The Treasury of Lives

Pelden Chime Takpai Dorje (dpal ldan 'chi med rtag pa'i rdo rje) was born in 1850 or 1851, the iron-dog year. His father was Damtsik Dorje (dam tshig rdo rje, 1811–1853),^[1] the forty-fourth king of Derge. His mother was a noble woman from the Chakla kingdom (lcags la) named Choying Zangmo (cho dbying bzang mo). His birth was recorded by Jamgon Kongtrul ('jam mgon kong sprul, 1813–1899) in his diary, where Kongtrul wrote that he went to Derge to participate in the blessing ceremonies of the recently born prince, and also that he had been tasked with drawing an astrological chart for the infant.^[2]

Chime Takpai Dorje's father passed away within the first ten years of his life, after which his mother served as head of state, in the capacity of regent for her son. The prince received empowerments, teachings, and blessings, from the dominant lamas of the kingdom, and participated in ceremonies led by Kongtrul, Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo ('jam dbyangs mkhyen brtse'i dbang po, 1820–1892), and Chokgyur Lingpa (mchog 'gyur gling pa, 1829–1870), among other illustrious lamas of the era.

For example, in November, 1866, Chime Takpai Dorje was present at the opening of Rongme Karmo Taktsang (rong med dkar mo stag tshang), a treasure-site and hermitage near Dzongsar (rdzong sar), Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo's seat. The opening, which entailed extracting treasure, identifying activity sites of Padmasambhava (pad+ma 'byung gnas) and other saints, and other rituals designed to mark the sacred features of the place, was a two-week affair. The prince arrived with his mother and participated in an all-night feast offering in one of the caves.^[3]

A remarkable painting of the opening of Rongme contains a scene with the royal revelers. The relevant caption reads ​​"On the evening of the ninth day and the tenth day of the month the precious emperor of Derge and the imperial minister recited prayers and received sight of the treasure."

Nothing is otherwise known about his childhood. He had one younger brother, born around 1853, whose name is not recorded. Traditionally Derge princes were expected to serve as either king or abbot of the royal monastery, Lhundrubteng (lhun grub steng), and it appears that he, as the eldest son, was expected to inherit the throne.

Chime Takpai Dorje was not enthroned, however, until the conclusion of the Nyarong War, a conflict during which a chieftain of Nyarong, Gonpo Namgyel (mgon po rnam rgyal, 1799–1865) conquered most neighboring territories. In late 1862, in advance of Gonpo Namgyel's invasion of Derge, Choying Zangmo took her two sons to a palace on the west bank of the Drichu River, but Gonpo Namgyel captured them there and, in late March or early April, 1863, brought them to his fortress in Nyarong.

Other Derge noble families had fled to Lhasa, where they successfully petitioned for Tibetan military assistance. By the following February the Tibetan army had arrived in Derge, led by cabinet minister Pulung Tsewang Dorje (zhabs pad phu lung tshe dbang rdo rje), General Trimon Chime Dorje (khri smon 'chi med rdo rje), and General Dokhar Tsewang Norbu (mdo mkhar tshe dbang nor bu). The Tibetans laid siege for seven months, finally driving the Nyarong forces out of Derge in November, 1864. In July of 1865 the Tibetan army defeated Gonpo Namgyel, burning him and his family alive in his fortress. Chime Takpai Dorje returned to Derge with his mother and brother.^[4]

Lhasa's defeat of Gonpo Namgyel had been, in a way, a defeat of the Qing presence in the region as well; the Manchu army had been ineffectual in countering the Nyarong general. The victorious Tibetans cleverly demanded an indemnity from Beijing on the basis of the Qing claim of sovereignty in the region, accepting control over Nyarong and its environs when the Qing was unable to pay. A series of Lhasa aristocrats were sent to Nyarong to administer the region as a Tibetan territory.

On the queen and princes' return to Derge numerous lamas were summoned to resanctify the buildings—a process that began initially after the Nyarong forces' defeat there in 1864. The queen rewarded those lamas who had aided her family and the kingdom through ritual means, giving them land and other gifts. In the winter of 1866–1867 Chime Takpai Dorje was enthroned as the king of Derge in a ceremony in which Chokgyur Lingpa gave an extensive benediction.^[5]

Soon after the war's conclusion the king went to Lhasa to pay homage to the Tibetan government for its role in defeating Gonpo Namgyel and to pay the considerable indemnities demanded by Lhasa—the Tibetan historian Ge Le (格勒, dge legs), writing in Chinese, describes this as one thousand loads of gold, silver and other valuables.^[6]

Sources on the life of Chime Takpai Dorje differ on whether he had one or two wives. No record seems to exist regarding the first wife's name or origin. According to Wang and Li, this first wife was the mother of Chime Takpai Dorje's eldest son, Dorje Sengge (rdo rje seng ge, 1877–1919), popularly known as Aja (a 'ja').^[7]

In early 1870, Chime Takpai Dorje married Tseten Dolkar (tshe brtan sgrol dkar, d. circa 1898), the daughter of the Tibetan aristocrat and Nyarong War veteran Dokhar Tsewang Norbu, a member of the aristocratic Dokhar house, also known as Rakashar (rag ga shar/ra kha shar). It is possible the bride was selected during the king's earlier visit to Lhasa, or in the wake of the Tibetan occupation of Nyarong. The bride arrived in Derge in November, 1869, and was greeted in high fashion. For the wedding Jamgon Kongtrul composed a treatise on marriage, entitled A Lecture on Planting the Silken Arrow on the Occasion of the Arrival in the Kham Kingdom of Derge the Daughter of the Tibetan Minister Dokhar.^[8]

The king followed the custom of his family and his office by cultivating prominent lamas. In 1874 Jamyang Loter Wangpo ('jam dbyang blo gter dbang po, 1847–1914) and Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo published, under his sponsorship, the Compendium of Sādhana (rgyud sde kun btus) in thirty-two volumes, and a collection of Lamdre Lobshe (lam 'bras slob bshad) teachings in seventeen volumes.^[9]

Tseten Dolkar and Chime Takpai Dorje had a son, Ngawang Jampel Rinchen (ngag dbang 'jam dpal rin chen, d. 1918), also known as Baba (ba ba), who, as the younger son, would have been born after 1877.

The marriage to Tseten Dolkar was unpopular with the chieftains of Derge for its obvious alliance with Lhasa. Although the people of Kham had generally welcomed the Tibetan army as liberators from Gonpo Namgyel's violent expansion, the Tibetan soldiers had inflicted their own share of hardships on the populace, and Lhasa's occupation of Nyarong has been described as brutal. Not only had the Tibetan government demanded indemnities from Derge in the form of silver and labor, but it had also asserted a right to confirm government officials.^[10] Edward Colburne Baber (1843–1890), the British General Secretary of Legation in Beijing who traveled in Kham in the 1870s, characterized the royal marriage as a form of submission on the king's part, one that was rejected by the people of Derge.^[11]

The Nyarong War and the lingering Tibetan presence in Derge served to exacerbate simmering tensions among the thirty chieftains who had traditionally ruled the kingdom in a confederacy under the supremacy of the royal family. Each chieftain was semi-autonomous in their own small territories, responsible for collecting taxes and requisitioning labor for the king.^[12] Under Chime Takpai Dorje those chieftains increasingly rejected that centuries-old political structure.

In 1888, the water-mouse year, Chime Takpai Dorje undertook a pilgrimage to Lhasa accompanied by thirty of his chieftains. They attended the Lhasa Monlam and presented gifts to the Thirteenth Dalai Lama Tubten Gyatso (ta la'i bla ma 13 thub bstan rgya mtsho, 1876–1933).^[13] In Shigatse a member of the king's entourage slayed a staff member of the amban, the Manchu representative in Tibet. The Tibetan government demanded that the killer be handed over to the amban, but the chieftains refused. The king, fearing the wrath of Lhasa and the Qing, however, surrendered the man to the government, earning the contempt of the chieftains.^[14]

The now-estranged chieftains, after returning from Lhasa, declared they would no longer follow the king. To address the challenge to his rule, Chime Takpai Dorje called a meeting, which the chieftains refused to attend. Instead, according to Ge Le, they organized the populace to gather in front of the palace and dance and sing in ridicule of the king, and they may also have attacked his father-in-law, Dokharwa;Evidence for the chieftains' contempt for Chime Takpai Dorje and his wife can be found in the salacious rumors that circulated the kingdom. Both the king and his Tibetan wife were apparently accused by the populace of having extramarital affairs, and the parentage of the younger son, Jampel Rinchen, was called into question. Ge Le reported that the king had an affair with a Chinese married woman, while Eric Teichman (1884–1944), a British official in China who wrote decades after the events, reported the claim that Jampel Rinchen was not the king's son, but the product of an affair the queen had with a chieftain.^[16]

The rumors reveal more than just the chieftains' disdain for the king and queen. As the political structure in Derge slowly deteriorated, a schism grew not only between the royal family and the chieftains, but also between the king and his queen, with the two brothers each said to side with one parent: Dorje Sengge with his father, and Jampel Rinchen with his mother. Tseten Dolkhar is said to have entered into an alliance with the Tibetan high-commissioner of Nyarong, Dudul Dorje (bdud 'dul rdo rje) to overthrow the king and place her own son, Tsewang Rinchen, on the throne.^[17]

The situation now at a breaking point, Chime Takpai Dorje looked not to Lhasa but to the Qing. Perhaps he had initially sought Tibetan assistance and was refused, although why Lhasa would fail to intervene is difficult to explain. Perhaps his (second?) wife and her faction's ties to Tibet made a request to Lhasa impossible. His appeal to China was based on the hereditary Qing title of "Pacification Commissioner" (xuanweishi 宣慰使) that had first been accorded to his forefather, Tenpa Tsering (bstan pa tshe ring, 1678–1738), in 1733. Under the terms of the title, the kings of Derge were regarded by the Qing administration as tusi (土司), hereditary local rulers subject to the emperor. According to Ge Le, Chime Takpai Dorje wrote to the governor-general of Sichuan, Lu Chuanling (鹿傳霖 1836–1910):

The Emperor himself has granted the title of Pacification Commissioner to the Derge king. The thirty chiefs' present betrayal of the tusi was an illegal action, a rebellion. Governor-general, please send troops to suppress them.^[18]

The king's request appears to have remained unanswered for some years, until the opportunity for a Qing military intervention presented itself. By 1889 the people of Nyarong were in open revolt against Tibetan rule. Nyarong leadership requested a reimposition of Manchu sovereignty, but were initially rebuffed. The Tibetan presence in Kham was unwelcomed by the Qing, but Beijing was anxious about alienating the Dalai Lama at a time of increased European expansion on Tibet's western and southern borders, and thus maintained their concession that Nyarong was Tibetan territory. The Tibetans were able to quash the rebellion.

According to Wang, in 1892 Tseten Dolkar, with the backing of Dudul Dorje, forced Chime Takpai Dorje and Dorje Sengge to flee Derge, and placed her son Jampel Rinchen on the throne. The resulting alliance between Nyarong and Derge was a cause for concern for Sichuan.^[19]

Then, in 1895, a conflict arose between the Chakla kingdom and Nyarong that provided Lu Chuanling an opportunity to pursue his program of annexing Kham under the imperial border policy known as "transforming chieftainships into district administration," or gaitu guiliu 改土歸流, whereby hereditary local rulers were replaced by appointed imperial officials. In 1896 Lu sent an army under general Zhou Wanshun 周萬順 and quickly defeated the Tibetan army stationed there. The Tibetan high commissioner Dudul Dorje went into hiding, and his son was killed. Dudul Dorje and his nominal superior, Khenchung Yeshe Tubten (mkhan chung ye shes thub bstan) ultimately surrendered and returned to Lhasa.^[20]

Lu Chuanlin then sent Zhang Ji (張繼), the "suppression commissioner," to Derge with instruction to locate the deposed king and prince. Zhang is said to have offered aid in return for the king's promise to accept annexation, which he gave. According to Ge Le, the chieftains successfully countered the Manchu army's unwelcomed arrival, which nonetheless managed to kill one of their members. The people of Derge then surrounded the army and cut off their water, forcing them to negotiate, during which the chieftains requested the arrest of the unpopular king and his family.^[21] The king, his wife Tseten Dolkhar, and their two sons were taken to Chengdu and imprisoned (no mention is made in any account of a first wife).

Lu's overreach soon backfired. The Dalai Lama sent Lachak Khenchung Khyenrab Puntsok (bla phyag mkhan chung mkhyen rab phun tshogs) to Kham. He left Chamdo with an army under the command of General Sonam Tobgye (mda' dpon bsod nams stobs rgyal), while a separate mission to Beijing, led by Tsedron Lobzang Trinle (rtse mgron blo bzang phrin las), went via India and then by sea to protest the military actions in Kham. Lu meanwhile petitioned the court to formally annex Derge and Nyarong, but the Emperor sided with Lhasa, and Zhang Ji's army was recalled. Lu, who was accused of excess, was removed from his post. Nyarong returned to Tibetan control, and the royal family was released from their confinement in Beijing. Yet neither Chime Takpai Dorje nor Tseten Dolkhar survived the events. They either died in custody, or soon after their release, probably in 1898.^[22]

 

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