Pehar Gyalpo
guard deity of the teachings of the Buddha
According to Tibetan Buddhist myth, Gyalpo Pehar (Tibetan: རྒྱལ་པོ་དཔེ་ཧར, Wylie: rgyal po dpe har [also spelt: pe kar & dpe dkar]) is a spirit belonging to the gyalpo class. When Padmasambhava arrived in Tibet in the eighth century, he subdued all gyalpo spirits and put them under control of Gyalpo Pehar, who promised not to harm any sentient beings and was made the chief guardian spirit of Samye during the reign of Trisong Deutsen. Pehar is the leader of a band of five gyalpo spirits and would later become the protector deity of Nechung Monastery in the 17th century under the auspices of the Fifth Dalai Lama.
After the fall of the Western Xia, the influx of Tangut refugees into Tibet led to the adoption of Pehar into Tibetan Buddhism, eventually in the important role as the state oracle, the Nechung Oracle.
Protectors of Samye Monastery
According to tradition, Padmasambhava enthroned Pekar as the chief protector of Samye, the first monastery in Tibet. A temple within the Samye complex is therefore known as Pekar lha khang (Pekar Temple) or Pekar gling. Pekar served as protector of Samye for 700 years until, according to legend, he moved to Nechung (Tibetan: gnas chung), near Drepung Monastery in central Tibet, during the time of the Fifth Dalai Lama. The deity Tsiu Marpo succeeded him as protector of Samye.
The public source identifies “Pehar Gyalpo” as guard deity of the teachings of the Buddha. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Pehar, Gyalpo and guard.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pehar Gyalpo” 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.