The Treasury of Lives

Ngawang Lobzang, later known as Tsawa Tritrul or Tsatrul Rinpoche, was born in 1880 into the aristocratic Delek Rabten (bde legs rab brtan) family based in Shigatse. His father was employed at the office of the Paṇchen Lama at Tashilhunpo Monastery (bkra shis lhun po) as a high-ranking lay officer, and his eldest brother, Delek Rabten Dorje Yugyel (bde legs rab brtan rdo rje g.yul rgyal), followed suit. His other brother was Dingja Dorje Gyeltsen (lding bya rdo rje rgyal mtshan, b. 1896), who was Dzongpon of Gyantse and also served in the military under General Dasang Damdul.

When Tsatrul Rinpoche was five years old, Sera Monastery (se ra dgon) recognized him as the reincarnation of Tsawa Trulku Lobzang Gelek (tsha ba sprul sku blo bzang dge legs, 1757–1816), the sixty-eighth throne-holder of Ganden Monastery (dga' ldan dgon), also known as ganden tripa (dga' ldan khri pa). He received the highest scholarly degree, geshe lharampa (dge bshes lha rams pa), at the young age of twenty-one after completing his Buddhist education at the monastery. He also studied tantric Buddhism at Gyume, the Lower Tantric College (rgyud smad grwa tshang). Tsatrul Rinpoche, who was regarded as a promising and talented young monk, gained the confidence of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, Tubten Gyatso (ta la'i bla ma 13 thub bstan rgya mtsho, 1876–1933). He accompanied the Dalai Lama during his stay at Mount Wutai and Beijing.^[1]

Tsatrul Rinpoche played a remarkable role in strengthening relations between Tibet and Japan as a result of his extended stay in Japan under the direction of the Dalai Lama. In August 1908, at a meeting in Mount Wutai, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama had discussed the exchange of students or monks between Tibet and Japan with Ōtani Son'yu (大谷尊由), who was representing his elder brother Count Ōtani Kōzui (大谷光瑞), the twenty-second abbot of Nishi Hongan-ji Temple (西本願寺).^[2] Toward the end of 1909, the Dalai Lama traveled from Amdo back to Lhasa. However, in February 1910, he took refuge in Darjeeling, India due to the Chinese army's advance toward Lhasa. Immediately after he and his party reached Darjeeling, the Dalai Lama began to make arrangements with Aoki Bunkyō (青木文教, 1886–1956), a disciple of Count Ōtani who had stayed in India for the previous year, to dispatch the Tibetan monk to Japan. Then the Dalai Lama summoned Tsatrul Rinpoche from Chinese-occupied Lhasa to Darjeeling and ordered him to go to Japan.^[3]

According to Aoki's account, the Dalai Lama had hoped to send Tsatrul Rinpoche to Japan as a government-authorized student expecting the Japanese government to look after him. However, the international circumstances of Tibet during this period did not allow the Dalai Lama to do so. To avoid suspicions from three rivalling empires—the Qing dynasty, Russia, and Britain—vis a vis Tibet's relations with Japan, he dispatched Tsatrul Rinpoche to Nishi Hongan-ji Temple not under the name of the Tibetan government, but the personal name of the Dalai Lama, for religious exchanges between the Tibetan and Japanese Buddhist institutions.

Accordingly, around the spring of 1911, in the company of Aoki, Tsatrul Rinpoche and two attendants left Darjeeling for Japan via Calcutta. They disguised themselves as Japanese on their trip to Singapore and used Mongolian names on the way to Japan. Even after they were placed under the protection of Nishi Hongan-ji Temple in Kyoto in May, their Tibetan identity was kept confidential, and revealed only to a few people inside the Temple. Moreover, they were officially treated as Mongolian.^[4] Due to the rising tension between the Tibetan and the Chinese armies in Tibet, officials from Nishi Hongan-ji were afraid that the presence of the Dalai Lama's special mission in Japan might draw animosity of the Qing toward the temple, and consequently draw suspicions toward the Japanese government.

Tsatrul Rinpoche and his attendants moved from Kyoto to Ōtani Kōzui's villa in Kobe and started learning Japanese. As there were no people who could speak Tibetan in Japan at that time, Ōtani Kōzui ordered Tada Tōkan (多田等觀 1890–1967), a young monk from the branch temple of Nishi Hongan-ji, to study the Tibetan language under Tsatrul Rinpoche.^[5] They lived together in the villa and became good conversation partners, teaching each other their own native tongues. Tsatrul Rinpoche became fluent in Japanese conversation and later learned reading and writing as well.^[6] Aoki says that he had further planned to learn the history of Japanese Buddhism. However, an episode in Tada's account narrates that when Tsatrul Rinpoche met Count Ōtani after six months in Japan, they could not communicate smoothly in Japanese because Tsatrul Rinpoche had only learned the dialect of the Tohoku region (the northeastern part of Japan where Tada was from), while Ōtani spoke the Kyoto dialect.

Tsatrul Rinpoche, who spent most of his time in Kyoto and Kobe, and could not expose his real identity outside his circle at the temple, had no opportunities to freely visit many places or meet dignitaries in Japan. However, he frequently contacted the Thirteenth Dalai Lama in Darjeeling and provided him with the information he collected and translated from Japanese newspapers nearly every week with the assistance of Aoki. Furthermore, he played an important role as a liaison between the Dalai Lama and Count Ōtani, and sent the latter's messages to the Dalai Lama by Tibetan letters or telegrams using a special code between them.^[7]

At the very beginning of 1912, the Dalai Lama's encrypted telegram reached Tsawa Tritrul, and he was ordered to return to India. As the outbreak of the 1911 revolution in China and the following Tibetan military supremacy over the Chinese army in Lhasa gave the Dalai Lama an opportunity to return to Tibet, the Dalai Lama summoned Tsatrul Rinpoche from Japan. After a short time, he left for India with his two Japanese confidants: Aoki and Tada. Tsatrul Rinpoche and the two Japanese monks had originally planned to go back to Japan after meeting the Dalai Lama in Kalimpong. However, the Dalai Lama ordered Tsatrul Rinpoche to stay by his side as an invaluable asset in the critical situation. The Tibetan leader also allowed Aoki and Tada to enter and stay in Tibet.^[8]

At the beginning of August 1912, by the order of the Dalai Lama, Tsatrul Rinpoche returned to Lhasa together with Chankhyim Khyenrab Jangchub Pelzang (chang khyim mkhyen rab byang chub dpal bzang, d. 1920), and Tsedrung Tenzin Gyeltsen (rtse drung bstan 'dzin rgyal mtshan) to negotiate with the military commander Zhong Ying (鍾穎) and the former Qing Amban Lianyu (聯豫) regarding the conditions for the withdrawal of the Chinese army from Tibet.^[9] Tsatrul Rinpoche settled and signed the agreement with the former Qing officials in the same month. Chinese troops withdrew from Lhasa to China through India in December of that year. After the Dalai Lama went back to Lhasa in January 1913, Tsawa Tritrul, who was known to have extensive knowledge and whose writing was highly valued, continued to work for the Dalai Lama as his private secretary (nang ma mkhan chen).^[10] While he was busy with his daily work at the Dalai Lama's office, he was also supporting the life and education of the two Japanese residents in Lhasa: Aoki Bunkyō and Tada Tōkan. He tutored Aoki in reading Buddhist texts and learning Tibetan writing skills. He also arranged for Tada to study Buddhism at Sera Monastery.

The Tibetan government had planned to send Tsatrul Rinpoche back to Japan as a formal student with the Japanese government's consent, but they did not receive a reply from the Japanese government.^[11] Furthermore, as the relations between the Japanese and Chinese governments were strained, the National Assembly expected Tsatrul Rinpoche to be sent to Japan as a deputy of the Tibetan government. The hope in the National Assembly was that both the British and the Japanese governments would then use their influence toward the Chinese government to settle the Tibet question,^[12] although this did not materialize.

Around the time when he went back to Lhasa, Tsatrul Rinpoche became involved in arranging marriages for his family. His family had a strong connection with the Tsarong family (tsha rong). His brother Dorje Yugyel's (rdo rje g.yul rgyal) wife, Norbu Yudron (nor bu g.yu sgron), was a daughter of Tsarong Wangchuk Gyelpo (tsha rong zhabs pad dbang phyug rgyal po, 1866–1912), the cabinet minister, or kalon (bka' blon). His sister Rigdzin Chodron's (rig 'dzin chos sgron) husband, Samdrub Tsering (bsam grub tshe ring, c. 1887–1912), was the son of Tsarong Wangchuk Gyelpo, and was working for the cabinet office as a lay secretary (bka' drung). Both Wangchuk Gyelpo and Samdrub Tsering were accused of collaborating with the Chinese forces in 1912 and were executed. The Tsarong family lost the head of the household as well as the eldest son and heir simultaneously, and Rigzin Choden became a widow at a young age. Tsatrul Rinpoche proposed that Rigdzin Chodron marry a man named Namgang (gnam gang) who was a favorite of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and known for his loyalty and military prowess. Tsatrul Rinpoche also suggested that Namgang succeed the Tsarong family as their adopted son. The Dalai Lama approved of these arrangements, and Namgang began to call himself Tsarong Dasang Damdul (tsha rong zla bzang dgra 'drul, 1888–1959).^[13] Tsatrul Rinpoche had a close relationship with his new brother-in-law, and taught him to write in Tibetan, a necessary skill for a high-ranking government official.^[14]

Charles Bell, a British official, regarded Tsatrul Rinpoche as one of the more progressive figures at the Dalai Lama's court, and his extensive intelligence and rich experience abroad resulted in his garnering a "considerable measure of influence among his countrymen." Tsatrul Rinpoche also edited 108 volumes of the Lhasa Kanjur with Dobi Sherab Gyatso (rdo sbis shes rab rgya mtsho, 1884–1968), an eminent Buddhist scholar from Amdo and the editor-in-chief appointed under the direction of the Dalai Lama, starting from 1921. He also became an abbot for Pabongkha Monastery.^[15]

However, it seems that he was frustrated with the constraints of life at court. Bell's account says that while professing his total loyalty to the Dalai Lama, Tsatrul Rinpoche deplored the rigid conservatism of Tibet. There is an episode that underscores this as follows: One day Tsatrul Rinpoche pointed to British doctor Robert Kennedy's dog, a Lhasa Terrier, and remarked "I too have a strap round my neck."^[16] At some point before the end of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama's rule, Tsatrul Rinpoche disrobed and married, and later had two daughters and one son.^[17] As a result of this, he was stripped of his official rank and lost all the privileges as an eminent lama.    

While he suffered economic hardship, Tsatrul Rinpoche continued to make significant contributions to Buddhist studies, language education, and Tibetan literature for the rest of his life. He worked for the school that the Chinese Nationalist Party established in Kyito (skyid stod), Lhasa, in the mid-1930s.^[18] When the People's Republic of China took over Tibet, he worked for the training school for Chinese cadres as a vice-director and as a Tibetan language instructor from 1952. In the same year, he also became a member of the Standing Committee for Literary Research of the Tibetan Military Regional Office (Bod dmag khul khang rtsom zhib rgyun las U yon lhan khang).^[19] While engaging in Tibetan language education, he composed The Wishfulfilling Tree of Elegant Sayings (legs bshad ljon dbang), an introductory text on Tibetan grammar (sum rtags), which was well-received by students.^[20]      

Tsatrul Rinpoche was also known as an outstanding Tibetan poet with in-depth knowledge of Tibetan poetics (snyan ngag / kāvya). Dungkar Losang Trinle (dung dkar blo bzang 'phrin las, 1927–1997), who received lessons on grammar and poetics (snyan ngag) from him, says that Tsatrul was the sort of distinguished scholar who appeared only once in five decades.^[21] Some Tibetans nowadays view his poems as examples of "new poetry" for its contemporary content. In the 1950s, under Chinese rule, Tsatrul Rinpoche often composed poems of political praise, such as "Turquoise Belt, Golden Bridge" (g.yu yi ske rags gser gyi zam pa), which was composed in 1954 in the opening year of the Qinghai-Tibet Road and the Xikang-Tibet Road. In the early 1980s, when contemporary Tibetan literature was experiencing remarkable development, Tsatrul was regarded as one of the early "brokers" between traditional and contemporary poetry.^[22]

In 1955, he became the chief editor of Tibet Daily (bod ljongs nyin re'i tshags par), the Tibetan newspaper run by the Chinese Communist Party that began to be published in Lhasa in the next year. Although he was working closely with the Chinese, Tsatrul also gave his support to the Tibetan political group Mimang Tsongdu (mi dmangs tshogs 'du), or People's Assembly, which aimed to defend the Dalai Lama's authority and pursued Tibetan political and cultural rights. Tsatrul Rinpoche's son-in-law, Alo Chonze Tsering Dorje (a lo chos mdzad mtshe ring rdo rje, b. 1919), the main initiator of this group, was a Khampa trader traveling the India–Tibet border regions, and was significantly influenced by the Indian independence movement. Tsatrul Rinpoche, who had the absolute trust of Alo Chonze, became a sort of spiritual advisor to the group and wrote the petitions that were submitted to the Chinese or Tibetan government.^[23]

Tsatrul Rinpoche, however, could not fully avoid the resentment from some Tibetan people, who regarded him as a Chinese collaborator.^[24] In September 1957, on the streets of Lhasa, he was brutally beaten by a Tibetan who believed him to be pro-Chinese. He died from his injuries in December of the same year.^[25]

 

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