Jebtsundamba Khutuktu
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The Khalkha Jebtsundamba Khutuktu (Mongolian: Жавзандамба хутагт, Javzandamba Khutagt; Tibetan: རྗེ་བཙུན་དམ་པ་ Jetsun Dampa; literally, "Holy Venerable Lord") is the spiritual head of the Gelug lineage of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia. He also holds the title of Bogd Gegeen, making him the top-ranked lama in Mongolia.
The first Jebtsundamba, Zanabazar (1635-1723), was identified as the reincarnation of the scholar Taranatha of the Jonang school of Tibetan Buddhism. Zanabazar was the son of the Tüsheet Khan Gombodorj, ruler of central Khalkha Mongolia, and himself became the spiritual head of the Khalkha Mongols.
Like Zanabazar, the second Jebtsundamba also was a member of Mongolia's highest nobility and direct descendant of Genghis Khan. After Chingünjav's rebellion and the successive demise of the second Jebtsundamba Khutugtu, the Qianlong emperor decreed in 1758 that all future reincarnations were to be found from among the population of Tibet.
When northern Mongolia declared independence in 1911, the eighth Jebtsundamba (1869-1924) was elevated as the Emperor of Mongolia, called Bogd Khan. He was the head of state until his death in 1924. The Communist government declared that there were to be no further reincarnations.
A reincarnation was in fact found almost at once in north Mongolia, and some high lamas of the dead Khutughtu's suite went to interview the child's mother, Tsendjav, and to instruct her in the details of the life of the former incarnation, so that she could familiarize the child-candidate with the tests which he would have to undergo. Faced with the possibility of a new Khutughtu who was born within Mongolia and was not even a foreigner from Tibet, the Communist Party Central Committee in July 1925, decided to turn the matter over to the aged Dalai Lama in Lhasa, whose decision would nonetheless be subject to the new law for the separation of Church and State. In February 1929 the installation of any further Khutughtus was forbidden.[1]
The ninth and current Jebtsundamba Khutughtu was born as Jampal Namdol Chökyi Gyaltsen on the tenth day of the eleventh month of 1932 near the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, Tibet. Six months after his birth, his parents separated and his mother left him in the care of his uncle who was a bodyguard of the thirteenth Dalai Lama. The thirteenth Dalai Lama died in December 1933, and Reting Rinpoche became Regent of Tibet until a new Dalai Lama was discovered and coronated. Because of the inability of the Mongolian lamas to proclaim the discovery of the ninth Khutughtu, Reting Rinpoche in 1936, recognised Jampal Namdol Chökyi Gyaltsen, then age four, as the reincarnation of the eighth Jebtsundamba Khutughtu, after the boy passed three sets of tests. Due to the complex political situation, his existence was kept a secret. At the age of seven, he entered the Drepung Monastery, but because his identity was kept secret, he could not enter the Khalkha Mitsen, but had to follow the life of a common monk. At age 25, he renounced his monastic vows and became a householder, took a wife and had two children. When the Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet in 1959, Jampal Namdol did also, fearing that his identity would be revealed and he would be killed or used by the Communists for propaganda. He worked at various jobs, including in the Tibetan language section of All India Radio, and at Tibet House in New Delhi. His first wife passed away, and he remarried. In 1975, his family (now including seven children), moved to Karnataka. In 1984, Jampal Namdol visited Lhasa, and in 1990 the Dalai Lama issued a statement revealing the identity of the ninth Khutughtu. In 1991 the Dalai Lama performed an installation ceremony in Madhya Pradesh and in 1992 an enthronement ceremony in Dharmsala for the ninth Khutughtu. In July 1999, while visiting Mongolia on a tourist visa, Jampal Namdol took part in an enthronement ceremony at the Gandantegchinlen Khiid Monastery in Ulan Bataar. He continues to live in exile in India.[2]
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama has appointed the present Jebtsundamba as representative of the Jonang tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.
