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February / March 2007
Buddhist History
When Tibetans Found Their Voice: Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy From 1200-1600
 Thangka of Je Tsongkhapa with his disciples, Gyaltsab Je and Kaydrup Je. The Perfection of Wisdom sutra rests on a right-facing lotus.
Photo courtesy of Nick Dawson. Though Buddhism had been flourishing in Tibet since the eighth century, it was not until the thirteenth century that Tibetans began to find their own distinct voice, not only as inheritors of a Buddhist philosophical tradition, but also as interpreters, contributors, and innovators of that tradition. It was an exciting period that produced great thinkers like Sakya Pandita, Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen, and Je Tsongkhapa, who each made important contributions to the history of not only Tibetan philosophy, but to Buddhist philosophy as a whole. The followers, critics, and defenders of these three great Tibetan philosophers participated in extensive and energetic debates that were both documented by historians and elaborated upon in their own polemic tracts. Copious amounts of polemic philosophical writings composed by notable voices in the philosophical debates emerged en masse. This was the primary period in which delineations of schools of thought and traditions of practice began to be clearly defined: Dolpopa’s Jonang and Tsong Khapa’s Gandenpa (later known as Gelugpa) schools broke off from the mainline Sakya tradition, and Kagyu and Nyingma schools were more clearly delineated as well. Of course, there were many important figures before this period and since, and it is difficult to draw straight lines to divide periods in Tibetan thought, but the years roughly between 1200-1600 CE were particularly fervent and represent a landmark time in Tibetan Buddhist philosophical history…. This article is an excerpt of the full article printed in Mandala
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