The Sage's Crown: Law Hats in Himalayan Art
In a private collection hangs an 18th-century work titled "The Eighth Lord Situ Rinpoche and the Sages," which bears the Tibetan inscription བླ་ཆེན་དགོངས་པ་རབ་གསལ་ Lachen Gongbasa (Lachen Gongbasa, 953?-1035?) and the phrase, "As long as you carry it with you, you will remember me." Depicted together are patriarchs of various sects, each wearing a different hat. These hats serve both to identify the figures and to attest to their renown as the wise men of the snowy land.
An 18th-century painting titled "The Eighth Karmapa in the Realm of Meditation," held at the Rubin Museum in New York, depicts the Eighth Gyalwa Karmapa encircled by eight Dakinis within the Guru Yoga practice (བླ་མའི་རྣལ་འབྱོར་). In later periods, the Eighth Situ Rinpoche—a noted scholar of Tibetan grammar—regarded Thumi Sangbumza from the Tubo era as a lifelong exemplar. Yet the focus here is not on Thumi's own headgear, but rather on the emblematic white turban associated with the Tubo dynasty.
In 978 AD, Lume Tsering (ཀླུ་མེས་ཚུལ་ཁྲིམས་ཤེས་རབ་), a seeker of the Dharma, was on the verge of departing from Lachen Gongba Ralse, his teacher and a great master of Tibetan Buddhism. The most celebrated origin myth for the Tibetan practice of wearing ceremonial hats is that the Gyalwa Karmapas have, throughout history, worn a black hat fashioned from Dakinis' hair. Particulars: The Black Hat of the Eighth Karmapa Particulars: The Beginning of Yoga Dance Preface: the distinction between red and yellow.
A long-standing narrative within Buddhist circles explains how Tibetan ceremonial hats came to be. Prior to his departure, Lachen presented Lume with a distinctive ear-flapped hat—described by some sources as a white Bon-adorned one—along with the words, "As long as you wear this hat, you will remember me." One reason for the wide assortment of hats across Tibetan lands is the custom of using such headgear to represent religious lineage. 《Adi Canyon》, 13th century, housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Another account regarding this hat is connected to Atisha (ཨ་ཏི་ཤ་；982-1055), a prominent Buddhist master from the latter part of the post-imperial period. In 13th-century artworks, Adi Gorge is already depicted wearing a Phrygian cap, so which hat is it that confounds and alarms him? Might it be the one Rumy gave him decades earlier? Such are the details of Adi Gorge's dark-colored fedora.
Certain researchers are inclined to relate this hat to the Bon religion's yellow-and-white hat known as the pointed white hat (དཀར་མོ་རྩེ་རྒྱལ་). The incident took place when Dromtonpa (འབྲོམ་སྟོན་པ་；1004-1064), the principal disciple of Atisha, led a group to receive the Indian master. The attire of the welcoming party, particularly the hat, filled Atisha with deep bewilderment and fear. To soothe his unease, Dromtonpa and the others concealed both the hat and the cloak.
An artwork titled "The Legend of Adi Gorge," dating to the 17th century, is part of a private collection. The detail depicted is the welcoming of Adi Gorge. Within the image, Zhong Dunba's figure is strongly emphasized. His long hair stands for his unique position in spiritual practice, situated between the lay and monastic states. His biography states that he was forbidden from wearing any hat or head covering.
The hot qiongba hat, Rechungpa's monk's headgear, is a subject of long-standing controversy. Constructed from fur and leather, it features a pointed flag at its crest and a sun-and-moon motif across the front, all of which echo the Ben religion's traditions. Rechungpa (རས་ཆུང་པ་; 1085–1161), the foremost disciple of Milarepa, exemplifies practitioners by merging the ways of native sorcerers with those of South Asian yogis. This depiction originates from a 19th-century private collection.
In the Rubin Museum of Art in New York, the 16th-century "Biography of Milarepa" has Mount Kailash in the background, the place where Milarepa practiced. The grid space's drawing unit is an early art style. Four disciples, wearing "Haram Kampa white hats," gather around their teacher, holding Damaru drums (ད་མ་རུ་) and practice sticks, and chant the teachings in song (མགུར་གླུ་) as they follow Milarepa's voice.
The traditional Banzhida hat (པཎ་ཞྭ་) is usually red, in contrast to the yellow version worn by the Gelug school. Later accounts of religious history claimed that Atisha introduced this South Asian hat to Tibet, though it may have already appeared during the Tubo period.
The Rubin Museum of Art in New York houses a 15th-century work titled "Tsongkhapa." In the Gelug school, the yellow hat is generally seen as combining the appearance of the yellow-and-white hat that Tsongkhapa received with the function of the Banzhida hat that Atisha brought. Later, with the guidance of Gelug lineage masters like Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), the yellow Banzhida hat came to stand for reverence for the Buddha and the purification of canons—this reflects the cultural symbolism associated with the color yellow.
Regarding Zongkaba's yellow Pandita hat, early images showed no gold-thread decorations on the Ban Zhida hat; afterward, the number of gold threads reflected how many scriptures the master had studied. Meanwhile, portraits from the 15th century are believed to be nearer to the era of Tsongkhapa's works. In these pictures, every lineage master is depicted wearing a yellow Gelugpa hat, possibly due to a convention in Gelugpa painting.
The Rubin Museum of Art in New York holds the "Sakya Great Black Heaven Lineage," which dates to the late 12th century. It includes five master portraits in all. Of the two masters depicted on the left, one is shown in a red hat and the other in a yellow hat. Regarding the left-side guru, he may be Sradha Karavarma or Zadimba (བྲག་སྟེང་པ་). As for the right-side guru, the figure could be Renqing Zangpo (རིན་ཆེན་བཟང་པོ་) or Ma Yishi (མལ་ལོ་ཙཱ་བ་). At the very least, this indicates that the Yellow Hat sect had arisen by the 12th to 13th century.
Recent years of ongoing research into post-Hong history have cast doubt on whether the “Dalai Lama's gift of the Lu Mei hat” is authentic, given the dispute over the Dalai Lama’s dates—his birth and death years may actually be 832–915. Even if the hat was indeed gifted, it would have been presented by Tubten Yeshe Rinpoche (ཐུལ་པ་ཡེ་ཤེས་རྒྱལ་མཚན་；a master of both Bon and Mahayana practices), the Dalai Lama’s student, rather than by the Dalai Lama himself.
Perhaps this question—what is a Law Hat (བླ་ཞྭ་-དགེ་ཞྭ་-དབུ་ཞྭ་)?—represents a true difficulty for researchers of Tibetan Buddhism. In this regard, one certainly cannot exclude the possibility that a hat-giving tradition arose from the Dalai Lama (an earlier Yellow Hat lineage). Sakya 2nd Patriarch Sönam Gyaltsen Mö (བསོད་ནམས་རྩེ་མོ་； 1142-1182) wrote: "Some people say it was transmitted from the Lakṣmi tradition, while others say it was transmitted from the Tupa Yeshé Jampal tradition.
When this question is situated within the development of early Buddhism, one finds that monks mostly covered their heads for warmth or as an allowance for those with medical conditions. According to the Vinaya texts, "head coverings" could be made from fine hair and cotton for use during daily rest or travel, but not for religious rites or practice. It is crucial to differentiate the various crowns of deities from the Law Hats worn by monks, since this difference pertains to the boundary between the sacred and the secular.
Buddha in Meditation" (6th–8th century, Swat Museum, Pakistan, number 7206) features early sculptures of Buddha disciples with empty heads above. If it is said that wearing a hat is not advocated in the canonical scriptures of Buddhism, then how did the red Bandzundha hat from South Asia arise? This red Bandzundha hat (པཎ་ཞྭ་), worn across all Tibetan Buddhist sects, is a hat for the wise; it is generally classified as either the long Bandren (པཎ་རིང་) or the short Bandong (པཎ་ཐུང་).
As a hat representing wisdom, its two sides embody the two Truths (བདེན་ གཉིས་), while the pointed top stands for the supreme Middle Way. The Bandren and Bandong's length reveals whether a scholar has mastered the Ten Wisdoms (Big Five Wisdoms and Little Five Wisdoms) or is accomplished in the Big Five Wisdoms alone. Meanwhile, within the traditional South Asian context, red is regarded as the color of eminent practitioners, carrying divine blessing, and it holds a sacred status.
The first work, "Sabon and Basiba," dates to the 14th century and is part of the Rubin Museum of Art's collection in New York. It depicts Sabban (1182-1251), the first native South Asian exponent of the traditional Banabhatta style. The red Songkok hat worn by Saban features wrinkles, which may point to the material used in its construction. Also at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York is "Sa-kya Lineage of Mahakala," a 15th-century piece. This work portrays the inheritor of the Great Dark Sky lineage, who is shown wearing both the yellow and red law hats.
Two distinct types of Pandita hat unique to Tibet can be identified through a method that merges literary and visual evidence. In such early depictions, Saban is the sole figure wearing headgear. An informative source on this topic is the Persian historian Minhaj-i-Siraj (12-13th century). Meanwhile, in South Asian traditions, the title Pandita could be earned by mastering the Dvividha Shastra, irrespective of whether it was Buddhist or belonged to any other Indian sect. The present text is partial with respect to the Sakya Dagchen Rinpoche lineage pedigree and the Five Patriarchs of the Saṃgha.
Minhaj-i-Siraj documented how Buddhist temples and monks were persecuted by Turkic Muslim forces. He recorded the killing of the monks, stating, "Those shaven-headed Brahmans (referring to monks) were all killed, some were students, others were teachers wearing red hats" (author's translation). This passage reveals that the red hat—possibly the Pandita hat—functioned not merely as headgear but also as a marker of identity, indicating that its wearers were Buddhist scholars engaged in teaching roles.
In Han Chinese literature, colors—especially those of garments and headdresses—are frequently used to signify and symbolize different Tibetan Buddhist schools. Tibetan hat development, shaped jointly by South Asian cultural influences and indigenous customs (the latter to be examined when we address Bon religion headgear), exhibits a wide-ranging variety; by my estimate, there are no fewer than thirty distinct types. As for "The Monk's Doomsday" (1932), its illustrations come from James Meston's book.
This classification largely carries forward the discussions on the "Four Major Sects" (Nyingma, Kagyu, Gelug, and Sakya) that have been ongoing since the time of the Fifth Dalai Lama. At the same time, it represents a way of categorizing knowledge from an "other" standpoint, which may limit a deeper examination of hats. The Fifth Dalai Lama (1617-1682) undertook comprehensive research into the doctrines of various traditions, and at the Potala Palace he frequently donned hats associated with different schools to affirm his status as a lineage holder; this information is sourced from a private collection dated to the 17th century.
Dating to the 19th century and held in a private collection, this work is part of a series of images that illustrate the enthronement ceremony of the 10th Dalai Lama (1816-1837). Behind the sculpture, an inscription in Tibetan script includes the phrases "Homage to the omniscient Awang Losang Gyatso (5th Dalai Lama)" and "The Lineage of the Dalai Lamas in Their Previous Lives." It also shows a partial figure of Lama Sang, the founder of the Tsibaga Ju school.
The unique Ciba Gaju hat ཚལ་ཞྭ་ཁེབས་ཆེན་ (Ciba hat giant canopy style), a variant of the headgear worn by Gongpo Baba (སྒམ་པོ་པ་; 1079-1153) during his contemplative practice, was donned by Lama Sheng (བླ་མ་ཞང་; 1123-1193) as one of the earlier incarnations in the hereditary Dalai Lama lineage. Master Gongbo Ba, 17th century, private collection. The teachings of Tsongkhapa form the source from which all "Four Major and Eight Minor" sects of the Gelug school derive.
Despite the changes made by various sects, the Ganden Trikor (Ganden hat with earflaps) of Tsongkhapa remains the foremost practice hat in the Gelug tradition. Partial: Gonpoba's top hat. A Tibetan inscription behind the sculpture states "Tashi Delek Dawa Gyuno (meaning Gangpooba)." Fundamentally, the study of ceremonial hats entails an examination of sectarian (གྲུབ་མཐའ་) matters, underscoring divergences in doctrines and lineage traditions.
Ceremonial hats are regarded in specific studies as one of the most effective means for distinguishing religious figures. If the categories of these hats remain clearly separated, the lineage and sect of the central figure in an image can be roughly identified even without reference to written sources. As the literature notes, " ཞྭ་དང་སྲུང་མར་མཁས་ན་སྒྲུབ་བརྒྱུད་ལ་མི་རྨོངས། ( Understanding the distinction between ceremonial hats and protectors will dispel any confusion regarding sectal transmissions).
Once the true nature of ceremonial hats is understood, the next step is to develop practical ways to categorize them. The upcoming post will introduce a method for sorting these hats and examine the various "origin myths" tied to each type. This piece is a translation from Sorang Wangqing's blog.