The Treasury of Lives

Men-tsee-khang, Dharamsala

Men-tsee-khang, also known as Tibetan Medical and Astro-Science Institute, is the central Tibetan institute for research, study, and practice of traditional Tibetan Medicine and Astrology based in the Dharamsala town of Himachal Pradesh in India. After the Fourteenth Dalai Lama fled Tibet following the Chinese communist occupation, he re-established Men-tsee-khang in Dharamsala on March 23, 1961, to replicate the Mentsikhang in Lhasa that was founded by Tekhang Jampa Tubwang under the leadership of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama in 1916. Initially operating as schools of medicine and astrology at Chopra House and Glenmore Cottage, they were merged as 1967 and then relocated to the present site on the Khara Danda Road in 1982. According to the institutional mission, it aims to “improve the health and sanitation of the refugees in particular and the public in general and to establish dispensaries in order to provide accessible health care to all people.” The Men-tsee-khang runs a college, a research and publication department, pharmacology and pharmaceuticals department, and branch clinics and centers across the world.

Sources

Chos lo thar. 2000. Lha sa man rtsis khang gi gdan rab dri med shel gyi me long. 1 Vols. Dharamasala, H.P.: bod gzhung sman rtsis khang. BDRC W1KG22207.

Gerke, Barbara. "Men-Tsee-Khang Celebrations on its 100th Anniversary A Report from Dharamsala, India." The Tibet Journal 43, no. 1 (2018): 161-168.

Biographies

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