| Felonious Monks
By Andrew Curry
U.S. News and World Report,
August 16, 1999
Religious reform is always
tricky, but a millennium ago, the rival kings of Tibet managed to
agree on a remarkably modern solution: They hired an outside consultant.
Coaxed north by a hefty sum of gold, legendary Indian guru Atisha trekked
to the rugged Tibetan highlands in 1042. He and his followers were faced
with a challenge: The Buddhism that had been introduced to Tibet centuries
earlier was corrupt, rife with misinterpretations, and mixed with the popular,
shamanistic Bon religion. Later writings describe a land in chaos. An empire
that had rivaled China's just two centuries earlier was now broken and
divided. Worse, some people had taken sacred metaphors far too literally.
"These 'robber-monks' kidnapped and killed men and women, ate them, drank
alcohol, and indulged in sexual intercourse," according to historian Rolf
Alfred Stein, in Tibetan Civilization.
Atisha to the rescue.
The famed 60-year-old monk
set down strict rules barring sex, possessions, travel, and intoxicants.
Other Buddhist teachers followed in his wake, many fleeing Muslim persecution
in India. The religious orders founded by Atisha and those who followed
him were sponsored by noble families, who gained credibility through the
Buddhist association.
In exchange, the learned
lamas served as teachers, administrators, and priests. Typically, the head
of each Tibetan monastery was the son of a noble family, and the office
was hereditary. Since monks were celibate, control would pass from uncle
to nephew. Educated and worldly, the lamas helped run the monastic estates
and counseled the kings.
Bureaucrats.
"After the 13th century,
the lamas gradually came to form a bureaucracy, administering the country
but ultimately accountable tothe kings and noble families," says Robert
Thurman, professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist studies at Columbia. Scholars
believe life in the monasteries changed little over the centuries. Unlike
Europeans at the time, Tibetan monks ate well. The staple of monastic and
peasant life was barley grown in mountain fields that were irrigated by
glacial melt. Monks supplemented their diet with a wide variety of yak
products, including milk, cheese, butter, and meat.
The monasteries grew in power,
thriving until the Chinese invasion
of Tibet in 1950, when many
of the largest monasteries and centuries-old religious libraries were destroyed.
Led by the Dalai Lama, the monks who fled the country continue to follow
the traditions set down
by Atisha. |
