The Amazing Treasury of the Sakya Lineage: Volume 2

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." Read more