The Thirtieth Ganden Tripa, Lodro Gyatso
The Thirtieth Ganden Tripa, Lodro Gyatso. Image credit: himalayanart.org. Click to enlarge.
b.1546 – d.1618
Tradition: Geluk དགེ་ལུགས།
Geography: Lhasa ལྷ་ས།
Historical Period: 16th Century ༡༦ དུས་རབས།; 17th Century ༡༧ དུས་རབས།
Institution: Ganden དགའ་ལྡན་།; Sangpu Neutok གསང་ཕུ་ནེའུ་ཐོག།; Gyume Dratsang རྒྱུད་སྨད་གྲྭ་ཚང།, Ganden Jangtse College དགའ་ལྡན་བྱང་རྩེ་དྲྭ་ཚང།; Kyormolung སྐྱོར་མོ་ལུང།
Offices Held: Thirtieth Ganden Tripa of Ganden
Name Variants: Drakpa Lodro Gyatso གྲགས་པ་བློ་གྲོས་རྒྱ་མཚོ།; Ganden Trichen 30 Lodro Gyatso དགའ་ལྡན་ཁྲི་ཆེན ༣༠ བློ་གྲོས་རྒྱ་མཚོ།; Ganden Tripa 30 Lodro Gyatso དགའ་ལྡན་ཁྲི་པ ༣༠ བློ་གྲོས་རྒྱ་མཚོ།; Jamyang Taklung Drakpa Lodro Gyatso འཇམ་དབྱངས་སྟག་ལུང་བྲག་པ་བློ་གྲོས་རྒྱ་མཚོ།; Lab Kyabgon 05 Lodro Gyatso ལབ་སྐྱབས་མགོན ༠༥ བློ་གྲོས་རྒྱ་མཚོ།; Taklung Drakpa Lodro Gyatso སྟག་ལུང་བྲག་པ་བློ་གྲོས་རྒྱ་མཚོ།; Trichen Lodro Gyatso ཁྲི་ཆེན་བློ་གྲོས་རྒྱ་མཚོ།
The Thirtieth Ganden Tripa, Lodro Gyatso (dga’ ldan khri pa 30 blo gros rgya mtsho) was born at Taklung Drak in Tolung (stod lung mda’ stag lung brag) in 1546, the fire-horse year of the ninth sexagenary cycle. At a young age he was admitted to the Kyormolung (skyor mo lung) Monastery and became a monk where he began his training and basic education: the memorization of prayer texts, learning to read and write, and the study of subjects such as grammar and poetry. Thereafter he studied the traditional courses in both the sutra and tantra according to the Geluk tradition and became a noted scholar.
According to sources, Trichen Lodro Gyatso’s teacher included the Twenty-fifth Ganden Tripa, Peljor Gyatso (dga’ ldan khri pa 25 dpal ‘byor rgya mtsho, 1526-1599); Gyuchen Namgyel Zangpo (rgyud chen rnam rgyal bzang po, d.u.); and Gungru Chokyi Jungne (gung ru chos kyi ‘byung gnas, d.u; lived until the age of 79), who served as the Seventeenth abbot of Gomang College of Drepung Monastic University (‘bras spungs sgo mang grwa tshang).
After completion of his studies Lodro Gyatso served as the abbot of Sangpu (gsang phu) and Gyume (rgyud smad) monasteries and taught topics in both sutra and tantra. He also served as abbot at Kyormolung (skyor mo lung), Sang-ngag Khar (sangs sngags mkhar), and other monasteries.
Choje Lodro Gyatso who founded the Jangtse College of the Ganden Monastic University (dga’ ldan byang rtse grwa tshang), which he named Tosamling (thos bsam gling), literally “a place for study and contemplation.” He served as the new college’s first abbot. Lodro Gyatso also restored and resumed the Department of Studies at Kyormolung that had been discontinued for some time.
Kyormolung Monastery, in Tolung, was founded in the twelfth century by the Kadam master Balti Wangchuk Tsultrim, and converted to the Geluk tradition in the fourteenth century. Image credit: Treasury of Lives. Click to enlarge.
In 1615, the wood-hare year of the tenth sexagenary cycle, at the age of seventy, Choje Lodro Gyatso was enthroned as the Thirtieth Ganden Tripa and served for four years, until 1618. Trichen Lodro Gyatso gave teachings in both sutra and tantra and led the monastery’s religious activities including the Lhasa Monlam Chenmo. Some sources also have it that Trichen Lodro Gyatso also gave teachings Lamrim and other teachings to the Fifth Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobzang Gyatso (ta la’i bla ma 05, ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho, 1617-1682).
Trichen Lodro Gyatso’s disciples included Kelden Gyatso (skal ldan rgya mtsho, 1607-1677); Cho Gyatso (chos rgya mtsho, 1571-1635), the Second abbot of Kumbum (sku ‘bum) monastery; the Thirty-fifth Ganden Tripa, Konchok Chopel (dga’ ldan khri pa 35 dkon mchog chos ‘phel, 1573-1644); Namgyel Peljor (rnam rgyal dpal ‘byor, 1578-1651), the Fifth Abbot of Kubum; and Pilbuwa Ngawang Chodrak (spyil bu pa ngag dbang chos grags, d.u.).
Trichen Lodro Gyatso composed a text entitled Notes on Teachings of Lamrim with the Lineages of the Short and Comprehensive Lamrim (byang chub lam rim che chung sogs kyi brgyud pa bzhugs pa gsan yig gang gi chu rgyun).
At the age of seventy-three, in 1618, the earth-horse year of the tenth sexagenary cycle, Trichen Lodro Gyatso passed into nirvana. A silver enlightenment stupa (byang chub mchod rten) was built in as a reliquary and installed to the left of the Lolang (blos bslangs) in Ganden Monastery in his memory. An extensive nirvana-prayer was held then and annually thereafter.
དགའ་ལྡན་ཁྲི་པ ༣༠ བློ་གྲོས་རྒྱ་མཚོ།
བློ་གྲོས་རྒྱལ་མཚན་ནི་དགའ་ལྡན་ཁྲི་ཐོག་སུམ་ཅུ་པ་ཡིན་ཞིང་། ཕྱི་ལོ་༡༦༡༥ ནས་༡༦༡༨ བར་ཁྲི་པ་མཛད། དགའ་ལྡན་བྱང་རྩེ་གྲྭ་ཚང་གསར་འཛུགས་གནང་སྟེ་གྲྭ་ཚང་གི་མཁན་པོ་ཐོག་མ་དེ་མཛད། དེ་བཞིན་གསང་ཕུ་དང་རྒྱུད་སྨད་སོགས་དགོན་པ་ཁག་གཅིག་གི་མཁན་པོའི་མཛད་འགན་ཡང་བཞེས།
Teachers
- The Twenty-Fifth Ganden Tripa, Peljor Gyatso དགའ་ལྡན་ཁྲི་པ ༢༥ དཔལ་འབྱོར་རྒྱ་མཚོ།b.1526 – d.1599
- rnam rgyal bzang po རྣམ་རྒྱལ་བཟང་པོ།
- chos kyi ‘byung gnas ཆོས་ཀྱི་འབྱུང་གནས།
Students
- chos rgya mtsho ཆོས་རྒྱ་མཚོ། b.1571 – d.1635
- The Thirty-Fifth Ganden Tripa, Konchok Chopel དགའ་ལྡན་ཁྲི་པ ༣༥ དཀོན་མཆོག་ཆོས་འཕེལ། b.1573 – d.1646
- rnam rgyal dpal ‘byor རྣམ་རྒྱལ་དཔལ་འབྱོར། b.1578 – d.1651
- ngag dbang chos grags ངག་དབང་ཆོས་གྲགས།
- The First Rongwo Drubchen, Shar Kelden Gyatso རོང་པོ་གྲུབ་ཆེན ༠༡ ཤར་སྐལ་ལྡན་རྒྱ་མཚོ། b.1607 – d.1677
Bibliography
- Don rdor and Bstan ‘dzin chos grags. 1993. Gangs ljongs lo rgyus thog gi grags can mi sna. Lhasa: Bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang, pp. 630-632.
- 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. 310-311.
- 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. Bod ljongs shin hwa par ‘debs bzo grwa khang, p. 66.
- 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. 90-91.
Source: Samten Chhosphel, “The Thirtieth Ganden Tripa, Lodro Gyatso,” Treasury of Lives, accessed July 11, 2018, http://treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/Trichen-30-Lodro-Gyatso/9795.
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 October 2010
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-30-Lodro-Gyatso/9795. Click to enlarge.
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The Thirtieth Ganden Tripa, Lodro Gyatso was born in Tolung. He became a monk at a young age where he began his basic education and he was trained in memorization of prayer texts, reading , writing and the studying various of subjects. Later he studied sutra and tantra Gelug traditional courses. After completed his studies he was already a well known scholar and served as the abbot in many other monasteries. Finally , he was enthroned as the Thirtieth Ganden Tripa where he gave teachings in both sutra and tantra . He even led the monastery’s religious activities and did even composed a text. After his passing a silver enlightenment stupa was built in Ganden Monastery in his memory.
Thank you Rinpoche for this sharing of a great Lama.
Listening to the chanting of sacred words, melodies, mantras, sutras and prayers has a very powerful healing effect on our outer and inner environments. It clears the chakras, spiritual toxins, the paths where our ‘chi’ travels within our bodies for health as well as for clearing the mind. It is soothing and relaxing but at the same time invigorates us with positive energy. The sacred sounds invite positive beings to inhabit our environment, expels negative beings and brings the sound of growth to the land, animals, water and plants. Sacred chants bless all living beings on our land as well as inanimate objects. Do download and play while in traffic to relax, when you are about to sleep, during meditation, during stress or just anytime. Great to play for animals and children. Share with friends the blessing of a full Dorje Shugden puja performed at Kechara Forest Retreat by our puja department for the benefit of others. Tsem Rinpoche
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