(Menrampa) trained at Men-Tsee-Khang in Dharamsala, where he graduated first of his class in 1977 and served as assistant pharmacist, professor, and college principal until 1989. After lecturing at the Central Institute for Buddhist Studies (Ladakh, 1989-1991), he moved to Europe, where he acted as guest professor in Tibetan medicine for DÄGfa (the German Medical Association for Acupuncture) for more than two decades. He co-founded and directs the New Yuthok Institute (Italy) as well as TME – Tibetan Medicine Education Center (Switzerland), through which he has instructed many students on clinical, yogic, and tantric knowledge and practices that balance the body-mind. His recently published handbook New Light on Tibetan Medicine: Volume I – Foundations (2022) is based on his lifelong teaching experience.
The author of this biography prefers to remain anonymous. The author's identity is known to the editors of the Treasury of Lives.
is a researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris and editor of the Revue d'Etudes Tibétaines.
Namdrol Miranda Adams is Dean and a Founder of Maitripa College, a Buddhist graduate school in Portland, Oregon, where she teaches Buddhism, contemplative pedagogy, and engagement with faith and service. She practiced and studied as a Buddhist nun for seven years, and completed her doctoral work in Education at the University of Portland in 2021. Her research is focused on contemplative education, epistemology and learning, and building sustainable and socially responsible institutions of higher education.
is an Assistant Professor of Religion at Earlham College. She completed her Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies at Harvard University in 2019. Her current research focuses on Buddhist narrative literature, ethics, and the figure of Yeshe Tsogyel.
is professor of Tibetan language and civilisation at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilisations (INALCO) in Paris, France.
is a senior research fellow at the Tibet Center, University of Virginia. He is an expert in the archaeology and cultural history of Tibet.
is Associate Professor Emeritus at the University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington. Her book The Sakya Jetsumas: The Hidden World of Tibetan Female Lamas was published by Shambhala in 2022.
is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Randolph College in Lynchburg, Virginia. She completed a PhD in History of Religions at the University of Virginia in 2010. She is the author of Echoes of Enlightenment: The Life and Legacy of the Tibetan Saint Sonam Peldren (Oxford 2016).
is from west Sikkim and completed his Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies at Delhi University.
earned his PhD at the School of Oriental and African studies at the University of London in 1992. He has published widely on the topic of Vajrakīla.
is Distinguished Research Professor, and Dalai Lama Professor Emeritus at the University of California Santa Barbara. He is also President Emeritus of the American Academy of Religion.
is a Ph.D. student at the University of South Wales working on contemporary Nyingma communities in Kham.
worked closely with Chögyal Namkhai Norbu for forty years, translating several of his most important works into English. He lives in Italy.
completed his MA in Translation, Textual Interpretation, and Philology at the Rangjung Yeshe Institute.
is a Lecturer at the Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria.
is Khyentse Foundation Distinguished University Professor in Tibetan Buddhism at the University of California, Berkeley.
is a research scholar at the Department of Indo-Tibetan Studies, Visva-Bharati University. He has translated the biography of Seventeen Nālandā Panditas into Bengali.
is associate professor at Kyōto University (GSAIS, Shishu-Kan), Japan, where he teaches Buddhist studies and cross-cultural philosophy. He received his PhD from the University of Paris in 2011. https://www.gsais.kyoto-u.ac.jp/staff/deroche
is Senior Associate in Research, Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit at Cambridge University.
is Associate Professor in the Department of Theology at Georgetown University.
is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. His research focuses on the culture of Tibetan language within the world of Tibetan Buddhism.
(PhD 2005, University of Virginia) is professor at Temple University and the director of graduate studies in the Department of Religion. His works include Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy of Mind and Nature (Oxford 2019) and a translation of an overview of the Wisdom Chapter of the Way of the Bodhisattva by Künzang Sönam, entitled The Profound Reality of Interdependence (Oxford 2019).
works at the Rubin Museum of Art and is a composer and performer whose pieces have been performed in New York and elsewhere.
is a research fellow at Leipzig University, Germany. He holds a Ph.D. in Tibetan Studies with a dissertation on contemporary Tibetan literature. His research interests include secular life writing, modern Tibetan history, and the history of Tibetan print media.
is Director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Yungdrung Bon and author of Bѳ and Bon: Ancient Shamanic Traditions of Siberia and Tibet in their Relation to the Teachings of a Central Asian Buddha (Vajra Publications, 2008).
is an independent scholar who holds a PhD in Buddhist Studies from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich. Her research interests include the Barawa Kagyu tradition, Sikkim Studies, Tibetan Buddhism and the role of gender, and the intersection of religion, nature, and culture in the Tibetan Cultural Area.
received an MA in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University in 2013.
is a Lecturer at UNC-Wilmington. She completed her Ph.D. at Rice University in 2020.
is Director and Chief Editor of the Treasury of Lives. He completed his PhD in Buddhist Studies at the University of Michigan in 2007. He is the author of The Life of Jamgon Kongtrul The Great.
is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is author of Love Letters from Golok: A Tantric Couple in Modern Tibet (Columbia University Press, 2016).
(DPhil, MSc, University of Oxford), has been based at the University of Vienna since 2015 and works across the disciplines of Medical Anthropology and Tibetan Studies, researching medico-religious interfaces in Sowa Rigpa across the Himalayas. Her open-access monograph Taming the Poisonous: Mercury, Toxicity, and Safety in Tibetan Medical Practice (Heidelberg University Publishing, 2021) examines the use of refined mercury in Tibetan medicines and related safety and toxicity debates. Her first monograph Long Lives and Untimely Deaths (Brill, 2012) analyses long-life rituals, as well as vitality and life-span concepts among Tibetans in the Darjeeling Hills.
is a MPhil graduate in Tibetan and Himalayan studies from Oxford University. His completed dissertation focused on the “non-sectarian” (ris med) figure of the Fifth Sle lung bZhad pa’i rdo rje (1697-1740) and his journey to Pad+mo bkod in 1729.
was director of Trans Himalaya, with offices in the United Kingdom, Chengdu, and Kham. He earned a Ph.D. in Tibetan Literature at the School for Oriental and Asian Studies in 1987 and a Masters degree in Sanskrit & Oriental Studies at Edinburgh in 1971.
teaches religious studies at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His research interests are in Kālacakra, Dzogchen, and the Bon tradition
is a PhD student in Tibetan Literature at Tsinghua University. Her research interests are Tibeto-Sino Buddhism and Buddhist Modernism.
received his PhD from the University of Hamburg in 2014 where he is a lecturer for Classical and Colloquial Tibetan. He has published articles on topics such as the history of the Ngor and Sakya traditions, Buddhist ascetic traditions, vegetarianism, book culture, and Tibetan art. His recent book publications are Vajradhara in Human Form: The Life and Times of Ngor chen Kun dga’ bzang po (2017) and The Ngor Branch Monastery of Go mig (sTeng rgyud) in Spiti (2019). He is the founder of Ngor’s Textual Treasures, an interactive web application presenting the results of an ongoing cataloguing project of a collection of manuscripts from Ngor monastery.
is an associate teaching professor of Tibetan and Himalayan studies and an associate faculty director in the Center for Asian Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is the author of Remembering the Lotus-Born: Padmasambhava in the History of Tibet’s Golden Age (Wisdom Publications, Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, 2016), which won Honorable Mention for the E. Gene Smith Book Prize from the Association for Asian Studies.
is an associate professor in Religious Studies at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California.
co-founded Tib Shelf (tibshelf.org), an open platform that provides access to an expanding collection of translated Tibetan texts spanning various time periods and genres. He holds an MA and MSt in Buddhist studies and Oriental studies and is currently reading for a DPhil at the University of Oxford.
is Assistant Professor of Religion at Northwestern University. She earned a PhD in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at the University of Virginia in 2007.
is a Senior Lecturer at the National University of Mongolia. Currently, he is a Visiting Professor at the Center of International Studies, University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE), Portugal.
is a novelist, historian, playwright and polemecist covering Tibetan politics, history and culture.
left school in England in the 1960s to travel overland to India and lived in the Himalayan regions for a decade, before returning to London to establish a successful travel business. From 1985 he travelled all over Tibet and in the UK he co-founded a number of Tibet-related organizations. An autodidact, he wrote and published various articles on Tibet, its people and its history, including in Wikipedia.
is the Director of Tibetan Studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris, and also Numata Visiting Professor of the Philosophy of Religions and the History of Religions in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago.
is Tibetan, Sanskrit & Chinese Language Researcher at Himalayan Art Resources
is a Tibetan Buddhist scholar, translator, and PhD Candidate at McGill University. He graduated from Vikramashila Buddhist Institute, Pokhara, Nepal after which he served as a research assistant to Acharya Sempa Dorje 2004 to 2013.
is Associate Professor at Kyushu University. His research interests include the history of Kham and the diplomatic activity of the Tibetan Government in the early 20th century.
(Ph.D. University of Virginia, 2007) is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. He is author of Is Reality Beyond Good and Evil? Tibetan Buddhist Inquiry into the Ultimate Virtue (University of Virginia Press, forthcoming), Radiant Emptiness: Three Seminal Works by the Golden Paṇḍita Shakya Chokden (Oxford, 2020), Tibetan Buddhism and Mystical Experience (Oxford, 2015), Visions of Unity: The Golden Pandita Shakya Chokden's New Interpretation of Yogācāra and Madhyamaka (SUNY, 2012), and Three Texts on Madhyamaka by Shakya Chokden (LTWA, 2000).
has an MA in Translation from Rangjung Yeshe Institute and is the director of the Longchen Nyingtik Project, which aims to translate the Nyingtik Tsapö in English.
received his PhD in History of Religions from Stockholm University in 2009 and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley.
is a PhD candidate in Religious Studies at Stanford University, and a translator and interpreter of Buddhist texts and teachings from Tibetan to English.
is a translator and practitioner, studying primarily under Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Pema Wanggyal Rinpoche, and Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche. He completed a three year retreat in 1984.
is Associate Professor, Religious Studies Program, and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies at East Carolina University.
is Associate Director of the Tibet Center and Bhutan Initiative at the University of Virginia and holds a Ph.D. in Art History with specializations in Buddhist and Himalayan Art. http://virginia.academia.edu/ArianaMaki
is a scholar based in Israel. He received his Ph.D. from Indiana University in 1991.
is an independent Buddhist scholar and translator and the founder of the Buddhist Open Online Translation Lab.
received a PhD from Columbia University's Department of Religion in 2013. He has taught humanities at colleges in several countries and is now an independent translator and writer based in Asia.
is Professor of Cultural Anthropology and History at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is the author of Arrested Histories: Tibet, the CIA, and Memories of a Forgotten War, and is currently writing a book about the Pangdatsang family.
is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Bates College. Her current research focuses on gender and patronage patterns in contemporary Drikung Kagyu communities.
is Visiting Professor at Harvard Divinity School and Director of Natural Dharma Fellowship, a non-profit Buddhist organization. She completed a PhD in Religion at Harvard University in 2013.
is a PhD candidate in History and East Asian Languages at Harvard University. His dissertation research focuses on the life and times of Miwang Polhane Sonam Tobgye, and works to situate his particular mode of lay kingship within Qing, Inner Asian, and Early Modern contexts.
was Spiritual Co-Director of Natural Dharma Fellowship and the Managing Teacher at Wonderwell Mountain Refuge
is a graduate student in Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
is a research scholar working as a PhD student on Buddhist philosophy and history at Central Institute of Buddhist Studies, Leh, Ladakh, India.
is a Ph.D. candidate in Tibetan and late Imperial Chinese history at Minzu University of China in Beijing. His research focuses on the role of Tibetan Buddhism in Qing Inner Asia during the eighteenth century. He is also interested more broadly in the history and literature of the Kadam tradition.
is a Ph.D. student in modern Tibetan and late imperial Chinese history at Columbia University. His research focuses on the institutional history of Tibetan communities in the Sino-Tibetan borderlands.
is the founder of Lotsawa House. He completed his PhD at SOAS, University of London, in 2018 with a thesis on Dzogchen, scholasticism and sectarian identity in early twentieth-century Tibet. Read more at adamspearcey.com.
is a writer and scholar. He is also Director of Latse Contemporary Tibetan Cultural Library.
is a cultural anthropologist, Director of Research at the CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research, France) and Associate Professor at the College of Language and Culture (CLCS), Royal University of Bhutan. http://www.crcao.fr/spip.php?article176
is Research Professor in the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University. He is the author of fourteen books and more than sixty articles. These include Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism and A Bull of a Man: Images of Masculinity, Sex, and the Body in Indian Buddhism.
is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Wesleyan University. He completed his PhD in Buddhist Studies at the University of Michigan in 2006.
is a Tibetan scholar and doctoral candidate in religious studies at Northwestern University.
is a Buddhist monk, translator, author, and photographer who lived over fifty year in the Himalayan region. He was a full-time attendant of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche for thirteen years and is the founder of the humanitarian organization Karuna-Shechen.
is Executive Director of the Buddhist Digital Resource Center (BDRC). He received his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 2009.
earned his PhD from CIHTS in India where he served as the head of Publication Dept. for 26 years. He has a Master’s degree in Writing and Publishing from Emerson College, Boston. Currently he is an adjunct Assistant Professor at the City University of New York, and Language Associate in Columbia University, NY.
is Director of Research Emeritus at the National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris.
Hamid Sardar is a professional photographer as well a a scholar of Tibetan and Mongol languages who received his Ph.D. from Harvard University.
is Ph.D. student in Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. www.dirkpschmidt.com
is Research Assistant Professor in Tibetan and Buddhist studies, Director of Scholarship at the Contemplative Sciences Center, and affiliated faculty with the Tibet Center at the University of Virginia.
is an ordained monk and lama of the Karma Kagyu and Shangpa Kagyu traditions of German origin. An interpreter and translator for 30 years, he worked closely for the late Kyabje Tenga Rinpoche of Benchen monastery and now spends most of his time in solitary retreat in Yolmo.
(1936-2010), one of the world's greatest scholars of Tibet, was the Founder of the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center.
is a PHD candidate in Dunhuang Tibetan Manuscripts at North-west Nationalities’ University in Lanzhou.
Senior Philosophy Lecturer in the School of Humanities at the University of Tasmania. He teaches Asian philosophy, coordinates the Asian Philosophy Program and directs the Tasmanian Buddhist Studies in India Exchange Program.
Sonam Tsering Ngulphu has a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies/East Asian Religions from Columbia University, New York. He completed his master's degrees from Harvard University and Central University for Tibetan Studies.
is Assistant Professor in the Philosophy and Religion Department at Western Carolina University. She completed her PhD in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University in 2013.
is a scholar based in Washington State, USA. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 1996.
Director of Studies at Rangjung Yeshe Institute, Centre for Buddhist Studies of Kathmandu University, Nepal. She received her doctorate from McGill University in Canada. She received her Dharma education at Dhagpo Kundrol Ling, a monastic hermitage in France, under the guidance of the late Tibetan Buddhist master Lama Gendun Rinpoche. Julia is a member of Sakya Pandita Translation Group and Subashita Translation Group.
is a professor at the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations in Paris (Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, CNRS), Paris.
is a candidate for the Geshe degree at Sera Monastery in India. He was one of the founders and the first director of Sera Je IMI house, a complex especially built for the Western monks studying at the monastery.
is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Utah State University and the translator of Rongzom’s Entering the Way of the Great Vehicle (Shambhala, 2017).
is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara.
was born in Tibet and completed his MPhil in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies at the University of Oxford. He has taught Tibetan language at SOAS, and he studied Buddhist philosophy at Drepung Loseling Monastery in south India.
is a writer and translator. Formerly an editor at The Treasury of Lives, she is currently communications coordinator at the Buddhist Digital Resource Center.
(Ph.D. Leiden University, 2010) is an Associate Professor of Instruction in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at Northwestern University. He specializes in the political history of Tibetan Buddhism in modern and contemporary China.
is an academic researcher at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. Born in Amdo and educated at Labrang and in India, he has published several translations, including An Undercover Journey Through Tibet, by Ajam (from Tibetan to English) and Bertrand Russel's On Education: Especially in Early Childhood (from English to Tibetan).
studied at Namkha Khyung Dzong Monastery under Pema Rigtsal Rinpoche and Khenpo Nyima Gyaltsan for over fourteen years. He is from Humla, Nepal.
is an independent practitioner, scholar and translator with an MA in Philosophy and an MA in Tibetology. Book publications include Aesthetic Experience (2009), Tāranātha's Commentary on the Heart Sūtra (2017) and Chariot that Transports to the Four Kāyas (2019). She is the founder of Dakini Translations and Publications.
is a Ph.D. candidate in Anthropology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.
is Canadian Research Chair in Religion and Contemporary Society in Asia at the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia.
received an MA in Religious Studies at University of California Santa Barbara. She is currently an editor at the Treasury of Lives.
Dr. M. Maria Turek, 2020 Research Fellow, The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies, is an anthropologist of global Tibetan Buddhism affiliated with the University of Toronto as an independent scholar.
is Leila Hadley Luce Professor of Modern Tibetan Studies at Columbia University and Chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. He completed his PhD in Inner Asian History at Harvard in 2002.
is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Troy University. His research focuses on the history of the Jangter Treasure Tradition.
(PhD, University of Kent) is a scholar-practitioner specializing in Sowa Rigpa (Tibetan medicine). Drawing on a multidisciplinary training in anthropology, ethnobotany, and biology, his interests revolve around Eurasian medicinal plants and other potent substances, traditional pharmaceutical processes, more-than-human ecologies, and knowledge transmission. He mainly conducts ethnographic fieldwork in the Himalayan valleys of Ladakh (India) and Kathmandu (Nepal). Besides working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies (University of Vienna), he has a private Tibetan medical practice in Belgium, while also collaborating with his teacher Gen. Pasang Yonten Arya as the editor in chief of Bedurya Publications.
is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Aarhus University. He is co-editor of Impermanence: Exploring Continuous Change Across Cultures (Chicago, 2022), and currently the chairperson of the Leadership and Reincarnation of the Dalai Lamas Research Network.
is one of the world's leading scholars of Himalayan Art. He is the Director and Chief Curator of Himalayan Art Resources (himalayanart.org).
is an assistant teaching professor at Rutgets University. He has published several translations of Mongolian and Tibetan literature, including several volumes of Mongolian poety. He has also released many recordings of experimental music.
(Ph.D. Indiana University Bloomington, Tibetan Studies and Religious Studies, 2011) is an assistant professor of Asian Religions at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, where she teaches World Religions, Buddhism, and Religions of China and Tibet.
is Associate Professor of History in Mount Holyoke College. She received her Ph.D. in the History-East Asian Program at Columbia University in 2016. Her research interests include imperial formation in the early modern era and history of Buddhism in East Asia. https://www.mtholyoke.edu/people/lan-wu
Director of the Modern Tibetan Studies Program Associate Research Scholar, Weatherhead East Asian Institute
is the second daughter of Rinchen and Tseyang Sadutshang. She co-authored her mother's memoir, My Youth in Tibet, which was published by LTWA in 2012. She studied Buddhist philosophy for several years at Rangjung Yeshe Institute in Kathmandu and completed a two-year translation course at the International Buddhist Academy (IBA).
is a Research Associate in the Department of the Languages and Cultures of China and Inner Asia, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
is an independent translator and writer who studied Tibetan at Esukhia among other places.
We need your help!
In 2024, The Treasury of Lives was visited by over 10,000 users each month. If only a fraction of our users donated, we would ensure our long-term sustainibility as an open access resource.
We're asking you, our valued reader, to pitch in whatever you can to help us keep this site freely available. A monthly donation of $10 will go a long way toward helping The Treasury of Lives stay online and expand.
The TBRC RID number refers to the unique ID assigned by the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center (TBRC.org) to each historical figure in their database of Tibetan literature.