Imperial Preceptor
title of monk officials in Buddhism
The Imperial Preceptor, or Dishi (simplified Chinese: 帝师; traditional Chinese: 帝師; pinyin: Dìshī; lit. 'Teacher of the Emperor'; Middle Mongolian: guê šhi or gue šhi; Tibetan: གོང་མའི་སློབ་དཔོན, Wylie: gong mavi slob dpon), was a high title and powerful post in the Yuan dynasty. It was created by Kublai Khan as part of Mongol patronage of Tibetan Buddhism and the Yuan administrative rule of Tibet.
The title was originally created as the State Preceptor or Guoshi (simplified Chinese: 国师; traditional Chinese: 國師; pinyin: Guóshī; lit. 'Teacher of the State'; Middle Mongolian: di šhi or ti ši; Tibetan: གོ་ཤྲི, Wylie: go shri) in 1260, the first year of Kublai Khan's enthronement. In that year he appointed the Sakya lama Drogön Chögyal Phagpa to this post and soon placed him in charge of all Buddhist clergy. In 1264, he founded the Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs and appointed Phagpa as the first director of this important new agency. The lama was offered nominal rule over all Tibet and also supervised Mongol relations with the Buddhist clergy. In 1270, Phagpa became Imperial Preceptor (Dishi) when the title was renamed. As Imperial Preceptor, he was authorized to issue letters and proclamations to the temples and institutions of Tibet, and he advised the emperor regarding official appointments in Tibet.
“Imperial Preceptor” enters the record as title of monk officials in Buddhism. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Imperial, Preceptor and title can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1236141. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1260, 1264 and 1270.
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This entry incorporates text from “Imperial Preceptor” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.