The Treasury of Lives

Namgyel Gyatso (rnam rgyal rgya mtsho) was born to the noble Lhagyari family (lha rgya ri), the local rulers of Eyul (e yul), situated between Yarlung (yar klung) and Dakpo (dwags po) in central Tibet. Namgyel Gyatso was the eldest son of the sixteenth head of the Lhagyari family, Kelzang Nyendrak (skal bzang snyan grags), and his wife Rigdzin Chodzom (rig 'dzin chos 'dzoms). The second of six children, he had an older sister named Kelzang Chodzom (skal bzang chos 'dzoms) and four younger brothers: Nyendrak Puntsok (snyan grags phun tshogs), Lodro Gyatso (blo gros rgya mtsho), Kelzang Norbu (skal bzang nor bu), and Tendzin Chokyi Nangwa, the Eighth Drigung Chungtsang ('bri gung chung tshang 08 bstan 'dzin chos kyi snang ba, b. 1942).

He was sent to Lhasa at the age of seven to study with various teachers, including Tsawa Tritul Ngawang Lobzang (tsha ba khri sprul ngag dbang blo bzang, b. 1880) of Sera Me College (se ra smad), from whom he learned grammar and poetry.

Two previous heads of the Lhagyari family had been deposed by the Kashak (bka' shag), the Tibetan cabinet, including, when Namgyel Gyatso was seven, his own father, Kelzang Nyendrak. It appears that his father, who had studied at Frank Ludlow's (b. 1885) English school in Gyantse (rgyal rtse) in the 1920s, was accused of not heeding tradition. When Kelzang Nyendrak went into early retirement, around the year 1937, Namgyel Gyatso was only about ten years old, and so his aunt, Lhagyari Jetsun (lha rgya ri rje btsun), whose name was possibly Yeshe Wangmo (ye shes dbang mo), took over as regent of Eyul and ruled for ten years.

In 1947, when Namgyel Gyatso was nineteen, he was invested as the head of the family in its seventeenth generation. Soon after he married Pema Yangchen (pad+ma dbyang can) from the Ringang (rin sgang) family. They had two sons who died young and three daughters.

In September 1951, the Chinese People's Liberation Army marched into Lhasa, beginning a decade of uneasy coexistence and accommodation. From July 1954 to June 1955, when the young Fourteenth Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso (tA la'i bla ma 14 bstan 'dzin rgya mtsho, b. 1935) and the Tenth Paṇchen Lama, Chokyi Gyeltsen (chos kyi rgyal mtshan, 1938-1989) were in China for talks, Namgyel Gyatso was among the party of Tibetan officials traveling with them. He and other officials were put up at the Beijing Hotel and given tours of the capital. It was not his first trip abroad; in 1950 his mother had undergone a cataract operation in Calcutta and he had travelled with her through Burma, Singapore and Japan.

When the Preparatory Committee of the Tibet Autonomous Region was established in 1956, Namgyel Gyatso was made the head ('go 'dzin) of the General Bureau of Lhokha (lho khul spyi khyab don gcod las khungs). He also became a member of the Financial Committee of the Political and Financial Office of the Tibet Autonomous Region. These positions were apparently at the request of the Dalai Lama.

In 1958, the Dalai Lama awarded him the rank of Dzasa (dza sag), a government official of the third rank. Of the seven ranks of Tibetan officialdom, the Dalai Lama occupied the first rank and Prime Ministers occupied the second. The Lhagyari family had ruled Eyul as an independent kingdom up through the seventeenth century, when they accepted the authority of the Ganden Podrang government of the Dalai Lamas. Although the family was categorized as one of the five Dapon (mda' dpon) families, a rank of aristocracy second only to the Yabzhi families of the Dalai Lamas, the Lhagyari men had traditionally not held posts in the Tibetan government. This custom seems to have changed in the early 1920s, beginning with Namgyel Gyatso's grandfather Lhagyari Namgyel Wangchuk (rnam rgyal dbang phyug, d.1912) who fought as a general during the 1910-1912 Qing occupation of Lhasa.

In March 1959 the city of Lhasa erupted in demonstrations against Communist rule, and Namgyel Gyatso joined the protests. He was arrested along with his younger brothers Lodro Gyatso and Kelzang Norbu on March 31, 1959, and spent the next twenty years in prison. During the Cultural Revolution the Lhagyari were targeted as landed gentry and for support they had given to the Chushi Gangdruk (chu bzhi sgang drug) anti-Chinese militia. The estates were confiscated, and Namgyel Gyatso's mother died during a struggle session.

After Namgyel Gyatso was finally released from prison in 1979, he worked in the TAR Consultative Conference. In 1982, he received permission to visit his brother Nyendrak Puntsok in Bhutan. He traveled on to India intending to return to Tibet, but stayed at the request of the Dalai Lama. His daughters remained in Tibet.

In 1985 Namgyel Gyatso married Puntsok Dolkar (phun tshogs sgrol dkar) from the Drontang Tashi Khangsar (sgron thang bkra shis khang gsar) family. In India he served for three terms as a parliamentarian of to the Assembly of Tibetan People's Deputies, personally appointed by the Dalai Lama. He wrote The Lhagyari Chronicles (lha rgya ri'i gdung rabs), published in 1999 by Paljor Publications, a main source of information about the Lhagyari family. According to his wife, an initial draft of the history had been stolen.

Several sources mistake Namgyel Gyatso's name as Namgyel Wangchuk, an apparent confusion between him and his grandfather as well as his son who both had that name.

Namgyel Gyatso died in 2003 at his home in Dehradun. He was succeeded as head of the family by his son Namgyal Wangchuk, who in 2016 is a student at Gettysburg College in the United States.