The five masters of the Sakyapas
The word sakya means grey earth, and refers to an area of hillside of an unusual colour on the banks of the Trom River in Tibet which was the site of the founding of the first monastery of the Sakya order in 1073 by Khon Khonchok Gyalpo, a member of the powerful Khon family. He had studied with the great Tibetan translator Drokmi (992-1072). Drokmi was a holder of a set of teachings known as Lam Dre (path and fruit) which centre on the meditational practice of Hevajra, one of the yidams of Highest Tantra whom we shall meet in the next chapter. These Lam Dre teachings are the central focus of Sakya spiritual practice. The lineage of the Lam Dre stems from the great Indian mahasiddha Virupa (or Birwapa). He was a monk who became abbot of the Buddhist university of Nalanda. Devoting himself to Tantric practice, he spent many long years meditating single-pointedly on the Highest Tantra yidam Cakrasamvara without achieving any result whatsoever. Finally, in despair, he threw his mala - the beads on which he had counted millions of seemingly fruitless mantras - into a cesspit and decided to give up his meditation. That night, in a dream, he was approached by Nairatmya, the Tantric consort of the yidam Hevajra. She told him to go and recover his mala and wash it with perfume. He did as she instructed, and she initiated him into the mandala of Hevajra. She appeared to him again on the following nights, and soon he had gained total confidence in the Tantric teachings from his own direct experience. Having experienced the absolute truth, he no longer felt bound by social conventions. He left Nalanda singing, and then travelled from place to place teaching and helping people through the extraordinary powers he had obtained through Tantric meditation.
Virupa appeared in a vision to Khonchok Gyalpo's son, Sachen Kunga Nyingpo (1092-1158), who was the first of the 'five masters' or 'five great ones' of the Sakyapas. Kunga Nyingpo had received the entire Lam Dre teaching from his guru, but after an attack of food poisoning he found he had forgotten the instructions. As these special teachings were only passed on orally, and there was no one with whom he had direct contact who could repeat them to him, his situation was very difficult. In response to this crisis he meditated one-pointedly, invoking his guru, and was rewarded with a vision of Virupa, surrounded by four of his disciples, his dark brown body shining like a hundred thousand suns. Virupa gave him the complete teaching. Applying himself to meditation on Hevajra, Kunga Nyingpo came to equal the great Indian Tantric masters in his spiritual realization.
The second of the five masters was Kunga Nyingpo's son, Sonam Tsemo (1142-1182), who did much work in systematizing the Tantric literature. He was directly inspired by Avalokitesvara. The third of the five is his younger brother Drakpa Gyaltsen (1147-1216), a renowned scholar and yogin, who is said to have been continuously helped by the Bodhisattva Manjusri.
SakyaPandita (1182-1251), grandson of Kunga Nyingpo, is the fourth of these great gurus. He is considered an emanation of Manjusri. He was responsible for the full assimilation into Tibet of the system of logical analysis of the Indian master Dharmakirti, and in general the range of his studies and writings mark him as one of the greatest of all Tibetan Buddhist scholars. In addition to this, he was recognized as one of the greatest teachers of his generation by Godan Khan, the Mongol emperor, who invited him to his court. In Mongolia he caused Buddhist practice to become widespread. It is said that after his death he was reborn in the Pure Land of Aksobhya where he gained complete Enlightenment.
The close relationship built up by Sakya Pandita with the Mongol emperors was cemented by his nephew, Chogyal Phakpa (1235 - 1280), the last of the five masters. He conferred Hevajra initiation on Godan Khan's successor, Kublai Khan. In response, the emperor appointed Phakpa imperial preceptor - which was tantamount to being secular ruler - of Tibet. As a result, the Tibetans were ruled from the monastery at 'the place of grey earth' for nearly a century. In Tibetan Buddhist art these Sakyapa gurus are depicted in various ways. Sometimes Sakya Pandita may be the central figure with the rest of the five masters ranged around him. He is usually depicted holding the stems of two lotuses on which rest a flaming sword and a book, symbolic of his being an emanation of Manjusri, and wearing monastic robes and a red cap. Alternatively Kunga Nyingpo may be the central figure, flanked by Drakpa Gyaltsen and Sonam Tsemo (forming a group traditionally known as the Three White Ones), with Sakya Pandita and Phakpa (the Two Red Ones) below them. In such pictures Virupa will often be shown near the top of the picture, portrayed as an Indian yogin, seated on an antelope skin and pointing to the sky. This commemorates an episode in which he is said to have stopped the sun in its tracks through his yogic powers. The story is almost identical to the one we encountered earlier about Padmasambhava. Virupa plunged his phurba into the earth at the place where light and shade met, stopped the sun, and drank an alehouse dry.
