Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo

Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo (1820 to 1892) was born in the Terlung valley of the Derge kingdom in eastern Tibet. At twelve he was identified as the rebirth of a Sakya abbot of Ngor, Tartse Khenchen Jampa Namkha Chime. Later he was also regarded as the mind emanation of the Nyingma treasure revealer Jigme Lingpa. Treasury of Lives notes that it is unclear when that second identification was made.

He travelled to central Tibet twice, trained at Ngor, and took monastic ordination at Mindroling at twenty-one. According to Jamgön Kongtrul he studied with about 150 teachers, among them many leading lamas of his day. He made Dzongsar Monastery in Derge his seat and expanded it.

In the 1850s he began close work with Jamgön Kongtrul, a Karma Kagyu lama at nearby Pelpung, and with the younger treasure revealer Chokgyur Lingpa. The three are remembered together in Tibetan as Khyen Kong Chok Desum, the triumvirate of Khyentse, Kongtrul and Chokling. Kongtrul sent Chokgyur Lingpa to Khyentse Wangpo for evaluation, and Khyentse’s public approval, given over about two years, authorised him to reveal treasure. The two later opened sacred sites together, including Rongme Karmo Taktsang in 1866.

Khyentse Wangpo also shaped Kongtrul’s great compilations. Treasury of Lives records that he proposed or advised on four of the Five Treasuries, and that he insisted Kongtrul write a full commentary on the Treasury of Knowledge. He was himself a prolific treasure revealer, and Kongtrul listed him as the last of the “five kingly treasure revealers”.

His own collections include a compendium of Sakya sadhanas and a pilgrimage guide to central Tibet. Treasury of Lives considers that his teaching and his work with Kongtrul and Chokgyur Lingpa embodied the Rimé ideal, the appreciation and exploration of the many traditions of Buddhism in Tibet.

He died in 1892, and Jamgön Kongtrul presided over the funeral. Several incarnations were recognised afterwards, in different monasteries. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö, whose reincarnation is today’s Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, are among the lines Treasury of Lives lists.