The Treasury of Lives

The Fourth Zhamar, Chodrak Yeshe, was one of the most influential religious and political figures of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. At a time of intense political instability, he brokered peace between the Pakmodru, Rinpung, and Geluk factions of central Tibet, established Yangpachen Monastery, and preserved the heritage of the Karma Kagyu tradition.

Mase Tonpa Rinchen Zangpo was a fourteenth-century lama from eastern Tibet and one of the so called "Five Scholars of Minyak." He trained in multiple traditions in central Tibet before returning to Minyak where he taught and founded Rātī Monastery in the 1360s. He was posthumously given the title of the Second Gangkar Lama, a Karma-Kagyu incarnation line. Among his teachers were Dolpopa, Buton, and the Third and Fourth Karmapas.

Dratsepa Rinchen Namgyel was the chief disciple of Buton and his successor as abbot at Zhalu, serving from 1356 to his death in 1388. He served Buton as scribe and editor, collecting his teacher's writings in an edition of thirty-three volumes.