The Treasury of Lives

Dorje Gyelpo (rdo rje rgyal po) was born on tenth day of the sixth lunar month of the male wood-monkey year, 1284, in the town of Upper Dan ('dan stod), into the Kyura clan (skyu ra) that had controlled Drigung Monastery ('bri gung) since its founding in 1179 by Jikten Gonpo Rinchen Pel ('jig rten mgon po rin chen dpal, 1143-1217). Dorje Gyelpo's great-grandfather, Dorje Sengge (sgom pa rdo rje seng ge, 12th-13th century), was the first secular leader or gompa (sgom pa) of the Drigung community and was the brother of two early abbots: Won Sonam Drakpa (dbon bsod nams grags pa, 1187-1234), the third Drigung abbot, and Chung Dorje Drakpa (bcung rdo rje grags pa, 1210-1278), the fifth abbot. Dorje Sengge's son and Dorje Gyelpo's grandfather, Anu Gyel (a nu rgyal), was the elder brother of two abbots: Tokkhawa Rinchen Sengge (thog kha ba rin chen seng ge, 1226-1284), the sixth abbot, and Tsamchepa Drakpa Sonam (mtshams bcad pa grags pa bsod nams, 1238-1286), the seventh.

Anu Gyel's family lived in area of Drigung called Lower Zhu (gzhu smad) in the village of Jonma ('jon ma). His wife bore two sons. The older one was named Sonam Dorje (bsod nams rdo rje) and the younger one was Dorje Gyeltsen (rdo rje rgyal mtshan). Dorje Gyeltsen's wife bore four sons, of whom the eldest was Dorje Rinchen (bcu gnyis pa rdo rje rin chen, 1278-1314). Next eldest was Dorje Gyelpo, followed by Dorje Pel (rdo rje dpal), and finally Kunga Gyeltsen (kun dga rgyal mtshan), the father of Chokyi Gyelpo (chos kyi rgyal po, 1335-1407), who would serve as Drigung's eleventh abbot.

According to legend, Dorje Gyelpo's mother was healthy and happy while pregnant with him. One evening she dreamt she was in Padmasambhava's celestial palace and saw a young boy with all of the major and minor marks of the buddha, his body made of light, who dissolved into her. Following that, many beautifully dressed women began reciting Padmasambhava's mantra and prostrating themselves to her and circumambulating around her. During his birth, people were said to have seen a rain of flowers and celestial music coming from the sky.

During Dorje Gyelpo's youth he was said to excel in the worldly sciences. It is not known exactly when he took ordination, but he took it from his older brother Dorje Rinchen and at that point gained the name Dorje Gyelpo.

During the war in 1290 between the Drigung and Sakya, Dorje Gyelpo was only five, and a lama named Drubtob Artse (grub thob ar rtse) and others brought him to Kongpo (kong po) with the rest of the Drigung community that fled the destruction of the monastery. There Drubtob Artse gave him the transmission of Jikten Gonpo's teachings.

Furthering the tradition that he was a reincarnation of Padmasambhava, while in Kongpo he is said to have experienced numerous visions of the deity and various maṇḍala, and he is said to have occasionally spoken in verse, which included assertions such as "In India, I was Maitrīpa. In Oḍḍiyāna, I was Padmasambhava. Before, in U-tsang, I was Gelek Gyeltsen (dge legs rgyal mtshan, unidentified). These days in Tibet there are still beings to be tamed. In order to tame them, I have taken birth.”

After three years a settlement was reached with the Sakya and Mongols, and Dorje Gyelpo was able to go back to Drigung, which his brother began to restore several years later. He received extensive sutra and tantra teachings from his older brother and many other teachers.

After his main period of study was over he went into retreat in remote sites, such as one known as Terdrom (gter sgrom). He identified certain places with the activities of previous Kagyu and Drigung masters, and developed them as a hermitage sites with his own practice, such as one called Dinggyel (sding rgyal). While on retreat he is said to have unearthed a number of earth treasures, including a statue of Vajrabhairava and a tea cauldron with a handle in the shape of bull. This would mark him as one of the earliest Kagyu treasure revealers.

In 1314, when Dorje Gyelpo was thirty-one, Dorje Rinchen passed away. Dorje Gyelpo was then enthroned as the tenth abbot of Drigung Monastery. Around this time, he received teachings from a lama who held the doctrine of the Indian master Śākyaśrībhadra (1127-1225), as well as from masters of multiple Tibetan Buddhist traditions. He also began teaching.

As abbot he continued the work of restoring Drigung Monastery. This included building a temple supported by one hundred and eighty pillars on the ruins of an earlier temple. He also commissioned the three traditional representations of enlightened body, speech, and mind: statues, scriptures, and stūpa. This project took three years.

Later, when he was about fifty years old, he commissioned statues, scriptures, and stūpa for another of Drigung Monastery's temples, Tashi Jong (bkra shis ljongs). He also built the monastery's protector temple that is now called the Achi Chokyi Drolma Temple (a phyi chos kyi sgrol ma lha khang) and also built a protector temple and retreat place on a slate mountain near Lower Zhu (gzhu smad).

In terms of guiding practitioners, he sent more than one thousand retreatants to the three sacred retreat places of Mt. Kailash, Labchi, and Tsari. Closer to home, he continued his brother's summer and winter teaching sessions. While teaching, he stayed in strict sealed retreat and thus taught through a hole in his retreat room. Outside of teaching and giving religious advice to the lay people of Drigung, he kept strict silence. He presided over the monastery for many years in that manner.

He passed away in the Tashi Jong temple at the age of sixty-seven, on the twenty-eighth day of one of the summer months in the horse year, 1350. The precise month he died is not known at this time, but the day of the month is indicated by his the epithet by which he is known to the tradition, "Nyergyepa", meaning "the one who [died] on the twenty-eighth."

He was succeeded as abbot by his nephew, Nyernyipa Chennga Chokyi Gyelpo.