The Treasury of Lives

Ngok Loden Sherab (rngog blo ldan shes rab) was born in 1059 on the shores of Lake Yardrok (yar 'brog) in Lhoka (lho ka). His father was Ngok Chokyab (rngok chos skyabs) and his mother was Pelmo (dpal mo).

For the first seventeen years of his life he was tutored by his uncle Ngok Lotsāwa Lekpai Sherab (rngok lo tsA ba legs pa'i shes rab, 1018-1115), who had been one of the three main disciples of Atiśa Dīpaṃkara. In 1073 his uncle founded the important educational monastery known as Sangpu Neutok (gsang phu ne'u thog). Three years later his uncle ordained him and gave him his name Loden Sherab (blo ldan shes rab).

In the same year he was ordained, he was able to attend the most important meeting of Buddhist minds of his era, the Fire Dragon Religious Conference (me 'brug chos 'khor) that convened in 1076 under the sponsorship of King Tsede (mnga ' bdag rtse lde, d.u.), the nephew of the famous King Jangchub Wo (byang chub 'od, d.u.) of the Guge (gu ge) kingdom in western Tibet. The conference was attended by some of the most important teachers or the era, not only Tibetan teachers but also Indian and Kashmiri paṇḍitas. One of its main aims was to encourage new and more accurate translation work. As one way of accomplishing this objective they decided to send groups of young men to study language in India. So it was probably with some amount of support from the royal treasury that he departed in that same year for what would prove to be an extended stay in India.

When Loden Sherab first set out for Kashmir five other translators accompanied him. All five would become quite famous in their profession, although Ra Lotsāwa Dorje Drakpa (rwa lo tsA ba rdo rje grags pa, c.1016-c.1128) was probably the most famous of them all. Another was Nyen Lotsāwa Darma Drak (gnyan lo tsA ba dar ma grags, d.u.). While in Kashmir he spent much of his time in a city called Anupama, a name that means 'Incomparable.' It just might be the city known today as Srinagar, often praised for its incomparable beauty. He worked closely with several paṇḍitas. One of them, Bhavyaraja (skal ldan rgyal po), had attended the conference of 1076, but probably was not personally a Buddhist. This did not really matter very much, because most of the work they did together in Kashmir was on logic treatises. Logic then, as now, was a very ecumenical interest, and particularly in India logicians read and criticized the logic of others regardless of their religions. He also worked with Parahitabhadra (gzhan la phan pa bzang po) and Sajjana (sad dza na), but there were still others, these being only the best known among them.

Although it was quite a long journey from Kashmir to the central part of the Gangetic plains, Ngok Lotsāwa of course fulfilled his dream of paying honor to the shrine at the site of the Buddha's Enlightenment at Bodhgaya.

When he returned to Tibet, he invited some of the paṇḍitas to come and work with him on more translations there. They say that he translated over the course of his lifetime more than one hundred and thirty-seven thousand verses. But equally if not more important, he trained countless students in philosophy, logic, and yoga practice. He had so many students — as many as twenty thousand of them gathered to hear him — he had to make use of nearly two thousand assistant teachers. In his last words to his most famous disciples Zhang Tsepongwa Choki Lama (zhang tshe spong ba chos kyi bla ma, d.u.) and Drolungpa Jungne (gro lung pa byung gnas, d.u.), he reminded them of the impermanence of the body, which might seem sturdy as a mountain, but is in fact as easily burst as a bubble, and urged them to study the Three Baskets of Buddha's words, the Tripitaka.

Loden Sherab died in 1109, at a place called Mari (ma ri) in the neighborhood of Samye Temple (bsam yas). It is said that at his death there was an earthquake, the sky filled with rainbows, lights and musical sounds. His body was cremated in the lower part of the valley that had Sangpu  Monastery in its higher half. It was there, too, that his reliquary chorten was built.