Most examples of Tibetan banned literature involved controversies in philosophical teachings beginning in the 11th century. Philosophical positions such as the zhentong, (the Void of the Other) became regarded as heretical and many of the greatest masters of the Gelug tradition were branded as proponents and their works set aside and not permitted to be read or copied. Great teachers such as Jamyang Choje, the founder of the famed Gelug monastery of Drepung and Lotro Rinchen Senge, the founder of Sera Je, were banned. The early Gelugpa school slowly calcified and core syllabi replaced honest debate and disputation. It was, however, only in the 17th and 18th century that there was a wholesale ban placed on the most famous writings of traditions, such as Jonang, Sakya, Kagyu, and Nyingma by the princes of the ruling Gelug tradition. A survey of the existing blocks in Central Tibet was undertaken by the Tagdra regent in 1956. This notes the existence of printing blocks, many of which were sealed, by order of the Government of the Ganden Podrang. The list of the banned books included the works of such philosophical masters as Dolpopa, Taranatha, the Five Patriarchs of the Sakya, and Karma Mikyo Dorje. Prohibitions against the striking of impressions of the Tagten Puntsoling Monastery of the Jonang was only lifted in the mid-19th century through the efforts of the the scholar Losal Tenkyong. The ban extended even to the creation of manuscripts. A good example is the sole surviving set of manuscripts of the 24 volume collected works of the controversial scholar Shakya Chogden was allowed only because a Bhutanese Prince Abbot believed himself to be the rebirth of the author and because the Tibetan government was courting the Bhutanese state at this time. Political prophecies are another genre of literature that often meets with political banning. In the 17th century there appeared numerous prophet visionaries who taught esoteric methods of destruction of invading Mongols. The new Ganden Podrang government early on decided that three Nyingma masters, Gongra Lochen, Sogdogpa Lodro Gyaltsen, and Trengpo Terton Sherab Ozer represented a danger to the harmonious relations between the Gelug masters and the Mongol overlords. At the beginning of the 21st century we are seeing a revival of the Jonang in Dzamtang and the Kagyu and Nyingma in Kham. The paper discusses reasons for banning and why there is a revival in the late 20th Tibetan cultural area.
