Gelug is the most "rational" of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism — valuing discipline, logic, and sequence. Yet even so, it preserves a set of moving legends: the sandalwood tree that grew from the blood of Tsongkhapa's umbilical cord at his birth, the butter lamps filling the city on the Butter Lamp Festival, the origin of the clap in debate.

These legends share one trait: they are mostly not about miracles, but about choice and perseverance. Tsongkhapa performed no subjugation of demons; he did something more tedious and more difficult — in an age when rules had collapsed, he rebuilt them. That perseverance itself became a legend.

The following origins are the most often-told in the Gelug tradition.

Each opens into a full illustrated article:

Tsongkhapa was born in 1357 in Huangzhong, Qinghai (present-day Kumbum). Legend has it that when he was born, the blood from his severed umbilical cord seeped into the earth, and from there grew a sandalwood tree whose leaves were luxuriant, each bearing naturally the image of a Lion's Roar Buddha (ཤཱཀྱ་སེང་གེ་, Śākyasiṃha) or Sanskrit letters.

Years later, Tsongkhapa's mother, missing her son studying far away in Tibet, sent a lock of white hair by messenger. Tsongkhapa wrote back: build a stupa where the tree grows, with my heart as its heart, as if you saw my face. The mother built a stupa there — the origin of present-day Kumbum Monastery (སྐུ་འབུམ་, Kumbum, meaning "hundred thousand buddhas"). Later the stupa was sheathed in silver and expanded into a monastery, establishing Gelug's center in Amdo.

What is touching in this legend is its ordinariness: no miracle, no demon-subjugation, only a tree, a stupa, and a mother's longing for her son. One of the grandest schools of Tibetan Buddhism began, of all things, with a phrase — "as if you saw my face."

It also says another thing: however far a person travels, he cannot escape where he started. Tsongkhapa never returned home in his life, yet his Dharma ultimately returned to beneath that tree.

Every year on the twenty-fifth of the tenth month of the Tibetan calendar is the Butter Lamp Festival (Ganden Ngamchö, དགའ་ལྡན་ལྔ་མཆོད་), commemorating Tsongkhapa's passing in 1419.

Legend holds that when Tsongkhapa passed, the disciples were grief-stricken, yet some doubted: if he had realized the truth, why manifest impermanence? Later a disciple saw Tsongkhapa in a dream or pure vision — he had not left, but dissolved into the Dharma-realm. So the people lit butter lamps, symbolizing the lamp of wisdom that never goes out.

On this night, every household in the land lights butter lamps on window sills and rooftops, and the monasteries glow all night. The lamps merge into one field; seen from the valley, it is as if someone had spread the stars upon the ground.

The meaning of the Butter Lamp Festival is that it turns an event about death into a festival about light. The best way to remember a person is not to mourn his departure, but to light the lamp he lit.

This is the gentlest side of Gelug — a school known for logic and discipline lays down all its syllogisms on this one night, and only lights lamps.

Tsongkhapa's legend holds a central place in the Gelug tradition, but its nature is quite different from that of Padmasambhava or Milarepa.

Padmasambhava subdued demons, Milarepa practiced austerities, Nāropa underwent twelve hardships — these legends are full of miracles. Tsongkhapa's conduct, by contrast, was mainly this: he studied widely across the schools, was unmatched in debate, wrote several great treatises, restored discipline, founded Ganden Monastery, and trained two outstanding disciples.

The part closest to a "miracle" is perhaps that he once beheld Mañjuśrī in person and, in long pure visions, conversed with him, thereby resolving his doubts on the Madhyamaka view. Yet even this, Gelug's telling is extremely restrained; the emphasis always falls on the settling of the view, not on the vision itself.

This itself is what Gelug wishes to convey: a true reformer needs no miracles. In an age when rules had collapsed, to rebuild them was harder and more important than subduing a hundred demons.

Thus Tsongkhapa's legend seems calm, yet carries a weighty power. It says: a single person, by rigor and perseverance alone, can change the course of a tradition for six hundred years.

Gelug's debate (རྩོད་པ་) is both the core of the curriculum and the subject of its own explanatory tradition.

In debate, the questioner stands, raises his right hand high, then slashes it down to clap with his left, asking aloud. This clap is usually explained in three layers:

• Awakening one's own mind — the sudden sound breaks through distraction, reminding oneself to be aware in the present.
• Severing ignorance — the clap symbolizes the sword of wisdom falling, cutting off wrong grasping.
• Symbolizing impermanence — the clap arises and ceases in an instant, like the birth and death of all phenomena.

The content of the questions strictly follows the formulae of logic; the respondent must immediately answer "admitted," "the reason does not hold," or "not established." If he cannot answer, the questioner circles him, repeating loudly until the whole court hears — not to humiliate, but to publicly mark what is not yet understood, so he may go back and study more.

Gelug often says that a person's understanding, if it stays only in the mind, is usually murky; it must be pressed into a corner before others' eyes to know whether one truly understands. Truth is not afraid of being questioned; what it fears is that no one questions. This legend has its own dedicated page.

The Fifth Dalai Lama (1617–1682) is one of the key figures in Gelug's and Tibet's history, and the most epic chapter in this school's legends.

In the mid-seventeenth century, Gelug was in a difficult position amid the competition of Tibet's schools. With the military support of Güshi Khan, the Fifth Dalai Lama unified Tibet and established the Ganden Phodrang regime, after which Gelug became the dominant force in Tibet.

In 1645 he began building the Potala Palace atop the Red Hill in Lhasa. This vast palace built into the mountain later became the winter palace and religious-political center of successive Dalai Lamas, and today the most recognizable landmark of Tibet.

The Fifth Dalai Lama was also a scholar; his writings span history, doctrine, and ritual, and his *Annals of the Kings and Ministers of Tibet* remains an important historical source. He also vigorously supported the monasteries of other schools, including Nyingma's Mindrolling and Dorje Drak — showing that though Gelug held dominance, it did not turn to an exclusive path.

In 1682 the Fifth Dalai Lama passed away. His life took Gelug from being one school among many to the center of Tibet's religious-political order. Interestingly, the man who brought Gelug to the peak of power was also a diligent scholar and compiler — he organized canon, supported other schools, and recorded history, leaving a great many works. This perhaps shows one thing: Gelug's valuation of learning was never discarded, even in its most pragmatic political figures.

Q: Can these legends be read as history?

A: Legends hold both a historical and a devotional layer. Tsongkhapa's life, the dating of his works, and the founding of Ganden Monastery are verifiable through historical records and inscriptions; the sandalwood-tree legend and the origin of the Butter Lamp Festival belong to devotional narrative, carrying an edifying meaning. The two are best read in layers.

Q: When is the Butter Lamp Festival?

A: On the twenty-fifth day of the tenth lunar month, commemorating the parinirvāṇa of Je Tsongkhapa. The Gregorian date shifts each year, falling roughly between November and December.

Q: Is the monastic debate a quarrel?

A: No. The debate follows strict canons of logic (pramāṇa); its purpose is to test and clarify understanding, not to win. It has fixed rules, role divisions, and etiquette.

Q: Why doesn't Gelug speak of supranormal powers?

A: It is not that they are never spoken of, but that they are not emphasized. Tsongkhapa held that without correct view and discipline, supranormal powers easily mislead; hence Gelug values the verifiable stages of study and practice.

• Ganden monastery.jpg · Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0
• Tibet, Ganden Monastery with some destroyed buildings remaining from 1959, taken on 19 December 2006.jpg · ignat / CC BY 2.5
• Tibet 06 - 040 - Ganden Monastery 1 (150277595).jpg · McKay Savage from London, UK / CC BY 2.0