The Life of Zanabazar: The First Bogd Gegeen of Mongolia

by Don Croner

Chapter 4

Zanabazar's First Trip to Tibet

(Unedited: Work in Progress. Last Updated September 10, 2008)

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In late 1649, the Earth Female Buffalo Year of the 11th Rabjung according to the Kalachakra calendar, Zanabazar would have been fourteen years old, his childhood over and his adolescence about to begin. Since the age of four, when he had been named the Bogd Gegen at Shireet Tsagaan Nuur, he had been taught by the very best religious teachers available in Mongolia, but he must have been aware that if he wished to proceed further on the religious path and aspire to be a leader of Buddhism in Mongolia he would have to continue his studies in Tibet, the wellspring of Buddhism as practiced in Mongolia and the home of the Dalai Lama, the acknowledged leader of the Faith. Thus the decision was made that he should travel to Tibet and meet with the 5th Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso.,

Since Zanabazar had overseen the founding of Baruun Khuree-or Shankh, as it later became known-just two years before it is possible that he was in residence there just before he began his sojourn to Tibet. If so he had a considerable journey ahead of him. From the gateway of current-day Shankh Monastery to the gateway of the Jokhang Dratsag, the oldest and most venerated temple in Lhasa, is a distance of 1394.4 miles as the crow flies. Since Zanabazar and his party planned to stop at the Kumbum Monastery, near Khökh Nuur (Qinghai Lake), the traditional half-way point and rest stop on the Mongolia-Tibet caravan route, the distance would have been greater-761.4 miles to Kumbum, and 747.2 miles from here to Lhasa, for a total of 1508.6 miles. Of course these are straight line distances. The actual caravan route, with all its twists, turns, and detours to notable monasteries and other pilgrimage sites might well have been 2000 miles or more. All this distance would have to be covered by horse or camel. The fastest trip on record on the traditional caravan between Mongolia and Lhasa was completed by the famous Buryat lama Agvan Dorzhiev in 1900-1901. Leaving Ulaan Baatar (then Urga) on December 5, 1900 on an urgent diplomatic mission to the 13th Dalai Lama, Dorzhiev and his party had traveled day and night and arrived in Lhasa seventy-two days later. Normal caravans took four or five months, however, and Zanabazar's trip, with his no-doubt sizable and cumbersome entourage and requisite visits to Mongol princes and Buddhist notables along the way may have taken six months or more.

Zanabazar left Mongolia late in 1649, the exact day and month unknown. Nor do we know the exact route he took. There were several caravan tracks to Tibet, but if he took the traditional Shar Zam (Yellow Road) to Tibet he would have veered slightly west from Shankh through what is now Bayankhongor Aimag. Perhaps he stopped at the oasis of Ekhin Gol, then as now one of the main watering holes in south Bayankhongor, before crossing the last ridges of the Gobi-Altai Range just west of 8,755 foot Segs Saikhan Bogd Uul and starting across the dreaded Black Gobi, the most difficult part-mainly because of the lack of water-of the whole journey. From Ekhin Gol to Anhsi, the first sizable Chinese town on the southern edge of the Gobi usually took about twenty days by camel. Then the party would have turned southeast, crossing the Tulai Nan Shan and Datong Shan mountains and skirting the northern shore of Khökh Nuur before arriving at Kumbum Monastery, located in a narrow valley seventeen miles southwest of the present-day city of Xining. Here the party took a lengthy break.

Even then Kumbum (also know as Ta'er Monastery) was regarded as one of the six most important monasteries of the Gelugpa sect to which the Dalai Lama belonged. It was on the site of Kumbum that Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelugpa sect, was born in 1357. According to tradition, after Tsongkhapa's was born his father buried his afterbirth here, and soon a sandalwood tree grew on the spot. An alternative tradition states that the tree grew up where drops of blood from Tsongkhapa's umbilical cord had fallen on the ground. In any case, this tree became known as the "Tree of Great Merit." The leaves and the bark of this tree were reputed to bear impression of the Tibetan alphabet and various mystical syllables and its blossoms were said to give off a peculiarly pleasing scent. After Tsongkhapa had achieved great renown as a lama his mother apparently had a chorten built on the site of his birthplace, and a monastery grew up around this.

In the 1583 the Third Dalai Lama, Sonam Gyatso, who had initiated Zanabazar's great grandfather into Buddhism, came to Kumbum and built a fence built around the "Tree of Great Merit" He also established a college of dialectics which greatly enhanced the already considerable reputation of the monastery. Subsequent Dalai Lamas, including the Seventh, the Thirteenth, and the present Fourteenth (who was born not far away) all spent time at Kumbum. It remains to this day one of chief pilgrimage and tourist attractions in Qinghai Province.

Zanabazar would certain have seen the Tree of Great Merit, which existed up until at least the 1840s, when it was observed by two to Catholic missionaries, Huc and Gabet. Devout Christians, they were fully prepared to debunk the Tree of Great Merit as just another fanciful legend. "We were filled with an absolute consternation of astonishment," Huc noted in his famous book Travels in Tartary, "at finding that, in point of fact, there were upon each of the leaves well-formed Tibetan characters . . . Our first impression was a suspicion of fraud on the part of the lamas; but after a minute examination of every detail, we could not discover the least deception." The tree later died but parts of it are now preserved in a large stupa in the Great Golden Temple, where thousands and thousand of prostrating pilgrims over the years have worn deep grooves in the wooden floor.

Unfortunately we know nothing more about Zanabazar's stay in Kumbum. Pozdneev, on the basis of traditional Mongolian sources, states only that they "wintered, according to custom" here. In early spring he and his party continued on their way. Did they stop just south of Khökh Nuur at Thegchen Chonkhor Ling, built by the 3rd Dalai Lama on the site where he converted the Altan Khan to Buddhism? Again we don't know. Nor do we know what route they took to Lhasa. Indeed, although most if not all routes would have taken them to Lhasa first, accounts of Zanabazar's Tibet trip pick up the story with his arrival in Shigatse, home of the Panchen Lama, 190 miles up the Tsango Valley from Lhasa.

Tashilhunpo Monastery had been founded in 1447 by one of the main disciples of Tsongkhapa, Gendun Drup, who had posthumously been given the title of First Dalai Lama. At the time of Zanabazar's arrival in Shigatse the head of Tashilhunpo was Losang Chökyi Gyeltsen (1570-1662). This distinguished lama had begun studying at Tashilhunpo when he was seventeen and became abbot of the monastery at the age of thirty-one. In 1604 he journeyed to Drepung Monastery in Lhasa and served as the tutor and ordinator of the 4th Dalai Lama Yönten Gyatso. After the 4th Dalai Lama passed away in 1616 Losang Chökyi Gyeltsen led the search for his reincarnation and was instrumental in choosing Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso as the 5th Dalai Lama. He gave the young Dalai Lama his novice ordination in 1625 and his full ordination in 1638, and became his principal teacher. Later, when the Fifth Dalai Lama achieved both spiritual and temporal control of Tibet he declared that Losang Chökyi Gyeltsen was a manifestation of the Buddha Amitabha. Since an abbot of Tashilhunpo was traditionally known as a Panchen ("great scholar") the Dalai Lama gave Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso the official title of Panchen Lama and also recognized as Panchen Lamas a line of three previous incarnations leading back to Khedrup Je, one of Tsongkhapa's two chief disciples. Thus Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso became the 4th Panchen Lama, according to some reckonings, but still considered the first by many..

By declaring that Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso was a manifestation of the Buddha Amitabha, while he himself was the manifestation of the bodhisattva Chenresig-a potential Buddha only-the Dalai Lama gave cause for some to consider that the Panchen Lama was in fact superior to the Dalai Lama. This idea would eventually cause considerable mischief in the political life of Tibet and continues to do so up to the present day, with the supposed superiority of the Panchen Lama still being exploited for overtly political purposes.

It is indicative of the Panchen Lama's importance even during the lifetime of Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso that Zanabazar immediately upon arrival in Tibet traveled to Shigatse to met him. Zanabazar made "a thousand-fold offering" to the Panchen Lama and presented tea and gifts of money to the monks of Tashilhunpo. Then the Panchen Lama gave him a Getshul ordination and numerous teachings and initiations, including apparently a Yamantaka Initiation. Then it was time to go back to Lhasa and met with the 5th Dalai Lama.