Padmasambhava, Shantarakshita, and King Trisong Detsen formed the trio that brought Buddhism to Tibet — the king provided royal authority, the abbot provided monastic discipline, and the tantric master subdued the hostile spirits that had blocked every prior attempt.
King Trisong Detsen summoned the Indian abbot Shantarakshita to build Tibet's first monastery, but hostile spirits tore down each night what was raised by day until the tantric master Padmasambhava was called to subdue them, and together the three founders raised Samye — a stone mandala of the Buddhist cosmos with Utse temple as Mount Meru at its center.
King Trisong Detsen convened the Great Debate at Samye after Shantarakshita prophesied that a Chinese doctrine would threaten the dharma and urged that his student Kamalashila be summoned from India to defend the gradualist path against the Chan master Moheyan's teaching of sudden enlightenment — a contest the king ruled in favor of the Indian position, binding Tibetan Buddhism to the Indian scholastic tradition.
Shantarakshita ordained the first seven Tibetan monks at Samye Monastery, known as the Seven Examined Men, proving that Tibetans could uphold monastic discipline and establishing the sangha on Tibetan soil for the first time.
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