I recently read a book dealing with Buddhism in Tibet. It gave me new and stunning information about the gory obstacles Buddhism overcame to get into Tibet.
As elsewhere outside India, in Tibet too, Buddhism struggled its way into the snowy solitude of the land. It had its own religion deeply entrenched before the advent of Buddhism. The Buddhists derided Bon’ism as a morally reprehensible conglomeration of demon-worship - mumbo jumbo of sorts, involving human and animal sacrifices. But the followers of Bon’ism claimed that Buddhism had owed its philosophical doctrine to the canons of the Bon faith. The Bon-followers resisted long the advent of Buddhism despite the patronage provided by a number of regal personalities. Buddhism gained ascendency through bloody feuds and murders and persecutions - an irony, keeping in view the religion’s single-minded stress on non-violent compassion for one and all.
Tibet remained unacquainted with Buddhism till the beginning of the 7th Century AD. According to Tibetan chronicles, there was a king, mighty and inquisitive, Sron-bstan-sgam-po (629-50 AD). Thanks to him, the cultural relation involving his country and India was established. He was supposed to have sent one of his ministers, an erudite and sagacious courtier, Thon-mi-sam-bhota to the northern part of India to get acquainted with Buddhism. He not just translated many of the Buddhist works in the Tibetan languages but reshaped the Tibetan script, fashioning it on the lines of the north Indian scripts then prevailing.
The king’s two wives, both princesses, – one from China and the other from Nepal - aroused the quest in their husband’s mind into the core of Buddhism. China and Nepal were at that point of time under the sway of Buddhism. Buddhism penetrated deeper into Tibet with the ascendancy of Sron’s descendant, Khri-srong-ide-bstan sometime in the 730 AD. His mother, a princess from a principality in China, was supposed to have inspired him to bring Buddhism in Tibet. Himself inquisitive to learn about the new religion, he invited a celebrated Buddhist theologian from India, Shanta Rakshita who was touring Nepal then to Tibet. But despite the king’s patronage and the monk’s endeavour, Buddhism could not find its way deep into the heart of the Tibetan life. The influence of Bon’ism proved too hard to crack. The monk, however, advised the king to send for another and, perhaps, more illustrious Buddhist monk, Padma Sambhava to Tibet from India. Padma Sambhava was supposed to have had undisputed control over the occult world. He came to Tibet in 747 AD.
Padma Sambhava was far more successful than Shanta Rakshita in deepening the sway of Buddhism in Tibet. But the sect he founded came by way of a compromise involving the intrinsic cannons of Mahayana Buddhism and the sorcery-culture being nurtured by Bon’ism. The sect came to be known as Nyaing-ma-pa the followers of which were known as Red Hats for their custom of putting red headgears to differentiate their identity from the Bon or the other ones.
However, despite the foundation being laid by him, Buddhism strove against grim odds to establish its final sway over Tibet. The Bon religion revived with the ascendancy of a staunch follower of the indigenous religion, lang Darma, sometime in 840 AD. He persecuted the Buddhists and the nuns. As he seemed bent on clearing the land of the vestiges of Buddhism he was assassinated by a Buddhist monk, lama Palgye Dorjee in 842 AD. Anarchy followed the assassination as the kingdom got divided between two sons of the slain ruler. Tibet further disintegrated into smaller mutually antagonistic principalities.
However, Buddhism proved too resilient for the political topsy-turvy. It revived again by the end of the 10th Century AD. Amidst these spells of uncertainties, Atisha Dipankara arrived in Tibet from Bengal in India in 1040. He spearheaded the true revival of Buddhism by reforming the lamaist sect. He stressed on purity of the Buddhist core. His sect came to be known as Kadam-pa. The tradition of Kadam was short-lived; nevertheless, it influenced other schools that followed - Kargyu-pa, Sakya-pa and Gelug-pa.
The Gelug-pa sect, founded by a lama Tsong-Kha-pa sometime in the 14th Century AD, remained the most powerful one in Tibet till the Chinese wrested political control over it in the 1950s. The institution of the Dalai lama as the temporal head of the Tibetan State got introduced under the influence of the Gelug-pa sect. The followers of this sect came to be known as Yellow Hats for their custom to put yellow headgears to differentiate themselves from the Red Hats.
It sought to absorb all the strands of Buddhist thought then prevailing in the country by way of synthesis. Yet, the movement could not rid itself of the dose of over-zealousness as is natural regarding a reform movement. The over-enthusiasm unleashed animosity between the Red Hats and themselves. The animosity resulted in persecution and conversion.