ABSTRACT
One of the most respected and influential religious leaders to emerge from the Second Diffusion 1 of Buddhism in Tibet was Tsong kha pa, originally known as Losang Drakpa. He is generally acknowledged to have been the founder of the dGe lugs pa, or ‘Yellow Hats’, 2 school of Buddhism, to which the fourteenth Dalai Lama belongs. In his attempt to return to the original teachings of the Buddha, and of other major Indian thinkers such as Nagarjuna, Tsong kha pa produced a comprehensive interpretation and development of Buddhist philosophy and practice. In 1409, he founded the great monastery of dGa’ldan [Ganden], where he instituted a strict monastic discipline and a high standard of academic learning and scholarship. His disciples, including Gendun Druba (retrospectively recognized as the first Dalai Lama) disseminated his teachings, and the backing by a succession of powerful Mongol Khans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries CE ensured the spiritual and political supremacy of the sect until the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1950 and the flight of the Dalai Lama, together with many of his followers, in 1959.
