The Twentieth Ganden Tripa, Chodrak Zangpo
H.H the 20th Ganden Tripa, Chodrak Zangpo. Image credit: himalayanart.org. Click on image to enlarge.
b.1493 – d.1559
Incarnations: Takpu སྟག་ཕུ།
Tradition: Geluk དགེ་ལུགས།
Geography: U དབུས།
Historical Period: 16th Century ༡༦ དུས་རབས།
Institution: Ganden དགའ་ལྡན་།; Sera Monastery སེ་ར།; Gyume Dratsang རྒྱུད་སྨད་གྲྭ་ཚང།; Ganden Jangtse College དགའ་ལྡན་བྱང་རྩེ་དྲྭ་ཚང།; Takpu Chode སྟག་ཕུ་ཆོས་སྡེ།
Offices Held: Twentieth Ganden Tripa of Ganden; Abbot of Gyume Dratsang; Fourteenth Throne Holder of Sera Monastery
Name Variants: Ganden Trichen 20 Chodrak Zangpo དགའ་ལྡན་ཁྲི་ཆེན ༢༠ ཆོས་གྲགས་བཟང་པོ།; Ganden Tripa 20 Chodrak Zangpo དགའ་ལྡན་ཁྲི་པ ༢༠ ཆོས་གྲགས་བཟང་པོ།; Takpuwa Chodrak Zangpo སྟག་ཕུ་བ་ཆོས་གྲགས་བཟང་པོ།
The Twentieth Ganden Tripa, Chodrak Zangpo (dga’ ldan khri pa 20 chos grags bzang po) was born in Takpu, Uto (dbus stod stag phu) in 1493, the water-ox year of the eighth sexagenary cycle. He was admitted at a young age in the Takpu Chode (stag phu chos sde) where he became a monk and received the basic monastic training and education in reading and writing, and learning the prayer texts by heart, and so forth. He then thoroughly studied the traditional texts of both sutra and tantra and served as the lobpon in Gyume College for studies in tantra. Thereafter he was appointed to the lobpon of Jangtse College of Ganden Monastic University (dga’ ldan byang rtse grwa tshang).
Gyume, the Lower Tantric College, is one of the two main Geluk tantric colleges in central Tibet. Image credit: Treasury of Lives. Click on image to enlarge.
In 1552, at the age of sixty, Takpu Chodrak Zangpo was enthroned as the Twentieth Ganden Tripa. He served the post for seven years, giving comprehensive teachings on both sutra and tantra and leading the religious activities and events of Ganden Monastery in particular and of the Geluk tradition in general, including the annual Great Prayer Festival of Lhasa, the Lhasa Monlam Chenmo. He created a wonderful set of applique tankas of the Sixteen Arhats (‘phags pa gnas brtan bcu drug).
Two years later Trichen Chodrak Zangpo was also enthroned to the seat of fourteenth Abbot of Sera Tekchenling (se ra theg chen gling) in 1554.
He retired from the post of Gaden Tripa and settled at Dewachen Monastery in Nyetang (snye thang bde ba can) near Lhasa but soon thereafter he passed into nirvana, on the tenth day of ninth month in the earth-sheep year of the ninth sexagenary cycle, at the age of sixty-seven in 1559. A silver victory stupa (rnam rgyal mchod rten) was built in his memory and placed in the second position to the right of the Nguldong Rinpoche (dngul gdong rin po che), the Great Precious Silver Reliquary of Ganden.
དགའ་ལྡན་ཁྲི་པ ༢༠ ཆོས་གྲགས་བཟང་པོ།
ཆོས་གྲགས་བཟང་པོ་ནི་དགའ་ལྡན་ཁྲི་ཐོག་ཉི་ཤུ་པ་ཡིན་ཞིང་། ཕྱི་ལོ་༡༥༥༢ ནས་༡༥༥༩ བར་ཁྲི་པ་མཛད། སྟག་ཕུ་ཆོས་སྡེ་དང་རྒྱུད་སྨད་གྲྭ་ཚང་བཅས་སུ་སློབ་གཉེར་གནང་། དེ་ནས་རྒྱུད་སྨད་དང་དགའ་ལྡན་བྱང་བརྩེ་གྲྭ་ཚང་དུ་འཆད་ཉན་སློབ་དཔོན་མཛད། དེ་བཞིན་སེ་ར་ཐེག་ཆེན་གླིང་གི་མཁན་པོ་བཅུ་བཞི་པར་མངའ་གསོལ། དགའ་ལྡན་ཁྲི་པ་གནང་བའི་སྐབས་ཁོང་ནས་གནས་བརྟན་བཅུ་དྲུག་གི་སྐུ་ཐང་དྲས་དྲུབ་མ་ཆ་ཚང་བ་ཞིག་གསར་དུ་བཞེངས།
Previous Incarnations
- Chogyel Tendzin ཆོས་རྒྱལ་བསྟན་འཛིན།
- dpal ldan don grub དཔལ་ལྡན་དོན་གྲུབ། b.1382 – d.1466
Previous Incarnations
- blo bzang bstan pa’i rgyal mtshan བློ་བཟང་བསྟན་པའི་རྒྱལ་མཚན། b.1714 – d.1762
- blo bzang chos kyi dbang phyug བློ་བཟང་ཆོས་ཀྱི་དབང་ཕྱུག། b.1765 – d.1792
- Ngawang Lobzang Tendzin ངག་དབང་བློ་བཟང་བསྟན་འཛིན། b.1808
- The Fourth Takpu, Pema Vajra Jampel Tenpai Ngodrub སྟག་ཕུ ༠༤ པདྨ་བཛྲ་འཇམ་དཔལ་བསྟན་པའི་དངོས་གྲུབ། b.1876 – d.1935
Bibliography
- Don rdor and bstan ’dzin chos grags. Gangs ljongs lo rgyus thog gig rags can mi sna. Bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang, p. 585.
- Grags pa’byungs gnas and Blo bzang mkhas grub. Gangs can mkhas sgrub rim byon ming mdzod. Kan su’u mi rigs dpe skrun khang, p. 740.
- Grong khyer lha sa srid gros lo rgyus rig gnas dpyad yig rgyu cha rtsom ’bri au yon lhan khang. 1964. Dga’ ldan dgon pa dang brag yer pa’i lo rgyus, grong khyer lha sa’i lo rgyus rig gnas deb 02. Bod ljongs shin hwa par ’debs bzo grwa khang, p. 62.
- Sde srid sangs rgyas rgya mtsho. 1989 (1698). Dga’ ldan chos ‘byung baiDU r+ya ser po. Beijing: Krung go bod kyi shes rig dpe skrun khang, pp. 83-84.
Source: Samten Chhosphel, “The Twentieth Ganden Tripa, Chodrak Zangpo,” Treasury of Lives, accessed July 23, 2018, http://treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/Trichen-20-Chodrak-Zangpo/5953.
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.
Published September 2010
Disclaimer: All rights are reserved by the author. The article is reproduced here for educational purposes only.
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The Twentieth Ganden Tripa, Chodrak Zangpo was born in Takpu, Uto. . At a young age he became a monk , reading and writing, and learning the prayer texts by heart, and so forth. He also spent most of his time studying the traditional texts of both sutra and tantra . He was enthroned as the Twentieth Ganden Tripa at age sixty which he served the post for few years , giving comprehensive teachings on both sutra and tantra and leading the religious activities and events of Ganden Monastery .
Thank you Rinpoche for this interesting read.
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