Part 7
Activity in Tibet
King Trisong Detsen, an emanation of the buddhas, wished to spread the Dharma in Tibet. He thus invited Ācārya Bodhisattva, also known as Śāntarakṣita or Master Dharmaśāntighoṣa, and for his residence there was erected a silk tent on the roof of the Lung Tshuk Palace. For four months this teacher taught the Dharma, starting with the ten virtuous deeds, the twelve links of dependent origination and the eighteen constituents. This led to the demons of Tibet becoming furious, and they lashed out: The Phang Thang Palace was washed away in a flood, Marpo Ri was struck by lightning, throughout Tibet diseases ran rampant among humans and animals and unseasonal frost and hail increased. The people of Tibet believed all this to be happening because they were practising the Dharma.
Unable to continue practising the Dharma, the King went with five of his Buddhist ministers, including Ba Salnang, and presented the Ācārya with a gift of one measure of gold dust. Doing so three times, they made the following request, “Ācārya, please go to Nepal for a little while. While you are away, the king will not allow the practice of the Dharma. He will offer gifts in the right places and deceive the royal ministers with his cunning. When the time comes that it is safe to practise the Dharma again, we will invite you to return.” The Ācārya replied, “If you wish to subjugate the demons and rākṣasas of Tibet, you must invite the tantric adept Padmasambhava, the most powerful of his kind now on Earth.” Continuing, he said, “I shall give one handful of this gold dust to the King of Nepal” and accepted it, handing the remainder to the king. As he made his way out of Tibet, it appeared to the public as if the master had been exiled.
Ācārya Bodhisattva was escorted by Yang Drona and Ba Salnang to Nepal. On his return, the King appointed Ba Salnang to the position ‘Eye of Dharma’, and so he went as an envoy, solely for the purpose of Dharma, to China with a retinue of thirty attendants. While Ba Salnang was there, all the royal ministers gathered and an agreement to practice Dharma was reached. Prior to the Master being invited to Tibet, the envoys returned from China with magnificent gifts from the emperor for themselves and ten thousand rolls of silk for the king. Ba Salnang then travelled to Nepal to invite the two ācāryas—Śāntarakṣita and Padmasambhava.