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Choje Dondrub Rinchen was a Kadam master from Amdo who, after studying in central Tibet, established Shadrung and Jakhyung monasteries. He was Tsongkhapa's first teacher, the man who gave him his novice vows as well as the ordination name of Lobzang Drakpa, and he remained a major source of guidance and inspiration throughout the latter's life. +
Dorje Lingpa, who is counted as the third of the five kingly treasure revealers, is said to have revealed one hundred eight treasures. A prominent figure in the history of Bhutan, as many of his revelations were took place in Bhumtang and the surrounding region, and his revelations are still part of the Bhutanese yearly ritual schedule. Dorje Lingpa considered himself a reincarnation of Vairocana, and revealed both Buddhist and Bon Dzogchen treasures, bringing considerable innovation to the teachings. +
Chennga Dorje Sherab (spyan snga rdo rje shes rab) was a disciple of both Jikten Gonpo Rinchen Pel ('jig rten mgon po rin chen dpal, 1143-1217), the founder of Drigung Til Monastery ('bri gung mthil), and one of his main disciples, Won Sherab Jungne (dbon shes rab 'byung gnas, 1187-1241). Details about his life are not currently available. Some sources mention an extensive biography but it appears to have been lost.
He wrote two extensive commentaries on Won Sherab Jungne's compilation of Jikten Gonpo's teachings, known as The Single Intention (dgongs gcig). These commentaries are titled The Lamp of Illuminated Wisdom (snang mdzad ye shes sgron ma) and O Gema ('od ge ma). Together they are known as the Dorshema (rdor she ma), a contraction of the name Dorje Sherab. Author: Evan Yerburgh, translator and member of Esukhia. +
Drapa Ngonshe was the treasure revealer who is credited with producing the Four Tantras, the root texts of Tibet’s medical tradition. A master in the Nyingma, Zhije, and Kadam traditions, he established numerous religious communities in Tibet, including the great Dratang Monastery which was later absorbed by the Sakya. Ordained in the Eastern Vinaya tradition, he was instrumental in popularizing tantric practices among that community, and later returned his vows to live as a tantrika. +
Drigung Lotsāwa Maṇikaśrījñāna, who was one of Dolpopa’s fourteen major disciples, was a master of Sanskrit studies. He also held the monastic seat of the great Kagyu monastery of Drigung as a young man. After studying with Dolpopa, Drigung Lotsāwa became an ardent defender of the zhentong view and spead the Kālacakra teachings of the Jonang tradition. Toward the end of his life he taught the Vimalaprabhā for eight years at Jonang Monastery. +
Drime Kunga was a fourteenth-century treasure revealer and the founder of a tantric community in Kongpo. He is renowned as one of the "Three Drimes" along with Drime Wozer, i.e., Longchen Rabjampa Drime Wozer, and Drime Lhunpo, a close contemporary. Among the treasure discoveries attributed to him, he was historically most well known for an Avalokiteśvara-centered text cycle, the Mahākaruṇika: Supreme Light of Gnosis. This collection is extant today along with Drime Kunga's biographies of the Indian adept Mitrayogin and Padmasambhava's Tibetan consort, Yeshe Tsogyel. +
Pakpa Lodro Gyeltsen was the fifth of the Five Sakya Patriarchs, the men credited with having established the foundation of the Sakya tradition. His father was Sonam Gyeltsen, the younger brother of the great scholar Sakya Paṇḍita Kunga Gyeltsen. He went to Godan Khan’s court with Sakya Paṇḍita as a boy, and went on to play a central role in Tibetan relations with Khubilai Khan and the Mongol rulers of the Yuan Dynasty. Sakya became the capital of Mongolian-ruled Tibet, and using funds from the new Yuan state Pakpa built the Lhakhang Chenmo at Sakya, establishing what is commonly known as Sakya Monastery. He and Sakya Paṇḍita are also credited with developing a written script so that Buddhist texts could be translated into Mongolian, which had previously not been written. This is named Pakpa Script in his honor. +
Drokmi Lotsāwa Śākya Yeshe ('brog mi lo tsA ba shAkya ye shes) was a member of the Ban (ban) branch of the Drokmi ('brog mi) clan. Little is known about his early life, but his year of birth is given as 992. He traveled to India and Nepal, learned Sanskrit, and then studied grammar, epistemology, writing, astrology, and tantra. In Tibet and Nepal, he translated nearly seventy tantric texts with South Asian Buddhist masters such as Gayādhara, Prajñendraruci, also known as Viravajra, the Ceylonese yogini Candramāla, Ratnavajra, Ratnaśrīimitra and possibly Prajñāgupta as well.
His two most important teachers were Gayadhāra and Prajñendraruci under whom he studied the Lamdre (''lam 'bras'') teachings, and the ''Hevajra Tantra'' together with its explanatory tantras, the ''Vajrapanjara'' and ''Samputa'', collectively known as the ''Kyedor Gyusum'' (''kye rdor rgyud gsum'').
In Tibet he is said to have taught Sanskrit to Marpa Chokyi Lodro (mar pa chos kyi blo gros, 1002/1012-1097). He stayed at the Mugulung cave complex (mu gu lung) with his students and his consort Lhachamchik (lha lcam gcig), also known as Dzeden Wochak (mdzes ldan 'od chags), a princess of Lhatse (lha rtse). +
Dromtonpa Gyelwa Jungne was one of the primary disciples of Atiśa and is considered the founder of the Kadampa school of Tibetan Buddhism. A layman, he nevertheless established Reting Monastery in 1057, one of the great centers of the Kadampa tradition. +
Droton Dutsi Drakpa (gro ston bdud rtsi grags) was born into a family of the Dro (gro) clan at a place called Chugolam (chu dgo lam) in Tsang, in 1153, the water-bird year of the thirteenth sexagenary cycle.
He was granted novice vows by Zhonnu Sengge (gzhon nu seng ge, d.u), presumably at Nartang Monastery (snar thang dgon). He received the complete teachings of the Kadam tradition from Doton Sherab Drakpa (rdo ston shes rab grags pa, 1127-1185), the second abbot of Nartang, and his disciple, Zhangtsun Dorje Ozer (zhang btsun rdo rje ‘od zer, 1122-1194), the monastery's third abbot.
He also received the instructions of Lamrim (''lam rim'') from Chumikpa Sherab Drak (chu mig pa shes rab grags pa, d.u.) apparently using a text composed by the First Karmapa, Dusum Khyenpa (karma pa 01 dus gsum mkhyen pa, 1110-1193). Thereafter the Nartang Lamrim instructions consisted of two transmission lineages, one stemming from Sharawa Yonden Drak (sha ra ba yon tan grags, 1070-1141), the teacher of the founder of Nartang, Tumton Lodro Drakpa (gtum ston blo gros grags pa, 1106-1166), and the other stemming from the Karmapa.
He received extensive teachings from Sanggye Wondon (sangs rgyas dbon ston, d.u) as well.
Three times he went to Reting Monastery (rwa sgreng) to distribute alms.
In 1185 he succeeded Zhangtsun Dorje Ozer as abbot of Nartang, serving as the fourth throne holder for about thirty-nine years, until his death in 1232. +
Dudjom Lingpa was a prolific treasure revealer based in Golok, Amdo. His eight sons were all religious teachers in their own right, establishing and important Dudjom family line of teaching transmission. His incarnation was Dudjom Jikdrel Yeshe Dorje, one of the most important Nyingma lamas of the twentieth century. +
Khenpo Tubten Tsondru Puntsok was born in Golok and studied at Dzogchen and Shechen monasteries, as well as with a geshe from Sera Je. He fled Tibet in 1959, and then taught extensively in Bhutan, Sikkim and India, playing a crucial role in the re-establishment of Nyingma scholasticism, especially during his tenure at the government monastic college in Sikkim and as the first abbot of Namdroling monastic college in Bylakuppe, India. +
Dölpopa Sherab Gyaltsen was one of the most influential Buddhist masters in Tibetan history. He first became an important scholar of the Sakya tradition, but then moved to Jonang Monastery. There he became the fourth holder of the monastic seat and constructed a monumental stupa. Dölpopa’s ideas, specifically his famous formulation of the zhentong view and his interpretations of Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna doctrine, have elicited controversy for nearly seven hundred years. +
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The Fifth Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobzang Gyatso, popularly known "The Great Fifth", was the first Dalai Lama to assume political rule of Tibet, forging lasting alliances with Mongol armies and the Qing court in China. He was both a brilliant tactician and a religious thinker, authoring numerous commentaries and ritual manuals, as well as histories and biographies. Although responsible for considerable sectarian violence and Geluk hegemony, including the suppression in Tibet of the Jonang tradition and the forcible conversion of many monasteries to the Geluk faith, the Fifth Dalai Lama never abandoned his family’s Nyingma affiliations, and he sponsored the establishment or renovation of several Nyingma monasteries. The great palace of Potala that he built as his residence and seat in Lhasa was named after that bodhisattva’s pure land, Potalaka, a naming that contributed to the dissemination of the identification of the Dalai Lama as an emanation of Avalokiteśvara. +
The Fifth Dzogchen Drubwang, Tubten Chokyi Dorje was instrumental in building Dzogchen Monastery’s Śrī Siṃha monastic college into a major center of learning. Having received teachings from many of the most prominent lamas of his era, he passed on the Dzogchen teachings to countless twentieth century Nyingma lamas of Kham and Amdo. +
Tsangpa Gyare Yeshe Dorje is considered the founder of the Drukpa Kagyu tradition, named after the Druk Monastery, one of three monasteries he established, the most famous being Ralung, which he founded in 1180. A member of the Gya clan that would continue to control Ralung until the seventeenth century, he was the most important disciple of Lingrepa, a student of Pakmodrupa. He is counted as the first in the line of Drukchen incarnations, although the second Drukchen would not be born until a few centuries after his death, when the Gya family line ended. As an author Tsangpa Gyare is best known for his spontaneous songs of realization, rich with spiritual advice. He discovered treasure texts written by Tipupa for Rechungpa, The Six Cycles of Equal Taste, still an important teaching of the Drukpa Kagyu today. +
Mingyur Namkhai Dorje was the Fourth Dzogchen Drubwang and the seventh abbot of Dzogchen Monastery in Kham. A student of the First Dodrubchen, he was a widely venerated Dzogchen master who taught dozens of prominent masters across Kham, and forged close ties with Ninth Dalai Lama, with whom he shared a familial relationship. With the sponsorship of the king of Derge he restored Dzogchen Monastery after it was destroyed by an earthquake in 1842. +
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Gampopa Sonam Rinchen, also known as Dakpo Lhaje, is credited with founding the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Trained first as a medical doctor and then ordained as a Kadam monk, Gampopa met Milarepa when he was thirty years old, and spent much of the next decades in meditation retreat. Never renouncing his monastic vows, he combined the Indian Mahāsiddha practices brought back to Tibet by Marpa and others with the monastic order of his Kadampa teachers. He also united the Kadam teachings of Lamrim with the Mahāmudrā teachings he received from Milarepa. He founded Daklha Gampo in 1121 and trained many of the greatest Kagyu masters of all time, including the First Karmapa and Pakmodrupa. +
Trichen Lodro Tenpa, a disciple of Tsongkhapa and of his principal disciple Gyeltsab Darma Rinchen, was an outstanding scholar who specialized on the treatises of Maitreya, on which he composed a number of works. He founded the Dakpo Sherubling Monastery in mid-fifteenth century, and served as the Seventh Ganden Tripa from 1473 to 1478. +
Śākya Pel, or Gar Dampa Chodingpa, was a disciple of Jikten Gonpo. He wrote one of the three earliest works on the Gongchik, the Single Intention, and he was one of the three masters who ‘opened’ the region of Tsari for retreatants and pilgrims. He founded Choding Monastery and, in the last days of his life, a monastery called Rinchen Ling. His reincarnations are known as the Garchen Rinpoche. +