Phyi dar
phyi dar (T. ཕྱི་དར་; pronounced "chi dar") is translated as "later dissemination," "later transmission," "later spreading of the dharma," etc. It refers to the later or second transmission of the dharma from India to Tibet.
Tibetan scholars typically discuss the transmission of Buddhist texts and doctrine from India to Tibet in terms of two great waves, or periods of transmission. The first period began during the reign of king Songtsen Gampo in the 600s CE, and lasted until the fall of the Tibetan Empire around 842. This period is referred to as the "earlier dissemination" (T. snga dar).[1]
The "later dissemination" began during the 11th century when King Yeshe O of Western Tibet became concerned with the decline of the dharma in Tibet and he sponsored new translations of Indian texts and invited the scholar-yogi Atisha to Tibet.[1]
Cortland Dahl states:
- The Buddha’s teachings regained their foothold on the Tibetan plateau one hundred years after the persecutions of Langdarma. In the middle of the tenth century, Yeshé Ö, king of a region in western Tibet called Ngari, abdicated the throne to devote his life to Buddhist practice. Aware of the setbacks Buddhism had faced in the previous century, Yeshé Ö worked to revive the spread of the Buddha’s teachings by inviting Buddhist scholars from the Indian subcontinent to his kingdom and by sending a group of Tibetan scholars to learn Sanskrit and study the Buddha’s teachings. One of them, Rinchen Sangpo (958–1051), became a skilled translator. The work initiated by Yeshé Ö and Rinchen Sangpo marks the beginning of the second phase of the transmission of Buddhism to Tibet. The lineages that were founded during and after this period are collectively referred to as the Sarma, or New Schools.
- One of Yeshé Ö’s initiatives was to invite the famed abbot of India’s Vikramashila Monastery, Atisha (982–1054), to Tibet. Atisha initially refused Yeshé Ö’s entreaties, but changed his mind once he learned that the former king had been imprisoned as a result of his efforts to spread the Buddha’s teachings in Tibet. Inspired by the former king’s dedication, he left India for Tibet and spent more than a decade in the land of snows, where he reinvigorated the monastic tradition and founded the Kadampa lineage.
- The Kadampas stressed the importance of renunciation and monastic ordination. Above all, however, Atisha and his followers are remembered for their uncompromisingly simple lifestyle and the system of mind training, or lojong, that they espoused. The Kadampa mind-training teachings present the key ethical and philosophical principles of the Buddha’s teachings in a pithy and accessible manner. Many of Tibet’s most cherished literary works stem from this tradition, including Langri Tangpa’s Eight Verses on Training the Mind and Geshé Chekawa’s Seven-Point Mind Training. Atisha’s Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment is a model for the various mind-training systems practiced throughout Tibetan Buddhism.
- Over time, the Kadampa tradition was absorbed into other lineages and ceased to exist as an independent entity.[2]
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Robert E. Buswell Jr., Donald S. Lopez Jr., The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism (Princeton: 2014), s.v. phyi dar
- ↑ Dahl 2009, Introduction.
Sources
Buswell, Robert E.; Lopez, Donald S. (2014), The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, Princeton University- Dahl, Cortland (2009), Entrance to the Great Perfection: A Guide to the Dzogchen Preliminary Practices, Shambhala