Thonmi Sambhota ཐོན་མི་སམྦྷོ་ཊ thon mi sam b+ho Ta tuhn-mee sahm-boh-tah (year of birth around 619, year of death around 670), an eminent 7th century scholar, royal minister, and the first great lotsawa ལོ་ཙཱ་བ lo tsA ba loh-tsah-wah translator of Tibet བོད bod pö, is revered across Tibetan Buddhism ནང་པའི་ཆོས nang pa'i chos nahng-peh chuh (बौद्धधर्म - bauddhadharma) as the creator of the Tibetan script and grammar and is regarded as an emanation of Manjushri འཇམ་དཔལ་དབྱངས 'jam dpal dbyangs jahm-pel yahng (मञ्जुश्री - mañjuśrī). Dispatched by the Dharma King Songtsen Gampo སྲོང་བཙན་སྒམ་པོ srong btsan sgam po sohng-tsen gahm-poh (617–650) to India རྒྱ་གར rgya gar gyah-gar with sixteen companions, Thonmi Sambhota alone survived the arduous journey and studied Sanskrit ལེགས་སྦྱར་སྐད legs sbyar skad lek-jar keh (संस्कृत - saṃskṛta) linguistics, Indic scripts, and Dharma ཆོས chos chuh (धर्म - dharma) philosophy under masters such as Lipikara ལི་པི་ཀ་ར li pi ka ra lee-pee-kah-rah (लिपिकर - lipikara) and Devavidyasimha ལྷ་རིག་པའི་སེང་གེ lha rig pa'i seng ge lah rik-peh sehng-geh (देवविद्यासिंह - devavidyāsiṃha). Upon returning to Tibet, he adapted the Gupta and Brahmi alphabets to match Tibetan phonology, devising the thirty consonants and four vowel signs along with eight foundational grammatical treatises—of which the Sumcupa སུམ་ཅུ་པ sum cu pa soom-choo-pah (व्याकरणमूलत्रिंशक - vyākaraṇamūlatriṃśaka, Toh 4348) and the Takgi Jukpa རྟགས་ཀྱི་འཇུག་པ rtags kyi 'jug pa tahk kyee jook-pah (व्याकरणलिङ्गावतार - vyākaraṇaliṅgāvatāra, Toh 4349) remain the standard linguistic pillars of the Tibetan Tripitaka བཀའ་འགྱུར་དང་བསྟན་འགྱུར bka' 'gyur dang bstan 'gyur kah-gyoor dahng ten-gyoor. Using this newly forged literary vehicle, Thonmi Sambhota inaugurated the translation of sacred Mahayana ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོ theg pa chen po tek-pah chen-poh (महायान - mahāyāna) texts dedicated to Avalokiteshvara སྤྱན་རས་གཟིགས spyan ras gzigs chen-reh-zik (अवलोकितेश्वर - avalokiteśvara), including the Karandavyuha Sutra ཟ་མ་ཏོག་བཀོད་པ za ma tog bkod pa zah-mah-tohk kuh-pah (कारण्‍डव्यूहसूत्र - kāraṇḍavyūhasūtra, Toh 116, Taisho 1050) and the Ratnamegha Sutra དཀོན་མཆོག་སྤྲིན་གྱི་མདོ dkon mchog sprin gyi mdo kuhn-chohk trin gyee doh (रत्नमेघसूत्र - ratnameghasūtra, Toh 231, Taisho 658), thereby establishing the textual foundation for wisdom ཤེས་རབ shes rab sheh-rahp (प्रज्ञा - prajñā), compassion སྙིང་རྗེ snying rje nying-jeh (करुणा - karuṇā), and full awakening བྱང་ཆུབ byang chub jahng-choop (बोधि - bodhi) across the Land of Snows.