Thonmi Sambhota.
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Thonmi Sambhota is not a conventional religious figure but his invention of the written Tibetan script was instrumental in the transmission of Buddhism to Tibet. His name Thonmi Sambhota was derived from his clan name and his district in Tibet, Thonmi, and also the Sanskrit words ‘sam’ which means ‘scholar’ and ‘bhota’ which means ‘Tibet’. He is traditionally regarded as an emanation of Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. Considering the fact that Dorje Shugden is also an emanation of Manjushri, it is not surprising that Thonmi Sambhota is actually part of Dorje Shugden’s line of previous incarnations.

Unfortunately, we know very little of Thonmi Sambhota’s life and what we do know is shrouded by myth. In various texts, he is said to have been born into the noble family of a minister in the Thu area of Yorwo district, in a village in the shadow of the Khambala Ridge just south of the Yeru Tsangpo River. He is believed to have been born in 619 CE, the Year of the Earth Sheep and as aforementioned, his family belonged to the Thonmi clan. His name is recorded as Thumi in the Tangyur (a series of commentaries on the words of the Buddha), probably denoting a generic term used for a man from Thu. His father, Thonmi Anu Ragata was a minister for the great Tibetan Emperor Songtsen Gampo (617-698 CE). It is said that Thonmi Sambhota was such a gifted and intelligent young man that he was quickly favoured by the emperor.

Travelling to India to Study Sanskrit

In 633 CE, Thonmi Sambhota was handpicked by the Emperor along with some of the brightest young men of Tibet for an expedition to India in order to study the Indian writing system. The group was charged with the decree to devise a script that would suit the Tibetan spoken language as well as to facilitate the translation of classical Indian texts. The party of young scholars was given enough gold dust to cover their travelling expenses and food as well as their studies.

The travel route of the expedition passed through Nepal, where they arrived at the court of the Nepalese king, to whom they presented rich offerings. In return, they were given fortifying and preventative medicines for fever and other ailments. This proved to be valuable for their long journey down south into the Indian heartland where the weather and terrain were radically different from Tibet. It is also recorded that they had an audience with an Indian king known in Tibetan records as Peljinje Bina Lhachen, to whom they presented some valuable offerings.

While in India, they travelled extensively in search of good teachers of the Sanskrit language. Their exhaustive search brought them to the masters Brahman Lijinkara and Lha Rigpa Sengge, whose Sanskrit name was likely to have been Devavidyasimha. It was under these teachers, along with the Indian students of these masters, that they studied the Sanskrit language, its grammar, lexicography, poetry, literature and other related subjects, including philosophy for about seven years. During this time, Thonmi Sambhota particularly focused on the treatise regarding grammar by Devavidyasimha, alongside the study of morality and other subjects.

Upon mastering Sanskrit, Thonmi Sambhota made his return to Tibet bearing gifts from the Indian king to the Tibetan emperor, which included several important Sanskrit treatises. He also brought with him every treatise there was on Sanskrit grammar along with many other texts. It is said that these were among the very first Buddhist texts to have been brought to Tibet. Unfortunately, all the other Tibetan youths that accompanied him on his journey died due to complications related to the tropical heat in India.

Creation of the Tibetan Script

Upon his return, Thonmi Sambhota entered into a long retreat at the Kukarmaru Palace in Lhasa with the sole intention to invent a Tibetan script, as commissioned by the emperor. The script that he invented was based on both the Devanagari and Kashmiri scripts of India. He went on to compose six texts on Tibetan grammar that were based on Sanskrit grammar. Two of these six texts are extant in the Tangyur collection, ‘Sum Chu Pa’ and ‘Tag Kyi Jug Pa’, while the remaining four texts have been lost over the centuries. These two texts remain, to this day, the most widely studied texts on Tibetan grammar.

Thonmi Sambhota developed the Tibetan script to facilitate the translation of Buddhist texts from Sanskrit into Tibetan.

Tibetan scholars themselves consider the commonly used Uchen script to be based on the Lanza script, which is an ancient Sanskrit script, and the cursive Umey script to be based on Urdu, a Kashmiri script derived from the ancient Persian script. It is evident that the Tibetan script also bears a close resemblance to the Sanskrit Devanagari script.

The Tibetan script itself possesses 30 basic alphabetic characters that make up its consonants, while vowel sounds are created by adding a diacritic mark above or below these consonants. There are four types of vowel diacritic marks in addition to other features specific to the Tibetan script and grammar. Furthermore, letters can be stacked on top of each other to produce an even wider variety of sounds to accommodate the Tibetan colloquial vocabulary. The letter stacking system along with the ‘reversed letters’ also accommodated the additional sounds made in the ancient Indian Sanskrit language, which is a special feature of the Tibetan script.

In other words, the Tibetan script was designed to accommodate both the Sanskrit and Tibetan languages and thereby expedited translation. It also aided the proliferation of Buddhism in Tibet as thousands of Sanskrit texts were translated into Tibetan. It was through these translations that the sacred knowledge of the Buddha and the Indian pandit-scholars become accessible to the average Tibetan monk and scholar.

Presentation of the New Script

After Thonmi Sambhota completed the Tibetan script, he formally presented it to Emperor Songtsen Gampo in the presence of ministers and various courtiers, along with the first written sample he created using the Tibetan Uchen script, of the mantra, “OM MANI PADME HUM”. An exact copy of his original writing of this mantra was carved on a rock in Rigsum Gompo Temple in central Tibet, which was unfortunately destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.

From then on, Thonmi Sambhota taught the emperor reading, writing and Tibetan grammar. Pleased with Thonmi Sambhota’s efforts, the emperor bestowed upon him the title ‘Lopon’ in appreciation for his great work and service. Not long after, the emperor entered a four-year retreat to master the new script and grammar including a translation of 21 tantric texts on the Bodhisattva Chenrezig. Therefore, it is traditionally believed that the Mani Kabum, consisting of two large volumes, was composed by Emperor Songtsen Gampo after he had mastered the script. However, modern scholars attribute it to a number of other scholars over the centuries.

According to some sources, Thonmi Sambhota later worked with the emperor and other translators to translate Tibet’s first Buddhist texts that King Lha Totori had received miraculously. According to legend, Buddhist scriptures first arrived in Tibet during this king’s time. The tale claims that the volumes fell from the sky onto the roof of the royal palace but nobody was able to read its contents until Emperor Songtsen Gampo’s reign. Some of the most important works translated by this team include the Hundredfold Homage for Mending Breaches, (Skt. Sakshi Purnam Sudraka), The Sutra of Golden Light and Twenty-one Sutras and Tantras of Avalokiteshvara.

Life at Court

According to legend, Thonmi Sambhota was greatly praised and richly rewarded by Emperor Songtsen Gampo for the script that he had invented and this created jealousy amongst some of the ministers at court. They slandered him to the emperor but he defended himself by detailing the hardships and sacrifices he had made during the perilous journey to India, and he went to great lengths to impress upon everyone at court of the value of his achievements.

A statue of Thonmi Sambhota

Consequently, he became known as one of the seven wise ministers of Emperor Songtsen Gampo. He was highly regarded by the emperor and he was sometimes sent on important missions to represent the sovereign. On one occasion, Thonmi Sambhota was sent to accompany Minister Gar Tongtsen to Nepal as part of an imperial delegation to escort the Nepalese Princess Bhrikuti to Tibet. He was also sent on another mission to China in order to escort the Chinese Princess Wencheng to Tibet. Both princesses were escorted to Lhasa to be brides for the Tibetan emperor.

In addition, Thonmi Sambhota was also credited with introducing incense to Tibet, which was probably derived from ayurvedic recipes that he brought over from India. Tongba Village, the hometown of Thonmi Sambhota, has since become widely known for its aromatic Tibetan incense used for devotional and medicinal purposes.

Unfortunately, there is no record of the year of Thonmi Sambhota’s demise or even the length of his lifespan. It is said that he had a son by the name of Mahasata, who bore him a grandson by the name of Nyima Longsel. There are also notable mentions of his nephew’s son, Depa Yargyabpa. In his field of work, Thonmi Sambhota had a number of apprentice translators and notable amongst them were Dharmakosha, Lhalhung Dorje Pel and Drenka Mulakosha.

In historical records, Thonmi Sambhota is not mentioned in any of the Old Tibetan Annals or other ancient texts, although the Annals do mention that writing arose shortly after 650 CE. There are some scholars that have written a number of articles disputing that he even existed, probably due to the scant information about him. Nevertheless, Thonmi Sambhota’s Tibetan script became instrumental in the formation of the Tibetan literary tradition, the translation of precious Indian texts and the proliferation of Buddhist teachings within Tibet for centuries to come.

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