Dodrupchen Monastery
Dodrupchen Monastery (Tib. རྡོ་གྲུབ་ཆེན་དགོན་, Wyl. rdo grub chen dgon) is a monastery of the Longchen Nyingtik lineage in Golok, Eastern Tibet, founded in its current location in 1862 by the second Dodrupchen Jikmé Puntsok Jungné in the Tsangchen plain in the Do valley.
The First Dodrupchen Jikme Trinle Özer had first laid the foundation for a monastery called Drodön Lhündrub Gompa at Shukchen Tago, about ten miles from the present Dodrupchen monastery, but then left for other matters. He resumed building in 1799, where he was assisted by Jikme Gyalwe Nyugu.
Then in 1810 the First Dodrupchen established another meditation centre at Yarlung in Serta. He named it the Pemako Tsasum Khandro Ling (pad+ma bkod rtsa gsum mkha' 'gro'i gling), which became known as Yarlung Pemako Monastery. After building it Dodrupchen Rinpoche vowed never to leave it again.[1]
When Gönpo Namgyal, a warlord of Nyarong, attacked the Ser valley, the Second Dodrupchen Jikmé Puntsok Jungné had no choice but to flee the monastery. He then settled in the Tsangchen (rtsang chen) plain in the upper Do Valley, and this became the location of the current Dodrupchen Monastery.
In its heyday, the monastery had a group of great scholars who came to be renowned as the 'Four Great Khenpos'.[2]. They were:
- Garwa Khenpo Tubten Rigdzin Zangpo (Wyl. mgar ba mkhan po thub bstan rig 'dzin bzang po (d.1926)
- Sershul Khenpo Ngawang Kün-ga Drakpa (Wyl. ser shul mkhan po ngag dbang kun dga' grags pa)[3]
- Anyé Khenpo Damchö Jampa Özer (Wyl. a myes mkhan po dam chos byams pa 'od-zer (d.1927?)
- Lushul Khenpo Könchok Drönme
Tulku Thondup writes: 'Almost all the scholars of that time in Golok and Serta provinces of Tibet and also many from Nyingma monasteries of Kham, Gyarong, and Amdo were students of Dodrupchen Monastery'
In India
Dodrupchen monastery has been founded in exile by the Fourth Dodrupchen Tubten Trinlé Pal Zang, and is called (Deorali) Chorten Gompa (deorali mchod rten dgon pa).
Notes
- ↑ See Tulku Thondup, Masters of Meditation and Miracles, page 155. Tulku Thondup notes that Yarlung Monastery is being rebuilt under the guidance of Yarlung Tulku Tenpe Nyima, an incarnation of the Third Dodrupchen.
- ↑ See Tulku Thondup, Masters of Meditation and Miracles, page 247, and Adam Pearcey, A Greater Perfection? Scholasticism, Comparativism and Issues of Sectarian Identity in Early 20th Century Writings on RDzogs-Chen (SOAS University of London, 2018), pages 44-45
- ↑ He might have been originally from the Geluk monastery of Sershul