320 karénina kollmar-paulenz
Padmasambhava may well be called the leading Buddhist hero of the
snga-dar, at least judging in retrospect. ntarakita and Kamalala are
well known today as the two leading Indian masters who propagated
Buddhism during the reign of Khri-srong-lde-btsan, but even today
Padmasambhava remains the folk hero for the common people,
renowned for his ability to subdue the local demons and deities and
subjugate them as guardian deities to the new and more powerful
faith. Today in nearly every Tibetan household one will nd a statue
or thangkha of Padmasambhava, and countless tales retell his miracu-
lous deeds performed for the sake of converting the Tibetan people
to Buddhism.
6.4. The Foundation of bSam-yasbSam-yas, “Beyond imagining”, was the rst monastery to be founded
in Tibet, and the construction of this monastery marks the beginning
of organised monastic Buddhism in Tibet, as the royal edict which
proclaims Buddhism as the state religion in Tibet clearly demonstrates.
Khri-srong-lde-btsan may thus be considered the rst truly Buddhist
emperor, although later legend starts the line of Buddhist kings with
Srong-btsan-sgam-po.
According to most of the later sources the monastery was founded in
779 AD at the behest of the king by ntarakita and Padmasambhava.
The latter’s involvement, however, is not attested to in one of the oldest
accounts about the construction of bSam-yas, the dBa’-bzhed. Therefore
the active role of the master from U iyna may well belong to a later
mythological narrative.
According to tradition bSam-yas was constructed after the model of
Oda apuri (Bihar/India). A great complex of buildings was arranged
around one main temple. The Central temple with four sides oriented
to the four quarters lays down the plan of a maala. The whole com-
plex of the monastery was conceived as a symbolic representation of
the universe.^29
The most important Buddha image in the main temple (dbu-rtse-
chen-po) of bSam-yas was the meditational Buddha Vairocana, who
was present in the middle oor (bar-khang) and in the upper oor
(steng-khang), where he is presented in his form as Vairocana Sarvavid,
(^29) A concise description of bSam-yas’s appearance before 1950 gives Richardson
1998f, pp. 315–316.