An Inner Asian Buddhist Revolution: The Rise of Tibetan Buddhism in the Tangut Xia State

Abstract

The dissertation examines a pivotal moment concerning Buddhism in Inner Asian history, namely the rise of Tibetan Buddhism in the Tangut Xia State (1038–1227) from the early twelfth century to the early thirteenth century. The dissertation views the Tangut Xia as a prototypical Inner Asian empire from which later empires of China and Inner Asia – the Mongol Yuan (1271– 1368) and Manchu Qing (1636–1911) – arose. Buddhism, and Tibetan Buddhism in particular, has been widely acknowledged as a crucial factor that contributed to the maintenance of the political, social, and cultural structures of those empires. And I propose, to fully understand the dynamics, we must trace its origin to the Tangut State. In general, the dissertation delineates some major figures and events related to the rise of Tibetan Buddhism in the Tangut Xia and discusses their implications. It demonstrates that the success of Tibetan Buddhism in the Tangut Xia was because of some preferable fortuitous conditions of time and space as well as the efforts made by both participants. 

Specifically, the dissertation investigates the Tangut assimilation of the Gsang phu ne’u thog scholastic tradition, which was initiated by Rngog Lo tsā ba Blo ldan shes rab (ca. 1059– 1109), a fact that has till now remained unnoticed by previous scholarship. The advent of the scholastic tradition gave rise to an audience of Tangut monks who engaged in scholastic training in monastic settings. The many Tangut translations of the Tibetan texts from the Gsang phu scholastic tradition, because their originals are not extant, shed light on the early intellectual history of the Later Diffusion (phyi dar) in Tibet as well. Notably, the significant interest in Dharmakīrti’s (7^th c.) Nyāyabindu of some early Gsang phu masters, as attested by the Tangut texts, was previously unknown. The philological connections between the Tangut texts and their Tibetan counterparts provide us with many possibilities to examine the Tangut language. Hence, the dissertation also serves as an attempt to broaden our knowledge of the Tangut Buddhist language, especially with regard to its scholarly language, which was previously often overlooked. 

The dissertation further examines and presents a partial annotated translation of the first volume of a twelfth-century Gsang phu scholar’s work only preserved in Tangut translation, namely the Clarification of the Words and Meaning of the Nyāyabindu (*Rigs pa’i thigs pa’i tshig don gsal bar byed pa). The translation establishes a substantial ground that allows us to observe the many points addressed above.