The Treasury of Lives

Renowned as one of the "Three Drimes" (dri med rnam gsum) along with Longchen Rabjampa Drime Wozer (klong chen rab 'byams pa dri med 'od zer, 1308–1364), and Drime Lhunpo (dri med lhun po, b. 1352), Drime Kunga (dri med kun dga') was born on the tenth day of a fire-pig year, most likely the fire-sow year of 1347, in the lower reaches of Drabchi in Khangmar (grwa phyi ma'i mda' khang dmar) to a mother known as Dzompakyi ('dzom pa skyid) or Gogo Dzom (dgos dgos 'dzom), and a father named Tashi Lhundrub (bkra shis lhun grub) or Peljor Zangpo (dpal 'byor bzang po). He was descended from a respected line of mantradhārins (sngags 'changs pa), and he is considered a rebirth of Nubchen Sangye Yeshe (gnubs chen sangs rgyas ye shes, ninth century), said to be one of Padmasambhava's twenty-five main disciples. 

The earliest source to offer details about Drime Kunga's life is the History of the Buddha's Teachings (sangs rgyas bstan pa'i chos 'byung), also known as Yakde's History (g.yag sde'i chos 'byung), attributed to Yakde Duldzin Khyenrab Gyatso (g.yag sde 'dul 'dzin mkhyen rab rgya mtsho, sixteenth century). This work appears to have been the primary influence on all later accounts of Drime Kunga's life, though it is unique among biographies in several respects. Notably, it elaborates on what Guru Tashi (gu ru bkra shis, eighteenth century) refers to in his own history, Guru Tashi's History (gu bkra'i chos 'byung), as "some wonderful legends" (gtam rgyud ngo mtshar can 'ga' zhig) pertaining to Drime Kunga's birth. Furthermore, it describes a supernatural event that would commence Drime Kunga's career as a treasure revealer in his mid-twenties. 

Where Khyenrab Gyatso's account indeed speaks of marvelous occurrences accompanying Drime Kunga's birth, we find that when he issued from his mother's womb, heavenly bodies aligned, the sun dawned in the southwest, and flowers rained down from the sky. Rather than view these signs as auspicious, however, Drime Kunga's mother supposedly harbored qualms about their source and significance. Thinking that noxious spirits (rgyal bsen gyi cho 'phrul) might be responsible for what she saw, she chose to keep the signs secret for many years, and she hid her son away until he reached the age of eight. 

The decision to elaborate upon the nature of these signs rather than say, simply, that Drime Kunga's birth was accompanied by miraculous omens may have to do with Khyenrab Gyatso's rhetorical aims for the History of the Buddha's Teachings broadly conceived. Composed in part as a response to the Eighth Karmapa Mikyo Dorje's (mi bskyod rdo rje, 1507-1554) questions about the authenticity of certain Nyingma teachings, this text situates Drime Kunga as one among many treasure revealers whose character and activities would support the validity of the practice of treasure discovery on the whole. Perhaps Khyenrab Gyatso thought a more detailed account in the case of Drime Kunga all the more compelling.

Whatever the reason, sources agree that throughout his youth, Drime Kunga exhibited interests and abilities that would foreshadow his future as a successful tantric practitioner and teacher. After he turned nineteen, he renounced worldly life and went to the Lhalung (lha lung) forest where he took up singing vajra songs (rdo rje'i mgur). He then went on to Drabchi Chubzang (grwa phyi chu bzang) where he became learned in monastic discipline. At twenty-one, he undertook novice-monk training (dge tshul) in the presence of the Chubzang abbot (chu bzang pa chen po), and later, he received full ordination and the name Sherab Gyeltsen (shes rab rgyal mtshan). Subsequently, prophecies by his lama and ḍākinīs led Drime Kunga to Samye Chimpu (bsam yas chims phu) where he is said to have received empowerments and instructions from Padmasambhava himself.

According to Khyenrab Gyatso's account, Drime Kunga's career as a treasure revealer began with a dream. In it, he found himself whisked away by four groups of ḍākinīs on a hovering platform. They transported him to the Glorious Copper-Colored Mountain (zangs mdog dpal ri), Padmasambhava's paradise, where he met with Padmasambhava and Yeshe Tsogyel (ye shes mtsho rgyal). The pair granted him empowerments related to the deity Cakrasaṃvara, and assigned him the secret name Guru Ānanda (gu ru a nanta). They also gave him a single tanned leather case that contained 108 practical instructions for the discovery of yellowed scrolls and their inventories. At the conclusion of their meeting ḍākinīs transported him home. When Drime Kunga awoke, he saw the leather case he had received at the head of his bed. Soon after, in a cave at Samye Chimpu, he revealed the most well-known of his discoveries, the Avalokiteśvara-centered text cycle titled Mahākaruṇika: Supreme Light of Gnosis (thugs rje chen po ye shes 'od mchog). 

Later sources state that Drime Kunga was twenty-six at the start of his treasure-revealing career and that he met Padmasambhava at the summit of the Minister's Cave (blon po mgul) in Chimpu. Throughout the next year, he went on to discover two more of his most notable treasures in addition to the Mahākaruṇika cycle, namely his Daily Practice of the Guru Cintāmaṇi (bla ma nor bu lam khyer) and The Great Perfection: Quintessence of the Ḍākinīs (rdzogs chen mkha' 'gro yang tig). Together these works came to be known as Drime Kunga's Guru, Perfection, Karuṇika Triad (bla rdzogs thugs gsum). 

Apart from these three titles, Drime Kunga's biographers also highlight the discovery of several other works among what would ultimately be an extensive, albeit now mostly lost, oeuvre by the end of his career. The Crown Jewel of the Eight Pronouncements (bka' brgyad gtsug rgyan nor bu), the Ayusādhana of the Supreme Steed's Play (tshe sgrub rta mchog rol pa), the Great Ḍākinī (mkha' 'gro chen mo), and the Protector Barchung (mgon po 'bar chung) are typically mentioned along with two treasure objects (gter rdzas): what is perhaps a medicinal tiger-striped stone (nor bu stag sha de ba) and a turquoise necklace belonging to Yeshe Tsogyel. 

Drime Kunga is also credited with the discovery of biographies of Yeshe Tsogyel and the Indian siddha Mitrayogin (twelfth century). Perhaps given Mitrayogin's close associations with Avalokiteśvara, we find the latter work attached to Drime Kunga's Mahākaruṇika cycle. The former work, also attributed to the famed Bhutanese treasure-revealer Pema Lingpa (pad ma gling pa, 1450-1521) and included in his Lama, Jewel, Ocean corpus, (bla ma nor bu rgya mtsho) offers us the earliest cradle-to-grave account of the life of Yeshe Tsogyel. This account differs from the popular seventeenth-century biography of her revealed by Taksham Nuden Dorje (stag sham nus ldan rdo rje, b. 1655) in several striking ways, both in terms of its contents and its structure. 

Notably, while Taksham's biography moves quickly beyond details related to Yeshe Tsogyel's birth and youth in order to begin recounting, in earnest, her rescue from competing suitors by Emperor Tri Songdetsen (khri srong lde'u btsan, 742–796) and his subsequent bestowal of her to Padmasambhava for the purpose of consort practice, Drime Kunga's version of Yeshe Tsogyel's life dwells at length on her dealings with her family at her father's court, the time she spends in exile for her refusal to marry, and her extensive travels through the valleys of Oḍḍiyāna, Padmasambhava's homeland. No mention is made of Yeshe Tsogyel's association with Tri Songdetsen, nor of her journey to Nepal to find her own male consort, deemed Atasara Sale in Taksham's text. Rather, the majority of the work by Drime Kunga devotes itself to Yeshe Tsogyel's inter-relational conflicts and the trials she endures in the name of spiritual attainment. 

Structurally, Drime Kunga's seven-chapter work is interesting not only for its extensive use of dialogue, but also for the language and poetic features it shares with popular dramatic works like the Life of Drime Kunden (dri med kun ldan gyi rnam thar), the story of Prince Vessantara as told in Tibetan. This affiliation, and the fact that the fifth chapter of Yeshe Tsogyel's life story—the chapter in which she descends into hell in order to rescue Shanti, the wicked minister who condemned her to death for refusing to marry—has long circulated independently of the rest of the biography as a revenant ('das log) tale suggests that its closest generic kin may be works geared toward dramatic performance. 

In addition to revealing practice-oriented and literary treasures, Drime Kunga was also famed for having established a group of tantric specialists or mantradhārins (sngags 'chang) at Lhundrak Hermitage (lhun grags dgon pa) in Kongpo (kong po). These mantradhārins arranged their hair in the same style as their founder, wrapping their locks atop their heads just as Drime Kunga wrapped his hair around what was said to be his distinctive crown-protrusion (gtsug tor; Skt. uṣṇīṣa), which, as Guru Tashi puts it, was shaped like a thumb (mtheb). And beginning with Tsenden Zhonnu Sangye (mtshan ldan gzhon nu sangs rgyas, fifteenthth century), Drime Kunga's immediate successor, his lineage holders also took to wearing white. For that reason, they became known as the "white[-clad] mantradhārins" (sngags 'chang dkar po ba) of Lhundrak. 

Although none of his biographers offer a date for Drime Kunga's death, several comment on his legacy. For example, in his collected biographies of treasure revealers, commonly referred to as the Biographies of the One Hundred Treasure Revealers (gter ston rgya rtsa), Jamgon Kongtrul ('jam mgon kong sprul, 1813–1899) states that Drime Kunga's Guru, Perfection, Karuṇika Triad benefitted beings in central Tibet, Bhutan, and beyond. Furthermore, Kongtrul notes, Drime Kunga's Mahākaruṇika: Supreme Light of Gnosis and Protector Barchung cycles were once in wide circulation, although he himself had not encountered them in transmission during his lifetime. 

Ultimately, Kongtrul became familiar with revelations attributed to Drime Kunga through  Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo ('jam dbyangs mkhyen brtse' dbang po, 1820–1892) the famed nineteenth-century intellectual and a treasure revealer in his own right. Kongtrul states that Khyentse Wangpo re-revealed certain of Drime Kunga's treasures at Drakmar Drinzang (brag dmar mgrin bzang) at the same time that he, Khyentse Wangpo, unearthed one of the most well-known among his own treasures, Mahākaruṇika: Relaxing in the Nature of Mind Itself (thugs rje chen po sems nyid ngal gso). After supposedly keeping the rediscovered teachings secret for a long time, he bestowed them on Kongtrul who, for his part, tells his readers that he not only practiced the sādhanas attributed to Drime Kunga. He was also moved to compose study manuals on the Guru Cintāmaṇi and a cycle titled Mahākaruṇika Jinasāgara (thugs rje chen po rgyal ba rgya mtsho) for posterity.