Introduction to Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo

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Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, the famed 19th century Tibetan polymath and mystic, was arguably the most prolific member of the Khyentse Lineage. Not only in terms of his own writings and revelations, which are presented here in collections that amount to forty-seven Tibetan volumes, but also in terms of the influence he exerted on the religious culture of Tibet and the Himalayan region. The endless list of grand achievements he was able to accomplish for the benefit of the Dharma, are even more astonishing in light of the fact that he reportedly spent the better part of the last three decades of his life cloistered away in retreat at his private residence at Dzongsar Monastery in eastern Tibet.

Though officially recognized and enthroned as a prominent Sakya tulku, he figures into the Khyentse Lineage as the last of the three tulkus of Jigme Lingpa, a.k.a. Khyentse Özer, among whom Khyentse Wangpo was considered the body-emanation (sku sprul). However, he also studied with Jigme Lingpa's close student Jigme Gyalwai Nyugu and became one of this master's principal disciples, or heart-sons (thugs sras), he is often paired with another of Jigme Lingpa's tulkus, Patrul Rinpoche, as the sun and the moon.

The figure of Khyentse Wangpo looms so large in the Tibetan annals of the 19th century that it is, in fact, difficult to imagine what Tibetan Buddhism might look like today without him. In an era that witnessed a remarkable period of renewal and creativity, replete with the emergence of towering figures, Khyentse Wangpo can still be described as incomparable. Under his auspices, Jamgön Kongtrul and Loter Wangpo produced literary collections that virtually ensured the survival of more than a thousand years of Buddhist scriptural output. Yet without the complete transmissions of the works contained within the hundreds of collective volumes of the Rinchen Terdzö, the Damngak Dzö, the Kagyu Ngak Dzö, Gyude Kuntu and the Drupthab Kuntu, which were painstakingly gathered and embodied by Khyentse Wangpo, those collections might have amounted to little more than dry ink on paper, rather than the life force of a living tradition. Furthermore, his seal of approval brought recognition to figures that would come to shape the tradition we see today. The names Mipham and Chogyur Lingpa might have meant little to us had Khyentse Wangpo not recognized and nurtured their potential early on, thus catapulting them into the spotlight and imbuing their activities with an unassailable authority and stature.