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The Jonang or Jonangpa school of Tibetan Buddhism was founded in the early 14th century by Sherab Gyeltsen, a monk trained in the Sakyapa school. The Jonangpa school was widely thought to have become extinct in the late 17th century at the hands of the Fifth Dalai Lama who forcibly annexed the Jonangpa monasteries to his Gelugpa school. Recently, however, researchers were surprised to discover that some remote Jonangpa monasteries escaped this fate and have continued practicing uninterrupted to this day. As many as 50 monks may be members of the remnant Jonangpa school practicing in areas at the edge of historic Gelugpa influence. Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... A replica of an ancient statue of Gautama Buddha, found from Sarnath, near Varanasi Buddhism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of the Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama, a prince of the Shakyas, whose lifetime is traditionally given as 566 to 486 BC. Buddhism gradually spread from India... The cultural elements of Buddhism vary by region and include: Buddhist cuisine Buddhist art Buddharupa Art and architecture of Japan Greco-Buddhism Tibetan Buddhist sacred art Buddhist music Buddhist chant Shomyo Categories: Buddhism-related stubs ... The history of Buddhism spans from the 6th century BCE to the present, starting with the birth of the Buddha Siddharta Gautama. ... Contents: Top - 0–9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z The following is a List of Buddhist topics: A Abhidharma Ahimsa Ajahn Ajahn Chah Ajanta Aksobhya Alexandra David-Néel... Buddhist beliefs and practices vary according to region. ... The percentage of Buddhist population of each country was taken from the US State Departments International Religious Freedom Report 2004 [1]. Other sources used were CIA Factbook [2] and adherents. ... An image of Gautama Buddha with a swastika, traditionally a Buddhist symbol of good luck, on his chest. ... The Buddhist temple Wat Chiang Man, in Chiang Mai, Thailand, which dates from the late 13th century Buddhist temples and monasteries, sorted by location. ... Several Buddhist terms and concepts lack direct translations into English that cover the breadth of the original term. ... There is great variety in Buddhist texts. ... // Before Common Era Trad. ... Tibetan Buddhism - formerly (and incorrectly) also called Lamaism, after their religious gurus known as lamas - is the body of religious Buddhist doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet and the Himalayan region. ... This 14th-century statue from south India depicts the gods Shiva (on the left) and Uma (on the right}. It is housed in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. As a means of recording the passage of time, the 14th century was that century which lasted from 1301 to... The name of the Sakya (lit. ... (16th century - 17th century - 18th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 17th century was that century which lasted from 1601-1700. ... Lozang Gyatso, the Great Fifth Dalai Lama, (1617-1682), is one of only two Dalai Lamas formally titled Great. He initiated the construction of the fabulous Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet. ... The Geluk (dge lugs) School was founded by Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), Tibets best known religious reformer and arguably its greatest philosopher. ...

History of the Jonangpa

In the early 14th century the monk Sherab Gyeltsen broke away from the Sakyapa school and established the Jonangpa school at Jonang, about 160 km northwest of the Tashilhunpo monastery in Shigatse. There, the Jonangpa built a large monastery and constructed a printing press. This 14th-century statue from south India depicts the gods Shiva (on the left) and Uma (on the right}. It is housed in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. As a means of recording the passage of time, the 14th century was that century which lasted from 1301 to... Tashilhunpo Monastery The Thanka Wall overlooking the monastery Tashilhunpo Monastery, built in 1447, is a historic and culturally important monestary in Shigatse, Tibet. ... Shigatse (Tibetan: གཞིས་ཀ་རྩེ་; Wylie transliteration: Gzhis-ka-rtse; Modified Wiley: gzhi-ka-rtse; pinyin (Tibetan): Xigazê; Chinese: 日喀则; pinyin: Rìkāzé, Zhigatse [Zhi-ga-tse], and Xigatse) is the second largest city in Tibet with a population of 80,000. ... The printing press is a mechanical device for printing many copies of a text on rectangular sheets of paper. ...

The Jonangpa school had generated a number of renowned Buddhist scholars, the greatest of whom was Taranatha (1575-1634). Taranatha placed great emphasis on the Kalachakra system of tantra which became an important part of Gelugpa teaching after the Gelugpa absorbed the Jonangpa monasteries. Taranatha's influence on Gelugpa thinking continues even to this day in the teaching of the present 14th Dalai Lama who actively promotes initiation into Kalachakra. A replica of an ancient statue found among the ruins of a temple at Sarnath Buddhism is a philosophy based on the teachings of the Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama, a prince of the Shakyas, whose lifetime is traditionally given as 566 to 486 BCE. It had subsequently been accepted by... Events February 13 - Henry III of France is crowned at Reims February 14 - Henry III of France marries Louise de Lorraine-Vaudémont June 28 - Oda Nobunaga defeats Takeda Katsuyori in the battle of Nagashino, which has been called Japans first modern battle. ... Events Moses Amyrauts Traite de la predestination is published Curaçao captured by the Dutch Treaty of Polianovska First meeting of the Académie française The witchcraft affair at Loudun Jean Nicolet lands at Green Bay, Wisconsin Opening of Covent Garden Market in London English establish a settlement... Kalachakra is a term used in tantric Buddhism that means time-wheel or time-cycles. The Kalachakra tradition, which is described in the Kalacakra Tantra, revolves around the concept of time and cycles: from the cycles of the planets, to the cycles of our breath and the practice of controlling... Tantra (Sanskrit: loom), tantric yoga or tantrism is any of several esoteric traditions rooted in the religions of India. ... (Redirected from 14th Dalai Lama) Tenzin Gyatso is the fourteenth and current Dalai Lama. ...

Stated reason for Jonangpa suppression: the Shentong heresy

While the Gelugpa embraced the Jonangpa teaching on the Kalachakra, they ultimately opposed the Jonangpa for another set of teachings. Dolpopa Sherab Gyeltsen (1292-1361), the founder of the Jonangpa, and subsequent lamas had developed a teaching known as Shentong, which is closely tied to the Indian Yogacara school and held that the external world is completely empty. The Gelugpa school held the distinct but related Rangtong view. The Jonangpa interpreted Shentong to imply that there is a value in inaction and non-striving, which is associated with the teachings of medieval Chan Buddhism in China (which also gave rise to Zen Buddhism in Japan). This association with Chinese Buddhism tainted the Jonangpa in the eyes of the Gelugpa who considered the true teachings to derive from the Indian saints, particularly Atisha. An additional motivation in criticizing the Jonangpa sect as Zen-followers was that it enabled the Gelugpa to lay claim to the high moral ground previously held only by the rival Nyingmapa sect who were proud of their ancient and unsullied transmission from the Indian saints (and being sullied by later transmissions as were the Sakyapa, Kagyupa, and Gelugpa). Dolpopa Sherab Gyeltsen or Dolpopa (1292-1361), the Tibetan Buddhist master known as The Buddha from Dolpo, was the founder of the Jonangpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism. ... Lama can refer to: the Tibetan word for religious teacher (like the Sanskrit term guru) see Tibetan Buddhism. ... Shentong view, also sometimes called “Yogacara Madhyamika,” is a philosophical sub-school found in Tibetan Buddhism, holding that the nature of mind is empty of other (i. ... Yogācāra (Sanskrit: yoga practice), also spelled yogāchāra, is an influential school of philosophy and psychology that developed in Indian Mahayana Buddhism starting sometime in the fourth to fifth centuries C.E., also commonly known as Consciousness-only (Sanskrit: Chittamatra). ... Chan can be variation of 陳 (Chen), a Chinese family name. ... Bodhidharma, woodblock print by Yoshitoshi, 1887. ... AtiÅ›a Dipamkarashrijnana (982 - 1054 CE) was a Buddhist teacher who reintroduced Buddhism into Tibet after King Langdharma has nearly destroyed it. ... The Nyingma tradition is one of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. ... The Kagyu (bka brgyud) school (known as the Oral Lineage and the Spotless Practice Lineage school) of Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana) traces its origins to the teachings of the Indian mystics Tilopa (988-1089 CE) and Naropa (1016-1100 CE), whose lineage was transmitted in Tibet by the great translator Marpa...

Additional reasons: monastery financial reform and Tibetan geopolitics

Modern historians have identified two other reasons which likely led the Gelugpa to suppress the Jonangpa:

First, the Jonangpa taught that large gifts of property to monasteries did not help one achieve enlightenment. This undercut the financial practices of the Gelugpa who were growing rapidly through exactly those means at the time.

Second, and more significantly, the Jonangpa had political ties that were very vexing to the Gelugpa. The Jonangpa, along with the Kagyupa, were historical allies with the powerful house of Tsang which was vying with the Dalai Lama and his Gelugpa school for control of central Tibet. This was bad enough, but soon after the death of Taranatha an even more ominous event occurred: Taranatha's reincarnation was discovered to be a young boy named Zanabazar the son of Prince Tosiyetu Khan, ruler of the Khan Uula district of Outer Mongolia. Tosiyetu and his son were of Khalkha lineage, meaning they had the birth authority to become Khan. When the young boy was declared the spiritual leader of all of Mongolia, suddenly the Gelugpa were faced with the possibility of war with the former military superpower of Asia. While the Mongol Empire was long passed its zenith, this was nonetheless a frightening prospect and the Dalai Lama sought the first possible moment of Mongol distraction to take control of the Jonangpa monasteries. The Kagyu (bka brgyud) school (known as the Oral Lineage and the Spotless Practice Lineage school) of Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana) traces its origins to the teachings of the Indian mystics Tilopa (988-1089 CE) and Naropa (1016-1100 CE), whose lineage was transmitted in Tibet by the great translator Marpa... Tsang (曾) is a surname in Hong Kong, transcripted based on Cantonese. ... The Khalkha Jebtsundamba Khutughtu (also known as Javzandamba Hutagt in Khalkha Mongolian; also as Rje Btsun Dam Pa or Jetsun Dampa in Tibetan — all meaning lit. ... Outer Mongolia makes up Mongolia (presently a sovereign state) and Tannu Uriankhai (presently known as Tuva Republic, a federal subject of the Russian Federation), while Inner Mongolia (内蒙古; Nèi MÄ›nggÇ”) is an autonomous region of the Peoples Republic of China. ... The Khalkha, or Halh (Халх [χɑɬχ]) in modern Khalkha Mongolian, is a subgroup of the Mongols. ... Khan (sometimes spelled as xan, han) is a title meaning ruler in Mongolian and Turkish. ... A superpower is a state with the ability to influence events and project power on a super scale. ... World map showing Asia (geographically) Asia is the central and eastern part of Eurasia and worlds largest continent. ... Mongol Empires largest extent outlined in red; Timur-i-Lenks empire is shaded The Mongol Empire (1206–1368) was the largest contiguous land empire in world history ruling 35 million km² (13. ...

Current status and rediscovery by the outside world

In accordance with the observation that "victims write history" the Jonangpa were until recently thought to be an extinct heretical sect. Thus, Tibetologists were astonished when fieldwork turned up several active Jonangpa monasteries, including the main monastery called Tsangwa located in Dzamthang County, Sichuan, China. Almost 4 monasteries, comprising about 50 monks, have been subsequently been found, including some in the Amdo and Gyarong districts of Qinghai and the Tibet Autonomous Region. Presumably these remnant survived because they were far from the Gelugpa capital at Lhasa and closer to sympathetic powers in Qing Dynasty China. Sichuan (Chinese: 四川; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Ssu-ch`uan; obsolete romanizations include Szechwan and Szechuan) is a province in central-western China with its capital at Chengdu. ... Amdo (Tibetan: ཨ༌མདོ, Chinese: 安多, Pinyin: Ānduō) is considered the northern part of Tibet by Tibetans and is the place from where the present Dalai Lama comes from. ... Qinghai (Chinese: 青海; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Ching-hai; Postal System Pinyin: Tsinghai) is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, named after the enormous Qinghai Lake (Koko Nor). ... The Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) (Tibetan: བོད་རང་སྐྱོང་ལྗོངས་; Wylie: Bod-rang-skyong-ljongs; Simplified Chinese: 西藏自治区; Traditional Chinese: 西藏自治區; pinyin: ), is a province-level autonomous region of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). ... Lhasa is located in the Lhasa Valley of Tibet. ... The Qing Dynasty (Manchu: daicing gurun; Chinese: 清朝; pinyin: qīng cháo; Wade-Giles: ching chao), sometimes known as the Manchu Dynasty, was founded by the Manchu clan Aisin Gioro, in what is today northeast China expanded into China proper and the surrounding territories of Inner Asia, establishing...

Interestingly, one of the primary supporters of the Jonang lineage in exile has been the 14th Dalai Lama of the Gelugpa. The Dalai Lama donated buildings in Himachal Pradesh state in India for use as a Jonang monastery and has visited there during one of His recent teaching tours. The Karmapa of the Karma Kagyu lineage has visited there as well. (Redirected from 14th Dalai Lama) Tenzin Gyatso is the fourteenth and current Dalai Lama. ... Himachal Pradesh, formally the Punjab Hill States, is a state in northwest India. ... The Karmapa is the head of the Karma Kagyu (Bka rgyud), the largest of the lineages that make up the Kagyu school, one of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. ...

References

• Gruschke, A. Geir Smith (2000). The Jonangpa Order - Causes for the downfall, conditions of the survival and current situation of a presumably extinct Tibetan-Buddhist School. Ninth Seminar of The International Association for Tibetan Studies
• Stearns, Cyrus (1999). The Buddha from Dolpo: A Study of the Life and Thought of the Tibetan Master Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen. State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-4191-1 (hc); ISBN 0-7914-4192-X (pbk).

External Links

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