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The Jonang school of Tibetan Buddhism is allegedly extinct for a long time. During the early 17th century its brilliant exponent Taranatha (1575-1634) played an important role in leading the order to a last flourishing. Yet, the „Great Fifth" Dalai Lama, being hostile toward the Jonangpa, closed down their head monastery and turned it, like all other Jonang institutions within his sphere of influence, into a Gelugpa monastery. Not only had he the Jonang teachings suppressed, but also the wood-blocks containing their texts confiscated and sealed. Monastic life of the Jonangpa came to an end - until today many people believe to a definite one.
1. The cause for the downfall of the Jonang school is generally seen in the exegesis of Asanga’s „Thought-Only-Doctrine" by Sherab Gyantshen, the first great exponent of the order. He had formulated a philosophical position that later was considered ‘heretical’, for it offered a way of conceptualizing the process of Enlightenment that was close to the thoughts of early mediaeval Chan Buddhism of the Chinese monk Hvashang. The latter had taught the possibility of a sudden awakening of the Enlightenment state through the absence of mental activity. This position was to provide the pretext for proscribing the Jonang order.
2. From the religious-dogmatic point of view the proponents of the Indian Buddhist school had triumphed over those of Hvashang’s Mahayana tradition. Yet, records of both the Jonangpa and Dzogchen traditions claim the victory of the Hvashang tradition at the Samye Council. Thus the Jonang teachings only became a deviation from the ‘unvarnished truth’ when later Tibetan apologists identified themselves with the Indian parties. They attacked their opponents of continuing the mistaken doctrines of the Chinese party in order to take precedence mainly over the teachings of the Nyingmapa order, which were legitimized by being traced back to the time of the great ‘Kings of religion’ (chos rgyal).
3. There were some more reasons why the Jonangpa were taken between two fires of the doctrinal disputes. Their notion that gifts to monasteries as a means for the path to Enlightenment would be dispensable were sowing seeds of discontent for these gifts were an important base to the political power of several Buddhist orders, namely the rising Gelugpa.
4. The objective of power politics had the Jonangpa being on the ‘wrong side’ as they were, like the Karma-Kagyüpa, closely associated with the Gelugpa’s main rivals for power in central Tibet, the princes of Tsang. Any significant influence of the Jonangpa thus was a thorn in the Gelugpa’s side.
5. Taranatha who had been sent to Urga in Khalkha Mongolia by the prince of Tsang, was acting there during two decades. When in 1634 he died in Urga, his reputation endured for his re-incarnation was discovered in a son of the Khalkha Mongol prince Tüsiyetü Khan. The kid was declared to be the spiritual leader of Mongolia and given the title of „Holy Venerable Lord" (rje btsun dam pa). Thus the Jonangpa, and together with them the princes of Tsang, were about to secure the support of one of the most mighty central Asian powers. The decisive political move was then made by the 5th Dalai Lama by eliminating the Jonangpa order, yet expressing his support for the rje btsun dam pa incarnation and thus integrating him into the Gelugpa system.
6. Today Dzamthang in southern Amdo is still the realm of the Jonangpa. In contrary to current beliefs the Dalai Lamas’ power sphere of influence did only partially reach into Kham in East and Amdo in Northeast Tibet. There a lama Rinchen Pel (1350-1435) had founded the oldest existing and active Jonang-pa monastery, Chöje Gompa. The Jonangpa’s dominance was, to a certain degree, related to the patronage of the newly established Ming Court of China of which he procured the imperial support to his China-near institution.
7. In the 16th century the Jonangpa’s authority in Dzamthang was that much consolidated that after the outbreak of a military conflict with the Gelugpa in neighbouring Ngawa the Jonangpa held their own. The imperial bestowing of the title dharmaraja upon Chöje Monastery’s head lama in 1550 made Dzamthang the theocratic centre of the greater Ngolok-Seta region with its sphere of influence including southern Amdo, northeastern Kham, Gyarong, and even reaching Mongol princes in Amdo as well as the Naxi in the far South.
8. Like all important lamaseries the monastic centre in Dzamthang possessed secular power, controlling „five mountains and eight plains". The head lama, in whose hands lay both the spiritual and secular au-thority, established all the conventional apparatus for government and even controlled an army of more than 200 men. Thus Chöje Gompa became a political and religious entity which was in function until the beginning of the Chinese communists’ reforms, with neighbouring Jonang monasteries enlarging its political influence.
9. The order was renowned for its high degree of true Buddhist practice, what fastened the base of support in both the local faithful as well as noble supporters from adjacent areas. This was an essential pre-condition for the sympathy of the other sects (Nyingma, Kagyü, Sakya, Bön) strongly represented in East Tibet, and convincing to have them taking part in their Rime Movement. It was owing to the Rime lamas that the sealed Jonang texts and printing-blocks were finally given access to again in the 19th century. This allowed for a new stimulus for the propagation of Jonang teachings.
10. The heterogeneity, the political non-uniformity of the Tibetan realm was decisive for the ‘survival’ of the Jonang order, for it thus was shielded from the Lhasa-centred range of Gelugpa power. A vivid religious life combined with considerable secular power, based on a native state-like dominion as well as on strong allies from nomadic tribes, indigenous sovereigns and even the imperial court, together with the willingness to, in the last resort, protect its realm by military force against the protruding Gelugpa, enabled the Jonang order to endure in this inaccessible part of the Tibetan Highland. Their main seat is Tsangwa Gompa of Dzamthang. With about 5000 monks, distributed over almost 40 Jonang monasteries in Amdo and Gyarong, their religious influence is of no little importance.

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