Buddha śrī (1339-1419) – an important teacher of the Sa skya tradition

Sitting legs crossed in vajraparyaṅka on a lotus seat and a throne supported by lions, Buddha śrī (1339-1419) appears aged with short grey hair, clad in the triple monastic robes. His hands, joined before his chest, perform the gesture of “setting in motion the wheel of the Law” (dharmacakra mudrā).

This thangka is part of a set. Buddha śrī was the master of Kun dga’ bzang po (1382-1456), founder of the Ngor monastery where this painting was probably commissioned. The deep, contrasting colours, the organised registers, and the ornamentation displays a profound Nepalese style influence.

Sets of inscriptions identifies this painting as the twentieth in the series of Lam ’bras (lamdre) teachers, probably commissioned by an important teacher of the Ngor monastery in the late sixteenth century. A long Tibetan dBu can inscription at the bottom of the painting reads:

༄། ཟབ་མོའི་ཏིང་འཛིན་རབ་བསྒོཾས་པས། །སྦྱོར་ལམ་རྩེ་མོའི་ཡཻས་མཆོག། །གང་གི་བརྙེས་པ་ཆོས་ཀྱི་རྗེ། །གྲུབ་ཆེན་བུདྡྷ་ཤྲཱི་ལ་འདུད།། གསང་བ་འདུས་པ་མི་བསྐྱོད་རྡོ་རྗེའི་བླ་མ་བརྒྱུད་པ་ལ་སོགྶ་པའི་ལྷ་ཚོགྶ་ཐམས་ཅད་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ།། སྐྱེ་བ་དང་ཚེ་རབས་ཀུན་ཏུ་རྗེསུ་གཟུང་ནས་བྱིན་གྱིས་བརླབ་ཏུ་གསོལ།། མངྒ་ལཾ།

@/ zab mo'i ting 'dzin rab bsgoṃs pas/ sbyor lam rtse mo'i yees [ye shes] mchog/ gang gi brnyes pa chos kyi rje/ grub chen Buddha śrī la 'dud/ gsang ba 'dus pa mi bskyod rdo rje'i bla ma brgyud pa la sogs pa'i lha tshogs thams cad phyag 'tshal lo/ skye ba dang tshe rabs kun tu rjesu [rjes su] gzung nas byin gyis brlab tu gsol/ mangalaṃ//

“Having completely meditated the profound samādhi,/ supreme primordial wisdom, apex of the liberation path,/ Dharma lord who has realised everything,/ to the great accomplished Buddha śrī I bow./ Before the lineage masters and the assembly of deities of Akṣobhyavajra Guhyasamāja, I prostrate.// I pray you that during the succession of my lives and rebirths you always compassionately care for me!// Mangalaṃ”

Another inscription at the back in the upper left corner in dBu can script states:

ཝ་གཡས་བཅུ་པ་བུདྷ་ཤྲཱི།

/wa g.yas bcu pa budha shri/

“[no.] wa [20], 10th [painting] on the right, Buddha śrī”

Every character is identified by an inscription in dBu can (see numbered image for correspondence). The masters represent the transmission lineage of Akṣobhyavajra Guhyasamāja (dpal gsang ba ’dus pa mi bskyod rdo rje):

01. [Buddha śrī]
02. [rDo rje ’chang]
03. Phyag na rdoe [rdo rje]
04. Indra bhū ti
05. Klu las gyur pa’i rnal ’byor ma
06. rGyal po bi su kalpa
07. Sa ra ha
08. Klu sgrub
09. Arya de ba
10. Zla ba grags pa
11. Blob [Slob] pa’i rdoe [rdo rje]
12. sPyod pa ba (nag po pa)
13. Sa ’dres pa (gomiśra)
14. dPal sbas (śrī gupta)
15. Pi rya bha tra (brtson grus bzang po, 11th)
16. De ba smyu gu (11th)
17. ’Gos lo tshtsa (khug pa lhas brtsas, 11th)
18. dBus pa dge ser
19. gNang [gnam] kha’u ba (dar ma seng ge, 11th)
20. rje Sa chen (1092-1158)
21. sloon [slob dpon] (bsod nams) rtse mo (1142-1182)
22. rje btsun Grags pa (rgyal mtshan, 1147-1216)
23. chos rje Sa paṇ (kun dga’ rgyal mtshan, 1182-1251)
24. ’gro mgon Phags pa (1235-1280)
25. dKog (dkon mchog) dpal (1240~50 – 1307)
26. rgyal ba Brag phug (1277-1350)
27. Bloos [blo gros] brtan pa (1316-1358)
28. dPaldan [dpal ldan] tshul khrims (1333-1399)
29. Bu dha śrī (1339-1420)
30. Ngor chen kun (dga’) bzang (po ,1382-1456) 
31. dKon mchog rgyal mtshan (1338-1467/70)
32. (Go ram pa) bSod nams sieng [seng ge] (1429-1489)
33. dKoog [dkon mchog] ’phel ba (1445-1514)
34. Mus chen (sangs rgyas rin chen, 1450-1524)
35. (Sa lo) Kun dga’ bsod nams (1485-1533)
36. rje dKoog [dkon mchog] lhun grub (1497-1557)
37. ’Jam dpal rdo rje 

A painting belonging to the same set and representing bla ma dam pa bSod nams rgyal mtshan (1312–1375) is visible in the Rubin collection (acc.# P1995.11.8, item no. 147). The masters of this painting represent the lineage of Kṛṣṇācārya’s tradition of Cakrasaṃvara (dpal ’khor lo bde mchog slob dpon nag po spyod pa’i lugs). Both paintings ends with the master dKon mchog lhun grub (1497-1557), Tenth great abbot of Ngor, most probably indicating the paintings were commissioned in the second half of the 16th century.

- Back of the painting

ཨོཾ་ཨཱཿཧཱུྃ་

ཨོཾ་སརྦ་བི་དྱ་སྭཱ་ཧཱ།
ཨོཾ་སརྦ་བི་དྱ་སྭཱ་ཧཱ།

ཨོཾ་བཛྲ་ཨཱ་ཡུ་ཥེ་སྭཱ་ཧཱ།

བཟོད་པ་དཀའ་ཐུབ་དམ་པ་བཟོད་པ་ནི།། མྱ་ངན་འདས་པ་ | མཆོག་ཅེས་སངས་རྒྱས་གསུང་།། རབ་ཏུ་བྱུང་བ་གཞན་ལ་གནོད་པ་དང་།། | གཞན་ལ་འཚེ་བ་དགེ་སྦྱོང་མ་ཡིན་ནོ། །སྡིག་པ་ཅི་ཡང་མི་བྱ་སྟེ༎ དགེ་བ་ཕུན་སུམ་ཚོགས་ | པར་སྤྱད༎ རང་གི་སེམས་ནི་ཡོངས་སུ་གདུལ། །འདི་ནི་སངས་རྒྱས་བསྟན་པ་ཡིན༎ ལུས་ཀྱི་| སྡོམ་པ་ལེགས་པ་སྟེ༎ ངག་གི་སྡོམ་པ་ལེགས་པ་ཡིན།། ཡིད་ཀྱི་སྡོམ་པ་ལེགས་པ་སྟེ༎ ཐམས་ཅད་ | དུ་ནི་སྡོམ་པ་ལེགས༎ ཐམས་ཅད་བསྲུང་བའི་དགེ་སློང་དག ༎ སྡུག་བསྔལ་ཀུན་ལས་དེ་གྲོལ་ལོ༎ ཨོཾ་སུ་པྲ་ཏིཥྛ་ | བཛྲ་ཡེ་སྭཱཧཱ། [Lantsa] ཨོཾ་སུ་པྲ་ཏིཥྛ་བཛྲ་ཡེ་སྭཱཧཱ།།
ཨོཾ་ཤྲཱི་མཧཱ་ཀ་ལ་ཧཱུྃ་ཕཊ། ཨོཾ་ཤྲཱི་མཧཱ་ཀཱ་ལ་ཡ་ཧཱུྃ་ཧཱུྃ་ཕཊ་ཕཊ་སྭཱ་ཧཱ༎ ཨོཾ་རོ་རུ་རོ་རུ། བི་ཏིཥྚ། བ་ཏོ་སཱི། ཀ་མ་ལ་རཀྵ་སཱི་ཧཱུྃ་བྷྱོཿཧཱུཾ༎ | ཨོཾ་མཧཱ་ཀ་ལ་ཀཱ་ལ། བི་ཀཱ་ལ་ར་ཏྲི་ཏ་ཧཱུྃ་ཕཊ་སྭཱ་ཧཱ༎ ཨོཾ་བཻ་ཤྲཱ་ཝ་ཎ་ཡེ་སྭཱ་ཧཱ༎ ཨོཾ་ཛམྦྷ་ལ་ཛ་ལེནྟྲ་ཡེ་སྭཱ་ཧཱ།། ཨོཾ་བ་སུ་དྷ་རི་ཎི་ཡེ་སྭཱ་ཧཱ༎ མཾག་ལཾ༎

oṃ āḥ hūṃ

oṃ sarva vidya svā hā
oṃ sarva vidya svā hā

oṃ vajra āyu ṣe svā hā

bzod pa dka’ thub dam pa bzod pa ni// mya ngan ’das pa | mchog ces sangs rgyas gsung// rab tu byung ba gzhan la gnos pa dang// | gzhan la ’tshe ba dge sbyong ma yin no// sdig pa ci yang mi bya ste// dge ba phun sum tshogs | par spyad// rang gi sems ni yongs su gdul/ /’di ni sangs rgyas bstan pa yin// lus kyi | sdom pa legs pas te// ngag gi sdom pa legs pa yin// yid kyi sdom pa legs pas te// thams cad | du ni sdom pa legs// thams cad bsrung ba’i dge slong dag //sdug bsngal kun las de grol lo// oṃ su pra tiṣṭha | ye svā hā// [ye dharmā hetuprabhavā hetuṃ teṣāṃ tathāgato hyavadat teṣāṃ ca yo nirodha evaṃvādī mahāśramaṇaḥ] oṃ su pra tiṣṭha ye svā hā// | oṃ śrī mahā ka la hūṃ phaṭ/ oṃ śrī mahā kā la hūṃ hūṃ phaṭ phaṭ svā hā/ oṃ ro ru ro ru/ bi tiṣṭa/ ba to sī/ ka ma la rakṣa sī hūṃ bhyoḥ hūṃ// | oṃ śrī mahā ka la kā la/ bi kā la ra tri ta hūṃ phaṭ phaṭ svā hā// oṃ vaiśravaṇa ye swā hā// oṃ jambhala jalentra ye svā hā// oṃ vasudhariṇi ye svā hā// maṃga laṃ//


[consecration syllables]
[knowledge mantra]
[adamantine life mantra]
“The holy ascetic practice of patience is the best path to Buddhahood, thus the Buddha has said. For a monk to harm others is not virtuous practice.”
“Commit not a single unwholesome action, cultivate a wealth of virtue, tame completely this mind of ours—this is the teaching of the buddhas.”

“Restraint of the body are excellent. Restraint of speech are excellent. Restraint of mind are excellent. Restraint in all ways is excellent. The bhikṣu who guard all [precepts] are freed from all suffering.”
[Consecration mantra]
[Pratītyasamutpāda dhāraṇī written in Sanskrit: “All phenomena arise from causes; Those causes have been taught by the Tathāgata (Buddha), And their cessation too has been proclaimed by the Great Śramaṇa.”]
[Consecration mantra]
[Various mantras: Mahākāla, Vaiśravaṇa, Jambhala, and Vasudhārā.]

Brief history of the Sakya Lineage and Order
Sakya is one of the four different sects of the Tibetan Buddhism. The Sakyapa tradition takes its name from the monastery founded in 1073 at Sakya (“the place of grey earth”) in south-western Tibet by Konchog Gyalpo, a member of the Khon clan. This influential family had previously owed allegiance to the Nyingmapa tradition but Konchog Gyalpo studied the theories and methods of the new diffusion of tantras current in eleventh century Tibet. The most important of the teachings, which he received from his teacher Drokmi Lotsava, a disciple of the Indian scholar Gayadhara, was the meditational system known as the Path and Its Fruit (Lam-‘Dre).
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Sakya tradition rose to a position of prominence in the religious and cultural life of Tibet. This was due largely to the endeavours of the five great masters: 
1. Sachen Kunga Nyingpo (1092-1158)
2. Sonam Tsemo (1142-1182)
3. Drakpa Gyaltsen (1147-1216)
4. Sakya Pandita (1182-1251)
5. Chogyal Phakpa (1235-1280)

Since that time the tradition and its two principal subsets, the Ngor sub-set founded by Ngorchen Kunga Sangpo (1382-1457) and the Tsar sub-set founded by Tsarchen Losal Gyamtso (1502-1556) and Dzongpa sub-set founded by Dorje Denpa Kunga Namgyal have been adorned by the labours and spiritual blessings of numerous illustrious yogis and scholars. Now the Sakya tradition under the compassionate guidance of His Holiness the Sakya Trizin (b. 1945), magnificent incarnation of the Khon line, is putting down roots outside Tibet in India.
His Holiness the Sakya Trizin fled to India in 1959 after the Chinese invasion of Tibet. In exile, His Holiness met all the religious leaders in 1963 including His Holiness the Dalai Lama and took permission to set up a monastery to preserve the Sakya tradition and heritage of Tibetan religion and culture. Thus He created Sakya Centre which is located in Rajpur, North of India. Thereafter Sakya Institute was created at Puruwala to impart higher education in Buddhist philosophy. At Puruwala, a Tibetan settlement was also established for the people of Sakya.
Sakya Centre is regarded as the main monastery of His Holiness the Sakya Trizin and the Sakya Lineage outside Tibet.
 
Sakya Monastery
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
 
Sakya Monastery, also known as dPal Sa skya or Pel Sakya ("White Earth" or "Pale Earth") is a Buddhist monastery situated 25 km southeast of a bridge which is about 127 km west of Shigatse on the road to Tingri in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China.
The seat of the Sakya or Sakyapa school of Tibetan Buddhism, it was founded in 1073, by Konchok Gyelpo (1034-1102), originally a Nyingmapa monk of the powerful noble family of the Tsang and became the first Sakya Trizin. Its powerful abbots governed Tibet during the whole of the 13th century after the downfall of the kings until they were eclipsed by the rise of the new Gelukpa school of Tibetan Buddhism.
Its medieval Mongolian architecture is quite different from that of temples in Lhasa and Yarlung. The only surviving ancient building is the Lhakang Chempo or Sibgon Trulpa. Originally a cave in the mountainside, it was built in 1268 by Ponchen Sakya Sangpo in 1268 and restored in the 16th century. It contains some of the most magnificent surviving artwork in all of Tibet, which appears not to have been damaged in recent times. The Gompa grounds cover more than 18,000 square metres, while the huge main hall covers some 6,000 square metres.
Most of the buidings of the monastery are in Ruins, because they were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.
 
Das Sharat Chandra writes:
“As to the great library of Sakya, it is on shelves along the walls of the great hall of the Lhakhang chen-po. There are preserved here many volumes written in gold letters; the pages are six feet long by eighteen inches in breadth. In the margin of each page are illuminations, and the first four volumes have in them pictures of the thousand Buddhas. These books are bound in iron. They were prepared under orders of the Emperor Kublai Khan, and presented to the Phagpa lama on his second visit to Beijing.
There is also preserved in this temple a conch shell with whorls turning from left to right [in Tibetan, Ya chyü dungkar ; and in Chinese Yu hsuan pai-lei], a present of Kublai to Phagpa. It is only blown by the lamas when the request is accompanied by a present of seven ounces of silver; but to blow it, or have it blown, is held to be an act of great merit."
A huge library of as many as 84,000 scrolls were found sealed up in a wall 60 metres long and 10 metres high at Sakya (Ch: Sagya) Monastery in 2003. It is expected that most of them will prove to be Buddhist scriptures although they may well also include works of literature, and on history, philosophy, astronomy, mathematics and art. They are thought to have remained untouched for hundreds of years. They are being examined by the Tibetan Academy of Social Sciences.
 
Sakya Monastery in India
The current Sakya Trizin, trone holder of the Sakyapa went in exil in India in 1959 and he is now living in Dehra Dun. As all the leaders of the Sakya school, he is married. He has two sons, and the younger ones, Dungsey Gyana Vajra, born July 5, 1979 in Dehra Dun, is a monk and direct the Sakya Monastery constructed in India.

Béguin, Gilles, 2013. Art sacré du Tibet – Collection Alain Bordier, [catalogue of the exhibition held at the Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent; 14 mars au 21 juillet 2013]. Paris: Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent. Editions Findakli.

Chandra, Lokesh, 1989. Thangka-Kalender 1989 - Juli: Buddhashri Jnanapada. Aitrang: Windpferd Verlag. Juli: Buddhashri Jnanapada. Übertragungslinie des Guhyasamaja-Tantra

Sotheby's, 1976. Antiquities, Islamic Art, Tribal Art, Indian, Nepalese, Tibetan and South-East Asian Art. Sotheby's. London, 12-13 July 1976, pp. 90-91, lot 211: Grub-Chen Buddha-Shri. Tibet, 14th/15th century

von Schroeder, Ulrich, 2013. Datenbank der Fondation Alain Bordier. Unpublished.