27 Facts About Gelug

Doctrinally, the Gelug school promotes a unique form of prasangika Madhyamaka based on the works of Tsongkhapa.

Gelug school was called the "New Kadam", because it saw itself a revival of the Kadam school founded by Atisha.

Gelug school was founded by Je Tsongkhapa, an eclectic Buddhist monk and yogi who traveled Tibet studying under Kadam, Sakya, Drikung Kagyu, Jonang and Nyingma teachers.

Gelug emphasized monasticism and a strict adherence to vinaya.

Gelug combined this with extensive and unique writings on madhyamaka, Buddhist epistemology, and Buddhist practice.

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The Gelug school developed a reputation for strict adherence to monastic discipline and rigorous scholarship as well as for tantric practice.

Sonam Gyatso was very active in proselytizing among the Mongols, and the Gelug tradition was to become the main religion of the Mongols in the ensuing centuries.

Gelug worked against certain shamanistic practices such as animal sacrifice and blood sacrifices.

Gelug established a formal theocratic system of government, opened diplomatic relations with Qing Dynasty China, built the Potala Palace in Lhasa, institutionalized the Tibetan state Nechung Oracle, and spurred a major renaissance in art and book printing.

Gelug is the author of the important Tibetan medical text, The Mirror of Beryl, commissioned a set of medical paintings and wrote a biography of the Fifth Dalai Lama.

Gelug is credited with having launched a renaissance of Mongolian culture in the seventeenth century, with having created the Soyombo script and with widely promoting Buddhism among the Mongols.

Gelug's successor, the 7th Dalai Lama, was a noted poet, but he wrote mainly on Buddhist and spiritual themes.

Gelug was a Dzogchen practitioner and one of the four great Dharma heirs of the Nyingma master Patrul Rinpoche.

Some Gelug lamas went on to receive a modern western university education and became published academics, such as Gelek Rinpoche, Geshe Thupten Jinpa, Geshe Gyeltsen, and Sonam Thakchoe.

Some western students of diaspora Gelug lamas have become scholars of Buddhism as well as translators and teachers, including Alexander Berzin, B Alan Wallace, Robert Thurman, Robina Courtin, Jeffrey Hopkins, Donald S Lopez Jr.

The Gelug tradition has a strong traditional presence in modern Russian Republics like Buryatia, Kalmykia and Tuva.

Gelug rejects certain views of emptiness, particularly the shentong view, which is seen as a kind of eternalism or essentialism.

The proper view of emptiness in the Gelug school is considered to be the prasangika madhyamika philosophy of Nagarjuna and Chandrakirti as interpreted by Tsongkhapa.

Gelug texts contain many explanations to help one obtain a conceptual understanding of emptiness and to practice insight meditation.

Gelug school focuses on ethics and monastic discipline of the vinaya as the central plank of spiritual practice.

Arguably, Gelug is the only school of vajrayana Buddhism that prescribes monastic ordination as a necessary qualification and basis in its teachers.

Tantric practices of the Gelug school are integrated into the stages of the path model by Tsongkhapa's The Great Exposition of Secret Mantra.

Gelug school follows Tsongkhapa's view that Vajrayana is only differentiated from sutra by its special method, the esoteric practice of deity yoga, which is considered to be a much faster method than the practice of the six perfections alone.

Gelug tradition maintains Dzogchen teachings; Lozang Gyatso, 5th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso, 13th Dalai Lama, and Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama are some Gelug-pa Dzogchen masters.

Gelug school developed a highly structured system of scholastic study which was based on the memorization and study of key texts as well as formal debate.

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Each Gelug monastery uses its own set of commentarial textbooks which were written to explain further scholastic details and interpretative issues.

The various sets of Gelug textbooks differ on numerous fine points of interpretation.