Khunu Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen

Who was Khunu Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen?

Khunu Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen, known also as Negi Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen, Khunu Rinpoche and Negi Lama, was born in 1894 in the village Sunam which lies in the forest-clad province of Kinnaur in the western Himalaya, India. Khunu Rinpoche was neither a tulku nor a Buddhist monk but a layman who took the lay practitioner vows.

He is renowned as one of the influential teachers in the rimé movement within Tibetan Buddhism. A foremost scholar of Sanskrit and Tibetan, Khunu Rinpoche traveled widely in Tibet and India disseminating essential teachings of Buddhist philosophy.

His students include the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet. Although the Dalai Lama had other highly qualified teachers and debate partners for religious matters the philosophical concepts which seemed still not clear enough to him he used to discuss with Khunu Lama. Among several teachings that the Dalai Lama received from Khunu Rinpoche was the celebrated "Bodhicaryavatara" of Shantideva. The Dalai Lama called him the “Shantideva of our time”.