In 1933, when he reached the age of thirteen, the year following every duodenary cycle and considered prone to personal sickness or mishap according to the Tibetan astrology, his family enrolled him as a monk at Tashi Dechen Gon (bkra shis bde chen dgon) in Chonggye. His training at this monastery began with reading and writing under his uncle Gyeltsen Chodar (rgyal mtshan chos dar). He also memorized monastery and ritual prayers dedicated to tantric deities, primarily Guhyasamāja, Cakrasaṃvara, and Bhaiṣajyaguru, the Medicine Buddha. Among his daily duties as a novice monk, Lobzang Wanggyel drew water from a nearby spring and made water offerings in the nine-story chapel, both attributed to the Second Dalai Lama, Gendun Gyatso (tA la'i bla ma 02 dge 'dun rgya mtsho, 1476–1542).
In 1935 the monastery received a government order instructing that it enroll one of its monks to train as a medical physician or an astrologer at the Mentsikhang in Lhasa. Contrary to accounts of other physicians, who have often presented their admission to a college of medicine and astrology as something highly coveted, Lobzang Wanggyel stated that families did not always celebrate their children leaving monasteries to join a non-monastic institute. He was selected from among thirteen other candidates via dough ball divination (zan btrag or zang ril) conducted in front of the protector deity Pelden Lhamo. Given his fondness for the sight of physicians, the smell of the medicinal herbs, and the sound of the pestle clinking the mortar, he took the selection positively.
In the following years, he remained at the monastery and studied medicine under physician Gyeltsen Wangdu (rgyal mtshan dbang 'dus), who, following protocol that government-trained physicians return to their home monastery to instruct potential medical students, had returned to Tashi Dechen Gon upon graduation. Lobzang Wanggyel memorized three of the Four Tantras of the Tibetan medical tradition—Root Tantra (rtsa rgyud), Exegetical Tantra (bshad rgyud), and Subsequent Tantra (rgyud phyi ma)—and The Treatise on the Root Tantra (rtsa rgyud sdong 'grems).
In 1944, he formally joined Lhasa Mentsi Dropen Ling (bod ljongs lha sa sman rtsis 'gro phan gling), more popularly known as the Lhasa Mentsikhang (lha sa sman rtsis khang), and met the prominent physicians Khyenrab Norbu (mkhyen rab nor bu, 1883–1962) and Tukse Tubten Lhundrub (thugs sras thub bstan lhun grub, 1906–1955). Both were impressed that this newcomer had already memorized all essential texts and mnemonics.
At the Mentsikhang, his daily routine began at four in the morning with a prayer assembly, memorizing more advanced texts and reciting them in front of the masters, followed by lectures, practical training, and school chores. His medical training was supervised by physicians Tukse Tubten Lhundrub, Tenzin (bstan 'dzin), and Pelden Gyeltsen (dpal ldan rgyal mtshan). He studied Indo-Tibetan planetary astrology (dkar rtsis), Sino-Tibetan elemental astrology (nag rtsis), and Swarodaya astrology (dbyangs 'char) under Yeshe Chopel (ye shes chos 'phel) and Jampa Chodrak (byams pa chos grags). The medical curriculum at Mentsikhang also included morning incense offering (bsangs gsol) on alternate fortnights, Medicine Buddha rituals (sman bla cho ga), field visits to collect herbs (sman 'thog), and pharmacological and pharmaceutical trainings, including pounding of herbs and substances (sman brdungs) and rolling of pills (ril bsgril). During his final years of his training, Wanggyel also undertook rigorous clinical training (nyams gsog) under physicians and senior medical graduates.
In addition, at the end of his second year at Mentsikhang, Lobzang Wanggyel was also assigned as one of the student-attendants (zhabs phyi) to work at master Khyenrab Norbu's residence in the mornings and evenings. For his attendants, Khyenrab Norbu selected students who he thought were well-behaved and had the potential to specialize in both medicine and astrology. The daily duties at the residence included tending the flower and apricot gardens, cleaning rooms, setting offerings in the altar room, managing the kitchen, and running clerical errands. These frequently prevented him from participating in school events, forcing him to follow up with his classmates. At the same time, when the student-attendants spent many hours at the residence and missed their regular classes, Khyenrab Norbu sometimes held separate teaching, transmission, and training sessions during the day and held planetary astrology classes when the nights were clear.
As a result of their astrological training, Lobzang Wanggyel and a fellow junior medical student, Lobzang Tenpa (blo bzang bstan pa), received enough instruction to each produce an almanac (lo tho) during their early years at the residence. Similarly, Khyenrab Norbu trained Lobzang Wanggyel and Yangchen Lhamo (dbyangs can lha mo, 1907–1973?), a female student-attendant from Kham, to perform cataract surgery (mig 'byed nyams len), initially practicing it on butchered lambs. Yangchen Lhamo, also known as Yangga, was a rare female in an overwhelmingly male-dominated profession. Cataract training included attention to minute details such as arranging a bag of grains for use as a steady seat for the leading surgeon and striking pebbles during surgery; in the absence of anesthetic, pebbles were struck together to distract the patient just before incisions were made. Lobzang Wanggyel later learned acupuncture as well.
In around 1950, Lobzang Wanggyel paid routine consultation visits to Lobzang Gyeltsen (blo bzang rgyal mtshan), the patriarch of the aristocratic Kundeling (kun bde gling) family, at his manor. He developed a close friendship with the family and secretly fell in love with their daughter, Seldron (gsal sgron). Lobzang Gyeltsen was supportive and insisted that Wanggyel acknowledge their relationship. Despite Lobzang Wanggyel’s hesitation to publicize the relationship, in consideration of his monastic vows, the father hosted a grand reception in their honor.
Wanggyel was also worried about Khyenrab Norbu's reaction; although the master interacted with noble families, he generally kept his students and attendants away from the visiting aristocratic heirs and heiresses out of fear of being distracted by their lifestyle. However, following a request from Lady Lhayon (lha yon), of the Shatra family (bshad sgra), Khyenrab Norbu permitted Lobzang Wanggyel to continue training at his residence following his marriage.
After his marriage into the Kundeling family, Lobzang Wanggyel was addressed as Kundeling Wanggyel. Like many aristocrats, he was recruited to serve as an official of the Tibetan Government and was allowed to continue practice of medicine at Mentsikhang.
Through the challenging decade of the 1950s, Lobzang Wanggyel continued to practice medicine at the Mentsikhang. Following the 1959 flight of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso (tA la'i bla ma 14 bstan 'dzin rgya mtsho, b. 1935) to India, Khyenrab Norbu summoned Lobzang Wanggyel and several other members to discuss concealing valuable Mentsikhang property to prevent its destruction or confiscation. In the following days, the Chinese forces shelled important sites, including Chakpori Medical College (lcags po ri). As the soldiers spread across Lhasa city and penetrated every neighborhood, Khyenrab Norbu's plan did not materialize, and Lobzang Wanggyel returned to his in-laws' place at the Kundeling manor.
On March 20, 1959, the few Tibetan government soldiers guarding the Kundeling family were easily defeated by the Chinese military. That evening, Lobzang Wanggyel and other male members at the manor were detained at Zimphu (gzim phud) in the Ramoche Temple (ra mo che), where the Chinese had set up a detention center. The next day, he was moved to Drapchi Prison (gra bzhi), also known as Lhasa Prison No. 1, where the Chinese authorities regrouped and sent detainees to different prisons and detention centers. Lobzang Wanggyel was sent to Dzomora (mdzo mo ra) at Norbulingka and was held there for about six months. He was then transferred to Kusung Makgar (sku srung dmag sgar).
On 2 March 1960, the Chinese government charged Lobzang Wanggyel with treason on six counts, including working as a physician for the traditional Tibetan government. He was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment and three years of abrogation of the right to own property. He was brought to Drapchi Prison in April 1961 and then moved to Nakartse Prison (sna dkar rtse). Each day, he was subjected to hard labor, such as digging canals and tunnels for hydroelectric plants, at sites in and around Lhasa. A year later, he was moved to Samye (bsam yas) to work on farms.
In his memoir, Lobzang Wanggyel describes how prisoners there were emaciated due to lack of food, many of them shaking and staggering to balance their shovels and crowbars. As the years coincided with the Great Chinese Famine, prisoners ate dead horses and dogs and white grub worms. During winter, prisoners scavenged the soldiers' garbage for vegetable remains, such as cabbage cores and outer leaves. Many died during this period, and bodies buried under sand at night sometimes surfaced when the wind blew during the days. He observed that when bony, cadaverous fellow prisoners left for frequent breaks to relieve themselves, they were, in fact, looking for a brief physical and mental relief from the unbearable suffering.
In the first two years of his imprisonment, his wife and in-laws suffered under the new regime. His father-in-law died as a result of torture. Seldron was allowed to visit Lobzang Wanggyel in 1961.
In 1962, he was once again brought back to Nakartse Prison. It was here that master Khyenrab Norbu had entrusted some money with a local Tibetan named Chonze-la (chos mdzad lags), who paid periodic visits to Lobzang Wanggyel and brought meat and butter. He was briefly hospitalized at Taklung after he slipped while collecting firewood and injured his knees.[2] On release he was tasked with collecting feed for a pig farm at Kyamonaga (skya mo na ga). In April 1962, he was moved back to Drapchi Prison.
At Drapchi, he and two other physicians—Tenzin Losel (bstan 'dzin blo gsal) and Lobzang Chotar (blo bzang chos thar)—were tasked to assist at the medical facility. This was done at the behest of Khyenrab Norbu, who petitioned Chinese officials in Tibet to allow Tibetan medical physicians to practice medicine wherever they were serving their prison sentences.
Lobzang Wanggyel relates in his memoir that Chinese medical doctors and professionals, who practiced allopathic medicine, did not have a friendly and favorable view of traditional medicines, including Tibetan medicine. This changed for him in 1963 when he made an accurate diagnosis of a relapse case of liver disorder for the senior warden of Drapchi Prison, Ma Guozhang. Ma Guozhang developed some respect for him, but the Chinese doctors at Drapchi Clinic were displeased, and as a result he was moved to Penpo ('phan po).
At Penpo Prison, Lobzang Wanggyel advised bed rest to many prisoners, earning the scorn of Chinese doctors. Overriding his advice, they ordered the Tibetan prisoners back to work, resulting in the deaths of several of them. Following an investigation, authorities entrusted Lobzang Wanggyel with the task of examining prisoners' health. Gradually, he was able to build good working relations with several Chinese doctors and share his knowledge of human anatomy and the practice of dissection according to the Tibetan medical tradition.
In 1966, on the onset of the Cultural Revolution, Lobzang Wanggyel had completed his seven-year imprisonment. In 1967, he was taken to Powo Tramo Prison (spo bo spra mo) in Nyingtri to serve an additional three-year sentence. The Cultural Revolution campaign against "the Four Olds" led to a growing animosity against professionals, including doctors and nurses. The lack of medical professionals, he claimed, compelled him to continue practicing medicine and improvise some non-traditional treatments and surgeries. He also recounted that he saved a lama from Kham from imminent execution for not denouncing the Dalai Lama and hailing Mao Zedong as a greater leader. He diagnosed the monk as mentally deranged and presented the repeated defiance to invite harm or death upon oneself as symptomatic of the mental illness.
Around the year 1970, after ten years of imprisonment, the Chinese authorities allowed Lobzang Wanggyel to resume his role as a physician. He initially worked at 11507 Army Hospital in Nyingtri, Kongpo. There, he treated not only prisoners but also the locals of Kongpo, where goiter was widespread. In 1972, he and his brother, Samten (bsam gtan), a fellow graduate of Mentsikhang and prisoner at Nyingtri, briefly visited their elderly mother in Chonggye.
In 1973, the Chinese government gave Dr. Wanggyel the title of Professor of Medicine (dge rgan chen mo). However, at the insistence of his colleagues and the locals, he remained at the Public Security Bureau Hospital in Nyingtri until 1979.
In 1980 he sought a temporary leave from his work and obtained a travel visa to see relatives in India. However, his wife did not receive permission to travel and so they both remained in Lhasa where he took a position at the Lhasa Public Security Bureau Hospital. He and his wife began construction of a new house in late-1980, which they completed in mid-1983.
That year, he attended a conference of Tibetan physicians where the Sorik Kuntu (gso rig kun btus), or "Compendium of Medicine" project was introduced and implemented.
Also in 1983 he and his family were able to travel to India via Nepal. Although he expressed his intention to return to Tibet and retire there, at the behest of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama he decided to remain in India. The Dalai Lama appointed him his personal physician (sku'i bla sman) and the chairman of a committee of medical experts at Mentseekhang (sman rtsis khang) in Dharamsala, and soon after was appointed the head physician at the Mentseekhang Clinic in Hasrat Nizamuddin near New Delhi.
In 1985, Seldron died of a brain hemorrhage and, a year later, he sold his house in Lhasa. He used the money to help restore Tashi Dechen Gon and other monasteries and observe religious rituals for his wife's rebirth.
He traveled extensively in India and, in 1987, undertook his first foreign medical tours to Sweden and Norway. In subsequent years he lectured and treated patients in Russia, England, the Philippines, Switzerland, Holland, Germany, Denmark, Czechoslovakia, Japan, and the United States.
In his lectures, Dr. Wanggyel maintained that diagnosis via pulse and urine reading (rtsa chu brtag pa), the use of natural herbs and substances as the basic medicinal ingredients, and the application of natural methods such as moxibustion, cupping, bloodletting, acupressure, and acupuncture, all of which have been tested and practiced over hundreds of years, make Tibetan medicine affordable and accessible to the general populace. He also attested to the efficacy of Tibetan medicines for many illnesses undiagnosed in non-Tibetan medical traditions.
His patients included Czechoslovakia's President Vaclav Havel (1936–2011), Uttar Pradesh State Chief Minister Vir Bahadur Singh (1935–1989), the Indian industrialist Jehangir Tata (1904–1993). He wore an Omega watch the Dalai Lama gifted him.
In 1993, Lobzang Wanggyel was appointed the principal of Mentseekhang College in Dharamsala and worked closely with the then newly appointed chief administrator, Tashi Tsering (bkra shis tshe ring).
Dr. Lobzang Wanggyel passed away in his quarters at Mentseekhang in Dharamsala on March 19, 2003.
[1] E pa bsod nams rin chen, p. 189.
[2] E pa bsod nams rin chen, p. 228. In My Life, My Culture (p. 25), Wanggyel writes that he slipped while ice skating.
_________________________________________________
Publication of this biography was made possible through support of National Endowment for the Humanities.
Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Additional Bios Sponsored By National Endowment for the Humanities
Bibliography
Avedon, John F. 2015. In Exile from the Land of Snows: The Definitive Account of the Dalai Lama and Tibet Since the Chinese Conquest. New York: Vintage Books.
Blo bzang dbang rgyal and Chos lo thar. 2000. Gong sa skyabs mgon chen po'i mdzad 'phrin las 'phros pa'i 'brel yod lo rgyus mdo tsam gleng ba. Dharamsala: Sman rtsis khang. BDRC W4CZ315281
E pa bsod nams rin chen. 2000. “Rgyal dbang sku phreng bcu bzhi pa chen po’i sku bcar bla sman blo bzang dbang rgyal mchog gi mdzad rnam.” In 'Tsho mdzad slob dpon rnam gsum gyi mdzad 'phrin gnad bsdus skal ldan bu slob dgyes pa'i snying gtam. Dharamsala: Bod gzhung sman rtsis khang. pp.183–336. BDRC W8LS66224
Bsod nams rin chen, E pa. 2009. “Rgyal dbang sku phreng bcu bzhi pa chen po'i sku bcar bla sman blo bzang dbang rgyal mchog gi mdzad 'phrin gnad bsdus brjod pa skal ldan bu slob dgyes pa'i mchod sprin.” In Bod kyi srol rgyun sman rtsis rig pa'i dpyad yig mu tig phreng mdzes. Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives. Vol. 2: 1-13. BDRC W1KG5611
Byams pa phrin las. Bod kyi sman pa rim byon gyi rnam thar phyogs bsgrigs. Pe cin: Mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2000. BDRC W17722.
Men-tsee-khang Editorial Committee (2012). Btsan byol bod gzhung sman rtsis khang gi byung rabs don ldan tshang thig. 2 Vols. Dharamsala: Men-tsee-khang.
Wangyal, Lobsang, Bhuchung D. Sonam, and Tsering Dhondup. 2007. My Life, My Culture: Autobiography and Lectures on the Relationship Between Tibetan Medicine, Buddhist Philosophy and Tibetan Astrology and Astronomy. Dharamsala: Ridak Publisher.