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Tibetan Buddhist Monastery Network

Type Object Region Tibet Time c. 700

A religious-educational-administrative complex across the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding regions, organized around monasteries and lineage transmiss…

Timeline

  1. c. 779–842Around Samye Monastery · ShannanWith Tibetan royal support, Samye Monastery and the first regular monasteries were established, forming the institutional embryo of sangha, scripture translation, and ritual transmission; monasteries began to serve as religious and intellectual centers of Tibet.
  2. c. 1247–1280Sakya Monastery · ShigatseAfter the 1247 Liangzhou talks the Sakya school gained Mongol support; in the 1260s Kublai was enthroned as Yuan emperor and in 1268 issued the 'Letter to Tibetan Monastic Officials', deeply embedding the monastery network in the Yuan administrative system as a cross-regional religious-political hub.
  3. c. 1409–1642Ganden Monastery · LhasaTsongkhapa founded the Gelug school and built the great monasteries of Ganden, Drepung, and Sera; the monastery network shifted from multi-sect coexistence to Gelug-dominated local governance, and monastic education was further standardized.

Sources