The Treasury of Lives

The Sakyapa scholar-monk Taktsang Lotsāwa Sherab Rinchen (stag tsang lo tsA ba shes rab rin chen) was born in 1405, the female wood-bird year of the seventh sexagenary cycle, in Langdro Khangmar (lang 'gro khang dmar) in the Taklung (stag lung) area of Yardrok (yar 'brok). He was born into a prosperous family. His father was Dondrub Gyelpo (don grub rgyal po) and his mother was Lhamo Gyel (lha mo rgyel).

In his autobiography, written in 1470, Taktsang wrote that he had been inclined towards monastic life from childhood. When he was three years old, he took threefold refuge under the translator Kyabchok Pelzangpo (skyabs mchog dpal bzang po, 15th century) and was given the name Konchok Kyab (mkon mchog skyabs). At the age of five, he began learning praises to Tārā from his mother and basic writing from his father. Taktsang recalls tracing letters on his grandfather's chest with his finger for practice.

One day, Taktsang had been memorizing the Mañjuśrīnāmasamgīti with cousins and other neighborhood boys. After their recitations, they went to the temple and made various offerings. That night, Taktsang had a dream in which he saw Wutai Shan (ri bo rtse lnga) and ascended it as the sun was about to rise. This dream, coupled with his academic achievements (being able to remember praises and prayers by writing them just once and hearing the distilled meaning of a middle-length history and remembering it) and his experience of being brought to tears by reading the biography of Gyelse Tokme (rgyal sras thogs med, 1295-1369), were events which he took as signs to request empowerments and instructions from Gyaton Rinpoche (rgya ston rin poche, d.u.) and Chomden Chenpo (bcom ldan chen po, d.u.).

At the age of eight, he went to Tobgyel (thob rgyal) for eight years. During this time, he accomplished the recitation of the Mañjuśrīnāmasamgīti and of long dhāraṇīs, a thousand times each. He also garnered a reputation for his skill in "the nine different sports for men" (pho rtsed sna dgu), particularly calculation, calligraphy, stone-throwing, and jumping. He received the Amitayus Jetari (tshe dpag med dze tA ri'i) tantric initiation from Gyaton Sonam Chochok (rgya ston bsod nams chos mchog, d.u.). From the Khampa Choje Drakpa Zangpo (chos rje grags pa bzang po, d.u.) he requested and received the Five-Deity Red Yamāri (gshed dmar lha lnga) empowerment and combined Amitāys and Hayagrīva empowerment in the Drakma tradition(tshe rta sbrag ma).

The Select Famous Persons in Tibetan History (gang ljongs lo rgyus thog gi grags can mi sna) reports a lapse between the time Taktsang decided to take full monastic vows in order to fulfill his parents' wishes and when he actually did so. Tubten Nyima's condensed biography says he ordained "surreptitiously." Taktsang himself writes that he took full ordination before he reached twenty years of age. This fact may explain the seemingly unnecessary details later biographers give concerning the timeline of Taktsang's ordination, given that the Vinaya requires a monk to be at least twenty years old to take full monastic vows. In any event, at some point, concluding that all corners of cyclic existence were really "fiery hell pits and like nests of venomous snakes," he took full ordination from Sengge Gyeltsen Pelzangpo (sen ge rgyal mtshan dpal bzang po, d.u.), and was given the name Sherab Rinchen (shes rab rin chen).

Like many scholastic monks of his time, Taktsang embarked on a period of study that was peripatetic in terms of both geography and sectarian affiliation. From Tobgyel, Taktsang went to a monastery in Tsang called Chokhor (chos 'khor), where he studied, under Khenrab Wangchuck Dragpa Zangpo (mkhyen rab dbang phyug grags pa bzang po, 14th/15th c.), a variety of subjects: Prajñāpāramitā, Logic, Vinaya, Higher and Lower Abhidharma, commentaries on the latter four of the Five Treatises of Maitreya (byams chos sde lnga), and the three most important works of Madhyamaka: Nāgārjuna's Root of Wisdom, Candrakīrti's Entrance to the Middle, and Āryadeva's Four Hundred Stanzas on the Middle Way. He requested teachings on the generation and perfection stages of Guhyasamāja in the tradition of Nāgārjuna, and completed the appropriate number of recitations of the mantra. During his monastic debate rounds, his knowledge of the Vinaya Sūtra was apparently such that "the abbot was well-pleased and, along with his compliments, said, 'For each book you have studied, I will give you a different robe.'"

Towards the end of 1431, he left Chokhor for Drepung Monastery ('bras spungs dgon) and studied under its founder, Jamyang Tashi Pelden ('jam dbyang bkra shis dpal ldan, 1379-1449). Although this was a period of intense study, Taktsang left Drepung after six months and went to the renowned center for scholastic learning, Sangpu Neutok (gsang phu ne'u thog), where he studied under the great Sakya scholar and founder of Penpo Nalendra Monastery ('phan po na len+dra), Rongton Sheja Kunrik (rong ston shes bya kun rig, 1367-1449). He received numerous Prajñāparamitā and Vinaya teachings, as well as instructions on White Acala (mi g.yo dkar po). There, he also engaged in public debate, displaying his command of the Kachen Zhi (dka' chen bzhi), or "four important, difficult" works (Vinaya, Pramāṇa, and Hinayāna and Mahāyāna Abhidharma) upon which the first academic degree in Buddhist philosophy (bka' bzhi pa) was based. From Choje Yon Gyampa (chos rje yon rgyam pa, d.u.), he trained in Abhidharmakośa, Prajñāpāramitā, and wrote the first two chapters for a textbook on Dharmakīrti's Pramāṇavārttika.

In the autumn of 1436, Taktsang went to Zhalu (zha lu), where he met a "great scholar of scholars," Wangchuk Sonam Rinchen Pel (dbang phyug bsod nams rin chen 'phel, d.u.), from whom he requested teachings on Kālacakra. He endeavored in deep samādhi for three years, and later wrote his famous commentary on the Kālacakra in 1455, The General Meaning of the Kālacakra: The Ocean of Teachings (dus 'khor spyi don bstan pa'i rgya mtsho).

In the summer of 1437, he studied the grammar texts Kalāpa and Candrapa under Tukje Pelzangpo (thugs rje dpal bzang po, 14th c.) at Pelding (dpal sdings) in Shab, located between Sakya and Shigatse. Taktsang writes that he would study the Candrapa in the mornings and Kalāpa in the afternoons. He found that he had little natural aptitude for understanding the texts "aside from any latent karmic dispositions." He ultimately mastered them both, though, along with all five fields of traditional learning (rig gnas lnga). By winter, he had returned to Chokhor where he took up further study of poetics, metrics, and etymology.

In the Select Famous Persons in Tibetan History (gang ljongs lo rgyus thog gi grags can mi sna), Taktsang is also called the direct disciple of the famed literary and Sanskrit scholar Nartang Lotsāwa Sanghaśrī (snar thang lo tsA ba san+g+ha shrI, 14th/15th c.), although it is not clear when they would have met. However, this relationship might help to account for Taktsang's own accomplishment in these fields, as Nartang (snar thang) was also an important center for the study of literary arts.

Taktsang is perhaps best known for his critique of Tsongkhapa's (tsong kha pa blo bzang grags pa, 1357-1419) interpretation of Madhyamaka philosophy, specifically Tsongkhapa's Madhyamaka-Pramāṇika synthesis. In his Eighteen Great Burdens of Contradiction ('gal ba'i khur chen bco brgyad), Taktsang rejected Tsongkhapa's argument that the system of valid cognitions as elaborated by Dignāga and Dharmakīrti is compatible with the Madhyamaka thought of Nāgārjuna, especially as interpreted by Candrakīrti. For Taktsang, the notion that we can understand the truth of the conventional world through the use of valid cognition flew in the face of Madhyamaka thought. Moreover, he claimed that idea that the valid cognition which analyzes conventional truth is the same as the part of the Buddha's gnosis which perceives the conventional world was heretical and was the source of Tsongkhapa's contradictions. He therefore argued that logic (pramāṇa) did not belong to the "inner science," or Buddhism. Like medicine, grammar, and the arts, logic, he argued, was a discipline shared by Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike but was not a religious tool. It was incompatible with the doctrine of emptiness as the final nature of reality.

This critique fueled debates for centuries, with responses from scholars such as the Fourth Paṇchen Lama, Lobzang Chokyi Gyeltsen (paN chen blo bzang chos kyi rgyal mtshan, 1570-1662), Jamyang Zhepa'i Dorje ('jam byangs bzhad pa'i rdo rje, 1648-1721), and Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo ('jam byangs mkhyen brtse'i dbang po, 1820-1892).

These responses also reflect the kind of reputation Taktsang came to have. In his doxography, The Crystal Mirror of Philosophical Systems, Tuken Losang Chokyi Nyima (thu'u bkwan blo bzang chos kyi nyi ma, 1737-1802) writes, "Taktsang Lotsāwa and others secretly wrote a great deal of literature opposing the views of Tsongkhapa, using whatever native intelligence they had" but "other disciples and grand-disciples of Tsongkhapa reduced them to ashes with a scriptural and logical deluge of diamond fire. Their own analytical limbs became bound by the tattered ropes of the negations and affirmations they propagated." Tukwan also recapitulates a Gelukpa view that upon reading Tsongkhapa more carefully, "even Taktsang Lotsāwa…had his mountain of pride cast down, and attained the faith of a dharma follower with regard to Tsongkhapa and praised him sincerely." Although these statements reflect conventions of polemical "trash-talking" as much as anything, they nevertheless indicate Taktsang's reputation among both opponents and admirers, as well as the impact his critique had for generations of Buddhist philosophers. In his collected works, the Fifth Dalai Lama Ngawang Lobzang Gyatso (ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho, 1617-1682), praises him ("Taktsang Lotsāwa was one who shunned even the mere stench of error with regard to all the traditional fields of learning") and underlines something of Taktsang's no-nonsense character with this quote pulled from Taktsang's biography: "With a full-on boastful roar, praising himself and deprecating others (though not the best method), [Taktsang] is of the Buddha's tradition, broadcasting his own feelings to the periphery without over- or understating them." 

Taktsang founded the monastery of Tsedong Rinchengang (rtse gdong rin chen sgang) and established its curriculum of tantric study. By 1466, it had garnered a following of around eighty monks. Tubten Nyima writes that, due to a request by the Yardrok myriarch, Gyelbu Lhundrub (rgyal bu lhun grub, d.u.), Taktsang established a following of around two hundred monks near the Sakya monastery Tarling Chode (thar gling chos sde) in the Taktsang region of Yardrok. The Record of Holy Places in Utsang (dbus gtsang gnas yig) specifies that Taktsang established the main assembly hall at Tarling, which was ornately decorated and included two sets of the Kangyur placed in the twentieth pillar of the hall. This site was also his main residence and included a nearby hermitage called Taktsang Meditation Cave (stag tshang sgrub phug).

Among his many direct disciples were the Geluk scholar Norzang Gyatso (nor bzang rgya mtsho, 1423-1513), noted Sanskritist Chokyong Zangpo (chos skyong bzang po, 1441-1527), and Namkha Tashi Gyeltsen (nam mkha' bkra shis rgyal mtshan, b. 1458). Also, according to his record of received teachings, Kunga Namgyel (kun dga' nam rgyal, 1432-1496) studied grammar as a kind of extracurricular subject under Taktsang, as well as the Five Treatises of Maitreya, Vasubandhu's Eight Dissertations (pra ka ra Na sde brgyad), and other texts.

Taktsang is regarded in traditional religious histories (chos 'byung) as the third member of a triad of great Sakyapa scholars consisting also of Gorampa Sonam Senge (go rams pa bsod nams seng ge, 1429-1489) and Shākya Chokden (shAkya mchog ldan, 1428-1507), a grouping that is short-handed to "Go Śāk Tak." In his history of the Sakya school, Dhongthog Rinpoche Tenpai Gyeltsen (gdong thog rin po che bstan pa'i rgyal mtshan, 1933-2015) writes that "among the great talkers of the land of snows, even the herds of philosophical cattle are thrown into doubt when they hear the mere names of these lion-like lords of speech."

Taktsang Lotsāwa died in 1477, shortly after completing his Knowing All Fields of Traditional Learning (rig gnas kun shes).