Golok
In the cradle of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, where earth and sky unite in perpetual embrace, lies Golok—an ancient land shaped by the monumental forces of primordial elements. This land, born from the collision of colossal tectonic plates, carries the legacy of a seismic upheaval that lifted the mountains and carved valleys, creating a landscape of spectacular grandeur. The plateau’s vastness is punctuated by shimmering lakes, sinuous rivers, and rugged, snow-clad peaks, while the heat of the sun enlivens its undulating grasslands. Air here is sharp and clear, with winds that have circulated for millennia. The sky above is a vast blue vault that spawns both dreams and visions.
Wind through the Mountains (Prologue)
The mountain ranges that rise and fold through Golok are testimony to primeval collision and relentless uplift, remnants of the geomorphic forces that forged this remote, high-altitude terrain. It was once the seabed of the primeval Sea of Theysus—serene and vast—deluged with water and teeming with life. As tectonic plates pressed and collided, the ocean was forcibly drained away, leaving behind a rugged, water-carved landscape of lakes and rivers that embody the interactions of water, wind, rock, and sun. Golok’s refer to this territory as ‘Star Country’, in reference to the inland seas and lakes that appear ‘like constellations of stars in the sky.’[1] These waters, fed by melting glaciers and mountain snow, are the lifeblood of Golok’s land, nourishing the sparse but hardy flora that cling to rocky slopes and fertile valleys.
The elemental forces—earth, water, fire, air, and space—continue to define Golok. The thermodynamics of the sun, relentless and powerful, infuse the land in a luminous glow, warming and awakening the dormant energies within the soil and ice. Winds sweep across the high-altitude plains, carrying intimations of distant lands, currents of air alternatingly fierce and gentle, shaping the moods of the landscape and its human and non-human inhabitants. The spacious sky, blue and boundless, acts as a celestial mirror—reflecting the inner visions of those who came to dwell in this primordial territory, whether as rebels, refugees, or spiritual adepts. It’s in this vast expanse of sky that the Tibetans of Golok have long perceived omens, shapes, and symbols—visions born not just in clouds but in the indeterminant form of space itself.
The people who came to inhabit Golok—Golokpas—have, for countless generations, been woven into the fabric of this elemental landscape. Their ancestors, Tibetans and Mongols, arrived and adapted to the demanding climate and terrain, forging a way of life rooted in reverence for the natural forces that surrounded and sustained them. They became guardians of the land, intimately merged with the immortal mountain spirits and nature deities who inhabited the land before them, understanding their environment in the context of the five primordial elements. Their nomadic life was defined by resilience: navigating treacherous mountain passes and surging rivers, living in harmony with the unpredictable climate, and honoring the qualities of the land to which they were intimately bound.
‘The land is the vessel of the teachings, and the teachings flow through it like the wind through the mountains.’ — Düdjom Lingpa[2]
Golok’s history is a testament to this resilience. It was a land of shifting allegiances, of small kingdoms and tribal confederations, each contributing to the region’s identity. From the ancient clans that thrived in relative autonomy, to periods of internal discord and external threat, Golok has always held within it a potent spirit of independence. The land lay at the periphery of established trade routes and corridors bridging Tibet with Central Asia and China. But with the encroachment of modern nation-states and political upheaval in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Golok’s landscape, its people, and its traditions faced profound change.
By the 1950s, the winds of history had blown strongly through Golok—reflecting struggles between tradition and modernity, autonomy and external control. The land, once a sacred bastion of elemental harmony, found itself slipping into sociopolitical strife, challenging the enduring spirit of its highland communities that gazed up at the immeasurable azure sky and saw within it both their origins and their aspirations. It was in this landscape and cultural context that the terma revelations of Düdjom Lingpa emerged in the middle of the nineteenth century to spread through his family and disciples throughout the Himalayan world, and ultimately across the planet. As Düdjom Lingpa reflected in his autobiography, A Clear Mirror, the appearances of this world are without any intrinsic nature, ‘like the reflection of the moon on water.’ He concluded that, ‘the entire range of environments and beings is my own manifestation, without any reality, like a dream.’[3] This book is a testament to the enduring power of Düdjom Lingpa’s, and his progeny’s, visionary and ritual activity during the tumultuous sociopolitical changes that were taking place on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Ultimately, it points to the primordial capacity within all beings to experience the world as fluid, free, and mutable, limited only by delusionally persistent habits of perceptions that seek to convince us otherwise.
A Wild Primeval Beauty (The Land of Golok)
High on the wind-swept plateau of northeastern Tibet, the land of Golok unfolds as wildflower-strewn grasslands, glacier-covered mountains, and crystalline lakes reflecting the region’s vast expansive sky. By traditional accounts, Golok is a landscape not merely inhabited, but revered—where the sacred and the everyday are indivisible. For centuries, the people of Golok lived in close communion with their environment, reading the moods of the mountains like scripture and venerating lakes as the abodes of ancestral spirits. The terrain, both formidable and life-giving, shaped not just livelihoods but identities, fostering a culture rooted in fierce independence and religious fervour. Here, nature was not a backdrop to human life—it was its heart, its rhythm, its breath.
The inhabitants of this land referred to themselves as ‘Golokpa’, the suffix pa indicating their regional identity and golok (mgo log) interpreted as ‘rebellious head’. The etymology reflects Golok’s long-standing reputation for autonomy and defiance—both in terms of political independence from Lhasa-based central authorities and in its renown for producing powerful local chieftains, warrior-ascetics, and charismatic visionary lamas, such as Düdjom Lingpa and his progeny. Over time, Golok came to symbolize a frontier realm where spiritual pursuit and self-determination were deeply interwoven. Neither the Ganden Phodrang, the Tibetan government in Lhasa, nor Chinese political or military influence held sway in Golok prior to the twentieth century. During the life of Düdjom Lingpa, Golok was thus a world apart that largely prevented outsiders from penetrating into their territory while answering only to their own tribal laws. Even by the 1930s, European adventurers regarded Golok as an ‘unapproachable island shut off from the rest of the world.’[4]
Mystic Geography
Located in rugged highlands between the Tibetan provinces of Kham to the south and west and Amdo to the north and east, Golok’s landscape and culture merge in a visionary topography in which deities reside in rocks and water; pristine, aquamarine lakes foretell of future lives; and sky-faring dakinis (Tib. khandroma) emanate as bearded vultures and black-necked cranes to guide the faithful. At an average altitude of 3,500-4,500 meters (ca. 11,500–14,765 ft.) above sea level, Golok is marked by a harsh climate that limits agriculture to small plots of wheat, barley, radishes, and turnips in the region’s lower river valleys while yak, sheep, and high-altitude plants, such as crimson and lilac-coloured poppies (meconopsis punicea and meconopsis barbiseta), thrive in Golok’s otherwise treeless grasslands.[5] Marauding, formerly widespread throughout Eastern Tibet, was a significant source of supplementary income in Golok when animal husbandry and occasional trading with Tibetan and Chinese neighbours proved insufficient.
Chakung Jigme Wangdrak said,
In Golok, the vastness and the purity of the environment naturally strengthens one’s rigpa and makes it naturally blaze!
Today, the term Golok refers to a Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (mgo log bod rigs rang skyong khul) that is administratively part of the Chinese province of Qinghai and borders Sichuan Province to the south.[6] Most Golokpas (people from Golok) continue to subsist as semi-nomadic pastoralists, moving with their herds between the glacier-covered massif of Amnyé Machen and the headwaters of the Ma Chu (Yellow River) in the northern reaches of Golok and the valleys and gorges below the Nyenpo Yutsé mountain range in the southeast.[7] Golokpas revere Nyenpo Yutsé’s majestic rock pinnacles as the place of origin of their nomadic tribes (tsowa or déwa) while the mountain range itself is envisioned as a terrestrial maṇḍala of the tantric Buddhist deity Chakrasamvara, the ‘Wheel of Supreme Bliss’, signifying the transformation of desire and wrath into rapturous compassion and radiant awareness. Golokpas thus perceive their homeland as a sacred domain where the human, natural, and spiritual worlds intermingle and where, from a Buddhist perspective, the illusory nature of all phenomena is seen to arise from a primordial state of being in which geography, myth, and revelation are a single continuum. Emanating in an environment in which human life is inextricably entangled with the elemental and the unseen, Traktung Düdjom Lingpa, the ‘blood-drinking vanquisher of demonic forces’, appeared, in his own words, as ‘beyond the limits of conceptualisation . . . blazing amidst a mass of light . . . dispeller of suffering and sickness.’[8]
The Mountain Gods of Golok
Sacred geography in Golok serves as the basis of its history and culture. Three indigenous deities connected with specific mountains protect the Golok tribes from adverse circumstances while advancing their worldly and spiritual ambitions. Machen Pomra, lord of the towering Amnyé Machen range, is Golok’s most renowned mountain deity and protects Golok’s northern regions in the great bend of the Ma Chu (Yellow River). Nyenpo Yutsé, the deity who presides over a range of granite citadels held to be the birthplace of the Golok tribes in the Bayan Har mountain range, protects the territory in the southeast. Lastly, Yungdrung Chaktsé presides over Golok’s central Mar Chu Valley, protecting what was once the Bönpo-Buddhist realm of Wangchen Bum[9] from invaders while ensuring the prosperity of the region’s inhabitants, livestock, and spiritual traditions.
Machen Pomra, the Lord of the Amnyé Machen Range
In the phrase ‘Sa Golok Nam Golok’ Th[10]e earth is Golok, the sky is Golok, the people of Golok recognized their ancestral homeland as bridging Earth and Sky. They viewed the region’s highest massif, 6,282-meter (20,610 ft) Amnyé Machen – an eastern extension of Khunu Rigyü, or Kunlun Mountain range – as a protecting entity reflecting both Tibetan Buddhist cosmology and indigenous animist beliefs.[11] As a Western explorer wrote in the 1930s, ‘If there is anything at all in the world that is holy to these wild Ngoloks [sic], whose Amazon women are said to be as courageous in battle as their fearless men, then it is this mountain that rises like a threatening ogre turned to ice in the middle of the land where they live.’[12] Schäfer elaborated that Amnyé Machen ‘is the god of the Ngoloks, it is their refuge and their protector. That is why they jealously guard it and strike down all outsiders, whether Tibetan, Mongol, Chinese, or white, before they will yield their greatest holy shrine to the ambitions of fanatic scientists.’[13] He further noted that, ‘all explorers who found themselves in [the mountain’s] vicinity were attacked, robbed or murdered by the Ngoloks [sic].’[14] [Please note that ‘Ngolok’ is a currently outdated word for ‘Golokpa’, i.e., people from Golok.] An example from the time of Düdjom Lingpa concerns a French explorer named M. Dutreuil de Rhins who, in the early 1890’s, was laced in a leather bag and tossed by Golokpas into the Yellow River where he drowned.[15]
The 100-kilometer-long massif of Amnyé Machen, ‘Ancestral Protector of Machen’, rises at the northeastern extremity of the Tibetan Plateau, in a bend of the Yellow River, which is known in Tibet as Ma Chu and defines Golok’s frontier with China. Prior to the Cultural Revolution, as many as ten thousand pilgrims would undertake an annual 180-kilometer circumambulation (kora) of Amnyé Machen’s fourteen snow-capped peaks[16], whether over three days on horseback, over the course of a week on foot, or for more than forty days by prostrating the length of their bodies across bogs and precipitous passes and the snow and moraines of more than fifty glaciers. The yearly pilgrimage was viewed as an intimate communion with the mountain’s indwelling territorial god (yul lha), Machen Pomra, ‘Great Sovereign Spirit of Machen’, who guards the Golok clans’ livelihood and spiritual wellbeing and protects against invasions and natural disasters. Obstacles encountered on the arduous journey through Amnyé Machen’s outer and inner terrain were viewed as thresholds to deeper realities in which landscape and spiritual experience converged.
Düdjom Lingpa developed a special connection with the protector deity Machen Pomra and composed practices that invoked and honored him. On different occasions in the early 1900s, Düdjom Lingpa’s son Tulku Drimé Özer and his consort Déwé Dorjé, later known as Sera Khandro, traveled from Serta, to the southwest of Golok, to Amnyé Machen and revealed terma, or spiritual treasures, on the slopes of one of its peaks.[17] At that time, Amnyé Machen was largely unknown to the outside world. Until the 1950s many thought that Amnyé Machen would prove to be as high or higher than Mount Ever[18]est. A botanist–explorer who travelled to the vicinity of Amnyé Machen’s ‘mountains of mystery’ in 1926 wrote that he could ‘easily comprehend why the Tibetans should worship these snowy peaks as embodying purity’, but he abandoned his lavishly-funded expedition to Amnyé Machen when he was informed by the relative of a local Golok chieftain that the Golok tribes were ‘expecting him and planned to murder him if he intruded in their territory.’[19] The mysteries of Amnyé Machen continued. As recently as 2012, the Spanish geographer Eduardo Martinez de Pison described the mountain as ‘little known, little narrated, little described, without detailed maps . . . a group of magical peaks, with their gods, celestial stories, rites, temples, beliefs, and mysterious meanings.’ [20]
Nyenpo Yutsé and the Origins of the Golok Tribes
A further range of quasi-mystical peaks rises in the southeast of Golok as the seat of the second most important mountain deity in Golok. Fourteen snow-covered granite spires known as Nyenpo Yutsé (‘Turquoise Peak of the Sacred Nyen’) tower to more than 5,000 meters (16,400 ft) above sea level out of surrounding marshland and glacial lakes. The massif marks the separation between the watershed of the Ma Chu (Yellow River) in the north and of the Dri Chu (Yangtse River) to the south. Glacial lakes, such as Tsochen and Tsochung, feed streams that flow north into the Ma Chu while the lakes Tso Nagma and Nöjin Tso feed the headwaters of the Do Chu and Mar Chu that flow south into precipitous, forested gorges.
More than twenty species of fish have been identified in Nyenpo Yutsé’s lakes. Stunning serrated ridges wind downward into forested valleys of dragon spruce (Picea asperata), pine, and rhododendron. The mountains’ slopes abound with rare and highly valued medicinal plants, including the endemic lilac poppy (Meconopsis Brabiseta), a blood-red poppy also known as ‘Sichuan Silk’ (Meconopsis punicea), caterpillar fungus (Ophiocordyceps sinensis), bell-like fritillary (Fritillaria meleagris), and wild rhubarb. Animals of the region include Tibetan antelope (Pantholops hodgsonii), blue sheep (bharal; Pseudois nayaur), white-lipped deer (Cervus albirostris), Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus), snow leopards, wolves, and Tibetan macaque monkeys. Nearly 200 bird species, including pheasants, black-necked cranes, and Tibetan bunting, have been found in the area. Hot springs surface on the western and southern side of Nyenpo Yutsé, each one reputed to cure a different illness. The great adept Do Khyentsé Yeshé Dorjé (1800-1866) and his disciples lived for many years in small hermitages at the hot springs of Jara Yutso.
The eponymous protector deity (zhidak) Nyenpo Yutsé (Deity) dwells at the center of the range and is believed to have bestowed his divine daughter in marriage to the progenitor of the Golok tribes (tsowa or déwa). Golokpas thus consider Nyenpo Yutsé and his fierce retinue of nyen spirits as their immortal, invisible ancestors. The jagged peaks, hanging glaciers, and multi-colored lakes are held to conceal termas, or spiritual treasures, and to form part of a topographical mandala of the tantric deity Chakrasamvara, formed by the seven peaks of the main summit group that appear like snow-tipped lotus petals.
A ten to fifteen-day pilgrimage circuit around the Nyenpo Yutsé massif, amidst rock pinnacles and high-altitude marshland, is held to be more demanding than the longer circuit around Amnyé Machen, while a shorter six-day inner kora brings one into the heart of the matrix from which the Golok clans are said to have emerged, thus honoring the massif’s presiding deity. Even without recourse to its indigenous spirits, the vastness and purity of Golok’s landscape is held to invigorate rigpa, innate awareness, and, in the words of the Düdjom Tersar lineage holder Chakung Jigme Wangdrak, to cause it ‘to naturally blaze forth’.
Yungdrung Chaktsé, Exalted Iron Peak of the Eternal Swastika
The third most important mountain deity in Golok reflects the prior importance of Tibet’s pre-Buddhist religious tradition of Bön and the associated custom of propitiating mountain spirits with fragrant smoke offerings (sang). Although the mountain divinities Machen Pomra and Nyenpo Yutsé are arguably Golok’s most important, the wrathful guardian deity Yungdrung Chaktsé (Deity) , ‘Exalted Iron Peak of the Eternal Swastika’, rises above the upper Mar Chu Valley in an area known as Martö Rizi, formerly within Wangchen Bum, one of Golok’s original territories connected with the Horkor tribe. The mountain currently lies in Padma prefecture, in Golok’s far southeast.
Yungdrung Chaktsé is held to be the seat the eponymous Bön mountain deity, literally ‘Swastika Iron Peak’. Düdjom Lingpa refers to the indigenous mountain deity in his writings as a powerful and swift-acting protector with whom he cultivated a personal relationship for carrying out a range of earthly and spiritual goals.
Bön shamanic practices were prevalent in the Golok region, and Yungdrung Chaktsé appeared to common people as well as to yogis and tertöns. In liturgies composed in his honor, the ancestral deity was also referred to as Dorje Khyung Draktsal, or ‘Fierce, Invincible Celestial Eagle’.
In an evocatory prayer from the Katok tradition of Nyingma Buddhism, Yungdrung Chaktsé (one of twenty-five zo dor, or local protectors, of Tibet ) is invoked at the head of a cavalry of ten-thousand iron-armored soldiers, wielding iron bows and arrows and accompanied by three-hundred black mules and ten-thousand female jackals. The ancient mountain god is charged with dispatching the supplicant’s enemies with targeted lightning and ‘spear-tipped hail’ and, in return, the supplicant visualizes offerings of yak, sheep, and goats in the form of effigies fashioned from butter and barley flour accompanied by fragrant juniper smoke. The offering prayer further tasks the mountain god with providing protection from adverse meteorological events and from ‘carnivorous wolves’ that might prey on livestock. Yungdrung Chaktsé is simultaneously called upon to actualize one’s worldly and spiritual aspirations.
Many of Düdjom Lingpa’s close students and lineage holders, such as Lingtrul Padma Lungtok Gyatso (1852–1895), composed offering prayers to Yungdrung Chaktsé, as did other great treasure-revealers including Katok Khenpo Ngawang Palzang (1879-1941), Apang Tertön Pawo Chöying Dorjé (1895-1945), Tertön Gyalsé Do Ngak Tenpe Nyima.
Gyangtrul Dondrup Dorje, and Shukgang Pema Düdtsi. Through liturgical praises, ritual offerings of incense, food, and alcohol, and the raising of ‘wind horse’ (lungta) banners, the people of Golok honored Yungdrung Chaktsé as a powerful protector who aids in the accomplishment of spiritual and worldly aspirations.
Located in the southeastern region of Golok, in what is now Pema prefecture, Yungdrung Chaktsé’s citadel of dark basaltic rock rises out of surrounding grasslands encompassed by four other mountains that are held to be the abodes of Yungdrung Chaktsé’s chief minister, Rezing Ngülgo Barwa, a second minister named Zangri Tingö, Zangri Tingö’s consort, Rabzi Oden Lhamo, the ‘Goddess Queen of Light’, and their son, Yungdrung Zibar Dondrub. Smaller mountains encompass these principal peaks forming a symbolic ‘iron fence’, possibly related to the local prevalence of black agate. Paired pillar-like mountains, Chaktsé Tak Yak, face one another from the two sides of the Mar Chu, guarding the valley leading to Yungdrung Chaktsé’s sacred citadel. The area of Yungdrung Chaktsé is renowned for its extensive fauna, including wild ass (kyang), musk deer, antelope, wild and domestic sheep, foxes, bears, and wolves. Local flora includes juniper and seasonal medicinal plants such as Cordyceps, a fungus that thrives on high-altitude caterpillars.
Yungdrung Chaktsé’s summit is pyramidal, befitting a fortress, and is also said to appear outwardly as a garuḍa, or celestial eagle, descending to the earth clutching in its talons a venomous serpent. In the mind’s eye, the palace of Yungdrung Chaktsé comprises a nine-story iron fortress called Chak Khar Gurzong. An iron victory banner at the top is said to reach the sky while Yungdrung Chaktsé dwells within the fortress as the king of dralas, non-human beings inhabiting the air element who are usually invisible to ordinary human perception. His maroon-colored body and purple face display his wrathful nature. His dark red cloak is fitted with iron armor while eight victory banners adorn his crown.
Yungdrung Chaktsé holds a banner with a spear in his right hand symbolizing the annihilation of enemies of Buddhist doctrine. In his left hand, he holds a lasso that binds the eight classes of duplicitous, worldly spirits. The sword at his waist overcomes the three realms, or spheres, of cyclic existence in which sentient beings take rebirth. Arrayed with jewels, he rides amidst a mass of flames on a dapple-grey horse with white ankles and adorned with a golden saddle and a red silk cushion, turquoise reins, and a bridle of black poisonous snakes. Yungdrung Chaktsé’s gatekeeper, Takyak, appears on one side and an unnamed, tiger-riding consort on his other. He is surrounded by a retinue of ministers and attendants, along with hundreds of thousands of banner-wielding warriors, an army of demonic tsen spirits mounted on red horses, fanged, atmospheric du spirits (māras) wielding iron bows and arrows, mantra practitioners brandishing magical daggers (phurba), lamas wearing golden hats, and an array of beguiling and bejeweled women.
Although Yungdrung Chaktsé serves outwardly as a dharma protector, many tertön perceived him as the ‘iron ging’ (Skt. kiṃkara) – a class of skeletal, drum-beating deities – within the wrathful maṇḍala of the dagger deity Dorjé Phurba (Skt. Vajrakilāya).
Düdjom Lingpa developed a profound relationship with Yungdrung Chaktsé, as did his son, Drimé Ozer. The Bön mountain spirit also played an important role in the life of Gara Terchen Orgyen Düdul Wangchuk Lingpa, which is also recounted in his biography in this volume. Golok’s sacred mountains, and their indwelling deities, were also pivotal in the spiritual treasure revelations of Déwé Dorjé Sera Khandro (1892-1940), as well as for her later consort, Sögan Trülku Natsok Rangdröl (1869-1935), who performed a Dorjé Phurba, ‘invincible dagger’, rite of expulsion at the sacred mountain of Drongri Mukpo (‘brong ri smug po), in the valley of Serta, to repel a powerful Muslim warlord, Ma Pu-feng (1903-1975), who had amassed hordes of heavily armed soldiers on the borders of the Ser Chu in preparation for an intended invasion.
Various tribes in the nomadic regions of Golok regarded the deity Yungdrung Chaktsé as their ancestral guardian. They would make daily offerings to Yungdrung Chaktsé to request protection of their families and herds and to dispel negative circumstances. Invocation of local mountain deities remains central to Golok life and culture and is often tied to the lunar calendar.
The fourth day of the ox month, which typically falls in November or December, is considered a special occasion to honor local guardians and spirits. Nomads dress in traditional, colorful attire and, carrying victory banners, prayer flags, and arrows of long-life, ride their festooned horses to the base of Yundrung Chaktsé’s mountain fortress. They offer roasted barley flour, tea, butter, cheese and other precious substances in a fire of burning juniper boughs, while attending lamas perform the adamantine dagger rites of Dorjé Phurba (Skt. Vajrakilaya) to dispel obstacles and ensure success. The magical smoke carries the offerings into the sky, where Yungdrung Chaktsé and his retinue, as well as other invited dharmapalas including Machen Pomra and Nyenpo Yutsé, consume them.
For Bön as well as Buddhist practitioners, Yungdrung Chaktsé is revered as a guardian protector who can remove obstacles and assist in accomplishing one’s objectives and aspirations. Laypeople in Golok consider him a powerful and dynamic spirit deity who immediately shows up when called upon, manifesting through auspicious signs. Golok warriors, for example, once spoke about how they had been surrounded by enemies and called upon Yungdrung Chaktsé for protection. A massive hailstorm suddenly ensued, allowing them to escape.
Yungdrung Chaktsé lives in the heart of the people of Golok and in all those with the karmic affinity to perceive him. Each year, each month, many come from all over Golok, sometimes entire communities of tribes, to make offerings to him and to deepen their connection with this ancestral geographical spirit deity. The Goloks of the Horkor tribe, who live in the vicinity of the mountain, have a special reverence and affinity for Yungdrung Chaktsé. It’s believed in the Horkor tribe that, at the time of death, Yungdrung Chaktsé lifts the departed one’s consciousness (nam shé) to his palace before it transmigrates to a new incarnation.
As these narratives indicate, the Golok nomads share a world not only with animals and other humans, but also with a host of beings including ancestral mountain deities and other supernatural entities. Some humans, moreover, have a greater ability to interact with the spirit world than others. These include shamans, spirit mediums, and tantric practitioners (sngags pa) such as Düdjom Lingpa and his offspring, all of whom reinvigorated the sacred bonds between the people of Golok and the numinous geography that they inhabit.
As the armies of mental afflictions (klesha) escalate and the banners of ignorance rise ever higher, the mountain deities of Golok signify the eternal covenant between humans and landscape for all those with the karmic affinity to imagine or perceive them.
The Territory of Golok
Golok was historically divided into ‘Inner’ and ‘Outer Golok’ to denote its more culturally established central regions versus more peripheral and largely nomadic border areas. Inner Golok (Golok ‘dul, or Golok Nangdé) refers to the central territory of the Golok clans and their local rulers as well as associated culturally and politically influential monasteries. Inner Golok thus maintained closer relations with larger Tibetan kingdoms and religious institutions. Golok’s core domain extended from the heights of the Amnyé Machen range and the Yellow River basin in the northwest to the sacred peaks of Nyenpo Yutsé and the precipitous gorges and feeder rivers (Ser Chu, Do Chu, Mar Chu) of the Gyalrong Gyalmo Ngul Chu in the southeast. Inner Golok encompassed glacier-covered peaks, treeless expanses of alpine grasslands, swift rivers, and deep gorges and was historically divided into three principal regions.
These regions were known as Akyong Bum (a skyong ’bum), Wangchen Bum (dbang chen ’bum), and Pema Bum (pad ma ’bum), each of which contained further subdivisions with local regional leaders (dpon). Akyong Bum, the historical center of Golok, included five different subdivisions (tsho khag) with leaders who governed up to three distinct populations: the nomadic community (ru sde), the livestock farming community (rong sde), and the so-called outer community (phyi sde) referring to groups of people who had been incorporated into Golok but were originally outsiders. Similarly, Wangchen Bum included an upper and lower division with multiple subdivisions. Pema Bum was divided into eight different principalities (dpon khag) each governed by separate leaders. Golok society was thus composed of independent communities ranging in size and power within established geographical boundaries. Internal disputes over rights to pastureland and other vendettas were commonplace, but in the face of collective external threats the three regions of the Golok heartland could swiftly mobilize a united fighting force. In general terms, the Golok heartland was strongly influenced by Buddhist monasteries and dharma encampments that served as Golok’s cultural hubs, while the sparsely populated borderlands were more focused on pastoralism, trade with neighboring regions, and communal raiding. This created a cultural gradient, where the core areas of Golok held a more intense concentration of cultural and political life.
The Golok Borderlands
Outer Golok (Golok mtho, or Golok Chidé) referred historically to peripheral areas of Golok that shared close cultural, historical, genealogical, and linguistic affinities with the Golok heartland. These outlying areas also shared important connections with neighboring regions on the Tibetan plateau, such as Amdo (to the northeast) and Kham (to the south). To the north, these outlying areas extended beyond Amnyé Machen towards caravan routes bordering the Tarim Basin. To the south and west, frontier regions included areas such as Serta, the Valley of the Ser Chu, where Düdjom Lingpa was born; Nyikok, the Valley of the Nyi Chu; Dakok, and the Valley of the Da Chu. The border areas of Golok extended as far southwest as Dzachuka, in the Valley of the Dza Chu, and into the gorges in the lower reaches of the Do Chu and Mar Chu in Gyalrong. Drained by an intricate network of rivers, mainly heading south and south-east, the historical areas of Outer Golok lie at an average altitude of over 4,000 meters, thus making most of the terrain suitable only for livestock farming and pastoral nomadism. In the southernmost regions of the Golok borderlands, rolling grasslands between 3,200 and 3,500 meters above sea level support herds of yak and sheep, while wooded mountains, river valleys, some sections of which are narrow gorges, abound in the extreme southeast of the area. These decentralized, outlying regions of Golok remain largely inhabited by semi-nomadic communities that nonetheless maintain close associations with central Golok as well as with neighboring Tibetan and non-Tibetan groups.
‘All sensory appearances are not other than the ground of being.’ —Düdjom Lingpa
Indigenous perceptions of the Golok borderlands reflect the Tibetan and Golok penchant for sacralizing geography. As Chakung Jikmé Wangdrak, a direct descendant of Düdjom Lingpa, explained regarding Larung Gar, the ‘Dharma Encampment of Lama Rung’, founded by Düdjom Lingpa in Serta in 1880: ‘Here, you feel yourself to be at the center of a magnetizing six-petaled lotus flower, with surrounding mountain peaks representing the abodes of local protector deities.’ The contemporary Düdjom Lingpa lineage holder clarified the relationship between these peaks and liturgies for local Dharma protectors composed by Düdjom Lingpa and, later, by Chöjé Dampa Jikmé Püntsok (1933-2004). As Chakung Jikmé Wangdrak recounted, Düdjom Lingpa assigned one of the peaks to Yungdrung Chaktsé and another to Dzichen Shongi Tamo. Jikmé Püntsok assigned a further three peaks to Nyenpo Yutsé, Ko Lhatsé, and Machen Pomra. Through such strategies, areas that lay beyond the geographical boundaries of Golok were absorbed into a common cultural and religious sphere, with mountain protector deities at their core.
The Rivers of Golok
While Tibet is widely known as the ‘Roof of the World’, it is equally deserving of the title ‘Water Tower’ of Asia. Six of Asia’s largest rivers originate on the Tibetan Plateau, collectively supplying water to nearly twenty percent of the world’s population. Some of these rivers, or their tributaries, rise in Golok, where natural erosion has carved a complex network of mountain valleys, streams, and rivers. Each spring, snowmelt causes these rivers to swell—often flooding the surrounding areas. Many become impassable, continuing to erode the mountainsides and to deepen the valleys they traverse. This rugged terrain and seasonal inaccessibility have contributed to a profound sense of regional isolation. Golokpas hold a long-held perception that each valley is a world unto itself, complete with its own distinct identity.
Greater Golok encompasses the watershed of the Ma Chu (Yellow River) to the north, as well as six indirect tributaries of the Dri Chu (Yangtse River) to the south. These southern rivers flow from the Golok highlands into two principal systems. The Ser Chu, Do Chu, and Mar Chu rise to the south of the Nyenpo Yutsé range and feed into the Gyalrong Ngul Chu (Ch. Dadu river). Meanwhile, the Dza Chu, Da Chu, and Nyi Chu rise to the west and join the Nyak Chu (Ch. Yalong river), before their combined waters merge with the Dri Chu, which eventually becomes the Yangtse River as it flows into central China.
The Ma Chu
The Yellow River, known in Tibet as the Ma Chu and in China as the Huang Hé, is the second-longest river in China and the sixth-longest river system in the world, spanning approximately 5,464 kilometers (3,395 miles). It originates in a remote region southwest of the Amnyé Machen range, at an elevation of around 4,300 meters above sea level. From its source, the Ma Chu flows east and southeast through pasturelands, swamps, and grass-covered hills between the Bayan Har Mountains and the Amnyé Machen range. Upon reaching the Zoigê Wetlands—high-altitude peat bogs located near the border with Gansu Province—the river is deflected by the northern ridge of the Amnyé Machen range, forcing it into a dramatic 180-degree turn to the northwest. For the next 200–300 kilometers, the Ma Chu flows through Qinghai Province, tracing part of Golok’s northeastern border with Amdo. Along this stretch, the river carves its way through steep cliffs, gorges, and canyons, creating a rugged and dramatic landscape. Exiting Golok, the Ma Chu enters the Rebkong region of Amdo—an important center for the Nyingma ngakpa (non-monastic tantric) tradition. From there, the river continues eastward across the North China Plain, eventually emptying into the Gulf of Bohai along the eastern coast of mainland China.
The Dri Chu
The Yangtse River, known in Tibet as the Dri Chu, originates west of Golok, in the Dang La mountain range of Kham. As the longest river in Asia and the third longest in the world, the Yangtse plays a vital role in the hydrological and cultural life of the continent, and Eastern Tibet. One of its most important left-bank tributaries, the Gyalrong Ngul Chu (Ch. Dadu River), rises in the heart of Golok, where the Nyenpo Yutsé range serves as a double watershed. This sacred mountain massif divides the flow of water between two of Asia’s great river systems. In spring, when snow begins to melt from the high peaks, streams flowing northward from Nyenpo Yutsé feed the Ma Chu (Yellow River), while the headwaters of the Ser Chu, Do Chu, and Mar Chu flow southward into the Gyalrong Ngul Chu, eventually joining the Yangtse. For centuries, the Gyalmo Ngul Chu, meaning ‘Princess of the Silver Waters’, has marked a significant cultural and geopolitical boundary. Known in Chinese as the Dadu River, it has long been recognized as the historical dividing line between Kham to the west and Sichuan to the east. The confluence of tributaries and traditions in this region reflects the deep interweaving of landscape, history, and spiritual geography that defines the Tibetan borderlands.
The Ser Chu
As noted above, Golok’s Ser Chu, or ‘Golden River’, is one of the principal tributaries of the Gyalmo Ngul Chu, or ‘Silver River’. Its source lies, as its name suggests, in the northern and western region of Serta, also referred to as Sertal or Serthang, in reference to its position within the Ser Chu River Valley. From its source, the Ser Chu flows southeast through open, treeless grasslands, before descending into densely forested terrain farther south. In the summer months, the river becomes highly turbulent, frequently floods, and is often impassable due to its swelling currents.
Despite these challenges, the Ser Chu River Valley formed the spiritual and geographical heart of Düdjom Lingpa’s world. He was born in 1835 on its right bank, at a place known as Dé’uring Khuk, and spent his early years within his father’s Nubzur tribe, on the left bank of the river. In 1859, he revealed his principal sater, or ‘earth treasure’, the Zabsang Khandro Nyingtik, ‘Profound Secret Heart Essence of the Ḍākinīs’, at Shadrak Dorje Dzong—a secluded rocky peak on the Ser Chu’s right bank. Later, in 1880, Düdjom Lingpa established Lama Rung—later known as Larung Gar after Chöjé Dampa Jikmé Püntsok founded his renowned monastic community there in the 1980s—on the left bank of the Ser Chu.
In the western part of Serta, below the township of Serwa, the Ser Chu merges with the Do Chu, continuing eastward under either name until its confluence with the Mar Chu, where it becomes known as the Gyalrong Ngul Chu (Ch. Dadu). Farther south, the Gyalrong Ngul Chu flows into the Dri Chu, or Yangtse River, thereby linking Asia’s greatest river system with the sacred landscape of Düdjom Lingpa’s life and visionary activity in the Ser Chu Valley.
The Do Chu
A second major tributary of the Gyalrong Ngul Chu (Ch. Dadu) is the Do Chu, which rises in the northern and western slopes of Pema Bum, a prominent region within Inner Golok. From its highland source, the Do Chu flows southward through the territories of Pema County and Dzamtang County, descending through vast grasslands and precipitous gorges before joining with the Ser Chu. This watershed region formed an important geographic and spiritual axis in the later life of Düdjom Lingpa, as well as in the transmission of his terma revelations and lineage.
Beginning in the 1890s, the Do Chu Valley became increasingly central to Düdjom Lingpa’s activities. Most significantly, Dartsang Kalzang—situated along the river’s upper course—was established as the family seat of the Düdjom lineage. From this stronghold, Düdjom Lingpa’s descendants and close disciples helped preserve and propagate his spiritual legacy. Further upstream, the gold-rich region of Karnang Gongma developed into a key site for the ritual practice and transmission of Düdjom Lingpa’s termas. It was here that his son Drimé Özer, along with his consort Déwé Dorjé, bestowed empowerments and reinforced the living continuity of the lineage.
Another important site was Dolung Rizab, located at the confluence of the Ser Chu and Do Chu Valleys. This site was later established as a chögar, or dharma encampment, by Dzongter Kunzang Nyima (1904–1958), a grandson and speech incarnation (kha trül) of Düdjom Lingpa. His activities at Dolung Rizab further anchored the family’s spiritual and institutional presence in the region. On the lower reaches of the Do Chu stood Dodrubchen Tsangchen, the monastic seat and retreat center associated with Dodrubchen Jikmé Tenpé Nyima (1865–1926), the eldest son and first-born of Düdjom Lingpa. Located above the river’s confluence with the Mar Chu, this stronghold functioned as a center for the transmission of the Longchen Nyingtik, ‘Heart Essence of the Infinite Expanse’, and served as a bridge between the Düdjom and Dodrubchen lineages. Following the convergence of the Do Chu and Mar Chu, the waters become known as the Gyalrong Ngul Chu (Ch. Dadu), a tributary of the Yangtse River. Thus, the sacred terrain of Düdjom Lingpa’s later life and legacy was directly connected—both symbolically and hydrologically—to the river systems of eastern Tibet and the wider Asian continent.
The Mar Chu
The Mar Chu is the third major source of Golok’s Gyalrong Ngul Chu (Ch. Dadu), also known as the ‘Silver River’. Like the Do Chu, it originates in the northern reaches of Pema Bum, deep in the Golok heartland. Arising from the region of Markok, the Mar Chu gathers its waters from three distinct valleys: Mar Dangpo, Mar Drangwa (its principal source), and Mar Thama. The river initially flows east to west before turning southward, cutting through a landscape that has long been associated with sacred events and revelations from the Düdjom Tersar tradition.
In 1857, upon his arrival in the region from Serta, Düdjom Lingpa was received by Yungdrung Chaktsé, the local zhidak or ‘master of the place’, whose principal seat stood on the left bank of the Mar Chu. The river’s banks soon became a crucible for the unfolding of Düdjom Lingpa’s spiritual activity. During the 1860s and 1870s, Düdjom Lingpa engaged in prolonged retreats and revealed significant terma at Tröpuk Khandro Dükang, a sacred cave site situated along the river’s edge. In the 1870s, he established a Dharma encampment on the Mar Chu’s banks that later evolved into the retreat center known as Mardo Tashi Chöling—a site that would play a key role in the preservation and practice of his termas. The Mar Chu continued to serve as a vital locus of lineage transmission in the generations that followed. Apang Tertön (1895–1945), one of Düdjom Lingpa’s sons and a renowned tertön in his own right, settled in Tsimda, a village along the Mar Chu, where his daughter, the revered visionary Taré Lhamo (1938–2003), was later born and raised. As previously noted, the Mar Chu eventually merges with the Do Chu, and from that confluence the river becomes known as the Gyalmo Ngul Chu (Ch. Dadu), a major tributary of the Dri Chu (Yangtse River), linking the sacred landscape of Golok to the broader river systems of Asia. The middle sections of the Mar Chu Valley—particularly Markok, Dzika, and Dzikok—are especially fertile in summer, their lush green fields supporting a modest but stable form of high-altitude agriculture.
The Dza Chu
To the west of the Ser Chu, Do Chu, and Mar Chu river systems lies the watershed of the Nyak Chu (Ch. Yalong), another major tributary of the Dri Chu, or Yangtse River. This extensive watershed contains the headwaters—running from west to east—of the Dza Chu, Da Chu, and Nyi Chu, three rivers that traverse the western regions of Golok before ultimately contributing their waters to the Yangtse, China’s greatest river.
The Dza Chu—which shares its name with the Tibetan designation for the Mekong River —rises in the mountains northeast of Serchul, near Domda (Qingshuihe), in a region known as Dzachuka, the ‘Valley of the Dza Chu’. Renowned for its lush and expansive grasslands, Dzachuka has long sustained a vibrant tradition of pastoral nomadism, with vast herds of yak grazing across its high plains. Dzachuka is not only geographically significant but also spiritually rich, serving as a nexus for some of the most accomplished practitioners of the Longchen Nyingtik tradition. Among them was the great yogi Jikmé Gyalwé Nyugu (1765–1843), who spent over twenty years in the region engaged in rigorous austerities. He lived under rock ledges, in open fields, and in the caves of the Trama Valley in Upper Dzachuka, where he came to be known as the ‘Hermit of Dzachuka’ and Dza Trama Lama. The area is also revered as one of the principal seats of the renowned Dza Paltrul Orgyen Jikmé Chökyi Wangpo (1808–1887), one of the towering figures of nineteenth-century Tibetan Buddhism and a major force in the transmission and systematization of the Longchen Nyingtik teachings. The auspiciousness of Düdjom Lingpa’s and Paltrul Orgyen Jikmé Chökyi Wangpo’s meeting at Dzagyal Püntsok Norbu Ling, in Dzachuka, was credited for the birth of Düdjom Lingpa’s fourth child and third son, Khyentsé Tulku Dzamling Wangyal (1868-1907), who was recognized as an incarnation of Do Khyentse Yeshé Dorje (1800-1866), the wild yogi and Dza Paltrul’s principal teacher. Düdjom Lingpa’s tenth child and seventh son, Paltrul Namkha Jikmé (1889-1960), was recognized as the mind incarnation of Dza Paltrul, further deepening the connection between Düdjom Lingpa and Dza Paltrul. After Dza Paltrul’s passing in 1887, some of his closest students travelled to the Ser Chu valley and became direct students of Düdjom Lingpa at Lama Rung and Dartsang Kalzang Monastery.
The Da Chu
The second major source of the Nyak Chu (Yalong River) is the Da Chu, which originates in the Dakok Valley of Dzachukha, near the northwestern borderlands of Golok. Flowing in a southeasterly direction, the Da Chu closely parallels the Nyi Chu, running just a few kilometers to the east. The two rivers eventually converge and join the Dza Chu, forming the greater Nyak Chu watershed. Several important monasteries are situated along the Da Chu’s course. Among them is Getsé Tralek Monastery, a branch of Katok Dorje Den, located at approximately the same latitude as Yarlung Pemakö, the famed retreat site founded by the First Dodrubchen Rinpoche, Jikmé Trinlé Özer (1745–1821), on the banks of the Ser Chu to the east. Getsé Tralek became especially renowned as the main seat of Chaktsa Trülku Kunzang Pema Trinlé (c.1890–1950/55), the son of Gönpa Lama Chökyi Dorjé (1847–1908), a direct student of Düdjom Lingpa who later assumed the role of head of Mardo Tashi Chöling, the prominent retreat center on the Mar Chu in central Golok.
In 1935, at the request of Chaktsa Trülku Kunzang Pema Trinlé, the tertön Déwé Dorjé (1892–1940), later known as Sera Khandro, conferred a cycle of empowerments and Dzogchen instructions—including nang jang and tögal—at Getsé Tralek. These teachings were based on her own revealed treasure cycles and took place directly on the banks of the Da Chu, further enriching the spiritual legacy of the region.
After merging with the Nyi Chu, the Da Chu flows through the Tawu Valley, where its combined waters meet the Dza Chu. From this confluence onward, the river is known as the Nyak Chu (Ch. Xianshui), and the surrounding region as Nyakrong, or the ‘Valley of the Nyak Chu’. Further downstream, near Yajiang, the river becomes known by its Chinese name, the Yalong.
The Nyi Chu
The third principal source of the Nyak Chu (Yalong River) is the Nyi Chu, which, like the Da Chu, originates in the region of Dzachukha, situated in Golok’s western borderlands. Several sites along the banks of the Nyi Chu are closely associated with the development and transmission of the Düdjom Tersar. Among the most significant is Awo Sera Monastery, located in the river’s upper reaches. It was here that Düdjom Lingpa, at the age of nine, received his early training under Lama Mingyur and Lama Jamyang. Decades later, in the early 1890s, Sögen Tulku Natsok Rangdröl (1869–1935)—a son of Prince Sönam Dorje, the ruler of Walshul in Serta, and the fourth incarnation in the line of Sögen Tulkus—became a close disciple of Düdjom Lingpa. He would also form deep spiritual ties with Düdjom Lingpa’s son, Tulku Drimé Özer, and Drimé Özer’s consort, the accomplished yoginī and tertön Déwé Dorjé.
Further downstream lies Taktsé Samdrup Chökor Ling, a Golok branch of Katok Dorjé Den, one of the major Nyingma institutions in Kham. This monastery also served as the mother monastery of Dartsang Kalzang, located further northeast on the upper banks of the Do Chu. In 1893, Düdjom Lingpa journeyed to Taktsé Samdrup Chökor Ling accompanied by his nine-year-old son, Tulku Lhachen Tobgyal (1884–1942), his ninth child and sixth son. There, the young tulku was formally recognized as the reincarnation of the previous Shyichen Tulku, who had resided further down the Nyi Chu at Shyichen Kharmar Sangngak Tengyé Ling, another branch of Katok Dorje Den. It was in this latter monastery that Goser Önpo Khyenrab Gyatso (c. 1840–c. 1910), one of the original six principal disciples of Düdjom Lingpa, spent many years during the latter part of his life. He also undertook the careful spiritual training of a promising young boy who would later become known as Golok Serta (1891–1963/64), a highly accomplished practitioner of the Namkha Khyung Dzong, ‘Fortress of the Celestial Garuda’, tradition.
The Lakes of Golok
Golok is home to literally hundreds of lakes, each one a mirror to the vast sky, shifting clouds, and surrounding mountain landscapes. In the heartland of Golok, glacial lakes such as Tsochen and Tsochung, nestled within the Nyenpo Yutsé range, feed streams that flow northward into the Ma Chu (Yellow River). To the south, Tso Nagma and Nojin Tso form the headwaters of the Gyalrong River, which eventually joins the Dadu and, downstream, the Yangtse River. These lakes are not only sources of water but also sacred places of pilgrimage and divination—where the devout seek signs and visions foretelling of future lives.
Golokpas refer to their northernmost region as ‘Star Lakes Country’ because of the inland seas and lakes that cover the ground ‘like constellations of stars in the sky’. Two of the most significant bodies of water, Ngoring Tso and Tsaring (or Kyaring) Tso, lie in the upper basin of the Ma Chu (Yellow River). The twin lakes, situated at an elevation of 4,294 meters, with coasts formed by deep bays with massive stone headlands, lie southwest of the central Amnyé Machen range. They are the largest freshwater lakes in the upper Yellow River basin. The longer and more expansive of the two, Tsaring Tso—whose Tibetan name means ‘long white lake’—stretches over 35 kilometers and is ringed by high snow-covered mountains. Ngoring Tso, positioned slightly to the east, is connected to Tsaring Tso by a short stream. Together, these lakes are considered the principal sources of the Ma Chu, whose early waters pass through them, depositing large amounts of sediment. When stirred by summer winds, the lakes often take on a grayish hue. During this season, the lakes’ three central islands host large populations of migratory birds—geese, swans, gulls, and ducks—while phytoplankton and fish flourish beneath the surface. The surrounding grasslands and highlands support diverse wildlife, including wild ass, Tibetan antelope, marmots, and both wild and domesticated yaks. The elusive Tibetan fox, with its distinctive flat face, is also found in the area. A small, reconstructed monastery, Tsowar Kartse Doka, rises from a 4,610-meter peak between the two lakes and is said to mark the location of the ancient Kartse Palace.
According to Chinese historical sources, this is the place where Songtsen Gampo (ca. 605–650), Tibet’s first great religious king, is believed to have met Princess Wengchen of the Tang Dynasty. After their meeting on the cliff-girded shores of Tsaring Tso, the royal couple is said to have journeyed westward to Central Tibet—a trek that became legendary in Tibetan cultural memory. While it remains uncertain whether these lakes played a direct role in the unfolding of the Düdjom Tersar, Düdjom Lingpa himself referred to lakes as central metaphors within his revealed teachings.
In the Nangjang – ‘Buddhahood Without Meditation: A Visionary Account Known as Refining One’s Perception’ – he writes,
‘Consider the fact that no matter how many planets and stars are reflected in a lake, these reflections are encompassed within the water itself... and that no matter how vast and how numerous the sensory appearances of Saṃsāra and Nirvāṇa may be, they are encompassed within the single nature of mind (semnyid).’ —Düdjom Lingpa
For Düdjom Lingpa, lakes served as powerful similes for the all-encompassing, all-reflecting nature of the mind itself—boundless, luminous, and inherently pure.
Less than fifty years after Düdjom Lingpa’s passing, the area of Ngoring Tso and Tsaring Tso – the junction of the Kunlun, Amnyé Machen, and Bayan Har mountain ranges – was envisioned as a potential base for China’s defeated mainland armies, in the wake of the Communist Revolution.
Climate and Vegetation
With an average altitude of more than 4,200 meters above sea level, Golok’s subarctic climate is characterized by long, cold winters, and short, cool summers. Daily mean temperatures in Golok’s most populated area (Dawo, Machen County, alt. 3,700 m, or 12,140 ft) hover in December and January around minus 20° centigrade (12°F). At the height of summer, daily mean temperatures rarely exceed 17° centigrade (62°F). Yet, June through August is also one of the most compelling times of the year in Golok. The Sixth Sögen Tulku (b. 1964), a Longchen Nyingtik lineage holder, describes the Golok countryside becoming ‘an opulent and beautiful paradise of natural elements’ in spring and summer. But he also relates that, although ‘summer days can be scorching’, summer nights can dip below freezing and ‘hailstorms and rainstorms are extremely violent and occur almost daily.’ Sögen Tulku describes Golok’s spring and summer conditions in more idyllic terms: ‘The streams and rivers become filled with pure glacial waters, and the hills and valleys exchange their winter mantels for lush green grasses . . . dotted with horses, yaks, sheep, and goats like so many stars in the blue skies. The immense rolling grasslands, which extend as far as the eye can see, welcome many varieties of wildflowers, such as heather and gentian, plying their bright colors and wafting their divine fragrances on the gentle mountain breezes.’ He goes on to mention that alpine plants and flowers from high mountain meadows are formulated into potent medicines and fragrant incense. He then continues his rhapsodic evocation of the Golok summer by writing that, ‘the sunlight is very intense, the air pristine and bracing, [and] the sky is the lustrous blue of lapis lazuli and chrysoberyl [an extremely hard and durable natural gemstone]. Everything is saturated with brilliant light and color.’
Sögen Tulku recounts how the Golok sky is ‘known for its great, billowing white and radiant clouds in an infinite variety of fantastic shapes. The clouds travel across the azure sky in an endless procession, like an empyrean parade of celestial heroes.’ Precipitation also falls into line and, as Sögen Tulku relates, ‘the rains fall gently to refresh and nurture the land, arriving in a timely and regular fashion and departing with glorious double rainbows.’ The result is that ‘many lakes and ponds fill with pure glacial water mingled with new rain and dot the landscape like so many jewels of turquoise and sapphire fallen from heaven.’ At the same time, springs and creeks descend in waterfalls from the mountain crags and ‘flow down to the rivers like heavenly elixirs.’
The temperatures drop quickly in the autumn months. But Sögen Tulku relates that the sky is often penetratingly blue and cloudless and thus provides an outer support for some of the most esoteric practices of Dzogchen. Then, as Sögen Tulku states, ‘In winter, the outer elements [of Golok] transform into a terribly harsh and tumultuous climate. The temperature becomes really freezing—dropping often far below minus 20° centigrade, with whirling violent winds filled with ice, like furious sand-tornados. The sun regularly gives way to golf-ball size hailstorms within minutes, alternating with shining full rainbows crossing the whole sky.’ As the Tulku continues, peaks, mountains, high ridges, rolling grasslands, and valleys are all covered in a thick blanket of snow, and ‘the earth itself is locked in a tight grip of hard ice.’ Because of this extreme cold, lakes and rivers become totally frozen and covered by thick layers of impenetrable ice. Animals, both wild and domesticated, try to keep warm as best they can, ‘mostly by hiding in holes or in relatively protected parts of the landscape.’ Sögen Tulku relates that the ‘gigantic landscape swallows travelers in dust storms and the wind can knock sturdy Tibetan horses flat to the ground.’ Yet despite these extreme and adverse conditions, the vastness of the Golok environment is held to support rigpa, the innate awareness or knowing, that forms the basis for the Dzogchen practices that Düdjom Lingpa and his lineage holders expounded on and transmitted within the Düdjom Tersar tradition.
Animals of Golok
An extraordinary range of wildlife thrives in Golok’s high altitudes and protected environment. As Sogden Tulku relates, giant eagles ply the skies and are ‘never intimidated by the weather, even during the midst of winter, when smaller birds lie hidden in their nests.’ Other birds of prey in Golok include the rare upland buzzard (Buteo hemilasius), known locally as öser. Sogen Tulku recounts that ‘songs of white and golden swans, long-legged cranes, and blue mountain cuckoos echo across [Golok’s] broad valleys. To see them fly across the sky is said to be like ambrosia for the eyes. To hear their cries is said to be an elixir for the ears.’
Herds of kyang, Tibetan wild ass (Equus kiang), and chiru, Tibetan antelope (Pantholops hodgsonii), inhabit Golok’s steppes and alpine meadows, feeding on flowering plants, grasses, and sedges, often digging through the snow to obtain food in winter. Their natural predators include wolves, lynx, snow leopards, and red foxes (Vulpes ferrilata) that are known to prey on young calves. Blue sheep (Pseudois nayaur) also thrive in Golok’s highlands, while marmots are ubiquitous in summer months, when they emerge from hibernation. Yaks, the mainstay of Golok livelihood, dot the undulating grasslands while Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus) and Tibetan macaque (Macaca thibetana) dwell in the subtropical forests and gorges in Golok’s extreme southeast.
Golok’s wildlife communicated with Düdjom Lingpa throughout his life, providing teachings, advice, and prophecies through song and speech. In 1838, when he was only three years old, a mouse reputedly taught him about ‘refuge’ in the Three Jewels (Skt: tri-ratna) of Mahayāna Buddhism, predisposing him to the direct contact that he would have throughout his life with innumerable buddhas and bodhisattvas, such as Avalokiteshvara, Vajrapani, and Manjushri. At the same age, he reported seeing a flock of black-necked cranes in the sky above him, and he heard them sing: ‘We mothers and children are flying south, to Mön [forested regions south of the Tibetan Plateau]. It won’t be long before the sun of the Buddhist doctrine is veiled by clouds of corrupt and demonic views. Pay attention!’ Later, at the age of seventeen, Düdjom Lingpa was fetching water from a stream and a raven – a bird long associated with augury in Tibet and Mongolia – dropped a ritual offering cake (torma) connected with a Nepali adept named Sukha Shri, ‘Resplendent Bliss’, into his wooden bucket. Three years later, in 1855, when Düdom Lingpa was based in Traklung, on the banks of the Ser Chu, a bee sang to him about the ephemeral nature of worldly phenomena. In 1867, after he had moved further east to Dziteng, on the banks of the Mar Chu, a small bird appeared before him and sang: ‘Cultivate wholeheartedly your experience of self-manifest pristine Clear Light, the profound path of supreme transference (powa) and you will certainly attain liberation in this lifetime!’ Through such affirming encounters with the animal denizens of Golok, Düdjom Lingpa gained confidence in his miraculous visions on applying the teachings and gaining liberation in a single lifetime through recognizing the transcendent nature of mind in all phenomena. As he presciently noted in his treasure text, Nang Jang (Refinement of Perception), ‘All sensory appearances are not other than the ground of being.’
Primordial Ground
Just as consciousness is shaped by the culture in which it arises, physical landscapes influence cultures’ identity and self-perception. Golok’s fierce environment and extreme climate empowered its inhabitants, whose history unfolded within a geography that encouraged both presence and transcendence. Düdjom Lingpa’s visionary experience was intimately interwoven with surrounding mountains, rivers, gorges, animals, and sky, and was thus inseparable from the land of Golok itself. His spiritual legacy – in the form of the Düdjom Tersar – is thus characterized by the extreme terrain, and cultural and historical circumstances, in which his visions arose. Bridging the material earthly realm with the unbounded possibilities of mind itself, Düdjom Lingpa’s revealed treasures thus reflect the innate union of consciousness and apparent phenomena. This is the basis of Dzogchen – the Great Perfection – which was Düdjom Lingpa’s, and his lineage’s, ultimate teaching – a legacy as vital, dynamic, and enduring as the land from which it emerged, and powerfully expressed within Golok culture and history.
Fierce fighters, faithful practitioners (The People of Golok)
High on the eastern Tibetan plateau, Golok—known locally as Golokchang—is a region where snow-capped ranges, expansive grasslands, and deep river gorges converge in a landscape of stunning beauty and formidable isolation. Situated at altitudes that both sustain and challenge life, Golok is as much an ecological threshold as it is a cultural stronghold. Its remoteness from Lhasa’s political orbit and its resistance to outside governance have long preserved a fiercely autonomous identity among its inhabitants, the Golokpas. Renowned equally for their martial ferocity and spiritual intensity, the people of Golok inhabit a world where sword and mantra, blood-feud and terma revelation, warrior pride and devotional piety are threads of a single fabric.
Golok has often been portrayed as a frontier—wild, unpredictable, untamed. Yet within its rugged geography, a complex and refined culture has flourished. This culture is marked by oral epics, visionary tantric practitioners, and a deeply felt connection to the land as a living presence. The people of Golok have long believed their landscape to be imbued with spiritual potency, harboring sacred sites and hidden valleys, called béyul, waiting discovery by those with the karmic vision to reveal them. These beliefs found powerful expression in the region’s embrace of terma, or revealed teachings, prophetic transmissions concealed in the land or mindstream by past masters and retrieved by visionary adepts in later generations. Golok, with its dream-haunted terrain and cultural reverence for charismatic spiritual and temporal leaders, became a uniquely fertile ground for such revelations. This chapter explores the people of Golok through their lived history as both nomadic warriors and bearers of profound spiritual traditions. How did their environment—its harsh beauty and elemental power—shape their worldview? Why did Golok become a cradle for revelation and reinvention within the Nyingma tantric tradition? To understand Golok is to enter a world where the visible and invisible, the human and more-than-human, are in constant dialogue—etched into the very shape of mountains, the rhythm of pastoral life, and the visionary texts that continue to shape Tibetan Buddhism today.
Descendents of a Mountain God
The ethnogenesis of the Golok people, as understood and transmitted within their written and oral traditions, reveals a complex interplay of sacred geography, ancestral memory, and political autonomy. Far from a homogenous group absorbed seamlessly into Tibetan identity, the Golokpa see themselves as arising from a unique set of origins—part human, part divine, and intimately bound to the numinous power of the land itself. Central to their self-understanding are three intertwined figures: Dri Lhagyal Bum, the semi-legendary founding ancestor; his son, Dri Abum Gyal; and his grandson Bumyak, whose marriage to a daughter of the mountain deity Nyenpo Yutsé – the dramatic massif located at the cultural and geographic heart of present-day Golok – sealed the sacred covenant that would define Golok identity for centuries.
According to the Annals of Golok History, Dri Lhagyal Bum, ‘Victorious Divine One of the Dri [clan]’, was a fourteenth-century householder priest who led his followers from the ‘Gukho’ valley in the Pelyül region of Kham to the mountain massif of Nyenpo Yutsé, ‘Turquoise Peak of the Sacred Nyen’, at the heart of what is now Golok. Nyen are generally considered capricious nature spirits who dwell in the atmosphere or at the surface of the earth, in fields and forests. But they also refer to local tutelary deities akin to yul lha, or territorial deities, and zhi dak, or ‘masters of the place’. Traditional accounts maintain that Dri Lhagyal Bum’s youngest son, Dri Abum Gyal, mated with one of Nyenpo Yutsé’s five daughters in a visionary encounter, thus aligning Dri Lhagyal Bum’s family lineage with that of the local mountain god’s for the enduring benefit of the Golok clans. Dri Abum Gyal later married a princess from the Kingdom of Ling and, at the end of the fourteenth century, migrated with fifty households to the territory of Machen Pomra, the protector deity of the Amnyé Machen range, where they became known as Gulokpa (’Gu log pa), or those who had departed from the Gukho valley. Other interpretations cite the tribe’s reputation for rebelliousness and claim that ‘Golok’, means ‘defiant head’, and that they had sought refuge in the territory of what is now Golok as outlaws, a view that resonates with their notoriety for warfare and violent marauding. This view accords with the further etymological interpretation that as they consolidated power in the region, ‘Golok’ came to refer to their prowess at vanquishing their enemies in battle and severing their heads (mgo).
Dri Lhagyal Bum is said to have established several Bön temples in the Amyné Machen area, and with the support of the local tutelary deity, Machen Pomra, he and Dri Abum Gyal, who inherited the role of clan leader (pawo pönpo, literally ‘heroic chieftain’), reputedly vanquished the indigenous tribal inhabitants in the areas around Nyenpo Yutsé, assimilating them into their expanding confederation while maintaining dominance and rulership over them. The subjugated communities would have included proto-Qiangic or Tibeto-Burman-speaking highland groups, and possibly early Bön-leaning pastoralists. These pre-Tibetan populations venerated territorial deities (yul lha) and nature spirits (gnyan, bdud, klu) and maintained animistic and shamanic cosmologies. Many of these local traditions were later incorporated or reinterpreted within the Bön and Nyingma frameworks that came to dominate Golok culture.
Dri Abum Gyal and the Princess of Ling produced three sons, the youngest of whom, Bumyak, inherited his father’s extensive conquered territory, from Amyné Machen in the north to the Nyenpo Yutsé mountain range in the south. To gauge his qualities, the zhi dak, Nyenpo Yutsé, challenged Dri Abum Gyal to a series of feats. The last involved Nyenpo Yutsé sending his youngest daughter as a slithering snake with the promise that Dri Abum Gyal’s son, Bumyak, could marry her if they managed to touch her with a silken arrow. The challenge was met, and Nyenza Métok Tödzé, ‘Beautiful Flower-Garlanded Lady of the Nyen’, transformed into a human woman. Two years later, in 1443, the Tibetan Year of the Water Pig, she and Bumyak gave birth to a son named Nyenmo Paktar who expanded and consolidated the Golok territory.
Because of the increasing bonds between Golok’s leaders and the local protector deity’s supernatural progeny, Nyenpo Yutsé was propitiated by all members of the emergent Golok tribe. With Nyenpo Yutsé’s retinue (khor) present throughout the Golok territory in mountains, hills, boulders, lakes, springs, and trees, Golokpas established vital relationships with the powerful Nyen deity of the Turquoise Peak. Nyenpo Yutsé, in turn, brought protection, prosperity, and fertility to the people of Golok, their animals, and their fields, while ensuring success in warfare and raiding expeditions.
At the same time, the perceived nuptials between clan leaders and local mountain goddesses signified for many Golokpas a literal genealogy connecting them to the elemental powers of the Golok landscape. Emerging Golok lineages gained not only legitimacy but a sacred mandate to dwell in and protect the land, and to serve as stewards of its spiritual power. These foundational narratives further support the Golokpas’ claim that they are not merely Tibetan (bod pa), but a people with a different metaphysical genealogy. Their claim to the land is not derived from empire or scripture, but from covenant and bloodline, originating with the union between a human ancestor and anthropomorphized sacred terrain. In this way, Golok’s oral history enshrines a self-perception of half-divine, mountain-born origins that stands apart from Lhasa-centric Tibetan identity.
The Three Divisions of Golok: Pema Bum, Wangchen Bum, and Akyong Bum
With the authority conferred by his demi-god father-in-law, Nyenpo Yutsé, Nyenmo Paktar divided his inherited territory among three of his descendants and political successors. In order of seniority, these were Pema (Padma) Bum, Wangchen Bum, and Akyong Bum. Each was to assume dominion as clan leader in the watersheds of the Mar Chu, Dzi Chu, and Do Chu rivers, located to the south and west of the Nyenpo Yutsé mountain range. This division of Golok territory corresponded with the establishing of three regions bearing the names of their respective clan leaders: Pema Bum, Wangchen Bum, and Akyong Bum. Collectively they became known as Golok Khaksum (mgo log khag gsum), the ‘Three Divisions of Golok’. In acknowledgement of this consolidation, Xuande Emperor (1399-1435), the fifth emperor of the Ming dynasty of China, sent the Golok leaders official titles and ranks, though no further relations with either China were established. This was in accord with the Golokpas’ increasing reputation for fierce independence.
The Mar Chu Valley, also known as Markok, encompasses villages in Pema Bum, such as Selitang, as well as settlements in parts of Akyong Bum and Wangchen Bum. With fertile farmland, Markok constitutes the agricultural heartland of the Golok confederation, while higher altitude regions to north and west rely on nomadic pastoralism. Golokpa families in these areas live predominantly in black yak-hair tents, moving with their herds of yak and sheep according to the seasons and supplementing their subsistence livelihood with marauding, as described below.
Each of the original Golok clans–Pema Bum, Wangchen Bum, and Akyong Bum–trace their genealogical origins to Nyenpo Yutsé, the Turquoise Peak of the Sacred Nyen. The word ‘Golok’ thus refers initially to the patrilineal clans who recognize their apical ancestor as the local deity Nyenpo Yutsé. Over time, Golok came to refer to the larger confederation of highland tribes–from north of Amnyé Machen to the area of Nyenpo Yutsé– that the original Golok clans came to govern, and which they organized into encampments and communities called tsowa (tsho ba) and déwa (sde ba).
Pema Bum (pad ma ‘bum) was divided into eight different principalities (dpon khag) each governed by a separate leader. These principalities contained different communities (sde ba), each with multiple encampment circles (tsho khor) or groups consisting of ten households (bcu shog). Pema Bum mainly corresponds today with Padma Dzong. Akyong Bum (a skyong ‘bum) included five different divisions (tsho khag) with leaders (dpon) who governed up to three different communities: the semi-nomadic herding community (ru sde), the farming community (rong sde), and ‘outer’ community (phyi sde), which referred to groups of people who had been incorporated into the Golok fold but were originally outsiders. Akyong Bum currently corresponds to Chikdril Dzong and Machen Dzong (rma chen rdzong). Wangchen Bum (dbang chen ‘bum) consisted of an upper and lower division, from which multiple subdivisions arose. It mainly corresponds today with Darlak Dzong.
When the People’s Republic of China forcibly assumed control of the greater Golok territory during the 1950s, the Annals of Golok History records that fifty-two different encampment groups (tsho ba) comprising more than 200 different smaller divisions (shog chung) consisting of 13,199 households existed in the collective territory of Pema Bum, Wangchen Bum, and Akyong Bum, totaling 59,395 people. Encampment groups ranged in size from approximately twenty to four-hundred households and were not necessarily biologically related but shared a common grazing territory that they were obligated to defend from encroaching neighbors as well as from foreign attacks. Each part of Golok and the encampment groups within had their own leaders who propitiated both general and regionally specific land deities to ensure favorable conditions. Wangchen Bum and Pema Bum propitiated Yungdrung Chaktsé, whereas Akyong Bum propitiated Nyenpo Yutsé. All three, however, made offerings to Amnyé Machen.
The Origins of the Golok Tribes
Despite speaking a variation of droké, the nomadic dialect of Amdo, and participating in shared Buddhist and Bön cosmologies, the Golokpas have long maintained a distinct identity. Historically, they viewed themselves not as subjects of the Lhasa-based government of Ganden Phodrang, but as autonomous highlanders who refused monastic taxation and resisted incorporation into larger imperial schemes, whether Tibetan, Mongol, or Qing. Early Chinese, Mongolian, and Central Tibetan records often described the Golokpas as rebellious or lawless, which ironically reinforced their own sense of independence and special status. Even today, many Golokpas maintain a distinction between themselves and other Tibetans. While they may refer to themselves as bod pa in external contexts, especially when interacting with Chinese state systems or diasporic Tibetan institutions, within the bounds of community discourse, the identity of ‘Golokpa’ carries deeper resonance—one that references a sacred kinship with Nyenpo Yutsé, a warrior legacy, and a lineage of visionaries and tertöns that emerged not from scholastic monasteries, but from the land itself. Dri Abum Gyal’s son’s legendary betrothal to Nyenpo Yutsé’s daughter, the ‘Beautiful Flower-Garlanded Lady of the Nyen’, established a semi-divine ancestry and identity for the Golok tribes that provides a sacred genealogy that ties spiritual authority and political autonomy directly to the landscape.
On another level, the genesis tale of the Golok tribes encodes historical migrations, clan consolidation, and intercultural contact in the language of myth. The idea of marriage with a mountain goddess may reflect an integration of earlier indigenous spirit-venerating populations into a newer wave of Tibetan-speaking pastoralists. Similarly, the clan’s legendary migration from Kham aligns with patterns seen elsewhere across the plateau, where communities migrated in response to environmental pressure, trade opportunities, or visionary mandates. As per oral narratives, the Golokpas perceived their origins neither as imperial extension or sectarian affiliation, but as a sacred unfolding rooted in landscape, spirit, and lineage. The union between Bumyak and the daughter of Nyenpo Yutsé–and the resultant birth of Nyenmo Paktar–remains the cornerstone of this narrative—at once myth and memory, prophecy and identity. The Golok people are thus not just highlanders or nomads; they are the descendants of a pact made with a mountain, and they carry that covenant still, in blood, in ritual, and in the stories they tell.
Anthropologically, the origins of the Golok people are more complex and less otherworldly, though no less compelling. Ethnographic and historical sources suggest that Golokpas emerged as a distinct group sometime between the 14th and 17th centuries, likely as a federation of migrating clans from Kham, Amdo, and Central Tibet, blending with earlier indigenous groups of the eastern plateau. Their location at the intersection of major ecological zones—pastureland, forest, and high desert—created a cultural crucible in which different linguistic, ritual, and social practices created a unique identity. The Golokpa dialect is a branch of Amdo Tibetan, but their oral traditions and social norms often diverge sharply from neighboring Tibetan groups.
Another source of Golokpa identity was the tribe’s openness to cultural refugees. During the Nyakrong war, from the early 1830’s to 1865 [described in the following chapter], displaced monastic and lay communities were welcomed into Golok, often uniting with distant clan members. Similarly, deserters, outlaw robbers, and even condemned murderers would be welcomed to join a tribe in Golok, so long as they swore absolute loyalty and took an oath to fight until death in instances of war. When being admitted into a tribe, no question was ever asked about one’s past. In Golok, so long as you swore fidelity to the tribe, all its member would welcome you as a child of the tribe.
Due to this lesser-known approach of welcoming refugees and immigrants from all over Amdo, Kham, Central Tibet, Mongolia, and China, Golokpas are an amalgamation of peoples of diverse ethnic origins. But they came to share the Golok reputation for being fearless, fierce, and merciless fighters. ‘If you have a cancer, you know you are going to die. If you see someone from Golok, you know you will have to fight or to run away!’ This is how Lama Tharchin introduced his western students to the character and mindset of the Golokpas, the people into which Düdjom Lingpa was born in 1835.
Some observers—both historical and modern—have remarked on the Golokpas’ striking resemblance in dress, bearing, and facial features to certain Native American Plains tribes. The long braids, sheepskin coats, and high cheekbones of Golok men, along with their equestrian culture and clan-based autonomy, evoke parallels with Lakota or Blackfoot societies. While such comparisons should be approached with caution, they may reflect convergent cultural evolution—how life in vast, wind-swept grasslands produces similar forms of social organization, aesthetics, and spiritual cosmology. Both cultures, for instance, emphasize dreams as sources of spiritual insight, venerate the natural world as sacred, and transmit knowledge through song, story, and oral lineage rather than script.
Ultimately, the origins of the Golok people resist simple categorization. They are at once historical and mythic, human and more-than-human. Whether seen as descendants of mountain spirits or as the product of long migrations and cultural synthesis, the people of Golok remain defined by movement—across land, across lineage, across the veils of ordinary perception. Their story, like the wind that scours their high pastures, is one of encounter and becoming—where history meets dream, and myth speaks truths that chronology itself cannot account for. The nomadic or semi-nomadic borderlands that the Golokpas inhabited were zones of movement—of traders, pilgrims, warriors, and wandering tantric ascetics. It is said that Dri Lhagyal Bum, the Golokpas’ legendary progenitor, was a warrior-mystic, both fierce and devout, who began his migration driven not by conquest but by spiritual visions and geomantic signs. He followed the draw of lungta—wind-horse energy—and auspicious omens until he encountered the majestic peaks of Nyenpo Yutsé, a mountain range already revered by local peoples as the dwelling place of a powerful yul lha, or local deity.
Three Circles of Bonds: Ancestors, Clans, and Tribes
The foundational Golok origin myth tells of Dri Lhagyal Bum’s son’s visionary union with the daughter, or daughters, of the mountain god, Nyenpo Yutsé. In oral accounts, these luminous ḍākinīs appeared to him from within clouds and stone, their bodies adorned with celestial turquoise and their voices echoing with mantras carried on the wind. From their union sprang the founding clans of the Golok: fierce, freedom-loving, and spiritually attuned. This ancestral alliance sealed a pact between human and spirit realms, grounding Golok identity in a landscape both geographic and mythic. To this day, many Golok clans claim descent not from a single patriarch but from a line of semi-divine beings—part warrior, part god, part mountain.
These legends, rich in symbolic resonance, encode fundamental truths about Golok identity. They place the origin of the Golok people in motion—not in stasis—and align them with a landscape that is alive, relational, and spiritually charged. The stories function as mythic charters, explaining the Golokpas’ historical resistance to external authority, their veneration of sacred mountains, and their unique synthesis of martial and mystical values. These values translated in social terms into three levels of bonds: one’s ancestral clan, one’s family clan, and one’s geographical tribe.
As Dri Lhagyal Bum is held to be the progenitor of the original Golok clan, all those who descend from Dri Lhagyal Bum belong to the ancestral Ahchak Dru, or Dri, clan of Tibet. The said Ahchak Dru are regarded as people of action, and hence uncompromising towards their enemies. This characteristic is clearly encapsulated in Golok DNA.
The second level of bond is the ‘family’ clan, or sub-tribe (khumbo). The increasing complexity of family genealogies and geographical movements across the Tibetan Plateau led to the emergence of many such family clans, all of them correlated with the six ancestral clans. All family clans within Golok, including Akyong, Akyi, Anam, Chakung, Drukshul, Gara, Golok, Gétsé, Mukpo, Jawa, Jo, Hor, Khamtsang, Ling, Washul, and Wangda are precisely identified. Anyone with ‘Anam’ in their family name, wherever they might reside in the Himalayan world, will consider anyone else with the same designation to be a family member, even if it is totally impossible to establish the connection genealogically.
The third level of bond for the Golok people is the tribe, such as Hor or Nubzur, which may include people from different clans. This represents a geographical bond, as a tribe is a group of different families, and clans, living in the same territory, often a specific mountain valley and sharing common grasslands and traditions. Tribe members will protect their boundaries and their pastures from other tribes, often fiercely.
Every tribe has a lopön, or chief, in charge of leading the tribe and resolving internal conflicts. Tribes may consist of individuals from different clans, who over the years have sworn absolute allegiance. Belonging to a tribe imposes an unbreakable bond of fealty and obedience to tribal laws. The whole of Golok was thus a confederation of different tribes, and sub-tribes, each having dominion over a distinctive geographical territory.
In Serta, the valley of the Ser Chu in Outer Golok, the main tribe was ruled by the Washül family, to which belonged Sögen Tulku Natsok Rangdrol, a direct student of Düdjom Lingpa. Different clans were represented within the tribe, such as the Chakung and the Gétsé. As Golok never became a centrally organized polity, ruling Golok in its entirety, Golok never had a king or main chief, while different valleys and mountain territories were ruled by the leaders of specific clans.
Fierce Independence
Just as Golok’s social and political structure remained highly decentralized, Golokpas resisted all attempts by China or Tibet to control them. As discussed, the Annals of Golok History (mgo log lo rgyus deb ther) explains that the name ‘Golok’ (mgo log) arose as a result of locals in the region they had migrated to referring to them as the people who had ‘left the ’Gu Valley behind’ (’gu log pa), that is, the name of their former territory in Palyül, in Kham. Alternately, as they consolidated power in the region, ‘Golok’ came to refer to their prowess at vanquishing their enemies in battle and relieving them of their heads (mgo). Namkhai Norbu cites an alternate etymology that he heard during his travels through Golok territory in 1951. His informants told him that the real meaning is ngolok (ngo log), that is, ‘rebel’, as indicated in a folk song that he cites: ‘I rebel (ngolok) against those up there, I rebel against Tibet/ I rebel!/ Against the orders of the Dharma King of Tibet I rebel!/ I rebel and the sky is with me./ The blue sky is with the rebellion!/ I rebel against those down there, I rebel,/ against China I rebel!/ Against the Chinese governments laws I rebel!/ I rebel! We make our own laws!’ An early Chinese government document translates Golok as ‘turned head’, further confirming the Golokpas as a confederation of rebels.
Throughout its six-hundred-year history, Golok sought to remain ungoverned by any polity, neither Central Tibet, nor Qing Dynasty China. A Golok herder was heard saying in 1908, ‘We Golok have . . . from time immemorial obeyed none but our own laws.’ During his travels in Golok territory in 1949, Leonard Clark noted that ‘freedom has ever-been the keynote in Golok history’. He further observed that despite the fact that the Manchu dynasty had appropriated extensive parts of the Asian continent, ‘not an inch of Ngolok [sic] territory could be conquered by the Manchu generals, and these unruly Ngolok barbarians, alone, were the only nation of all east and central Asia to the borders of Europe, to remain free.’
Over time, Golok became a distinct ethno-cultural region based on its explicit identity statements, origin narratives, tribal and clan groupings, dialects, lifestyle, and ecology. Golok Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture was established in contemporary China based on this perceived unity, but the historical range of nomadic Golok clans into areas north and west of the Amnyé Machen mountains, as far as the Tsaidam Basin, was not accounted for.
Nomadic Pastoralism
While the area around Dergé, in Kham, from where the Golok tribe first migrated, was conducive to agriculture, the higher altitudes and treeless grasslands near Nyenpo Yutsé and Amnyé Machen entailed a transition to pastoral nomadism, based on horse breeding and seasonal migrations with herds of yak, dzo (female yaks), and sheep. As for all herders on the Tibetan plateau, wealth depended on the extent of one’s grazing lands. The larger the grazing lands, the healthier the herders’ livestock, and the wealthier the tribe. It was for this reason that any intrusion into the territory of a Golok tribe would warrant an immediate defensive response.
Golokpas migrate seasonally to different pasturelands. During spring and summer, when the weather is warmer, they move with their herds to higher grasslands. During winter, when the temperature in the mountains is bitterly cold, they move their herds to more sheltered areas, often close to the banks of rivers. Throughout the different seasons, and while following their flocks and herds, the Golokpas typically dwell in rectangular tents woven from black yak wool and heated by yak dung fires.
The inner frame of Golok tents is very light, consisting generally of two vertical poles, connected by a third horizontal ridgepole. The tent’s rigidity is achieved by the tension afforded by external yak hair ropes. Between the poles, at the tent’s center, is the hearth, traditionally a mud-and-stone stove, about four feet high and five feet long, and fed by a skin bellows. On the left, as one enters the tent, are fuel reserves of dry yak dung. Slightly further on, still on the left, is an area reserved for women to prepare meals. The right-hand side of the tent is traditionally reserved for men, when they return from hunting or raiding expeditions.
Opposite the tent’s entrance, at its farthest end, a family altar (zih da) is typically installed, along with one or more hide-bound chests containing family valuables. Saddles, guns, swords, lances, and blankets are typically stored along the inside edges of the tent. Woven carpets and animal skins may be laid out around the hearth and used for sitting on during meals or as mattresses at night. A fire is normally kept burning all day, to combat the cold climate, while smoke escapes through a large rectangular opening above the stove.
The daily life of Golokpas is primarily that of pastoralists, punctuated by the seasons and the usual tasks of herders and livestock breeders. The day begins at sunrise, when youths take the herds out to graze in the immense pasturelands. This was of the occupation of Düdjom Lingpa and his sister at that age. When the teenagers leave the black yak-hair tents, younger children typically stay behind with the women, who busy themselves cooking, fetching water, and making butter, yoghurt, and tchéla, a product made from curdled milk that is left to dry on a tarpaulin in full sunlight and provides valuable nutrition.
In the evenings, it’s still the women who milk the livestock. Sometimes, monks in the family may help with the children, and recite prayers at the time of the evening meal. During periods between work, and even during work, older family members would customarily engage in recitation of the Vajra Guru Mantra, the essence in sound of Guru Rinpoche, often while spinning a handheld prayer wheel.
Due to the extreme climate in which they live, Golokpas were traditionally diligent and resourceful. Because of the very limited existence of agriculture, the daily food consumed by Golokpas came almost entirely from their herds. Tsampa, roasted barley flour, and vegetables were largely unavailable. Also, in Golok, tea is not churned, as in Central Tibet, but served plain or mixed with a little milk. It is never sweetened, nor mixed with tsampa as in Central Tibet.
As towns appeared in Golok from the 1960s under the new Chinese administration, Golok pastoralists made occasional trips to sell produce and purchase occasional agricultural products. While most of Golok is above timberline and inhospitable to farming, parts of Markok, the valley of the Mar Chu, in the southeast of Golok, and the lower part of Serta, the valley of the Ser Chu, support the cultivation of high-altitude barley, wheat, peas, mustard, turnips, radishes, and, more recently, medicinal herbs.
Golok Customs
Golok’s culture of nomadic pastoralism, and continuous movement between higher and lower ground in search of pastureland, fostered an acute sense of interdependence. Although accounts of Golok and its inhabitants emphasize its fiercely territorial fighters and their hostility to outsiders,
Golok’s own internal culture is paradoxically represented otherwise. As Sögen Tulku relates, ‘Since a nomadic pastoralist family has no fixed place of residence, it has no fixed group of neighbors. Whatever group one encounters becomes one’s neighbors, and one’s neighbors become like one’s own family. Wherever a family group travels, it relies upon whatever group it encounters, whether they have been previously acquainted or are complete strangers. Since this interdependence is universal, one group would always welcome any other group and treat them like family while they are nearby. They would pay back the kindness and hospitality by extending it to any other group they encountered. The mutual interdependence of nomads requires mutual trust, trust that is readily bestowed and never betrayed. The children of one group could therefore easily join those of another group, and the parents would never have to worry that strangers would harm their children. A nomad or nomadic group, hungry and thirsty from the long trail, could confidently approach the home or encampment of total strangers and receive a cordial welcome, a good meal, and comfortable lodging. There would never be an expectation of payment or even of encountering one another again. The natural hospitality of Golokpas is part of this ancient tradition.’
Over centuries, this intrinsic hospitality was extended to outcasts. Many Tibetans fled to sparsely populated Golok to escape from persecution and were absorbed into Golok clans. Despite the ethnic diversity in Golok tribes, they are generally noted for their impressive appearance, tall stature, and high-bridged aquiline noses, in contrast with the physiognomy of Central Tibetans. They are also noted for their fox and sheepskin robes, hats with multiple feathers, and prominent weapons. Golokpa men often wear their hair in two braids extending down their backs and tied together at the ends with colorful red or blue silk string. They are also known for wearing snow-white riding pants with large flashing bangles of pure gold with inlaid turquoise in their right or left ear. Explorer Leonard Clark referred to Golok warriors he met in 1949 as ‘truly amazing men: –The Ngoloks [sic] and the head-shrinking Aguarunas in the upper Amazon are by far the most virile-looking races I had yet run across.’ An earlier explorer noted that the women from Golok are as impressive as their male counterparts and ‘are both some of the most beautiful and feared tribeswomen in Tibet.’ The observation was seconded by the photographer-explorer Ernst Schäfer who, when encountering Golokpa pilgrims in Lhasa in 1930, referred to the men as ‘wild obstinate creatures with their pretty wildcat-like wives’, noting that they ‘don’t want to be photographed and will eventually attack . . . [They] do their reputation as professional robbers proud.’
Golokpas have been observed to forgo the social artifices of other regions of the Tibetan Plateau. They do not stand when a so-called high lama who they don’t know enters a room or a temple. They do not bow in respect to unknown monks or use honorific titles. As Anam Thubten explains, ‘Golokpas don’t use the word Rinpoche, but only Lama, Trulku or Tertön at best’. This is why Düdjom Lingpa was known, and remains known, in Golok simply as ‘Gili Tertön’, the tertön of the Gili family. Anam Thubten relates that Golokpas ‘stand proudly in stoic silence, without uttering a greeting. But when you get to know them, you find a genuinely friendly, hospitable, and welcoming warm heart beneath a somehow taciturn exterior. To those who have taken the time to become accustomed to them, Golokpas personify the highest form of loyalty, integrity, trustworthiness, and honorable natures.’
External accounts of Golokpas were sometimes less flattering. A former American OSS officer who entered Golok territory in 1949 described the residents of a Golok yak-hair tent as follows: ‘Their faces were thickly smeared with bear grease, and they were certainly as arresting as any Apache who ever sharpened knife. Dressed in thick sheepskins, stiff with animal blood, they looked like huge, hulking, anthropoid apes or the Dryopithecus. None of them seemed to be less than six feet tall, and some of them exceeded that. In their belts were stuck knives and swords, and modern rifles probably obtained in battles were carried handily across their backs.’
Golok Warrior Culture
As Golok was a federation of tribes and communities ranging in size and power, internal disputes and vendettas over boundaries and rights to pasture lands were commonplace. This is why we can read in different accounts of Düdjom Lingpa life how he was attacked by Golokpas from distant tribes. But in the face of a common external enemy, such as Qing soldiers, Khampa warriors, Ganden Phodrang troops, and Chinese Muslim soldiers from Qinghai trying to invade or simply passing through their lands, the three main areas of Golok–Akyong Bum and parts of Wangchung Bum and Pema Bum–and often some outlying allied territories in Golok would be able to quickly organize and mobilize a group of fighters. In fact, for centuries, the only sins in Golok culture have been disloyalty to one’s clan, submission to any outside authority, and cowardice on the field of battle.
The area of Golok, from the perspective of the outside world, was until the 1920s and 30s considered a remote and unexplored region peopled by fierce, warlike, nomadic bandit tribes, who, as Jospeh Rock described them in the 1920s, would impale their enemies with long lances ‘like men spearing frogs.’ Western travelers mostly approached Golok via the caravan route from Xining in Amdo (Qinghai) to Jyékundo, in Kham, which skirts the north-western corner of Golok territory. Stories abound on the prowess, courage, and cruelty of the Golokpas on the battlefield each time an intruder tried to gain a foothold in the region.
Chutsu Tsering, a Tibetan official posted in Golok during the 1940s, recounted that Golokpas usually enter battle on horseback, ‘then dismount and attack on their bellies. They kill before you can see them.’ He went on to state that Golokpas ‘kill with a finality and detail horrible to behold. During attack they execute a prearranged plan, they obey one leader during battle, for to do otherwise is not to receive a reprimand, but a prolonged death by torture from their own comrades.’
In 1845, two French missionaries, fathers Evariste Huc and Joseph Gabet, who were travelling from China to Lhasa, decided to make a detour to the west to avoid the territory of the ‘Golok bandits’, as they would write later. But unfortunately, they were unable to avoid an encounter with a Golok tribe. They owed their salvation to the goodwill of the Golok tribesmen, who fortunately had great respect for the Tibetan chief who was escorting the missionaries. They later wrote, ‘The Goloks never quit these abodes except to scour the desert on a mission of pillage and devastation. It is said that these brigands are in the revolting habit of eating the heart of their prisoners, in order to fortify their own courage.’
At approximatively the same time, in the mid-1800s, the Qing emperor of China had been forced to send his heavily armed caravan to collect the Dalai Lama’s tribute only once every three years, as Golok attacks were relentless on the road from Xining to Jyekundo, on the way to Lhasa. The fact that two great political leaders were involved in such caravans failed to impress the Golokpas. They had no qualms about plundering these intruders, whose thousands of animals grazed on their grass, forcing these embassies to make considerable detours to escape their predations.
A French explorer, M. Dutreuil de Rhins, in the early 1890s, was laced in a leather bag by Golokpas and tossed into the Yellow River, where he drowned. Dr. Migot, a Buddhist scholar, was robbed and set afoot naked. In the first half of the twentieth century, many other travelers touched on the Golok country without ever actually entering or crossing it. In 1921, even Alexandra David-Néel (1868-1969), the intrepid Belgian–French explorer, spiritualist, Buddhist, anarchist, opera singer, and writer who had travelled and stayed in Amdo (Qinghai) on numerous occasions, made a formidable detour to bypass Golok country on her aborted attempt to reach Lhasa.
With the fall of the Qing Empire in 1911, the Chinese Muslim warlord of the Ma families seized full control of Qinghai province but could not subjugate Golok. From 1917 into the 1940’s,
Ma Qi and his armies made repeated attempts to collect taxes from Golokpas, and to exploit the rich mineral resources of the territory, such as the gold deposits in Amnyé Machen. This led to continuous military conflict with the Golokpas. In response, it is said that the Golokpas massacred thousands of Chinese Muslim troops of the Ma families. As one of Ma Qi’s men wrote: ‘Tibetans will carefully slit open a living man’s abdomen and put their hand inside to squeeze his heart. The Golokpas strangle their captive with rawhides, behead, drown, cut throats, slice bodies into small pieces…They shoot, stone to death, burn and blind their victims.’
In 1923, the British explorer George Pereira wrongly assumed that Amnyé Machen, in Golok territory, was the highest mountain in the world. He thus tried to verify his theory by traveling there and making accurate measurements. But Golokpas prevented him from penetrating into their territory, regardless of his motives.
The American botanist Joseph Rock (1884-1962), who was one of very few researchers to get close to Amnyé Machen, managed to enter the south-eastern edge of Golok territory, starting from the monastery of Ragya Gonpa. He wrote in 1926 that, ‘Although murder was said to be outlawed within the sanctuary of the Amnyé Machen, the Ngoloks [sic] attack anyone approaching the region west of the Ma Chu (Ch. Huang Hé). They acknowledge no one’s authority except that of their chiefs. They enjoy attacking anyone, especially foreigners who penetrate their mountain fastness. Their life is spent on horseback, always ready to battle and even among themselves they squabble to the point of combat. They are a marauding fraternity, going often six hundred strong on robbing expeditions, making unsafe the caravan roads west of the Amnyé Machen. They bring terror to the hearts of all their neighbors and travelers. Their arrogance expresses itself in many ways: they are unrestrained and are accustomed to measure their strength in terms of numbers. They even ask the blessing of lamas before going on robbing expeditions.’
Rock requested the head lama of Ragya monastery to arrange passage for him through the hostile territory on the way to Amnyé Machen with offers of generous gifts for the local Golok chiefs. But his attempt to reach the mountain was thwarted by news that Golok tribes were expecting him and planned to murder him if he intruded in their territory.
In 1930, Ernst Schäfer (1910–1992), a German explorer, hunter and zoologist, tried to enter Golok from the southwest. For Schäfer, the Golokpas held an enormous attraction, which derived from both from the Golokpas’ assumed savagery and from the inaccessibility of their territory. Rumors at that time about Amnyé Machen being higher than Mount Everest also aroused his curiosity. He arrived with his expedition at a place north of Sershul, close to the valley of the Dza Chu, in the northern regions of the Bayankara mountains. The place he succeeded to reach was still at least 160 kilometers in a direct line from the summit of Amnyé Machen. But there, the Tibetan caravan leader-cum-scout was unwilling to continue. The expedition turned back, and Schäfer later wrote, ‘There was a unique story behind Amnyé Machen. All explorers who found themselves in its vicinity were attacked, robbed, or murdered by the Goloks. If there is anything at all in the world that is holy to these wild Goloks—whose women are said to be as courageous in battle as their fearless men—, then it is this mountain that rises like a threatening ogre turned to ice in the middle of the land where they live. Amnyé Machen is their local deity, their refuge, their protector. That is why they jealously guard it and strike down all outsiders, whether Tibetan, Mongol, Chinse, or white.’ He elaborated that, ‘The most horrific stories are told not only about the unfailing courage of the Golokpas, but also about their cruelty. Of all the tribes of Tibet, they are said to have developed the most ingenious methods of dispatching their victims. Chopping off hands and cleaving skulls are small matters, best left to others. But sewing them up in fresh yak skins and letting them roast in the sun, disemboweling while still alive…those are the methods most favored in Golok. But the Golokpas are not only the most cruel and barbaric of all Tibetan marauding tribes, they are also the most courageous and feared. They descend upon peaceful nomadic settlements and kill everything within the reach of their five-meters long spears. At any time of the year, the Goloks may undertake a major expedition.’
Shortly afterward, in 1940, André Guibaut (1903-1926) and Louis Victor Liotard (1904-1940) mounted a French expedition to attempt the first crossing of Golok. They tried to enter Golok from the southwest, having travelled from Kham, heading to the valley of the Ser Chu. But their expedition ended tragically with the death of Louis Victor Liotard, who was killed by tribesmen at the top of a pass, even before they had penetrated Golok territory. The tribesmen were from Serta, the birthplace of Düdjom Lingpa.
The warriors of Golok, clad in fox pelt and thick yak-hide coats and bearing swords and lances, were legendary in their prowess on horseback. Based on their war record, the Golokpas were widely considered to be ‘the greatest cavalry existing on earth’ Even the monasteries needed protection from them by the various ruling tribal chiefs. As a Tibetan official in Golok during the 1940s recounted, Goloks ‘torture and kill, they hold few if any prisoners for ransom . . . They strangle their captives with rawhides, behead, drown, cut throats, [and] slice bodies into small pieces . . . They shoot, stone to death, burn and blind their victims.’ He added that, ‘They like to be free … They will kill all of us.’
Warriorship is central to Golok identity. As one Golokpa explained to the Russian explorer P. K. Kozloff: ‘We Goloks have from time immemorial obeyed none but our own laws, none but our own convictions. A Golok is born with knowledge of his freedom, and as soon as he drinks his mother’s milk, it imbibes him with some acquaintance with the laws of Golok. Our laws have never been altered. Almost in his mother’s womb, a Golok learns to handle arms. His forebears have all been warriors. We are brave and fearless men, and today are the worthy descendants of these great warriors.’
Banditry and Marauding
Until they were finally subdued by the Chinese Communists in the 1960s, Golokpas were the most feared tribesmen in Tibet. They paid allegiance neither to Lhasa nor to Peking, ‘robbing and killing with a fine lack of discrimination as to their victims.’ While herding and animal husbandry were ostensibly their principal livelihood, attacking caravans that skirted their territory was a regular pursuit. The explorer Leonard Clark, who traveled into Golok territory on horseback in 1949, summarized the country as ‘a loose combination of tribes made up of clans living by their skill in the chase, by the natural increase of their herds, and by their courage and astuteness in raiding.’ Clark further noted that, ‘No head chief rules among these warrior people . . . There is no paramount tribal council for the clans, and the great confederation among these cannot be too binding as they raid even among themselves.’
‘They rushed to the attack with yells. The hoofs of their steeds sounded hollow in the damp soil, their long spears bristled and glistened, their long black cloth robes and floating locks streamed behind them in the wind. Like a cloud, this savage, bloodthirsty horde dashed upon us.’ Nikolaï Prjevalski (1839-1888), after an attack led by a Golok tribe on August 8, 1884
Explorer Ernst Schäfer recounted several reasons for the Golokpas’ well-known banditry. First, during the period of settled encampments, youths and women were busy maintaining the family herds and preparing food. ‘But men in the prime of life were not overloaded with work. Thus, they could deliberately allocate time to more masculine activities, such as raiding or banditry, while leaving the guarding of the camp to their fierce dogs, who were routinely trained to devour anyone who approached the tent uninvited.’ Guanju, a chieftain of the Oring Goloks, clarified to Leonard Clark that, ‘Some of my young men grow tired of tending their families and herds, and they raid a little to break the monotony of life.’ This sentiment was seconded by another Golok clan chief who related that they raided for two reasons: first, sport; second, gain.’
Regarding gain, marauding provided additional income for households beyond animal husbandry and occasional trading with Tibetan and Chinese neighbors. Caravan raids were formerly widespread throughout all Eastern Tibet, not only in Golok. In different parts of their territory, Golokpas would meet in early spring to determine a suitable date for beginning the annual lojak, or series of looting expeditions. Through such community-based marauding, Goloks supplemented their pastoral economy with goods secured from their infamous caravan raids. Their success was aided by the fact that their mobility made them difficult targets for retribution in comparison to settled agriculturalists.
A Chinese nationalist military officer in Golok during the 1940s elaborated on their tactics: ‘The prime objective of Tibetan brigandage is to run off a caravan or a military column’s livestock, the second being to capture arms, supplies, and gear. To secure these four, raiders, usually attack at dusk, or just before dawn. Diversions are sometimes made on the target-camp by a group of raiders pinning down the camp’s guards, while a detached party rams in and drives off the animals should they be grazing, or stampedes them if picketed. If so far successful, the robbers rest content, for escape is now impossible for the caravan. Having secured the livestock, the attackers now go after the loot and especially the firearms and ammunition. A second attack might be launched at any moment of the following day, or on the second night; sometimes, however, days crawl by minute after minute until all fuel is exhausted, and the surrounded men become careless in their search for it. At that time, the camp is usually attacked in a mass cavalry charge.’
A third reason cited for Golok caravan raids was not to loot, kill, or capture needed arms but to preserve the health of their livestock. As the health of a herd is naturally linked to the size and the abundance of the grass on the available pastures, Golokpas would prevent any intruders on their land, especially those traveling in large caravans, encompassing sometimes hundreds of animals to feed. Golokpas would, instead, appropriate as many of the horses, camels, sheep, and yaks as they could to add to their own stock. As a Chinese colonel stationed on the frontiers of Golok territory observed, ‘Raiders really hesitate to kill, because this tends to reduce the number of caravans, which would otherwise follow, and so cuts into their revenue. Raiding is a business and a science, and most caravans are allowed to pass on molested, as a come-on to other merchants.’
A fourth reason given for the Golokpas’ fierce resistance to foreign intrusion and hostility towards outsiders relates to the concern of almost all ancient tribes and cultures throughout the world of protecting their sacred land from defiling influences, whether political or religious. With a view of their territory as naturally imbued with local deities, abundant game, and pure natural elements, the Golokpas had all that they needed to be happy. Thus, up until the 1960s the Golokpas ensured that no outsiders encroached on their sacred mountains of Amnyé Machen, Nyenpo Yusté, or Yungdrung Chaktsé.
Bön–Buddhist Syncretism in Golok
Although no Bön monasteries remain in Golok, the pervasive influence of the ancient indigenous spiritual tradition of Tibet is evident in the enduring custom of propitiating mountain deities through annual smoke offering rituals (sang), the most important among them being Machen Pomra on the slopes of Amnyé Machen in the northwest of Golok, Nyenpo Yutsé in the heart of Golok, and Yungdrung Chaktsé in the southeast on the banks of the Mar Chu.
Dri Lhagyal Bum, the progenitor of the Golok clans, was a follower of both Bön and the early order (Nyingma) of Tibetan Buddhism based on the revealed teachings of Padmasambhava, the ‘lotus born’ master from the legendary land of Oddiyana credited with having established the Vajrayāna, or tantric, form of Buddhism in Tibet in the eighth century. In Golok, the strongest Nyingma influence comes from Katok Dorje Den, a Nyingma institution established in the nearby southwest Kham region in 1159. The Annals of Golok History suggest multiple reasons for Katok Dorje Den’s importance in Golok. The first one is Golok territory’s greater geographical proximity to the major Nyingma monasteries of Kham compared to other major monastic centers in Amdo northeast of Golok, which are predominantly Gelukpa, a later Tibetan Buddhist order aligned closely with the Ganden Phodrang in Lhasa. The second reason for the prominence of the Katok Dorje Den tradition is that Golokpas trace their lineage history back to ancestral figures, like Dri Lhagyal Bum, who came from the general vicinity of Katok Dorje Den in Kham, at a time when the other main Nyingma monasteries had not yet been founded. The third reason is that four generations after Dri Lhagyal Bum, his descendant Sönam Kyab became a monk and studied at Katok Dorje Den at the end of the fifteenth century. When he completed his studies, he returned to Golok and founded Drakkargo monastery, which was the first monastery ever established in Golok. After this, many other branch monasteries and more than nineteen dharma encampments practicing the Katok Dorje Den tradition were established in Golok, including Shyichen, Taktsé Samdrup, Tsimda, Mardo Tashi Chöling, and Gétsé Tralek.
Anam Thubten notes that, until the late nineteenth century, these Nyingma dharma encampments were not fixed and consisted primarily of nakgar, ‘black [tent] encampments’, or dragön, ‘tent monasteries’, which relocated together with their lhadé, or followers, in the spirit of early Nyingma tradition. Besides Katok Dorje Den, other Nyingma institutions in Kham established branches in Golok. These included eight centers affiliated with Palyul Monastery, the largest of which, Palyul Darthang, in the vicinity of Nyenpo Yutsé, becoming much larger than Palyul Monastery in Kham. Nine branches of Dzogchen Monastery were also established in Golok. Additional branch monasteries of the Kagyü and Geluk sects of Tibetan Buddhism were also established in Golok, with many Jonang monasteries located in the Dzamtang area. Although Golok territories were infused with religious masters, they were also dangerous places to travel without formal alliances.
During the seventeenth century, practitioners of the Jonang tradition of Tibetan Buddhism were heavily persecuted by the Gelukpas, on the ostensible basis of doctrinal differences. They regrouped around their monastic complexes that had already been established within the Dzamthang area of Golok. No one questioned the arrival of all these lamas, monks, and practitioners. Since then, they have protected and transmitted their teachings on Zhentong, ‘Other Emptiness’, and the Kalacakra Tantra from the place of refuge that Golok became for them.
Pilgrimage in Golok tradition involved journeys to holy mountains, as well as longer expeditions to Lhasa. In 1930, Ernst Schäfer observed that, ‘the Golok are the most peaceful of all pilgrims on their way to Lhasa. But as soon as they have left the sacred sites to return during months of long marches to their own pasturelands, these wolves of the steppe are in the habit of throwing off their sheep’s clothing as they move across the countryside, plundering and robbing like true scourges.’ Thirty years later, another western explorer noted that Golokpas ‘travel to Lhasa on pilgrimage to be rid of their multitudinous sins, but usually rob the other Tibetan tribes (many of whom are also robbers) en route.’ He further commented that authorities in Lhasa had decreed that all pilgrims from Golok should be routinely beheaded. ‘But this law backfired when the Ngoloks [sic] broke out and killed every lama they could find. In fact, the soul-searching, belligerent rascals retaliated so bitterly with lead, fire and sword, that the pontiffs and lay lawgivers of Tibet speedily rescinded this law.’
In 1828 when the great mystic and poet of early nineteenth century Amdo, Shabkar Tsokdruk Rangdrol, was returning to Amdo from Central Tibet, his caravan, carrying letters of passage from both the Dalai and Panchen Lamas, was brutally attacked and pillaged by Golok tribesmen. Some months later Shabkar told the Qinghai amban, who was the senior Qing administrator in Xining, what had happened. The amban, admitted that the Golok tribes were beyond Imperial control and asked Shabkar to try preaching to them in hopes that this might to some extent tame them.
Buddhist precepts, including respect for all life, and the Golok propensity for killing stand in distinct contrast. As one contemporary Golok lama noted, ‘Golokpas are definitely wild and fierce, but they are also sincere and dedicated Buddhists.’ He explains that, from early childhood, Golokpas are taught to value and identify with even the smallest creature, and to cultivate kindness and compassion towards them. ‘Through deep appreciation of our connected and shared destiny, Golokpas try not to harm any sentient beings, but also to be ready to fight – and kill – if commanded by loyalty to one’s tribe.’
Anam Thubten also comments on the naturalness of Golokpa religious life within the region’s harsh conditions. In winter months, Golokpas shield themselves from wind, snow, and freezing temperatures within the confines of their yak-hair tents. Yet despite such conditions, Anam Thubten characterizes the Golok temperament – from young children to the elderly – as happy and light-hearted, accepting difficult conditions simply as part of an ever-changing world, while maintaining an inner sense of wellbeing.
Regarding their religious lives, Golokpas have been noted for their unshakeable faith towards those they consider authentic practitioners and realized masters. As one proverb goes; ‘Above the mountain rises the sun and moon; above even the clan leader is the lama!’ But as Anam Thubten relates, Golokpas do not care much about religious titles such as ‘Rinpoche’, ‘Khenpo’, or even ‘Tulku’. ‘They recognize those people who deeply embody in the core of their being Buddhist, and Bön, teachings on the interdependence of all existence and who bring wisdom and compassion into all their activities, especially the ‘hidden ones’, Anam Thubten relates, ‘who actualize the truth of Dharma in the wilderness and in secluded caves rather than sitting on fancy thrones in heated temples.’
Chakung Jigme Wangdrak, a direct descendant of Düdjom Lingpa, addressed the paradox of Golokpas’ seemingly dual nature by stating; ‘People from Golok are wild in character and also devout Buddhist practitioners. Like two eyes on a single face, you should always remain present to both aspects!’
Reincarnation and Terma Revelation
As exemplified in the life of Düdjom Lingpa and his progeny, reincarnation is an article of faith in Golok, as it is throughout the Tibetan Buddhist world. Identities are thus never singular but extend across lifetimes and historical eras. In Nyingma tradition, Guru Rinpoche’s twenty-five disciples continue their activities through emanations and reincarnations as spiritual treasure (terma) discoverers known as tertön. Terma represent teachings of Guru Rinpoche, the ‘precious teacher’ (Padmasambhava), and his consort, Yeshe Tsogyal, that they concealed during their time to be revealed by later lineage masters, whether in the form of unearthed scriptures (sa ter) or as ‘mind treasures’ (gong ter) revealed in meditative or visionary states, supported by visualization practices, scriptural familiarity, and ritual frameworks. The boundary between visionary revelation, creative imagination, and poetic construction is often intentionally fluid.
As the source of terma is said to be Guru Rinpoche, the ‘second buddha’, the authority of these revealed teachings, and their oral transmission, vied with the textual authority afforded to recorded words of the historical Buddha in the one-hundred-and-eight volumes of the Kangyur and the two-hundred-and-twenty-five Tengyur commentaries by historical masters that comprised the main subjects of study in Buddhist monasteries of Tibet. Terma teachings, in contrast, were mostly transmitted to lay practitioners outside institutional settings, as was the case with the terma revelations of Düdjom Lingpa. As a tertön, Düdjom Lingpa had the fortune to reveal a vast storehouse of sacred teachings that had been hidden and sealed centuries earlier by the Buddhist master Padmasambhava and his consort Yeshé Tsogyal in Central Tibet. The spiritual practices and instructions that Düdjom Lingpa revealed – contained within twenty-one volumes and over 20,000 pages of scripture – form the basis of the Düdjom Tersar lineage. They are held to be unsurpassed in their potency to lay bare the true nature of reality, directly and swiftly, for those who practice them with devotion and pure vision (da nang), the sacred view that perceives the world and beings as inherently enlightened and which recognizes imagination itself to be a valid mode of spiritual perception and experience. By narrating encounters with deities, buddhas, and pure lands, yogins such as Düdjom Lingpa and his followers cultivated such perception in themselves and encouraged it within their communities.
Düdjom Tersar practitioners in Golok never established large monasteries with impressive libraries and scholastic training programs. As Anam Thubten explains, Düdjom Tersar practitioners in Golok were mostly free-spirited yogis and yoginis who practiced the Buddhist-shamanic rites of Tröma Nakmo, the ‘Fierce Black One’, (a wrathful form of Vajravārāhī), in isolated mountains caves or integrated with everyday life. At the heart of the practice of visualized bodily dismemberment is the realization of Dzogchen, the Great Perfection, which as non-dual awareness supersedes all mind-constructed practices. This was the heart essence of Tibet’s tantric Buddhist tradition which Düdjom Lingpa imparted to all his family members and students.
As Anam Thubten explains; ‘Some teachers choose to settle in one place, gather students there, and continuously increase the number of practitioners living in the same location. This approach brought much benefit over the centuries, from the ancient time of Nalanda University in India. But other teachers chose another approach: they would closely train their students for a short period of time, give them the essence of all the teachings—the Dzogchen pith instructions— and then send them away to achieve the results of the path. This is the approach adopted by Düdjom Lingpa when he began teaching in the late 1850s. Many of his direct students would come to him for a certain time, receive Dzogchen teachings, and then leave to practice in the wild, never to see Düdjom Lingpa again, but always keeping the inner fire of their devotion for him burning. This practice-oriented approach of Düdjom Lingpa’s lineage–the Düdjom Tersar–, which strives to help deeply committed practitioners actualize the fruition of the Dzogchen path in this lifetime, resonated deeply with the people of Golok.’
During Düdjom Lingpa’s life, a series of seemingly miraculous events impressed people throughout Tibet and brought renown to his lineage of revealed treasures (terma). More than thirteen of his students reputedly manifested the ultimate sign of complete enlightenment – achievement of a rainbow body (jalu) at the time of death. This is the fruition of Dzogchen, the path of the Great Perfection, in which the physical body dissolves into its pure nature of wisdom light, and consciousness becomes coextensive with all existence. And it is the essence of the Düdjom Tersar, one of the most important Nyingma lineages in the history of Tibetan Buddhism.
Visionary Nomads
The people who came to inhabit Golok have, for countless generations, been inseparable from their elemental landscape. Their ancestors, Tibetans and Mongols, arrived and adapted to the demanding climate and terrain, forging a way of life rooted in reverence for the natural forces that surrounded and sustained them. They became guardians of the land, intimately merged with the immortal mountain spirits and nature deities that inhabited the land before them, understanding their environment in the context of the five primordial elements. Their semi-nomadic life was defined by resilience: navigating treacherous terrain and living in harmony with the unpredictable climate, while honoring the qualities of the land with which they were intimately bound.
‘You call it ‘I’—but it has no color, no shape, no location. You look for it and find only openness. This openness is not nothing; it is the source of everything.’ Düdjom Lingpa, Vajra Heart Essence (Dorje Züd)
The history of the Golok people further embodied a living synthesis of warrior values and Buddhist ideals. Their reputation for hostility toward outsiders was inseparable from the realities of life on Tibet’s frontier, just as their hospitality and spiritual dedication reveal a culture deeply committed to the Buddhist virtues of wisdom and compassion. Understanding these intertwined facets provides richer insight into a society in which fierceness and kindness are not opposed, but mutually reinforcing expressions of resilience, devotion, and identity. In this context, visionary experience ensured spiritual efficacy, doctrinal coherence, and transformative power. This was world in which Düdjom Lingpa was born in 1835, and within which he began his extraordinary activities as a tertön.
A Fearlessly Independent Realm (The History of Golok)
The vast plains, highland pastures, and towering mountains of Golok have always remained a distinct domain, independent of neighboring Tibetan regions of Kham, to the south, Amdo, to the north and northeast, and China to the east. With its geographic position at the headwaters of the Ma Chu (Yellow River) and the principal tributaries of the Dri Chu (Yangtse River), its relative lack of exploitable resources, and its entrenched hostility towards outsiders, caravans between China and Tibet largely skirted Golok, insulating it from historic trade networks. The only notable exceptions were the occasional caravans that traveled between Xining in China and Jyékundo in Kham, on a route that runs through the northern regions of Golok and passes through Dzachuka, the valley of the Dza Chu, a source river of the Nyak Chu (Ch. Yalong) and the main tributary of the Dri Chu (Yangtse River). The route enabled bold merchants from Amdo to avoid detouring to the east of Golok before turning west, through Kham, and continuing with their goods to Lhasa. But even in the outer areas of Golok, travelers risked the aggression of Golok tribes who vigilantly prevented outsiders from traversing their territory. High lamas were no exception. When the Tibetan yogi and poet Zhabkar Tsongdruk Rangdrol (1781–1851) was traveling from Central Tibet to his native Amdo, his entourage was set upon by over a thousand Golok bandits. As he recounts in his autobiography: ‘They broke open the bundles, stole woolen cloth and other valuables, and, leaving all the religious objects and blessed pills scattered on the ground, rode off.’
‘Geography lies at the basis of history’ — Immanuel Kant
Intrepid pilgrims drawn to the holy peaks of Amnyé Machen, in northern Golok, were also vulnerable to attacks by Golok brigands who viewed the mountain as the seat of Machen Pomra, the local ‘master of the land’ (shidak) charged with preventing outsiders from accessing their ancestral realms. In consequence, Amnyé Machen never became a major destination for pilgrims outside of Golok, as was the case for the Tibetan sacred mountains of Tsari, Lapchi, and Kailash. Amnyé Machen nonetheless became a goal for western explorers such as Joseph Rock, who eventually abandoned his 1926 expedition when informed that Golok tribesmen would kill him if he proceeded.
The Ganden Podrang, or central Tibetan administration in Lhasa, also made little progress in including Golok under its rule and taxation system, unlike the neighboring region of Kham which aligned itself alternatingly with the Ganden Phodrang in Central Tibet and the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) in China. One outcome of Golok’s political isolation and independence is that the Geluk, or ‘Virtuous’, tradition founded by Tsongkhapa Lobzang Drakpa (1357-1419) never took substantial root in Golok, and few Gelukpa monasteries exist in the region. On the contrary, the land where Düdjom Lingpa was born and where the Düdjom Tersar first spread, consists mainly of Nyingmapas, followers of the eighth-century, ‘lotus-born’ tantric master, Guru Padmasambhava, and his legacy of concealed Terma teachings.
Although Golok has always remained at the periphery of both Tibetan and Chinese culture and was widely regarded as an independent territory, governed by local chieftains and living by its own laws, historical forces during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries eventually impacted the region irrevocably. By the 1950s, Communist forces overcame China’s Nationalist armies and waged a concerted campaign of destruction throughout Tibet and surrounding areas. The formerly independent territory of Golok ultimately succumbed to the newly formed People’s Republic of China.
The Four Spiritual Protection Knots
Widely recognized throughout the Tibetan world, thirteen geomantic temples were built during the reign of King Songtsen Gampo (569–649/650) to subdue a supine demoness said to underlie the Tibetan plateau and to shield the land from spiritual contamination by outsiders. Less well known, however, are the ‘four spiritual knots’ of Tibet. According to traditional beliefs in Kham, the eastern and southern frontiers of Tibet were anchored by four powerful energetic centers—referred to as ‘knots’—which acted as protective seals against negative forces, spiritual corruption, and outbreaks of violence and disorder. Tibetans held that if these four spiritual knots were ever undone, the geomantic integrity of the plateau would be disrupted, plunging both Kham and Central Tibet into instability and chaos, and ultimately imperiling the survival of the Tibetan world. Each of the knots corresponded to a natural element. From south to north, they were Powo, the ‘snow knot’; Sa-Nyen (part of Gönjo), the ‘earth knot’; Nyakrong, the ‘iron knot’; and Golok, the ‘wind knot’. Each of these knots was significant in the life of Düdjom Lingpa. He was born in Golok, the ‘wind knot’; his immediate predecessor, Düdul Dorjé Rolpa Tsal (1704-1824) had lived and passed away in Sa-Nyen; and Powo, the ‘snow knot’, was the gateway to the hidden land of Pemakö where Düdjom Lingpa sought to bring his followers towards the end of his life and where he was eventually reborn as Düdjom Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje (1904-1987). Tragically, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, each of these protective knots was gradually compromised by Chinese Qing forces, Republican troops, Communist campaigns, and even by factions loyal to the Tibetan Ganden Phodrang government. The circumstances and events leading up to the eventual unraveling of the ‘wind knot’ of Golok are central to Golok’s modern history.
Resistance to the Mongols, 1650 –1724
Although the Golokpas succeeded for centuries to resist control by Central Tibet’s government and to repel advances by successive dynasties of the Chinese Empire to the east, the Mongols to the north of Golok posed a perennial menace for hundreds of years until the eighteenth century. In the mid-seventeenth century, Güshi Khan (1582–1655), a Khoshut Mongol prince, sent an army through Kham to aid the Fifth Dalai Lama Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso (1617-1682), in consolidating power in Central Tibet. The Khan’s Mongol armies attacked Golok and forced, for some time, several of its tribes to pay yearly tributes. But this situation did not last, and the diverse tribes of Golok unified to restore their freedom from foreign oppression. Nonetheless, in their withdrawal from Tibet, some isolated Mongol communities remained settled in the northernmost parts of Golok territory, on the southern rim of the Tsaidam Basin. As a former OSS officer observed in 1949, ‘these true sons of Genghis Khan, once proud conquerors of the most civilized parts of the earth, [were] still living by their ancient warrior code . . . the Mongol Law of the Steppes. Here, under a hill crowned with a great globe-shaped obo, rising skyward like the dome of a planetarium from which hung thousands of prayer-banners on high masts, Mongols were plowing behind camels–a strange sight. They were everywhere, these semi-settled nomadic Mongols–who had learned agriculture from the Rong-pa Tibetans. Surprisingly, they were dressed as Tibetans, in sheepskin chupas and black yak-leather boots. Being Buddhist Mongols and therefore hating and fearing the Sining Moslems, they did not approach us as we streamed along.’
Resistance to China’s Manchu Qing Empire, 1644 – 1911
In accord with the irresistible impulse of all empires to extend their territory, China’s Manchu Qing Empire, which lasted from 1644 until 1911, sought to expand its frontiers westward into areas controlled by the Golokpas. In 1724, Qing Emperor Yongzheng defeated the Khoshut Mongols who controlled most of the area around Kokonor Lake (Tib. Tso Ngönpo, ‘Blue Lake’), traditionally part of the Tibetan region of Amdo to the north of Golok. The outcome of this strategic movement was Qing-controlled Kokonor Province—a region that was renamed Qinghai in 1928 during the period of the Chinese Republic and centered around the city of Xining.
The Qing Empire then strove to expand its empire to the southwest to the headwaters of the Dri Chu (Yangtse River). The Dri Chu bisects Kham in an almost vertical line, from north to south, and the Qing gradually absorbed local Kham polities, leading to the formation of the Chinese province of Sichuan in the early eighteenth century, centered around the cities of Chengdu and Dartsédo (Kangding). Due to its isolation and fierce resistance, Golok remained free of Qing incursions at this time.
The Qing rulers then sought to join the two provinces – Qinghai to the north, and Sichuan, to the south – by bringing the outer and inner territories of Golok under the banner of the Qing Empire to avoid having an ungoverned area in the western marches of their empire. In the eighteenth century, the Qing Emperor Yongzheng had fought against Golok tribes in the Amnyé Machen range. It was reported that Emperor Yongzheng destroyed more than forty groups of Golok fighters and forced them to pay tribute to the Qing court. It is also said that the Qing Dynasty distributed official ranks and titles to some Golok leaders at that time. But up until the Empire’s fall in 1911, the Manchus never succeeded in fully subduing Golok, just as the territory had never succumbed to the hegemony of the Ganden Phodrang.
The Qing Dynasty reached its apex during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor (1735–1796), who led Ten Great Campaigns of conquest and personally supervised Confucian cultural projects. But the Qing Empire’s control of Golok tribes was always tenuous. In the early 1820’s, the Vajrayāna Buddhist master Shabkar Tsokdruk Rangdrol (1781-1851) travelled to Central and Western Tibet, amassing a considerable fortune in donations from faithful disciples. The journey back to his homeland in Amdo (corresponding to current Qinghai Province) would take more than sixteen weeks and would pass through dangerous territory. In 1828, he joined a caravan under the formal protection of the Ganden Phodrang, the government of Central Tibet. Nonetheless, the caravan was brutally attacked and looted by Golok bandits. Shabkar’s leading disciple was among those who died in the assault, and the accumulated wealth of the party, including their pack animals and mounts, were lost. Those who eventually made it out of the wild Golok territory in which they had been stranded considered themselves lucky just to be alive.
Some months later, Shabkar recounted what had taken place to the chief Qing administrator in Xining. The amban readily admitted that, despite their proximity, the Golok tribes had remained beyond the reach of the Qing government’s imperial control. The fact that the caravan traveled with letters of passage granted by the Tenth Dalai Lama Tsultrim Gyatso (1816-1837) and by the Fifth Panchen Lama Tenpé Wangchuk (1855-1882) had counted for nothing in the eyes of their assailants, who considered themselves entirely beyond the spiritual and temporal authority of Central Tibet. Golok was nonetheless viewed as the one of the ‘four spiritual knots’ ensuring Tibet’s integrality. Golok’s fierce hostility towards outsiders thus preserved the ‘Wind Knot’ into which Düdjom Lingpa would soon be born.
The ‘Great Game’ on the Tibetan Plateau, 1800-1950
During the entirety of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century, the British, Russian, and Chinese empires—and to a lesser extent the Japanese and Turkish empires—competed for supremacy in Central Asia, a rivalry which became known as the Great Game. This struggle between some of the most powerful empires of the time directly impacted territories of the Tibetan Plateau, including Golok.
From 1757, Britain increased its control of India through the East India Company and ruled India as part of the British Empire from 1858. The British Raj, as it came to be known, began expanding into the Indian foothills of Sikkim and farther west in areas bordering Ladakh. The British Government of India was intent on securing trade routes with Tibet as well as increasing their influence in Central Asia, primarily in Persia and Afghanistan. With the completion of the trans-Siberian railway, Britain worried that Russia might extend its reach into Tibet and potentially expand southward into India.
Russia also aimed at increasing its influence in Central Asia at this time, having steadily extended its reach from the end of the eighteenth century under Peter the Great and subsequently under Tsars Alexander I, II, and III, all of whom gained territory for Russia. Russia thus feared the expansion of British interests into areas of Central Asia where Russia had established both commercial and political influence.
China was undergoing massive political change during the nineteenth century, with a succession of debilitating conflicts such as the First and Second Opium Wars (1839–1842, 1856–1860), the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864), the First Sino–Japanese War (1894 –1895), the Boxer Rebellion (1899–1901), and the ultimate collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the Chinese Republic in October 1911. As the Qing Empire weakened, they were under intense pressure from Britian and France to open their ports on the South China Sea. At the same time, they feared a foreign-assisted expansion of Tibet into its western frontiers in Sichuan and Qinghai.
Simultaneously, the Tibetan administration in Lhasa, the Ganden Phodrang, sought to free themselves from Chinese suzerainty claims by driving the amban, the local representative of the Qing emperor, and Chinese military garrisons out of Lhasa. They endeavored at the same time to reestablish the integrality of the Tibetan political realm by extending political, economic, and religious influence over Kham, as originally supported by Güshri Khan. They also sought to establish enduring control of southern trading routes between Central Tibet and China, while preventing any possibility of a British invasion of Tibet from India.
The expansionist agendas of the Chinese, Russian, and British powers in Asia had direct repercussions in Tibet. After Lord George Curzon’s appointment as Viceroy of British India in 1898, one of his top priorities was keeping the Russians a safe distance from the Indian frontier. Afghanistan had become a valuable buffer state between India and the Russian empire, and Lord Curzon envisioned a similar role for Tibet.
The ‘Great Game’ thus involved a complex admixture of opportunism, distrust, diplomatic intrigue, wary alliances, regional military interventions, and espionage, resulting in many then independent political states, tribes, and monarchies – from the shore of the Caspian Sea to the Eastern Himalayas – becoming protectorates or territories of competing empires. It also led to what amounted to a ‘game of thrones’ within areas encompassing Golok.
The Nyakrong War, 1835-1865
While the rival states of China, Russia, and Britain vied for power in Central Asia, a comparable expansionist agenda was occurring within Tibet, beginning in the region directly to the south of Golok. Nyaké Amgön Gönpo Namgyal (1799-1865), a hereditary chieftain (pönpo) in Nyakrong, a strategically situated mountain valley in the center of eastern Kham, expanded his power to become an infamous warlord who annexed large areas of Kham during what came to be known as the Nyakrong War (1835-1865).
As in Golok, the inhabitants of Nyakrong were known for their fierce and warlike character. They were skilled in constructing strategic fortresses and developed highly effective offensive and defensive tactics to contend with enemies. Throughout the Qing Dynasty, Nyakrong was known as an unruly and troublesome region, where banditry was rife and conflicts frequent among its indigenous leaders. Gönpo Namgyal’s family had jurisdiction over the central Nyakrong Valley, but they were engaged in constant wars with distant family members in the upper and lower parts of Nyakrong, as well as with many other regional chieftains. In 1820, at the age of twenty-one, Gönpo Namgyal had avenged his grandfather’s death by killing a relative who had cut short the life of his prominent grandfather. He subsequently engaged in battles to unite the three historical regions of Nyakrong (Upper, Middle, and Lower) and became simultaneously feared and respected in surrounding areas.
From 1847 until 1865, Gönpo Namgyal and his commanders began steadily and aggressively subjugating neighboring territories, tribes, and rulers in other parts of Kham. To the south, they invaded Litang, an important town on the southern route between China and Tibet. To the southeast, they conquered Chakla, the ancient kingdom centered around the city of Dartsedo (Ch. Kangding, Tachienlu) and a historic interface between Tibetan and Chinese civilizations. To the west of Nyakrong, they extended their attacks to Chamdo, on the banks of the Gyalmo Dza Chu (Mekong), and to Gonjo, on the right bank of the Dri Chu (Yangtse River). Gönpo Namgyal’s fighters then advanced northwest of Nyakrong and seized the Khampa city and kingdom of Dergé in 1863, taking the Queen of Ling and her sons as hostages. At that time, Düdjom Lingpa was residing two hundred kilometers to the north in Tröpuk Khandro Dukhang, a cave on the banks of the Mar Chu in the Golok heartland.
Gönpo Namgyal’s predations extended to looting prominent monasteries in Kham. In 1864, he attacked Dzongsar Tashi Lhatsé, a Sakya monastery near Dergé that was the main seat of Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo (1820-1892), and he burnt it to the ground. He seized other monasteries, including the majestically situated Dzogchen Monastery, one of Kham’s most important Nyingma study centers. Tulku Thöndup shared what happened when the ‘rebellious villain’ from Nyakrong arrived at Dzogchen:
‘When the wicked chieftain of Nyakrong, Gönpo Namgyal, captured Dzogchen Monastery, the Fourth Dzogchen Pönlop (Jikmé Chöying Ösel, ca.1825-ca.1897) instructed the Fourth Dzogchen Tulku Mingyur Namkha Dorje (1793-1870) to say how great the chieftain was, how poor Dzogchen Monastery was, and so on. When the chieftain came to Dzogchen Tulku, he repeated everything as he had been taught. Then he added, ‘That is what Pönlop taught me to tell you’, and then he gave all the true details of Dzogchen Monastery. The chieftain asked, ‘Where will I take rebirth?’ He said, ‘In hell.’ Instead of being offended and confiscating the property of the monastery, the chieftain left with an offering of a silver brick to Dzogchen Tulku with the request, ‘Please take care of me when I die’.’
After having conquered Nyakrong and other parts of Kham, including areas connected with the hereditary chieftains (pönpo) of Hor, Gönpo Namgyal turned his gaze towards Golok, which had so far remained untouched and unconquered by his troops. From 1860 to 1865, Gönpo Namgyal launched yearly raids in Dzachuka, the valley of the Dza Chu; Dakok, the valley of the Da Chu; Nyikok, the valley of the Nyi Chu; and Serta, the valley of the Ser Chu, all in the southern parts of Golok. In his attempt to gain control of Inner Golok, Gönpo Namgyal encountered Do Khyentsé Yeshé Dorje (1800-1866), the eccentric mahāsiddhā considered as the mind emanation of Jikmé Lingpa (1730-1798), the founder of the Longchen Nyingthik. Although it’s uncertain exactly when and where in the early 1860s the meeting took place, it’s is highly unlikely that the meeting took place in Golok. Tulku Thondup wrote about this encounter:
‘Do Khyentse went to meet Gönpo Namgyal, the wicked chieftain of Nyakrong, who caused many sufferings in many parts of Kham. One day, the chieftain said to Do Khyentse, ‘You carry a gun—now shoot that crow.’ Do Khyentse did so. Then the chieftain said, ‘You claim to be a compassionate Buddhist, but you are killing animals. How can that be?’ Do Khyentse snapped his fingers, and the crow flew away. The chieftain remarked, ‘What a gun; it couldn’t even kill a crow!’ Another day, they were riding together through the snow. Do Khyentse’s horse didn’t make any tracks. The chieftain said, ‘Oh you have a good horse. Let’s exchange horses.’ When they did, again the horse that Do Khyentse was riding didn’t make any tracks, and the chieftain remarked, ‘You are a good horseman.’ Having inspired both admiration and peace in the chieftain’s mind, Do Khyentse was instrumental in securing the release of many [of Gönpo Namgyal’s] prisoners.’
After Gönpo Namgyal and Do Khyentse’s encounter, it’s said that Gönpo Namgyal’s troops abandoned further incursions into the Nyenpo Yutsé area. There is no account of Gönpo Namgyal ever having met with Düdjom Lingpa.
In the early 1860s, Gönpo Namgyal focused his mind on seizing the valley of the Ser Chu, i.e., Serta, and its several Nyingma monasteries connected with the Palyül and Kathok lineages. The Second Dodrubchen Jikmé Püntsok Jungné (1824–1863), the student and friend of Do Khyentsé Yeshé Dorje, dwelled in Serta in a hermitage known as Dodrubchen Yarlung Pémakö. The warlord and the lama exchanged a series of letters prior to Gönpo Namgyal’s attack on Serta. As Tulku Thöndup relates, Gönpo Namgyal informed the Second Dodrubchen that he was going to lay to waste to the Ser Chu valley, but that he would do no harm to Dodrubchen Yarlung Pémakö, through which his troops would pass. The Second Dodrubchen answered that the people of the Ser Chu valley were his dependents, and that if they were harmed, it would be the same as harming his own monastery. Gönpo Namgyal then wrote back saying that ‘when he and his troops will come to the valley of the Ser Chu, they would first destroy Dodrubchen Yarlung Pémakö. Upon hearing this news, all the residents of Dodrubchen Yarlung Pémakö fled, leaving it empty.’
Because of his followers’ insistence, the Second Dodrubchen also had no choice but to abandon his monastic seat. In accordance with prophecies that he received from sky-faring ḍākinīs, he relocated to the Tsangchen plain, near the headwaters of the Do Chu River. A sacred rock hill called Jikché Barma, the ‘Frightening Blaze’, was believed to be the residence of a powerful local protectress. Wielding a phurba, a magical ritual dagger, the Second Dodrubchen suddenly flew into the hill without hindrance. He reported that a fearful town lay hidden inside the hill. In a palace within it, he was asked to share the throne of the chief, a woman of wrathful deportment. At his request, she gave him permission to build a temple, and, in 1862, he laid the foundation of what came to be renowned decades later as Dodrubchen Tsangchen Monastery.
‘Against the orders of the rulers of Central Tibet, I rebel! Against China, I rebel! We, in Golok, make our own laws!’ — A Golok folk song recorded in 1951
The Tibetan Game of Thrones, 1847 – 1928
While Gönpo Namgyal was engaged in battles to unify the upper, lower, and middle parts of Nyakrong, and, afterwards, subdued extensive regions of Kham and Golok, Düdjom Lingpa grew from a child into a young adult, residing on the banks of the Nyi Chu River in the Golok heartland. During this period, from 1847 to 1865, waves of refugees from Gönpo Namgyal’s predations sought refuge in Golok, which Gönpo Namgyal’s forces had been unable to invade due to the Golok tribes’ fierce resistance.
Each time Gönpo Namgyal conquered an area by force or intimidation, he kidnapped prominent lamas, local nobility, and political leaders and kept them in a form of house arrest. The stratagem prevented local resistance and ensured the capitulation of conquered territories. Because Gönpo Namgyal’s tactics became well known, many lamas and practitioners fled the announced arrival of Gönpo Namgyal’s fighters, fearing to become either hostages or victims. As a result, waves of refugees fled most of the principalities of Kham, many of them seeking refuge with distant relatives and clans in Golok, or lineage related monasteries, such as Golok’s Palyül Darthang, a branch of Palyül monastery in Kham.
Although Gönpo Namgyal’s troops never fully subdued Inner Golok, his expansion into Kham, on both sides of the Dri Chu (Yangtse River), posed strategic threats to both the Ganden Phodrang in Lhasa and the Chinese Qing Empire. Gönpo Namgyal’s domination of much of Kham had disrupted the historic southern trade route between China and Central Tibet over which important staples, notably black tea from Yunnan, made their way to Lhasa, to be traded for Tibetan horses and sheep wool. Central Tibet’s economy depended largely on free trade between Tibet and China. And without safe passage through Kham, taxation and the state income of the Ganden Phodrang would suffer.
Furthermore, Gönpo Namgyal’s domination of much of Kham had disrupted the nominal allegiance accorded to both the Ganden Phodrang and the Qing emperor. Former polities of Kham, such as Litang, Hor, and Dergé, which were now under the control of Gönpo Namgyal, no longer paid taxes or tribute to either Lhasa or the Qing emperor in Beijing. From 1862, Gönpo Namgyal’s domination of much of Kham had furthermore disrupted the flow of funds and provisions from the Qing Empire in the east to the Chinese garrison and Qing officials residing in Lhasa, in Central Tibet. Due to Gönpo Namgyal’s troops near total control of the main southern road between China and Tibet, even official postal services between the Qing Empire and its outposts in Central Tibet had shut down, increasing the risk of rebellion if remote outposts were suddenly short of supplies and funding.
Gönpo Namgyal’s military successes in Kham ultimately led him to champion the idea of an independent Kingdom of Kham, contesting the authority of both the Qing Empire in Beijing and the Ganden Phodrang in Lhasa. At one point, Gönpo Namgyal proudly threatened to march with his army to Lhasa, and to bring to Nyakrong two of Lhasa’s most prestigious statues: the Jowo Mikyo Dorje statue of Buddha Akshobhya housed in the Jokhang (Tsuklakang) and the Jowo Rinpoche Shakyamuni Buddha statue installed in Lhasa’s Ramoché temple. His hubris extended to claiming that, as he had united the polities of Kham under a single leadership, he could amass sufficient power to overthrow the Ganden Podrang government in Lhasa, at that time nominally ruled by the nine-year-old Twelfth Dalai Lama, Trinley Gyatso (1856 – 1875).
The ‘game of thrones’, in which rival factions vied for political dominance in Eastern Tibet continued into the third decade of the twentieth century and beyond.
The Compromising of Nyakrong, the ‘Iron Protection Knot’, 1864 – 1865
As Gönpo Namgyal expanded his territory, large numbers of Khampas fled his rule, including influential chieftains. In addition to Golok, they sought refuge in areas still controlled by the Ganden Podrang and repeatedly petitioned the Tibetan government for assistance. Tsepo W.D. Shakabpa, a senior former Tibetan government official, recounted that, ‘Six thousand refugee families poured into Lhasa from Dergé, Horkok, Litang, Chating and Dzakhok [and] submitted petitions to the Tibetan government for help.’
At first, neither the Ganden Podrang nor the Qing Empire in Beijing wanted anything to do with Gönpo Namgyal and his warriors. The Ganden Phodrang was, as usual, embroiled in internal political battles within Lhasa, while the Qing rulers were preoccupied with numerous rebellions in their territories and emergent external challenges such as the First Opium War and Taiping Civil War. Neither government could spare sufficient military force to suppress Gönpa Namgyal’s insurgency, and both polities at first ignored him.
But as Gönpo Namgyal’s powers escalated, and conditions deteriorated for the political and economic interests of both the Ganden Phodrang and the Qing Empire. Gönpo Namgyal’s impeding of the trade links between China and Central Tibet prevented the Qing’s import of greatly needed ponies and warhorses. Furthermore, Gönpo Namgyal’s forces were continuously looting the Chinese caravans that were bringing money, food, and other strategic resources to support the Chinese troops stationed in Lhasa, in Central Tibet. And his blocking of the postal route led to a breakdown in communications between the ambans in Central Tibet and Qing authorities in Beijing.
In 1864, just after the Qing Empire had concluded the Taiping Civil War (1850–1864), the governor of Sichuan was ordered to collaborate with the Ganden Phodrang to defeat Gönpo Namgyal. A decision was made to attack his troops from two flanks. A Qing regiment from Sichuan would strike his eastern defences, while Tibetan forces of the Ganden Phodrang would attack from the west.
The Chinese offensive against the eastern flanks of Gönpo Namgyal made little impact, as they faced fierce warriors from the southern and middle parts of Nyakrong. The Ganden Phodrang army then attacked Gönpo Namgyal from the west, under the command of Kalon Phulungwa and Dapon Trimon. Two years of relentless fighting ensued, from 1863 to 1865. Dergé, Dzongsar, and other places of power conquered by Gönpa Namgyal gradually succumbed to the Ganden Phodrang. A final battle took place in 1865, while Gönpo Namgyal was holed up in his family stronghold in Nyakrong. Gönpo Namgyal offered a truce, pledging allegiance to the regent of the Twelfth Dalai Lama Trinlé Gyatso (1856-1875), who at that time was only nine years old. Gönpo Namgyal claimed that he had only seized lands that the Qing Empire had either occupied or were poised to control. He demanded as part of the truce that Commander Dapon Trimon from Lhasa pledge to never betray him and that Gönpo Namgyal’s family would remain unharmed. Trimon agreed. But when Gönpo Namgyal returned to inform his commanders and family of the agreement, Trimon and his Ganden Podrang forces laid siege to Gönpo Namgyal’s massive fortress on the east side of the Nyak Chu River. Trimon’s troops set the fortress ablaze, and Gönpo Namgyal, his wife, other family members, and close commanders were all burned alive. To this day, acts of betrayal in Nyakrong are referred to as the ‘oath of Trimon’.
Although Gönpo Namgyal had caused immense suffering in Eastern Tibet, several prominent Tibetan lamas contended that the Ganden Phodrang should have left Gönpo Namgyal and the Qing forces to fight among themselves and thus contain each other’s expansionist efforts. One of these lamas was the renowned Nyakrong yogin of Kalzang monastery, Nyakla Pema Düdul (1816–1872), who was Gönpo Namgyal’s spiritual preceptor. At the time when Ganden Phodrang forces were setting fire to Gönpo Namgyal’s fortress, engulfing it in flames, Nyakla Pema Düdul is said to have clairvoyantly seen his disciple Gönpo Namgyal and his family at the edge of their impending deaths. Seeing his teacher’s unease, one of Nyakla Pema Düdul’s attendants asked if he was feeling unwell. Nyakla Pema Düdul replied prophetically:
‘It is indeed inauspicious to see the mighty Gönpo Namgyal’s fortress ablaze, for his Nyakrong rebels would have been the opponents to the Chinese demons who will soon arrive from the east. Now, I must transform myself into a great tiger, leap upon the battle scene, and disperse the soldiers from Lhasa to save Gönpo Namgyal. He must be saved so that he can fight the Chinese.’
Nyakla Pema Düdul’s attendant was startled by his teacher’s apparent intention to physically intervene in the siege of Gönpo Namgyal’s fortress. Tugging at Nyakla Pema Düdul’s red and white tantric shawl, the attendant said, ‘It only takes one rifle shot to bring you down, precious lama. You can’t leave now.’ So Nyakla Pema Düdul remained in Kalzang monastery, and Gönpo Namgyal died an excruciating death by fire. Later, when it became known in Nyakrong that this attendant had stopped Nyakla Pema Düdul from saving Gönpo Namgyal, it was taken as an inauspicious sign for the future of Buddhism in Tibet. Seven years later, in 1872, Nyakla Pema Düdul ended his own life by dissolving the constituent elements of his body into rainbow light (jalu).
Another Tibetan Buddhist master who foresaw that the Ganden Phodrang should have left Gönpo Namgyal and the Qing to fight between themselves was the extraordinary and eccentric yogin Do Khyentsé Yeshé Dorjé (1800-1866), the mind emanation of Jikmé Lingpa (1730-1798). In his autobiography, he wrote of a vision that he had experienced in the Year of the Earth Bird (1848). The warrior Gesar of Ling told Do Kyentsé Yeshé Dorjé that there were imminent threats to the Buddhist teachings in Tibet, both from the Qing Dynasty and from Gönpo Namgyal. However, according to Do Khyentsé’s vision, Gesar of Ling advised that the two warring parties should be left to fight between themselves and thus limit each other’s capacity to weaken Tibet’s eastern frontiers.
Nyakrong was held to be one of four spiritual protection knots for Tibet as a whole, and Gönpo Namgyal’s demise paved the way for ensuing incursions into Kham by both Qing forces and the Ganden Phodrang. This was viewed as the undoing of Nyakrong as the ‘Iron Knot’ in 1865.
At the time of Gönpo Namgyal’s demise, Düdjom Lingpa was thirty-year-old yogin residing in Dröpuk Khandro Dükang, a sacred cave on the banks of the Mar Chu in Inner Golok. He was revealing and composing termas, spiritual treasure texts, especially ones connected to Tröma Nakmo, the wrathful emanation of Vajrayoginī, and overseeing the birth of his first child and son, Dodrubchen Jikmé Tenpé Nyima (1865-1926). Hearing from many close students about the turmoil that had been taking place throughout Kham, Düdjom Lingpa is said to have stated that until his passing, all would be safe to remain in Golok, but that after his passing the region would fall into increasing discord.
Resistance to the Rise of the Ganden Phodrang in Eastern Tibet, 1865 – 1890
After Nyaké Amgön Gönpo Namgyal’s death in 1865, the Ganden Phodrang took advantage of its military victory in Kham to reassert its control of Eastern Tibet. In 1865, the government placed a high commissioner (chikhyab) in Nyakrong to formalize their newly reestablished suzerainty over that part of Kham. They replaced the local Qing representative (tusi) and quickly imposed financial reparations, tax regulations, and other legal and governance obligations on Dergé, the Hor States, and other Kham polities. They simultaneously funded powerful Gelukpa monasteries in Batang and Litang to increase their religious influence in Eastern Tibet.
In most parts of Kham, little love was lost for Gönpo Namgyal, as he had established a reputation for extraordinary cruelty. But soon after he was defeated, the misconduct of the Ganden Phodrang troops, who pillaged the countryside as they advanced, became a cause for long-lasting enmity among the Khampas toward the regime of Lhasa and its representatives. During this period, and throughout most of the nineteenth century, the Dalai Lamas lacked any effective political authority and were unable to influence either the policies or the practices of the Central Tibetan Government. Four of the Dalai Lamas during this period – Lungtok Gyatso (1805-15), Tsultrim Gyatso (1816-37), Kedrup Gyatso (1838-55), and Trinlé Gyatso (1856-75) – died before reaching maturity, and it has long been rumored that they were the victims of poisoning, whether at the hands of their own regents or by resident representatives of the Qing Dynasty’s Manchu court.
The political powerlessness of the Ninth through Twelfth Dalai Lamas, who mostly died as children, meant that the chief executive of the Ganden Phodrang throughout this period was the regent (desi or sikyong), who was invariably a highly placed monk. Several regents were distinguished by their long tenure, and hence by the considerable influence that they came to wield. Tseling Jampal Tsültrim Gyatso (r.1819-44), Reting Yéshé Tsültrim Gyaltsen (r. 1845-62), and Dedruk Khyenrab Wangchuk (r. 1864-73) together dominated much of the age of the four child-hierarchs. None of them demonstrated any interest in the remote territory of Golok.
The boy who would soon be identified as the Thirteenth Dalai Lama was born on May 27, 1876. Many auspicious signs accompanied his birth. A year earlier, an earthquake had struck the Dakpo (dwags po) area, and all the houses in Lagdun village, where the Dalai Lama was born, were destroyed or badly damaged. Only the house of the future Dalai Lama remained intact. The boy’s mother is said to have received many dreams prior to his birth indicating that he was the rebirth of the Dalai Lama. Other mystical signs are said to have appeared, such as a tree flowering out of season and rainbow lights appearing in the sky. The newborn is said to have had a fair complexion and a parasol-like head, with shining black hair with a single strand of white hair in the center.
The Thirteenth Dalai Lama received his final ordination as a bhikshu at the age of nineteen, in 1895. He took charge of the duties of State from his regent, Chökyi Gyaltsen Kundeling, and strived to assume control of Central Tibetan politics. He became an outstanding personality and helped Central Tibet to reassert its rightful sovereignty in international affairs. He sought to drive China out of Eastern Tibet, and to reestablish the Tibetan political realm as it had been at the time of the Fifth Dalai Lama, when the Ganden Photrang maintained political control of both Kham and Amdo.
At the time the Thirteenth Dalai Lama was rising to power, Düdjom Lingpa was residing in Dartsang Kalzang, on the banks of the upper Do Chu, in Inner Golok. But the Ganden Phodrang, which the Dalai Lama headed, had more pressing concerns than invading Golok. Furthermore, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama had begun receiving teachings from a renowned Nyingma lama from Eastern Tibet, Tertön Sogyal Lerab Lingpa (1856-1926), who was understandably sympathetic to the Khampa cause of independence from Central Tibetan control. These developments all took place a mere fifty to two-hundred kilometers to the south-east of Golok, indirectly impacting the region.
The Decline of the Qing Empire, 1850 – 1903
While the Ganden Photrang government in Central Tibet sought to consolidate its power and influence in Kham after the demise of Gönpo Namgyal in 1865, the Qing Dynasty chose to redirect its financial and military resources towards maintaining its political hold on the core regions of its empire and to prevent foreign powers from impinging on their immense territory. During this time, the Qing Empire was officially ruled by the Guangxu Emperor (1871-1908), but his reign was largely dominated by his maternal aunt, Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908). Among the Qing officials who played a part in Sichuan, Kham, and Central Tibet were the amban Liu Yan (1886-1945), the military official Zhao Erfeng (1845-1912), and his elder brother Zhao Erxun (1844-1947).
Since the late 1830’s, the Qing Empire had faced a bitter succession of defeats on its eastern shore. Against the British during the First Opium War (1839-1842) ; against the British and the French during the Second Opium War (1856–1860) ; in the Taiping Civil War of 1850-1864 and against the Japanese during the First Sino-Japanese War of 1895 , whose outcome was a further military humiliation for the Chinese Empire. Although none of these events directly impacted Golok–which had fiercely defended itself against Manchu hegemony–the weakening of the Qing Empire in the final decades of the nineteenth century had consequences which threatened their sense of security and geographical isolation.
Western powers had been able to fight, win, and seize significant portions of the Qing Empire, and the dynasty found itself increasingly vulnerable. To ensure the integrity of their realm, Qing officials increasingly shifted their focus to the empire’s western borders, from where they believed that the British, using India as its geographical base, might attempt to seize China, using the Tibetan Plateau as a strategic avenue of entry.
To counter this perceived threat, Qing officials sought to make Kham (the western part of Sichuan) a strong buffer against any British military invasion and to exploit Kham’s many natural resources to gain funding for its military. Ultimately, they aspired to seize and transform Central Tibet into a fully controlled Chinese province, and to overthrow the system of the Dalai Lama that had been established by the Mongols.
During that time, the Ganden Phodrang was ruled by the Thirteenth Dalai Lama Thupten Gyatso (1876–1933), who became increasingly advised by Tertön Sogyal Lerab Lingpa (1856-1926), the famous Tertön from Nyakrong, the homeland of Gönpo Namgyal. In these times of momentous changes, the Ganden Phodrang’s main strategic agenda was to prevent the Qing Empire from seizing Central Tibet and destroying its spiritual and political legacy. To counter this strategic threat, the Ganden Phodrang sought to push as far east as possible the shifting boundary between Tibet’s and China’s respective spheres of influence. Following the Qing’s first military expedition to Lhasa in 1725, the boundary between Tibet and China had been fixed between the towns of Chamdo, in the north and western part of Kham, and Batang, an area of southern Kham located within the Chinese province of Sichuan. Boundary markers were erected along the Ning-ching mountains which had effectively divided the historical area of Kham into two distinct regions. Eastern Kham was assumed within Sichuan while its western part was a complex combination of local independent polities. From 1865 and its victory over Gönpo Namgyal, the Ganden Phodrang progressively sought to push the boundary eastward, and to transform Kham into a buffer region between the Qing Empire and Central Tibet. The Ganden Phodrang’s second chief objective was to secure geopolitical and military support from foreign empires, either the British in India or Russia to the north.
During most of the nineteenth century, the British Empire was ruled by Queen Victoria (1819–1901), whose reign oversaw an enormous geographical, political, and financial expansion of the Empire. The British had conquered Burma and Sikkim, with the Himalayan regions bordering Tibet increasingly coming under British Indian influence. At the same time, Britain worried about the eastern and southern expansion of the Russian empire. Concerns were raised that the Russians would invade Tibet, and then continue south to seize India, with its wide range of natural resources and direct access to the Indian Ocean. Britain’s prime objective was thus to protect India, which was at that time the British Empire’s major source of revenue. This meant preventing Russia from dominating Central Tibet while establishing safe routes between British India and Tibet to encourage profitable trade.
The Russian Empire was at that time ruled by Nicholas II (1868–1917), whose reign was marked by geographical expansion to the east and south-east. One of Nicholas II’s main advisors concerning Tibet was Agvan Lobsan Dorzhiev (1853-1938), a renowned Russian Geluk monk who also became a close advisor of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. Although Russia’s actual intentions regarding Central Tibet and India continue to be debated, the Russian Empire occupied Manchuria in 1900, during the Boxer Rebellion and the subsequent dismemberment of China by European powers.
Prophecies of Béyul Pemakö, Hidden-Land Arrayed Like Lotuses, 1625 – 1900.
Amidst the storm of change, death, and violence sweeping across Golok, Kham, and Amdo, many practitioners began to turn their hopes toward the beyuls, or ‘hidden lands’—remote, sacred valleys designated by Guru Padmasambhava as places for meditation, spiritual refuge, and cultural renewal.
Among the béyuls, one name began to stand out across Golok and Kham: Béyül Pemakö, the Hidden Land Arrayed Like Lotuses. Located in a remote corner of southeastern Tibet, Pemakö begins where the Yarlung Tsangpo River descends into a deep gorge, curves around Namcha Barwa, the easternmost peak of the Himalayas, and flows into the Indian jungles as the Brahmaputra. Tibetans revere this landscape of towering glaciers and subtropical forests as a sacred sanctuary.
In the seventeenth century, during the Mongol invasions led by Güshri Khan, the Nyingma master and tertön Jatsön Nyingpo (1585–1656) revealed the first terma prophecies of Guru Rinpoche about Pemakö—a hidden realm beyond the Yarlung Tsangpo gorge. One of these texts proclaimed Pemakö as the ultimate place of pilgrimage, declaring that merely taking seven steps toward Chimé Yangsang Né—the ‘Innermost Secret Place of Immortality’—would ensure rebirth there. According to legend, one who reaches this realm may live a thousand years and dissolve at death into rainbow light.
To establish a haven from Mongol invasions and internal civil war, Jatsön Nyingpo instructed his disciple Rigdzin Düddul Dorje (1615–1672) – one of whose incarnations is Düdjom Lingpa – to open a path to Pemakö. Two centuries later, during Düdjom Lingpa’s lifetime, signs became more insistent that it was time to take refuge in Padmasambhava’s hidden-lands. Christian missionaries had arrived in Kham, to the south-east of Golok, threatening long established religious views. New deadly weapons – rifles as opposed to swords and lances – had appeared. ‘Demonic’ substances, such as tobacco and opium , had become available. All these outer signs had been clearly indicated in the prophecies left by Guru Rinpoche as signs that it was time to leave the Tibetan Plateau and to travel to his hidden sanctuaries.
Düdjom Lingpa’s prophecies concerning Béyül Pemakö, 1838 - 1893
Guru Rinpoche himself extolled Pemakö above all other hidden lands. In the Tsasum Gongdü (‘Embodiment of the Wisdom of the Three Roots’) terma of Jamgön Kongtrül Lodrö Thayé (1813–1899), Guru Rinpoche proclaims:
‘In this hidden land, all mountains are like blooming flowers. All rivers resound with mantras and flow with nectar; rainbows arch over trees and bushes. Oath-bound guardians vigilantly protect sincere practitioners and punish pretenders. Enlightenment in this very lifetime is possible here. Pure samadhi arises naturally. One session of practice in this land equals a year elsewhere. Three prostrations here prevent lower rebirth. Seven steps taken with sincere intent ensure rebirth in this land. Those who build stupas and perform virtuous acts here are my messengers. Fortunate children, keep faith in this land and you will realize its power!’
Throughout his life, Düdjom Lingpa received many visions and prophecies indicating that he was destined to reveal the path to Pemakö. His first vision came in 1838, at the age of three, while living with his family in Nubzur, on the banks of the Ser Chu River. One day, he saw a line of cranes flying overhead. Before disappearing into the western sky, the cranes communicated to him as follows:
‘At the end of this degenerate five-hundred-year cycle, beings have become wild and cruel. Though a teacher has appeared to tame them, the mother and child cranes must leave Golok and Kham. We’ve witnessed the barbarians at the borderlands. Soon, the sun of Dharma will be veiled by clouds of demonic views. We are flying south, to Beyül Pemakö!’
Dudjom Lingpa later revealed a guidebook to the hidden land of Pemakö, entitled ‘A Lamp for Dispelling the Darkness of Ignorance: A Guide to the Most Secret Land of Pemashri’. This was a treasure text (terma) describing Pemakö’s spiritual geography, including the abodes of masters, deities, and the transformative power of pilgrimage. It situates Pemakö as a sacred valley blessed by Padmasambhava for refuge during times of spiritual decline.
In 1881, Yeshé Tsogyal appeared to Düdjom Lingpa, urging him to go to Pemakö before the Dharma vanished from Golok and Tibet. In 1882, when he was forty-seven, Düdjom Lingpa began preparing for the journey, but he later acknowledged that his karmic link with Pemakö was obstructed, and he settled instead at Lama Rong in Serta.
In the 1890s, Düdjom Lingpa formed a connection with Ani Nangsal, the daughter of Trepo Sangngak, Powo’s 24th Kanam Depa—and subsequent aunt of Düdjom Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje. Then, as prophesied by the ḍākinīs, in the Water Snake Year (1893), Düdjom Lingpa, then fifty-eight, made preparations once more to travel to Pemakö. However, again the auspicious conditions unraveled. That same year, Ḍākinī Machik Labdrön revealed to him in a vision that due to the interference of individuals with impure intentions, the gateway to Pemakö could not be opened.
The Journey to Pemakö of Jedrung Trinlé Jampa Jungné in 1902
In 1902, Jedrung Trinlé Jampa Jungné (1856–1922), one of the two main reincarnate masters of Taklung Riwoche Monastery in Kham, led a group of one hundred Khampas from Riwoche fleeing mounting oppression from Qing soldiers. Their destination was Béyül Pemakö, the sacred hidden land prophesied by Guru Rinpoche. Among them was Gara Lama Sonam Rabten (1865-1936), Jedrung Jampa Jungné’s younger brother.
The group first traveled to Chimdro, in southern Powo, on the northern side of the Himalayas, and then negotiated precipitous ravines and high-altitude marshes to reach the remote Mipi Valley of Pemakö. There, they built a temple—Karmo Ling—from timber and bamboo and established a base to begin their search for Chimé Yangsang Né, the innermost sanctuary described in Guru Rinpoche’s prophecies.
Their journey was guided by a neyik (guide to sacred geography) entitled ‘Clear Light’, discovered by Jedrung Trinlé Jampa Jungné in a cave in Eastern Tibet. The text invoked a crystal mountain at the heart of Pemakö, surrounded by valleys ‘like the petals of a thousand-petalled lotus.’ The neyik described Pemakö as a refuge from famine, disease, and war, a realm of healing springs, medicinal plants, and caves for attaining spiritual realization. A ‘secret path’ through dense jungle was mapped out, along with warnings of wild animals and other dangers—but the greatest challenge turned out to be the hostile Chulikota Mishmi tribes, who obstructed the pilgrims at every turn.
In 1903, nearly two thousand Tibetans from eastern Tibet attempted to join the colony. Many perished crossing snow-covered passes or starved when Mipi’s limited resources failed to support them. Some tried to return to Tibet but died along the way. Those who remained were repeatedly harassed by the Chulikota Mishmis. Many eventually returned to Kham, but Jedrung Jampa Jungné stayed and later moved to Pemaköchung, where he met the young Düdjom Jigdrel Yeshé Dorje, the body incarnation of Düdjom Lingpa, and became one of his root teachers.
Prophecies of Pemakö by Tertön Sogyal Lerab Lingpa in 1903
Also in 1903, the great tertön Sogyal Lerab Lingpa, teacher of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama (Thubten Gyatso), began revealing termas connected to Pemakö. As violence erupted in Batang and Litang, villagers turned to him for guidance, asking where to go if forced to flee. In visions, Guru Rinpoche and Dharma protectors showed Lerab Lingpa the hidden sanctuary of Pemakö—a lotus-shaped land beyond glaciers and waterfalls, teeming with wild animals and fierce terrain. Guru Rinpoche instructed him: ‘There, in Pemakö, my followers, you should take refuge in the future.’
In 1905, two years after Düdjom Lingpa’s death, the Qing general Zhao Erfeng intensified efforts to bring Kham under imperial control. From his base in Batang, Zhao threatened to advance north into Nyakrong, then under the control of the Ganden Phodrang since the fall of Gönpo Namgyal in 1865. It was in Nyakrong that Tertön Sogyal, his consort Khandro Bumo, and their community resided. As a personal teacher of the Dalai Lama, Tertön Sogyal was a prime target for Zhao.
To protect their guru, Khandro Bumo and Trinlé Namgyal (also known as Atrin, Lerab Lingpa’s close attendant) prepared horses, supplies, and disguises to secretly escort him to the highland forests of Tromtar, in northern Kham. After a difficult journey, they reached Tromtar safely. Khandro Bumo later continued to Dzogchen Monastery, then under the leadership of the renowned Fifth Dzogchen Tulku, Tubten Chökyi Dorje (1872–1935). During this period, Lerab Lingpa explored sacred sites, engaged in intensive practice, and revealed further neyik—detailed pilgrimage guides and texts concerning Pemakö.
The British Invasion of Tibet in 1904 and its impact on Golok
On December 27, 1903, on the eighth day of the eleventh month of the Year of the Water-Hare, Düdjom Lingpa passed away in Dartsang Kalzang, his base at the headwaters of the Do Chu River, in Serta. His death, reputedly amidst dazzling signs, occurred at the cusp of momentous changes in Tibet. British officials in India lost patience in reaching a long-sought trade agreement with Tibet and instead opted for a preemptive diplomatic mission, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Francis Younghusband (1863-1942), whose long experience in India and Central Asia had earlier included an epic journey across the Gobi Desert.
In January 1904, only a few days after the passing of Düdjom Lingpa, the British mobilized over eight thousand soldiers—under the leadership of Colonel Francis Younghusband – and marched towards Lhasa from Sikkim, a protectorate of the British Empire since 1890. The ‘diplomatic mission’ soon metamorphosed into an inglorious invasion. Ill-prepared Tibetan troops who resisted the British advance were no match for the well-equiped British and Indian soldiers, and the Tibetans lost over a thousand men in a series of one-sided confrontations. As the British approached Lhasa in July 1904, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, who had been isolated in retreat, departed for Ugra, the capital of Mongolia, leaving his seals of office with the head of Ganden Monastery. As advised by the Nechung Oracle, he changed into Mongol clothes and rode north with a few associates, including Agvan Lobsan Dorzhiev (1853 - 1938), the Russian-born Tibetan Buddhist monk and influential minister in the Ganden Phodrang government. A mutually advantageous trade agreement was eventually reached between Britian and Tibet, with a British Trade Agency established within Tibet’s Chumbi Valley, to the north of Sikkim.
The ripples of the Younghusband expedition alerted the Qing Empire to the vulnerability of its western borders. Whereas the Qing had considered their southwestern borders safe from European influence, the British military expedition to Central Tibet convinced them that the British might launch another invasion into Sichuan via Kham. The Qing rulers thus resolved to reassert full control of the eastern parts of Kham, which borders Sichuan. This was both to prevent the possibility of an imperialist invasion by the British Raj and to ensure a safe route for Qing soldiers to reach Lhasa.
From 1904 into the 1950s, the Ganden Phodrang focused on freeing itself from Chinese suzerainty, while extending its political, economic, and religious claim on Kham and establishing lasting control of the southern trading routes between Central Tibet and China. Although the Ganden Phodrang had reasserted its claim to Kham after the defeat of Gönpo Namgyal in 1865, Qing forces continued to impinge on Kham and Central Tibet over subsequent decades until their eventual defeat and surrender in 1912 to the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, with the collapse of the Qing Dynasty. As the fiercely independent region of Golok had posed no direct threat to Lhasa’s hegemony in Kham and Amdo, the Government of Tibet never actively sought to control the region. Yet it was perhaps not entirely coincidental that in the very month that the British invaded Central Tibet, in January 1904, a child had been born in the hidden land of Pemakö, to the southwest of Kham, where Düdjom Lingpa’s followers would soon recognize him as the body incarnation of their teacher, exactly where and when Düdjom Lingpa had repeatedly said that that they would find him. (The child had been conceived in April 1903, while Düdjom Lingpa was still alive.) This child would later become renowned as Düdjom Jigdrel Yeshé Dorje (1904-1987), one of the greatest practitioners, teachers, and writers of the twentieth century in the Tibetan Buddhist world. By having sent an emanation there, Düdjom Lingpa’s purpose was to establish Pemakö as a sanctuary and place of refuge for the times of violence and oppression that had descended on Tibet in the years prior to his death.
Uprisings and Retributions in Eastern Tibet, 1904 - 1905
Düdjom Lingpa passed away peacefully in December 1903 at his stronghold in Dartsang Kalzang, on the upper Do Chu river, in Golok, surrounded by family members and close disciples. He was sixty-eight years old, and he had lived his life as a powerful tertön and teacher. He had once prophesied to his son Drimé Özer, ‘Until I pass away, no real trouble and harm will happen here. But afterwards, violence will swirl’. Following his death, Düdjom Lingpa could no longer perform wrathful activities to prevent the entry of ‘barbarians’ into Golok, as he had been doing much of his life. It was therefore not long before Golok and surrounding areas were subjected to increasing threats from both within and outside of Tibet.
In the same month of Düdjom Lingpa’s passing, the Provincial Governor of Sichuan, together with other Qing Dynasty officials, proposed developing agriculture and mining in Kham and encouraging Chinese settlement in the region. In early 1904, in accord with the Chinese Empire’s intent to increase control in the south and eastern parts of Kham, the Sichuan Bureau of Mines dispatched two representatives to Batang to meet and discuss development plans with two resident Chinese officials, the Batang Provisions Commissioner Wu Hsi-Chen and the Garrison Commander of Batang, Wu I-Chung. Once in Batang, they encountered opposition from the nearby monastery of Ting Ling. The Khenpo of Ting Ling monastery and other prominent lamas and local residents protested that the Batang area was suitable only for pasturage and not for farming. They did not want an influx of Chinese settlers, they said, and no locals supported the Qing initiative.
Around this time, a Qing official named Feng Quan was nominated as assistant to You Tai, the amban of Tibet who held the position from 1904 to 1906. According to the appointment, Feng Quan would be stationed in Chamdo, in the northwestern part of Kham, as a representative of the amban, while You Tai would be based in Lhasa, in Central Tibet.
On his way from mainland China to Chamdo, where he was to take up residence, Feng Quan stopped in Batang. It is said that upon hearing about the protests of the local Khampas, Feng Quan commented on the large number of monks residing in the local monastery, and he suggested that some of them would be more useful if they returned to agriculture pursuits. The monks took offense at Feng Quan’s remarks and an open rebellion broke out against him. On the night of March 26, 1905, rioting erupted and continued for several days. A mob of five hundred Khampas attacked the field where the experiment in agricultural development was taking place. They destroyed the field and killed those who had been working the project.
The predations continued over the following days. On the night of April 2, an estimated 3,500 or more locals destroyed Batang’s Catholic mission, killing the four resident French Catholic missionaries who they perceived as Qing allies. One of the missionaries was reportedly killed immediately (his remains were never found), while another was tortured for twelve days before being executed. The two others were pursued for three months and beheaded when eventually captured. Ten additional Catholic churches were burned down, and many local Tibetans who had converted to Catholicism were killed. The Khampa mob then took to the streets and attacked Feng Quan’s residence. Many soldiers and officials were killed in the ensuing struggle, including the Batang Garrison Commander, Wu I-Chung.
In the early hours of April 3, during extensive looting, Feng Quan secretly made his way to the house of the local Qing representative (tusi). When it became known where Feng Quan had taken refuge, the house was surrounded. On April 5, Feng Quan managed to escape with more than fifty others and attempted to make his way back to Sichuan. But not far from Batang, he was ambushed in a narrow gorge and he and his whole party were killed.
Having hoped to strengthen the western reaches of their empire, the uprising in Batang, in southwestern Sichuan, and the ensuing challenge to Qing authority, deeply distressed Qing officials. In 1905, in a final flare of imperial energy, responsibility for crushing the revolt was given to one of the most loyal servants of the Qing Empire – Hsi Liang (aka Xiliang) (1853-1917), the Viceroy of Sichuan. Batang was at that time part of Sichuan Province, and to accomplish his task, Hsi Liang soon chose two people to help implement the mission – Ma Wei-ch’i, Sichuan’s provincial Commander in Chief, and Zhao Erfeng, the Magistrate of the Chien-ch’ang circuit of Sichuan, who was renowned for his imperialist disdain for other cultures. The attempt to bring Kham fully into the political and cultural sphere of China during the last years of the Qing Dynasty was largely the work of Zhao Erfeng.
First on the Qing agenda for reasserting control over Kham was revenge for the murder of Feng Quan, the assistant amban of the Qing Empire who had been killed in 1905 when escaping the Khampa mob in Batang. Chinese troops under General Ma Ti-t’ai were dispatched from Sichuan and confronted the monks at Ting Ling monastery who were suspected of having instigated the murder. With no nearby Tibetan troops to support them, the Batang monks were compelled to surrender. The Chinese General arrested 322 monks whom he suspected of having had a hand in Feng Quan’s demise. The monks were all executed, their property confiscated, and some of the monastery buildings put to the torch. Ma Ti-t’ai then returned to Sichuan, and the mission of quelling Khampa resistance was resumed by Zhao Erfeng, who had to travel from Chengdu to Dartsedo, and then on to Batang.
The route through the eastern portion of Kham, from Dartsendo to Batang, cuts through the complex terrain of the Hengduan mountain ranges, with high peaks, swift-running rivers, and frequent mudslides. Moving food, weapons, and equipment in Western Sichuan and Kham presented extreme logistical challenges for Zhao Erfeng’s Sichuan army, whose primary means of transport were mule-hauled carts. At Dartsendo, cargo had to be repackaged into felt sacks because of the rugged conditions ahead. In many stretches the road was no more than a rudimentary trail carved into cliffs midway up from riverbeds below.
But for the Qing, the biggest obstacles to subduing and colonizing Kham were the monasteries and their militarized monks. Zhao Erfeng thus attacked them mercilessly as he cut a swathe through Batang and Litang with his crack battalion. When the monks of Litang monastery protested the brutal treatment of the Batang monks, Zhao Erfeng summoned Litang’s Tibetan government representatives and asked them if it was true that the Litang monks objected to his methods and those of other Qing officials. When the Tibetan officials confirmed the report, Zhao Erfeng had them executed on the spot. This quelled the Litang monks’ opposition, but the people in nearby Chatreng Sampel Ling, a Geluk monastery in Kham, began preparing to assist Batang. When Zhao Erfeng learned of this, he sent his troops to Chatreng and killed 1,210 monks and laymen. Slaughtering those who opposed him with startling violence and replacing local leaders with Chinese officials became Zhao Erfeng’s infamous modus operandi in Kham.
Following the massacre in Chatreng, the Qing army looted the grain stores of Döndrupling monastery and carted off its gold and copper Buddha statues. Imperial pronouncements were made restricting the number of monks who could reside in the monasteries in Kham and ordering many to leave the monasteries to work as farmers. Opposition by monastic leaders led to armed conflict. Monks attempting to negotiate with the Chinese were immediately beheaded.
At that time, from late 1903 to mid-1905, Tertön Sogyal Lerab Lingpa, the teacher of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, was residing at Kalzang monastery, in the Nyakrong valley just north of Batang. He had returned from Central Tibet in the winter of 1903 and discovered that he had walked directly into the battlefront between Khampas and the Qing military. It was widely understood that once Litang was quelled, the Qing army would turn north and move into Nyakrong. Troubled locals and tribal chieftains from Litang and Batang came to see Tertön Sogyal, informing of the atrocities being committed by the Qing troops. But the assault on Kham’s monasteries continued unabated.
The following year, in the autumn of 1906, Düdjom Lingpa’s son, Tulku Drimé Özer, began a pilgrimage from Dartsang Kalzang to Lhasa with a caravan of more than thirty groups of people. The group headed by Drimé Özer, then aged twenty-five, included his younger brother Paltrul Namkha Jikmé (1889-1960), then aged seventeen. They followed the northern route to Central Tibet, skirting the turmoil in Batang, Litang, and other troubled parts of southern Kham. After several months of arduous travel, Drimé Özer and his entourage arrived safely in the sacred city of Lhasa, one of the most important pilgrimage places in all Tibet. The rugged, nomadic pilgrims from Golok encamped in the compound of a rich and influential noble family in Lhasa. It was here that Drimé Özer met with his future consort, the treasure revealer and ḍākinī emanation of Yeshé Tsogyal, Dewé Dorje (1892-1940), who later came to be known as Sera Khandro. Together, they embodied the union of insight and method that comprise the Tantric Buddhist vision of total buddhahood.
The Predations of ‘Zhao the Butcher’, 1906-1912
In 1906, having heard of the fate of the monks and locals in Batang and Litang, the monastery of Sampeling, which belonged to the Geluk tradition and as such had close links with the Ganden Phodrang in Lhasa, resisted a Qing assault on their monastery. But Zhao Erfeng ended the resistance by sending men into the monastery disguised as monks. After fierce fighting, the monks surrendered and, on June 9, 1906, Zhao Erfeng entered and plundered Sampeling Monastery.
Later that same month, Zhao Erfeng’s troops extended their geographical reach in Kham by sacking Gongkar Naming monastery with 2,000 soldiers armed with German-made rifles and field-guns. Four monks went out to offer the monastery’s surrender, but they were executed on the spot. The remaining monks fled into the forest, leaving behind two aged monks and three kitchen attendants, all of whom were slaughtered by Zhao Erfeng’s troops. Similar attacks were perpetrated on Yangteng Monastery, where forty-eight monks were killed; the rest escaped into the surrounding forests. Both monasteries were looted of their gold shrines, silver ornaments, and stocks of grain, while the Buddhist scriptures were burned. Most of the treasures were dispatched to Sichuan, where the brass and copper objects were melted down to make coins and bullets. In November 1906, Zhao Erfeng returned to Chengdu, having earned the title of Frontier Commissioner for Sichuan and Yunnan, a position that accorded well with his intent to absorb all of Kham into the Qing Empire.
During the four years from 1904 until 1908, when Qing Chinese troops under Zhao Erfeng conquered many parts of Kham, Khampas called him ‘Zhao the Butcher’, in reference to his favored method of execution—beheading—which led to the terrible deaths of thousands of Khampas. Zhao Erfeng’s Qing army also excelled in looting monasteries’ grain reserves, plundering gold, silver, and rare bronze Buddha statues and relics, and transforming bronze and copper offering vessels into bullets and coins. Adding to the sacrilege, Zhao Erfeng and his soldiers seemed to relish fashioning shoe soles from the folios of sacred Buddhist scriptures. Yet despite his ruthlessness, the Manchus rewarded Zhao Erfeng with their highest military decoration. Like most Chinese of the time, he saw himself as a bringer of civilization. He compared the role of the Qing in Kham to that of the British in Australia, the French in Madagascar, and the Americans in the Philippines.
In the early months of 1908, Qing officials in Beijing appointed Zhao Erfeng as an assistant amban, a representative of China’s Qing emperor, in Lhasa, to report to the principal amban, Lien Yu. But because of his violent temperment, the news caused considerable alarm in Central Tibet. The Ganden Phodrang petitioned Lien Yu to prevent this nomination, and Zhao Erfeng never assumed the role of assistant amban. Lien Yü remained as sole amban in Lhasa until the Qing Dynasty’s collapse in 1911.
Shunned in Lhasa, Zhao Erfeng redirected his activities to the border areas of Eastern Tibet. In October of 1908, he arrived in Dartsedo where he was requested to continue to Dergé to intervene in a long-standing succession struggle between the half-brothers Dorje Sengé and Jampel Rinchen for the position of tusi, or local leader, in Dergé. Zhao Erfeng arrived in Dergé in December and began a military campaign that lasted until the middle of the summer of 1909, with the result that Jampel Rinchen was driven out of Dergé. But Zhao Erfeng promptly also deposed Dorjé Sengé and sent him into exile to Batang. He then annexed Dergé and ended the rule of its hereditary royal family.
At this time, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama had moved from Mongolia to Amdo and then to Wutai Shan, the sacred mountain in China associated with Manjushri, where he continued to teach. The Qing court, for its part, withdrew its recognition of him and abolished his titles before summoning him to Beijing for an imperial audience in 1908. Although the Thirteenth Dalai Lama offered his submission before the Guangxu emperor, he was told that all matters of business between China and Tibet would have to pass through the office of the amban stationed in Lhasa. With this rebuff, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama decided that he could never again rely on the Chinese court. The Guangxu emperor died shortly thereafter; his infant successor, chosen by the Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908), was to be the last emperor, Puyi (1906-67). The Thirteenth Dalai Lama met them both before leaving Beijing in 1909 to return to Central Tibet via Qinghai.
In Lhasa, Amban Lian Yü made it clear that he hoped to implement the same sort of development agendas in Central Tibet that Zhao Erfeng had begun in Kham. In the early summer of 1909, following Zhao Erfeng’s success in seizing Dergé – one of the most powerful polities in Kham – the Qing court dispatched a force of two-thousand troops from Chengdu, in Sichuan, to Lhasa, the capital of Central Tibet.
When the Chinese troops, led by Commander Chung Ying, arrived in Chamdo, within Lhasa-controlled Kham, they found their route blocked by Tibetan troops. The Tibetans were strongly opposed to this dispatch of Chinese troops, and they had resisted them throughout their march. Chung Ying then sent an urgent request to Zhao Erfeng for assistance. Zhao Erfeng had only recently concluded his military victory in Dergé. But he quickly gathered his troops and left for Chamdo on December 4, 1909, arriving there six days later. Zhao Erfeng easily subdued the Tibetan troops that were opposing Chung Ying’s advance, and he now found himself in possession of Chamdo, his first piece of territory in Lhasa-ruled Kham.
Zhao Erfeng then sent part of his force to escort Chung Ying further into Central Tibet. Zhao Erfeng remained in Chamdo, from where he mounted further military campaigns and quickly gained control of other parts of Kham, such as Markam and Dzayül, by appointing Chinese officials in areas that he had subdued. Meanwhile, in February 1910, Chung Ying arrived in Lhasa with two-thousand Qing soldiers.
The Compromising of Sa-ngen, the ‘Earth Protection Knot’, 1908 - 1910
The Thirteenth Dalai Lama had only recently returned to Lhasa after his period of exile following the Younghusband expedition. During his six-year absence, the Chinese expansion in Kham had alarmed him, and when Qing troops entered Lhasa in February 1910 he was once again compelled to flee. He and his retainers rode south on February 12th, pursued by two hundred Chinese cavalrymen, but they were given protection by the British Trade Agency in Yatung, in the Chumbi Valley bordering Sikkim. Some of the Dalai Lama’s followers were conscripted as ‘golden soldiers’, but being poorly armed they were unable to repel the Chinese soldiers. Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama, with three of his ministers and sixty retainers, fled through a gate at the rear of the Trade Agency and, while being fired upon, escaped into British-ruled India. The Dalai Lama was welcomed there, above all by Sir Charles Bell, the Political Officer in Sikkim, who was experienced in Tibetan affairs and could converse with the Dalai Lama in his own language.
Meanwhile, events in Central Tibet were taking an important turn. On learning of the Dalai Lama’s departure from Lhasa, Zhao Erfeng felt that a magnificent opportunity had arrived to undertake vast reforms throughout the Tibetan world, including changes in the religion and customs of the people. But the Qing authorities did not want to further aggravate the tension that had arisen out of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s flight to India and thus rejected Zhao Erfeng's suggestions, despite his vigorous advocacy. Zhao Erfeng also asked that the boundary between the borderlands of Kham and Central Tibet be drawn at Gyamda, even though it was 150 miles west of the traditional border between Kham and Central Tibet that ran along the Tan-tan mountains. This idea ran into strong opposition from the Chinese amban in Lhasa, Lian Yü, as it obviously cut down his area of control, and was not adopted.
Since 1908, Zhao Erfeng had had problems in quelling trouble in Sa Ngen, a small territory in the center of Kham bordering Gönjo to the north, Drayab to the northeast, Markham to the southwest, Litang to the southeast, and currently within Chamdo Prefecture in Tibet Autonomous region. Situated on the right bank of the Dri Chu (Yangtse River), Sa Nyen was sacred for Tibetans who regarded it as one of the ‘four spiritual knots’ protecting the Tibetan nation. If these ‘knots’ were to be compromised, it was believed that Tibet would be thrown into chaos and instability. The Khampas in Sa Ngen were known as fierce fighters, able to use their deeply forested valleys as treacherous traps against foreign invaders.
To subjugate Sa Nyen, General Zhao Erfeng initially solicited the Thirteenth Dalai Lama for support, but as help from the Ganden Photrang failed to materialize, Zhao Erfeng mounted a military campaign in Sa Nyen in 1908. The intensity of fighting between the Khampas of San Nyen and the Qing troops escalated over the ensuing two years. In November 1910, Zhao Erfeng sent one of his commanders, Fu Sung-mu, to resolutely seize the area, which he accomplished within ten days. Zhao’s unraveling of the Sa Nyen protection knot further weakened Tibet’s eastern frontiers, making it easier for future Chinese incursions.
The Compromising of Powo, the ‘Snow Protection Knot’, 1910 - 1928
In December 1910, Zhao Erfeng and Fu Sung-mu led their emboldened troops east from San Nyen and, in July 1911, forcibly annexed Nyakrong, a further spiritual protection knot that had already been undone in 1865 with the defeat and death of Gönpo Namgyal, the Nyakrong warlord who had ruthlessly conquered much of Kham, as described above. They then mobilized their troops to subdue Powo, the ‘snow knot’, a region in southeastern Tibet that borders the hidden land of Béyül Pemakö.
Located in present-day Bomê County, Powo had been founded as a kingdom in the thirteenth century, with hereditary monarchs. In the late nineteenth century, Powo was ruled by Trepo Sangngak, also known as Dawa Gyalpo, the 24th Kanam Depa, or King of Powo. Dawa Gyalpo had two sons, Tulku Jampa Norbu and Trepo Sönam Yangchen. In the year 1902, his eldest son, Tulku Jampa Norbu, received a prophecy from a ḍākinī, who urged him to travel over the mountains to Pemakö, where he would meet a special woman and father an extraordinary son destined to greatly benefit the Dharma. Acting on this vision, Tulku Jampa Norbu renounced his hereditary claim to the throne and entrusted the Kanam Depa title to his younger brother, Trepo Sönam Yangchen, who became the 25th Kanam Depa. In Pemakö, Tulku Jampa Norbu met Namgyal Drolma, who gave birth the following year to Düdjom Jigdrel Yeshé Dorje (1904–1987), later recognized as the body incarnation of Düdjom Lingpa.
Meanwhile, violent conflicts had broken out between monasteries and local governors in Powo. Taxes were no longer being paid to the Ganden Phodrang in Lhasa, and Powo’s newly installed ruler, Trepo Sönam Yangchen, was killed by a representative of Shulmo monastery. Joint Ganden Phodrang and Qing military forces intervened to resolve the crisis of political succession and tax payment problems. Qing China annexed Powo in 1910, though its monarchy was briefly restored in 1911 with the enthronement of Trepo Pema, the 26th Kanam Depa. But with the outbreak of the 1911 Revolution within mainland China, followed by the fall of the Qing Dynasty, Qing Chinese soldiers stationed in Powo were stranded without salaries or food supplies. To survive, the former Qing soldiers began to plunder their way back to mainland China, ravaging the populace and monasteries of Powo in the process.
In 1912, the newly established Kanam Depa, Trepo Pema, revolted against the remaining Qing forces, but he was killed by Wari Buchung, the governor (dzongpön) of Metok Shing, a settlement in Pemakö. With no immediate heir to claim the throne, Wangchen Düdul assumed the position of 27th Kanam Depa in 1915. He eventually clashed with the Ganden Phodrang over taxation and political autonomy and, in 1928–31, the Ganden Phodrang launched a military campaign, led by Tsogo Dapön, to subdue Powo. Victorious, they stripped the region of its independence in 1928. Wangchen Düdul, the last Kanam Depa, fled to India in 1931, where he later passed away. The Powo ‘Snow Knot’ effectively unraveled due to persistent conflicts between the once independent kingdom and the Tibetan government in Lhasa.
The Chinese Revolution and the establishment of the Chinese Republic in 1911
In 1911, Zhao Erfeng, then Viceroy of Sichuan, faced rebellion in his native province. In May of that year, Qing officials had agreed to European demands to rescind Sichuan Province’s ownership of a railroad concession and sold it to a European consortium. The sale infuriated gentry and merchants in Sichuan who lost considerable investments and resulted in the formation of a broad opposition movement, the Sichuan Railroad Recovery Movement. On September 7, 1911, Zhao ordered the arrest of the movement's leader and president of Sichuan's constitutional assembly, Pu Diajun, the president of Sichuan's student assembly, Luo Lun, and other prominent figures. On September 8, Zhao ordered soldiers to fire on protestors, killing twenty-six people during what became known as the ‘Bloody Chengdu Incident’. Authorities closed and guarded the Chengdu city gates. Protestors created ‘water telegrams’ by forging messages on oiled boards, which were smuggled out and floated down rivers: ‘Butcher Zhao arrested Pu and Luo, then massacred the Sichuan people. In all places, friends, arise, save and protect your land!’
Opposition fighters, primarily composed of Gelaohui militants, besieged Chengdu. On September 18 and 19, Zhao’s modernized New Army soldiers, armed with repeating weapons and artillery, pushed back the siege. Fighting continued in the area for two months. Zhao summoned troops from Wuchang, leading rebels there to rise up in opposition. This was the background to the Wuchang Uprising, the official start of the Chinese Revolution of 1911, and the diversion of troops to Sichuan was a major factor in its success. Following his return to Chengdu, Zhao Erfeng put down disturbances resulting from the nationalization of the Sichuan-Hankow railroad. Large numbers of people were killed and wounded in the process, leading to Zhao Erfeng’s increasing unpopularity.
In October, revolutionaries rose in revolt in Wuhan in China, eradicating Qing authority. When this news reached Lhasa, the members of the Gelaohui, usually translated as the Elder Brothers Society, a secret society and underground resistance movement against the Qing Dynasty, rose up and attacked Amban Lian Yü’s residence and looted his house. Lian Yü fled from Lhasa and took refuge near Drepung monastery, but the mutineers captured him and brought him to Shigatse as a hostage. Chung Yin, the Manchu Commander-in-chief, intervened on his behalf and secured his release. Afterwards, the mutineers called for other army units stationed at outlying points in Central Tibet to join them for the march back home to China. This brought additional troops to Lhasa whose plundering within the capital and outlying areas aroused widespread ill-feeling.
Chinese troops stationed in Kham likewise mutinied, allowing Tibetan troops and officials to move back into Eastern Tibet. The Tibetans soon pushed the Chinese back beyond the Dri Chu (Yangtse River), which became a de facto boundary between China and Tibet. Late in 1911, Zhao Erfeng returned to his headquarters in Chengdu, leaving a deputy in command of his troops in Kham. But as the Qing Dynasty collapsed, the Qing troops stationed in Chengdu rebelled, and Zhao Erfeng was soon left with no authority over his erstwhile troops. He attempted to compromise with the Republican forces, conceding his power and position. But he was at the mercy of the chaotic forces rampant in Chengdu at that time, and his handling of the railroad affair had instilled many with a desire for vengeance. In December 1911, the troops of Yin Changheng—the head of the Republican forces in Sichuan, and the self-proclaimed ‘Military Governor of Sichuan’— attacked the Viceroy' s residence in Chengdu and captured Zhao Erfeng. In the early days of 1912, having heard that Qing reinforcements from Ya'an were approaching Chengdu, Yin Changheng ordered Zhao Erfeng to be executed. He was led to the provincial examination hall, where, cursing his captors, he was summarily beheaded. The Butcher of Kham ended his life with the same swift and harsh death that he had inflicted on thousands of people in Kham.
After his execution, Zhou Erfeng’s troops in Kham deserted under attack by Tibetan forces, thus ending the Qing Dynasty’s Kham incorporation campaign. In June 1912, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama returned to Lhasa, to popular acclaim, and soon declared Tibet an independent nation. At this time, Golok had neither surrendered to the Qing nor to the Ganden Phodrang and remained a defacto autonomous territory on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau.
China’s ‘Century of Humiliation’, 1839-1945
After the death of the Qianlong Emperor in 1796, the Qing Dynasty faced internal revolts, economic disruption, official corruption, foreign intrusion, and opposition from Confucian elites. In 1839, four years after Düdjom Lingpa’s birth in 1835, the land, people and culture of China entered what was later called, by some, the ‘century of humiliation’ (1839-1945). The hundred-year period was typified by the decline, defeat, and political fragmentation of both the Qing Dynasty and the subsequent Republic of China, which led to demoralizing interventions, annexation, and subjugation by foreign powers, including Britain, France, Japan, and Russia.
During this period of internal fragmentation and successive military defeats, China was forced to make major geographic concessions in unequal treaties. It ceded territories such as Outer Manchuria, parts of Manchuria (Northwest China) and Sakhalin to the Russian Empire, Jiaozhou Bay to the German Empire, Hong Kong and Weihai to the British Empire, Macau to the Portuguese Empire, Zhanjiang to France, and Taiwan and Dalian to Japan.
For Golok, the political tribulations of the Qing Empire and subsequent Chinese Republic inadvertently protected their autonomy. As the central and eastern coastal parts of China came increasingly under threat, the Qing rulers had less financial and military resources to allocate towards their historic quest to fully control Qinghai (Amdo) and to expand the borders of Sichuan westward into Kham and Tibet. At the same time, the political violence and internecine wars that took place within Tibet and China during Düdjom Lingpa’s lifetime provide a context for understanding the visionary revelations, ritual practices, and acts of reincarnation that came to define the Düdjom Tersar lineage.
Golok’s War with Chinese Republican Muslim Warlords, 1912 – 1949
The northeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau—where Tibet, Mongolia, Inner China, and the Silk Road converge—has long been a cultural and geopolitical crossroads. Its population includes Confucians, Buddhists, and Muslims, reflecting a complex and often volatile mix of ethnic and religious identities. After the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, China fragmented into regions controlled by former Beiyang Army cliques and other military factions. During this turbulent Republican era (1912–1949), the Tibetan region of Golok repeatedly clashed with the powerful Muslim Ma warlords, based in Qinghai to the north.
The origins of the Ma family warlords trace back to the Dungan Revolts (1862–1877, 1895–1896), where Muslim generals like Ma Zhan’ao, Ma Anliang, and Dong Fuxiang gained favor within the Qing military by suppressing Hui uprisings. Their descendants—Ma Qi, Ma Lin, and Ma Bufang—later aligned with the Republic of China and built autonomous Muslim warlord states across Qinghai, Gansu, and Ningxia, with Xining as their stronghold.
Tensions rose as the Ma warlords stationed troops in Jyékundo (Yushu) along the trade route connecting Xining to Golok, often clashing with local Tibetan groups who resisted outside control. The Golokpas retaliated through guerrilla raids and ambushes, turning the route into a dangerous corridor. In response, the Ma forces launched repeated, brutal campaigns to subdue the Goloks. In one account, Chinese Muslim Ma soldiers paraded with Golok skulls tied to their saddles. Years later, the civil governor from Jyékundo beguiled fourteen Golok chiefs with promises of ciliation and invited them to a festive dinner. After dinner, however, the civil governor had them all tied up and beheaded. Subsequently, whole tribes had been decimated, with Chinese Muslim Ma soldiers killing 700 families in a single surprise raid near the Ma Chu (Yellow River).
In 1917, Ma Qi sent two hundred men to mine for gold in the vicinity of Amnyé Machen, and they plundered the nearby Golok encampments. The Golok leader of the Akyong Gongma subdivision retaliated by killing as many of Ma Qi’s men as possible and stealing five hundred of their pack animals. Battles continued in 1921 near Pennak Monastery (the seat of Gara Terchen Pema Düdul Wangchuk Lingpa, 1857–1911), in the south-eastern part of Golok, on the banks of the Mar Chu. At that time, Düdjom Lingpa’s son, Tulku Drimé Özer, and his consort Déwé Dorjé were forced to move their encampment to evade the fighting. In 1921, further battles took place between the Ma family warlords and Golokpas near Dartsang Kalzang, Düdjom Lingpa’s family stronghold in Serta.
During the 1920s, the powerful Muslim warlord, Ma Bufang massed his hordes of well-armed soldiers on the borders of Serta, in preparation for a long-planned invasion of all of Golok. To prevent this from happening, Sögen Rinpoche Natsok Rangdrol (1869-1935), a direct student of Düdjom Lingpa, proceeded to the sacred mountain of Drongri Mukpo, in the heart of the Ser Chu Valley. There, he accomplished the lower—wrathful—activities of Dorjé Phurba (Skt. Vajrakilaya), which include a violent rite of expulsion. Due to the strength of the effect of the ritual, Ma Bufeng is said to have fled for his life, and he and his soldiers vacated the area.
Between 1911 and 1949, almost forty years of fierce battles took place between Ma family warlords and the Golokpas, the most severe of which occurred in 1917, 1920-21, 1927, 1933, 1935-1938, and 1940-1941, leading to widespread destruction, mass killings, and forced tribute. The Golokpas resisted the warlords’ attacks whenever possible, killing large numbers of soldiers. Despite sustained assaults, the Ma warlords never succeeded in fully conquering Golok. With the common threat of advancing Communist forces, a nominal treaty was struck with Golok tribes in the Amnyé Machen area in 1949. The region remained autonomous, its fierce resistance preserving its independence from Republican Chinese control until the Communist takeover in the 1950s. Nevertheless, the Nationalist Chinese Commander Ma Bufang, with eventual Golok support, launched an exploratory expedition into Golok territory surrounding Amnyé Machen in 1949 in search of a safe haven into which he could withdraw his troops and carry on the war again[21]st Communism. The mission paralleled in many respects the Tibetan quest for beyül, places of refuge in times of war and strife.
Golok, the Chinese Civil War of 1927-1949, and the rise of the Chinese Communist Party
From 1927 to 1949, the Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The conflict was marked by continuous armed clashes, widespread violence, betrayals, and immense loss of life. The Communist Party ultimately emerged victorious on December 7, 1949, securing full control over mainland China.
Until the 1950s, neither the Qing army, the Republic of China forces, nor the Ganden Phodrang government had managed to subdue the fiercely independent Golokpas. However, following the CCP's victory, Golok came under sustained assault by a well-trained and heavily equipped Communist army. During the 1950s, many Golokpas were killed in battles, and the CCP ultimately succeeded in asserting complete control over Golok. In 1954, the People's Republic of China established the Golok Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, encompassing only the core of Golok’s traditional territory.
Thousands perished across Kham and Golok during this turbulent period. Spiritual practitioners, sacred sites, revered texts, and precious religious artifacts were systematically destroyed or set ablaze. This devastation echoed the prophecy that Machik Labdrön conveyed to Düdjom Lingpa in a vision in 1893, where she sang:
‘The spread of barbarian infernos will incinerate the fields of Dharma. There is no longer any opportunity for outer happiness. Devote yourself assiduously to essential practices at a site removed from the eight worldly concerns. My child, impart the supreme sacred instructions! When fortunate students appear, connected to you through previous aspirations and karma, grant them their inheritance of the profound, holy pith instructions. Although you won’t remain much longer in this present body, your real life span is as vast as the doctrine of the Great Perfection (Dzogchen)!’
Similarly, in 1896, when Düdjom Lingpa was sixty-two, Yeshé Tsogyal prophesied in a vision that invasions and turmoil would soon penetrate the very heart of Tibet.
The Unraveling of Golok’s ‘Wind Protection Knot’ in 1954
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was particularly determined to eliminate reincarnate lamas and spiritual leaders within Tibetan communities. This campaign resulted in the deaths of dozens of Düdjom Lingpa’s descendants and lineage holders, several of whom chose to pass away voluntarily rather than endure persecution. In 1959, Tulku Dorje Dradül (1892–1959), the eleventh child and eighth son of Düdjom Lingpa and the principal lama of Dartsang Kalzang (the family stronghold in Serta), ended his own life. That same year, Dzongter Kunzang Nyima (1904–1959), the speech incarnation of Düdjom Lingpa, and his cousin Sönam Déutsen (1910–1959), the mind incarnation, also peacefully passed away, unable to continue propagating the Dharma amid the violence of the Chinese Communist armies. In 1960, Paltrül Namkha Jikmé Dorje Dradül (1889–1959), the tenth child and seventh son of Düdjom Lingpa, similarly chose to end his life.
Thus, in the 1950s, the ‘wind knot’ of Golok—the last of Tibet’s four spiritual knots that had long protected the land—was undone. With all four protective knots unraveled, waves of negativity, violence, and death swept across Tibet like the ‘flames of a hundred hells’. Within less than a decade, the entire Tibetan plateau fell under Chinese Communist control.
An Era of Strife
Golok’s history is inseparable from its elemental landscape and the nomadic peoples who forged its fierce independence amid shifting conflicts between Mongolia, China, and Tibet. In this turbulent setting, Düdjom Lingpa’s prophetic revelations, meditation teachings, and ritual practices offered both protection from invasion and solace to Golok’s inhabitants as darkness and strife spread throughout the region during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Over the following century, Düdjom Lingpa’s descendants and disciples carried his lineage beyond Golok, to other regions of Tibet and across India, Nepal, and Bhutan. At the same time, in the wake of China’s Communist Revolution, Golok transformed from an impregnable tribal stronghold into a nominally autonomous prefecture within the People’s Republic of China.
References
- ↑ Leonard Clark, The Marching Wind: A Mounted Explorer rides into Forbidden Tibet, The Long Riders’ Guild Press, 1954, p. 235.
- ↑ This quote is widely attributed to Düdjom Lingpa in oral and online contexts but does not appear in any known primary or published sources attributed to him. Its phrasing likely reflects the spirit of his teachings rather than a direct citation.
- ↑ Düdjom Lingpa, A Clear Mirror: The Visionary Autobiography of a Tibetan Master. Translated by Chönyi Drolma. Kathmandu: Rangjung Yeshe Publications, 2011, p. 30.
- ↑ Schäfer, Ernst. Dach der Erde, Durch das Wunderland Hochtibet. Berlin: Paul Parey, 1938, p. 60-61.
- ↑ Golok decreases in altitude in its southeastern counties of Chikdril and Pema where more than 3,000 acres of land is farmed. Primary crops include wheat, barley, peas, white mustard, turnip, and radish. Given Pema County’s lower altitude, Golok’s oldest monasteries are located here in the valley of the Mar Chu, with earlier evidence of human civilization dating to the Bronze Age.
- ↑ Golok Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture lies south of Tsonup (tsho nup, Ch. Haixi) Tibetan and Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture, east of Yülshül (yul shul, Ch. Yushu) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, and west of Ngawa (rnga ba) Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture. Covering a total of 75,000 km2 within China’s Qinghai Province, the Golok Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture consists of six counties. Four of these – Darlak (dar lag), Gadé (dga’ bde), Machen (rma chen), and Matö (rma stod) – occupy the basin of the Ma Chu (Yellow River) whereas the two other counties – Padma (pad ma) and Chikdril (gcig sgril) – lie within the valleys and gorges of the Ser Chu, Do Chu, and Mar Chu that feed the Gyalrong River to the south.
- ↑ Nomad resettlement programs coupled with fencing policies are currently altering traditional migration patterns, although nomadic pastoralism is still the primary livelihood in Golok. Nomads travel seasonally to provide their herds with optimal pasturage, moving into higher grasslands in the summer and returning to lower more sheltered areas in the winter.
- ↑ Düdjom Lingpa, ‘Making Great Bliss the Path’, from ‘Net of Wisdom Pure Vision’.
- ↑ Wangchen Bum was one of the three kingdoms of Wangchen located on the ancestral territory of Golok’s Horkor tribe and now located in Golok’s Padma prefecture.
- ↑ Currently, the circumambulation of Amnyé Machen attracts Tibetan pilgrims from across eastern and northern Tibet who typically come between late June and early September. But even during these months, nights can be very cold and it often snows. During the winter, the lows can reach -30°C. The pilgrimage is especially popular every twelve years, in the Tibetan Horse Year.
- ↑ The Tibetan region of Amdo lies to the northeast and east of Amnyé Machen, as does the renowned Tso Ngönpo (Kokonor Lake) which is located 300 km away.
- ↑ Schäfer, Ernst. Dach der Erde, Durch das Wunderland Hochtibet. Berlin: Paul Parey, 1938, p. XX.
- ↑ Schäfer, Ernst. Dach der Erde, Durch das Wunderland Hochtibet. Berlin: Paul Parey, 1938, p. XX.
- ↑ Schäfer, Ernst. Dach der Erde, Durch das Wunderland Hochtibet. Berlin: Paul Parey, 1938, p. XX.
- ↑ Leonard Clarke, The Marching Wind: A Mounted Explorer rides into Forbidden Tibet, The Longriders’ Guild Press, 1954, p.160.
- ↑ The principal peaks include the lowest, Amnyé Machen IX at 5,690 meters, Amnyé Machen VI, VII, and VIII at between 5,966 and 5,990 meters, and five additional peaks over 6,000 meters. The highest, Amnyé Machen I, reaches 6,282 meters (20,610 ft).
- ↑ Other terma were revealed at sacred sites on the slopes of Amnyé Machen in the 1990’s or early 2000’s by the tantric couple Taré Lhamo and Namtrul Jikmé Püntsok.
- ↑ At 6,282-meter (20,610 ft), Amnyé Machen’s highest peak measures 2,567 meters (8,422 ft) lower than Everest. In a 1930’s National Geographic article, the American explorer and botanist Joseph Rock ‘concluded that the Amne Machin [sic] towers were more than 28,000 ft (8,500 m).’ Rock had stated that the mountain was higher than 9,100 meters, but the editors decided to be more cautious and published that it was ‘8,534 meters, or almost as high as Mount Everest.’ It wasn’t until the first ascent of Amnyé Machen’s main peak in 1981 that its true height was resolved.
- ↑ Joseph Rock, ‘Seeking the Mountains of Mystery, National Geographic Magazine, 1930
- ↑ Eduardo Martínez de Pisón, Más allá del Everest (Beyond Everest), 2012.
- ↑ Leonard Clark, The Marching Wind: A Mounted Explorer rides into Forbidden Tibet, The Longriders’ Guild Press, 1954, pp, 115, 151, 211.
Since the early 8th century, Tibetans and Himalayan people have treasured "Namtars" as written or spoken narratives that demonstrate the realization of the Buddhist path by exceptional practitioners. These namtars, or spiritual biographies, serve as inspirational guides on the path to enlightenment.
Today, Namtars Foundation aims to record, preserve, and freely offer the world a written and electronic treasury of the oral wisdom of Tibetan and Himalayan Buddhism.
