Dilgo Khyentse - Lion of Speech: The Life of Mipham Rinpoche

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche composed his biography of Jamgn Mipham in 1939 at the behest of Jamyang Khyentse Chkyi Lodr and Jedrung Karma Chkyi Nyinje. Incorporating much of the material gathered in an earlier biography by Khenpo Kunzang Pelden, one of Miphams closest disciples, Khyentse Rinpoche enlarged and enriched his account from two important sources: oral accounts preserved in notes kept by his elder brother Shedrup Tendzin and, most especially, the personal recollections of Lama sel Jal Dorje, who had been Miphams devoted personal attendant for thirty-seven years.

With the passage of time, the unpublished manuscript was displaced among its authors papers and disappeared. Left behind in Tibet when Khyentse Rinpoche went into exile in 1959, it was not included in his collected works when these were assembled and published thirty-five years later in 1994. To all intents and purposes, the biography was lost beyond recovery and, were it not for a single chance occurrence, would have passed completely out of memory. In the winter of 198687, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche himself presided over the publication of Mipham Rinpoches collected works. One day, as he was perusing Kunzang Peldens biography of Mipham, which was to be included in the seventh volume of the collection, There, for the time being, the matter rested. Khyentse Rinpoche died a few years later in 1991 and, apart from the startling piece of information received by Dakpo Tulku, no one had either seen or heard of the long lost biography.

By an extraordinary stroke of good fortune, however, the text came to light in 2010. Brought to Larung Gar in Serta by an old monk from Gyarong, it was offered to Khenpo Chime Rigdzin, one of the professors there. The manuscript was circulated among several readers, but seeing that the author had identified himself simply as Tashi Paljor, no one recognized its provenance. Eventually, however, it came into the hands of Gelong Gyurme Senge, a young monk of Shechen in Kham, who at the time was a student at Larung Gar. He immediately realized that Tashi Paljor was the personal name of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpochegiven to him shortly after his birth by Mipham himself. A copy of the text was sent to Nepal to Dakpo Tulku, by then the distinguished editor of the new and definitive edition of the Rinchen Terdz, the collection of Nyingma treasure texts. After careful examination by several scholars, it was unanimously decided that the text was indeed the long lost biography of Mipham composed by Khyentse Rinpoche seventy years before. It was brought to Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche, Khyentse Rinpoches grandson, who immediately arranged for it to be published, just in time for it to be distributed during the reading transmission of Miphams works, which Rabjam Rinpoche himself gave at Bodhgaya in India in 2013 to mark the centenary anniversary of Miphams death.