Friday, June 26, 2015

King Yeshe-Ö (c. 959 - 1040 AD) & Kapisa/Od'iana

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Yeshe-Ö (c. 959 - 1040)......Yeshe-od....Yeshe O’d..... (birth name, Khor-re; spiritual names: Jangchub Yeshe-Ö, Byang Chub Ye shes' Od, Lha Bla Ma, Hla Lama Yeshe O, Lalama Yixiwo, bKra shis mgon; also Dharmaraja, meaning Noble King, Yeshe Wo) was the first notable lama-king in Tibet...... Yeshe-Ö was a monk-king born Khor-re, he is better known as Lhachen Yeshe-Ö, his spiritual name. .... He was the second king in the succession of the Kingdom of Guge in the southwestern Tibetan Plateau. The extent of the kingdom was roughly equivalent to the area of the Kingdom Zhangzhung that had existed until the 7th century..... Yeshe-Ö abdicated the throne c. 975 to become a lama. In classical Tibetan historiography, the restoration of an organized and monastic tradition of Tibetan Buddhism is attributed to Yeshe-Ö. He built Tholing Monastery in 997 when Tholing (Chinese: Zanda) was the capital of Guge. Yeshe-Ö' sponsored noviciates, including the great translator Rinchen Zangpo."

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"While Langdarma persecuted Buddhism in Tibet, his grandson, King Yeshe-Ö, who ruled the Guge Kingdom in the 10th century with Tholing as its capital, was responsible for the second revival or "second diffusion" of Buddhism in Tibet; the reign of the Guge Kingdom was known more for the revival of Buddhism than for its conquests. He built Tholing Monastery in his capital city in the 997 AD along with two other temples built around the same time, Tabo Monastery in the Spiti Valley of Northeast India and Khochar Monastery (south of Purang); both these monasteries are functional.".....Swenson, Karen (19 March 2000). "Echoes of a Fallen Kingdom".

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"Of the twenty-one individuals he sent to Kashmir to study Sanskrit, only two survived to return from the arduous journey to inform him of the great master Atisha.....One of these students later became The Great Translator Rinchen Zangpo who, through his scholarly excellence and dharma dedication together with the king’s support, helped effect what is known as the Second Great Transmission of Buddhism..... It spanned the late 10th to 12th centuries C.E.".....https://artistfulbrightindia.wordpress.com/2013/11/17/the-golden-gift-of-yeshe-od/

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"Purang-Guge kingdom was a small Western Himalayan kingdom which was founded and flourished in the 10th century. It covered parts of remote western Tibet and northern Ladakh....The original capital was at Burang (Wylie: spu hreng) but was moved to Tholing in the Sutlej canyon southwest of Mount Kailash. It was divided into smaller kingdoms around the year 1100 CE..... Tholing, at 12,400 feet (3,800 m), the last town before Tsaparang in the kingdom of Guge was then its capital, (163 miles from Darchen). It was founded by the great-grandson of Langdarma, who was assassinated, leading to the collapse of the Tibetan Empire....Buddhist monuments at both Tsaparang and Tholing are now mostly in ruins except for a few statues and scores of murals in good condition, painted in the western Tibetan style."..........Swenson, Karen (19 March 2000). "Echoes of a Fallen Kingdom".

"Tholing Monastery (or Toling, mtho lding dgon pa མཐོ་ལྡིང་དགོན་པ) (Tuolin si 托林寺) is the oldest monastery (or gompa) in the Ngari Prefecture of western Tibet. It is situated in Tholing (Zanda), Zanda County, near the Indian border of Ladakh. It was built in 997 AD by Yeshe-Ö, the second King of the Guge Kingdom. In Tibetan language 'Tholing' means "hovering in the sky forever" .... Chorten of King Yeshe Ö (Tholing (Zhada)......in Tholing (Zanda), Zanda County, near the Indian border of Ladakh. It was built in 997 AD by Yeshe-Ö, the second King of the Guge Kingdom....The temple is reported to have been reconstructed after it had been demolished by the Chinese."

".....about 1580 AD Buddhaguptanatha locates Urgyan in Ghazni, in modern Afghanistan, which is in contrast with the traditional location of Urgyan in the Swat area. Here, Taranatha gives a detailed description of the country and Dumasthira, the focal location of the magic dakini women:.....[Dumasthira]… is surrounded by mountains, valleys and dense forests and it sits in the midst of all of them. Going from east to west directly, it measures about two days’ journey and from south to north is about four days. Dumasthira is the only city in Urgyan. It’s the size of a small Indian city......There are four ways that lead out of the central area and the outer lands of Urgyan are also very extensive. It is in Muslim control, and even today, in the central part, there is not the slightest vestige of the order of Buddhist monks any longer. There are, however, groups of fully renunciate yogis, upasakas [lay people] and tirthikas [Jainas], as well as the Muslims there......It appears that most of the women of this town are of the dakini family and that they are fully accomplished in their spiritual practice. They are powerful in their exercise of mantras and they know how to both help and hinder with them. They are skilled in adopting various physical forms and they have the ability to work with the mystic gaze.....They displayed various magical abilities involving birds and my master, Buddhaguptanatha, saw these miracles with his very own eyes and he told me of them. He said that previously when he was in Upper Hor [Muslim territories]… he was fully protected by the mantras that he had received from those dakinis in Urgyan, as well as by his own physical powers. Urgyan is surrounded to the east, the south and the west by three large lakes. When he… crossed over the pass he came into the Hor Mleccha land of Balkh [northern central area of modern Afghanistan]......"Buddhaguptanatha and the Late Survival of the Siddha Tradition in India D Templeman

"Yeshe-Ö (c. 959 - 1040) (birth name, Khor-re; spiritual names: Jangchub Yeshe-Ö, Byang Chub Ye shes' Od, Lha Bla Ma, Hla Lama Yeshe O, Lalama Yixiwo, bKra shis mgon; also Dharmaraja, meaning Noble King) was the first notable lama-king in Tibet. Yeshe-Ö was a monk-king in western Tibet. Born Khor-re, he is better known as Lhachen Yeshe-Ö, his spiritual name. He was the second king in the succession of the kingdom of Guge in the southwestern Tibetan Plateau. The extent of the kingdom was roughly equivalent to the area of the kingdom Zhangzhung that had existed until the 7th century. Yeshe-Ö abdicated the throne c. 975 to become a lama. In classical Tibetan historiography, the restoration of an organized and monastic tradition of Tibetan Buddhism is attributed to Yeshe-Ö. He built Tholing Monastery in 997 when Tholing (Chinese: Zanda) was the capital of Guge. Yeshe-Ö' sponsored noviciates, including the great translator Rinchen Zangpo."......Powers, John; Templeman, David (18 May 2012). Historical Dictionary of Tibet. Scarecrow Press.

Atisha's Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment........By Geshe Sonam Rinchen

Shangri-La: A Practical Guide to the Himalayan Dream.......By Michael Buckley

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

June 2015

John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

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