“The Amazing Treasury of the Sakya Lineage: Volume 2 represents a significant contribution to the study of Tibetan Buddhist intellectual and religious history. As both a primary historical source and a work of interpretive significance, this book will be of interest to scholars of Tibetan studies, Buddhist studies, and Himalayan history, as well as to practitioners seeking a deeper understanding of the lineage’s doctrinal and institutional foundations. This translation makes an important corpus of Tibetan historical literature accessible to a wider audience and underscores the enduring relevance of the Sakya tradition's synthesis of scholarship, practice, and ethical responsibility.”
Description
A lucid and landmark translation that offers an intriguing glimpse into Tibetan history and the spiritual development and remarkable lives of the early luminaries of the Sakya lineage of Tibetan Buddhism.
Ameshab Ngakwang Kunga Sonam (1597–1659), a member of the Khon aristocracy and the twenty-seventh throne holder of Sakya Monastery, gives a thorough history of the major Sakya lineage holders up to the time of his writing in the seventeenth century. Where the first volume of this history, published last year, focused on the celestial origins and the founders of the Khon lineage, as well as their interactions with the Mongol Empire, volume 2 tells the stories of the major figures of the four monastic residences, or labrang, from the early fourteenth to seventeenth centuries, and how they persevered through a time of religious and political reorientation in Inner Asia and were able to strengthen the Sakya lineage after a period of waning influence. The biographies here tell of extraordinary scholarship and spiritual practice, highlighting not only the Sakya leadership genealogy but what such leadership entailed—and the remarkable blessings that have been passed down through time.
Celebrated translator and scholar Cyrus Stearns said of volume 1: "As the definitive genealogy of the Khon family from its legendary origins, and as one of the greatest historical masterpieces of the Sakya tradition, Ameshab’s book is a work of remarkable traditional scholarship. This volume is a noteworthy event in the translation into English of the Buddhist historical literature of Tibet."
Reviews
“This second and final volume of Jamgön Ameshab’s The Amazing Treasury of the Sakya Lineage continues the story of the marvelous Khön family of the Sakya tradition of Tibetan Buddhism up through the middle of the seventeenth century. Brief biographical studies of many great masters, such as Lama Dampa Sönam Gyaltsen, Dakchen Lodrö Gyaltsen, and the author’s grandfather, Ngakchang Kunga Rinchen, are available here in English for the first time, thanks to the skillful translation of Khenpo Kunga Sherab and Matthew King. These two books are a wonderful treasure for anyone interested in Tibetan Buddhism.”
“For readers interested in exploring tensions among and within Tibetan lineages or in learning more about changing relationships between Tibetan and Mongolian communities, Ameshab’s history is truly a treasury. Khenpo Kunga Sherab and Matthew King have produced a vibrant resource for scholars and practitioners of the Sakya tradition, elegantly representing Ameshab’s keen perspective and his critical eye, together with his consequential acts of expressing and constructing memory.”
