 In the sections above, we have seen Sapaṇ criticize his contemporaries for their mistaken views and practices, which he believed threatened the integrity and the effectiveness of the Buddha’s teachings. As a result of these writings, he was valorized as a great scholar with deep mastery of Buddhist doctrine, but he was also often criticized and sometimes lampooned for being stodgy, conservative, and self-satisfied. He certainly believed that he had a clearer and more accurate view of the truth of the doctrine than most Tibetans of his time. Yet he believed the reason he was superior was easy to explain: He had studied and internalized the vast intellectual traditions of India, the land of Buddhism’s source. His learning provided him the means and the justification for defending the dharma against other teachers whose understanding was, by comparison, spotty. 