The Seventy-Sixth Ganden Tripa, Lobzang Khyenrab Wangchuk
The Seventy-sixth Ganden Tripa, Lobzang Khyenrab Wangchuk. Image credit: himalayanart.org. Click on image to enlarge.
དགའ་ལྡན་ཁྲི་པ ༧༦ བློ་བཟང་མཁྱེན་རབ་དབང་ཕྱུག།
d.1872
Tradition: Geluk དགེ་ལུགས།
Geography: Gyelrong རྒྱལ་རོང།
Historical Period: 19th Century ༡༩ དུས་རབས།
Institution: Ganden དགའ་ལྡན་།; Gyume Dratsang རྒྱུད་སྨད་གྲྭ་ཚང།; Ganden Jangtse College དགའ་ལྡན་བྱང་རྩེ་དྲྭ་ཚང།; Drepung Loseling College འབྲས་སྤུངས་བློ་གསལ་གླིང་གྲྭ་ཚང།; Meru Dratsang རྨེ་རུ་།
Offices Held: Seventy-sixth Ganden Tripa of Ganden
Name Variants: Dedruk 01 སྡེ་དྲུག ༠༡།; Dedruk Lobzang Khyenrab Wangchuk སྡེ་དྲུག་བློ་བཟང་མཁྱེན་རབ་དབང་ཕྱུག།; Ganden Trichen 76 Lobzang Khyenrab Wangchuk དགའ་ལྡན་ཁྲི་ཆེན ༧༦ བློ་བཟང་མཁྱེན་རབ་དབང་ཕྱུག།; Ganden Tripa 76 Lobzang Khyenrab Wangchuk དགའ་ལྡན་ཁྲི་པ ༧༦ བློ་བཟང་མཁྱེན་རབ་དབང་ཕྱུག།; Lobzang Khyenrab Wangchuk བློ་བཟང་མཁྱེན་རབ་དབང་ཕྱུག།; Tronangwa Lobzang Khyenrab Wangchuk སྤྲོས་ནང་བ་བློ་བཟང་མཁྱེན་རབ་དབང་ཕྱུག།
The Seventy-sixth Ganden Tripa, Lobzang Khyenrab Wangchuk (dga’ ldan khri pa 76 blo bzang mkhyen rab dbang phyug) was born in Gyelrong in Kham in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. Details of his parents and childhood are not known. Presumably he became a monk in a local monastery in Gyelrong and if not then certainly in Drepung Monastery near Lhasa.
In his youth Khyenrab Wangchuk travelled to Lhasa and matriculated in Gyelrong House of Loseling College of the Drepung Monastic University (‘bras spungs blo gsal gling gi rgyal rong khang tshan) near Lhasa. Some sources have it that he matriculated in Gomang College of Drepung but that is most likely incorrect.
At Drepung, Khyenrab Wangchuk began his education with preliminary texts of logic such as the Collected Topics (bsdus grwa), Mind and Mental Factor (sems dang sems byung), and other related topics; and then gradually he studied Abhisamayalamkara, Madhyamaka, Abhidharmakosa, Pramanavarttika, and Vinaya, the five major subjects of the Geluk monastic curriculum. He stood for the traditional examination of Lharampa in the Lhasa Monlam Chenmo and obtained the title of Geshe Lharampa (dge bshes lha ram pa), the highest degree in Geluk tradition in Tibet.
Gyume, the Lower Tantric College, one of the two main Geluk tantric colleges in central Tibet. Image credit: Treasury of Lives. Click on image to enlarge.
Subsequently Khyenrab Wangchuk enrolled in Gyume College (rgyud smad grwa tshang) in Lhasa where he trained in the four classes of Tantra (rgyud sde bzhi), including the rites and rituals and related performances such as building mandalas, chanting, and so forth, in accordance with the Gyume tantric system. He then took the grand examination on Tantra and obtained the title of Ngakrampa (sngags rams pa), Master in Tantra. He then served as the chant leader (bla ma dbu mdzad) and abbot of the college, and then as Jangpa Choje (byang pa chos rje), prerequisites for ascending to the Golden Throne of Ganden.
In 1853, while serving as Jangpa Choje, Lobzang Khyenrab Wangchuk ascended to the Golden Throne as the Seventy-sixth Ganden Tripa. Alternate dates of his enthronement are 1852 and 1855. He served until 1859. During the tenure he served as tutor to the Twelfth Dalai Lama, Trinle Gyatso (ta la’i bla ma ‘phrin las rgya mtsho, 1857-1875), and performed the duty of abbot during his ordination.
Trichen Tsultrim Dargye (dga’ ldan khri pa 77 khri chen tshul khrims dar rgyas) succeeded him as the Seventy-seventh Ganden Tripa.
The Seventy-seventh Ganden Tripa, Tsultrim Dargye. Image credit: himalayanart.org. Click on image to enlarge.
In 1864, the year of wood-mouse Trichen Lobzang Khyenrab Wangchuk was appointed as the Regent (srid skyong) of the Dalai Lama’s government in Lhasa and served about ten years. In May of the next year he received the title of Nominhan and seal of the regent sent to him by the Qing Emperor. During the time he served as Regent, he lived in Dedruk Labrang in Meru Dratsang in the Barkor area of Lhasa.
The previous Regent, the Third Reting Rinpoche, Ngawang Yeshe Tsultrim (rwa sgreng 05 ngag dbang ye shes tshul khrims rgyal mtshan, 1816-1863), was forced into exile when after losing a power struggle with the Kashag (bka’ shag), his post was then occupied by a Kashag minister, Shedre Wangchuk Gyelpo (bsad sgra dbang phyug rgyal po, 1795-1864). Khyenrab Wangchuk fared little better. According to Derek Maher, the Twelfth Dalai Lama’s personal attendant, Pelden Dondrub, who was also the general abbot of Ganden Shartse (dga’ shar grwa rigs spyi khyab mkhan po dpal ldan don grub, d. 1871), challenged the Regent, and, with backing from certain factions at Drepung and Ganden Shartse, sought to overthrow not only the Regent but the authority of the Dalai and Panchen Lamas as well. A Kashag minister was apparently murdered when he attempted to warn the Regent; when the surviving ministers and the Regent attempted to arrest Pelden Dondrub, he fled Lhasa and was killed.
Among his disciples was Gomang Khenchen Khyenrab Tenpa Chopel (sgo mang mkhan chen mkhyen rab bstan pa chos ‘phel, 1840-1907/08).
Trichen Lobzang Khyenrab Wangchuk passed into nirvana in 1872, the water-monkey year of the fifteenth sexagenary cycle. When his reincarnation was recognized, he became the first in the Dedruk line of incarnations (sde drug sku phreng).
Students
- The Twelfth Dalai Lama, Trinle Gyatso ཏ་ལའི་བླ་མ ༡༢ འཕྲིན་ལས་རྒྱ་མཚོ། b.1856 – d.1875
- mkhyen rab bstan pa chos ‘phel མཁྱེན་རབ་བསྟན་པ་ཆོས་འཕེལ། b.1840
Bibliography
- Bstan pa bstan ‘dzin. 1992. ‘Jam mgon rgyal wa’i rgyal tshab gser khri rim byon rnams kyi khri rabs yongs ‘du’i ljon bzang. Mundgod: Drepung Gomang Library, pp. 108-109.
- Grags pa ‘byung gnas and Rgyal ba blo bzang mkhas grub. 1992. Gangs can mkhas grub rim byon ming mdzod. Lanzhou: Kan su’u mi rigs dpe skrun khang, pp. 916-917.
- Grong khyer lha sa srid gros lo rgyus rig gnas dpyad yig rgyu cha rtsom ‘bri au yon lhan khang. 1994. Dga’ ldan dgon pa dang brag yer pa’i lo rgyus, grong khyer lha sa’i lo rgyus rig gnas deb 02. Lhasa: Bod ljongs shin hwa par ‘debs bzo grwa khang, p.76.
- Maher, Derek. 2005. “The Twelfth Dalai Lama, Trinle Gyatso.” In Brauen, Martin, ed. The Dalai Lamas: A Visual History. London: Serindia, pp. 134-135.
- Petech, Luciano. 1959. “The Dalai Lamas and Regents of Tibet: A Chronological Study.” T’oung Pao 47, pp. 369-394.
Source: Samten Chhosphel, “The Seventy-Sixth Ganden Tripa, Lobzang Khyenrab Wangchuk,” Treasury of Lives, accessed August 05, 2018, http://treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/Trichen-76-Lobzang-Khyenrab-Wangchuk/6498.
Samten Chhosphel is an independent scholar with PhD from the Central University of Tibetan Studies (CUTS) at Sarnath, Varanasi, India. He has a Master’s degree in Writing and Publishing from Emerson College, Boston, MA. After serving as the In-charge of Publication Department of CUTS for 26 years, he immigrated to the United States in 2009 and is currently an adjunct Assistant Professor at the City University of New York, and Language Associate in Columbia University.
Disclaimer: All rights are reserved by the author. The article is reproduced here for educational purposes only.
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Source: https://treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/Trichen-76-Lobzang-Khyenrab-Wangchuk/6498. Click on image to enlarge.
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The Seventy-sixth Ganden Tripa, Lobzang Khyenrab Wangchuk was born in Gyelrong in Kham. He was enrolled in Gyume College in Lhasa and had his training in the four classes of Tantra . Later he served as tutor to the Twelfth Dalai Lama, Trinle Gyatso and performed the duty of abbot during his ordination.
Thank you Rinpoche for this brief biography of a great lama.