Political Reasons For Suppression of The Jonangpa
Modern historians have identified two other reasons which more likely led the Gelugpa to suppress the Jonangpa. First, the Jonangpa had political ties that were very vexing to the Gelugpa. The Jonangpa, along with the Kagyupa, were historical allies with the powerful house of Tsang, which was vying with the Dalai Lama and the Gelug school for control of central Tibet. This was bad enough, but soon after the death of Taranatha an even more ominous event occurred. Taranatha's reincarnation was discovered to be a young boy named Zanabazar the son of Prince Tüsheet Khan, ruler of Central Khalkha. Tüsheet Khan and his son were of Borjigin lineage (imperial clan of Genghis Khan and his successors), meaning they had the birth authority to become Khan. When the young boy was declared the spiritual leader of all of Mongolia, suddenly the Gelugpa were faced with the possibility of war with the former military superpower of Asia. While the Mongol Empire was long past its zenith, this was nonetheless a frightening prospect and the Dalai Lama sought the first possible moment of Mongol distraction to take control of the Jonangpa monasteries.
The 14th Dalai Lama confirmed this view in Glenn Mullin's The Fourteen Dalai Lamas (Clear Light Publishers, p. 207):
- "These monasteries were closed for political reasons, not religious ones, and their closing had nothing to do with sectarianism. They had supported the Tsangpa king in the uprising, thus committing treason. The Great Fifth believed that they should be closed in order to insure the future stability of the (Tibetan) nation, and to dissuade other monasteries from engaging in warfare."
He continued,
- "The fact is that the Great Fifth passed laws outlawing sectarian skirmishes, and passed laws ensuring the freedom of religion. This freedom was extended to not only the Buddhist schools, but also to the non-Buddhist ones. For example, he kept a Bonpo lama in his entourage to speak for the interests of the Bon movement. And on a personal level, he himself practiced so many non-Gelukpa lineages that the Gelukpas criticized him for straying from his roots."
However, in The Buddha from Dolpo: A Study of the Life and Thought of the Tibetan Master Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen, scholar Cyrus Stearns details that the writings of Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen (1292–1361) and even those of Sakya proponents of zhentong were sealed and banned from publication and study, and that the Jonang monks and nuns forcibly were converted to the Gelug lineage.
Read more about this topic: Jonang
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