Imperial teacher

Tibetan name
Tibetan script : ཏི་ ཤྲི་
Wylie transliteration : ti shri
Chinese name
Traditional : 帝 師
Simplified : 帝 师
Pinyin : dìshī
Wade-Giles : ti-shih

Imperial teacher ( English Imperial Preceptor; "Imperial teacher") was a monk official title in Buddhism of the time of the Mongol dynasty since Kublai Khan (Emperor Shizu). A similar office already existed in the late Xixia dynasty (the Tanguts ). In the time of the Xixia emperor Renzong (仁宗; ruled 1139–1193) there was a personality named (Chin.) Boluo Xiansheng (波 羅顯勝) with the title of (Chin.) Gongde sizheng 功德 司 正 ( cum grano salis: "Office of the guardian of merits and virtues"), who administered the religious affairs of Buddhists throughout the empire. It was institutionalized during the Mongol period. The system of the Yuan dynasty was as follows: when he ascended the throne, the emperor received Buddha's precepts / precepts ( Fojie佛戒) from a Buddhist monk , which was then the case with all other rulers of the Mongol dynasty. Kublai Khan (1215–1294) had received Buddha's commandments from Phagspa (1235–1280), Phagspa was appointed “Imperial Teacher” ( guoshi国 師 / Tibetan. Go shri གོ་ ཤྲི་) in 1260 and “Imperial Teacher” (dishi) in 1270 . From then on, all imperial teachers holding this office were members of the family branch of the Tibetan Khön Könchog Gyalpo (1034–1102) - the head of the Sakya School of Tibetan Buddhism - or students or members of the family branch of Sakya Pandita (1182–1251) and Phagspa . In the history of the Yuan Dynasty (Yuanshi) this office is reported in the first part of the biography of Shizu and in the Phagspa biography in the biographies of famous Buddhists and Daoists (Shi-Lao zhuan: Basiba) .

List of Imperial Teachers of the Yuan Dynasty

This is a list of the Yuan Dynasty (Mongolian) Imperial Teachers :

1. Phagpa
2. Rinchen Gyeltshen
3. Dharmapala Rakshita
4. Yeshe Rinchen
5. Dragpa eyelets
6. Rinchen Gyeltshen
7. Sangye Pel
8. Künga Lodrö Gyeltshen Pel Sangpo
9. Wangchug Gyeltshen
10. Künga Legpe Chungne Gyeltshen Pel Sangpo
11. Rinchen Trashi
12. Künga Gyeltshen Pel Sangpo
13. Laughter Sonam Lodro
14. Namgyel Pel Sangpo

See also

• Sakya monastery
• Sakya Trizin (Throne Holder of Sakya)
• Dalai Lama

literature

• Naihui Ma: Documents and illustrations on the social history of Tibet, China, Beijing 1995. ( chin. )
• Ruth Dunnell: The Hsia Origins of the Yüan Inscription of Imperial Preceptor (PDF; 710 kB), 1992.
• Leonard WJ van der Kuijp: Jambhala: an imperial envoy to Tibet during the late Yuan . In: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Oct. – Dec. 1993.
• Chen Qingying : Yuanchao dishi Basiba . Beijing 1992.

reference books

• Cihai . Shanghai cishu chubanshe, Shanghai 2002; ISBN 7-5326-0839-5 .

Web links

• Dizhi zhidu - Chinese
• Dishi - Chinese
• Dishi (Basiba) kaoyuan (yi, er, san, si) - Chinese (text by Zhang Yuxin张羽 新 (帝 师 考 源 On the Origin of the Imperial Preceptor))
• Sakya monastery
• Sapan, Pagba and the Unification of China - English
• Phags-pa Script: Overview - English

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The term dishi must not be confused here with that of the crown prince teacher of the Ming and Qing dynasties , who is also called dishi ( 帝 师 , dìshī ) in Chinese .
2. ↑ Which the Russian Xixia researcher Evgeni Ivanovich Kytschanow (ru) assumes that it comes from the state of Pāla (Chin. Boluo 波罗) in India , see Chen Aifeng, 陈爱峰, Yang Fuxue 杨 富 学: Xixia Yindu Fojiao guanxi kao 西夏 印度佛教 关系 考 (Research into Buddhist relations between the Tanguts (Xiaxia) and India) (found on September 22, 2009)
3. ↑ Cihai , p. 329 (The presentation of this article is partly based on this work.)
4. ↑ 元史 • 世祖 纪 一, juan 4 ( Wikisource ).
5. ↑ 元史 • 释 老 传 • 八思巴, juan 202.
6. ↑ Ma, p. 19.