The Treasury of Lives

Rinchen Sadutshang was born in 1928 in the village of Lingtsang (gling tshang) in Kham (khams). His father Abo Bhu Sadutshang (A bho bhu sa 'du tshang) was originally from Gakhok (sga khog), an area under the king of Nangchen (nang chen). His mother was called Gonpo Dolma (mgon po sgrol ma). Rinchen Sadutshang was the youngest of eight children, four boys and four girls. The Sadutshang family (sa 'du tshang) had substantial land-holdings in Kandze (dkar mdzes) and developed into a large trading firm with a Lhasa base in a manor house, Sadutshang, in the Banak Zhol (sbra nag zhol) neighborhood.

In the spring of 1934, Rinchen Sadutshang and his immediate older brother Wangdor (dbang rdor) were sent to live in Lhasa with an older siblings who ran the family business. Rinchen and Wangdor attended the Darpoling (dar po gling) school for a few years. The family decided that one of the boys would become a monk and the other would be schooled in India. With expanding business enterprises in India the family was eager to have a member with a modern education, fluent in Hindi and English. They consulted a monk for a divination and were told that Wangdor should be sent to the monastery and Rinchen should be sent to India.

Rinchen Sadutshang was enrolled at St. Joseph's Convent, a Roman Catholic boarding school in Kalimpong in early 1937 and later at St. Joseph's College at North Point, Darjeeling, run by Jesuit priests, considered one of the best boarding schools in India.

In January 1946, a delegation of Tibetan officials arrived in Kalimpong, led by Dzasak Kheme Sonam Wangdu (dza sag khe smad bsod nams dbang 'dus, d.1972). This was a goodwill delegation sent by the Tibetan government to extend its congratulations, on behalf of Regent Taktra Dorjechang Ngawang Sungrab Tutob (stag brag rdo rje 'chang ngag dbang gsung rab mthu stobs, 1874-1952), to the British and Chinese governments on their World War II victory. Their plan was to go to Delhi to meet the British Viceroy Lord Wavell (1883-1950) and then to Nanjing to meet General Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975), the head of the Chinese Nationalist government.      

Rinchen's older brother talked to Dzasak Kheme and arranged for him to accompany the delegation in a private capacity as the English interpreter. Rinchen was then only eighteen and had not yet graduated from St. Joseph's. 

The delegation was led by Dzasak Tarkhang (dza sag tar khang), a monk official, and Dzasak Kheme. The other three officials were Rimshi Kheme Tsewang Dondrub (rim bzhi khe smad tshe dbang don grub), and two junior officials named Yeshe Dargye (ye shes dar rgyas) and Changnopa Dorje (bya dngos pa rdo rje). In Delhi, apart from calling on Lord Wavell, the delegation also called on the American ambassador Mr. Charles Bowles (1901-1986) to convey their congratulations.

They left for Nanjing in the first week of March 1946. At General Chiang Kai-shek's urging, the delegation stayed on through the winter to attend the National Assembly which convened that November. The delegation kept in close contact with Lhasa by means of coded wireless messages. It was March 1947 when the delegation finally returned to India. Even though Rinchen Sadutshang only had unofficial interpreting duties, and that too only during the Indian leg of the trip, travelling with the Tibetan delegation for a year left a deep impression on him and greatly expanded his worldview.

Upon his return to Kalimpong, he intended to return to St. Joseph's College to finish his education. His family, however, had other plans, and placed him in charge of the family business in India. By this time the Sadutshangs were one of the three largest trading corporations of Tibet, exporting wool directly to the USA and to England, among other endeavors. Along with the Pangdatsang (spang mda' mtshang) family firm and the estate of the Fifth Reting Rinpoche, Tubten Jampel Yeshe Gyeltsen (rwa sgreng 05 thub bstan 'jam dpal ye shes bstan pa'i rgyal mtshan), they were referred to as the Reting-Pangda-Sadu triumvirate (re spom sa gsum).

The Sadutshangs, along with the Pangdatsang family and the Reting estate, were main agents for the exporting of Tibetan wool and importing Indian and foreign goods. All goods had to be carried by mule, yak or donkey from Gangtok and Kalimpong. The traders used the telegraph service to send messages along the trade route. Although India used the Bentley code system that was in common usage then, the Tibetans devised their own code consisting of 5-digit numbers. Rinchen Sadutshang made a small contribution by substituting a single code number for some of the more frequently used words and phrases such as "Pack mules with a total of 230 loads arrived safely and will return in three days."

Rinchen Sadutshang's oldest brother Lo Gendun (blo dge 'dun) had come to Kalimpong but he had to hurry back to Tibet due to their connection to the Reting affair. The Fifth Reting Rinpoche, Tubten Jampel Yeshe Gyeltsen, had stepped down from the regency in 1941, but in 1947 was accused of plotting against Regent Taktra. Reting, the uncle of Lo Gendun's wife Tseyang (tshe dbyangs), was arrested and jailed. When Sera monastery rose up in armed rebellion in support of Reting, the government became alarmed and clamped down against anyone they perceived to be supporters of Reting, including the Sadutshang family. The government jailed one of the Sadutshang cousins and seized their properties at various trade points. Lo Gendun left Tseyang in Kalimpong and hurried back to Lhasa to make an appeal to the government.

Lo Gendun's appeal to the government worked, and the seized assets were returned to the family. As recompense for the losses they had incurred, the Sadutshang family proposed that they should be exempt from taxes on tea and wool for the next ten years. The government rejected this request but proposed that one member of the Sadutshang family would be allowed to join the Tibetan government as either a lay or monk official. In essence, this would ennoble the Sadutshang family; barring a few monk officials, only nobility was allowed to serve in the Tibetan government. The family decided that it would be Rinchen, the youngest and the most educated Sadutshang, who would take up this government post.

Rinchen and Tseyang returned from Kalimpong together and once back in Lhasa began to co-habit with Lo Gendun in a polyandrous marriage. Rinchen was first apprenticed to the finance ministry, for which he had to pass a test in accounting. Then he had an official enrollment ceremony at Norbulingka (nor bu gling kha) in front of the Dalai Lama. There were seven ranks in the government, with the Dalai Lamas occupying the first rank, the Prime Minister the second, the ministers occupying the third rank and the lowest officials at the seventh rank. Rinchen was accorded the fifth rank and assigned to the foreign ministry. Liushar Tubten Tarpa (sne'u shar thub bstan thar pa, 1903-1983) and Surkhang Wangchen Tseten (zur khang zur pa dbang chen tshe brtan, 1891-1953) were the ministers in charge of the ministry, which had nine other officials: two of fourth rank, three of fifth rank including Rinchen and four of sixth rank. Rinchen's work consisted of translation from the Tibetan to the English. But the foreign ministry had virtually no diplomatic contact with other nations, and if the Tibetan government wanted to communicate with the government of India those communications happened through the Indian trade mission.

In October 1949, after Rinchen Sadutshang had just finished his first year of service in the Tibetan government, the Chinese Communist Party was formally installed in China and the Communists began to proclaim over radio that they would liberate Tibet. Heinrich Harrer (1912-2006), the Austrian mountaineer who was living in Lhasa at the time, was given the task of monitoring the international news and Sadutshang the task of translating them.

Early in 1950, when the news came that the Chinese had entered Kham, the Tibetan government arranged to send delegations to India and abroad to seek military support against the Chinese. In November 1950, the Regent Taktra stepped down and the young Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso (tA la'i bla ma 14 bstan 'dzin rgya mtsho, b.1935)  assumed full temporal power. That same month, Rinchen Sadutshang headed back to Delhi as assistant and interpreter to minister Dzasak Surkhang. He carried with him two boxes of documents from the foreign office, including the original treaties that Tibet had made with neighboring countries. In Delhi, Dzasak Surkhang and Rinchen Sadutshang met with Foreign Secretary K.P.S. Menon (1898-1982) who advocated peaceful negotiations with China.

Sadutshang then joined the Tibetan delegation to China, led by Ngabo Ngawang Jigme (nga phod nga dbang 'jigs med, d. 2009), as their English interpreter. On May 23, 1951, the delegation signed the Seventeen Point Agreement in Beijing. However as Sadutshang was not a senior member of the delegation, he was not present for the talks. In September 1951, the People's Liberation Army marched into Lhasa. The rest of the 1950s was a period of uneasy coexistence between the Chinese and the Tibetans.

When the Dalai Lama travelled to China from July 1954 - June 1955 to attend the National People's Congress, Sadutshang was among the entourage that travelled with him. He was also among the party that travelled with the Dalai Lama in India the following year. The Dalai Lama had been invited by the Mahabodhi Society of India to take part in the 2500th anniversary of the Buddha's death.

Back in Lhasa, the Chinese merged the Tibetan foreign ministry with their foreign department. The Chinese officials objected to Sadutshang's working at the foreign ministry, claiming that he had close relations with the Indian consulate at Dekyilingka, where he had Sikkimese friends, and that he was engaged in trade. So the Tibetans transferred him to the Department of Transportation. He headed this department with monk official Tseton Ngawang Rigdol (rtse kroon ngag dbang rig grol); they were given two junior officials and some official staff. Their main responsibility was to transport government grain, using the ten trucks that the Dalai Lama had just bought from the Tata Steel Factory in India, from various granaries across Tibet so that the grains could be distributed as payment to officials and soldiers.

Towards the end of 1958, Sadutshang travelled to India to buy necessary spare parts for the trucks and to establish a fuel support system. He did not return to Tibet. On March 1959, there was a popular revolt against the Chinese in Lhasa and on March 30, the Dalai Lama entered India and sought asylum. Sadutshang had already moved his wife and children to Kalimpong. His oldest brother Lo Gendun did not survive the unrest; while crossing the Kyichu, he was shot and killed by Chinese soldiers. Sadutshang's other brother Lo Nyendrak (blo snyen grags) joined the Chushi Gangdruk (chu bzhi sgang drug) militia and became one of their top leaders.

In Mussourie in India, when the Dalai Lama's Private Secretariat was established, Rinchen Sadutshang became invaluable as one of only a handful of Tibetan officials who spoke English. When the International Commission of Jurists sent Donald Thompson and Purushottam Trikamdas to investigate the Tibetan issue, Sadutshang travelled with Trikamdas as interpreter to the different refugee communities as Trikamdas conducted his interviews.

In Mussourie it was decided that a delegation should be sent to the United Nations. The delegation consisted of Tsepon Wangchuk Deden Shakabpa (zhwa sgab pa dbang phyug bde ldan, 1908-1989), the Dalai Lama's older brother Gyalo Thondup (rgya lo don grub, b. 1928) with Rinchen Sadutshang as translator. They travelled on Certificates of Identity issued by the Government of India and received diplomatic visas from the American embassy. The delegation travelled three times to New York, in the falls of 1959, 1960, and 1961.

Upon his return from the US, Sadutshang worked with Liushar on a draft constitution for the new exile government, to be known as the Charter of Tibetans in Exile. In 1964, Sadutshang was appointed as one of the managing trustees of the Dalai Lama Charitable Trust. In 1978, he became a kalon, a minister of the Tibetan cabinet, and was posted to be Representative at the Bureau of the Dalai Lama in New Delhi for two years. This would be Sadutshang's last government post.

He passed away in June 14, 2015 at the age of eighty-seven. He was survived by six children: Sonam Deki, Yangchen Dolkar, Tsetan Dorji, Namgyal Phuntsok, Sonam Lhamo and Kelsang Nordon.