Pelden Chogdrub

Pelden Chogdrub (dpal ldan mchog grub) was born in 1454, the wood-dog year of the eighth sexagenary cycle, in Kongpo, a place called Drakchi Lateng Khai Nyang-chip, (kong po brag ci la stang kha'i nyang cib). He was later identified as an incarnation of Shantideva, the famous Indian pandita who wrote the Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life (Bodhisattvavatara), thus earning the title Zhiwa Lha (zhi ba lha), the Tibetan for Shantideva, for himself and the line of his later incarnations.

Pelden Chogdrub spent most of his youth with Gyelwa Pakpa Lha (rgyal ba 'phags pa lha, 1439-1487), the First Pakpa Lha, and gradually became his favorite and one of the main disciples. He is counted as one of the four religious sons of Gyelwa Pakpa Lha and was even known as the second Pakpa Lha among people in the lower region of Dhokham in Eastern Tibet. He received teachings, transmissions, initiations, empowerments, and esoteric instructions of tantric practice and studied for long time under Pakpa Lha, and became a great scholar especially of the Guhyasamaja Tantra. A recorded conversation on the crucial points of Guhyasamaja between Gyelwa Pakpa Lha and Pelden Chigdrub is preserved in the Collected Works of Gyelwa Pakpa Lha.

Gyelwa Pakpa Lha is known to have established a large number of monasteries and retreat hermitages across Southeastern and Eastern Tibet, and Pelden Chogdrub was instrumental in arranging materials for making a great many statues and other religious objects. Prior to his death Pakpa Lha appointed Pelden Chogdrub to the abbacy of several of the new monasteries, giving him verbal and written instructions regarding their administration. After the nirvana of Gyelwa Pakpa Lha, Pelden Chogdrub arranged for the construction of a huge statue of Maitriya at Demola Monastery in Kongpo (kong po bde mo la dgon), one of the monasteries that Gyelwa Pakpa Lha had founded. The fascinating golden statue was built within its own temple that was famous for its golden roof.

Among Pelden Chogdrub's compositions are: Outlines of the Oral Transmission of Heruka (bde mchog snyan drgud kyi sa bcad), and Sadhana of Vādisiṃha Mañjughoṣa ('jam dbyangs smra seng gi sgrub thabs).

Pelden Chogdrub died the age of seventy in 1523, the water-sheep year of the ninth sexagenary cycle, in the lower part of Dhokham. It was said that he was initially reborn as a young tantric practitioner on the border area of India and Nepel but no recognition was given to that child; nineteen years after his passing, in 1543, the water-hare year of the ninth sexagenary cycle, a boy was born in Tatak in Kongpo (kong po mtha' stag) who was identified as the Second Zhiwa Lha. This was Sanggye Jungne (zhi ba lha 02 sangs rgyas 'byung gnas, 1543-1620).

Sources

Anonymous. 1986. Bod kyi lo rgyus rig gnas dpyad gzhi'i rgyu cha gdams bsgrigs. Beijing: Mi rigs dpe skrun khang. Vol. 9, pp 193-94.

Byams pa chos grags. N.d. Chab mdo byams pa gling gi gdan rabs. Chamdo: Chab mdo par 'debs bzo grwa par btab, pp. 263-264.

Samten Chhosphel
July 2010