Key Terms/Sarma
Basic Meaning
The new Buddhist schools which began to rise in the second millennium in Tibet after Buddhism declined in the ninth century as a result of the fall of the Yarlung dynasty. The Sarma schools were mostly based on Buddhist teachings freshly received from India and Nepal in contrast to the revival of the old teachings which already existed in Tibet.
Has the sense of
The term often refers to the new translation of Buddhist texts in contrast to the translations carried out in the first millennium, particularly of the tantric literature. The tantric tradition which is based on the tantras translated in the period of Early Diffusion of Buddhism in Tibet came to be known as sngags rnying ma or ancient mantra and those based on tantras translated during the Later Diffusion came to known as sngags gear ma or new mantra.
In Tibetan, “new,” and taken to mean, “followers of the new translations,” in contradistinction to the RNYING ma, the “old” or “followers of the old translations.” Tibetan historians describe the dissemination of Buddhism to Tibet as occurring in two waves, the first, called the earlier dissemination ( s n g a d a r ) , beginning in the seventh Century and ending with the persecutions of Buddhism under King Glang dar ma in the ninth Century. The second wave, called the latter dissemination (phyi dar), is generally marked by the return of the Tibetan translator Rin chen bzang po from India and the new translations undertaken by him and others of t a n t r a s that had been translated in the earlier period and the translations o f a ränge o f texts not previously translated. These are called the “new translations.” By extension, the sects that developed subsequendy based on the translations of these texts are called collectively the “new sects” (gsar ma), identified as the three sects o f B k a ’ b r g y u d , S a s k y a , and B k a ’ g d a m s (later D g e l u g s ) . Those who continued to rely on the earlier translations (which included works that some members of the new sects would claim to be apocryphal) came to be known as the “old sect” (Rnying ma).
New Translation tradition Sarma Schools. 'New Schools.' The New Schools are Kagyü, Sakya, and Gelug as well as Shijey and Chö, Jordruk, Shangpa Kagyü, and Nyendrub (the Kalachakra system)
