Logic, lives, and lineage: Jetsun Chokyi Gyaltsen's ascension and the 'Secret Biography of Khedrup Geleg Pelzang

This thesis focuses on the ways sacred biography was used as a tool in constructing the doctrinal authority of three major religious teachers in the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism. It points out the way portrayals of these figures shifted throughout the school's history, and argues that those changes reflect the socio-political and institutional agendas of the biographers themselves. It also shows how correctness of philosophical arguments can be bolstered by the personal prestige of the logicians making them.;The thesis begins by identifying a shift in the figuration of the Gelugpa school's founding figure, Tsongkhapa Lobsang Dragpa (1357-1419). An analysis of a series of early biographies reveals a change in his image, from being seen as a devoted disciple of the bodhisattva Manjusri, to becoming the deity's emanation and equal. Chapter Two goes on to show that this change is in turn related to a development in the characterization of Tsongkhapa's biographer and disciple, Khedrup Geleg Pelzang (1385-1438), today considered to be one of Tsongkhapa's two chief disciples, and an integral member of the illustrious Jey Yabsey Sum triumvirate alongside Tsongkhapa and Gyaltsab Darma Rinchen (1364-1432). It demonstrates that earlier materials do not in fact support this characterization of Khedrup, and that his membership in the triumvirate is a relatively late development. Chapter Three examines the career of the logician Jetsun Chokyi Gyaltsen (a.k.a. "Jetsunpa"-1469-1544), whose writings are considered today to be the principal doctrinal authority at the Jey College of Sera Monastery, one of Central Tibet's most prestigious Gelugpa institutions. It explores how the shift in Khedrup's representations was in turn closely connected to Jetsunpa's ascension as Sera Jey's central textual authority in the first half of the 16th century, when he refuted and subsequently supplanted the philosophical commentaries of his precursor, Sera Jey's original founder, Lodro Rinchen Sengey (14 th-15th c.). Key to this was Jetsunpa's composition of a panegyrical "secret" biography of Khedrup, elevating his hero as the principal expositor of Tsongkhapa's teachings.;In the process of demonstrating the developments in the characterizations of Tsongkhapa, Khedrup, and Jetsunpa, this thesis clarifies key phases of early Gelugpa history. It suggests that lineage affiliation and the personal charisma afforded by philosophical prowess might have been on occasion more important in the formation of doctrinal orthodoxy than were the tenets of that orthodoxy itself. It demonstrates the value of closely studying biographical rhetoric as a way of discerning the interconnectedness of religious identities, lineage, and status, and their relation to the functioning of the great philosophical systems of Tibetan Buddhism.