death was very much prepared for and ordered by his brother, an ambitious prince who saw his rise to the crown as one hunting accident away.
To quote Terry Jones in his 2003 book Who Murdered Chaucer? regarding the death of another famous medieval Englishman,
This book is less of a Whodunnit? than a Wasitdunnatall? Murderers – especially political murderers – tend to be a reticent lot, and generally try not to commemorate their handiwork if they can possibly help it.1
We are left with no bloody knife, no smoking gun, and no cup with poison residue. So did Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400) live to the ripe old age of 57, and then die of sickness just as he had signed a century-long lease for a house? Or was perhaps something else going on amidst the turmoil and quite literal backstabbing of turn-of-the-century England?
In that way, this series is similarly mistitled. The death of Tsangyang Gyatso (1683-1706), known to history as the Sixth Dalai Lama, swims in mystery, and evidence of a murder is circumstantial at best. We have no body and no murder weapon. What we have are the political, religious, and social conditions of the time, and the motive, means, and opportunity of the prime suspect.
This is how we should ultimately see the death of Tsangyang Gyatso, the Sixth Dalai Lama and the view this series will take.
I. Seventeenth Century Tibet: Historical Context
Right: Khubilai Khan Hunting, attributed to Liu Guandao. Ink on silk. 1280. National Palace Museum, Taipei. Wikimedia Commons. The Khan is third in the top row.
The Mongols took control of Tibet in the 13th Century.2 Prior to this, Tibet was not a united entity, but a collection of feuding polities, engaged primarily in subsistence agriculture and pastoral nomadism, but undergoing a fair amount of social and religious change. What first brought Tibet to the Mongols’ attention were the Tibetan monks at court in the country of the Tangut, officially the “Great State of White and High,” commonly known as the Xi xia (the Western Xia), located in today’s Gansu and Qinghai Provinces. The Tangut had their own form of Buddhism that took cues both from the Chinese Ch’an to their east, and the Tibetan Vajrayana to their south. When the Mongols took over the Tangut, they also took over their Tibetan subjects.
This inspired Godan Khan (1206-1251), nephew to the well-known Genghis Khan (1162-1227), to take an interest in the value of Buddhism. He attacked two Kadampa monasteries, Reting and Gyalha,3 and left a veiled threat to a particularly well-known and respected Lama: meet with me, or else.
“I, the most powerful and prosperous Prince Godan, wish to inform Sakya Pandita, Kunga Gyaltsen, that we need a lama to advise my ignorant people on how to conduct themselves morally and spiritually… I will not accept any excuse on account of your age or the rigors of the journey.”4
The man who answered his call was the Sakya Trizin (sa skya khri ‘dzin), hierarch of Sakya Monastery, Kunga Gyaltsen (1182-1251), otherwise known by his title Sakya Pandita. He answered Godan Khan’s call, and after meeting him, witnessing the strength of the Mongol force, and realizing that Tibet had nothing that could compete, he wrote a message to the various principalities of Tibet, informing them that if they did not submit, then the Mongol armies would surely see to it that they did. Tibet submitted to Mongol authority, and Sakya Pandita lived in Godan Khan’s court for four years before he passed away in 1251. Just before his death, he sent a letter back to Tibet extolling his people:
The Prince has told me that if we Tibetans help the Mongols in matters of religion, they in turn will support us in temporal matters. In this way we will be able to spread our religion far and wide. The Prince is just beginning to understand our religion. If I stay longer I am certain I can spread the faith of the Buddha beyond Tibet and, thus, help my country. The Prince … tells me that it is in his hands to do good for Tibet and that it is in mine to do good for him. … I am getting old and will not live much longer. Have no fear on this account, for I have taught everything I know to my nephew, Phagpa.5
Mongol rule lasted roughly a century. And the Sakya profited mightily from their relationship with the Mongol Khans. They expanded their political, social, and religious reach. They built up their monasteries and temples, and they even expanded into Persia and China. Of course, Khanates come and Khanates go, and by the middle of the 14th Century, the Mongol Khanate of the Borjigin clan was on its way out.
In the 1350s, rebuffed from a position of authority under Sakya rule, a young man named Jangchub Gyaltsen (1302-1364) abandoned the Sakya and became an advocate of a rival branch of Buddhism: the Kagyu. He gathered supporters, including soldiers and warriors, and seized control of Tibet. This sort of campaign was ordinarily a death sentence but Jangchub Gyaltsen knew that the Mongols had their hands full with the ongoing Red Turban rebellions in China. They’d go on to lose to the rising Ming Dynasty. So what was going on in Tibet wasn’t a high priority. Especially because Jangchub Gyaltsen promised to pay fealty and submit to the Mongol Khans if they approved of his rule. Figuring that this was a win-win, the Mongols sent over a special hat with an adjoining title, and appointed Jangchub Gyaltsen “Tai Situ.”6
It’d be a bit much to call Jangchub Gyaltsen a “secular” King, but his dethroning of the Sakya from their power in Tibet, and the establishment of his own rule was the beginning of a line of mostly secular kingship in Tibet. His dynasty became known as the Phagmodrupa, and while he technicaly paid homage to the Mongols, the Phagmodrupa were essentially the de facto independent kings of Tibet. However, they were, in turn, dethroned by another dynasty, the Rinpungpa, who were in turn overthrown by the Tsangpa.
The Phagmodrupa, the Rinpungpa, and the Tsangpa all paid homage to the various branches of Tibetan Buddhism, but largely, this era, from the mid 14th Century to the early 17th, was an era of Kagyu dominance. The Karmapa Lama was the highest Lama in Tibet, the most sought after, including by foreign heads of state in Mongolia and China, and there was a vast expansion of Kagyu infrastructure and society, especially in what is now Nepal, Bhutan, and the Himalayan parts of India.
While all of this was happening, another branch of Buddhism was rising. The Kadampa traced their origins to the 11th Century, to the Bengali teacher Adhisha (982-1054), who was invited to Tibet to preach. Adhisha was a relative late comer, following Princesses Wencheng (620-682) and Bhrikuti Devi (dates unknown7) of the 7th Century, and Padmasambhava (b. 700s) and Kamalashila (740-795) of the 8th. But it was Adhisha in this “Later Diffusion of Buddhism” who began the Kadam branch. Though three centuries later, if we are to understand their histories, the Kadampa had earned a reputation for being lazy and undisciplined. Enter Lobsang Drakpa (1357-1419), the man from Onion Valley. No really, “Tsongkhapa,” which is how he is most commonly known, literally means “The Man from Onion Valley.”
Tsongkhapa saw his fellow Kadampa as lacking in discipline, so he set out to transform the Kadam into a school that became known not for its corruption and laziness, but as the virtuous ones. This is the literal translation of the name “Gelukpa” which is what his reformed Kadam school became known as (not to be confused with the modern Reformed Kadam movement, which is something else entirely).
Like all religious movements, the Geluk started small. One of the followers of this small group of religious zealots was a man named Gedun Drub (1391-1474). He only came to know Tsongkhapa towards the end of his life, but we are led to believe that the meeting was profound. Gedun Drub went on to become a well-known religious leader in his own right, built the famous monastery of Tashilhunpo in Shigatse, and when he died, his reincarnate was located and enthroned in his seat. His reincarnate was found in a boy later named Gedun Gyatso (1475-1542), And after a lifetime of expanding the Geluk, building more temples, and spreading teachings, they found another boy to succeed him. This boy would become known as Sonam Gyatso (1543-1588).
At this point, in the 16th Century, the Mongols were more-or-less trying to gather the strength to restore their empire. The man this task fell to was Altan Khan (1507-1582), a direct descendant of Mandukhai Khatun (1449-1510) and Dayan Khan (1472-1517), who inherited the strongest claim from the Borjigins. Altan Khan wanted the legitimacy of not just being the descendant of the Great Khan, but of being his reincarnate as well. And to do that, he needed a Lama to prove it.
Altan Khan first invited the Karmapa Lama to his base in Hohhot to discuss this possibility, but the Lama declined. So next, he was advised that there was a young Lama of a small, but vibrant school that might be amenable to the invitation. So he invited Sonam Gyatso who agreed. When he declared Altan Khan the reincarnate of his ancestor Khubilai Khan,8 Altan turned around and declared Sonam Gyatso, “ghaikhamsigh vcir-a dar-a say-in cogh-tu buyan-tu dalai.” Which is Mongol for “wonderful Vajradhara, good, brilliant, commendable ocean [of wisdom/power, theoretically].”9 This became shortened to “Dalai Lama.”10
Right: Sonam Gyatso, the Dalai Lama III. Detail of thangka painting. Date and artist unknown. The Wellcome Collection, London. Wikimedia Commons.
The title was then retroactively applied to Sonam Gyatso’s predecessors, Gedun Drub (First Dalai Lama) and Gedun Gyatso (Second Dalai Lama).
The Geluk now had a powerful supporter, in the same way that the Sakya once had powerful military, financial, and political supporters among a previous Mongol Dynasty. This relationship is known in Tibetan as cho-yon (mchod yon), awkwardly translated into English as “priest-patron.” This is a pre-Westphalian notion of politics11 that refers to the relationship between a religious power and the political power that supports it. Each provides the other with legitimacy, the former with religious and ideological legitimacy to their patron, and the latter with political and military legitimacy to their priest.
For example, Sakya Pandita was the priest to Prince Godan’s patron, and his nephew Phagpa was the priest to the Prince’s cousin Khubilai Khan’s patron. And now Sonam Gyatso, Dalai Lama III, was the priest to Altan Khan’s patron. Warren W. Smith’s Tibetan Nation includes a rather lengthy chapter12 describing the nature and function of cho-yon:
The Cho-Yon, as elaborated in Phagspa, was a theory of universal empire of both secular and spiritual realms. The secular and the spiritual were regarded as equal in importance; the secular ruler was required to guarantee peace to his subjects so that they might be able to devote themselves to religion. As the secular and spiritual realms were equal, so were the rulers of each. The head of state and the head of religion were equally necessary for the ultimate salvation of humanity. Without peace provided by the secular ruler, humanity would have no opportunity to seek religion; without the leader of religion, there would be no path to salvation.
Phagspa’s theory of Cho-Yon was dependent upon extraordinary personal relationships. The Cho-Yon relationship was personal, between equal representatives of complimentary realms, or as the Mongols are more likely to have interpreted it, between lord and distinguished subject. It was a social and political relationship typical in many respects of the feudalistic character of the early period of the Mongol empire. It was not a theory, or a practice at this time, of state to state relations between the Mongols and Tibetans, despite later Tibetan attempts to interpret it as such.13
It is unlikely that the Geluk hierarchs saw political and military domination of Tibet as their goal, however as shown by the Sakya and the Mongols and the Kagyu and the Phagmodrupa, it certainly couldn’t hurt.
So whether it was Sonam Gyatso choosing to keep his connection to his Mongol patrons, or whether the search committee saw the benefit in fudging the numbers, they made sure that when Sonam Gyatso died, the Fourth Dalai Lama was to be found as a grandson of Altan Khan.
Yonten Gyatso (1589-1617), a grandson of the Khan, was known for being a drummer, for not only being a hierarch of the Geluk teachings, but also for being an expert in shamanic practices and rituals. He died at a mere 28 in 1617. Yet by the time he died, the relationship between the Mongols and the Geluk had been solidified. To this day Mongolia remains a Buddhist country, following the Dalai Lama’s Geluk sect, even as far away as the Caspian Sea in Kalmykia. Mainly the work of the young shamanic Lama, grandson to a Mongol Khan.
His successor was Lobsang Gyatso, the Fifth Dalai Lama. Who has come to be known among Tibetans as The Great Fifth.
Right: Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso, Dalai Lama V. Artist unknown. Approximately 1900. Wikimedia Commons.
There’s so much to say about Lobsang Gyatso (1617-1682). But for our purposes, we’ll only have space for the basics. Lobsang Gyatso was born in 1617 to a Tibetan noble family, the Zahor14. He was immediately doted upon by the Mongols who visited the child and bowed to him out of respect for their lost prince/lama. Among those who bowed to him was the patron who took the child on as his new priest, Gushri Khan.
Gushri Khan (1582-1655) was a successor and descendant of Altan Khan, and inherited not just his rule over the Qoshot Mongols, but his dream to rule over a resurrected Great Khanate. He did not ask the young Dalai Lama to declare him anyone’s reincarnate, but he did very much want the religious legitimacy to bless his conquest of Asia. China was in the middle of its own problem as the Manchu had begun conquering the declining Ming Dynasty. So if there was a time to strike, it was certainly then, while the Chinese were busy with their own existential crisis.
The young Fifth did not bless this conquest. But in an episode of intrigue, the Khan at the last minute turned his armies away from the east and to the west. The Qoshot horde left China behind15 and conquered Lhasa instead, dethroning the Tsangpa King and declaring Gushri Khan to be the King of Tibet.
Gushri Khan resurrected a proper cho-yon relationship, and while he maintained the crown and title of King of Tibet, he handed over rule and administration of the country to the young Dalai Lama and the Geluk in 1642.
The Fifth Dalai Lama reformed essentially everything about Tibet, from tax codes, to civil infrastructure, to military structure, to medicine, and trade relations. Tibet had entered its third period of unity after the Tibetan Empire (630-841) and the Sakya Hierarchy (1268-1354), and Tibet would last under Geluk union and power at least until the Chinese invasion in 1950, and in some degree until 1959 with the flight of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama to India.
What is particularly notable at this point is that the Dalai Lama derived his power from the newest branch of Tibetan Buddhism, but at a personal level, Lobsang Gyatso had a particular fascination with Tibet’s oldest branch.
Buddhism first came to Tibet in the seventh and eighth centuries C.E., under the blessing of the Tibetan Empire and its first monarchical dynasty, the Yarlung (a.k.a. the Purgyal). When the last Emperor of a united Tibet was assassinated in 841, the remnants of Imperial control lost their grip on controlling Buddhist developments in Tibet forever. What Buddhist institutions survived were mainly in Kham, in the eastern third of Tibet. They began to expand westwards back into central Tibet, and across the Himalaya into Bhutan, Nepal, and the highlands of India.
This branch is known as the Nyingma, literally, the Ancient Ones and draws its origins primarily from Padmasambhava, known to the Nyingma as Guru Rinpoche. Guru Rinpoche was an Indian tantric practitioner who was known for binding demons and turning them into defenders of the Dharma. There are so many fascinating historic, attested, local, and folk tales of Guru Rinpoche that it’ll also take its own series of articles and books to get through, but the long and the short of it is that before the Pandits came to Tibet, Guru Rinpoche went there planting the seeds that would develop into something between a folk religion and a dynamic institution of Himalayan Buddhism itself.
The Nyingma have their roots in the Early Diffusion of Buddhism (630-841, the Imperial Era) while the Kagyu, Sakya, and Kadam, collectively called the Sarma (New Ones) have their roots in the Later Diffusion (1000-1200). While they don’t like to admit it, all of the Sarma have a degree of the Nyingma in their own background and teachings. None of them hold up Padmasambhava in quite the regard that the Nyingma do (comparable to say, how Jesus is the central figure of Christianity, but more of a side, yet very important figure of Islam) though they still hold a lot of Nyingma scripture in common, and Sakya, Kagyu, and Geluk students often seek empowerments and teachings only available from Nyingma teachers.
The two most important branches of Buddhism for this story are the oldest, the Nyingma, and the newest, the Geluk. One more crucial difference to understand, perhaps the most crucial for this story, is that Geluk monks are universally celibate. Indeed, secondary source literature analyzing monastic institutions often draw the line between what was is a monastery and not by the principle of celibacy.16 This rule falls apart when analyzing Kagyu, Sakya, and particularly Nyingma institutions.
The Nyingma, often follow the example of Guru Rinpoche who had at least two, but possibly more consorts (i.e. tantric wives). Nyingma monasteries are passed down generally with respect to laws of primogeniture. This necessitates not taking a vow of celibacy.
Out of the realm of the practical, this relationship also extends to their interpretations of the tantra. Broadly speaking, the tantra are a genre of literature that make use of violent, sexual, and taboo imagery.17 To the celibate Gelukpa, this is explicitly metaphorical. To the non-celibate Nyingma, they are extremely powerful, extremely secret practices that one should be led into very, very carefully by their spiritual master.
Throughout their history, the powers of the Sarma, including the Geluk, have had a dual fascination and revulsion of the Nyingma. The Geluk were all about order and hierarchy, the Nyingma had no central hierarchy but were more of a loose network of historically related temples and institutions. The Geluk represented institutional power, the Nyingma represented the Buddhist version of Tibetan indigenous powers and traditions.
For the sake of their government and their growing and exponentially dominant school in the Himalaya, the Geluk hierarchs sought to suppress heterodox teachings. The Bodong and Jonong schools were forcibly shut down. The Kagyu and Sakya weren’t suppressed, but they were put under significant strain, being rival sects without powerful patrons. Most notably did the Drukpa Kagyu have a split in their inheritance that the Geluk took a position on, forcing one of the candidates into exile, and then attempting to dethrone him in Bhutan through multiple invasions.18
All that said, the Fifth Dalai Lama himself harbored an interest in the Nyingma, and, so it was rumored, in the secret, sexual, tantric practices. This last one was never definitively proven (emphasis on the secret) and were it true, it would have been necessary to downplay because in a state dominated by celibate monks celibacy was a matter of state legitimacy and national security.
It’s not necessary to make accusations that the Fifth Dalai Lama broke his vows of celibacy. Based on the book Secret Visions of the Fifth Dalai Lama by Samten G. Karmay it’s clear that the Fifth maintained a dynamic interest in tantric imagery and philosophy. While Gelukpa have traditionally, and allegedly, always, maintained an understanding that the tantras are to be taken metaphorically, Tsongkhapa, whose works the Fifth Dalai Lama would have intimately studied, and who allegedly began this tradition, wrote detailed instructions at passing one’s consciousness into a fresh corpse. In other words, magic.19 We also know that the Fifth Dalai Lama, in the wars with Bhutan, practiced black magic rites as his part in the war effort.20 In the Fifth Dalai Lama, the thin boundary separating the asceticism of the Geluk and the shamanism of the Nyingma broke down, and he seemed not to concern himself with the consequences.21
While Gushri Khan held the title King of Tibet and he ruled directly over the Qoshot Mongols, which served as the primary military wing of the Tibetan state, both contemporary and modern historians saw the legitimacy provided by the Dalai Lama as a power somewhat above politics. While the Fifth made almost every change possible in Tibet’s domestic policies, arguably one of his most notable accomplishments was laying the foundation for the Potala Palace, which was not completed before his death. And one of his most important accomplishments in the history of international diplomacy in Asia was to meet with the Shunzhi Emperor (1638-1661) in 1653.
Much, much more will be written about this meeting. But for now, what’s important to know is that Gushri Khan settled the Qoshot Tribe by the Blue Lake. This positioning must have been disturbingly close to China. In 1644, just two years after Gushri Khan was crowned King of Tibet, and the Dalai Lama was enthroned in Lhasa as it’s new administrator, events in China took a turn. The main line of the Ming ruling house was overthrown by rebels, who declared the new state of the Great Shun in its place. However, the Manchus, who in 1636 had founded the Great Qing, seized on the situation and, with the help of Ming defectors, took Beijing themselves in 1644. Ming pretenders and loyalists held out in various forms for nearly forty years, and came close on occasion to at the very least, holding some territory for the old dynasty, but resistance was ultimately futile.22
Still there wasn’t anything that said the Manchu would stay in that position. Especially so early on. And Gushri Khan may have positioned his Qoshot to access more Mongol allies to the north, and then to strike quickly and with ease into China. While the Qing were still mopping up Ming pretenders and supporters, the possibility that he might have been able to sweep into China and begin a new Dynasty must have been tempting.
In our most generous interpretation of events, the Dalai Lama, a Buddhist monk, wanted to prevent more fighting and save lives. In the least generous interpretation of events, the Dalai Lama didn’t want to risk losing his strongest warriors and most powerful military backer to a new campaign in China. Even if Gushri Khan succeeded it meant leaving central Tibet open to attack, and the conflicts with Bhutan and Ladakh were not exactly going well, yet the Tibetan-Mongol alliance had prevented any advancement by Kagyu sponsored forces into Tibetan territory.
So in a momentous occasion in 1653, the Fifth Dalai Lama met the Shunzhi Emperor in Beijing. The Dalai Lama made an offering to the Emperor, and then the Emperor made an offering to the Dalai Lama. This controversial meeting made the Shunzhi Emperor a student of the Dalai Lama, effectively transforming their diplomacy into a new cho-yon relationship.
Though modern Chinese nationalist historians have taken this visit as marking the submission of the Dalai Lama’s government to China, such an interpretation is hardly borne out by either the Tibetan or the Chinese records of the time. The Dalai Lama saw the visit as a confirmation of his new status as ‘the sole king of Tibet’ […]
As for the poor young Manchu emperor, he was still trying to find his way, but it seems that the Manchus mainly saw the Dalai Lama as a powerful ally who wielded a strong influence over the feared Mongols. An alliance with him was an opportunity to bring the Mongols on side by presenting the emperor as (yet another) Kubilai Khan.23
With both Gushri Khan and the Shunzhi Emperor as his ‘students,’ the Fifth Dalai Lama effectively pacified the Manchu-Tibetan border for a generation. All was well in a corner of Asia troubled by decades of upheaval. The future was bright.
And then, in 1682, Lobsang Gyatso, the Great Fifth, died.
Next: Part 2 of 6. The Young Life of Tsangyang Gyatso
Footnotes
1. Jones 2003. p. 1.
2. Exactly when the beginnings of Mongol overlordship of Tibet begins really depends on what one considers “Mongol overlordship.” As discussed below, the letter sent by Godan Khan to Sakya Pandita was dated mid 1244, but Sakya Pandita and his nephews didn’t set out for Godan’s encampment until 1247, (Shakabpa 1984. p. 62-3). But it wasn’t until 1265 that Phagpa was allowed to return to Tibet, in 1267 that some Tibetans rebelled against Mongol-Sakya rule, and in 1268 that the Mongols crushed the rebels and set up the myriarchies, (Laird 2007. Chapter 3).
3. Wylie 1977.
4. Norman 2008. p. 115-6.
5. Laird 2007. Chapter 6.
6. A more literal translation of “Situ” would be “Administrator.” The added prefix “Tai” being “Great Administrator.” Though it is most often rendered into English, especially in English-language histories featuring Jangchub Gyaltshen as “Captain.”
7. Princess Bhrikuti has been historically contested and most mentions of her must include a note to point out that while the Tibetan histories are very clear about her, recorded history less so. Her name is not listed on any documents found in the Dunhuang “Library Cave” (of course, new documents are emerging and being translated on a regular basis). That said, Nepali, Indian, and even Western histories have begun to take her existence more seriously, with Himalayan historians pointing to the fact that Princess Bhrikuti (known commonly as “Belsa” in Tibetan) was the daughter of the Licchavi King Amshuvarma. It’s also theorized that a certain Nepali King who took refuge in Songtsen Gampo’s court in the eighth century only to later be raised to the throne with Tibetan support was Narendradeva. This theory implies that the future King Narendradeva and the Princess Bhrikuti were likely brother and sister, and the Nepali Prince’s help in regaining his throne was contingent upon marriage to the Princess. At the spiritual level, Buddhist historians regard Belsa as an incarnation of Green Tara, and her mission to Tibet one of spreading the Dharma.
8. The Borjigin connection to Altan Khan is disputed. What is clear is that Altan Khan’s grandfather was Dayan Khan (1472-1517). Dayan Khan, born Batu Mongke, was the son of Bayan Mongke (1450s-1470). Bayan Mongke would never be raised to the Khanship, though his birth was the result of decades of work by his grandmother Samur (1380s-1455?) who sought to save not only the Borjigin lineage, but to see a direct descendant of Temujin at the head of a resurrected Khanate. To this end, she arranged the marriage of a daughter of the powerful ruler (but noticeably not a Khan as he was not a Borjigin) Esen Taishi (1407-1454) to a Borjigin descendant. Weatherford’s Mongol Queens gives Samur the benefit of the doubt that Bayan Mongke’s father, Qaraqurtsag Duuren Taiji, was indeed one of the last direct descendants of Genghis Khan (147). (It is implied, though not directly stated, as his name also isn’t spelled out in The Mongol Queens, that he was killed by Esen along with other members of the Borjigin clan in a mass assasination orchestrated by Esen in 1452). Whether he was or wasn’t, both his enemies and supporters from the time of his birth treated him as such. Esen sent assassins to murder him as a baby, “ʽIf it is a girl, comb her hair,’ he instructed them [the would-be assassins], ‘If it is a boy, comb his throat.’” And his grandmother, whose life was dedicated to the preservation of the Borjigin lineage and Khanship, went through great pains to hide his existence from the infanticidal ruler. (148-9) It’s worth a separate investigation of its own, because this meeting between Altan Khan and Sonam Gyatso is often framed as necessary because Altan Khan is often described as not a direct descendant of Genghis Khan, and so he would need the spiritual legitimacy that being declared a reincarnate of Khubilai or Genghis could afford him in place of the blood descent (or bone lineage, as the Mongols would say). Yet, this does not appear to be the case. Altan Khan, whether he was a genetic descendant of the Great Khan or not, most believed or at least acted like he was. His grandparents Dayan and Manduhai certainly would have considered him one, as would anyone who chose to follow them.
9. van Schaik 2011. p. 115.
10. Sonam Gyatso’s title for Altan Khan was chos rgyal lha gtsang pa, which translates to “King of Truth Equal to the God Brahma,” at least according to Lama Glenn, (Mullin 2001. p. 146). He follows this translation with highlighting how the Tibetans do not typically use this title when speaking Tibetan, instead choosing the terms kun bdun (“Kundun,” often translated as “the Presence” but literally means “All Before Me”) or rje thams cad mkhyen pa (“Jey Tamchey Khyenpa,” literally “Holy All-Knowing One”). The term “Dalai Lama,” of course, was used primarily by the Mongols, who spread its use to the Manchu, who spread its use to the Chinese, which is where Western writers learned the term and wrote it down.
11. Even using this word “politics” is likely to draw controversy in relation to the term cho yon. Shakabpa 1984, Tibet: A Political History, does not use this term, and most Tibetan histories will point to the priest-patron relationship being a non-political relationship of equals. “It is said that the lama-patron [cho yon] relationship was like the ‘sun and the moon in the sky,’” (67). And the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s declaration of independence refers to the cho yon “vanishing” like a “rainbow” in the sky, implying it was a fragile relationship that either power had the authority to dissolve (van Schaik 2011. p. 191). Meanwhile, the current state of mainland Chinese “scholarship” holds that any and all evidence of Sino-Tibetan connection is proof of Chinese sovreignty over Tibet. Including the cho yon relationship. Of course, this is a massive topic, steeped often in anachronistic conceptions of politics, culture, religion, and ideology, and deserves a study of its own.
12. Smith 1996. Chapter 5: The Emergence of the Tibetan Buddhist State.
13. Smith 1996. p. 95. Indeed, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama Thubten Gyatso, declared Tibetan independence in 1913 writing that the cho-yon relationship between Tibet and the Qing Dynasty has “faded like a rainbow in the sky” which may sound a bit flowery even for the language of Declarations of Independence, but was clearly meant to signal the “cutting off” of the relationship between Tibet and China. (van Schaik 2011. 191)
14. From Glenn H. Mullin’s The Fourteen Dalai Lamas:
The Great Fifth’s father’s family was of Zahori ancestry. Many years later the Great Fifth was to sign many of his writings as ‘the Zahor monk Lobzang Gyatso.’ The word ‘Zahor’ is of Bengali (Indian) origin, perhaps indicating a foreign marriage sometime in the distant past. Because Tibetans revere all things Indian, the name was kept for posterity. His father’s actual name was Miwang Dudul Rabten Tricham Kunga Lhadzey. The first of these particles, ‘Miwang,’ indicates he was a man of considerable standing. In fact he was a chieftain in the Lukhang clan, a name that appears frequently in Tibet’s historical annals. (187).
In almost all descriptions of the Great Fifth’s life and story, the name Zahor comes up, possibly because of the way he signed his name for a long time. Though whether it was related to a Bengali marriage, or had anything to do with clan politics, remains to be determined. “Zahor” is also the name of a semi-mythical Buddhist kingdom, similar to Odiyana, and both have associations with Padmasambhava, for whom the Great Fifth had a complex relationship with, with far reaching historic effects. The kingdom of Zahor, if it could be referred to as such, also bore associations with other historic Buddhist figures in Tibet including Tilopa, Naropa, Shantarakshita, and Adhisha. These associations would certainly be enough for any Tibetan family to proudly proclaim them if they could.
15. Gushri Khan was not leading his horde all the way to China, at least this was not the initial plan. But developments down the road indicated that he very much intended to conquer, or re-conquer, as he surely sought to portray it, China. At the time, the Tibetan annals describe a conflict between the Gelukpa Khan and the Bonpo King of the small kingdom of Beri, to the east of central Tibet. And it was the Dalai Lama’s regent who delivered “secret” instructions with a message from the Dalai Lama. This was common practice, as it prevented true instructions from falling into enemy hands in the event of the messenger’s capture. However, the regent portrayed his instructions as coming from the Dalai Lama, but upon finding out, so the histories tell us, the Dalai Lama gave no such instructions, and castigated his regent after his deception was revealed. Though, as many point out, the young Dalai Lama did not refuse the “gift” of dominion over Tibet after Gushri Khan’s conquest, leading many to believe that the Fifth’s castigation of his regent was a cover up to the Dalai Lama’s true political intentions.
16. See, for example, The Monastery Rules by Berthe Jansen (2018) or for a non-Tibetan example, Empire of the Dharma by Hwansoo Ilmee Kim (2012).
17. These are the most scandalous, and, as a result, the most well-known and yet, smallest part of the tantras (thank you, Sting). The vast majority of ink spent on the tantras has more to do with visualization of deities, no sex, drinking, or human sacrifice involved.
18. The conflict between the Geluk and the Drukpa Kagyu started as an inter-Drukpa Kagyu dispute over the true reincarnate (and therefore, heir) of the abbot of Ralung Monastery, the seat of power of the Drukpa Kagyu sect. The situation had deteriorated by 1616, and the Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal fled Tibet for Bhutan in 1616 or 1617, before the Fifth Dalai Lama was recognized or enthroned. Then, when the Gelugpas came to power in Tibet, some members of Zhabdrung’s inner circle became hopeful of finding a close ally in the new Gelugpa government. They saw the fall of Tsangpa [who sponsored their rival] rule and the rise of Gelugpa government as a positive development in their relation to the north. Zhabdrung, however, was doubtful, perhaps partly because the 5th Dalai Lama was a close relative of his rival, late Pagsam Wangpo. (Phuntsho 2013. p. 239)
The Zhabdrung’s intuition in this regard was very much right. Tibet and Bhutan would be on on-again-off-again war until the early 1700s, with particular enmity between the Fifth and the Zhabdrung playing a major role
19. White 2011. Four: The Science of Entering Another Body.
20. Phuntsho 2013. p. 261.
21. van Schaik 2011. p. 120.
22. My thanks to Jeremy Salkeld for clarifying what I had originally written here.
23. van Schaik 2011. p. 126.
