Drogön Chögyal Phagpa

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Drogön Chögyal Phagpa (Tibetan: འགྲོ་མགོན་ཆོས་རྒྱལ་འཕགས་པ་; Wylie: 'Gro mgon Chos rgyal 'Phags pa; also written Dongon Choegyal Phakpa, Dromtön Chögyal Pagpa, etc.)(1235-1280) was the fifth leader of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism. Chögyal Phagpa converted Kublai Khan, the ruler of the Mongols and emperor of China, to Buddhism. Kublai Khan in turn later appointed Chögyal Phagpa as Imperial Preceptor.^[1] With the support of Kublai Khan, Chögyal Phagpa established himself and his sect as the preeminent political power in Tibet.

In 1269, Kublai Khan commissioned Chögyal Phagpa to design a new writing system to unify the writing of the multilingual Mongolian Empire. Chögyal Phagpa in turn modified the traditional Tibetan script and gave birth to a new set of characters called Phagspa script. Neither the Mongols nor the Chinese ever adopted this script.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ F.W. Mote. Imperial China 900-1800. Harvard University Press, 1999. p.501.