1st Dalai Lama

Biography

Gedun Drupa was born in a cow-shed in Gyurmey Rupa near Sakya in the Tsang region of central Tibet, the son of Gonpo Dorjee and Jomo Namkha Kyi, nomadic tribespeople. He was raised as a shepherd until the age of seven. His birth name (according to the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center, his personal name) was Péma Dorjee (Tibetan: པད་མ་རྡོ་རྗེ་, "Vajra Lotus").

Ordination

Later he was placed in Narthang Monastery. In 1405, he took his getsul (novitiate) vows from the abbot of Narthang, Khenchen Drupa Sherap. When he was 20 years old, in about 1411, he received the name Gedun Drupa upon taking the vows of a bhikṣu (monk) from the abbot of Narthang Monastery. Also at this age he became a student of the scholar and reformer Je Tsongkhapa (1357–1419), who some say was his uncle. Around this time he also became the first abbot of Ganden Monastery, founded by Tsongkhapa himself in 1409.

Career

By the middle of his life, Gedun Drupa had become one of the most esteemed scholar-saints in the country. Gedun Drupa founded the major monastery of Tashi Lhunpo Monastery at Shigatse, which later became the seat of the Panchen Lamas.

Gedun Drupa did not hold national political power. It was in the hands of viceroys such as the Sakyas, the prince of Tsang, and the Mongolian Khagan. The Tibetan national political leadership positions of the successive Dalai Lamas began much later during the reign of the 5th Dalai Lama, in 1642.

He remained the Khenpo of Tashi Lhunpo Monastery until he died while meditating in 1474 at the age of 84 (83 by Western reckoning).