The Dudjom incarnation line is generally said to have begun with the seventeenth-century Katok lama Dudul Dorje, although Orgyen Dudul Rolpatsel is sometimes mentioned as the first of the line. Dudul Dorje’s reincarnation, Dudjom Lingpa, was the progenitor of the Dudjom Tersar, of which his reincarnation, the great twentieth-century lama Dudjom Rinpoche, was the main propagator.
Biographies
Dudul Dorje
b.1615 - d.1672
Dudul Dorje was a seventeenth-century treasure revealer whose works are one of the pillars of the lineage of Katok Monastery, along with those of his disciple Longsel Nyingpo. He is considered a previous incarnation of Dudjom Rinpoche.
Dudjom Lingpa
b.1835 - d.1903
Dudjom Lingpa was an influential nineteenth-century treasure revealer. Known as an eccentric mystic, he composed around twenty-one volumes of writings, yet in his life never established close institutional affiliations. Through his many students and descendants, his lineage eventually spread all over the world and his revealed treasure teaching continue to be widely practiced. Dudjom Jikdrel Yeshe Dorje is considered his reincarnation.
Dudjom Rinpoche Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje
b.1904 - d.1987
Dudjom Rinpoche was a towering figure in twentieth-century Tibetan religion—one of the main preservers of the Nyingma tradition in exile and the first Nyingma representative in the exile government. He gave a series of major Nyingma empowerments in the early 1960s and composed the lengthy History of the Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism in 1964. He was a primary holder of the Dudjom Tersar tradition, based on the revelations of his prior incarnation, Dudjom Lingpa.
