Category Archives: Research

Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö’s Birth Year

Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö

Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö writes in his own autobiography that he was born in the female Water Snake year. He is unsure of the precise date, but says that it was during the autumn. This means it was certainly 1893. The Water Snake began in February 1893 and continued until the following February, but the reference to autumn precludes 1894.

I was born […] in the female Water Snake year—
during the autumn months, I heard it said.
My parents had little concern for such things,
so they left no written record
of the planets and stars, or dreams and signs.

from The Play of Illusion: An Autobiography

This date is reiterated in another autobiography and in the biography written by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (translated into English in 2017), as well as in the same master’s catalogue to Jamyang Khyentse’s writings.

So far so clear. Yet, many sources, including recent ones, state that Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö was born in 1896. One such is E. Gene Smith’s Among Tibetan Texts (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2001), and Smith’s unimpeachable authority may account for some of the other instances. Another is Chögyal Namkhai Norbu’s The Lamp That Enlightens Narrow Minds (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2012), although the book does note (p. 141, n. 28) that Tulku Thondup’s Masters of Meditation and Miracles (Boston: Shambhala, 1996) and other texts give the birth year as 1893.

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On the Dates of Rogza Sönam Palge

lineage_prayersThis post is no more than a quick note to provide the dates of Rogza Sönam Palge (rog bza’ bsod nams dpal dge), who is known primarily as a teacher of yogic practices (tsa-lung) to Patrul Rinpoche (1808–1887) and also as one of the gurus of Orgyen Tendzin Norbu (1841–1900). As far as I’m aware, his dates have never appeared in any English-language publication. Indeed, he doesn’t even have an entry on tbrc.org

Matthieu Ricard’s Enlightened Vagabond includes a brief summary (pp. 219–220) of the major facts concerning Sönam Palge’s life, such as how he studied with the First Dodrupchen Jigme Trinle Özer (1745–1821) and later followed Do Khyentse Yeshe Dorje (1800–1866) as a Dharma companion.

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On the Dates of Katok Situ Chökyi Gyatso

Or: The Radiant Sun that Banishes the Darkness of Uncertainty Concerning the Dates of the Great Master Katok Situ Chökyi Gyatso

This is merely a brief note, a sort of expanded footnote, on the dates of Katok Situ Chökyi Gyatso, who is best known for his guide to the pilgrimage places of Central Tibet.

Several publications in recent years have treated his dates, and that of his death in particular, as uncertain, or else they have diverged from what was once the standard chronology. This is curious, because earlier publications were unambiguous in stating that he was born in 1880 and died in 1925.

These 1880–1925 dates accord with the main biography of Katok Situ, written by Jamyang Lodrö Gyatso.[1] They appeared in E. Gene Smith’s 1969 preface (p. 17 n. 65) to the autobiography of Khenpo Ngawang Palzang (1879–1941); and they are also given in the Bod rgya tshig mdzod chen mo, published in 1985.

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Did Kongtrul and Patrul Really Never Meet?

Dza_Patrul_Rinpoche
Kongtrul_HA

In his excellent and highly readable new biography of Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Thaye (‘jam mgon kong sprul blo gros mtha’ yas, 1813–1899), Alexander Gardner states (p.275) that Kongtrul never met Dza Patrul Rinpoche (rdza dpal sprul, 1808–1887). For this, he relies on the following statement from Joshua Schapiro’s thesis:

“There is, to my knowledge, however, no evidence in the biographical archive that Patrul had a relationship with Kongtrul […]. Kongtrul does not appear in Patrul’s biographies, nor does Patrul appear in Kongtrul’s autobiography.” (2012: 51)

It is indeed true that the principal biographies of these two great luminaries of nineteenth-century Kham make no mention of any direct contact or relationship. But this is not to say that the two never met at all.

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More on Dola Jigme Kalzang (and Do Khyentse)

dola-jigme-kalzang-bwIn an earlier post, I mentioned that a text commonly attributed to Do Khyentse Yeshe Dorje (mDo mkhyen brtse ye shes rdo rje, 1800–1866) is actually the work of Dola Jigme Kalzang (rdo bla ‘jigs med skal bzang, b. 1789). The purpose of that post was to discuss the nature of authorship more generally, so I did not go into detail as to why the text might have been misattributed. Now that my biography of Dola Jigme Kalzang is online at Treasury of Lives, it might be a good time to return to this question and address it in more depth.

As I mentioned previously, the colophon to bsKyed rdzogs kyi zin bris blun gtam de nyid gsal ba (Foolish Babble Clarifying Reality: Notes on the Generation and Perfection Stages, or Foolish Babble for short) gives the author as Zhönnu Yeshe Dorje (gzhon nu ye shes rdo rje). This is one of the many names of Dola Jigme Kalzang, but is not attested elsewhere as a name of Do Khyentse — not to my knowledge, at least. Do Khyentse is called Yeshe Dorje, or even Kyebu Yeshe Dorje (skyes bu ye shes rdo rje), but not Zhönnu Yeshe Dorje.

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Yet More on the Dates of Orgyen Tendzin Norbu

Khenpo_Jamgyal
Ga Lama Jamyang Gyaltsen, alias Jamgyal

This is really just an addendum to the previous post. While looking for something else I noticed the following:

In David Jackson’s A Saint in Seattle (Wisdom Publications, 2003) there is a section based on the biography of Ga Lama Jamyang Gyaltsen (alias Jamgyal, 1870–1940) by Dezhung Rinpoche. There it says that Jamgyal first heard the name of his root teacher, Khenpo Shenga, some time after being thrown out of Tharlam Monastery (for trying to reform the discipline there). The expulsion happened when he was in his late twenties, i.e., the late 1890s. Some time after this he met an old monk from Gemang hermitage in Dzachukha. Jamgyal asked him who was in charge there now that Orgyen Tendzin Norbu had passed away (In Tibetan: deng sang bla ma o rgyan bstan ‘dzin nor bu gshegs zin pas gdan sar su yod). Following Jackson’s chronology, this conversation must have taken place in or before 1900/1901. The monk informed Jamgyal that a scholar named Gyalkhang Shenga had taken over, but that he was no different from his teacher: “The golden sun may have set, but the conch-like moon has risen” (gser gyi nyi ma nub kyang dung gi zla ba shar). As soon as Jamgyal heard Shenga’s name, he felt intense devotion and pledged to study with him.

Jamgyal studied with Shenga for a full five years at Gemang before he began his major project to publish the works of the great Sakya scholar Gorampa Sonam Senge (1429–1489). Jackson estimates that Jamgyal worked on the project from 1906 to 1910.

All of this further supports the date of around 1900 for the death of Orgyen Tendzin Norbu (and makes the 1910 date suggested in Enlightened Vagabond even more problematic). But, of course, nothing here is definitive.

Jamgyal, incidentally, went on to become the third khenpo of Dzongsar Shedra — after Shenga and Öntö Khyenrab Chökyi Özer — and, through his efforts in publishing the writings of Gorampa Sonam Senge, helped to transform Sakya scholasticism. What became of the old monk is not recorded.

References

  • Kun dga’ bstan pa’i nyi ma. rJe btsun bla ma dam pa ‘jam dbyangs rgyal mtshan gyi rnam thar mdor bsdus skal bzang rna rgyan. New Delhi, 1983.
  • Jackson, David. A Saint in Seattle. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003.

Dmu zhag(s)

03f53-brda-dkrol-gser-gyi-me-long-zhes-bya-ba-bzhugs-soOne of the translations published recently over on Lotsawa House twice includes the expression “heavenly lustre.” This curious phrase is a translation of the Tibetan dmu zhag[s], a term that occurs a number of times in Mipham’s writings, but is absent from most dictionaries. I say “most” because although it is not found in popular lexicons, it does appear in Erik Haarh’s The Zhang-zhung Language (p. 37), where he says it is the equivalent of mkha’ lding, and offers the translation, “the sky-soaring one, Garuda.”

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The Long-life Prayers of Minling Terchen Gyurme Dorje

José Cabezón’s brief study of long-life prayers (or zhab brtan) in Tibet (“Firm Feet and Long Lives: The Zhabs brtan Literature of Tibetan Buddhism”), which appeared in Tibetan Literature: Studies in Genre in 1996, makes the claim that “the zhabs brtan [genre] seems to have developed almost exclusively within the dGe lugs school until very recent times.” In a note, he goes on to say that he “searched, in vain, for examples of zhabs brtan in the works of Tāranātha (b.1575), ‘Brug pa pad ma dkar po, 1526-1592), Jaya Paṇḍita (b.1642) and ‘Ju Mi pham rgya mtsho (1846-1914).” Well, with the benefit of the TBRC database, we can now say that plenty of zhabs brtan prayers do appear in the writings of Minling Terchen Gyurme Dorje (smin gling gter chen ‘gyur med rdo rje,1646-1714), an important figure in the Nyingma school.

Although it might be true that the Gelugpa were the first to compose such texts, it is clear from Minling Terchen’s collected writings that followers of the Nyingma tradition were requesting and composing zhabs brtan as early as the late seventeenth century. Volume Ca of the writings includes a text called bshes gnyen dam pa ‘ga’ zhig la bstod pa brtan zhugs su spel ba dag snang dad pa’i me tog, which is a compilation of brtan zhugs/zhabs brtan works, as well as the closely related genre of prayers for swift rebirth (myur ‘byon gsol ‘debs). The phrase zhabs brtan gsol ‘debs is used in several of the colophons, as is the more unusual form zhabs brtan rten ‘byung.

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