UC Santa Barbara

In this essay I explore a portion of a polemical text authored by the influential fifteenth to sixteenth century Geluk thinker Sera Jetsün Chöki Gyeltsen (Se ra rje btsun chos kyi rgyal mtshan). Jetsünpa rose to prominence as a renowned teacher and abbot of Sera Jé (Se ra byes) college who authored college textbooks (yig cha) still in use to this day at Sera Jé, as well as Ganden Jangtsé colleges. The text is a polemical response to an attack by the Sakya thinker Gorampa against Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Geluk school. The portion I focus on concerns the central topic of the two truths in Madhyamaka philosophy. I seek to understand the way in which sectarian differentiation was articulated as differing modes of philosophical exegesis, as well as exploring what role the sociopolitical context in Tibet may have played in the formation of sectarian identity.