The Treasury of Lives

Ngawang Tendar (ngag dbang bstan dar), also referred to as Tendar Lharampa (bstan dar lha rams pa; Ch. 丹达拉然巴), was born in Duomai (多麦), in the Alashan region (Tib. A lag sha; Ch. 阿拉善; Mon. Alašan ayimaɣ) of Inner Mongolia in Nianggawa (娘噶哇), in 1759. An alternate birth year of 1751 is sometimes given.

At a young age he studied extensively the various fields of knowledge (rig pa'i gnas). He traveled far from home, enduring hunger and cold and other difficulties to reach Lhasa, where he trained at Gomang (sgo mang) college of Drepung Monastery ('bras spungs). There he pursued the standard scholastic curriculum, which included study of sūtras, Madhyamaka philosophy, Prajñāpāramitā, the Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya, Vinaya, and pramāṇa.

At the age of thirty, during the Monlam Chenmo (smon lam chen mo), the annual New Year festival in Lhasa, he underwent his final examinations. His biography reports that he fearlessly debated thousands of monks. His voice “bellowed like a lion's roar” (seng ge'i nga ro bsgrags). As a result of his performance in oral debate, he was awarded the highest qualification in the Geluk system, geshe lharampa (dge bshes lha rams pa). His fame as a scholar grew, and he was given the honorific epithet Tendar Lharampa.
 
Ngawang Tendar received oral instructions from the leading scholars in Lhasa, including Longdol Lama Ngawang Lobzang (klong rdol bla ma ngag dbang blo bzang, 1719-1794) and Kachen Yeshe Gyeltsen (dka' chen ye shes rgyal mtshan, 1713-1793), the preceptor (yongs 'dzin) of the Seventh Dalai Lama, Kelzang Gyatso (ta la'i bla ma 07 bskal bzang rgya mtsho, 1708-1757). Ngawang Tendar's Collected Works reports that the latter provided him with many empowerments (dbang), oral scriptural transmissions (lung), and secret transmissions (man ngag). His main teacher for “conventional subjects” (tha snyad rig gnas) was Longdol Lama, who instructed him in poetics (snyan ngag) and grammar and spelling (sum rtags).
 
Ngawang Tendar gained renown as a debater and teacher. In 1791, the iron pig year of the thirteenth sexagenary cycle, when he was thirty-one, he was appointed abbot of Drepung Gomang College. Following his tenure there, he returned to Mongolia and settled at Ganden Mipam Choling (dga' ldan mi pham chos gling; Ch. Mipang Qulin 弥旁曲林) which is also known as Gedrub Ling (dge sgrub gling; Ch. Gezhulin 格珠林) at Alasha Monastery (a lag sha'i g.yon dgon; Ch. Alashan zuo si 阿拉善左寺). He concentrated on exposition, debate, and writing and reorganized the curriculum of the monastery based on these subjects. He was particularly interested in poetics and examined the purported interruption of the instruction lineage of the Tibetan Mirror of Poetry Treatise (bod kyi snyan ngag gi bstan bcos me long), the Tibetan translation of Dandin's Kāvyādarsa. At the time it was believed that the Kāvyādarsa had disappeared in Tibet, and Ngawang Tendar hoped to locate a copy. Having done so he is credited with reviving the study of Sanskrit poetics in Tibet.
    
During his stay in Mongolia he had an experience that called into question the value of his singular focus on scholarship. His elderly mother asked him to explain the verses of her daily prayer:

     I respectfully bow down to the lotus feet of Tārā,
     Who is worshipped with the crown jewels
     Of 100 companion deities: Indra, Brahmā, the guru of gods, Ganeśa,
     Viṣṇu, Sūrya, and so forth.

Ngawang Tendar could not provide any more than a cursory response that it was “a prayer to Mother Tārā.” His mother was unimpressed. She pointed out that he had attained the highest educational level in one of the greatest seats of learning in Tibet. Much like a modern parent whose college graduate child has difficulty explaining his or her subject, she questioned the quality of his education: "Have you not completed the monastic education and received the geshe lharampa degree?" she asked? "Even our household officiant ('u tshang gi a  mchod) can provide a full explanation of the meaning of this passage. Even I understand it!"
    
His mother then offered a word-by-word exegesis of the prayer, which embarrassed the renowned scholar. His biography reports that he came to recognize the limitations of a purely academic approach to the dharma. Nevertheless, he later composed a treatise to explain it, indicating that he was not turning away from scholarship altogether. The work is titled Ornamental Gem for the Crown Jewel of the Wise: Explanation of the "Crown Jewel of the Wise, Praise of Tārā" (sgrol bstod mkhas pa'i gtsug rgyan gyi rnam bshad mkhas pa'i gtsug nor gyi phra rgyan).

At age fifty-one Ngawang Tendar traveled to Labrang Tashikhyil (bla brang bkra shis 'khyil). There he heard lectures on all three chapters of the Mirror of Poetry by Dorampa Lhazhe (rdo rams pa lha zhe) from Pelpung Monastery (dpal spungs), an important Kagyu institution in Derge (sde dge). He mastered the text and excelled in a written examination (rtsom snyugs) on the subject.

Ngawang Tendar subsequently resided at  Kumbum Jampa Ling (mdo smad sku 'bum 'jams pa gling) for a number of years. After this he traveled to Beijing, where he taught at Yonghegong (雍和宫), the main Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhist center in the Chinese capital. He lectured on various aspects of Buddhist doctrine and composed a treatise on the origins of the tea ceremony (ja mchod 'grel rtsom pa'i dus su ja'i 'byung khungs). He relied on a number of Chinese reference works for this purpose.

Ngawang Tendar's biography characterizes him as a hard worker and a stern teacher. It quotes his Banquet of Worldly Ethics (bslab bya'i mi chos dga' ston) chastising his students:"Half of your lives are spent sleeping. You try to devote the other half to eating and drinking. The rest of my disciples waste their time babbling about nothing. How wonderful! They are spoiled; how can they not be ashamed?"\

His written works included comparative analyses (zhib bsdur) of treatises by past scholars in various fields, including poetry, literature (brda sprod rig pa), and philosophical scriptures (gzhung). He also composed philosophical critiques (dgag sgrub), poetry, and treatises on grammar and literature. Most of his written works are extant. His biographers state that his compositions are generally concise and use fewer words (tshig nyung) than most such texts, but they are nonetheless replete with condensed meaning (don 'dus pa).

The lectures ('chad) he gave to his students, his philosophical debates (rtsod), and his composition (rtsom) of scholarly works are regarded as his main legacy. The list of his written works comprises thirty-seven entries; they include treatises on philosophy, grammar and spelling, explanations of ancient Tibetan terms, orthographies, and poetics. They were carved on wood blocks at Kumbum. Ngawang Tendar wrote important treatises on grammar and epistemology, including an erudite commentary on Dignāga’s Investigation of the Percept (Ālambana-parīkṣā), entitled Beautiful String of Pearls: A Commentary on Investigation of the Percept (dmigs pa brtag pa'i 'grel pa mu tig 'phreng mdzes).