GURU PADMASAMBHAVA | |||
GURU PADMASAMBHAVA and demons which required sacrifices of animals and human beings and other disgusting practices. History has it that when Santaraksita, the famed Abbot of Nalanda Monastery, was invited by King Trison-Detsun to teach the Doctrine to the Tibetans, he met considerable opposition from the spirits and priests of the local faith, the primitive Bon cult. In anger, the Bon spirits caused great destructions through flood and famine across the land so that Santaraksita had no choice but to ask the king to send for Guru Padmasambhava, who was then residing in Nepal, to take over the task of conversion of these very stub- born and powerful opposing forces. us the great guru arrived in Tibet in the year 747. In Tibet Padmasambhava lived up to his fame as a demon- tamer, subduing the defiant spirits and sparing only those who accepted the Buddhist faith and agreed to become its defenders. As a reward, he included them into the Mahayana Pantheon so that they would be properly worshipped. Blending native beliefs with certain elements of Tantrism, he developed a new kind of Buddhism which is known to the world as Lamaism. Padmasam- bhava thus became the Precious Guru of all the lamas and is regarded as highly as the Buddha himself. e Nim-ma-pa or `Red-Hat' sect regards him as their founder and worships him in various forms, both gentle and fierce, expressive of his dif- ferent moods at different times. rough his efforts the famous Samye Monastery near Lhasa was built and it became the centre of Buddhist stud ¡ûBACK¡û |INDEX| ¡úNEXT¡ú |