Dhardo Rimpoche

Who was Dhardo Rimpoche?

Dhardo Rinpoche, born Thubten Lhundup Legsang, was the 12th in a line of tulkus from Dhartsendo on the eastern border of Tibet who hailed from the Nyingma Gompa in Dhartsendo called Dorje Drak. The 11th tulku rose to the Abbot of Drepung and during the 1912 invasion of Tibet by China was the most senior of the retired abbots in the National Assembly. He died in 1916 and the 12th Tulku was born in 1917.

Dhardo Rinpoche was educated in the traditional Tibetan monastic style, taking his Geshe Degree and graduating at the Lharmapa level at Drepung Monastery, and doing further study at Gyud-med Tantric College. In 1951 he was appointed abbot of the Tibetan monastery at Bodh Gaya, and from 1954 onwards combined this with a few months per year stay in Kalimpong near the India-Tibet border. Kalimpong was to become an important staging post for Tibetans fleeing the Chinese invasion. Dhardo Rinpoche founded the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Cultural Institute, in 1952 which then opened an orphanage and school for Tibetan refugees. He was abbot of Yiga Choeling Monastery, Ghoom from 1964 till his death in 1990. In 1962 he stopped with the job in Bodhgaya.