Tsongkhapa

Tsongkhapa founded the Tibetan Buddhist Yellow Hat school. The cap worn by Tsongkhapa is called in Tibetan pan zhwa meaning "scholar's cap". It is a yellow monk's cap that is peach-shaped and comes to a point at the top. In ancient India only those who had reached the rank of a pandita or scholar could wear such a cap, although these were not yellow in colour. Within the various orders of Tibetan Buddhism the three major systems are the Black Hat, Red Hat and Yellow Hat systems. The yellow hat was first worn by bu-tson rin-chen grub-pa (Putön Richen Trup-pa, 1290-1364) and became very popular after Tsongkhapa, eventually becoming the typical hat worn by monks of the Gelugpa school.