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The Karma-pa Sect. A Historical Note

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

H. E. Richardson
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Extract

The Karma-pa sect, an important offshoot of the bKa'-rgyud-pa, derives from dPal Chos-gyi-grags-pa, generally known as Dus-gsummkhyen-pa, who was born in A.D. 1110 at Dre-śod in East Tibet. He was, by some accounts, the first Lama to originate a continuous line of reincarnations lasting to the present day—a claim which is contested by the Lamas of 'Bri-khuṅ. At the age of 30 Dus-gsum-mkhyen-pa became the principal disciple of sGam-po-pa, himself the chief disciple of rJe-btsun Mid-la (Mi-la-ras-pa), and so entered the direct doctrinal succession from Mar-pa, the founder of the bKa'-rgyud-pa sect. A pious explanation of the name Karma-pa is that an assembly of gods (lha) and Dakini bestowed on Dus-gsummkhyen-pa, in his sixteenth year, knowledge of the past, present, and future—together with a magical black mitre woven from the hair of a million mKha'-'gro-ma (angels or fairies). That story is found in vol Pa of the Chos-'byuṅ of dPa'-bo gTsug-lag; but however early the name Karma-pa came into existence its perpetuation was probably due to the association of Dus-gsum-mkhyen-pa with the monastery of Karma gDan-sa, or Lho Karma'i sGar, which he founded in 1147 to the east of the Nom-chu, somewhere between Ri-bo-che and sDe-dge. A few years before his death in 1193 he returned to Central Tibet and in 1189 he founded mTshur-phu in the sTod-lun valley some 50 miles west of Lhasa.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 90 , Issue 3-4 , July 1958 , pp. 139 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1958

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References

page 139 note 1 bLa ma. I use the popular spelling “Lama” throughout.

page 141 note 1 Chos rje Karma pa shu 'phreń rim khyon gyi rnaṁ thar mdor bsdus dpag bsam khri śiń.

page 152 note 1 Strictly speaking, the first Dalai Lama was bSod-nams-rgya-mtsho, on whom the title was conferred in 1577 by Altan Khan, but it is the accepted practice in Tibet to attribute the title retrospectively to his two previous incarnations, thus treating bSod-nams-rgya-mtsho as the third Dalai Lama. At the time of the incident in question the Karma-pa hierarch was a figure of greater importance than the dGe-lugs-pa and therefore more likely to attract the Emperor's attention.

page 161 note 1 Often described by western and Chinese writers as the sixth Panchen Lama. There is no question, even at bKra-śis-lhun-po, that he was actually third in succession from Blo-bzan-chos-kyi rgyal-mtshan (1569–1662) whom his pupil, the fifth Dalai Lama pronounced to have been an incarnation of 'Od-dpag-med. The ascription to the Panchen Lamas of an extended spiritual lineage, including Indian teachers and the Pandita of the Sa-skya sect, is simply a subsequent attempt to enhance their prestige vis-à-visthe Dalai Lamas for political ends.

page 161 note 2 Professor Tucci has informed me that there is a religious work, written apparently in the eighteenth century, by a “Žva-dmar dGe-'dun-bstan'dzinrgya-mtsho”; but it has not yet been possible to establish that this was the name of the ninth Žva-dmar-pa Incarnation.

page 164 note 1 Although there is now no Žva-dmar-pa Lama, Karma-pas like to believe that he continues to reincarnate in the person of the Si-tu Rinpoche of dPal-spuṅs.