Tri Songdetsen

by

Brandon Dotson

Introduction

King Tri Songdetsen (b. 742–d. c. 800) was the monarch responsible for the official conversion of Tibet to Buddhism as a state religion under royal patronage. He founded Samyé Monastery, oversaw the ordination of Tibetans as Buddhist monks, and sponsored the translation of Buddhist texts. Like other Buddhist monarchs, Tri Songdetsen presided over the bureaucratization of the sangha and regulated the canon by ruling on what types of works could be translated and by attempting to standardize translation practices. King Tri Songdetsen also presided over the famous Council of Tibet, an effort to choose which form of Buddhism to royally endorse. In his time Tri Songdetsen was addressed as a sacred god-king but also as a bodhisattva, and Buddhist historians from the 12th century onward remember him as an incarnation of Mañjuśrī. Also in later tradition, and in particular among the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, Tri Songdetsen is linked inextricably with the first abbot of Samyé Monastery, Śantarakṣita, and with the Nyingma’s central figure, the yogi Padmasambhava. For historians of the Bon religion of Tibet, however, Tri Songdetsen is an apostate king who turned his back on their religion and ultimately persecuted them. Due largely to his lionization by Tibetan Buddhist historians but also to royalist eulogies to his reign composed even before his death, Tri Songdetsen’s life can hardly be separated from the legends that surround him. (Some publications give the king’s name as Trisong Detsen. In fact, this is not a variant but an error of transcription: “Tri” is a title that was given to Prince Songdetsen upon his enthronement in 756; at his birth he was known only as “Songdetsen.” The proper parsing of the syllables of Songdetsen, e.g., Song Detsen or Songdetsen, is not entirely clear, but it can be said that the erroneous form “Trisong Detsen” derives from the incorrect assumption that all Tibetan names consist of two syllables. In a similar variant of his name, Trisong Deutsen, the “Deu” in “Deutsen” is a late folk etymology and is not common in early sources.)

General Overviews

There exists as yet no critical overview of Tri Songdetsen’s life and works. Most discussions of his career are set within the larger issue of the conversion of Tibet to Buddhism. Kapstein 2006 gives a most succinct and useful outline of Tri Songdetsen’s life and his role in the conversion of Tibet. Snellgrove 1987 gives a rich survey that draws on a wide range of primary sources, and Kapstein 2000 discusses critically the Tibetan conversion and the politics of how this is remembered by later Tibetan historians. Haarh 1969 gives a dense and nuanced analysis of Tibetan kingship and locates Tri Songdetsen within larger royal traditions. Kollmar-Paulenz 2007 also gives an excellent summary of the conversion of Tibet and the many issues involved, including a short portrait of Tri Songdetsen.

• Haarh, Erik. The Yar-luṅ Dynasty: A Study with Particular Regard to the Contribution by Myths and Legends to the History of Ancient Tibet and the Origin and Nature of Its Kings. Copenhagen: Gad, 1969.

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  This seminal work focuses largely on royal origins but does also treat King Tri Songdetsen. Many of Haarh’s fascinating interpretations and translations are contested and controversial, and for this reason it is not advisable to consult this work until one has read widely in the primary and secondary literature and has adequate linguistic skills to judge Haarh’s translations.

• Kapstein, Matthew T. The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism: Conversion, Contestation, and Memory. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

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  A lucid and thought-provoking work on the Tibetan conversion to Buddhism. Chapter 4 in particular argues that Buddhism offered Tibet a literate administrative corps, an emphasis on ethics and reason, and a language of royal power understood by nearly all of their neighbors.

• Kapstein, Matthew T. The Tibetans. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006.

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  An excellent introductory survey aimed at undergraduates. Pages 66–74 give a good summary of Tri Songdetsen’s reign and outline the discrepancies between contemporary accounts and later religious views.

• Kollmar-Paulenz, Karénina. “The Buddhist Way into Tibet.” In The Spread of Buddhism. Pt. 8. Vol. 16. Edited by Ann Heirman and Stephan Peter Bumbacher, 303–340. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2007.

  DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004158306.i-474E-mail Citation »

  An accessible and well-informed overview of the conversion of Tibet. This includes a discussion of Tri Songdetsen’s role, the Council of Tibet, language reform and royal sponsorship of Buddhist translation, and other pertinent themes.

• Snellgrove, David. Indo-Tibetan Buddhism: Indian Buddhists and Their Tibetan Successors. 2 vols. Boston: Shambhala, 1987.

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  Long a standard reference. Volume 2 gives a fairly comprehensive account of the Tibetan conversion to Buddhism. This includes translations from a wealth of primary sources and discussions of most of the salient issues.