The Dharma King Who Took Care of His Family: Penden Trashi and the Rise of a Clan-Based Tibetan Buddhist Society in the Fifteenth-Century Northern Sino-Tibetan Borderland

Abstract In the fifteenth century, Tibetan Buddhist monks from the northern Sino-Tibetan borderland played an important role in facilitating religious and political contacts between Ming China and the Tibetan world. With the rise of their political status and religious influence at the Ming court, these Buddhist hierarchs also projected imperial endorsements to the Sino-Tibetan borderland and reshaped the local social structure. This article examines how Penden Trashi, one of the most eminent Tibetan Buddhist monks of the fifteenth century, contributed to the rise of a clan-based Tibetan Buddhist society in early Ming Minzhou 岷州. By scrutinizing Penden Trashi’s biography and personal letters to identify his role in forging the dharma succession pattern and monastic association mode in Minzhou, this article illuminates how imperial patronage reconstructed the power dynamic in the fifteenth-century Sino-Tibetan borderland.