your bridge home
Saints and Poets
Tibet had to choose between the Indian path and the Chinese one. It held a debate, and the argument lasted two years.
Tibet in the eighth century had a decision to make, and it made it by holding a debate.
Trisong Detsen, king of Tibet, wanted Buddhism established in his country properly.
Not as a scattering of foreign practices. As a working institution, with monks, texts, ordination and a curriculum.
So he sent to India, and to the most authoritative source available: Nalanda.
Shantarakshita was one of the great scholars of the age and had been an abbot there. He was a philosopher of the first rank.
His Tattvasangraha is a vast systematic survey. It states the positions of every rival school, Buddhist and non-Buddhist, at length and fairly. And only then answers them.
He came to Tibet.
The rest of this story, read aloud, and a new one every day.