This is actually for a student of Professor
Ulrike Rösler (from Oxford). The last time I met Ulrike in SOAS, she asked me
if I know of any source that explains why dGe-lugs school of Tibetan Buddhism
is called thus. One of her students, whose name I do not know, wanted to know.
I had no concrete source at hand and so I said I did not know. Just the other
day when I met Ulrike in Hamburg, I said I came across an explanation and that
I would send her the reference. But today, I tried to trace the source back but
did not find it. Not being able to relocate a lost reference and not being able
to keep a promise gnaw one from within. But fortunately we have the TBRC (now
BDRC) to turn to. A single search for the word dga’ lugs turns
out to be fruitful. But to keep tract of my own findings which may eventually
also benefit scholars such as Ulrike’s student, I thought I should record my
thoughts and references in my blog.
In general it goes without
saying that various Tibetan Buddhist schools and sub-schools came to be known
on the basis of various criteria such as period, founder, doctrine, color of
hats, place, and so on. The name “dGe-lugs” is derived from dGa’-ldan, the name
of the monastic seat where Tsong-kha-pa Blo-bzang-grags-pa (1357–1419) mainly
resided during the latter part of his life. By the way, the Tibetan dga’
ldan renders the Sanskrit tuṣita, a word that has been
explained in the sGra sbyor bam po gnyis pa or Madhyavyutpatti (no.
370). What I learnt recently, however, from my Buddhologist friend Dr. Martin
Delhey and Sanskritist friend Professor Harunaga Isaacson is that in
Sanskrit tuṣita refers primarily to a class of celestial
beings and not to the celestial realm in which they reside. In fact we did not
find any Indian Buddhist sources that use tuṣita in the sense
of a celestial realm. By contrast in Tibetan, one often tends to
understand tuṣita primarily in the sense of a heavenly realm
in the “sphere of [sexual] desire” (kāmadhātu: ’dod pa’i khams) where
the future Buddha Maitreya is said to reside now. Note what Mi-pham
rNam-rgyal-rgya-mtsho (1846–1912), mKhas
’jug (B, p. 231.14–15) states to this effect: dga’ ldan na byams pa
bzhugs la | gzhan ’phrul dbang byed na bdud sdig can gnas pa’o ||. Of
course, we can reconcile the primary usages of the word tuṣita in
Sanskrit and Tibetan. We often notice in Sanskrit sources that the one and the
same name can be used to refer to both a place and its people.
Let us return to the actual
topic. Why dGe-lugs and not dGa’-lugs or dGa’-ldan-lugs? There seem to be
plenty of sources on this. But perhaps it would suffice here to mention just
one. See the following passage (rGyal-rong-ba Brag-bar-dpal-ldan, Bod
rgyal mo rong gi lo rgyus rab gsal me long. [Markham]:
Krung-go-mi-dmangs-chab-srid-gros-mol-tshogs-’du ’Bar-khams-
rdzong-u-yon-lhan-khang, 2002, pp. 448.4–8): de yang dge lugs pa’am
dga’ ldan pa zhes pa ni gdan sa’i ming gis btags pa ste | rje rin po ches ’brog
ri bo dga’ ldan rnam par rgyal ba’i gling btab nas sku tshad smad der stan
chags par bzhugs pa la brten nas | rje’i ring lugs la chos rje dga’ ldan pa’i
lugs zhes ’bod pa byung | de tshig sna bsdus nas brjod pa’i tshe dga’ lugs pa
zhes zer ba ma bde bas | dge lugs pa zhes ’bod pa rgyun chags pa yin no ||.
Tsong-kha-pa founded a hermitage called the dGa’-ldan-rnam-par-rgyal-ba’i-gling
and during his later part of his life, it was his main or permanent seat. His
tradition came to be known as Chos-rje-dga’-ldan-pa’i-lugs. But the abbreviated
form of the name (which one normally uses), that is, “dGa’-lugs-pa,” was
felt (phonetically) inconvenient, and hence the name of the school came to
known as “dGe-lugs-pa.” By the way, some dGe-lugs-pas in the West do not seem
to like the name “Yellow-Hat” school somehow assuming that it is pejorative.
But there is nothing pejorative in the name and the Tibetan tradition proudly
characterizes the teaching of the dGe-lugs school as “the Doctrine of the
Yellow-Hat Ones” (zhwa ser gyi bstan pa).
Thank you, Dorji! The Tibetan quotation explaining the form Dge lugs pa in your blog seems to go back to Thu'u bkwan Blo bzang chos kyi nyi ma's Grub mtha' (beginning of the chapter on the Dge lugs pa). It's nice, but still doesn't quite answer my student's question when the name Dge lugs pa (as opposed to Ri bo Dga' ldan pa)came up/who originally introduced it; Las chen Kun dga' rgyal mtshan in 1494 still calls Tsong kha pa's tradition Bka' gdams gsar ma ba... So if anyone has any further insights, please let us know. Thugs rje che!
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