Guide to Vairotsana Site

Translator's Introduction

A Guide to the Vairotsana Practice Place in Dzamnang (ཛཾ་ནང་བཻ་རོའི་སྒྲུབ་གནས་ཀྱི་དཀར་ཆག) concerns the sacred place of Pema Shelpuk (པདྨ་ཤེལ་ཕུག), or Lotus Crystal Cave, near Dzongsar Monastery.[1] This is counted as one of the twenty-five great sites of Kham—indeed, it is described as the most exalted of them all. The site was first opened by Chokgyur Dechen Lingpa (1829–1870) and Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo (1820–1892) at the end of 1856 at the time when the pair also revealed the Three Sections of the Great Perfection (rdzogs chen sde gsum) terma cycle there.[2] That cycle includes a guide or catalogue/inventory (dkar chag) that describes the qualities of the place and the benefits of practising and circumambulating there.[3]

Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö’s own short guide focuses on the Vairotsana cave at the site. The text tells us that this is where Vairotsana practised, that the Three Root deities are actually present there, and that further treasures lie hidden, waiting to be revealed.

The guide first appeared in print in 2005—so it’s not that “recent” a discovery—in a compendium of texts related to pilgrimage sites in Kham. The same collection, edited by Karma Gyaltsen, also includes a two-verse prayer to Pema Shelpuk authored by Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö. Neither text was included in the 2012 edition of the master’s collected works.

What makes the guide especially remarkable is as much its conclusion as its main content. For it is at the end of the text—in its explicit—that we learn that one of the two people who requested the composition was Jamyang Chökyi Wangpo (1893–1908). This was the body emanation of Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo and the main tulku at Dzongsar, whose tragic death in 1908 precipitated Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö’s move from his original seat at Katok.

As far as I’m aware, there is no evidence that the two young tulkus—Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö and Jamyang Chökyi Wangpo—ever met.[4] Indeed, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche’s biography suggests that Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö was busy with his studies at Katok when Jamyang Chökyi Wangpo passed away.[5] We do know that Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö spent time with Jamyang Chökyi Wangpo’s incarnation, Khyentse Chökyi Wangchuk (1909–1960).[6] But the guide appears to be the only record of any direct connection between the two immediate reincarnations of Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo.

Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche’s The Lamp that Enlightens Narrow Minds describes how Jamyang Chökyi Wangpo spent time in retreat at Pema Shelpuk in 1904—his first ‘obstacle year’ (lo keg). It’s possible that he requested the text at around this time. Since Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö was then only eleven years old, this would make the text his earliest known composition. Perhaps it is more likely, therefore, that the request—and the composition—came later.

Indeed, it’s unclear why Jamyang Chökyi Wangpo, the tulku resident at Dzongsar, would request a guide to a sacred place in Dzongsar’s vicinity from the tulku resident at Katok.

Perhaps the explanation is that the “Jamyang Chökyi Wangpo” of the explicit should really be identified with his incarnation, Khyentse Chökyi Wangchuk, who undertook a three-year retreat at Pema Shelpuk that began in 1924.[7] The relationship between requester and requested would then make more sense—Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö clearly being the senior of the pair. In fact, Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche tells us that Khyentse Chökyi Wangchuk required Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö’s permission to enter retreat there.[8] And maybe it is no coincidence that Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö composed the two-verse prayer to Pema Shelpuk during this same period—in 1925 (Wood Mouse).

A note at the end of the guide states that it was reconstructed from fragments of broken stones on which it had been engraved.[9] This might account for any mix-up of names. Might the “Chökyi Wangpo” of the explicit be a misreading of a barely legible “Chökyi Wangchuk“? To answer that would require access to the original fragments—or at least an image of them.

Yes. Treasures lie hidden, waiting to be revealed.

Bibliography

Dilgo Khyentse. The Life and Times of Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö: The Great Biography and Other Stories. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2017

Gardner, Alexander. “Jamyang Chokyi Wangpo,” Treasury of Lives, accessed November 28, 2023, http://treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/Jamyang-Khyentse-Chokyi-Wangpo/13653.

Gardner, Alexander. The Life of Jamgön Kongtrul the Great. Boulder: Snow Lion, 2019.

Gardner, Alexander Patten. The Twenty-five Great Sites of Khams: Religious Geography, Revelation, and Nonsectarianism in Nineteenth-Century Eastern Tibet. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Michigan, 2006.

Jamgön Kongtrül. The Life of Jamyang Khyentsé Wangpo. Trans. Matthew Akester. Delhi: Shechen Publications, 2012. Revised online edition, Khyentse Foundation, 2020.

Karma rgyal mtshan (ed.). mdo khams gnas yig phyogs bsgrigs dad bskul rnga dbang lha sgra. Beijing, mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2005 (BDRC W29295)

Namkhai Norbu. The Lamp that Enlightens Narrow Minds: The Life and Times of a Realized Tibetan Master, Khyentse Chokyi Wangchug. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2012.

Version: 1.0-20250501