His Early Life and Education

Following the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s death in 1933, the Tibetan authorities immediately made necessary arrangements to maintain the political apparatus of a reincarnate Dalai Lama. The details of the mock search which resulted in the recognition of the present false Dalai Lama have already been given in Chapter 2.

 

The Fourteenth Dalai Lama had as his Senior and Junior Tutors two of the greatest spiritual masters of our time: Kyabje Ling Rinpoche (1903-1983) and Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche (1901-1981). Trijang Rinpoche and his own principal Spiritual Guide, Kyabje Je Phabongkha Rinpoche, are the two most important figures of the Gelugpa Tradition in the twentieth century. It is due primarily to these two spiritual masters that all of the essential Gelugpa lineages have been carried forward, completely pure and unbroken to the present day, including the close lineage of the Dharma Protector, Dorje Shugden.

 

Trijang Rinpoche, who was considered to be an emanation of Buddha Shakyamuni, Buddha Heruka, Atisha and Je Tsongkhapa, wrote an extensive commentary as well as many special rituals and yogas connected with Dorje Shugden. 123 The present Dalai Lama has referred to Trijang Rinpoche as his root Guru, or principal Spiritual Guide 124; and Trijang Rinpoche was also the root Guru of many of the senior and junior lamas of the Gelugpa Tradition as well as of thousands of other monks, nuns and lay people. He was one of the most respected and loved lamas in the last half of the twentieth cen- tury. 125 It is sad to note that the Dalai Lama does not mention these extraordinary qualities of his Spiritual Guide even once in his later autobiography, referring to him in passing only as his Junior Tutor and as a member of his retinue.126 His earlier autobiography also mentions Trijang Rinpoche, but only as the person who taught him how to read, the principles of grammar and how to spell. 127