The Foundations of Buddhism

272 Traditions of Buddhism

Great Path of Mantra (sngags-rim chen-mo ), which centres on

the Kiilacakra and Guhya-samiija tantras.

The head of the dGe-lugs was officially the abbot of Gandeti

( dGa' -ldan), the original dGe-lugs monastery founded by Tsong•

kha-pa, but this position has been gradually overshadowed by

the Dalai Lamas, chief incumbents of Drepung ('Bras-spungs)

monastery. The title goes back to the sixteenth century and to

dGe-lugs relations with the Mongols, whose ruler, Altan Khan,

declared bSod-nams-rgya-mtsho, the third in a line of rein,

carnating dGe-lugs lamas, 'an ocean (Mongolian dalai) (of wis~

dom]'; bSod-nams-rgya-mtsho was thus subsequently regarded

as the third Dalai Lama. From the time of the fifth Dalai Lama,

bLo-bzang-rgya-mtsho (r612-82), the Dalai Lama has acted as

Tibetan head of state. The Dalai Lama is thus neither the for:-

mal head of Tibetan Buddhism-a kind of Tibetan Buddhist

equivalent to the Pope-nor strictly the head of the dGe-lugs-

pa school. As the head of the Tibetan government in exile and

as a teacher of great spiritual authority in his own right, the pre-

sent Dalai Lama remains a focus for the Tibetan community's

devotion and respect. Chinese troops invaded Tibet in 1950; by

1959 the Dalai Lama had little option but to flee to India. In Tibet

first the People's Liberation Army and then the Red Guard

continued the systematic destruction of Tibetan Buddhist cul-

ture involving the death of perhaps a million Tibetans and the

destruCtion of over 6,ooo monasteries.^30

Buddhist thought in Tibet

Tibetan Buddhism has not developed distinctively Tibetan tra-

ditions of Buddhist philosophy quite in the manner of Chinese

T'ien-t'ai and Hua-yen. Generally the Madhyamaka doctrine
of emptiness is regarded as the highest and final philosophical

statement of Buddhist teaching, though ideas and teachings asso-

ciated with the Y ogacara remain influential, and ·the precise
interpretation of Madhyamaka is nuanced in various ways. The
most significant philosophical debate centred on the question
of whether behind appearances there is some reality that can be
characterized as ultimately existing or not, a true 'Absolute'. The