The Treasury of Lives

Lo Nyendrak Sadutshang was from the Khampa trading family of Sadutshang in the Kandze (dkar mdzes) area. His father was Abo Bhu Sadutshang (A bho bhu sa 'du tshang) and his mother was called Gonpo Dolma (mgon po sgrol ma). The family had substantial land-holdings in Kham and a trading base in Lhasa where they lived in the Banak Zhol (sbra nag zhol) neighborhood in a manor house that had formerly belonged to the noble family of Khyungrampa (khyung ram pa); it then became known as the Sadutshang Manor House.

The Sadutshangs were one of the three largest trading corporations of Tibet. The family exported wool to India, the US and the UK and imported Indian and foreign goods into Tibet. Along with the Pangdatsang (spang mda' mtshang) family firm and the estate of the Fifth Reting Rinpoche Tubten Jampel Yeshe Tenpai Gyeltsen (rwa sgreng 05 thub bstan 'jam dpal ye shes bstan pa'i rgyal mtshan), they were referred to as the Reting-Pangda-Sadu triumvirate (re spom sa gsum).

Lo Nyendrak was the second of eight children, four boys and four girls. He attended the Darpoling (dar po gling) school as a child in Lhasa. The oldest Sadutshang, Lo Gendun (blo dge 'dun, d.1959), was responsible for the family business and the youngest Sadutshang, Rinchen (rin chen, 1928-2015), would later become an official in the Tibetan foreign ministry. Rinchen's induction into government service in 1948 essentially ennobled the family; barring a few monk officials, only nobility was allowed to serve in the Tibetan government. This marked one of the few times that a Tibetan family was admitted to aristocratic ranks for reasons other than the birth of a Dalai Lama.

On May 23, 1951, the Seventeen Point Agreement was signed in Beijing and on October 24, 1951, Tibet was incorporated into the People's Republic of China. In 1956, Lo Nyendrak, who had been living on the ancestral Sadutshang lands in Kandze with his wife Tsewang Chodon (tshe dbang chos sgron), left his home in Kandze, never to go back. Like many other Khampas, he came to Lhasa, where he joined up with the Chushi Gangdruk (chu bzhi sgang drug) militia, a new underground resistance movement started by Andrug Gonpo Tashi (a' brug mgon po bkra shis, 20th century). He became a Vice-Commander of this resistance, which was based first in Chongye ('phyong rgyas) in southern Tibet and later in Mustang in Nepal.

In 1959, the young Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tendzin Gyatso (tA la'i bla ma 14 bstan 'dzin rgya mtsho, b. 1935)  fled Lhasa to seek asylum in India and established the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala. At some point in the late 50s and early 60s, Lo Nyendrak Sadutshang moved to India. In 1963 when the first Assembly of Tibetan People's Deputies were elected, Lo Nyendrak Sadutshang was among the first batch of elected officials. He served as a parliamentarian for three successive terms. He passed away in the 1980s.