Anam Jadralwa Chöying Püntsok

As one of Düdjom Lingpa’s youngest and most devoted protogés, Anam Jadralwa Chöying Püntsok devoted his life to secluded mountain retreat. At the time of his passing, he manifested signs of a partial rainbow body (jalü), culminating his realization in accord with the practices of Dzogchen.

A Lama of Golok’s Hor Clan

Anam Jadral Chöying Püntsok’s extraordinary life began in the earth-sheep year, 1859, in Golok’s Mar Chu Valley. His father, Kéchok Dorjé, belonged to the Anam clan, a prominent sub-division of the larger Horkok clan that dominated the mid-section of the Mar Chu Valley. His mother, Gumda Za Tsépo, came from the Gumda clan, a semi-nomadic group that formed part of the larger Golok clan confederation.

At birth he was given the name Chöying Püntsok; only later would he become known as Anam Lama or Anam Jadral, in reference to his spiritual proclivities. Owing to the modest circumstances of his biological parents, he was offered at a young age to an elderly childless couple of the Horkok clan. Raised within a prosperous and socially influential household—his adoptive father being closely related to the Horkok chieftain—Anam Jadral grew up in markedly different conditions from those of his birth family.

In keeping with the customs of the time, the adoption carried clear social expectations. He was to care for his adoptive parents in their later years and to assume the responsibilities of a householder: to marry advantageously, to prosper in trade or pastoral enterprise, and to safeguard the political and economic interests of the clan. As Anam Thubten, Anam Jadral’s direct incarnation, adds; ‘This was the philosophy of Golok. If you were a real man, you had to build your life around defending your loved ones and subduing your enemies. This idea of being a productive member of society is a basic human principle.’ These obligations would later stand in quiet tension with the contemplative vocation that came to define Anam Jadral’s life.

A Compassionate Child

From early childhood, Anam Jadral was unlike other children. His karmic tendencies from previous lives endowed him with the qualities of a pure practitioner and he was naturally inclined toward the Vajrayana path. Intelligent and deeply compassionate, Anam Jadral was noted for his unusual tenderness toward living beings. He refrained from eating meat and always sought to protect animals whenever possible. Rather than adopting the customary Golok attire of fur and sheepskin, he dressed simply, wearing garments fashioned from cotton and felt.

He also demonstrated abilities that drew the attention of his community. One day, his adoptive parents worried that their herd was yielding too little milk to produce butter and cheese. To ease their worries, Anam Jadral undertook the task of milking their dri (female yaks)—an activity rarely assigned to boys in Golok at that time. The milk soon flowed in astonishing abundance. ‘This child is no ordinary being’, his parents reportedly remarked; ‘He possesses miraculous powers.’

In his pre-teen years, Anam Jadral excelled in reading religious scriptures. As he slowly gained renown, he was invited to surrounding villages and local nomadic encampments to perform ritual services. In all those places, he was credited with healing the sick and removing obstacles, establishing at a young age a pattern of compassionate activity that would characterize his later life

Several decades ago, in recognition of Anam Jadral’s lifelong spiritual accomplishments, Tertön Jikmé Dorjé—also known as Gönpa Tulku Lhatsam (1956–2019), the third throne-holder of Mardo Tashi Gakyil—later composed a brief biographical account identifying several of his previous incarnations. These included Ananda, the Buddha’s cousin and devoted personal attendant; Gyalwa Jangchub, one of Guru Rinpoché’s twenty-five principal disciples and among the first seven Tibetans to receive monastic ordination; and the seventeenth-century tertön Jatsön Nyingpo (1585–1656), renowned for revealing the Könchok Chidü cycle and for composing the earliest néyik, or guidebook, to the hidden land of Pemakö.

Unwavering Trust in Düdjom Lingpa

The Mar Chu Valley, where Anam Jadral was born, had long been a stronghold of the Nyingma tradition’s Katok lineage, whose institutional center was established in 1159 at Katok Dorjé Den monastery in Kham. By the nineteenth century, the valley was especially associated with the terma lineages of Rigdzin Düdul Dorjé (1615–1672) and Longsal Nyingpo (1625–1692), whose revealed cycles formed the basis of local ritual and contemplative life.

Two years prior to Anam Jadral’s birth, in 1857, a dakini’s prophecy directed the twenty-two-year-old Düdjom Lingpa to the Mar Chu Valley, where he would remain for the next twenty-three years. Around the same time, a dream vision of Guru Rinpoché indicated that he would encounter many karmically destined disciples there. These converging prophetic signs framed the Mar Chu period as foundational for Düdjom Lingpa’s activity as a tertön.

During his early years in the Mar Chu region, Düdjom Lingpa revealed a succession of daknang—‘pure vision’ teachings—which quickly drew disciples from several of the region’s tribal groups. His relationship with the Horkok clan proved particularly strong, and they came to regard him as their principal religious authority. Two young monks from the clan—Hor Püntsok Tashi (1835–1893) and Horla Pema Tashi (c.1840–1890s)—assisted Düdjom Lingpa in recording his termas and oral teachings and are counted among his first six formally named disciples.

Anam Jadral established a formal dharma connection with Düdjom Lingpa around 1871, at the early age of twelve. This coincided with the founding of Düdjom Lingpa’s principal seat of activity at Puklung Gékyi Latok, a dharma encampment located beneath an imposing mountain at a bend in the Mar Chu that later known as Mardo Tashi Chöling. Supported by the Horkok clan, the monastery became the focal point of their religious life and a center for the dissemination of Düdjom Lingpa’s termas.

Between 1871 and 1880, Anam Jadral received an extensive cycle of empowerments, reading transmissions, teachings, and Dzogchen pith instructions from Düdjom Lingpa, until he was said to be ‘like a vase filled to the brim’. During that time, Anam Jadral resided in a small hut that stood beside one used by Düdjom Lingpa himself, both huts separated from the monastery by a small stream. Despite his youth, Anam Jadral devoted himself earnestly to the practices of Trekchö and Tögal, cultivating an unshakable faith in Düdjom Lingpa as his root guru. While maintaining respect for all Buddhist lineages, Anam Jadral resolved to concentrate exclusively on Düdjom Lingpa’s revealed teachings, intent on actualizing them through sustained practice.

In 1880, when Anam Jadral was twenty-one, Düdjom Lingpa heeded a long-standing prophecy directing him to leave the Mar Chu Valley and return to his birthplace in the Ser Chu region. Many of his Mar Chu disciples accompanied him and established a new Dzogchen community known as Lama Rung. Anam Jadral, however, remained at Mardo Tashi Chöling and, according to lineage accounts, never again encountered his root teacher in person.

Following Düdjom Lingpa’s departure, leadership of Mardo Tashi Chöling passed to one of his foremost disciples, Gönpa Lama Chökyi Dorjé (1847–1908), who renamed the monastery Mardo Tashi Gakyil. A powerful tertön in his own right, Gönpa Lama—known in the context of his revelations as Rigdzin Déshek Lingpa—revealed a wrathful Guru Rinpoché practice entitled Shintu Sangwa Guru Draktrö, ‘Extremely Secret Ferocious Guru’, and identified Anam Jadral as the prophesied chödak, or doctrine holder, of the cycle. Anam Jadral undertook sustained practice of the sadhana until he received the signs of accomplishment. Through this practice, together with ritual invocations of Dorjé Drölo and Tröma Nakmo that Anam Jadral had learned from Düdjom Lingpa, he gained the mental power to smash rocks and wither trees.

A Hermit of Tak Yak Ri

Although Düdjom Lingpa trained many monks and nuns—some of whom attained the highest realizations—he had received early visions and prophecies indicating that his most consequential disciples would be non-ordained, long-haired yogins rather than institutional monastics. Anam Jadral exemplified this prophecy. Neither monk nor householder, he followed instead the path of a jadralwa: a wandering yogi with neither fixed abode nor formal ecclesiastical status, who relinquishes the eight worldly concerns of praise and blame, gain and loss, comfort and discomfort, and relevance and obscurity.

In keeping with his chosen vocation, Anam Jadral owned no property and maintained a strict vow not to reside in towns or monasteries. He moved between isolated sites throughout the Mar Chu region, subsisting on simple food and clothing and devoting himself entirely to contemplative practice. He was known for sitting upright through the night, supported by his gomtak (meditation belt), and forgoing the comfort of lying down to sleep—an ascetic discipline in accord with his advanced yogic resolve.

During a brief period of illness, Anam Jadral returned to his native Horkok clan, but he soon resumed solitary practice in remote locations to bring Düdjom Lingpa’s terma teachings to fruition. Eventually, he established himself in a stone hermitage overlooking the Mar Chu and the paired rock formations of Chaktsé Tak Yak (‘Tiger and Yak’), revered as the dwelling place of protector spirits in the retinue of the regional mountain god, Yungdrung Chaktsé (deity).

This site, which is located on Tak, already held significance within Düdjom Lingpa’s own life story: when he first arrived in the Mar Chu Valley in 1857, he encountered a bridal procession there and was offered a bowl of chang (fermented barley beer), a sign he interpreted as confirming his destiny as a non-ordained householder yogin.

The prayer-flag-draped cliffs of Chaktsé Tak Yak were regarded locally as a threshold to the abode of Yungdrung Chaktsé. When Anam Jadral announced his intention to establish a hermitage high above the river, villagers cautioned him that no water source existed nearby. According to local sources, Anam Jadral summoned a small spring to flow from the earth that supplied him with fresh water. Although after his passing the spring eventually dried up, stones marking the site remain a reminder of Anam Jadral’s influence over natural phenomena.

Despite his preference for seclusion, Anam Jadral’s familial connections to his Horkok clan led to him becoming the clan’s principal lama after Düdjom Lingpa’s departure from the Mar Chu Valley in 1880. The Horkok placed unwavering trust and faith in Anam Jadral, visiting him for spiritual guidance and instruction as well as ritual services.

Toward the end of his life, Anam Jadral rarely left his hermitage and retreat. However, at the request of the Horkok chieftain, he presided over the clan’s annual summer ceremonies honoring the region’s protector deities. These gatherings drew hundreds of participants to the slopes of Rizi Mountain, where Anam Jadral conducted rites of Mahakala, Dorjé Phurba (Skt. Vajrakilaya), and Tara to dispel illness, avert hostile forces, and secure communal prosperity. Each year, Anam Jadral complied with the elders of the tribe’s request to oversee these communal events. Apart from these occasions, he remained largely in seclusion, accompanied only by a small circle of committed practitioners.

Among these was Lama Tsüllo, also known as Tsültrim Gyatso, who later became a direct disciple of Düdjom Lingpa’s heart-son Apang Tertön Pawo Chöying Dorjé (c.1894–1945) and guru to Apang Tertön’s daughter, Taré Lhamo (1938–2002). When Lama Tsüllo fell gravely ill as a young child, his family brought him to Anam Jadral’s hermitage above Tak Yak. Anam Jadral instructed him to remain there and perform repeated prostrations as a means of purifying his karma and accumulating merit. Through his proximity to Anam Jadral—who recited healing mantras on his behalf—Lama Tsüllo fully recovered. Before his departure, Anam Jadral gave him a mala, for reciting prayers and mantras, which was eventually carried off by a raven, a sign interpreted as an admonition to remain free of material attachments. Lama Tsüllo subsequently adopted the life of a jadralwa, modeling himself on his teacher.

Prior to leaving the Mar Chu Valley, Düdjom Lingpa had warned Anam Jadral that latent karmic obstacles might arise during his lifetime. He advised that these could be fully averted if, at some point in his life, Anam Jadral were able to travel to Gang Rinpoché (Mount Kailash) in western Tibet––a sacred mountain in Bön, Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain traditions––and practice Dzogchen there. Düdjom Lingpa assured him that such a journey would guarantee the dissolution of his material form into a rainbow body (jalü) at the time of death, the consummation of the Dzogchen path.

At one point, Anam Jadral expressed his intention to undertake this journey, but the Horkok chieftain and elders implored him to remain. ‘If you travel so far’, they pleaded, ‘we might never see you again. We would be left without a refuge.’ Out of loyalty to his clan, Anam Jadral relinquished his plan to go to Kailash and continued his mountainside retreat above Tak Yak. It was at this time that he became renowned as Anam Jadral, ‘Anam who is free from activity’, and as Anam Tsétsam, ‘Anam who spends his whole life in retreat’.

Toward the end of his life, he left his hermitage above Chaktsé Tak Yak and traveled downriver to a place known as Peltang, where he resumed practice while living in a yak-hair tent. There, unifying the stages of kyérim (generation) and dzogrim (completion, meditation that focusses on the generation of the deity and its dissolution into basic space), and suffusing his realization with unconditional compassion (bodhicitta), he is said to have gained complete mastery over his inner anatomy of channels, winds, and subtle essences. In this way, Anam Jadral attained the state of a Rigpa Dzinpa, ‘a holder of awareness’ (Vidyadhara), bringing to fruition the path transmitted to him by Düdjom Lingpa.

Miraculous Activities

Accounts of Anam Jadral’s clairvoyant ability to perceive formless realms circulated widely during his lifetime and continue to be transmitted among practitioners today. These narratives consistently situate this capacity within his intimate relationship with Yungdrung Chaktsé, the powerful protector deity whose mountain abode dominates the Horkok clan’s ancestral territory and rises in the vicinity of Anam Jadral’s hermitage above Chaktsé Tak Yak.

While living on the Tak ‘gatekeeper’ mountain, Anam Jadral would consistently witness deceased members of the Horkor community passing through Yungdrung Chaktsé’s domain as they traversed the bardos, the intermediate stages between death and rebirth. He often said, ‘All who die in my Horkok clan pass through the realm of Yungdrung Chaktsé.’ Such accounts reinforced the local understanding of Anam Jadral as a mediator between visible and invisible dominions, capable of perceiving the subtle trajectories of consciousness beyond ordinary sensory limits.

Another frequently cited episode concerns his compassionate intervention when he and his disciples––while sitting in a field outside his hermitage––observed a wolf poised to attack and kill a deer. Anam Jadral angrily rebuked the wolf, who abruptly froze in its tracks while the deer escaped. This incident, like many others attributed to him, was interpreted as the spontaneous expression of his realization and compassion.

A more complex narrative concerns a conflict that occurred in 1905, when horse thieves from Wangchen Bum—one of Golok’s three historical divisions—stole horses belonging to Gönpa Lama Chökyi Dorjé ––Düdjom Lingpa’s heart disciple and successor at Mardo Tashi Gakhyil [formerly Mardo Tashi Chöling]—and took them to the Upper Mar Chu Valley. Enraged monk-disciples invoked wrathful chökyong (dharmapalas) and hurled a weaponized ritual effigy (torzor) in the direction that the thieves had fled.

Anam Jadral told his students that he had seen the unintended consequences of the monks’ action in a vision. ‘Local spirits of the Mar Chu Valley were gathering in the foothills of Rizi Ngulgö Barwa (‘Blazing Silver Peak’) and were accidentally impacted by the magical weapon, as if an arrow had been shot from Mardo Tashi Gakhyil. A grey-garbed spirit snatched the missile, tied three knots into it, and sent it back to Mardo Tashi Gakhyil.

Recognizing the grave imbalance this event had provoked, Anam Jadral foretold, ‘It is likely that Gönpa Lama Chökyi Dorjé will die within three years.’ This prophecy was fulfilled in 1908, as Gönpa Lama passed away at the age of only sixty-one, further establishing Anam Jadral’s reputation for unerring insight into karmic causality and the unseen consequences of ritual action.

On another occasion, Anam Jadral was credited with saving the lives of two daughters of the Horkok clan’s Lala family––relatives of his disciple Lama Tsullo––who were attending a cham dance festival at Akyong Yartang Monastery in the lower Mar Chu Valley while their father went to visit Anam Jadral at his hermitage above Tak Yak. While conversing with the girls’ father, Anam Jadral’s expression suddenly changed and he said, ‘Your daughters are in great danger. I need to do prayers at once!’ He fell silent, and then, after some time, said, ‘It’s okay now, they are free from the obstacle.’ When the daughters returned home, they recounted that a big brawl had broken out at the lama dance. ‘Someone grabbed a knife and ran towards us,’ they said, ‘but other people suddenly intervened and resolved the quarrel, so we were safe.’

Anam Jadral was also widely regarded as a healer. Many sought him out following illness, injury, or violent encounters. Fighting and armed disputes within lay communities were common occurrences at that time. As Anam Thubten explains, ‘Men had actual duels, just like in the Wild West of the United States. On one occasion, two Golok warriors, Taktse Tuden and Drong Longlo, who had been gravely wounded in a sword fight, were brought before Anam Jadral and were healed through his recitation of powerful mantras.’

Manifesting a Partial Rainbow Body

Toward the end of his life, while residing at Peltang, Anam Jadral gradually lost his eyesight and relied on an attendant to prepare his tea and meals. He attributed this blindness to his failure to follow Düdjom Lingpa’s instruction to undertake Dzogchen practice at Mount Kailash. ‘My root lama told me that if I could go to Mount Kailash, all obstacles would be pacified’, he reportedly said. ‘Because I did not go, I was unable to dispel this obstacle.’

On a summer day in 1930, at the age of seventy-one, Anam Jadral addressed his assembled disciples, reminding them of impermanence and announcing that he would soon pass into the dharmakaya, his mind’s ultimate reality. Reflecting on his life of practice, he told them that although he had been unable to travel to Mount Kailash or benefit beings on a vast scale, he nevertheless expected to attain the rainbow body at the time of death. He instructed his disciples to leave his body undisturbed in his tent for seven days after his passing, cautioning them explicitly not to enter or interfere.

Following his death, Anam Jadral entered tukdam, the post-mortem meditative absorption of a realized practitioner who abides in the recognition of clear-light awareness as it reunites with the primordial ground (zhi ösal). However, before the seven-day period had elapsed, Anam Sönam—Anam Jadral’s cousin— and Anam Söko—the disciplinarian (gekö) at Mardo Tashi Gakyil––appeared and reputedly said; ‘This so-called rainbow body may never actually happen. If we leave his corpse here any longer, it may decay, bringing disgrace to our family and all his devotees. It is time to cremate the body.’

Ignoring the pleas of Anam Jadral’s devotees, Anam Sönam entered the tent together with several lamas, including Tulku Nangsel Dorjé, a son of Gönpa Lama Chökyi Dorjé. They discovered that Anam Jadral’s body had diminished in size to that of a newborn infant. So light was it that Anam Söko was able to lift it with one hand. The body was hastily covered and the tent resealed, shielding the sight from those who had gathered outside.

This intervention ran counter to Anam Jadral’s explicit instructions. He had intended, uninterrupted, to fully dissolve his material form into rainbow light, the ultimate essence of the five primordial elements of earth, water, fire, air, and space. When word spread, the local community accused Anam Söko of having disrupted Anam Jadral’s manifestation of a rainbow body (jälü) – a marvel that they believed would have brought immeasurable blessings and long-term benefits throughout the region.

Nonetheless, the dramatic shrinking of Anam Jadral’s body was widely accepted as evidence of the accomplishment of a small rainbow body (jälü chung ngu), indicating the reintegration of his five constituent elements—flesh, blood, metabolic heat, breath, and consciousness—into their luminous source, the culmination of the Dzogchen path.

After the cremation of his kudung, or sacred remains, and the completion of funerary rites at Peltang, the Horkor chieftain oversaw the construction of a stupa at the site, which became an enduring focus of devotion. The stupa remained as an object of worship for three decades, until its arbitrary destruction in the 1960s, during the Maoist Cultural Revolution. When conditions moderated during the 1990s, local people of Golok rebuilt the original stupa and added additional ones, as well as extensive walls of mantra-carved mani stones.

In the 2020s, as Anam Jadral’s reconstructed reliquary stupa began to deteriorate, several lamas from Golok—headed by Anam Thubten—encased the entire structure in copper to ensure its enduring presence. It remains a sacred place of pilgrimage for those seeking blessings and solace from the lineage of the Düdjom Tersar.

A living embodiment of pure devotion

Throughout his life, Anam Jadral remained a living embodiment of pure devotion to his guru Düdjom Lingpa. In the 1980s, Gönpa Trülku Lhatsam Jikmé Dorjé (1956–2019), the third head of Mardo Tashi Gakyil, formally recognized Anam Thubten (b. 1968) as an emanation of Anam Jadral and as a principal lineage holder of Düdjom Lingpa’s teachings.

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