Chögyal Pakpa

Chögyal Pakpa (T. chos rgyal 'phags pa ཆོས་རྒྱལ་འཕགས་པ་) (1235-1280). The fifth of the five patriarchs of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism. He was the nephew of Sakya Pandita, and traveled with Sakya Pandita to the Mongol court of the Godan Khan circa 1244. He was later invited to the court of the Kublai Khan, who established the Yuan dynasty in China. Beginning in 1258, Pakpa performed Buddhist initiations and empowerments for the Kublai Khan, and eventually developed a close relationship with the Khan. The Khan made the Pakpa the (nominal) ruler of Tibet.

At the request of Kublai Khan, Chögyal Pakpa designed a new alphabet, the 'phags-pa script, which could be used as a unified script for the written languages within the Yuan Empire. Chögyal Pakpa extended the Tibetan alphabet, to encompass Mongol and Chinese. The actual use of this script was limited to about a hundred years during the Mongol Yuan dynasty, and it fell out of use with the advent of the Ming dynasty.

Name variations

• Chögyal Pakpa (chos rgyal 'phags pa)
• Pakpa Lodro Gyeltsen ('phags pa blo gros rgyal mtshan)
• Drogon Pakpa Lodro Gyeltsen ('gro mgon 'phags pa blo gros rgyal mtshan)
• Drogon Chögyal Pakpa ('gro mgon chos rgyal 'phags pa)
• Lama Drogon Phakpa

External links

• Pakpa Lodro Gyeltsen, Treasury of Lives

• Drogön Chögyal Phagpa, Wikipedia
• Chos_rgyal_'phags_pa, Tsadra Commons
• TBRC profile