Akyong Gyakor Jadral Jangchup Dorjé

As the foremost terdak (terma custodian) of of Düdjom Lingpa’s miraculously conceived son, Apang Tertön Orgyen Trinlé Lingpa (1895–1945), Akyong Gyakor Jadral Jangchup Dorjé played a pivotal role in preserving and transmitting this lineage. He eventually transmitted the teachings entrusted to him to Apang Tertön’s next reincarnation, Sakya Kyabgön Gongma Trichen (b. 1945), the forty-first Sakya Trizin and former head of the Sakya tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.

A Terdak of Apang Tertön

Akyong Gyakor Jadral Jangchup Dorjé was born around 1925 into the Gyakor Tsang (family) of the Akyong clan, one of the principal tribal communities of Golok. From a young age he trained under Apang Tertön Orgyen Trinlé Lingpa (1895–1945), also known as Pawo Chöying Dorjé and Orgyen Drodül Lingpa, who was a miraculously conceived son of Düdjom Lingpa who became one of the most celebrated Nyingma tertöns of twentieth-century eastern Tibet. He was renowned for his extraordinary abilities, including his witnessed capacity to pass through solid objects, such as rock.

Jadral Jangchup Dorjé’s connection with Apang Tertön was foretold by the wisdom ḍakini Dorjé Pakmo (Vajravarahi) in Dorjé Pakmo Gyüdpé Debter (‘Record of the Transmission of Dorjé Pakmo). The prophecy describes a man of short stature and powerful build, quick-minded and short-tempered, sparing in speech, serious in demeanor, diligent, and inclined toward renunciation. He would bear a rabbit-shaped mark on his left breast and a black mole on his shoulder. This man, the prophecy declares, would become the terdak (‘terma custodian’) of a vast body of profound terma teachings. Born from the innermost heart essence of lineage holders, he would, provided auspicious circumstances remained undisturbed, become ‘a sun that benefits beings’, dispelling darkness throughout the four continents and leading those connected with him to Péma Ösal ('The Lotus Land of Clear Light').

Deeply devoted to his root teacher, Jadral Jangchup Dorjé requested Apang Tertön to compose a supplication through which he could invoke his teacher’s presence even after his death. Apang Tertön responded with the following prayer:

‘Pawo Chöying Dorjé [Apang Tertön], you are inseparable from Orgyen Péma Jungné [Guru Rinpoché], Mahasiddha Thangtong Gyalpo, and Vajrapaṇi [Lord of Secrets]. I pray that you dispel all outer and inner obstacles, so that I may actualize the clear-light nature of mind, recognize the dream-like nature of all perceptions, and perfect the realization of Kadak Trekchö and Lhundrub Tögal. Bless me that I may spontaneously accomplish the twofold benefit of myself and others.’

Shortly before his death in 1945, when Jadral Jangchup Dorjé was approximately twenty years old, Apang Tertön foretold the circumstances of his own rebirth:

‘Ah ho! The time has come for this appearance to pass to the other world. Since I have power over death, I will pass away on the Tenth Day. Since I have power over birth, I will be reborn as Sakya Gongma [the supreme head of the Sakya lineage]. Since I have power over entry, I will enter the noble Khön family [the hereditary family of the Sakya hierarchs]. Since I have power over aspiration, I will revive all declining dharmas. Through the enlightened intention of Guru Rinpoché—the embodiment of the immortal vajra body and the power of truth—I will adorn the world with the radiance of the excellent major and minor marks in the Year of the Wood Bird [1945]. I will dispel the obstacles to life and fulfill the wishes and purposes of the future.’

Apang Tertön further instructed Jadral Jangchup Dorjé that when his next incarnation reached the age of seventeen—thus, in 1962—he was to transmit to him all the terma empowerments, transmissions, and teachings that Apang Tertön had revealed to Jadral Jangchup Dorjé during his own lifetime.

The teachings revealed by Apang Tertön constitute a prolific corpus traditionally preserved as the Apang Tertön Zabter Sungbum. His revelations encompass inner tantric practices of deities, protectors sadhanas, Dzogchen instructions, and a wide range of ritual practices, including Orgyen Norlha prosperity rites and practices associated with Vajrakilaya and Drölma Marmo (Red Tara). The corpus reflects both the breadth of Apang Tertön’s revealed tradition and the distinctive emphasis he placed on direct realization and the dynamic expression of awakened awareness.

Among his principal terma cycles are the widely transmitted Marpo Lha Chu Sum (‘The Thirteen Red Deities’), extensive practices of the Three Roots—Lama, Yidam and Khandro—and numerous protector practices. His revelations also include several cycles of Dzogchen teachings concerning the direct recognition of primordial awareness, extending beyond the conventional framework of the generation and completion stages of Vajrayana practice.

As one of the principal custodians of Apang Tertön’s terma corpus, together with members of Apang Tertön’s family, including his daughter Khandro Taré Lhamo (1938–2002), Jadral Jangchup Dorjé assumed responsibility for preserving, organizing, transmitting, and embodying his teacher’s revealed teachings. His own students subsequently carried these transmissions throughout eastern Tibet, establishing a network of practitioners and lineage holders that remained active during the turbulent decades preceding the Chinese Communist takeover of Tibet in 1959.

A Student of Dzongter Kunzang Nyima

Following Apang Tertön’s passing in 1945, Jadral Jangchup Dorjé continued his training with Dzongter Kunzang Nyima (1904–1958), the sole son of Khyentsé Trülku Dzamling Wangyal (1868–1907), Düdjom Lingpa’s fourth child and later recognized as his speech incarnation.

From Dzongter Kunzang Nyima, Jadral Jangchup Dorjé received the complete cycle of empowerments, oral transmissions, and pith instructions of the Düdjom Tersar lineage, including both the teachings revealed by Düdjom Lingpa himself and the extensive body of terma subsequently revealed by Dzongter Kunzang Nyima.

Travels in Kham and Central Tibet

During his mid-twenties, Jadral Jangchup Dorjé continued his studies and spiritual practice in Kham, where he visited the monasteries of Katok Dorjé Den and Dzongsar Tashi Lhatsé. There he received empowerments and teachings from Jamyang Khyentsé Chökyi Lodrö (1893–1959), one of the most eminent Tibetan masters of the twentieth century. From Kham, he continued his pilgrimage to sacred sites throughout central Tibet.

Fleeing Tibet and Settling in Bhutan

During the 1950s, political turmoil intensified across the Tibetan plateau as the presence and military control of Communist Chinese forces expanded, profoundly disrupting the religious and social institutions of Tibet. Jadral Jangchub Dorjé was consequently unable to travel to Sakya Monastery in central Tibet to meet the young Sakya Trizin, Ngawang Kunga Thegchen Palbar Trinlé Samphel Wangyi Gyalpo (b. 1945), whom Apang Tertön had foretold would be his next incarnation and who had been designated as the future Sakya Trizin in 1951 and preliminarily enthroned in early 1952.

Instead, following the widespread upheaval of 1959, Jadral Jangchub Dorjé was compelled to flee Tibet with thousands of other Tibetans. Evading Chinese troops, he crossed the snow-covered mountain passes of southern Tibet and entered the Himalayan Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan, initially settling in the upper Kuri Chu valley in Kurtö, not far from the Tibetan frontier.

Kurtö, now corresponding broadly to Lhuntsé Dzongkhag, was far from a peripheral corner of Bhutan. Historically situated along routes linking Tibet with the interior valleys of Bhutan, it developed as an important center of Buddhist practice and pilgrimage, with religious connections extending westward toward Bumthang and eastward into the wider Himalayan world. The region possesses an unusually rich Nyingma sacred geography, including Sengé Dzong, the ‘Lion Fortress’, a high-altitude sacred site near the Tibetan frontier. Guru Rinpoché visited Sengé Dzong in the eighth century and subdued a powerful local demon king there. Guru Rinpoché’s Tibetan consort, Khandro Yéshé Tsogyal, later established Sengé Dzong as a important center for spiritual retreat.

Auspicious Meetings in India

In 1959, at the age of fourteen, Apang Tertön’s reincarnation was formally enthroned as the forty-first Sakya Trizin at Sakya Monastery in Tibet. The three-day enthronement ceremony followed a seven-day Mahakala ritual and was attended by representatives of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama Tendzin Gyatso (b.1935) and the Tibetan Government. Shortly thereafter, as the political and military situation in Tibet deteriorated rapidly, the young Sakya Trizin and his entourage were compelled to leave Sakya. They traveled southward toward Sikkim and subsequently entered India.

In 1962, when the young Sakya Trizin reached the age of seventeen, he gave his first Hevajra initiation in Kalimpong, the Himalayan hill station in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal that had become an important center for Tibetan refugees and Buddhist teachers. Jadral Jangchub Dorjé, who was then living in Bhutan, had intended to travel to Kalimpong to fulfill Apang Tertön’s final instruction: to transmit to his reincarnation the terma empowerments and teachings that Apang had entrusted to him during his lifetime. The journey, however, did not take place, and the anticipated meeting between teacher and reincarnation was delayed.

Jadral Jangchub Dorjé nevertheless soon encountered another of the great figures of the Nyingma tradition in exile. He learned that Düdjom Jigdrel Yéshé Dorjé (1904–1987), the principal lineage holder of Düdjom Lingpa’s teachings in the generation following Apang Tertön, was preparing to travel from Kalimpong to Tso Péma (Rewalsar) in Himachal Pradesh to bestow the Nyingma Gyübum—the collected tantras of the Nyingma tradition—before an immense gathering of practitioners and refugees.

Tso Pema, the ‘Lotus Lake’, is revered as the sacred site where Guru Rinpoché encountered his Indian consort, the princess-yogini Mandarava. In the years following the exodus from Tibet, the lake became one of the important gathering places for the preservation and transmission of Nyingma teachings in exile. In 1962, Düdjom Jikdral Yéshé Dorjé bestowed the Nyingma Gyübum there before an assembly numbering in the thousands.

Jadral Jangchub Dorjé traveled to Tso Péma with other Nyingma practitioners, including Lama Shérab Dorjé and Tsédrub Lama Tharchin (1936–2013). There he received extensive Dzogchen teachings, including Namkha Sum ('The Threefold Sky’ )practice, in which the outer expanse of the sky is employed as a support for recognizing the vast, unobstructed nature of awareness.

While at Tso Pema, Jadral Jangchub Dorjé also met Chagdud Trülku Padma Gargyi Wangchuk (1930–2002), the fourteenth recognized incarnation in the Chagdud lineage. The name Chagdud, meaning ‘iron knot’, is traditionally traced to the extraordinary ability attributed to an early holder of the lineage, who was said to have folded an iron sword into a knot with his bare hands. Chagdud Trülku’s mother, Délok Dawa Drolma, was widely regarded as an emanation of Drolma (Tara), and Drolma practice had been an important part of his spiritual life from an early age.

Jadral Jangchub Dorjé recognized that the circumstances were ripe for Chagdud Trülku to receive the Drölma Marpo (Red Tara) cycle of Apang Tertön. He therefore bestowed the requisite empowerments and transmissions upon him. Chagdud Trülku subsequently entered retreat to practice the Drölma Marpo (Red Tara) sadhana, and as recorded in accounts of his life, experienced numerous signs of accomplishment.

This transmission would eventually assume extraordinary importance in the history of Apang Tertön’s lineage. After Chagdud Trülku settled in the West, he transmitted Apang Tertön’s Red Tara practice to large numbers of students, making it one of the most widely practiced elements of the Apang Tertön tradition outside Tibet. His transmission thus extended the lineage that Jadral Jangchub Dorjé had received directly from Apang Tertön into a new cultural world far beyond the Tibetan plateau.

Transmitting Apang Tertön’s Termas to his reincarnation, Sakya Trizin

In 1964, the circumstances that had prevented Jadral Jangchub Dorjé from meeting the reincarnation of his former teacher finally cleared, and he traveled to Tséchen Tenpé Gatsal (‘Garden of the Great Dharma Teachings’) in Rajpur, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India, the principal Sakya monastery in exile that was consecrated on 16 March 1964.

After an arduous overland journey, Jadral Jangchub Dorjé arrived in Rajpur looking like an ordinary, travel-worn pilgrim. He presented himself before Sakya Trizin Ngawang Kunga Thegchen Palbar Trinlé Samphel Wangyi Gyalpo (b. 1945) as the former attendant and disciple of Apang Tertön, whose reincarnation now occupied the Sakya throne. He then conveyed Apang Tertön's final instruction: that Jadral Jangchub Dorjé was to transmit to his reincarnation the terma teachings that had been entrusted to him.

Sakya Trizin immediately recognized the significance of the encounter. He dismissed everyone from the room except his attendant, whom he instructed to prepare a maṇḍala offering for the apparently unassuming visitor. In this private setting, Jadral Jangchub Dorjé transmitted to Sakya Trizin the empowerments, oral transmissions, and instructions of Apang Tertön’s revealed lineage, including the complete Drölma Marpo (Red Tara) cycle. In this way, more than two decades after Apang Tertön’s passing, his principal custodian fulfilled the charge entrusted to him by his teacher and transmitted the teachings to Apang’s prophesied reincarnation.

The transmission was of lasting importance. Sakya biographical sources record that Sakya Trizin received the complete termas of Apang Tertön from Jadral Jangchub Dorjé, while lineage accounts identify Jadral Jangchub Dorjé as the principal custodian responsible for carrying Apang Tertön's teachings to his reincarnation.

Return to Bhutan and Sengé Dzong

After his sojourn in India, Jadral Jangchub Dorjé returned to the Kurtö region of Bhutan and took up residence at Sengé Dzong, the high-altitude ‘Lion Fortress’ and sacred site associated with the enlightened activity of Guru Rinpoché and his Tibetan consort, Yeshé Tsogyal.

Following Jadral Jangchub Dorjé's arrival, members of two Kurtö manor houses undertook the renovation of the shingled roof of Gawa Dzong, the temple at Sengé Dzong dedicated to the eight manifestations of Guru Rinpoché, as well as the neighboring Beyül Rongmo Teng Lhakhang (‘Temple of Upper Rongmo in the Hidden Land’). To raise funds for the annual offerings at the temples of Sengé Dzong, a maniwa, a practitioner who traditionally recites mantras, carried the principal treasure object of Nyalam Dung Naktshang—a sacred image of Guru Rinpoché in his ‘lake-born’ form, Tsokyé Dorjé—on his back through the villages of the upper and lower Kuri Chu valley, displaying it to the local population. Half of the offerings thus collected were dedicated to the performance of tsok, or tantric feast offerings, at Sengé Dzong.

The extensive pastures surrounding Sengé Dzong supported large herds of yaks and cattle. For two years, Jadral Jangchub Dorjé was permitted to make use of these resources for his sustenance. Düdjom Jikdral Yeshé Dorjé subsequently advised him to establish a retreat center at Sengé Dzong in order to provide a more permanent source of spiritual guidance for Bhutan’s populace. Jadral Jangchub Dorjé therefore approached the governor of Lhuntse Dzong with a proposal to establish a retreat center. His request was warmly received, on the condition that he himself would serve as its retreat master.

Jadral Jangchub Dorjé accordingly became the principal lama responsible for guiding meditation retreats and providing ongoing spiritual instruction at Sengé Dzong. The teachings he transmitted drew upon the traditions he had received directly from Apang Tertön, as well as from Dzongter Kunzang Nyima, the grandson of Düdjom Lingpa who was recognized as Düdjom Lingpa’s speech incarnation.

Over time, Jadral Jangchub Dorjé helped formalize the religious administration of Sengé Dzong, registering its temples and pasturelands under the authority of the monastic community of Lhuntse Dzong. The monastic community in the Kurtö valley has continued to appoint the head lamas of Sengé Dzong and to oversee the maintenance of its temples.

Jadral Jangchub Dorjé later spent thirteen years as the head lama of Kurtö Takmo Chu Né Gon (‘Sacred Site of the Female Tigress River’) in the Kurtö valley. There he established an additional temple, Thrima Lhakhang, which continues to preserve and transmit teachings from the traditions he received from Apang Tertön and other masters of the Düdjom Tersar.

Death and Legacy

Jadral Jangchub Dorjé passed away in 2000, on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Iron Male Dragon Year. As the terdak, or principal custodian of Apang Tertön’s revealed teachings, he played a pivotal role in preserving and transmitting the visionary legacy of one of Düdjom Lingpa’s most important successors.

Jadral Jangchub Dorjé was not, however, the sole custodian of Apang Tertön’s legacy. His daughter, Khandro Taré Lhamo (1938–2002), and his three sons were also among the principal disciples and custodians of his revealed teachings. Through this combination of familial transmission, direct discipleship, and dedicated terma custodianship, Apang Tertön’s revelations survived the destruction and dispersal of the Tibetan religious world and continued to flourish in Tibet, Bhutan, India, and beyond.

Caduta

Jadral Jangchub Dorjé’s lifestory illustrates one of the essential dynamics of the terma tradition: revealed teachings survive not simply through texts, but through the living continuity of transmission from master to disciple, from custodian to lineage holder, and, in Jadral Jangchub Dorjé’s case, from a tertön to his prophesied reincarnation. Through Jadral Jangchub Dorjé, the visionary inheritance of Apang Tertön—and through him, the living legacy of Düdjom Lingpa—was carried across one of the most turbulent periods in Tibetan history into a new generation and a wider world.

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