The Treasury of Lives

The footprints of an early Karmapa, probably the first, Dusum Khyenpa, together with a portrait and the eight auspicious symbols.

Chakrasamvara, Sahaja Heruka, with the footprints of Drigungpa Rinchen Pel

Karma Kagyu Field of Accumulation painting with the Fifteenth Karmapa, Kakyab Dorje, as the last lineage holder at the time of the compositions creation.

This sixteenth century painting shows the Drigung founder, Jikten Gonpo, with two men who stood at the beginning of the two main incarnation lines at monastery, the Drigung Chetsang and the Drigung Chungtsang.

Nineteenth century portrait of the Bon master Drenpa Namkha surrounded by deities and lineage masters.

Nineteenth century painting of the Drukpa Kagyu lineage of Bhutan.

This nineteenth century painting of Milarepa is possibly a copy of an original from Pelpung Monastery. A representative of the Situ style, it exemplifies the types of paintings commissioned by Situ Panchen and his circle. 

The Demoness of Tibet is a close copy of a well-known image located in the Tibet Museum in Lhasa. The landscape of Tibet is shown as the mythical demoness of Tibetan legend. Important Buddhist temples and monasteries are located across her body, spanning from the Ngari region in the west to Kham in the east. 

A nineteenth century painting featuring the First Dorje Drak Rigdzin, Rigdzin Godemchen Ngodrub Gyeltsen, a Nyingma treasure revealer who discovered the Jangter, or Northern Treasures. 

This late eighteenth or early twentieth century Drigung Kagyu painting of Padmasambhava and the Drigung Kagyu refuge field is associated with a terma tradition of Rinchen Puntsok. Drigung Monastery is pictured along the bottom of the painting along with Terdrom on the left edge. A nearby treasure site is shown adjacent to Terdrom.

A cast bronz sculpture of the 15th-16th century Ngor master Lowo Khenchen Sonam Lhundrub

This painting shows major sites of Lhasa including the Jokhang, Potala Palace and Lukhang. The monasteries of Sera, Drepung, and Sangpu Neutok are also pictured. It is possible that the image depicts activities during Losar festivities.

 

 

An eighteenth century painting of The Fifth Dalai Lama pictured with major scenes from his life. 

This drawing shows Lhasa before 1950 from an elevated perspective. The highly detailed representation shows many major monasteries and landmarks of Lhasa.

The central figure of Mahākāla is depicted with historical figures including Nāgārjuna and Ga Lotsāwa, as well as masters of the Drukpa Kagyu lineage.

A group of Tibetan army officers with Tsarong Dasang Damdul seated in the center. The photo was likely taken in Lhasa. Tsarong, a commoner who rose to become Commander-in-Chief, created the first modern Tibetan army. 

Mid-20th century painting of Machik Labdron and the Chod refuge field displaying teachers and deities. 

This letter from the Tibetan Government in Exile documents Lobsang Phuntsok Lhalungpa's role in cultural preservation activities of the early exile government. 

A letter certifying Lobsang Phunstok Lhalungpa's employment and exemplary service as a teacher at St. Joseph's College in Darjeeling.

A receipt dated September 9, 1965 documenting the dispersal of funds to the Sakya Trizin and the Sakya Settlement at Dehra Dun, by Lobsang P. Lhalungpa on behalf of the Tibet Society of United Kingdom.

A receipt dated from1965 documenting the dispersal of funds to the Tibet Bonpo Foundation by Lobsang P. Lhalungpa on behalf of the Tibet Society of United Kingdom. The Tibet Bonpo Foundation was registered at the Lhalungpa residence in Delhi.

Officials at Hastings House in Calcutta, 1910.

Members of the Royal Family of Derge led by Dorje Sengge

Lama Gyurdrak and LP Lhalungpa photographed with Canadian High Commisioner James George and family, Delhi, late 1960's. 

Nineteenth century (likely made after 1829) painting from Drumpa Monastery in southern Tibet near the border of Bhutan depicts the Mountain Dharma Trilogy transmission of Yanggonpa. The painting portrays Kagyu masters including lineages of the Barawa subsect of the Drukpa Kagyu. Annotations and analysis courtesy of Dr. Marlene Erschbamer.

A painting of the opening of Rongme Karmo Taktsang by Chokgyur Lingpa and Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo. The king of Derge is also depicted as attending.

A letter from Ngapo Ngawang Jigme commends Lhalung Jampa Gyeltsen (also known as Drumpa) on his Tibetan language school for young children. The school was located on the grounds of the Lukhang.

Transcription:

བྲུམ་པ་བྱམས་པ་རྒྱལ་མཚན་ལགས་ཀྱིས་སྒེར་སེམས་སྤངས་ཏེ་བོད་རིགས་སྤྱི་ལ་སྨན་པའི་ཆེད་དུ་སྤྱི་ལོ་༡༩༨༣ ནས་འགོ་བཙུགས་ཏེ་བྱིས་པ་སློབ་འགྲོའི་སྔོན་སྦྱོང་བོད་ཡིག་ཆེད་སློབ་དང་བྱིས་པའི་སྤྱོད་བཟང་སྦྱོང་བརྡར་གྱིས་རྨང་གཞི་བཟང་པོ་ཡོད་པའི་སློབ་ཕྲུག་བརྒྱ་ཕྲག་ཁ་ཤས་སློབ་གྲྭ་ཁག་ལ་བཞུགས་ནས་བོད་ཡིག་གི་རྨང་གཞི་ཡོད་པ་བྱུང་བ་འདི་ནི་དགེ་རྒན་བྱམས་པ་རྒྱལ་མཚན་ལགས་ཀྱིས་བོད་ཡིག་རྒྱུན་འཛིན་དང་དར་སྤེལ་ཡོང་བར་བྱས་རྗེས་ཆེན་པོ་བཞག་ཡོད་པས་ངས་སྙིང་ནས་ཐུགས་རྗེ་ཆེ་ཞེས་ཞུ་རྒྱུ་ཡིན།

ང་ཕོད་ངག་དབང་འཇིགས་མེད་ཀྱིས་སྤྱི་ལོ་ ༡༩༩༡ ཟླ་བ་ ༦ ཚེས་༡༢ ལ།

Translation:

Drumpa Jampa Gyeltsen, without any self-interest and for the benefit of all Tibetans, founded the Children's Preliminary Tibetan Language and Good Behavior Training [School] in 1983. Since then, hundreds of students have attended the school and developed a good foundation in Tibetan language. This great achievement of teacher Jampa Gyeltsen contributed to the preservation and spread of the Tibetan language. Because of this I would like to thank him from the bottom of my heart. 

Ngapo Ngawang Jigme 

June 12, 1991

Translated by Karma Sonam Gelek

This early 16th-century mural from the region of Dartsedo is the only known ancient group depiction of the Five Scholars of Minyak, five masters who flourished in Minyak Rabgang during the 14th century. Each figure is identified by small captions in headed script. A sixth figure is labeled Khe[pa] chen[po] Drakpa Dorje.

The six figures are illustrated uniquely. In particular Rigpa Sengge is said to have been one legged after having been bitten by a snake during his teenage years.

The remains of a red poster pasted on the walls during the Cultural Revolution can be spotted in the upper right section of the photograph, which was taken by JB Georges-Picot in 2018.