Pakpa Lodro Gyeltsen ('phags pa blo gros rgyal mtshan)

Pakpa Lodro Gyeltsen ('phags pa blo gros rgyal mtshan) was born in 1235 in Ngari (mnga' ris) into the illustrious Khon ('khon) family that had recently established themselves at Sakya in Tsang. His father was Sonam Gyeltsen (bsod nams rgyal mtshan, 1184-1239), the younger brother of the great scholar Sakya Paṇḍita Kunga Gyeltsen (sa skya pan di ta kun dga' rgyal mtshan, 1182-1251), who is commonly referred to as Sapan. His mother was Kunga Kyi (Kun dga' kyid).

In 1244 Pakpa and his younger brother Chana Dorje (phyag na rdo rje, 1239-1267) traveled to the Mongol court of Godan Khan, the son of the Mongol leader Ogodei, with their uncle Sakya Paṇḍita. As Goden was in Yunnan at the time, they did not meet until 1247. Tibetan historians have it that Sapan went to Mongolia to serve as religious

preceptor, but it is more likely that he was summoned to serve as proxy for a Tibetan acceptance of Mongolian rule. Some scholars have speculated that Pakpa and his brother, the heirs to the Khon family, accompanied their uncle as hostages. However, it is more likely that they went along simply as disciples and attendants to their teacher and uncle.

Like his uncle Pakpa was fully ordained, having received his vows from Sapan the year they left for Mongolia. He was given his initial instruction in the Vinaya from Sherab Sengge (she rab seng gye).

Pakpa remained in Mongolia after the death of his uncle in 1251. Godan's influence was on the wane, having lost succession first to his brother Guyug and again in 1251 to his cousin Mongke. In 1253 Mongke's brother, Khubilai invited Pakpa to his newly built city of Kaiping (latter known as Shangdu), presumably in part because he

believed the Tibetan Buddhist lama could help justify the Mongol's rule of China. In fact the invitation had been for Sapan, but Pakpa went in his place. In 1254, on his way to meet the Khan, Pakpa went on a teaching tour in Kham where he visited various monasteries, converting several, including Dzongsar (dzong gsar) and Jyegu Dondrub Ling (skye dgu don grub gling) from Bon to the Sakya tradition.

Once Pakpa was settled at Khubilai's court, he gained a significant degree of influence and authority. Beginning in 1258 Pakpa performed Buddhist initiations and empowerments for the Khan and, in that same year, participated in a debate with leading Daoists. According to Tibetan historians Khubilai judged him to be the winner, a victory moved the Khan to burn Daoist texts and force prominent Daoists to convert to Buddhism.

Despite this incident, Khubilai was, like his predecessors, an ecumenical ruler who surrounded himself with religious leaders of many traditions, including other Tibetans. Pakpa, however, had a unique position in regards

to both Mongols and Tibetans and was therefore particularly suited to form an alliance with Khubilai. Having been raised in Goden's court, Pakpa was intimately familiar with Mongol values and culture. He was also well known and highly esteemed among Tibetan Buddhists, as the nephew of Sapan and a member of the powerful Khon family.

In 1259 a succession struggle in Mongolia resulted in the fragmentation of the Mongolian Empire, and Khubilai, who was then in charge of the Chinese territories, turned his focus entirely to the conquest of the Song Empire. In 1260 Khubilai appointed Pakpa national preceptor (guoshi 國師). The young monk had spent the previous years

initiating Khubilai into Hevajra and Mahākāla maṇḍalas, but again, until the appointment, Pakpa was one of several lamas courted by Khubilai. Now, however, Khubilai saw lamas who had supported his opponents as enemies. He had Karma Pakshi, the Second Karmapa (1204-1287), who had established relations with his rival for control of

Mongolia, arrested and burned on a stake. (According to legend, after three days of flames had left him unharmed everyone gave up, and the lama was banished to Yunnan, to return to central Tibet a decade later much reduced in influence.)

Pakpa developed a close relationship with the Khan and a particular affinity with his wife Chabi, who biographical accounts describe as an extremely fervent and faithful Buddhist disciple. Khubilai abolished the

appanage system that Mongke had established decades earlier, and made the Sakya the (nominal) ruler of the entire country. The national preceptor was made chief of the administrative offices that were to oversee the territory, the Bureau of Tibetan and Buddhist Affairs, the Xuanzhengyuan (named after the hall in which the officials were received).

According to one Sakya history of Pakpa's tenure in the Xuanzhengyuan, the Emperor initially intended to raise a tax on Tibetan monasteries and initiate a draft of Tibetans into corvée labor. Pakpa is said to have protested, insisting that Tibet's resources would be overstrained by the taxes and draft and threatening to leave the court and return to Tibet. Tibet is said to have thereby been spared the burden of tax and corvée.

In 1264 Khubilai Khan sent Pakpa and his brother back to Tibet to convince Tibetans to accept Mongol rule. Pakpa brought along with him the famous Jasa Mutik ('ja' sa mu tig), the “Pearl Edict” which Sakya historians incorrectly claim granted Pakpa control of Tibet; in fact it only exempted Sakya from taxes and corvée, something

that Khubilai was giving to other sects as well. Tibetan historians have also claimed the earlier document has as having granted Sakya lordship over the thirteen myriarchies, but since these were not established until the census of 1268, this is clearly mistaken.

The roles that Pakpa and Chana Dorje were expected to play remain unclear, and in any case their supposed authority over Tibet was consistently challenged by Drigung Monastery ('bri gung dgon). Chana Dorje passed away in 1267, and, whatever the original plan had been, the abbot of Sakya, Shākya Zangpo (shAkya bzang po, d. 1270),

who had run the monastery since Sakya Paṇḍita left, was given the newly created office of Ponchen (dpon chen), and given civil and military authority over all of Tibet. The office of Ponchen was subordinate to the national preceptor. The refusal of Drigung to accept the arrangement forced Khubilai to send in troops to enforce Sakya

control, and within a year Mongol control of Tibet was restored. Soon after, a census was conducted, a postal system was devised, taxes were imposed and a Tibetan militia was formed – all under Mongol direction. The system

of governance devised for Tibet would consist of a State Preceptor (Pakpa being the official first), who was in charge of Buddhists throughout the empire as well as in Tibet (but who would live in China) and an a second Mongol-appointed official, the Ponchen, who would live in Tibet and administer the region more directly. This system was in place for the next eighty years.

Pakpa wrote about the appropriate relationship between a king and religious rulers, helping to bolster Mongol imperial authority. He also identified Khubilai Khan as Mañjuśrī, the bodhisattva of wisdom and encouraged the identification of Khubilai as a cakravartin or Universal Emperor. Pakpa helped incorporate Buddhist rituals into

the Yuan court, which competed with but did not replace traditional Chinese Confucian court rituals. It seems that Pakpa's efforts helped Tibetans to see Khubilai Khan as a universal ruler in the Buddhist sense, and as the legitimate Emperor of China. Pakpa and Khubilai Khan also deepened their relationship through marriage alliances; Pakpa's younger brother, nephew, and grandnephew all married Mongol princesses.

Pakpa's collected works fill three volumes and he is credited with having developed the theory of Buddhist ruler-ship that delineated mutually dependant spheres of secular and religious authority. This model, which he and Khubilai were meant to embody as cooperative religious and secular rulers, was purportedly worked out with the

aid of Khubilai's wife Chabi. She settled a dispute between the two men early on in their relationship when neither was content to acknowledge the other as holding a higher position. This arrangement was ritually represented by Khubilai sitting on a lower throne when receiving teachings from Pakpa, and Pakpa sitting on a lower throne when Khubilai conducted court business.

Pakpa was able to use the power and other resources of his position to further his uncle's scholarly and cultural projects. With the aid of the Sakya Ponchen, Pakpa had the Lhakhang Chenmo (lha khang chen mo) built at Sakya, effectively transforming the Khon family estate into what is commonly known as Sakya Monastery. Pakpa and his successors established Sakya as a center of scholarly activity. They sponsored the translation of poetry,

literature, and metrics. Sapan is credited with having had established the study of the five sciences across Tibet, and Pakpa maintained the momentum through his writing and polemics. It was also largely thanks to Sakya influence that Sanskrit poetry became the basis of high literary culture during their time.

In 1270 Pakpa returned to China to receive the title of Imperial Preceptor (dishi 帝師), a title that is generally considered, at least in part, to have been a response to his invention of the short-lived imperial script. The following year Khubilai declared the establishment of the Yuan Dynasty, with its capital at Dadu

(modern Beijing). He spent the next few years in semi-retirement, returning to Sakya in 1274. There he convened a council of lamas at Chumik Ringmo (chus mig ring mo), known as the Chumik Chokor (chu mig chos 'khor), ostensibly for religious discussions, but probably to persuade the various traditions' leaders to accept Mongol-Sakya rule. It was a fruitless effort if that was its purpose, as Drigung continued to resist.

In 1280, the year after Khubilai conquered the remnants of the Song, Pakpa died at Sakya, allegedly poisoned by an unpopular Ponchen.