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The First Dalai Lama, Gendun Drub Biography
The First Dalai Lama, Gendun Drub The Dalai Lama lineage started from humble beginnings. Pema Dorje (1391–1474), the boy who was to become the first in the line, was born in a cattle pen in Shabtod, Tsang in 1391. His nomad parents kept sheep and goats and lived in tents.
When his father died in 1398 his mother was unable to support the goatherd, so she entrusted him to his uncle, a monk at Narthang, a major Kadampa monastery near Shigatse, for education as a Buddhist monk.
Narthang ran the largest printing press in Tibet and its celebrated library attracted scholars and adepts from far and wide, so Pema Dorje received an education beyond the norm at the time as well as exposure to diverse spiritual schools and ideas.
He studied Buddhist philosophy extensively and in 1405, ordained by Narthang’s abbot, he took the name of Gendun Drup. Soon recognized as an exceptionally gifted pupil, the abbot tutored him personally and took special interest in his progress. In 12 years, he passed the 12 grades of monkhood and took the highest vows.
After completing his intensive studies at Narthang he left to continue at specialist monasteries in Central Tibet, his grounding at Narthang was revered among many he encountered.
In 1415 Gendun Drup met Tsongkhapa, founder of the Gelugpa school, and became his student; their meeting was of decisive historical and political significance as he was later to be known as the 1st Dalai Lama.
When eventually Tsongkhapa’s successor the Panchen Lama Khedrup Je died, Gendun Drup became the leader of the Gelugpa. He rose to become Abbot of Drepung, the greatest Gelugpa monastery, outside Lhasa.
It was mainly due to Gendun Drup’s energy and ability that Tsongkhapa’s new school grew into an expanding order capable of competing with others on an equal footing.
Taking advantage of good relations with the nobility and a lack of determined opposition from rival orders, on the very edge of Karma Kagyu-dominated territory he founded Tashilhunpo Monastery at Shigatse. He was based there, as its Abbot, from its founding in 1447 until his death.
Tashilhunpo, “Mountain of Blessings,” became the fourth great Gelugpa monastery in Tibet, after Ganden, Drepung and Sera had all been founded in Tsongkhapa’s time. It later became the seat of the Panchen Lamas.
By establishing it at Shigatse in the middle of Tsang, he expanded the Gelugpa sphere of influence, and his own, from the Lhasa region of Ü to this province, which was the stronghold of the Karma Kagyu school and their patrons, the rising Tsangpa dynasty.
Tashilhunpo was destined to become Southern Tibet’s greatest monastic university with a population of 3,000 monks.
Gendun Drup was said to be the greatest scholar-saint ever produced by Narthang Monastery and became “the single most important lama in Tibet.” Through hard work he became a leading lama, known as “Perfecter of the Monkhood”, “with a host of disciples”.
Famed for his Buddhist scholarship he was also referred to as Panchen Gendun Drup, “Panchen” being an honorary title designating “great scholar”. By the great Jonangpa master Bodong Chokley Namgyal he was accorded the honorary title Tamchey Khyenpa meaning "The Omniscient One", an appellation that was later assigned to all Dalai Lama incarnations.
At the age of 50, he entered meditation retreat at Narthang. As he grew older, Karma Kagyu adherents, finding their sect was losing too many recruits to the monkhood to burgeoning Gelugpa monasteries, tried to contain Gelug expansion by launching military expeditions against them in the region. This led to decades of military and political power struggles between Tsangpa dynasty forces and others across central Tibet.
To ameliorate these clashes, from his retreat Gendun Drup issued a poem of advice to his followers advising restraint from responding to violence with more violence and to practice compassion and patience instead. The poem, entitled Shar Gang Rima, "The Song of the Eastern Snow Mountains", became one of his most enduring popular literary works.
Although he was born in a cattle pen to be a simple goatherd, Gendun Drup rose to become one of the most celebrated and respected teachers in Tibet and Central Asia. His spiritual accomplishments brought him substantial donations from devotees which he used to build and furnish new monasteries, to print and distribute Buddhist texts and to maintain monks and meditators.
At last, at the age of 84, older than any of his 13 successors, in 1474 he went on foot to visit Narthang Monastery on a final teaching tour. Returning to Tashilhunpo he died “in a blaze of glory, recognized as having attained Buddhahood”.
His mortal remains were interred in a bejeweled silver stupa at Tashi Lhunpo Monastery, which survived the Cultural Revolution and can still be seen.
Gendun Drup came to be known as the “First Dalai Lama” 104 years after he died. There had been resistance, since first he was ordained a monk in the Kadampa tradition and for various reasons, for hundreds of years the Kadampa school had eschewed the adoption of the tulku system to which the older schools adhered.
Tsongkhapa largely modelled his new, reformed Gelugpa school on the Kadampa tradition and refrained from starting a tulku system. Therefore, although Gendun Drup grew to be a very important Gelugpa lama, after he died in 1474 there was no question of any search being made to identify his incarnation.
Despite this, when the Tashilhunpo monks started hearing what seemed credible accounts that a incarnation of Gendun Drup had appeared nearby and repeatedly announced himself from the age of two, their curiosity was aroused.
It was some 55 years after Tsongkhapa’s death when eventually, the monastic authorities saw compelling evidence that convinced them the child in question was indeed the incarnation of their founder. They felt obliged to break with their own tradition and in 1487, the boy was renamed Gendun Gyatso and installed at Tashilhunpo as Gendun Drup’s tulku, albeit informally.
Writings
• Sunlight on the Path to Freedom, a commentary on Abhidharma-kosa;
• Crushing the Forces of Evil to Dust, an epic poem on the life and liberating deeds of Gautama Buddha;
• Song of the Eastern Snow Mountain, a poem dedicated to Je Tsongkhapa;
• Praise of the Venerable Lady Khadiravani Tara, an homage to Tara.
Main disciples
• Khedrub Norzang Gyatso
• Chokyi Shenyen
• Monlam Pelwa
• Chokyi Gyeltsen
• Lekpai Lodro
• Lodro Rinchen Sengge
• Lobzang Nyima
Sources
• https://en.wikipedia.org
• https://treasuryoflives.org/biographies
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