BUDDHISM IN THE TIBETAN CULTURAL AREA 285The curriculum as a whole was an attempt to recreate the atmosphere of
the great Indian universities. The student body in each university was divided
into two debating teams, which were encouraged to be ruthless in their attack
of each other's positions. The course of study would culminate in several years
of review before the student would attain his geshe (dse-bshes, Refined Knowl-
edge) degree and participate in a final debating contest. This contest ultimately
grew into a major national event, with each year's winner becoming a na-
tional hero.
Throughout the course of study, the monks also pursued preliminary
Tantric practices. Only after the completion of their studies, however, were
they allowed to pursue higher Tantric practices on full-scale retreats.
Tsongkhapa insisted on strict adherence to the monastic discipline throughout
the course of the practice. Although he did not deny the possibility that one
might be able to pursue the Tantric Path with a partner, he set out a strin-
gent-virtually impossible-list of qualifications that both partners would
have to fulfill if they did not want their practice to lead them to hell. As a re-
sult, his followers for the most part stuck to celibate Tantrism.
Tsongkhapa's program was so distinctive that it developed into a new
school, the Gelug (dGe-lugs, Virtuous Ones), and became so popular that it
took over the Kadam school and in effect replaced it. His program influenced
studies in the other major schools as well. The curriculum he set out remained
unchanged until Lhasa fell to the Chinese in the middle of the twentieth cen-
tury, and is still followed in Gelug monasteries scattered throughout the world.
When Tibetan Buddhism spread to Mongolia and Siberia in later centuries,
the Gelug curriculum formed the heart of the movement. Although it suc-
ceeded in producing a line of brilliant scholars and academicians, it put a freeze
on creativity in Tibetan monastic academic circles. In the later centuries of
Tibetan Buddhism, which we will touch on in the following, the creative im-
pulse tended to come from sources that found their inspiration in Longch' en
Rabjam's more eclectic approach.
11.3.4 Politics
Tibet, in inheriting the tradition of the monastic universities from India, in-
herited a logistical problem as well: how to maintain these large institutions.
Unlike the early Buddhist monks, the students at the Tibetan monasteries
could not rely simply on the alms they might gather, for in many cases they
formed enormous communities. The problem of maintaining these commu-
nities-many of which became well endowed-as stable institutions with a
minimum ofhardship and dissension became a major political issue on both
internal and external levels.
On the internal level, the primary question was how to provide for a
smooth transition in the leadership. In some of the orders, such as the Sakyas,
this problem was solved by making the highest office hereditary, passing from
uncle to nephew. In others, such as the Karmas and eventually the Gelugs, a
more innovative approach was settled on, whereby the leader, at death, would