Khandro Lhamo ( Tibetan: མཁའ་འགྲོ་ལྷ་མོ་, Wylie: ''mkha' 'gro lha mo'') (1914 - 30 March 2003) was a doctor (''Amchi'') of

Traditional Tibetan medicine Traditional Tibetan medicine or Sowa Rigpa is the Tibetan medical system developed in the 8th century under King Trisong Detsen that incorporated the best international medical practices of that time.Claude Arpi, ''Glimpses on the Tibet History' ...

and a practitioner of

Tibetan Buddhism Tibetan Buddhism is a form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet, Bhutan and Mongolia. It also has a sizable number of adherents in the areas surrounding the Himalayas, including the Indian regions of Ladakh, Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, D ...

. She was

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Tashi Paljor () (c. 1910 – 28 September 1991) was a Vajrayana master, Terton, scholar, poet, teacher, and recognized by Buddhists as one of the greatest realized masters. Head of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism f ...

's partner and she helped to build and maintain

Shechen Monastery Shechen Monastery () is one of the "Six Mother Monasteries" of the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. It was originally located in Kham, Tibet, but was destroyed in the late 1950s during the Cultural Revolution and was rebuilt in Nepal in ...

in Nepal.

Biography

Khandro Lhamo was born in

Kham Kham (; ) is one of the three traditional Tibet, Tibetan regions, the others being Domey also known as Amdo in the northeast, and Ü-Tsang in central Tibet. The official name of this Tibetan region/province is Dotoe (). The original residents of ...

in eastern

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 ...

to a modest family in 1914. She married

when she was nineteen years old and he was twenty-five years old. The marriage was arranged quickly since Dilgo Khyentse had fallen ill after an austere retreat and his teacher,

Dzongsar Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö Dzongsar Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö ( – 1959) was a Tibetan people, Tibetan lama, a master of many lineages, and a teacher of many of the major figures in 20th-century Tibetan Buddhism. Though he died in 1959 in Sikkim, and is not so well known ...

,Greg Zwhalen, prophesied that a wife would heal him (despite the fact he did not want to marry, even though as a

tertön In Tibetan Buddhism, a Tertön () is a person who is a discoverer of ancient hidden texts or '' terma''. Many tertöns are considered to be incarnations of the twenty five main disciples of Padmasambhava ( Guru Rinpoche), who foresaw a dark time in ...

he could die at young age if he did not.). Khandro Lhamo did help him recover and was recognised as a ḍākinī. They travelled together whilst her husband undertook spiritual retreats; Lhamo also received Buddhist teachings with him in Tibet. In the mid-1950s Chinese soldiers were searching for high tulkus, among them Dilgo Khyentse, especially in

.Alex Gardner, ''Dilgo Khyentse Tashi Peljor'', December 2009 Khandro Lhamo hid his whereabouts for a few weeks while sending him messages. She finally grabbed a bag of tsampa and left the house, traveling to where he was teaching and they immediately departed for

Lhasa Lhasa, officially the Chengguan District of Lhasa City, is the inner urban district of Lhasa (city), Lhasa City, Tibet Autonomous Region, Southwestern China. Lhasa is the second most populous urban area on the Tibetan Plateau after Xining ...

. By 1959 and around the time of the March

1959 Tibetan uprising The 1959 Tibetan uprising or Lhasa uprising began on 10 March 1959 as a series of protests in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, fueled by fears that the Chinese government planned to arrest the Dalai Lama. Over the next ten days, the demonstratio ...

in Lhasa, they again escaped with their two daughters and a small group of disciples, and left Tibet to reach the border at

Bhutan Bhutan, officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked country in South Asia, in the Eastern Himalayas between China to the north and northwest and India to the south and southeast. With a population of over 727,145 and a territory of , ...

, where they stayed until given permission to cross into India. She and her family lived in Kalimpong with

Dudjom Rinpoche Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche Jigdral Yeshe DorjeJoseph McClellan, "Dudjom Rinpoche Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje", ''Treasury of Lives'', February 2024 (, THL ''Düjom Jikdrel Yéshé Dorjé'') was known simply as Dudjom Rinpoche (10 June 1904 – 17 January ...

until they moved to Bhutan in 1965. Khandro Lhamo was a highly accomplished Doctor of Tibetan medicine, who after 1980 contributed to the construction and maintenance of

in Nepal. After the death of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche in 1991, she lived in the nunnery Shechen Orgyen Chodzong in Bhutan, and worked with Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche, their grandson, to develop the institution for ordained women. Khandro Lhamo died on 30 March 2003 and was cremated in June 2003. Relics (''kudun'' of her eyes, tongue and heart were kept.

References

External links

The Cremation of Khandro Lhamo
{{Authority control 1914 births 2003 deaths Tibetan women Tibetan medicine People from Kham