The Tai Situ incarnations began when the Sixth Karmapa recognized Tashi Namgyel as the reincarnation of his teacher Chokyi Gyeltsen, a lama of Karma Gon Monastery in Kham who had received the Chinese imperial title from a Ming envoy. In the eighteenth century the Eighth Tai Situ, Chokyi Jungne, moved the seat of the line to Pelpung Monastery near Derge.