Idea

Tibetan Lineage

In Tibet, who you learned from, and whose rebirth you are, decides what you may teach. A free encyclopedia of lives shows how that idea worked, and why it is fought over today.

Sources

Overview

Lineage is the backbone of Tibetan Buddhism. A teaching counts as genuine when it can be traced, teacher to student, back to a buddha or a great Indian master. A teacher's authority rests on whom they received it from, and in many cases on whose rebirth they are believed to be. Tibetan history is therefore told as a history of people: chains of masters and disciples, families that held monasteries for centuries, and reincarnation lines that passed offices, estates and loyalties from one life to the next.

The Treasury of Lives, at treasuryoflives.org, is built around that fact. It is a free online biographical encyclopedia of Tibet, Inner Asia and the Himalaya, in development since 2007 and first known as the Tibetan Lineages Project.1 Its entries are written by scholars, most are peer reviewed, and each life is tied to its teachers, students, previous and later incarnations, monasteries and places on a map.1 Reading it is a way to see lineage from the inside: who held what, who handed it on, and where the record goes quiet.

The same idea is now at the center of a political dispute. The People's Republic of China says it must approve the rebirths of senior lamas, the Dalai Lama among them. The Dalai Lama says only his own trust may recognize his successor.23 Two boys were named Panchen Lama in 1995, and two men have been called the Seventeenth Karmapa since 1992.45 Lineage also figured in the abuse scandals that shook Western Buddhist groups after 2017, and in the long argument over whether women can receive full ordination.67

In context

Tibetan Buddhists did not invent the idea of a teaching lineage. Indian Buddhism already listed the masters through whom a teaching came down. What Tibet added, from the thirteenth century on, was the reincarnated lama (བླ་མ་), or tulku (སྤྲུལ་སྐུ་): a child recognized as the rebirth of a dead teacher, who inherited that teacher's seat, property and followers.89 Alongside the tulku lines ran older family lineages, in which an office passed from father or uncle to son or nephew, as it still does in the Sakya school's Khön family.10

Over time the tulku system became a form of government. The Dalai Lamas ruled much of Tibet from the seventeenth century until 1959. Outside powers learned to work through the system: Mongol khans gave titles, and the Qing emperors tried to control who was chosen.1112 That history is why a question about rebirth is also a question about sovereignty today.

Lineage over time
  1. 1073 Sakya founded Khön Konchok Gyelpo founds Sakya; the Khön family still holds its throne.
  2. 1284 Rangjung Dorje born The Third Karmapa's claim to be a rebirth may be the real start of tulku lines.
  3. 1455 A woman's rebirth line Chokyi Dronma dies; her recognized rebirth begins the Samding Dorje Phagmo line.
  4. 1578 "Dalai" The Mongol ruler Altan Khan gives Sonam Gyatso the title Dalai Lama.
  5. 1650 Jonang suppressed The Fifth Dalai Lama's government takes over Tāranātha's monastery.
  6. 1793 Golden Urn The Qing emperor orders senior rebirths chosen by drawing lots.
  7. 1959 Exile The Dalai Lama flees to India; tens of thousands follow.
  8. 2025 Succession statement The Dalai Lama says his institution will continue and his trust alone will choose.

Women in the record

Women are the clearest gap in that history. The traditional sources were written mostly by and about men, and women's lives were recorded less often. Writing in 2012, Alexander Gardner noted that because women's status was relatively low, their religious achievements often went unrecorded.13 Some lives survive only by chance. Ayu Khandro, a yogini who spent more than fifty years in dark retreat and died in 1953, is known almost entirely because the young Namkhai Norbu wrote down what she told him in 1951; the Treasury's entry notes that the same is true of many Tibetan women practitioners.14 Another wandering yogini of the same era, Achi Ukdronma, reached the record by the same road, through Namkhai Norbu's family.15

Deep Dive: Achi Ukdronma and Ayu Khandro: a lineage held by wandering women

Achi Ukdronma's (ཨ་ཕྱི་འུག་སྒྲོན་མ་) entry, by Jacobella Gaetani, was published in October 2026, and it shows how much can be lost. Nothing is known of her early life; she may have been born around 1820. At sixteen she helped a treasure revealer, Samten Lingpa, bring out his revelations. She went on to study Mahāmudrā and Dzogchen with teachers in central Tibet and Kham, and received transmission from the Fourth Dzogchen Rinpoche, after which, the entry says, she could help people simply by meeting them once.15 Her main teacher, Nyakla Pema Dudul (1816 to 1872), declared that she had reached the highest realization of Dzogchen and called her "Queen of the Dance of the Rigdzins," the name she was widely known by.15

For over ten years she traveled with a prayer wheel through Tibet, Nepal, India and China, practicing Chöd in cremation grounds and charnel grounds and telling the lives of saints to ordinary people in plain words. In 1907 she met the yogi Jangchub Dorje (1863 to 1961), and the two practiced Chöd together; the tradition reports that he saw her as the deity Vajrayoginī and her two cats and two dogs as dakinis.15 She died around 1920 and is said to have stayed seated in meditation, the state called tukdam (ཐུགས་དམ་), for several days afterward.15

Ayu Khandro (ཨ་གཡུ་མཁའ་འགྲོ་) came from the same world and had the same teacher. Joona Repo's entry follows her from birth in 1839 at Takzik in Kham. At seven she went to live with her aunt, a practitioner in a cave near a local yogi, Tokden Rangrik, where she learned to read and at thirteen received her first empowerments.14 She was betrothed at thirteen and married at nineteen against her own wishes and her aunt's. Within three years she was so ill that her husband told her she could go back to the cave, and she recovered. When her aunt and the yogi both died in 1865 she entered a three-year retreat.14

At thirty she took up Chöd and the road. She received teachings from Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo and Jamgon Kongtrul, two of the great teachers of nineteenth-century Kham, and from Nyakla Pema Dudul, Achi Ukdronma's teacher, she received the instructions for the Yangti dark retreat and the name Dorje Peldron.14 With a nun, Pema Yangkyi, she spent about ten years practicing Chöd across Kham, central and western Tibet and Nepal, including Mount Kailash. In 1885, back home, her former husband and friends finished a meditation hut for her, and she began a seven-year retreat in darkness. By the end of her life she had spent more than fifty years in dark retreat, while still teaching those who came to her. Pema Yangkyi became a teacher at the mountain Khawa Karpo and is said, like another of their old companions at Kailash, to have attained the rainbow body.14 Ayu Khandro died in 1953, by the entry's reckoning at the age of 115, and is said to have remained in meditation for two weeks while her body shrank.14

Both records survive through one family. Achi Ukdronma's disciple Lhundrub Tso (1864 to 1946) wrote a short biography and prayers to her, and Lhundrub Tso's grandson was Namkhai Norbu (1938 to 2018), who became one of the best-known Tibetan teachers in the West.15 In 1951, at thirteen, Namkhai Norbu spent just over two months with Ayu Khandro, received teachings and a Vajrayoginī initiation from her, since she was regarded as a form of that deity, and wrote down the life story she told him. Repo notes that without his notes there would be little record of her at all.14 Two lines of women teachers, neither of them abbesses or tulkus, run through one teacher, Nyakla Pema Dudul, and into the teaching Namkhai Norbu brought to Europe.

Two wandering yoginis
  1. 1820 Achi Ukdronma born The year is approximate; nothing is known of her childhood.
  2. 1839 Ayu Khandro born At Takzik in Kham.
  3. 1885 Into the dark Ayu Khandro begins a seven-year retreat in darkness.
  4. 1907 Two Chöd yogis Achi Ukdronma practices with Jangchub Dorje.
  5. 1951 The record Namkhai Norbu spends two months with Ayu Khandro.

In February 2023 the Treasury counted its own gap: 49 of its 1,325 biographies, 3.73 percent, were of women. It launched a Women Initiative the next month, seeded by a grant from Shelley Rubin, with a goal of 100 new biographies of women in three years, each peer reviewed and tied to maps, kinship data, timelines and annotated art.16 By October 2026 the site held 120 biographies of women out of 1,540, or 7.8 percent. The initiative's page says plainly that the goal of 100 was not met, and that the work continues as funds allow.17 New entries keep arriving: the biographies of Yeshe Tsogyel and Achi Ukdronma used for this page were published in June and October 2026.1815

Women do appear in lineage, though often in particular roles. Yeshe Tsogyel is remembered as the disciple who wrote down Padmasambhava's teachings and hid them for later discovery.18

Deep Dive: Yeshe Tsogyel: a mother of the lineage who may not have existed

Yeshe Tsogyel (ཡེ་ཤེས་མཚོ་རྒྱལ་) is, in the words of Jue Liang's 2026 entry, arguably the most prominent Buddhist woman in Tibet. Tradition makes her the eighth-century disciple and consort of Padmasambhava, gifted with perfect memory, who wrote his teachings in a secret dakini script and hid them across Tibet as treasures for later revealers to find.18

The life as the stories tell it begins with a royal birth in 745 or 748, in a small kingdom called Kharchu or Drak on the north bank of the Tsangpo River; a small lake there, Tsogyel Latso, is held to be both her birthplace and the seat of her life force. She spoke at birth, taught at eleven, and wanted to leave home to practice. Like many holy women in later Tibetan stories, she had to resist her family and escape suitors to do it.18 The versions disagree on how. In the life most people know, the emperor Tri Songdetsen settles a quarrel among her suitors by taking her as a queen, then gives her to Padmasambhava as the offering for an initiation. In the earlier lives she calls out to Padmasambhava while a prince holds her hostage, and he appears and takes her away, or she simply walks to Samye Monastery to find him.18

As his chief disciple she received everything from basic meditation to the practice of sexual union. Liang notes that these stories show an intimacy and humor missing from Padmasambhava's own biographies, as when his earlier Indian consort Mandarava arrives and the two women bow to each other and exchange strands of hair. Tibetan sources count five consorts of Padmasambhava as emanations of the goddess Vajravārāhī, with Tsogyel as the emanation of her speech.18 When she asked for the highest Dzogchen teachings he told her to find a partner of her own. She went to Nepal, converted seven bandits with a song on the way, and ransomed an enslaved Indian man, Atsara Saley, by bringing a merchant's dead son back to life.18 In one early life she descends through four hells to free a minister who had once beaten her, and the deity Heruka names her Khandro Yeshe Tsogyel, glossing each syllable as a quality of her realization.18

Her work as recorder ties her to the land. Hundreds of caves and lakes are marked with her deeds: Drak Yongdzong in central Tibet, where she and Padmasambhava spent three years in retreat, and Paro Taktsang in Bhutan, where she is said to have flown as a tigress carrying him on her back.18 Among the treasures credited to her recording are two of the main biographies of Padmasambhava, The Copper Palace, revealed by Nyangrel Nyima Wozer (1124 to 1192), and the Chronicles of Padma, revealed by Orgyen Lingpa (born 1323).18

The entry is frank about the evidence. Early imperial histories barely mention her. Life stories of a woman teacher called Yeshe Tsogyel appear only some five hundred years after she is said to have lived, and in the earliest sources, from around the twelfth century, she is a clan name, "the lady of Kharchen," with the Buddhist name Yeshe, "primordial wisdom," added later.18 A thirteenth-century history lists her as one of five people, with the emperor, who received an empowerment from Padmasambhava, and a fourteenth-century genealogy makes her one of the emperor's queens, offered to Padmasambhava as payment for an initiation.18 The life most people know was revealed by Taksham Nuden Dorje, born in 1655. Two earlier lives, one linked to Drime Kunga and Pema Lingpa and an anonymous Extensive Life, were published from manuscripts only in 2013, by the women scholars (khenmo) of Larung Gar.18

Liang also warns against reading the stories as a picture of women's lives. Tsogyel is praised as exceptional, as "the only mother" though she had no children, while Tibetan literature often disparages actual mothers for their supposedly selfish love and the impurity of childbirth.18 Her lineage is still growing. The rebirth line traced at Larung Gar runs from Machik Labdrön through Nangsa Obum, a woman said to have returned from death, and Mingyur Peldron (1699 to 1769), who helped rebuild Mindroling Monastery, to Sera Khandro, Khandro Tāre Lhamo (1938 to 2002) and Trinle Chodron (1938 to 1970), a medium who called on protector deities to defend her hometown of Nyemo.18 On the twenty-fifth day of each Tibetan month the nuns of Larung Gar chant to Tsogyel and to her present emanation, Jetsunma Mumtso, born around 1966.18 A medium on that list is a reminder that the women's line includes oracles, as Khandro-la's story below shows.

Yeshe Tsogyel in the record
  1. 745 Birth, by tradition Or 748, in a small kingdom north of the Tsangpo.
  2. 1347 The earliest life Drime Kunga, linked to the oldest known life, is born about now.
  3. 1655 The standard life Taksham Nuden Dorje, its revealer, is born.
  4. 2013 Lost lives printed Larung Gar's women scholars publish two early lives.

Machik Labdrön founded a practice, Chöd, that the tradition says was the only Buddhist teaching to travel from Tibet back to India.19

Deep Dive: Machik Labdrön: a founder whose lineage ran the other way

Machik Labdrön (མ་གཅིག་ལབ་སྒྲོན་, 1055 to 1149) is the founder of Chöd (གཅོད་), a practice of "cutting." Grounded in the Perfection of Wisdom sutras, it asks the practitioner to imagine offering their own body as food to demons and hungry spirits, and so to cut through clinging to a self. Michelle Sorensen's entry stresses that the several Tibetan namthar about Machik differ considerably, even on where she was born: Tsomer, a village in the Labchi region where her father was headman, or Gyelab in the eastern Yarlung valley. Her father's name is given as Chokyi Dawa and her mother's as Lungmo Bumcam; she had a sister and a brother, Keugang Korlodrak, who became a translator.19

As a young woman she studied with Drapa Ngonshe (1012 to 1090) and became a skilled reader of the Perfection of Wisdom sutras, which she was paid to read aloud for lay families on his behalf. He sent her on to Kyoton Sonam Lama, who gave her an initiation.19 She then became the partner of a wandering Indian yogi, Topa Bhadra, and had children: three sons and two daughters in some accounts, named Nyingpo Drubpa, Drubchung, Yangdrub, Kongcham and Lacham, and two sons and a daughter in others. Later she returned to life as a renunciate, shaved her head and traveled to receive teachings, and finally settled in a cave at Zangri Kangmar, where a community grew up around her.19 She taught women as well as men; a painting reproduced with her entry shows her teaching women.19

Her line continued through her heart disciple Gyelwa Dondrub, sometimes wrongly called her son, and through her grandson Tonyon Samdrub, the "Snowman of Shampogang," whose followers became the black-hatted Chöd yogis known as Gangpa. Another student, Kugom Chokyi Sengge, was also known for passing on Chöd.19

Her lineage is a good test case for how traditions build chains. It became standard to say Chöd came to her from the Indian teacher Padampa Sanggye, the master of the Zhije teachings on pacifying suffering. Sorensen notes there is little material evidence for that, and that some accounts rest only on Machik seeing Padampa from a distance. The usual support is a prose work by Āryadeva the Brahmin, said to be Padampa's maternal uncle, which later Chöd lineages treat as a root text. Another version routes the teaching through her teacher Sonam Lama. Both sit uneasily with a third claim the tradition also makes: that Machik's Chöd was the only Buddhist teaching that traveled from Tibet to India instead of the other way.19

Her own writings raise the same questions. Six texts are traditionally tied to her: a Great Collection of Precepts, a further collection framed as questions and answers, a "heart collection" on the root of the teaching, and three sets of "eight supplementary chapters," called common, uncommon and special. Only one, the Great Collection of Precepts, can be placed in history, because the Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje (1284 to 1339), wrote an outline and a commentary on it.19 He is the same Karmapa whose claim to be a rebirth may mark the real start of the tulku system.8 His commentary also names works by Machik that may no longer survive, and a twentieth-century lama, Dzarong Lama Tendzin Norbu, lists others.19

Chöd stayed a practice of the road. It needs no monastery, only a lonely or frightening place, and it was taken up by wandering yogis and yoginis such as Ayu Khandro and Achi Ukdronma, whose lives appear above.1415 Later tradition counts Machik as the first rebirth of Yeshe Tsogyel, so that the founder of a Tibetan practice also became a link in a chain of women.18

Jetsunma Kunga Trinle Wangmo (ཀུན་དགའ་ཕྲིན་ལས་དབང་མོ་), a Jonang yogini and author, is listed among Tāranātha's students and is described as his consort and a holder of his teachings.2021 The Samding Dorje Phagmo (བསམ་སྡིང་རྡོ་རྗེ་ཕག་མོ་) line, begun after Chokyi Dronma's death in the 1450s, is usually called the oldest line of reincarnated women in Tibet.22 Sera Khandro (སེ་ར་མཁའ་འགྲོ་) (1892 to 1940) left home to avoid an arranged marriage, became a treasure revealer whose revelations her partner tried to forbid, and taught leading Nyingma lamas.13 Later women have been recognized as rebirths of Yeshe Tsogyel herself, from Machik Labdrön to Sera Khandro, Tāre Lhamo and Jetsunma Mumtso of Larung Gar, so that a female lineage runs alongside the male ones.18

Some living women hold a place in the system by a route that bypasses lineage altogether. The state oracles consulted by the Dalai Lama's government have nearly all been men, with a few exceptions: a woman, Lobsang Tsedron, served as an oracle in Lhasa until 1959, and one of the best-known oracles of recent decades is a woman widely called Khandro-la.23

Deep Dive: Khandro-la, oracle of the long-life sisters

Khandro-la (མཁའ་འགྲོ་ལགས་), roughly "the honored dakini," is the name most people use for her, and her other names vary from source to source. The Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive gives her birth year as 1976 and calls her a female oracle to the Fourteenth Dalai Lama who now teaches internationally; Lama Zopa Rinpoche's long-life prayer for her names her Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drönme.2425 Her own website calls her Rangjung Neljorma Khandro Tseringma Rinpoche, "also known as" Khandro Namsel Dolma Rinpoche and Khandro Kunga Bhuma Rinpoche, and her verse autobiography opens with the name Khandro Tsering Kunga Bhuma; her YouTube channel writes Khandro Kunga Bhuma in Tibetan as མཁའ་འགྲོ་ཀུན་དགའ་འབུམ་མ་.262728 Rangjung Neljorma (རང་བྱུང་རྣལ་འབྱོར་མ་), "self-arisen yogini," is a title the Dalai Lama gave her.2930

Most of what is known of her early life comes from that autobiography, and what follows is her own account. She was born among Tibetan farmers and nomads, in a village with little schooling to offer her, and from the age of seven was drawn to retreat. She describes a vision of the protector goddess Palden Lhamo, chief protector of the Dalai Lamas, who told her to go to unfamiliar places at uncertain times. She went on pilgrimage to the Jowo statue in Lhasa and to Tashilhunpo, hungry and poorly clothed, and on the road an old hermit told her to go to India and meet the Dalai Lama in order to revive the Fifth Dalai Lama's twenty-five hidden teachings. At Kailash and elsewhere she reports visionary meetings with masters of the past, among them Jigme Lingpa.2731 She reached Swayambhu, in Nepal, in 1994, gravely ill from bad food, and went on to Dharamsala, where, she writes, office staff treated her with scorn and a long time passed before she was allowed to see the Dalai Lama.27

For years, she says, a deity had sometimes taken her over without her knowing who it was. At the end of her eventual meeting with the Dalai Lama, in her account, the protectors Tseringma and Tenma entered her, and she was authorized and enthroned as the official government oracle of both.27 The Meridian Trust's biography tells the same meeting from outside: she came to Dharamsala seeking an audience, and after meeting her the Dalai Lama recognized her as state oracle of Tsering Chenga.29 The Lama Tzong Khapa Institute in Italy calls her the state medium of the Tenma oracle.30 None of the sources reviewed gives the year. All claims here about trance and possession are the tradition's, and hers.

Tsering Chenga (ཚེ་རིང་མཆེད་ལྔ་) are the five long-life sisters, led by Tashi Tseringma (ཚེ་རིང་མ་), mountain goddesses identified with the peak of Gaurishankar on the Nepal and Tibet border. In the tradition's account Padmasambhava bound them to protect Buddhism, and they made a vow to Milarepa, which makes them protectors of the Kagyu and Nyingma schools.32 The Tenma (བསྟན་མ་) are a set of twelve local goddesses also bound as protectors.2930 A woman in this office is unusual. The anthropologist Katarina Turpeinen notes that Tibet's state oracles have been mostly men and names two exceptions: Lobsang Tsedron in Lhasa, a case she takes from Hanna Havnevik's 2002 chapter "A Tibetan Female State Oracle," and Tseringma, a woman state oracle living in Dharamsala today.2333 Turpeinen's own study is of a different woman, a village oracle in Himachal Pradesh.23

Her tie to the Dalai Lama runs through a particular body of teaching. She says he proclaimed her special connection to the Sangwa Gyachen (གསང་བ་རྒྱ་ཅན་), the sealed pure visions of the Fifth Dalai Lama, made her a holder of those teachings, and gave her empowerments and instructions on which she meditated for ten years.27 Her website says the Dalai Lamas had been unable to pass on the complete cycle for about 360 years and counts her part in arranging the conditions for the Fourteenth to give its full empowerments as her chief achievement. It also describes rituals she sponsored over thirty years to remove obstacles to the lives of lamas, above all the Dalai Lama.34 Her monastery is named for the cycle: Dagnang Yangsang Gyachen Rigzin Drubde (རིག་འཛིན་སྒྲུབ་སྡེ་), a place for studying and practicing those teachings.35

Her closest institutional home is the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), the international network of centers cofounded by Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Lama Zopa composed a long-life prayer for her, and in 2012 he introduced her at Maitripa College in Portland, Oregon, where she gave one of her first public teachings in the West; the FPMT's Mandala magazine has interviewed her about her early life.2531 Quoted by the Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, he described her duty as serving the Dalai Lama and said that without her "we would probably experience a very difficult time."30 Her website names five root teachers: the Dalai Lama, Jigme Lingpa, Trulshik Rinpoche, Taklung Tsetrul Rinpoche and Lama Zopa Rinpoche.36

In recent years teaching has become the larger part of her public life. A US nonprofit, Khandro Ling, runs a student portal with livestreams and recordings, and a weekly Friday class on Zoom on Patrul Rinpoche's Words of My Perfect Teacher.37 Its events list shows the circuit. In 2025 she taught the preliminary practices in Kathmandu in March and spoke at Jamyang, the FPMT center in London, in May; in June she was in the United States, at Tergar in Madison on the 6th, a Wisdom Publications "Dharma Chat" in New York on the 9th, a retreat at the Garrison Institute from the 12th to the 15th, and Shantideva Center in Brooklyn.38 In late February 2026 her temple and retreat center at Budhanilkantha, on the northern edge of Kathmandu, was consecrated in a three-day Guhyasamāja ceremony led by monks of Gyumed, the Geluk tantric college, with lamas of all four schools; preliminary teachings, initiations and a seminar with scientists followed.3839 From 19 September to 2 October 2026 she taught at Teolo, near Padua, for the Khandro Tseringma Rinpoche Foundation of Europe. As of late October 2026 her next events were a retreat on analytical meditation at the Garrison Institute, rescheduled to 11 to 14 November; a daylong dialogue on happiness there on 14 November with the psychologists Richard Davidson and Daniel Goleman; and an evening on bodhicitta at Tibet House US in New York on 18 November.38 Her website lists two building projects, a monastery in Kathmandu and a stupa at Tawang, with no details yet, and posts her spontaneous songs, among them one sung in a cave near Palermo on 13 May 2024 and a Tara practice she wrote at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.26 In September 2024 Tricycle published a teaching by her on why practice still matters if everything is empty, introducing her as a Tibetan Buddhist teacher and oracle.40

Her official YouTube channel, Khandro Tseringma Rinpoche, had about 9,100 subscribers and 47 videos in October 2026 and links to her website and a Facebook page. It carries English only; separate channels serve Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, Portuguese and Sinhala viewers.28 Most videos are full teachings recorded on tour, given in Tibetan with English interpretation or subtitles. The most watched long teaching, at about 20,000 views, is "Liberation Through Interdependence," given in Madrid as a prelude to a secret empowerment; others include two teachings in London from May 2025 and the New York Dharma Chat.28 Shorter videos answer single questions. In "Who is a Dakini? What is the meaning of Khandro?", filmed in Munich in May 2024, she explains the word that makes up her own name.41 "Do men have a greater potential for enlightenment than women?" (2026) takes up the question this page keeps returning to.42 "A short film from Manang, Nepal" follows her to a district hit by landslides in 2021 and 2022, where, at the villagers' request, she led the 100,000 feast offerings she had advised as a remedy; it is released under a Creative Commons license.43 "Glimpses and Teachings from Khandro Rinpoche's Monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal" shows the 2026 consecration.39

Her career shows how an oracle's authority can grow in exile. She entered the system through possession, the one route that needs neither a chain of teachers nor a recognized rebirth. Since then she has built the usual supports of a lama around it: named root teachers, a transmission she holds, a monastery, a foundation and a teaching circuit on three continents.

Khandro-la
  1. 1976 Born Birth year given by the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.
  2. 1994 Reaches Nepal By her own account, on the way to meet the Dalai Lama.
  3. 2012 Teaching in the West Lama Zopa Rinpoche introduces her at Maitripa College.
  4. 2026 Rigzin Drubde Her temple and retreat center near Kathmandu is consecrated.

Research

The Treasury of Lives

The project began as the Tibetan Lineages Project. Its About page credits Donald Rubin with the idea, and Moke Mokotoff, Matthieu Ricard and Vivian Kurz with building the first site and recruiting the scholars who wrote the earliest essays.1 The Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation funded and incubated it; it later became an independent nonprofit, in 2016 according to a Columbia profile of Gardner and in 2017 according to Wikipedia.4445 Gardner remains its director and chief editor. He wrote The Life of Jamgon Kongtrul the Great (Shambhala, 2019).1

Its scope is every notable person from the region who has died: lamas and nuns, kings and ministers, doctors, artists, scholars and yogis.1 An early Foundation announcement counted more than 1,150 biographies by over ninety scholars; the About page now shows 1,540 biographies by 169 authors and 937 places on its map.461 Most entries are peer reviewed under an editorial committee of academics from Columbia, Berkeley, Virginia and elsewhere, and the board is chaired by the Columbia historian Gray Tuttle.1 The site is also published as a serial with ISSN 2332-077X.1 Browsing is open to all; full search asks readers to log in.47

Each entry sits inside a web of links. A sidebar lists the person's tradition, teachers, students, offices held, previous and later incarnations, monasteries and period, and gives the person's BDRC number so readers can go straight to their writings in the Buddhist Digital Resource Center's scanned library.20 Image sets draw on museum paintings, often from the Rubin Museum of Art and credited through Himalayan Art Resources.1917 Incarnation lines, such as the Karmapas or Panchen Lamas, have their own short pages that set out where each line begins and where its numbering is disputed.84 The site appears in English, Chinese and Tibetan.47

A lives-based encyclopedia suits Tibet because Tibetans wrote their history that way. The dominant genre is the namthar (རྣམ་ཐར་), literally "full liberation," a sacred biography written to inspire devotion; scholars describe outer, inner and secret versions that move from public deeds to practice to visions.48 The Treasury reads those sources as a historian would. Its editorial statement promises well-researched, factual biographies, follows ordinary standards of factual reporting, and will include public-record allegations of abuse and misconduct; it refuses to let doctrine be used to justify harm.1 Its entries say so when the sources disagree, when dates cannot be fixed, or when a person may not have existed in the form the tradition remembers.1849

Gene Smith

Lineage in the old sense

Transmission. A student receives a practice through three acts, often given together: wang (དབང་), the empowerment that ripens the student for the practice; lung (ལུང་), the reading transmission, in which the teacher reads the text aloud and so authorizes its use; and tri (ཁྲིད་), the oral instruction on how actually to do it.50 Without them a text read from a book is thought to lack its blessing. Each teacher can name the chain behind what they give, and a large part of any namthar is a list of what was received from whom.20

The golden rosary. The Kagyu (བཀའ་བརྒྱུད་) schools call their chain of masters the golden rosary (གསེར་ཕྲེང་): from the buddha Vajradhara to the Indian yogis Tilopa and Naropa, then to Marpa, Milarepa and Gampopa, each realized master strung to the next like beads on a thread.51 The image makes a claim. If no bead is missing, the realization at the start is still present at the end.

Deep Dive: Milarepa: the golden rosary's most famous bead

Milarepa (མི་ལ་རས་པ་) is Tibet's best-loved saint and one of its least certain historical figures. Andrew Quintman's Treasury entry notes that even his dates vary by a full twelve-year cycle or more. His most famous biographer, Tsangnyön Heruka (གཙང་སྨྱོན་ཧེ་རུ་ཀ་, 1452 to 1507), gives 1052 to 1135; a mid-fifteenth-century history and most modern scholars accept 1040 to 1123; several eighteenth-century Tibetan historians put his birth in 1028, and some sources as early as 1024. His age at death is given as 73, 82, 84 or 88.49 What is secure is the period: the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, when Buddhism was being carried back into Tibet from India.

The story. Tsangnyön Heruka's Life of Milarepa, completed in 1488 while he stayed at Lapchi, is the version almost every Tibetan knows.52 It begins with the name. An ancestor, a Nyingma exorcist of the Khyungpo clan, made a demon cry out "mila, mila" in defeat, and the family took the cry as its clan name.49 The boy was born at Kyangatsa in Gungtang, near today's border with Nepal, and named Töpaga, "delightful to hear"; the biography adds that he grew up with a fine voice.49 When he was seven his father died, leaving wife, children and estate in the care of the boy's paternal uncle and aunt until he came of age. They kept the estate. His mother and sister worked as their servants, and his mother sent him away to learn black magic. In the story he killed thirty-five people at a wedding feast in his uncle's house and then destroyed the village's barley harvest with a hailstorm.49 Quintman notes that one fourteenth-century version, by Yungton Zhije Ripa, partly excuses the relatives, since local custom gave the estate to the father's brother.49

Regret drove him to find a teacher. A Dzogchen master could do nothing for him and sent him to the translator Marpa (མར་པ་) in Lhodrak, who met him disguised as a plowman. Marpa berated and beat him for years and made him build a series of stone towers and tear them down, until he revealed that his own guru Naropa had foretold this student and that the ordeals had purified his crimes. One tower still stands at the center of Sekhar Gutok (སྲས་མཁར་དགུ་ཐོག་) Monastery.49 Marpa then gave him the teachings he had carried from India: tummo (གཏུམ་མོ་), the yoga of inner heat; Mahāmudrā; and the aural instructions, nyengyu (སྙན་བརྒྱུད་), passed from a teacher's mouth to a student's ear. He told Milarepa to spend the rest of his life meditating in mountain retreats.49

Milarepa went home to find his house a ruin, his mother dead and his sister gone. He retired to caves nearby, above all Drakar Taso (བྲག་དཀར་རྟ་སོ་), where he stayed for years with nothing to eat but wild nettles, until his body wasted and his flesh turned pale green.49 For most of his life he wore a single cotton cloth, and repa (རས་པ་), "cotton-clad," became part of his name: Mila was the clan, and he was the Cotton-clad Mila.53 The Life says he died at eighty-four after a jealous scholar, Tsakpuwa, gave him poisoned curds, and that after the cremation dakinis carried off his relics, leaving his students a scrap of his robe, a lump of sugar, a knife and a flint, and his songs.49

The songs. Milarepa taught mostly through gur (མགུར་), spontaneous songs of realization.49 Tsangnyön Heruka gathered them in a companion volume, The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa (མགུར་འབུམ་), in which each chapter sets songs inside a short story of meditation, travel, or a meeting with a disciple, a demon or a skeptical scholar.53 Two songs quoted in the Treasury entry give the tone. In one, sung on his return home, he lists what has become of his house, his fields, his parents, his sister and the family priest, and closes each verse by calling them "examples that call me, a yogin, to practice." In another, at Drakar Taso, he prays to die alone in a mountain cave, unknown to friends and enemies, with no one to mourn him and no one to ask where he has gone.49 Garma C. C. Chang's English translation of 1962 was for decades the only complete one.49

The historical problem. Tsangnyön Heruka wrote some 350 years after Milarepa's death, and his books replaced what came before. Quintman's The Yogin and the Madman (2014) reads the whole earlier corpus. In Karl Brunnhölzl's summary, the three earliest lives, by the disciples Gampopa, Ngendzong Repa and Rechungpa, are little more than character sketches; six later works by Kagyu masters add the first collections of songs; and the earliest texts present themselves as tantric instruction in the ear-whispered lineage, open only to the initiated.54 Tsangnyön turned this into public literature. He split the material into a Life, told mostly in Milarepa's own voice, and the Songs, and had both carved for printing, so that copies spread across Tibet; Quintman calls him Tibet's first multimedia biographer.5455 His original woodblocks are lost. The oldest surviving print was made in 1538 at Wosel Puk in Gungtang, under his disciple Tokden Chokyi Gyatso.55

Places. Tsangnyön also drew a map. Using earlier sources, he sorted Milarepa's retreats into six outer, six inner and six secret "fortresses" along Tibet's southern border, many at caves once linked to Padmasambhava, so that much of the Himalayan frontier became Milarepa's country. Three great sites, Tsāri, Lapchi (ལ་ཕྱི་) and Kailash (ཏི་སེ་), are said to have been opened or foretold by him, and all three became Kagyu pilgrimage centers.49 At Kailash the songs tell of a contest of magic with the Bön master Naro Bönchung (ན་རོ་བོན་ཆུང་). In the best-known telling the two race for the summit at dawn; Naro Bönchung rides his drum, Milarepa arrives first on the first rays of the sun, and the Bön followers are left to circle the mountain in their own counterclockwise direction. Bön writers tell the contest differently and dispute who won.56 Another story sets up a protector who appears later on this page: the five long-life sisters, the Tseringma, tested Milarepa with frightening apparitions and then vowed to him to protect the teaching. Paintings show Tseringma seated with her tiger before the yogi.3257

Students and lineage. His best-known disciples were Rechungpa (རས་ཆུང་པ་, 1084 to 1161), a cotton-clad yogi like his teacher, and the monk Gampopa (སྒམ་པོ་པ་, 1079 to 1153), who helped build a lineage of Kagyu teachers and monasteries that still shapes Tibetan Buddhism.49 Gampopa's student Dusum Khyenpa was the first Karmapa, so the Karmapa line too counts back through Milarepa; Marpa, Milarepa and Gampopa became the central beads of the golden rosary.851 The Treasury also lists a later incarnation of Milarepa, Gotsangpa Gonpo Dorje.49

The listening pose. In art Milarepa is easy to recognize. Jeff Watt of Himalayan Art Resources describes the usual form. He sits with his legs relaxed, or with one knee raised; the right hand is raised to the ear, slightly cupped and facing outward, "in a singer's gesture"; the left hand rests in his lap holding a white skull cup, or is propped behind him so that his torso twists a little. He wears a single white cotton robe, often with round white earrings of conch shell, a custom inherited from Indian yogis, and a red meditation belt running from the right shoulder to the left side of the waist, used to hold the body in difficult yogic postures. He is always barefoot.58 Painters often tint his skin green. An eighteenth-century Karma Kagyu painting cataloged by Himalayan Art Resources shows his body discolored by the nettle diet, with Rechungpa behind him also holding a hand to his ear, and Gampopa wearing the red belt.57

The pose is younger than it looks. The earliest surviving portrait of Milarepa, a mural in his tower at Sekhar Gutok dated 1200 to 1250, shows him with his hands in the gestures of teaching and of touching the earth, and the 1538 print of the Life also shows him teaching. The cupped ear appears in an edition of the Songs printed at Drakar Taso between 1550 and 1555 by Tsangnyön's disciple Lhatsun Rinchen Namgyel; a print made about ten years earlier at Lande Langpuk has the singing gesture with the left hand instead. Quintman writes that the hand-to-ear gesture is not seen before Tsangnyön Heruka's publications, and that the Madman and his circle likely spread it; from the printed books it passed into scroll paintings, murals and statues.55 Himalayan Art Resources still catalogs left-handed versions and a relaxed form with the right hand across the knee.59 The image of the singer, in other words, traveled with the printed book of songs.

What the hand means depends on who is asked. Watt and Quintman both call it a gesture of singing.5855 The Los Angeles County Museum of Art's label for a painting of about 1500 gives two devotional readings: that he is listening to the sounds of nature, or that the gesture stands for his mastery of secret oral teachings passed from master to disciple and never written down.60 That second reading ties the image to the lineage itself. What Milarepa received from Marpa was the nyengyu, the ear-whispered transmission, and his earliest biographies were themselves handed on as ear-whispered instruction; Marta Sernesi's study of his "six secret songs" follows that hearing lineage of Cakrasaṃvara teachings in its early form.4954 Popular writing adds further readings. The Buddhist author Vessantara, as quoted on one site, suggests he seems to be listening to an inner voice of the Dharma, and notes that some authorities treat the gesture as a yogic posture that works on the body's subtle energies.61 These are interpretations, and none of them is fixed by the texts. The earliest image-makers to use the gesture were printing a book of songs, and a singer with a hand to his ear is what they drew.

Milarepa through time
  1. 1040 Born in Gungtang The date most modern scholars accept; his best-known biographer gives 1052.
  2. 1123 Death The Life blames poisoned curds from a jealous scholar.
  3. 1488 The Life Tsangnyön Heruka completes the standard biography at Lapchi.
  4. 1550–1555 The cupped ear A Drakar Taso print of the Songs shows the singing pose.
  5. 1962 In English Garma C. C. Chang translates the Hundred Thousand Songs.
  6. 2014 The Yogin and the Madman Quintman's study of the whole biographical corpus.

The tulku. The reincarnation line is usually said to start with the Karmapas (ཀར་མ་པ་). Tradition holds that Dusum Khyenpa (1110 to 1193) foretold his own rebirth as Karma Pakshi. The Treasury's page on the line is more cautious: the record suggests the line really began with the Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje (1284 to 1339), who claimed to be Karma Pakshi's rebirth and said Karma Pakshi had been Dusum Khyenpa's.8 A recognized rebirth looks back as well as forward. As the Treasury's Asha Kaufman put it in 2013, naming a tulku can give earlier lives new meaning and reshape history.62

Dalai and Panchen Lamas. The title Dalai, a Mongol word for "ocean" that translates the Tibetan gyatso (རྒྱ་མཚོ་), was given in 1578 by Altan Khan to Sonam Gyatso (བསོད་ནམས་རྒྱ་མཚོ་), who was then counted as the third of his line; the two before him received the title after their deaths.11 The Panchen line was made the same way. In the 1640s the Fifth Dalai Lama gave the title to his teacher Chokyi Gyeltsen, abbot of Tashilhunpo, and three earlier lamas were named as his previous births. Tashilhunpo counts him as the Fourth Panchen Lama; the Dalai Lama's government counted him as the First.462

Families. Not every lineage runs through rebirth. Since 1073 the Sakya (ས་སྐྱ་) throne has stayed in the Khön (འཁོན་) family.10 The Treasury's entry on the Thirty-Second Sakya Trizin describes him simply as the son of the Thirty-First and the father of the Thirty-Third.47 Since 2017 the throne has rotated among adult men of the family's branches instead of passing at a holder's death; Ratna Vajra was enthroned as the Forty-Second Sakya Trizin that year.10

Property and legitimacy. A lineage held land, monasteries, printing houses and followers, which made recognition a political act. The Tenth Panchen Lama's entry describes old tensions between the Dalai and Panchen Lamas' offices over territory, taxes and control of Tsang.63 When a school fell out of favor, it could lose everything. After Tāranātha's death his monastery was converted to the Dalai Lama's Geluk school, and Jonang texts were banned and burned.64

Deep Dive: Tāranātha: a rebirth, a revival, and a lineage taken over

Tāranātha (ཏཱ་ར་ནཱ་ཐ་, 1575 to 1634) shows the tulku system, a teaching lineage and lineage as property all at once. The Treasury's entry, by Cyrus Stearns, follows him from birth at Karak in 1575, into a family descended from the translator Ra Lotsāwa. His Tibetan name was Kunga Nyingpo; the Sanskrit name Tāranātha, he said, came to him in a vision of an Indian adept.20 Tradition holds that at about a year old he announced that he was the master Kunga Drolchok, who had died in 1566. The claim was kept quiet until he was about four, when he was brought to Kunga Drolchok's seat at Cholung Jangtse and formally recognized as his rebirth.20

What followed is the tulku system working as designed. Nearly all his early teachers had been Kunga Drolchok's own disciples, so the students of his previous life became the teachers of this one and handed back what they had received. Jampa Lhundrub trained him in sutra and tantra. Doring Kunga Gyeltsen gave him the Sakya school's Lamdre teachings, and Draktopa Lhawang Drakpa the Six Yogas and Mahāmudrā. Kunga Pelzang, Kunga Drolchok's nephew and successor on the throne of Jonang, passed on the Kālacakra and Mahākāla teachings he had from his uncle, and Lungrik Gyatso gave him the Jonang Six-branch Yoga and the collected writings of Dolpopa.20

From age fourteen his most important teacher was an Indian adept, Buddhaguptanātha; Tāranātha credited him alone with his understanding of tantra. Other Indian yogis and scholars, Buddhist and not, reached Tibet in these years and worked with him on translations from Sanskrit, several of which are now in the Tibetan canon.20 Kunga Pelzang placed him on the throne of Jonang Monastery in 1588, and the formal investiture followed in 1595. He set out to revive the teaching of the fourteenth-century master Dolpopa, whose zhentong (གཞན་སྟོང་) view holds that ultimate reality is empty of everything other than itself. Some earlier holders of the Jonang throne, he complained, had given Jonang initiations while criticizing that very view.20

Visions carried the revival. While he was restoring Dolpopa's great stupa at Jonang, he saw a crystal mountain crowded with stupas, which he was told was the Dhānyakaṭaka Stupa, where the Buddha is believed to have first taught the Kālacakra Tantra. In 1604, with war between the regions of Jang and Tsang threatening the monastery, he wanted to give up and go into retreat far away. Stearns recounts Tāranātha's own account that Dolpopa appeared and told him to continue. Afterward he wrote the Ornament of the Zhentong Middle Way and said he met Dolpopa many times, both in person and in dreams; in 1618 and 1619 he reported visions of the court of the Shambhala kings.20 In the same year as the crisis, 1604, he completed a history of the Tara tantra, known as the Golden Rosary, collecting the legends of the goddess Tara and the Indian lineages of her practice.65 The best-known Tara story tells of a princess, Wisdom Moon, who made offerings to a buddha called Drum Sound and, when told to pray for rebirth as a man, vowed to reach awakening in a woman's body.66 That buddha has a page of his own: Drum Sound Buddha.

A Tsang ruler, Desi Puntsok Namgyel, gave him land in 1615 for a new monastery, Takten Damcho Ling (རྟག་བརྟན་དམ་ཆོས་གླིང་), finished in 1628.20 Shortly before his death Tāranātha named his disciple Sanggye Gyatso as its abbot, made prophecies about the political troubles coming to Tibet, and died in 1634. Sanggye Gyatso soon followed him, and another disciple, Kunga Rinchen Gyatso, led the Jonang for the next fifteen years.20

Those were the years the patronage turned. The Tsang rulers who had backed Tāranātha lost power to the Fifth Dalai Lama and his Mongol allies, and a gift from the losing side became a liability. With Mongol backing, the Dalai Lama's government seized the monastery around 1650, banned Jonang study across central and western Tibet, burned its texts, sealed its printing press and set up a Geluk college on the site; the Jonang Foundation dates the formal conversion to 1658.64

Tāranātha's rebirth line moved north. The Mongol prince Zanabazar was identified as his reincarnation and became the first Jebtsundampa, the line that headed Buddhism in Mongolia; the Treasury now describes that line as linked to both the Jonang and Geluk schools.67 One life thus produced two very different afterlives. In central Tibet his school was absorbed and his books burned, while in Mongolia his rebirth became the most important lama in the country. His student list shows a third thread: it includes Jetsunma Kunga Trinle Wangmo, the yogini named earlier on this page as a holder of his teachings.20

Tāranātha's life and afterlife
  1. 1575 Born at Karak Recognized at about four as Kunga Drolchok's rebirth.
  2. 1604 Crisis and vision War threatens Jonang; he finishes his Tara history.
  3. 1634 Death His new monastery passes to his disciples.
  4. 1658 Converted The Jonang Foundation's date for the Geluk takeover.

The Golden Urn. In 1793 the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing dynasty ordered that senior rebirths, including the Dalai and Panchen Lamas, be chosen by drawing lots from a golden urn (གསེར་བུམ་), under the eyes of imperial officials. It was presented as a guard against fraud and also made the emperor the final judge.12 How often it was actually used is disputed. Chinese state media say it or direct imperial approval applied to every Dalai and Panchen Lama after 1793; the Dalai Lama's office says it was used only once, for the Eleventh Dalai Lama, and then as a formality.312

Women in the line

The Treasury's women's entries show women entering lineage by several doors: as founders, as recorders, as rebirths, as consorts, as wandering teachers outside any institution, and in at least one living case as an oracle. Their stories are told above, where the record first names them. They also show how thin the sources can be: lives saved by one young man's notes, women who exist mainly as later legend, and founders whose own lineage claims cannot be checked.141819

Ordination. Full ordination for women, as bhikshuni or gelongma, never took root in Tibet. Because the vows are traditionally given by fully ordained nuns as well as monks, a missing line of nuns seemed impossible to restore. In June 2022, at the request of Bhutan's royal family, the head of the Drukpa Kagyu school, the Je Khenpo, gave full ordination to 144 women in Paro, reported as the first such ceremony in Tibetan Buddhism in modern times.68 Critics argued the ordinations were invalid because only monks performed them; supporters such as Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo answer that the Buddha allowed monks to ordain nuns when no nuns were available. Reports say the Dalai Lama would support full ordination but wants the agreement of monastic leaders first.7 In the exile monasteries, meanwhile, nuns gained the highest scholastic degree: in December 2016 the Dalai Lama awarded twenty nuns the Geshema degree, after study lasting at least seventeen years.69

Lineage now

Exile. After 1959 lineage holders rebuilt their seats in South Asia. The Sixteenth Karmapa made Rumtek in Sikkim his seat, inaugurated in 1966 on land given by the king of Sikkim.70 In 1970 monks of Sera reestablished their monastery in the Bylakuppe settlement in Karnataka, and Drepung and Ganden followed in southern India.70 Teaching lineages traveled further, to centers in Europe and North America run by Tibetan lamas and, increasingly, by their Western students.

The Panchen Lama, 1995. On 14 May 1995 the Dalai Lama recognized six-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the Eleventh Panchen Lama, the rebirth of the Tenth Panchen Lama, who had died in 1989.63 Within days he and his family were taken by Chinese authorities.7172 Later that year officials drew lots from the golden urn in Lhasa and installed another boy, Gyaltsen Norbu, who now sits in China's national political advisory body.72 The Treasury's line page states that Gedhun Choekyi Nyima has not been seen in public since.4 Beijing's account differs. In 2020 a foreign ministry spokesman said he had finished school, passed the college entrance exam, held a job, and did not wish his normal life to be disturbed; no details were given and the claim could not be checked. The exile administration and rights groups reject it and call his case an enforced disappearance.7371

Deep Dive: The Tenth Panchen Lama: a tulku between two governments

The Tenth Panchen Lama, Chokyi Gyeltsen (ཆོས་ཀྱི་རྒྱལ་མཚན་, 1938 to 1989), shows how a rebirth line works under pressure. His long Treasury entry, by Antonio Terrone, describes a recognition contested from the start. In the 1940s the Panchen Lama's office chose him from five finalists by drawing names in balls of dough, while the Dalai Lama's government in Lhasa backed another candidate. China's Nationalist government endorsed him in 1945; the Dalai Lama formally accepted him only in 1951.63

He stayed in Tibet when the Dalai Lama fled in 1959 and at first supported Chinese reform. Touring eastern Tibet in 1961 and 1962, he saw the famine of the Great Leap Forward and the dismantling of monasteries, and in March 1962, at twenty-four, he submitted a long petition in Chinese to the Party's Central Committee, known as the 70,000 Character Petition. It accepted socialist reform in principle and set out its human cost in detail. Zhou Enlai received it fairly well and officials discussed it with him, but none of its proposals was carried out, and Mao called it a poisoned arrow.63 In 1964 he was stripped of his posts and held in Beijing. In 1968 Red Guards dragged him to struggle sessions, where he was abused by students and also by several Tibetan religious leaders, among them the Twelfth Samding Dorje Phagmo, head of the women's rebirth line mentioned earlier on this page. He then spent nearly a decade in Qincheng, a maximum-security prison, until October 1977.63

Rehabilitated in 1978, he chose to work inside the system. Encouraged by the head of the Party's United Front, he gave up his monastic vows and married Li Jie, the daughter of an army general, in a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People, a step the entry reads as a public proof of loyalty; they had a daughter in 1983. He became a vice chairman of the National People's Congress.63 He used that rank to rebuild Buddhist education. He founded or backed academies in Lhasa (1982), Derge, Kumbum and Labrang. In 1986 he visited Serta, met the Nyingma lama Khenpo Jigme Puntsok, and renamed his encampment the Larung Five Sciences Buddhist Academy, the institution at Larung Gar whose women scholars later published the early lives of Yeshe Tsogyel. On 1 September 1987 he opened his own High-Level Tibetan Buddhist Academy of China in Beijing.6318 In 1986 he also revived Lhasa's Great Prayer Festival, banned for twenty years. At the festival's opening he called for an end to the old division between the Dalai Lama's and the Panchen Lama's offices and called the Dalai Lama his Dharma companion. He also took part in the 1982 and 1984 talks between the Dalai Lama's envoys and Beijing, urging the Dalai Lama to visit Tibet and see it for himself while dismissing demands for independence as unrealistic. The entry notes that he criticized excessive devotion to tulkus and the abuses of monastic impostors.63

His last weeks bring the story back to rebirth. In January 1989 he consecrated a new stupa at Tashilhunpo for the remains of the Fifth to Ninth Panchen Lamas, whose tombs had been destroyed in the Cultural Revolution. The next day he told more than 230 Tibetan officials about the trauma Tibetans had suffered since 1949 and offered guidance on how reincarnations should be recognized. Five days later, on 28 January, he died. The government said it was a heart attack, which many Tibetans doubted.63 The search for his rebirth was led by the abbot of Tashilhunpo, Chadrel Rinpoche, who was allowed to consult the Dalai Lama, while the final choice was to be made with the golden urn. Chadrel Rinpoche secretly sent his preferred candidate's name to Dharamsala, and the Dalai Lama announced the recognition before the officials could draw lots. Chadrel Rinpoche was arrested and sentenced to six years in prison.63 That is how the dispute described above began.

The Tenth Panchen Lama
  1. 1938 Born In Amdo; recognized in the 1940s by lots drawn in dough.
  2. 1951 Accepted by Lhasa The Dalai Lama formally accepts him.
  3. 1962 The petition He protests famine and the destruction of monasteries.
  4. 1977 Released After years of struggle sessions and prison.
  5. 1989 Death Days after a speech on what Tibetans had suffered.

China's 2007 rules. China's State Administration for Religious Affairs issued Order No. 5, the "Measures on the Management of the Reincarnation of Living Buddhas," in 2007, effective 1 September. It requires government approval for every recognized rebirth, sends the most important cases to the State Council, keeps the golden urn for lines that used it, and bars interference from outside China. A rebirth recognized without approval is declared "illegal and invalid."74 Beijing describes this as continuity with Qing practice; Tibetan exile bodies describe it as state control of religion.743

The Dalai Lama's 2025 statement. On 2 July 2025, days before his ninetieth birthday, the Dalai Lama affirmed that the institution of the Dalai Lama will continue and that the Gaden Phodrang Trust, his office, has sole authority to recognize his reincarnation, following past tradition, with no one else entitled to interfere.2 The same day a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman said his successor must be chosen by the golden urn and approved by the central government, and that the current Dalai Lama had himself been approved by the government of the time. The Dalai Lama's office called that account false.3 Each side now cites the same history to opposite ends.

Two Karmapas. After the Sixteenth Karmapa died in 1981, his senior students split. In 1992 Tai Situ Rinpoche's candidate, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, was recognized by the Dalai Lama and also accepted by the Chinese government, while Shamar Rinpoche named Trinley Thaye Dorje.5 Both have been enthroned and both have followers. In October 2018 the two met privately in France for the first time and issued a joint statement on healing the division in the Karma Kagyu.5

Western teachers and abuse. Lineage gives a teacher great authority, and in Vajrayana practice the student is asked to see the guru as a buddha. Critics argue this made abuse easier to excuse. In July 2017 eight senior students of Sogyal Rinpoche, author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, accused him in a letter of sexual, physical and emotional abuse; he retired as head of the Rigpa organization, and a 2018 inquiry by the law firm Lewis Silkin found many of the allegations credible.6 That August the Dalai Lama said publicly that his friend Sogyal had been "disgraced," and urged students to examine any teacher's conduct, his own included.75 In 2018 the Shambhala community's head, Sakyong Mipham, stepped back during an investigation after reports from Buddhist Project Sunshine.76 Survivors met the Dalai Lama in the Netherlands that September; he said he had known of such abuse since the 1990s.77 The Treasury's own policy is a response to this: its biographies include public-record allegations, and it rejects using secrecy or tantric doctrine to excuse harm.1

Oracles and the government

Alongside teachers and tulkus, the Dalai Lama's government has long consulted oracles: human mediums through whom, the tradition holds, protector deities speak in trance. The best known is the Nechung (གནས་ཆུང་) oracle. Its deity, Pehar, also called Dorje Drakden, is regarded as the chief protector of the Dalai Lamas, and the oracle is described as the official state oracle of the Tibetan government.78 In 1959 the Nechung medium of the time escaped to India with the Dalai Lama.78 In exile the Central Tibetan Administration still invokes Nechung twice a year to seek guidance.79 A second state oracle, Gadong, came under the Geluk school with Nechung, and the two acted as the main oracles the government consulted.80 Other mediums served particular monasteries or the city of Lhasa, such as the Karmashar oracle, linked to Sera Monastery's protector, photographed at Sera in the 1930s.81 The best-known woman in this system today, Khandro-la, oracle of the long-life sisters, appears above under Women in the record.29

Oracles fit the lineage system in a particular way. A medium is chosen, in the tradition's account, by the deity, so their authority comes from possession, where a lama's comes from a chain of teachers or a recognized rebirth. Yet the main oracles were tied to monasteries and to the government, and their pronouncements were weighed alongside those of lamas. The anthropologist Katarina Turpeinen, writing in 2019 about another woman oracle in Indian exile, argues that such practice, often treated as practical fortune telling, is closely bound up with Buddhist aims of liberation.23 All claims here about trance, possession and the deities' words are the tradition's own, reported as the tradition tells them.

Where it stands

Lineage began as a guarantee that a teaching was authentic: this practice came, hand to hand, from someone who knew. It grew into a way of passing on offices and estates, through families and then through children recognized as rebirths. By the seventeenth century it was a form of government, and outside powers from the Mongol khans to the Qing court learned to shape it.1112

Today the same tools are claimed by rival authorities. The Dalai Lama's office says rebirth is a religious matter for his trust alone; Beijing says it is a matter of state, governed by the golden urn and its 2007 rules.2374 Inside the communities, lineage is being tested from other sides: by abuse scandals that turned on a teacher's unquestioned authority, and by women seeking the ordination and the place in the record that the old sources rarely gave them.6717

A resource like the Treasury of Lives cannot settle these disputes. What it can do is show the evidence one life at a time, with dates that disagree, lineages that were assembled after the fact, women who were nearly forgotten, and monasteries that changed hands. That is a different view of lineage from the golden rosary's unbroken thread, and in many ways a more interesting one.

Footnotes

  1. The Treasury of Lives, "About" (staff, boards, editorial statement on misconduct and abuse, site figures as of October 2026; read in a browser). treasuryoflives.org ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12

  2. Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, "Statement Affirming the Continuation of the Institution of Dalai Lama," 2 July 2025 (through search summaries of the statement and press reports). dalailama.com ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  3. "Citing Golden Urn rule, Beijing says its approval must; Tibetans call it lie," The Tribune (India), July 2025, reporting foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning (through a search summary). tribuneindia.com ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  4. The Treasury of Lives, incarnation line "Panchen Lama." treasuryoflives.org ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  5. "Karmapas Meet," Tricycle, October 2018, with the joint statement of 11 October 2018 on karmapa.org (through search summaries). tricycle.org ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  6. "Rigpa publishes result of independent investigation into alleged misconduct by Sogyal Rinpoche," Buddhistdoor Global, 2018 (through a search summary). buddhistdoor.net ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  7. "Tibetan Buddhist women's ordination: so close yet so far," Religion Watch (Baylor University), 9 August 2024, summarizing Vicki Mackenzie in Tricycle, Summer 2024. religionwatch.web.baylor.edu ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  8. The Treasury of Lives, incarnation line "Karmapa." treasuryoflives.org ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  9. Karmapa Foundation Europe, "2nd Karmapa, Karma Pakshi" (a lineage institution's account; through a search summary). karmapafoundation.eu ↩

  10. Wikipedia, "Sakya Trizin" (secondary source, through a search summary; with Buddhistdoor on the 2017 enthronement). en.wikipedia.org ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  11. Wikipedia, "3rd Dalai Lama" (secondary source, through a search summary). en.wikipedia.org ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  12. Wikipedia, "Golden Urn" (secondary source), with Elliot Sperling, "Reincarnation and the Golden Urn in the 19th Century" (both through search summaries). en.wikipedia.org ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  13. Alexander Gardner, "Treasury of Lives: Female Buddhist Masters," Tricycle, 23 October 2012. tricycle.org ↩ ↩2

  14. Joona Repo, "Ayu Khandro Dorje Peldron," The Treasury of Lives, June 2011. treasuryoflives.org ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9

  15. Jacobella Gaetani, "Achi Ukdronma," The Treasury of Lives, October 2026 (peer reviewed). treasuryoflives.org ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8

  16. "'Where are the Women?' A Treasury of Lives Initiative," Buddhistdoor Tea House, 24 February 2023. teahouse.buddhistdoor.net ↩

  17. The Treasury of Lives, "Women Initiative" (counts of 120 women of 1,540 biographies; the unmet goal; image credited to the Rubin Museum and HAR 717; read in a browser, October 2026). treasuryoflives.org ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  18. Jue Liang, "Yeshe Tsogyel," The Treasury of Lives, June 2026 (peer reviewed). treasuryoflives.org ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12 ↩13 ↩14 ↩15 ↩16 ↩17 ↩18 ↩19 ↩20 ↩21

  19. Michelle Sorensen, "Machik Labdron," The Treasury of Lives, April 2010. treasuryoflives.org ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11

  20. Cyrus Stearns, "Tāranātha," The Treasury of Lives, August 2008 (with the entry's sidebar of teachers, students and BDRC number P1428). treasuryoflives.org ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12 ↩13

  21. Adele Tomlin, "Zhentong lineage holder and consort of Jetsun Tāranātha: Kunga Trinley Wangmo," Dakini Translations, 21 October 2020 (a translator's blog; through a search summary). dakinitranslations.com ↩

  22. "A Lineage of Yoginis," Lion's Roar, drawing on Hildegard Diemberger, When a Woman Becomes a Religious Dynasty (Columbia, 2007) (through a search summary). lionsroar.com ↩

  23. Katarina Turpeinen, "The Soteriological Context of a Tibetan Oracle," HIMALAYA 39(1), 2019 (full text; the note on women state oracles cites Hanna Havnevik, 2002, p. 263). journals.ed.ac.uk ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  24. Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive, glossary entry "Khadro-la (b. 1976)." lamayeshe.com ↩

  25. Lama Zopa Rinpoche, "Long-life Prayer for Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drönme (Khadro-la)," Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive (through a search summary). lamayeshe.com ↩ ↩2

  26. Rangjung Neljorma Khandro Tseringma Rinpoche, official website, home page (names, projects, songs, teaching videos; read October 2026). rigzindrubde.org ↩ ↩2

  27. "Autobiography in Verse of Khandro Tsering Kunga Bhuma," official website (her own account). rigzindrubde.org ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  28. Khandro Tseringma Rinpoche, official YouTube channel (about 9,100 subscribers and 47 videos, October 2026; the Madrid teaching is "Liberation Through Interdependence"). youtube.com ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  29. Meridian Trust, "Khandro Tseringma Rinpoche" teacher page (a teaching archive's biography; the Tenma description and her own verse account come through search summaries). meridian-trust.org ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  30. Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, "Khandro Tseringma Rinpoche: Visit and Teachings 2024" (17 to 19 May 2024; quotes Lama Zopa Rinpoche). iltk.org ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  31. Maitripa College, "Khandro Tsering Kunga Bum-ma (Most Esteemed Khadro-la)" (her verse autobiography, the 2012 introduction by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and Mandala interviews; Palden Lhamo glossed as the main protector of the Dalai Lamas). maitripa.org ↩ ↩2

  32. Rangjung Yeshe Wiki, "Five Tseringma Sisters," with Dorji Wangchuk, "Tshering Chenga: The Tsheringma Sisters" (through search summaries). rywiki.tsadra.org ↩ ↩2

  33. Hanna Havnevik, "A Tibetan Female State Oracle," in Henk Blezer, ed., Religion and Secular Culture in Tibet (Brill, 2002), 259–287 (bibliographic record; not read). commons.tsadra.org ↩

  34. "Enlightened Activities," official website (her own account). rigzindrubde.org ↩

  35. "Dagnang Yangsang Ghyachhen Rigzin Drubde," official website. rigzindrubde.org ↩

  36. "Lineage," official website. rigzindrubde.org ↩

  37. "Schedule," official website (weekly Zoom class; 2026 Garrison retreat). rigzindrubde.org ↩

  38. Khandro Ling, "Events" (past and upcoming events, 2025 to November 2026; read October 2026). khandroling.org ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  39. "Glimpses and Teachings from Khandro Rinpoche's Monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal," YouTube, 2026 (video and description). youtube.com ↩ ↩2

  40. Khandro Kunga Bhuma Rinpoche, "'Why Do I Need to Practice if Everything Is Empty?'," Tricycle, 21 September 2024 (author page). tricycle.org ↩

  41. "Who is a Dakini? What is the meaning of Khandro? Teachings from Munich, Germany," YouTube (teaching of 7 May 2024, organized by Aryatara Institut). youtube.com ↩

  42. "Do men have a greater potential for enlightenment than women?," YouTube, 2026. youtube.com ↩

  43. "A short film from Manang, Nepal," YouTube (Creative Commons Attribution license). youtube.com ↩

  44. Wikipedia, "The Treasury of Lives" (secondary source, for Rubin Foundation incubation and the 2017 independence date). en.wikipedia.org ↩

  45. Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University, profile of Alex Gardner (through a search summary; gives 2016 for the spin-off). archive.weai.columbia.edu ↩

  46. Artforum, "Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation Appoint Sara Reisman and Alex Gardner to New Executive Directorial Positions" (through a search summary; undated figure of 1,150 biographies by over ninety scholars). artforum.com ↩

  47. The Treasury of Lives, home page (language versions, search login, most recent biographies including the Thirty-Second Sakya Trizin; read in a browser, October 2026). treasuryoflives.org ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  48. Sakya Research, "Biography/hagiography (Tibetan-styled)," literary form G2, with Karma Phuntsho's account of outer, inner and secret namthar in the Bhutan Cultural Library (both through search summaries). about.sakyaresearch.org ↩

  49. Andrew Quintman, "Milarepa," The Treasury of Lives, April 2010. treasuryoflives.org ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12 ↩13 ↩14 ↩15 ↩16 ↩17

  50. Rangjung Yeshe Wiki, "dbang lung khrid gsum," with RigpaWiki, "Tri" (through search summaries; translators gloss the three terms differently). rywiki.tsadra.org ↩

  51. Kagyu Samye Ling, "The Kagyu Lineage" (through a search summary). samyeling.org ↩ ↩2

  52. Wikipedia, "Tsangnyön Heruka" (secondary source, through a search summary; the 1488 date at Lapchi is also given in library and catalog records). en.wikipedia.org ↩

  53. Andrew Quintman, "Milarepa," Encyclopedia Buddhica (course blog, Wesleyan University), 23 October 2019. encyclopediabuddhicaf19.andrewquintman.wescreates.wesleyan.edu ↩ ↩2

  54. Karl Brunnhölzl, "Milarepa, He Started Like Us," review of Andrew Quintman, The Yogin and the Madman (Columbia, 2014), Lion's Roar. lionsroar.com ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  55. Andrew Quintman, "Earliest Extant Printed Edition of Milarepa's Life Story," Project Himalayan Art, Rubin Museum of Art, 2023 (Sekhar Gutok mural, the 1538 Wosel Puk print, the Lande Langpuk and Drakar Taso prints). rubinmuseum.org ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  56. Encyclopedia of Buddhism, "Mount Kailash" (citing Quintman), with the Foundation for the Preservation of Yungdrung Bön, "The Magical Duel between Milarepa and Naro Bonchung: Who Really Won?" (both through search summaries). yungdrungbon.co.uk ↩

  57. Jeff Watt, "Teacher (Lama): Milarepa," Himalayan Art Resources item 30508, eighteenth century, private collection (2013). himalayanart.org ↩ ↩2

  58. Jeff Watt, "Teacher: Milarepa Life Story (Set 5)," Himalayan Art Resources, June 2012. himalayanart.org ↩ ↩2

  59. Himalayan Art Resources, "Teacher: Milarepa Iconography" (Jeff Watt, updated 2019). himalayanart.org ↩

  60. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Life of Milarepa (1040–1123), Tibet, circa 1500, M.81.90.2 (object label). collections.lacma.org ↩

  61. Visible Mantra, "The Milarepa Mantra" (a popular site, quoting Vessantara; through a search summary). visiblemantra.org ↩

  62. Asha Kaufman, "Treasury of Lives: The Panchen Lama Incarnation Lines," Tricycle, 8 January 2013. tricycle.org ↩ ↩2

  63. Antonio Terrone, "The Tenth Paṇchen Lama, Chokyi Gyeltsen," The Treasury of Lives, August 2024 (long entry; read in full in a browser). treasuryoflives.org ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10

  64. Jonang Foundation, "Takten Damcho Puntsok Ling Monastery" (through a search summary). jonangfoundation.org ↩ ↩2

  65. Wikipedia, "Taranatha," and publishers' descriptions of The Origin of Tara Tantra (through search summaries). en.wikipedia.org ↩

  66. "A Talk on Green Tara Before the Initiation," Sakya Tradition (PDF; through a search summary). sakyatradition.org ↩

  67. The Treasury of Lives, incarnation line "Jebtsundampa" (through a search summary). treasuryoflives.org ↩

  68. "Women Receive Full Ordination in Bhutan For First Time in Modern History," Lion's Roar, June 2022 (through a search summary; some early reports give 142). lionsroar.com ↩

  69. Tibetan Nuns Project, "About the Geshema Degree and the Geshema Exams" (through a search summary). tnp.org ↩

  70. Wikipedia, "Rumtek Monastery" and "Sera Monastery" (secondary sources, through search summaries). en.wikipedia.org ↩ ↩2

  71. Human Rights Watch, "China: Tibet's Panchen Lama Forcibly Disappeared 30 Years," 15 May 2025 (an advocacy organization). hrw.org ↩ ↩2

  72. Wikipedia, "11th Panchen Lama controversy" (secondary source, through a search summary; dates for the urn ceremony vary between sources). en.wikipedia.org ↩ ↩2

  73. Associated Press, "China says boy picked by Dalai Lama now a college graduate," via Religion News Service, 19 May 2020. religionnews.com ↩

  74. State Administration for Religious Affairs, Order No. 5, "Measures on the Management of the Reincarnation of Living Buddhas in Tibetan Buddhism," 2007, translation by the International Campaign for Tibet on ecoi.net (through a search summary). ecoi.net ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  75. "Dalai Lama turns spotlight on fallibility of Buddhist teachers in public address," Buddhistdoor Global, August 2017 (through a search summary). buddhistdoor.net ↩

  76. "Buddhist leader steps aside pending sexual misconduct investigation," shambhala.report (through a search summary; dates the step-back to 6 July 2018). shambhala.report ↩

  77. Radio Free Asia, "Dalai Lama to Meet With Buddhist Victims of Sex Abuse," 13 September 2018 (through a search summary). rfa.org ↩

  78. Wikipedia, "Nechung Oracle" (secondary source). en.wikipedia.org ↩ ↩2

  79. Central Tibetan Administration, "Central Tibetan Administration invokes Nechung oracle to pay obeisance" (through a search summary). tibet.net ↩

  80. "Tibetan Oracles: Ghadong Monastery Past and Present," Snow Lion articles, Shambhala Publications (through a search summary; the page blocked direct reading). shambhala.com ↩

  81. "Karmashar oracle in a Sera monastery courtyard," The Tibet Album, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford (photograph and caption, through a search summary). tibet.prm.ox.ac.uk ↩