877-1354 - Sakya Dynasty
After a few generations of peaceful rule dissensions arose. After around the 850 the country was wracked by political divisions, and in the course of time a great many independent kingdoms were set up. The era of important legend closes with the assassination of Lang-darma, the younger brother of Ralpachan, who had ascended the throne in 899. Lang-darma, who had murdered his brother to clear the way for his own succession, is the Buddhist Julian, undertook a violent persecution of Buddhism. The assassination of this persecutor of the faith [variously estimated between 842 AD and 902 AD]] is still annually observed in Lhasa on the threshold of the Jo-kang, where a fanatic monk achieved his purpose at the cost of his own life.
From this date onward Tibet was divided into a large number of petty principalities, and its history is for many centuries obscure. A whole century of strife and quarrel followed, each descendant of the royal line set up a small kingdom, the only one of note being the Guge Kingdom [c.877-1720]. While all this was going on events were taking place in the west which were destined to effect the political government of the country. A revival of Buddhism had taken place chiefly through the zeal of two petty chiefs, who were also brothers, and it was a descendant of a collateral branch of the family who in the 11th century invited to his court and patronised the famous Indian Gum Alisha.
Lamaism had been steadily growing in wealth and power while the nobles and princes were engaged in fighting and were occupied too much to attend to the Lamas. Alisha's arrival took place at a time when the ground was so tosay prepared for the foundation of the theocratic monarchy. He instituted a reformed order of monks who everywhere acquired influence and were patronised by the chiefs of the land. The immense popularity of this new order of men known as Kadompa, gave birth to two other sects, Sakyapa and Kagyupa. The Sakyapa sect gradually outstripped the other and when Kublai Khan ascended the throne of China he sent for the Sakya'grand Lama known as Sakya Pandita. This missionary remained at the Chinese court for twelve years and before he returned he was invested by the Emperor with sovereign power over a large tract of country and was made head of the ecclesiastical organisation of Tibet; in return for this favour he and his successors were to consecrate Chinese emperors on their succession to the throne.
After the reintroduction of Buddhism into the " kingdom of snow," the ancient dynasty never recovered its power. Its representatives continued for some time to claim the sovereignty; but the country was practically very much in the condition of Germany at about the same time—chieftains of almost independent power ruled from their castles on the hill tops over the adjacent valleys, engaged in petty wars, and conducted plundering expeditions against the neighbouring tenants, whilst the great abbeys were places of refuge for the studious or religious, and their heads were the only rivals to the barons in social state, and in many respects the only protectors and friends of the people.
Meanwhile Jenghiz Khan had founded the Mongol empire, and his grandson Kublai Khan, who ruled over the greatest empire which has ever owned the sway of a single man, became a convert to the Buddhism of the Tibetan Lamas. In 1270 Kublai khan granted to the abbot of the Sakya monastery in southern Tibet the title of tributary sovereign of the country, head of the Buddhist Church, and overlord over the numerous barons and abbots, and in return was officially crowned by the abbot as ruler over the extensive domain of the Mongol empire. The Chinese emperors fearing that this new power might become a source of anxiety deliberately encouraged the other two sects, Attisha's reformed sect and the Kargyupa.
Thus was the foundation laid at one and the same time of the temporal sovereignty of the Lamas of Tibet, and of the suzerainty over Tibet of the emperors of China. One of the first acts of the "head of the church" was the printing of a carefully revised edition of the Tibetan Scriptures. This first of the Tibetan hierarchs, thus especially patronized by the Mongols, achieved with a staff of his scholars the gigantic task of translating the bulky Tibetan canon into Mongolian, after revision and collation with Chinese texts, the Mongolian character being a form of Syriac introduced into Central Asia by Nestorian Christian missionaries. This undertaking which occupied altogether nearly thirty years, and was not completed till 1306.
Under Kublai's successors in China the Buddhist cause flourished greatly, and the Sakya Lamas extended their power both at home and abroad. The dignity of-abbot at Sakya became hereditary, the abbots breaking so far the Buddhist rule of celibacy that they remained married until they had begotten a son and heir. The Sas-kya primacy maintained much of its political supremacy for several generations, and used its power to oppress its less-favoured rival sects. It burned the great Kar-gyu monastery of Dikung about AD 1320.
For seventy years of rule (1270-1340), they seem to have continued in the enjoyment of their power and to have oppressed the rival sects, who continued steadily to grow m power, butt the rise of the general Phagmodu changed the aspect of affairs. But rather more than half a century afterwards their power was threatened by a formidable rival at home, the Buddhist reformer Tsongkapa, the Luther of Tibet, who was born about 1357.
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