| Trisong Detsen ཁྲི་སྲོང་ལྡེ་བཙན | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tsenpo | |||||
 Trisong Detsen statue atSamye. | |||||
| 38th King ofTibetan Empire | |||||
| Reign | 755–797 | ||||
| Predecessor | Me Agtsom | ||||
| Successor | Muné Tsenpo | ||||
| Regent | Mashang Drompakye | ||||
| Born | 742 | ||||
| Died | 804 (age 62) | ||||
| Burial | Trülri Tsuknang Mausoleum,Valley of the Kings in Tibet | ||||
| Spouse | Tsépongza Métokdrön Chimza Lhamotsen Kharchenza Chogyel Droza Trigyel Motsen (akaJangchup Jertsen) Poyöza Gyel Motsün Yeshe Tsogyal | ||||
| Issue | Mutri Songpo Muné Tsenpo Mutik Tsenpo Sadnalegs | ||||
| |||||
| Lönchen | |||||
| Dynasty | Yarlung | ||||
| Father | Me Agtsom | ||||
| Mother | Nanamza Mangpodé Zhiteng | ||||
| Religion | Tibetan Buddhism | ||||
Trisong Detsen (Tibetan:ཁྲོ་སྲོང་ལྡེ་བརྩན། ཁྲི་སྲོང་ལྡེ་བཙན,Wylie:khri srong lde brtsan/btsan,ZWPY:Chisong Dêzän,Lhasa dialect:[ʈʂʰisoŋtetsɛ̃]) was the son ofMe Agtsom, the 37thking of Tibet. As the 38th king, he ruled from AD 755 until 797. Trisong Detsen was the second of the ThreeDharma Kings of Tibet —Songsten Gampo, Trisong Detsen,Rapalchen — honored for their pivotal roles in the introduction ofBuddhism toTibet and the establishment of theNyingma or "Ancient" school ofTibetan Buddhism.Sowa Rigpa orTraditional Tibetan medicine was developed during his reign.[1]
Trisong Detsen became one of Tibet's greatest kings during its empire era, and an unparalleled Buddhist benefactor[2] to Guru Padmasambhava, to Khenpo Shantarakshita, to his court, and to the founding of theVajrayana. By the end of his reign, he grew the extents of Tibet beyond their previous borders, reset the borders between Tibet and China in 783, and even occupied the capital of China atChang'an, where he installed a king.[1]
This was a reverse to an earlier trend Trisong Detsen inherited whereby the empire briefly declined somewhat from its greatest extent[citation needed] under the first Dharma King,Songtsen Gampo. Some disintegration continued when, in 694, Tibet lost control of several cities inTurkestan and in 703, kingdoms inNepal broke into rebellion whileArab forces had vied for influence along the western borderlands of the Tibetan empire.[citation needed]
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Institutional roles |
History and overview |
Trisong Detsen is very important to the history ofTibetan Buddhism and is one of the three 'Dharma Kings' (Tibetan:chö gyal) who helped to establishedBuddhism inTibet. The Three Dharma Kings wereSongtsen Gampo, Trisong Detsen, andRalpachen.
TheKar-cun pillar erected by KingSadnalegs (r. c.800-815) says that during the reign of Trisong Detsen, "shrines of theThree Jewels were established by building temples at the centre and on the borders, Samye (Bsam-yas) inBrag-mar and so on".[3]
Trisong Detsen became a king in 755, at the traditional young age of 13. His conversion to Buddhism took place in 762 at age 20.[4] He invitedPadmasambhava,Śāntarakṣita,Vimalamitra, and various otherIndian masters to come to Tibet and spread the latest understanding ofthe Buddha's teachings. Padmasambhava tamed the obstructors and designed the plans while Santaraksita helped to constructSamye Monastery as the firstmonastery in Tibet.
Seven Tibetans were initiated as monks by Santaraksita in 779,[5] some of whom reportedly consisted of former army members.[6] This occurred while a vast translation project was being undertaken on the Buddhist scriptures and commentaries written inPali andSanskrit and translated intoClassical Tibetan.[7]
The Princess of Karchen became known asYeshe Tsogyal, who was one of the wives of Trisong Detsen, and who became a great master after studying with Padmasambhava. She is considered to be the Mother of Buddhism. A daughter of the king, PrincessPema Sal (c.758-766) died young but incarnated later as greatTertons, among themLongchenpa.[8]
Different from the Indo-Buddhist traditions that became theVajrayana ofTibetan Buddhism embraced by Tibet and its king, were the Chinese Buddhist traditions. The first documented dissemination ofChan Buddhism to Tibet, chronicled in what has become known as the Chronicle of Ba (Statements of the Sba Family), occurred in about 761 when Trisong Detsen sent a party to theYizhou region to receive the teachings ofKim Hwasang, aKoreanChan master, who was encountered inSichuan. The party received teachings and three Chinese texts from Kim, who died soon after.[9]
Trisong Detsen patronised a second party to China in 763. This second expedition was headed by a high minister, Ba Salsnan. There is scholarly dissent about whom Salsnan encountered in Yizhou. Early scholarship considered Kim, but this had been revised toBaotang Wuzhu (714-774), head and founder of Baotang Monastery inChengdu. Both Kim and Baotang Wuzhu were of the same school of Chan, theEast Mountain Teaching.[9]
Tri Songdetsen, hosted a famous two-year debate from 792-794, known in Western scholarship as the "Council of Lhasa" (although it took place atSamye at quite a distance fromLhasa) outside the capital. He sponsored aDharma debate between theChan BuddhistMoheyan, who represented the third documented wave of Chan dissemination in Tibet, and the scholarKamalaśīla, a student ofŚāntarakṣita. Effectively the debate was between the Chinese and Indian Buddhist traditions as they were represented in Tibet.
Sources differ about both the nature of the debate as well as the victor. Stein (1972: p. 66-67) holds that Kamalaśīla disseminated a "gradualist approach" toenlightenment, consisting of purificatorysādhanā such as cultivating thepāramitās. Kamalaśīla's role was to ordain Tibetans as Buddhist monks and propagate Buddhist philosophy as it had flourished in India. Stein (1972: p. 66-67) holds that Kamalaśīla was victorious in the debate and that Tri Songdetsen sided with Kamalaśīla.[10]
Tri Songdetsen is also traditionally associated with the construction ofBoudhanath in theKathmandu Valley in Nepal.[11]
The role ofPadmasambhava on the other hand was to establish the teaching of BuddhistTantra in Tibet. During the reign of Tri Songdetsen the combined efforts of Padmasambhava, Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla established both the Indian Buddhist philosophical interpretation and Buddhist tantra in Tibet.[citation needed]
In 763 Trisong Detsen sent an army of 200,000 men to the border with Tang China, defeating the forces there and then continuing on to takeChang'an, the Tang Chinese capital, forcingEmperor Daizong of Tang to flee the capital.[12] In 783 a peace treaty was negotiated between China and Tibet giving Tibet all lands in present-dayQinghai.
The King also formed an alliance withNanzhao in 778, joining forces to attack the Chinese in modernSichuan. However,Nanzhao launched thebattle of Shenchuan to break away from Tibet in 794 and restored the alliance with Tang China.[13]
Trisong Detsen next sought to expand westward, reaching theAmu Darya and threatening theAbbasid Caliph,Harun ar-Rashid. The Caliph was concerned enough to establish an alliance with the Chinese emperor. Trisong Detsen would be preoccupied with Arab wars in the west while taking pressure off his Chinese opponents to the east and north until his rule ended in 797.
Trisong Detsen had three sons: Mutri,Muné Tsenpo (also known as Murub), and Mutik Tsenpo (also known asSadnalegs). The eldest son, Mutri Tsenpo, died early.
When Trisong Detsen retired in 797 to live at the palace at Zungkar and write dharma texts, he passed the throne to his second son,Muné Tsenpo who achieved many spiritual and temporal objectives in his brief reign of a year and a half. TheTestament of Ba states Muné Tsenpo insisted that his father's funeral be performed according to Buddhist rather than traditional rites.[14]
It is said that Mune Tsenpo was poisoned by his mother, who was jealous of his beautiful wife.[15][16]
The throne then passed to Mutik Tsenpo, whose sons includedRalpachen andÜ Dum Tsen.[17] Tibetan sources and theOld Book of Tang agree that Mune Tsenpo had no heirs, and the throne was passed to the third brother, Mutik Tsenpo known as Sadnalegs, who was on the throne by 804 CE.[18][19][20]
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| Preceded by | Emperor of Tibet r. 755 – 797 or 804 | Succeeded by |
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