Gyatsho Tshering (1936 in

Kingdom of Sikkim The Kingdom of Sikkim (Classical Tibetan and , ''Drenjong'', , ''Sikimr Gyalkhab'') officially Dremoshong (Classical Tibetan and ) until the 1800s, was a hereditary monarchy in the Eastern Himalayas which existed from 1642 to 16 May 1975 ...

– 25 June 2009 in

Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

, United States), also spelled Gyatso Tsering, was

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

an scholar of Indian nationality. Bhuchung K. Tsering
Obituary: Gyatsho Tshering, Eminent Scholar of Tibetan Studies
, Phayul.com, 29 June 2009 He was the former director of the

Library of Tibetan Works and Archives A library is a collection of books, and possibly other materials and media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or digital (soft copies) materials, and may be a ...

Biography

Tshering was born in Sikkim of Lobsang Lama and Nyima Dolma and completed his studies at the

University of Calcutta The University of Calcutta, informally known as Calcutta University (), is a Public university, public State university (India), state university located in Kolkata, Calcutta (Kolkata), West Bengal, India. It has 151 affiliated undergraduate c ...

. He then worked at the Ministry of External Affairs and the

Ministry of Home Affairs An interior ministry or ministry of the interior (also called ministry of home affairs or ministry of internal affairs) is a government department that is responsible for domestic policy, public security and law enforcement. In some states, the i ...

of the

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, and worked at the Indian Consulate-General in Lhasa and at the

Government of Sikkim The Government of Sikkim also known as Sikkim Government or State Government of Sikkim, is the administrative executive authority of the Indian state of Sikkim and its Districts of Sikkim, 6 districts, created by the Constitution of India, Natio ...

. After his studies, he planned to become director of the

Namgyal Institute of Tibetology Namgyal Institute of Tibetology (NIT) is a Tibetan people, Tibet museum in Gangtok, Sikkim, India, named after the 11th Chogyal of Sikkim, Sir Tashi Namgyal. The institute employs researchers and one of its new research programs is a project w ...

and was sent for training at the Consulate of India in Lhasa, where he hold a position in 1955 until its closure during the

Sino-Indian War The Sino–Indian War, also known as the China–India War or the Indo–China War, was an armed conflict between China and India that took place from October to November 1962. It was a military escalation of the Sino–Indian border dispu ...

in 1962. He states that between 1955 and 1959, some of the work at the consulate was to gather information on the activities of the Chinese army, and was therefore aware of the tension in March 1959. On the evening of 17 March, the atmosphere was particularly tense, and he spent the night with his colleagues at the consulate where he could not sleep. At 2 am, the shelling began, he knew that the

14th Dalai Lama The 14th Dalai Lama (born 6 July 1935; full spiritual name: Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, shortened as Tenzin Gyatso; ) is the incumbent Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual leader and head of Tibetan Buddhism. He served a ...

left the

Norbulingka Norbulingka (; Wylie transliteration, Wylie: ''Nor bu gling ga''; zh, s=罗布林卡, t=羅布林卡; literally "Jeweled Park") is a palace and surrounding park in Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region, Tibet built from 1755.Tibet (1986), p.71 It ser ...

, but kept it secret. He decided to go out to see what happens, and found the streets full of Chinese soldiers, shouting and firing at close range. There were masses of corpses. The artillery fired at

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, the bombing lasted 2 hours, after which the monks got out from the Potala, providing easy targets for Chinese military guns. He also saw two women and a man walking on the road, white scarves at hands as a sign of peace. They were mown down by 4 or 5 shots. In a monastery near the Potala, he saw Chinese soldiers looking for weapons, threatening thirty Tibetans who raised their hands, who were finally shot He joined the

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in 1963 and worked in various departments until his retirement in the late 1990s. He worked for publishing and translation services in 1965. In 1966, he was transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in 1967 to the Department of Religion and Culture. During this period, he was a member of the entourage of the 14th Dalai Lama during his first trip to Japan and Thailand. Subsequently, he was promoted Secretary of the Ministry and later Deputy Minister. In 1972, he became the Acting Director of the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives newly created until the appointment of Prof.

Thupten Jigme Norbu Thubten Jigme Norbu () (August 16, 1922 – September 5, 2008), recognised as the 16th Taktser Rinpoche, but he was married to a woman in 1960.https://web.archive.org/web/20130401130413/http://globalview.cn/ReadNews.asp?NewsID=15145 达赖的� ...

as director in June this same year. He was appointed by the Dalai Lama as the new director of the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in 1974 and held that position from 1 March until his retirement April 1998. In 1999, he joined his wife, Namgyal Dolma, to the United States and they settled in Minneapolis. Tshering's most significant contribution is the development of the

as pre-eminent center for Tibetan studies at international level. Tshering died in 2009. He is survived by his wife Namgyal Dolma and his daughter Yiga Lhamo.

Tributes

American singer-songwriter Larry Long wrote the song "Tibet" in Tshering's honor., LarryLongTroubadour, 6 January 2012

Some of his publications

Books

* ''The Tibetan Cathedral, Thekchen Chholing, Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh: A Souvenir'', Ed. Tibetan Cultural Printing Press, 1970 * ''The Guru Puja and The Hundred Deities of the Land of Joy'', Dharamsala, Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1995

Preface

* ''Vivre la méditation au quotidien'', Dalaï-Lama; trad. de l'anglais par Pema Dorje et Marie-Pierre d'Haillecourt; assistés pour la version définitive par M.-T. Guettab; Paris : Éd. Dewatshang, 1995

Translations

* Yeshi Donden, 'Tibetan Medicine: A Brief History, translated by Gyatsho Tshering', The Tibet Society Bulletin, 5 (1972): pp. 7–24.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tshering, Gyatsho 1936 births Writers from Sikkim 2009 deaths University of Calcutta alumni Tibetologists Indian people of Tibetan descent Tibetan–English translators Writers from Minneapolis 20th-century Indian translators Indian religious writers Indian social sciences writers 20th-century Indian biographers