The Treasury of Lives

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The Gya is a highly regarded clan based in the Nyang region of Tsang. It is said to have descended from the Mukpo, or "dark" branch of the Dong clan, and to have come from the Minyak region of Amdo. In the ninth century the Tibetan king Relpachen gave land in Upper Nyang to his tantric teacher Gya Jampel Sangwa, and the Gya clan ruled the area along with the Go clan. The founder of Ralung Monastery and the Drukpa Kagyu tradition, Tsangpa Gyare Yeshe Dorje, was born to this clan in 1161, and the clan held the lineage of Ralung until the seventeenth century.

Biographies

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