Buddhism steeply declined in Mongolia after the fall of the Mongol Empire, but it experienced a massive reconversion of Mongols to Buddhism and a cultural and artistic renaissance starting in the sixteenth century. Historian Isabelle Charleux introduces Erdeni Juu monastery, the oldest and holiest surviving Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Mongolia, founded on the ruins of the ancient imperial capital. Built in mixed Sino-Tibetan architectural style with some uniquely Mongol features, its shape and role evolved with its founders, and Mongolia’s, shifts in fortune.
The Dalai Lamas are a tulku lineage that has played a central role in Tibetan history for the last five hundred years. In 1577 a Mongol khan gave the Geluk monk Sonam Gyatso (1543–1588) the title “Dalai Lama,” combining the Mongolian word for ocean, dalai (a reference to the depth of his knowledge), and the Tibetan word for guru, lama. Later, two previous incarnations were retroactively identified. The fifth incarnation, Ngawang Gyatso (1617–1682), allied with another Mongol khan to unite most of the Tibetan Plateau, forming the Ganden Podrang government that would govern Tibet until 1959. Since the Communist takeover, the current Fourteenth Dalai Lama has lived in exile at Dharamshala in India. The Dalai Lamas are understood to be emanations of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara.
In Buddhist context, donor is a person who contributes to or commissions a religious work of art. This act is intended to increase merit on behalf of the benefactor and is dedicated to the benefit of all. It is also usually done for a specific purpose, such as longevity, prosperity, or well-being; to advance religious practice; or to ensure a good rebirth of a deceased relative, teacher, or friend. A similar practice is also known in Hinduism and Bon.
The Jibzundambas (from the Tibetan Jetsun dampa “venerable/reverend noble one”) were the most important lineage of tulkus in Khalkha Mongolia from 1639 to 1924, considered below only the Dalai Lamas and Panchen Lamas in prestige within the Geluk tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. While the Jibzundamba lineage traces its previous incarnations back to the Tibetan polymath and traveler Taranatha (1575–1634), the first formally enthroned Jibzundampa was the Mongolian prince and artist Zanabazar (1635–1723). As the Jibzundampa’s authority grew, their mobile monastery, called “the great encampment” (Mgl: yekhe khüriye), would gradually settle and develop into Mongolia’s modern capital, Ulaanbaatar. The eighth Jibzundamba ruled as khan of Mongolia from 1911 to 1924.
A monastery is a place where monks live, study, and perform ritual. It includes temples and other structures. Monasteries are central to Buddhism, and are also important in Bon, Hinduism, and Daoism. In Himalayan, Tibetan, and Inner Asian areas, some monasteries are enormous, wealthy, and powerful institutions, with branches of satellite monasteries forming networks across regions, often with thousands of monks, many decorated chapels, and huge holdings of land. Other monasteries, called hermitages, can be extremely simple, little more than a cave where hermits meditate. Generally, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery will have an assembly hall, several temples (Tib. lhakhang) for worship of specific deities, a protector chapel, as well as monks’ accommodations. A related institution in Newar Buddhism are the baha and bahi.
Stupas are monuments that initially contained cremated remains of Buddha Shakyamuni or important monks, his disciples, and subsequently other material and symbolic relics associated with the Buddha’s body, teaching, and enlightened mind. As representations of the Buddha’s presence in the world, stupas with their contents—texts, relics, tsatsas—continue to be important objects of Buddhist worship in their diverse forms of domed structures, multistoried pagodas, and portable sculptures. The original form of stupas was an earthen dome-shaped mound containing the remains in reliquary vessels or urns deposited within the innermost core. The dome would often be successively enlarged and surrounded by a path for a walk around in a clockwise direction and veneration (circumambulation)
Historically, Tibetan Buddhism refers to those Buddhist traditions that use Tibetan as a ritual language. It is practiced in Tibet, Mongolia, Bhutan, Ladakh, and among certain groups in Nepal, China, and Russia and has an international following. Buddhism was introduced to Tibet in two waves, first when rulers of the Tibetan Empire (seventh to ninth centuries CE), embraced the Buddhist faith as their state religion, and during the second diffusion (late tenth through thirteenth centuries), when monks and translators brought in Buddhist culture from India, Nepal, and Central Asia. As a result, the entire Buddhist canon was translated into Tibetan, and monasteries grew to become centers of intellectual, cultural, and political power. From the end of the twelfth century, Tibetans were exporting their own Buddhist traditions abroad. Tibetan Buddhism integrates Mahayana teachings with the esoteric practices of Vajrayana, and includes those developed in Tibet, such as Dzogchen, as well as indigenous Tibetan religious practices focused on local gods. Historically major traditions of Tibetan Buddhism are Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, and Geluk.
Erdeni Juu is the oldest extant Tibetan Buddhist monastery of Mongolia (present-day Republic of Mongolia) and its holiest , due to its prestigious origin, holy , and icons (fig. 1). It has a long history of construction and partially escaped destruction several times.
It is located in the fertile valley of the Orkhon River, which was the center of former steppe empires. Not only it is located adjacent to the ruins of , capital of the Mongol Empire between 1235 and 1260 (razed to the ground by the Ming armies in 1388), but recent excavations have revealed that it was built directly above the palace of Emperor Ögedei (r. 1227–1241), son of Chinggis Khan.
The Late Sixteenth-Century “Renaissance” of Mongol Buddhism
Abatai Khan converted to , following his cousin Altan Khan (1507/8–1582), ruler of the Tümed in Southern Mongolia (now Inner Mongolia, China), who had met Sonam Gyatso, the hierarch of the tradition, and granted him the title of in 1578. This period of massive reconversion of Mongols to was a time of cultural and artistic renaissance. In 1579–1580, Altan Khan had Chinese carpenters build a temple south of his palace of (Inner Mongolia), to house a statue of twelve-year-old Shakyamuni modeled on the Rinpoche, the holiest icon of Lhasa. The statue and the temple were known in Mongolian as “Erdeni Juu,” translating Jowo Rinpoche (“Juu” being the Mongolian pronunciation of Tibetan Jowo, “lord”). The temple, now known as Great Juu/Temple (Yekhe Juu), and its statue have been preserved (fig. 2). The Tümed monasteries developed a Chinese-style version of the large Tibetan main temple with a porch, an assembly hall, and a back shrine in one building, covered by a succession of three Chinese roofs. The back shrine is surrounded by a colonnade to allow of the main icon from the outside (fig. 3). Most of the other monasteries were itinerant, in felt tents.
Fig. 3 Main Temple of Tümed Monasteries with Porch, Assembly Hall, and Back Shrine, covered by a succession of three Chinese roofs; Inner Mongolia, China: late 16th–early 17th century; with floor plan of Yekhe Juu and photograph of Maidari-yin Juu; photograph by Isabelle Charleux
The Three Juu Temples
Following Altan Khan’s example, Abatai Khan met the , who entrusted him the mission of founding the first Khalkha monastery. He commissioned a Shakyamuni statue to enshrine a relic given by the Dalai Lama and hired Chinese carpenters from Hohhot to erect his own Erdeni Juu monastery. The clay statue we observe today replaced an older one. According to oral tradition, the statue would be an old “true portrait” of the dating from the (744–840) or its copy.
Abatai Khan settled his palatial tent on the ruins of Ögedei Khan’s palace and probably rebuilt the old walls. His temple, erected in 1586–1587, is located in the southwest corner of the square wall, maybe because the palace was in the middle (fig. 4). Erdeni Juu may first have been a tradition monastery (the school favored by the Mongol ), and converted to the Geluk tradition in the late eighteenth century.
Fig. 4. General View of Erdeni Juu Monastery; Övörkhangai Province, Mongolia; photograph taken between 1930 and 1938; image courtesy The British Library
Abatai Khan’s temple (now known as the Central Juu) is a Chinese-style two-story pavilion with bracket sets supporting a double-eaved gable and hip roof covered with green tiles, standing on a terrace (fig. 1). It reused bricks and stones from Qara-Qorum. Several Tümed temples may have inspired Abatai Khan’s construction, such as the Glazed [Tile] Hall of Maidari-yin Juu, located fifty-four miles (eighty-seven kilometers) west of Hohhot.
The Right Juu/Temple and the Left Juu/Temple, erected by Abatai’s son and grandson on either side of the Central Juu, were completed around 1630 (fig. 5). Each was a one-story pavilion with a gable and hip roof. Their original icons probably represented the Buddhas of the Past and Future Eras (Dipankara and ); around 1880 they were replaced by statues of and Shakyamuni. These statues are now said to represent Shakyamuni at two stages of his life: at eighty years and thirty-five years—flanking the twelve-year-old Shakyamuni of the Central Temple.
Fig. 5.
Plan of the Three Temples Complex, Erdeni Juu Monastery; Övörkhangai Province, Mongolia; built 1585–1630; 1. Central Temple, 2. Right Temple, 3. Left Temple, 4. Temple to the Maharajas, 5. Shrine to Avalokiteshvara, 6. Shrine to Maitreya, 7. Temple to the Maharajas, 8. Ceremonial Archway, 9. Tomb of Abatai Khan, 10. Tomb of Gombodorji, 11. Tsangpa Karpo Temple, 12. Amitayus Temple, 13. Entrance Gate; image after Brandt and Gutschow 2003
These three temples are unique in Mongolia. First, they stand in a line and face east, a configuration that is not seen in Tibet and China, but which appears to be a Mongol characteristic. A second distinction of the three temples is the presence of an inner circumambulation corridor surrounding the central shrine, as in Central Asian and Tibetan temples of the first millennium. The pilgrims’ practice of circumambulating outside Erdeni Juu’s wall and inside the corridors to worship the Juu statues recalls the concentric circumambulations around the Jowo Rinpoche at Jokhang Temple in Lhasa.
The facades and roofs of the Three Temples are decorated with Buddhist symbols ( , double , brass plaques depicting deities), formulas in Lantsa script, and Chinese decoration. Their interiors have coffered ceilings and Chinese framework with red- columns circled by dragons. Additional structures were later added in the compound, surrounded by a wall, including the square-shaped tomb- of Abatai and his son Gombodorji (1594–1655) (fig. 5).
Abatai Khan also founded the small Blue Temple (Khökhe süme, rebuilt in 1970) to house an image of donated by the Third Dalai Lama. In 1675 his grandson and heir Chakhundorji (r. 1655–1698) built the small Dalai Lama Temple with a Tibetan-style door frame (preserved).
After the death of its founder, Erdeni Juu became a funerary temple. In addition to the two tombs, it preserved mural paintings depicting Abatai Khan with his wife. Abatai Khan’s tent-palace with a capacity of three hundred people served as his ancestral shrine; it contained Abatai’s throne, armor, and weapons, and statues of his marshals (Zanabazar moved the tent-palace to Urga/Yekhe Khüriye, where it was known as the Western Palace). Erdeni Juu can be compared to Maidari-yin Juu, also a fortified palace that was progressively converted into the funerary temple of Altan Khan’s family, with a funerary stupa and a painting depicting two princesses and (fig. 6).
Fig. 6.
Detail of The Altan Khan’s Family; Back Shrine of the Main Assembly Hall, Maidari-yin Juu, Inner Mongolia, China; 18th century; image after Zhang Haibin 張海斌. 2010. Meidaizhao bihua yu caihui 美岱召壁畫與彩繪– Mayidari juu-yin qan-a-yin jirugh kiged budaghtu jirumal [Wall paintings and painted motifs of Mayidari juu]. Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2010, 98
The painting depicts Altan Khan’s heirs: his third wife Queen Jönggen (1561–1612) and probably her third husband, Chürükhe (Altan Khan’s grandson from his first wife, r. 1586–1607).
Erdeni Juu in the Qing Period
The square-shaped fortifiedwallwas rebuilt in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Made of earth with brick cladding and painted white, it encloses an area of 1,540 by 1,360 feet (470 by 415 meters), with four monumental gates opening at the four directions. Four stupas were built at the corners, and ninety-six other stupas were erected between 1730 and 1804 (the lucky number of 108 was never reached). The stupas were of different shapes and sizes but were rebuilt as identical structures around 1970 (fig. 7).
Fig. 7. Fortified Stupa Wall, Erdeni Juu Monastery; Övörkhangai Province, Mongolia; wall rebuilt 17th–18th century; 1,558 × 1,365 ft. (475 × 416 m); photograph by Isabelle Charleux
New temples were founded after the Khalkha joined the in 1691. In the nineteenth century, the site included twenty major temples and about forty smaller temples and administrative buildings (figs. 8 and 9). Fifteen hundred monks and novices lived in some five hundred and houses within wooden fences, forming quarters divided by narrow alleys. A major restoration was made from 1795 to 1798 by Chinese carpenters from Hohhot.
Fig. 8
Layout of Erdeni Juu Monastery in the early 20th century; Övörkhangai Province, Mongolia; 1. Central Juu/Temple, 2. Right Juu/Temple, 3. Left Juu/Temple, 4. Tomb of Abatai Khan, 5. Tomb of Gombodorji, 6. Tsangpa Karpo Temple, 7. Amitayus Temple, 10. Dalai Lama Temple, 12. Site of Abatai Khan tent-palace (the square shape to the west was the Tsogchin), 15. Golden Stupa, 16. Blue Temple (Khökhe süme), 18. Labrang, 23, 24, 25, 26. Gates; image after Oyunbileg, Zunduin and Oidovyn Nyamdavaa. 2016. Mongolyn arkhitektur (Mongol architecture), I. Ulaanbaatar: 53
Fig. 9 General View of Erdeni Juu Monastery; Övörkhangai Province, Mongolia; photograph taken between 1930 and 1938; image courtesy The British Library
The heart of the monastery, near the center of the complex, was the three-story assembly hall (fig. 10). Its front courtyard served for tsam dances. The main temples were dedicated to the deities , (private temple of the ), , Geser, and ; there were also six academic colleges and many stupas. Most of the buildings adopted the Chinese style and construction techniques, but their Tibetan Buddhist identity was immediately recognizable from the outside by means of symbolic elements decorating the exteriors. Their interiors did not greatly differ from those of Tibetan temples.
Fig. 10. Assembly Hall (Tsogchin), destroyed; Erdeni Juu Monastery, Övörkhangai Province, Mongolia; 1770; photograph taken between 1930 and 1938; image courtesy The British Library
About two-thirds of the structures were demolished in the antireligious persecutions of 1938 that destroyed the greatest part of the Mongolian Buddhist heritage; thirteen main temples and five smaller ones survived, but were heavily damaged. The surviving structures include the Three Temple complex, the Dalai Lama Temple, the thirty-three-foot (ten-meter) Golden Stupa flanked by smaller stupas (built in 1799), and the residence (Labrang) of the reincarnated , in the northwest, built between 1780 and 1785 (fig. 11). The Labrang is a flat-roofed, three-story building constructed of brick; its appearance is Tibetan, with decorations of dark friezes, brass mirrors, and Kalachakra mantra medallions.
Fig. 11. Labrang, Erdeni Juu Monastery; Övörkhangai Province, Mongolia; 1780–1785; photograph by Isabelle Charleux
Erdeni Juu now operates both as monastery and museum, and is registered on the heritage list of UNESCO. The Labrang (partially rebuilt) serves as the assembly hall for the Gelukpa community that revived after 1990; in addition, a yurt-temple houses the only Sakyapa community of Mongolia. Erdeni Juu enshrines two miraculous images: a small statue of the Sandalwood Buddha, said to come from India, and a stone statue of Gur Gombo (: Panjara Mahakala), special protector of the Sakya tradition. These statues have been preserved, along with paintings and liturgical objects.
Footnotes
1
All but five of the thousand monasteries of Mongolia were destroyed during the late 1930s purges of the communist period.
2
Andreas Brandt and Niels Gutschow, “Erdene Zuu: Zur Baugeschichte der Klosteranlage auf dem Gebiet von Karakorum, Mongolei,” Beiträge zur allgemeinen und vergleichenden Archäologie 23 (2003): 21–48; Niels Gutschow and Andreas Brandt, “Die Baugeschichte der Klosteranlage von Erdeni Joo (Erdenezuu,” in Dschingis Khan und seine Erben: Das Weltreich der Mongolen, ed. Claudius Müller and Henriette Pleiger (Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2005), 352–56; Udo B. Barkmann, “Die Geschichte des Klosters Erdeni Joo oder das Prinzip der Verflechtung von Staat und Religion,” in Mongolian-German Karakorum Expedition, vol. 1, Excavations in the Craftsmen Quarter at the Main Road, ed. Jan Bemmann, Ulambayar Erdenebat, and Ernst Pohl, Forschungen zur Archäologie außereuropäischer Kulturen 8 (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2010), 321–50; Matsukawa Takashi and Ayudai Ochir, eds., The International Conference on “Erdene-Zuu: Past, Present and Future" (Ulaanbaatar: International Institute for the Study of Nomadic Civilizations, 2011).
3
The history of the monastery is recorded in Mongolian chronicles, biographies of Zanabazar, and a manuscript known in short as Anna Damdinovna Tsendina, trans., “History of Erdeni Juu (Erdeni Juu-Yin Teüke),” in Istoriya Erdeni-Dzu: Faksimile Rukopisi; Perevod s Mongol’skogo, Kommentarii i Prilojeniya, Reprint (Moscow: Vostočnaya literatura RAN, 1803). Two other main sources are Aleksei M. Pozdneev, Mongolia and the Mongols, trans. John Roger Shaw and Dale Plank, Reprint, vol. 1 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1896), 281–99, and Kotwicz, in Ts Jamtsarano, “Description of the Three ‘Dzū’ and the ‘Lavran’ in the Erdene Zuu Monastery by Ts. Jamtsarano,” in In the Heart of Mongolia: 100th Anniversary of W. Kotwicz’s Expedition to Mongolia in 1912, ed. Jerzy Tulisow et al., trans. Jerzy Tulisow, Agata Bareja-Starzyńska, and Filip Majkowski (Cracow: Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2012), 334. See also N. Khatanbaatar and Naigal Ye, Erdene Zuugiin Tüükh, 16–20-r Zuun [History of Erdeni Juu, 16th–20th Centuries] (Ulaanbaatar: Soyombo Press, 2005), 35–40; Matsukawa Takashi and Ayudai Ochir, eds., The International Conference on “Erdene-Zuu: Past, Present and Future" (Ulaanbaatar: International Institute for the Study of Nomadic Civilizations, 2011).
4
By metonymy, juu came to designate a temple, a monastery; Isabelle Charleux, “Circumambulating the Jowo in Mongolia: Why ‘Erdeni Juu’ Must Be Translated as ‘Jowo Rinpoche.,’” in Interaction in the Himalayas and Central Asia: Processes of Transfer, Translation and Transformation in Art, Archaeology, Religion and Polity; Proceedings of the Third International SEECHAC Colloquium, 25–27 Nov. 2013, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, ed. Eva Allinger et al. (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2017), 357–74.
5
See Ts Jamtsarano, “Description of the Three ‘Dzū’ and the ‘Lavran’ in the Erdene Zuu Monastery by Ts. Jamtsarano,” in In the Heart of Mongolia: 100th Anniversary of W. Kotwicz’s Expedition to Mongolia in 1912, ed. Jerzy Tulisow et al., trans. Jerzy Tulisow, Agata Bareja-Starzyńska, and Filip Majkowski (Cracow: Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2012), 335, for a description of the interior of the Three Temples in 1912.
6
They are known to us through copies at the Zanabazar Museum of Fine Arts in Ulaanbaatar.
7
Isabelle Charleux, “Recent Research on the Maitreya Monastery in Inner Mongolia (China),” Asiatische Studien—Études Asiatiques 68, no. 1 (2014): 1–64, https://doi.org/10.1515/asia-2014-0001.
8
For period photographs from several collections, see Khandsüren Baasansüren, Enkh tunkh Erdene zuu—Erdene Zuu: The Jewel of Enlightenment, trans. Glenn H. Mullin (Ulaanbaatar: Pozitiv, 2011).
Further Reading
Charleux, Isabelle. 2017. “Circumambulating the Jowo in Mongolia: Why ‘Erdeni juu’ Must Be Translated as ‘Jowo Rinpoche.’” In Interaction in the Himalayas and Central Asia: Processes of Transfer, Translation and Transformation in Art, Archaeology, Religion and Polity, edited by Eva Allinger, Frantz Grenet, Christian Jahoda, Maria-Katharina Lang, and Anne Vergati, 357–74. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Pozdneev, Aleksei M. (1892, 1893) 1997. Mongolia and the Mongols, in one vol. Translated by J. R. Shaw and D. Plank. Reprint, London: Curzon Press.
Tulisow, Jerzy, Osamu Inoue, Agata Bareja-Starzyńska, and Ewa Dziurzyńska, eds. 2012. In the Heart of Mongolia: 100th Anniversary of W. Kotwicz’s Expedition to Mongolia in 1912. Cracow: Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences (with DVD).
The Dalai Lamas are a tulku lineage that has played a central role in Tibetan history for the last five hundred years. In 1577 a Mongol khan gave the Geluk monk Sonam Gyatso (1543–1588) the title “Dalai Lama,” combining the Mongolian word for ocean, dalai (a reference to the depth of his knowledge), and the Tibetan word for guru, lama. Later, two previous incarnations were retroactively identified. The fifth incarnation, Ngawang Gyatso (1617–1682), allied with another Mongol khan to unite most of the Tibetan Plateau, forming the Ganden Podrang government that would govern Tibet until 1959. Since the Communist takeover, the current Fourteenth Dalai Lama has lived in exile at Dharamshala in India. The Dalai Lamas are understood to be emanations of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara.
In Buddhist context, donor is a person who contributes to or commissions a religious work of art. This act is intended to increase merit on behalf of the benefactor and is dedicated to the benefit of all. It is also usually done for a specific purpose, such as longevity, prosperity, or well-being; to advance religious practice; or to ensure a good rebirth of a deceased relative, teacher, or friend. A similar practice is also known in Hinduism and Bon.
Jibtsundampa, Jebtsundampa, Jetsun dampa (rje btsun dam pa) (Tibetan)
The Jibzundambas (from the Tibetan Jetsun dampa “venerable/reverend noble one”) were the most important lineage of tulkus in Khalkha Mongolia from 1639 to 1924, considered below only the Dalai Lamas and Panchen Lamas in prestige within the Geluk tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. While the Jibzundamba lineage traces its previous incarnations back to the Tibetan polymath and traveler Taranatha (1575–1634), the first formally enthroned Jibzundampa was the Mongolian prince and artist Zanabazar (1635–1723). As the Jibzundampa’s authority grew, their mobile monastery, called “the great encampment” (Mgl: yekhe khüriye), would gradually settle and develop into Mongolia’s modern capital, Ulaanbaatar. The eighth Jibzundamba ruled as khan of Mongolia from 1911 to 1924.
A monastery is a place where monks live, study, and perform ritual. It includes temples and other structures. Monasteries are central to Buddhism, and are also important in Bon, Hinduism, and Daoism. In Himalayan, Tibetan, and Inner Asian areas, some monasteries are enormous, wealthy, and powerful institutions, with branches of satellite monasteries forming networks across regions, often with thousands of monks, many decorated chapels, and huge holdings of land. Other monasteries, called hermitages, can be extremely simple, little more than a cave where hermits meditate. Generally, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery will have an assembly hall, several temples (Tib. lhakhang) for worship of specific deities, a protector chapel, as well as monks’ accommodations. A related institution in Newar Buddhism are the baha and bahi.
Stupas are monuments that initially contained cremated remains of Buddha Shakyamuni or important monks, his disciples, and subsequently other material and symbolic relics associated with the Buddha’s body, teaching, and enlightened mind. As representations of the Buddha’s presence in the world, stupas with their contents—texts, relics, tsatsas—continue to be important objects of Buddhist worship in their diverse forms of domed structures, multistoried pagodas, and portable sculptures. The original form of stupas was an earthen dome-shaped mound containing the remains in reliquary vessels or urns deposited within the innermost core. The dome would often be successively enlarged and surrounded by a path for a walk around in a clockwise direction and veneration (circumambulation)
Historically, Tibetan Buddhism refers to those Buddhist traditions that use Tibetan as a ritual language. It is practiced in Tibet, Mongolia, Bhutan, Ladakh, and among certain groups in Nepal, China, and Russia and has an international following. Buddhism was introduced to Tibet in two waves, first when rulers of the Tibetan Empire (seventh to ninth centuries CE), embraced the Buddhist faith as their state religion, and during the second diffusion (late tenth through thirteenth centuries), when monks and translators brought in Buddhist culture from India, Nepal, and Central Asia. As a result, the entire Buddhist canon was translated into Tibetan, and monasteries grew to become centers of intellectual, cultural, and political power. From the end of the twelfth century, Tibetans were exporting their own Buddhist traditions abroad. Tibetan Buddhism integrates Mahayana teachings with the esoteric practices of Vajrayana, and includes those developed in Tibet, such as Dzogchen, as well as indigenous Tibetan religious practices focused on local gods. Historically major traditions of Tibetan Buddhism are Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, and Geluk.
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