In the past, it was believed that the spread of Tibetan Buddhism in the Central Plains and the Western Regions began in the Yuan Dynasty, but in fact, Tibetan Buddhism spread in the Western Regions before the rise of Genghis Khan, and the Tangut people, the Wu'er people, and the Han people under the rule of the Tangut Dynasty began to believe in and spread Tibetan Buddhism. Pen Fun Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 info The Mongols were able to embrace Tibetan Buddhism so quickly because of the deep party Tangut background.

Our understanding of the history of the spread of Tibetan Buddhism in the Western Regions and the Central Plains in the Tangut Dynasty first comes from the translation of Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism into Tangut and Chinese in the documents unearthed in Heishui City in Russia and Tibet. Secondly, a variety of long-form documents from the Tangut period selected from the Mahayana Essentials have enriched the understanding of the history of the spread of Tibetan Buddhism in the Tangut period. In the past ten years, the Tangut and Chinese Buddhist documents unearthed in the hometown of the Western Xia have provided a large number of new first-hand information.

Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism is an important chapter in the history of Chinese Buddhism

In the Tang Dynasty, there was a Esoteric tradition passed on by the three great scholars of the Kaiyuan Dynasty, which was later introduced to Japan by the Japanese monk Kukai, forming a continuous "Eastern Esoteric" tradition to this day. It is a pity that the Tang secret tradition was hidden in China after the Tang Dynasty. The real spread of Esoteric Buddhism in the Central Plains actually began in the Tangut era. Tibetan Buddhism divides Esoteric Buddhism into four major divisions: the Ministry of Affairs, the Department of Conduct, the Department of Yoga and the Department of Supreme Yoga, and the so-called "Tang Tantra" mostly belongs to the first three major departments. In the Song Dynasty, the earliest translation of the Antartarayoga Tantra appeared, when the famous translators Shi Hu and Dharma Hu translated the Dense Sutra belonging to the Father's Continuation and the Joyful Vajra Sutra belonging to the Mother's Continuous. However, their translations were difficult to understand, did not attract attention, let alone popularity, and did not affect the inheritance and development of the esoteric tradition in Chinese Buddhism. In the Tangut Kingdom, the social and religious foundations for the practice of Esoteric Buddhism began to take shape, and Esoteric Buddhism really began to become a widely popular Buddhist tradition.

In recent years, we have discovered a large number of Anuttarayoga Esoteric texts translated during the Tangut period, including the Hivajra Sutra, the Sutra of Victory, and the Three Bodhisattvas, which are the most important sutras of the Supreme Yoga Sutra, as well as their important commentaries and practices in Chinese and Tangut translations. These translations far exceed the content of the Esoteric texts that were translated but not transmitted in the Song Dynasty. In the literature of the Russian-Tibetan city of Heishui, we have also seen a variety of Chinese translations of the "auspicious Vajra practice mother", that is, the main doors and practices of the Vajra Yoga women, which indicates that the practice of the Supreme Yoga was widely circulated in the Tangut era. The discovery of these Chinese translations of Esoteric texts and the preliminary study of them allow us to conclude that most of the texts and practices of the Supreme Yoga School of Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism have been widely disseminated in the Han region and the Western Regions of the Central Plains from the Western Xia Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty and the early Ming Dynasty. They not only attracted a large number of followers from the Tangut, Mongolian and Han ethnic groups, and dominated the Buddhist traditions of the Western Xia and Yuan dynasties, but also had a great impact on Han Buddhism.

The Sakya sect had a profound influence on Tangut Buddhism

In the past, scholars focused more on the activities of Kagyu masters in Tangut and their teachings and practices, and from the Tibetan Esoteric texts we have seen so far from the Tangut era, the Sakya school may have had a greater influence on Tangut Buddhism than the Kagyu school, and the fundamental practice of the Sakya school, the Daoguo Method, was widely spread in the Tangut school.

In the collection of Tibetan esoteric texts in Chinese translation, "The Intensive Path of the Mahayana Path", which is misrepresented as the "compilation" of the Yuan Dynasty emperor's master Phags-pa, we have seen a variety of long commentaries on the path and fruit of the Sakya school, such as "Yixiang Shangle Wheel Convenient Wisdom Shuangyun Dao Xuanyi Volume", "Explanation of Daoguo Quotations Vajra Sentences", "Explanation of Daoguo Chasing Difficult Records", etc., all of which are obviously works of the Tangut era, among which the Tangut translation of "Explanation of Daoguo Quotations Vajra Sentences" is also found in the Tangut literature of the Russian-Tibetan Heishui City. Similarly, a series of texts on the Mahamudra found in the Mahayana Essentials Intensive, and their corresponding Tangut translations are also found in the Tangut texts of the Russian-Tibetan city of Heishui, which do not correspond to the Mahamudra texts transmitted by the early Kagyu lamas, so they are suspected to have been transmitted by the Sakya lamas, and also belong to the Sakya tradition. In view of the fact that one of the Sakya Panditas was once the national teacher of the Tangut Dynasty, we can be sure that the teachings of the Sakya school were widely spread in the Tangut region before the rise of Mongolia, whether it was the "Secret Great Joy Meditation" (Desire and Happiness Meditation), the "Acting Method" (Humble Fire Meditation), or the "Sixteen Heavenly Demon Dances" (offering to the Sixteen Ming Mothers of the Auspicious Shengle Wheel), which were popular in the Yuan Dynasty, and so on. Therefore, the so-called "hollowing journey" of Sakya Pandita has actually been well foreshadowed by his predecessors, and the Mongol Great Khan honored the Sakya master during the Yuan Dynasty. And this tradition even continued into the early Ming Dynasty, and there are definite sources that confirm that the famous Indian monk "Shanshi Panzhida" in the early Ming Dynasty and his disciple Zhiguang, the great master of the Western Heavenly Buddha, were all descendants of the Sakya school, and they also preached the teachings of the Sakya school.

Although there are many names in Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism, they are all the same, and what they pursue is nothing more than the correspondence between the practitioner and the Buddha, Bodhisattva, Buddha-figure, or Guru, which is the original meaning of all yoga practices. We have seen a large number of Tibetan Esoteric Yoga practice rituals in the literature of the Russian-Tibetan Black Water City, including Buddha-figure meditation rituals, such as the meditation rituals of Buddha-figures such as Guanyin, Maitreya, Buddha's Buddha's Buddha's Mother, Vajrayogini's Mother, and Buddha's Eye Mother. As we all know, the worship of the Great Black Celestial God (Maha Gera) was very popular in the Yuan Dynasty, and the Western Master was good at using secret spells and spells to summon the Great Black Heaven to the earth, or to help the Mongol army to conquer the city, or to cure the demons and diseases for the Yuan Dynasty monarchs and ministers, etc., so the monks and their belief in the Great Black Celestial were regarded by the Mongols as a powerful god. In fact, the popularity of the worship of the Great Black Heaven also began in the Western Xia Dynasty, in the unearthed documents of Heishui City, we have seen a large number of Great Black Heaven to seek rituals, including Chinese, Tangut, Mongolian and Tibetan, it can be seen that the cultivation of the Great Black God was once a fairly common practice from the Western Xia to the Yuan Dynasty, and the Mongolian belief in the Great Black God was also influenced by the Tangut people. In fact, the introduction of the belief in the Great Black Heaven into Tibet itself has a lot to do with a great deal of relationship with a master from the Western Xia, who went to India through Tibet to study the Dharma with the Esoteric Master for more than ten years, and after returning to the Western Xia, he translated more than 20 kinds of rituals in Tibetan to seek the cultivation of the Great Black Heaven, which is now seen in the Tibetan Tripitaka, and since then, the belief in the Great Black God has spread in Tibet and the Western Xia.

The various ethnic groups of the Tangut Kingdom had strong cultural and religious ties with each other

In the Chinese Buddhist texts of the Russian-Tibetan city of Heishui, we also see a series of yoga practices and rituals originating from the Tangut period, all of which are related to the "Six Dharmas of Naruya" taught by the Indian Mahasiddha Narapa and popularized in Tibet by the great translator Marpa and his disciples, namely the six yoga practices of fire, dream, illusion, being, light, and broken tile.

The "Six Dharmas" are the most typical part of Tibetan Esoteric yoga practice, and its gist is to turn afflictions into pathways, and through the yoga practice of qi, pulses, bright points, and wind chakras, one can attain the four joys and become a Buddha. The "Najāna Six Dharmas" are not only the essence of the Tantric teachings of the Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism, but have also been passed down by the lamas of other schools such as the Sakya, and are still an important part of the practice of Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism. From this series of short rituals seen in the documents of the Russian-Tibetan Heishui City, it can be seen that the "Six Laws of Naruo" were widely circulated in the Western Regions and Han China very early. The practice of the "Six Laws of Naruo" passed down in the Tangut period was obviously continued and developed in the Yuan Dynasty, and a series of rituals related to the "Six Laws of Naruo" also appeared in the Buddhist literature of the Yuan Dynasty unearthed in Turpan.

It is worth mentioning that the cultural and religious interaction between the various Buddhist traditions and the various ethnic groups that took place in the territory of the Tangut Kingdom was much closer than we can imagine today. At that time, there were Buddhist monks from India who lived in the Tangut Kingdom for a long time, and they cooperated with the local believers to leave behind many new translations of Sutra and Tantric Buddhist texts directly from India. There are also a large number of Tibetan masters from Tibet, or Tangut monks who have gone to India and Tibet to seek the Dharma, and most of the Tibetan Esoteric texts that have survived to this day are difficult to find corresponding Tibetan originals, and most of them are the works of Tibetan masters who have been teaching the Dharma in Tangut for a long time, or the works of Tangut monks who have studied the Dharma in Tibet for a long time. There were also many Vultures who practiced Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism in the Tangut Kingdom, who came into contact with Tibetan Buddhism earlier than the Tangut people, and eventually became a powerful promoter of Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism in the Tangut and Yuan dynasties. (Source: China Social Sciences News)