MY FAMILY BACKGROUND
I WAS BORN IN the land of the supreme ārya with a lotus in his hand.7 Of Tibet’s three provinces, mine was Ü-Tsang, the “province of Dharma.” Among the four districts of Ü-Tsang, mine was Kyishö Tsal Gungthang. This was the birthplace of Yudrakpa, protector of the inhabitants of Shang. He founded the Tsalpa Kagyü tradition and a monastery in Gungthang district that vastly improved scholarship in the area.8 In fact, prior to the founding of Riwo Ganden Monastery by Mañjunātha, the great Tsongkhapa, Gungthang Monastery was renowned as one of Tibet’s six major centers of learning, the others being Sangphu, Ratö Dewachen, Gadong, Kyormolung, and Sulpu.
During the height of rule of the Tsalpa potentate, the monastery contained two colleges known as Tsal and Gungthang. In Tsal College there were two schools: U Ling and Yangön. In Gungthang College there were three schools: Chötri, Sim Khangshar, and Chökhor Ling. The monastery was well endowed, both spiritually and materially. Later the rule of the Tsalpa potentate declined, and in the fire-rabbit year of the ninth cycle (1507), a great fire broke out in the monastery and destroyed the main chapel, statues of Mahādeva Munīndra, Shang Rinpoché, Four-Armed Mahākāla, the Tashi Öbar mausoleum, and some extremely sacred relics of the Buddha. With only two small schools, Sim Khangshar and Chötri, remaining, the monastery deteriorated both spiritually and materially.
At the time of the Great Fifth Dalai Lama Ngawang Losang Gyatso (1617–82), Surchen Chöying Rangdröl was the presiding lama of Gungthang. After him came the ascetic from Amdo, Gendun Phuntsok, the Fiftieth Ganden Throneholder. It was he who covered Ganden’s silver mausoleum of Mañjunātha Jé Tsongkhapa with gold. In appreciation of this, King Lhasang9 bestowed upon him dominion over the Gungthang temple and its sacred treasures, the two monastic schools with a treasury for their maintenance, the land, buildings, people, and wealth of the district.
Thus Gendun Phuntsok came to be widely known as the great throneholder from Gungthang, and his subsequent reincarnations, including the revered Tenpai Drönmé, were also commonly known as men from Gungthang, even though they continued to maintain their households at Tashi Khyil Monastery in Amdo. The distance from Amdo to Gungthang was so great that the reincarnation of the great throneholder Gendun Phuntsok found it too difficult to administer his holdings in Gungthang and so eventually returned them to the central government.
In later times, when the Seventh Dalai Lama Kalsang Gyatso was in his minority, the Dalai Lama’s uncle Samten Gyatso served as his devoted guardian and reading instructor. In appreciation of his services, dominion over Gungthang district, including its temple and treasury, was given in perpetuity to the entire family of Samten Gyatso, beginning with his son, a monk named Kalsang Yönten.
My own father, Tsering Döndrup, was an undisputed paternal relative of the Seventh Dalai Lama and as such became a member of the Gungthang hierarchy. An erudite man in secular matters, he was firm, subtle, and wise. Thus he came to be highly esteemed by all the inhabitants of the region and was constantly sought after for his good advice.
My father’s first wife bore him two daughters and five sons and passed away at an early age. Among their children was the incarnation of the Ganden Throneholder named Khamlung Tulku, of Drati House, Sera Jé. During this time my father also had an amorous relationship with one of the household maids, and she gave birth to Phukhang Khyenrap Tulku of Ganden.
The youngest of his first wife’s sons was married at the age of twenty to Tsering Drölma, a lady from the Nang Gong family of Gungthang. One day, while fording the Kyichu River on his way to Lhasa, he was swept away by the current and drowned. Later my father married the widowed Tsering Drölma, and she bore him three children. The eldest was myself, the middle child was a daughter named Jampal Chötso, and the youngest was a son, the reincarnation of Lelung Tulku. These are the origins of my immediate family.
My father was born in the water-rabbit year (1842), my mother in the wood-pig year (1874). He was fifty-nine years old and she twenty-seven when, by the force of virtuous actions I had done in previous lives, I was born as their son. I left my mother’s womb at sunrise as the star Denebola appeared in the sky on Tuesday, the twelfth day of the third month of the iron-ox year of the fifteenth cycle (April 30, 1901).
Religious dances at Gungthang Monastery, 1920 or 1921
© RABDEN LEPCHA, PITT RIVERS MUSEUM, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD; 1998.285.363
My father was responsible for the overall administration of Gungthang Monastery, which included the temple and the two colleges. Among his responsibilities was the obligation to provide a monk official from the monastery’s hierarchy to work in the central government. Previously some very well-known men had served in this capacity. Among them were Jampa Tengyé, who rose to become lord chamberlain, and just after him, as I recall, Tenzin Wangpo of Gungthang, who became a ministerial secretary.
My older sister, Kalsang Drölma, married a nobleman of the Khemé family named Rinchen Wangyal, who was himself a minor lay official. Thereafter the Khemé and Gungthang households were joined and became known as Khegung. As both the lay and monk officials from the household had to be at their offices in Lhasa every day, some land was bought in Lhasa when I was about three or four years old and a house constructed there called Kunsangtsé.
When I was about three years old, my father and Secretary Tenzin Wangpo took upon themselves the responsibility of having extensive renovations made to the entire Gungthang Monastery, a small room for the Dalai Lama constructed on top, and additional monks’ quarters built outside. When all was complete, they invited Dzamling Chegu Wangdü, patriarch of Sakya Phuntsok Phodrang,10 to perform a long-life empowerment and a ceremony for the elimination of inauspiciousness. I still remember being given a sacramental tablet on a silver spoon during the long-life empowerment, people passing back and forth over a vessel filled with glowing coals, and tsa-tsa11 being held over their heads while they received ablution from a ceremonial vase during the ritual for the elimination of inauspiciousness. I also remember the aged consort of the Sakya patriarch holding me in her lap with great affection and many other things that took place that day. Later, when I was about thirty-seven years old, I went on a pilgrimage in the province of Tsang and visited the Sakya Phuntsok Phodrang mausoleum where, to my amazement, I beheld something in the shape of a lotus approximately one foot high growing on the embalmed remains of that patriarch who had given us the long-life empowerment.
THE DEATH OF MY PREDECESSOR
My predecessor, Losang Tsultrim Palden, was born into the Öntön Kyergang family of Tölung Rakor in the earth-pig year (1839). In the fire-monkey year (1896) he was installed upon the golden throne of Ganden. In the iron-rat year (1900), while my predecessor still carried the responsibilities of the throneholder, the lord of the victorious ones, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama Thupten Gyatso (1876–1933), decided to make a journey to Chökhor Gyal and, as was the custom, planned to stop at Ganden en route. In order to greet the Dalai Lama according to tradition, the throneholder proceeded from Lhasa to Ganden with a golden parasol and full entourage in the third month of that year. When the procession reached a grove of willows on the Gungthang estate, the throneholder announced that he needed to rest and would stop there for a little while. His attendants asked if this would be proper, considering that they were in a formal procession and very near a village. He replied, “What is wrong with that? I shall sit for a while right here,” and so the entire procession came to a brief halt. Then he commented that it would be nice if he knew someone in that area so that he could have a good place to stop when he traveled back and forth between Ganden and Lhasa.
At a later date, the Dalai Lama arrived in Ganden and the ceremonies were performed. After the Dalai Lama had departed, the throneholder’s health began to deteriorate. During his daily circumambulations of Ganden, he would become tired and thirsty, and so his attendants would bring along a chair and something to drink. On the twenty-fifth day12 of the fourth month of the iron-rat year (1900), while circumambulating Ganden, the throneholder sat down at a side entrance to the debating ground that was in front of Jé Tsongkhapa’s throne room. Facing his attendants and looking at his treasurer, Ngakrampa Gyütö Losang Tendar,13 he began to speak, saying, “This man will search out . . .” He continued speaking for a while and then faced the western sky. Laughing all the while, he said, “Ganden, Ganden,”14 and suddenly passed into the realm of peace.
Geshé Nyitso Trinlé of Samling Monastery immediately carried the throneholder’s body to the house of Jé Tsongkhapa and placed it in a small room called the Chamber of Clear Light. For one week the body remained there while offerings were made. Then it was cremated behind Ganden’s Mount Gok. The smoke rising from the cremation pyre lifted the silk canopy high into the sky as if it had been blown by the wind. Both the smoke and the canopy disappeared to the west.
After one week, the cremation structure was opened, and the throneholder’s heart, tongue, and eyes were discovered to have not been consumed by the fire. A reliquary stupa was built at the small monastery of Chatreng, and these parts of his body were enshrined there. Years later, when the people of Chatreng were fighting the Chinese, they found that drinking an ablution poured over these relics gave them protection against bullets, and so in order to make themselves bulletproof, they divided the relics up and ate them. In later years, Ngakrampa would refer to the natives of Chatreng as “the people who ate my lama’s heart.”
After the cremation, Ngakrampa assisted by Chisur Lekshé Gyatso, a nephew of the late throneholder, took primary responsibility for making ceremonial offerings and finding the throneholder’s incarnation. They requested our great refuge and protector, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, who was then staying at his paternal family’s estate, to compose a prayer for the quick arrival of the reincarnation, and the Dalai Lama did so immediately.
MY RECOGNITION AS A REINCARNATION
The winter before I was born, a peach tree in the grove of a summer house on the Gungthang estate miraculously burst into flower, and about thirty pieces of fruit formed at the top of the tree. Before I could even walk, I displayed a fascination with deities, statues, and religious objects and took great pleasure in vajras, bells, drums, cymbals, and other ritual objects. Monks were a source of delight to me. I loved to sit among them when they were in assembly and imitate their chanting of prayers.
Since my actions showed some indication of right instincts, a geshé from Ganden who came regularly to our household to perform rituals took notice of me. He reported that there was an exceptional boy in the Gungthang household who should be considered when candidates for the throneholder’s reincarnation were examined. Thus Ngakrampa and Geshé Sadul Gendun Drakpa, the monk from Chatreng who had carried the ceremonial parasol for the late throneholder, came to Gungthang to examine me.
When they arrived, I happened to be on my nanny’s back just outside the fence. As we met I called out loudly, “Gendun Drakpa!” Ngakrampa inquired whether any of the family, friends, or servants had such a name and was informed that no one in the household had a name anything like that. Amazed, they went inside, and I, having followed, climbed into Gendun Drakpa’s lap, extended my legs, and said, “Wash my feet!” When the late throneholder had been stricken with rheumatism, this monk had bathed the throneholder’s feet with radish juice, and so it seemed to him as if I were manifesting actual remembrance of that previous life. With tears streaming down his face, he washed the bottoms of my feet by licking them with his tongue. I still remember this. Actually it must all have been nothing more than some sort of coincidence, for I myself had no actual memories of a previous life.
The household’s dairyman, Tashi Döndrup — the father of both my senior attendant Lhabu and personal attendant Palden — had deep faith in the late throneholder, so when he heard while on a sojourn in Lhasa that the throneholder’s reincarnation was supposed to be in Gungthang, he decided to go and see for himself. At the monastery’s reception hall, he was seated at the end of a row. Seeing him, I sprang out of my seat and ran over to him. Pulling out a silver coin, I handed it to him. Not knowing what to do with it, the dairyman handed it back. I remember my father saying, “This is a gift my son made to you; it is all right for you to keep it.”
The Thirteenth Dalai Lama was requested to make a divination concerning the throneholder’s reincarnation. He did so and then gave the following instructions: “During the second month of the water-tiger year (1902), make a detailed investigation in the south of Lhasa.” At that very time my mother went to Lhasa in order to do prostrations, circumambulations, and so on. She happened to rent a room in the house of a man called Akhu Trinlé, who was caretaker of the southern part of Lhasa’s Jokhang Temple.
A tutor to the Dalai Lama, Phurchok Jampa Gyatso, said in response to a request for divination, “In a place not far to the west of Ganden, the face of that supreme emanation appears to me.” The oracle of Gadong,15 in response to the first request for a prophecy concerning the throneholder’s reincarnation, said, “On the outskirts of the eastern side of the temple, examine a boy born in the iron-ox year whose mother’s name ends with Drölma.”
The predecessor of the present Ling Rinpoché16 said in response to a request for divination, “Of the Buddha’s five emanations,17 this incarnation is an emanation of the Buddha’s mind. He appears in a place not far to the south of Lhasa.”
Responding to a second request for divination, for which he was presented with names of boys who had shown some promising signs in their examinations, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama said, “This divination indicates that the boy born in the iron-ox year to Tsering Drölma should be recognized as the late throneholder’s reincarnation.”
The oracle of Gadong said in his second prophecy, “The boy born in the iron-ox year to Tsering Drölma should definitely be recognized as the late throneholder’s reincarnation.” The Nechung oracle, when presented with the list of names, made his prophecy while in trance by stamping his seal upon the line that read, “Boy born in the iron-ox year to Tsering Drölma.”
When Ngakrampa and his party made their initial examination, they showed me a statue of the Buddha that the late throneholder had received at his ordination, his prayer beads, and his wooden monk’s bowl, along with other similar decoy objects. I picked up the late throneholder’s statue and acted as if I wanted to put its head in my mouth. They took this as a sign that I was asserting myself as a master of the doctrine. I next picked up the late throneholder’s bowl and then a string of prayer beads that had been placed among the other objects as a decoy. A little while later I put those prayer beads back, picked up the ones that had belonged to the late throneholder, and, refusing to give them back, kept them thereafter. Apparently all this gave the examiners great faith in me.
CONTENTION CONCERNING A RIVAL CANDIDATE
There was also another boy who had shown some good signs. He was a son of the Chagong Beda Trotitsang family from Upper Chatreng. The people of Chatreng, motivated by provincial bias, intended to have this boy recognized as the late throneholder’s reincarnation, come what may. They spread rumors to the effect that a son of Lekshé Gyatso, the former governor of Gungthang, was going to be recognized as the late throneholder’s reincarnation and finally wrote a letter to Ngakrampa and to the former governor Lekshé Gyatso himself that read as follows:
The reincarnation of our lama is right here in Chatreng. You cannot give his title to some little boy from Gungthang. Since it would be wrong to give recognition to this Gungthang beggar boy, we will not allow you to take possession of the late throneholder’s household or his personal possessions. They will be placed in the custody of Chatreng Monastery.
A number of heated missives like this were sent. Letters were also sent to the monks from Chatreng at Ganden and Sera monasteries apprising them of the situation. Some of the monks held the view that it would suffice to find the real reincarnation, no matter where he might come from, but the majority insisted that the boy from Chatreng be recognized regardless. These two factions remained divided and continued to argue until the Great Prayer Festival at New Year.18 At that time representatives from Samling Mitsen and Dokhang House and the abbot and staff of Ganden Shartsé College met at the late throneholder’s residence in Lhasa.19 They argued the matter day and night until they finally came to a decision based upon the prophecies and divinations given by the oracles and masters, most especially the Dalai Lama. Thus they chose to recognize me.
The series of letters sent from Chatreng Monastery to the Trijang household with copies of the various responses, documents containing the divinations and prophecies made by the lamas (chief among them those of the Dalai Lama) and oracles, together with the formal requests, a record of the extensive rituals that were performed in order to assure discovery of the true reincarnation, and a written history of everything that transpired following the passing away of the late throneholder up to the time I was recognized and installed at the monastery — all of this was gathered together as part of the Trijang household records and kept at Chusang Hermitage near Sera. Although I was finally recognized as the late throneholder’s reincarnation and installed as his successor based on the decision that had been reached at the meeting in Lhasa, the majority of the people living in Chatreng, except for a very few who remained neutral, held fast to their previous position and planned to mount a challenge.
However, in the wood-snake year (1905) a large number of Chinese soldiers led by the Chinese general Zhao Erfeng, also known as Zhao Tarin, invaded eastern Tibet and remained in occupation. Numerous monasteries in the occupied areas of Lithang, Ba Chödé, and so forth — especially Chatreng Monastery — put up an armed resistance for quite some time, but on the fifteenth day of the fourth month of the fire-horse year (1906), the monastery was lost, together with the lives of many laymen and monks.
All the laymen of those areas and the remaining monks fled to the forests and remained there in hiding. They continued to carry on their armed struggle, until finally, on the fifteenth day of the fourth month of the earth-horse year (1918), they were able to hold a service once again, in the ruins of the monastery’s assembly hall. As the monastery and all the surrounding area had been in a constant state of unrest for those thirteen years, there was no opportunity to indulge in complaints to Lhasa about my installation, and so contention naturally came to a standstill during that period.
In the earth-horse year (1918) I received my geshé lharam degree, and by then many of those who had initially opposed my installation had changed their minds about me. There was still, however, a group from Beda Monastery who continued to stir up trouble until the earth-snake year (1929), when I had reached the age of twenty-eight. I shall tell about this later in its chronological place. In any case, the situation was such that the outcome could not have been altered, even by the intervention of a thousand-armed god.