The Treasury of Lives

Tsonawa Sherab Zangpo (mtsho sna ba shes rab bzang po) is probably the greatest of all the Tibetan Vinaya commentators. He was born in the early thirteenth century in Mon Tsona (smon mtsho sna), about thirty miles north of Tawang, in what is presently the state of Arunachal Pradesh, India. According to legend, as a child he showed little interest in anything other than the dharma, and as soon as he turned eight, he told his parents, "Time to go to the lama!" His parents tried to discourage him, but he persisted, and eventually ran away from home to the local monastery, called Zangchen (zangs chen dgon). Another version of his life story states that Tsonawa was a shepherd in his youth and that during those years various miracles occurred, so that when he went to ask the regional officer (lding dpon) of Tsona to allow him to enter the monastery, the local ruler gladly made all the arrangements.

Once at the monastery, Tsonawa was tonsured and subsequently received the novice vows under Geshe Zangchenpa (dge bshes bzang chen pa, twelfth century), an important master of the "scriptural" (gzhung pa) branch of the Kadam tradition.  He was given the name Sherab Zangpo. Around the time that he became a novice, he began to have experiences of having been a pandit in a past life, and was recognized as the incarnation of a Tripiṭaka master named Lodro Sengge (blo gros seng ge).

He began his training under Zangchenpa, studying the six main scriptures of the Kadam, and especially the four sections of the Vinaya. He then studied the Vinayasūtra of Guṇaprabha, a synoptic exposition of the entire Vinaya, mastering the text. When he was twenty, he was ordained, with Zangchenpa serving as abbot. From that point on his study and practice of the Vinaya was so scrupulous that "it was as if (the Buddha's disciple) Upāli had been reborn in the Land of Snows." One account of his life states that he began composing his commentaries around this time and describes various auspicious visions that he had when he began to write.

Tsonawa's studies went beyond the Vinaya. Zangchenpa also taught him the works of Nāgārjuna and Asaṅga, as well as the Lamrim, or "graded stages of the path" teachings of Atiśa (a ti sa) according to the scriptural branch of the Kadam. He achieved such a high level of realization from practicing these teachings that, it is said, he would regularly receive teachings from the great Indian masters in his dreams, and later, when he began to practice tantra, would visit various worlds as well.

Tradition has it that the protector deities of the monastery were the first to request him to write commentaries on the Vinaya. The gods were so impressed with his first book that they absconded with it to heaven, and he was forced to write the work a second time. His two famous Vinaya commentaries are (1) a line-by-line commentary (mchan 'grel) on the Vinaya Sūtra called Seeing it Accomplishes the Goal (mthong ba don grub), and (2) a general commentary (rnam bshad) on the same work called Rays of the Sun (nyi ma'i 'od zer). The texts -- each of which runs to over 600 pages -- are considered the most complete and lucid works on the Vinaya written in Tibet.

Tsonawa apparently also wrote works of the Lamrim genre, but these have not survived. He is, however, counted among the lineage holders in the Geluk tradition. As a result of his literary activities, Tsonawa's fame spread and Zangchen Monastery became famous as a center of learning, especially in the field of Vinaya studies. He lived to the age of seventy-two. We do not know the year he died, but it must have been after 1284 since the Blue Annals records that Lorowa (lo ro ba, thirteenth century) took novice vows under both Tsonawa and Zangchenpa in that year.  Several artifacts that are supposed to have belonged to Tsonawa -- his hat, cloak, a small statue of Maitreya, etc. -- still exist at Zangchen, which today is a Geluk monastery.  Tsonawa passed on abbacy of the monastery to Mondrapa Tsultrim Tashi (mon gra pa tshul khrims bkra shis, b. thirteenth century), who is counted as the next holder of the Lamrim lineage. Among Tsonawa's many other students, the most famous is probably Lodrak Kenchen Namkha Gyelpo (ho brag mkhan chen nam mkha' rgyal po, b. 13th century). 

Tsonawa's reincarnations are known as the Mon Tsona Tulkus (smon mtsho sna sprul sku). The thirteenth incarnation, Tendzin Jampel Wangchuk (bstan bdzin 'jam dpal dbang phyug, b. 1967) presently lives in Arunachal Pradesh, India.