the buddhist way into tibet 325
Who then won the debate of bSam-yas? Interestingly enough both
sides claimed victory for themselves. The Indian side claimed that it
was ordered by royal command that the gradual path to enlighten-
ment should be followed from then onwards. This is collaborated by
the authoritative account (bka’-mchid) of Khri-srong-lde-btsan, where
it is stated that
the accumulations of world-transcending merit and knowledge... are, in
addition to the ten virtues, the four truths, the twelve elements that arise
from the accumulation of causes, the thirty-seven principles leading to
enlightenment and the ten surpassing perfections and so on.^39The Chinese side, however, maintained that around 794 the victory of
the Chinese was af rmed by a royal decree. From the Dunhuang docu-
ments we learn that the Chinese monk Mahyna indeed left Central
Tibet and travelled to Dunhuang where he became one of the leading
Buddhist teachers of the Tibetan administration. He cannot, therefore,
have fallen into disgrace as later sources claim.
If we consider the factual results of the debate, it becomes clear
that over the centuries the doctrine of sudden enlightenment played a
vital role in various traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, notably, to name
but two, the rDzogs-chen branch of the rNying-ma-pa that teaches
the doctrine of sudden enlightenment, and the gCod tradition, the
tradition of “cutting through ego-clinging” by visualising one’s own
body as food-offering to the demons. As the notion of orthodoxy and
heterodoxy is contested in Tibetan Buddhism, due to the lack of a
central authoritative institution which decides on religious doctrines,
the theory of sudden enlightenment nowadays can be found in nearly
every Tibetan tradition, even in the dGe-lugs-pa teachings who gen-
erally follow the Indian gradual path. The dGe-lugs-pa have adopted
teachings like the gCod which adhere to the doctrine of spontaneous
enlightenment.
- The Influence of Chinese Buddhism in the SNGA-DAR Period
The doctrine of spontaneous enlightenment which is favoured by Chan
Buddhism, has never ceased to fascinate Tibetan Buddhists. The fact
(^39) mKhas-pa’i-dga’-ston, vol. 1, p. 375 (lines 3–6). The translation follows Richardson
1998g, p. 94.