Sakya Pandita
Sakya Pandita[1] Kunga Gyeltsen (Tibetan: ས་སྐྱ་པཎ་ཌི་ཏ་ཀུན་དགའ་རྒྱལ་མཚན, Wylie: Sa skya Paṇḍita Kun dga’ rgyal mtshan [1]) (1 April 1182[2] – 28 December 1251[3]) was a Tibetan spiritual leader and Buddhist scholar and the fourth of the Five Sakya Forefathers (Wylie: sa skya gong ma lnga).
[4] Künga Gyeltsen is generally known simply as Sakya Pandita (or Sapan for short), a title given to him in recognition of his scholarly achievements and knowledge of Sanskrit.
As a young monk, he visited the prominent Kashmiri scholar Śakya Śri, who ordained him as a bhikśu in 1208, and taught him sutras and mantras.
As he wanted to show his fellow Tibetans the peculiar dress of Indian Brahmin priests, he brought the Shastri to Tibet where he was killed by the protective deities of the land.
The Mongols reached the Phanyul Valley north of Lhasa, killing some 500 monks and destroying and looting monasteries, villages and towns.
[12] The Drigung Monastery was saved, ostensibly since the Mongols believed that a sudden avalanche of stones could be attributed to the supernatural powers of the lamas.
[14] Later chronicles assert that Dorta sent message to Prince Godan and enumerated the four foremost sects and lamas of Tibet: Kadam, Taklung, Drigung, and Sakya.
Godan drew the conclusion that Sakya Pandita was an important and wise lama who could show the road to salvation, and ordered to send a letter of "invitation" and presents to him.
[15] The actual reason for selecting the Sakya might have been that the sect was specialized in magic rituals that resonated with Mongol beliefs, and was prominent in spreading Buddhist morality.
It was also important that Sakya Paṇḍita was a religious hierarch by birth, and thus represented a dynastic continuity useful for the Mongol aim to rule via respected intermediaries.
[22] He chose his brother's son Chogyal Phagpa as his heir, and nominated him before his death as the successor to his religious authority by giving him his conch shell and begging bowl.
[25] Thus began a strong Sakya-Mongol alliance, and the seat or densa (Wylie: gdan sa) of Sakya became the administrative capital of Tibet in 1264.
[28][29] He is best known for his works such as the Treasury of Logic on Valid Cognition (Tshad ma rigs pa'i gter) and the Discrimination of the Three Vows (sDom-gsum rab-dbye).
[33] Sakya Pandita is also known as a critic of a certain kind of Mahamudra theory and practice called White Panacea (dkar po chig thub) or “self-sufficient white remedy.” According to Cabezon, this "is the doctrine that “the realization of the nature of mind is sufficient in and of itself to bring about spontaneously and instantaneously the simultaneous consummation of all virtuous qualities, including Buddhahood itself.”"[34] Sapan focused his critique on the figure of Gampopa (1079–1153), and his disciple, Zhang Tshal pa (1123–93).
[34] His critique was influential on numerous later figures, including the Fifth Dalai Lama (1617–82), Jamyang Shepe Dorje Ngawang Tsondrü (1648–1722) and the Second Belmang, Konchok Gyeltsen (1764–1853).
