Khardo Hermitage was founded in 17068 by Khardo Zöpa Gyatso,9 a student of Drupkhang Gelek Gyatso (1641-1713).10 Zöpa Gyatso entered the Jé College (Dratsang Jé) of Sera at age nine, and studied intensively for the next six years. When he was fifteen he asked permission to pursue intensive retreat. His teacher was agreeable, and he began to travel in Southern Tibet, visiting various holy sites, and remaining in isolated retreat in various locations for the next five years of his life. He returned to Sera when he was twenty, and it was at this time that he met the charismatic Drupkhangpa, who was giving teachings on the graded stages of the path (lamrim) at his hermitage above Sera. After this cycle of teachings was over (around the time that Zöpa Gyatso was twenty-four years old), he decided to go into more permanent retreat and, as the result of certain visionary signs, chose a cave at Khardo as his home.

Zöpa Gyatso initially lived as a hermit in caves at Khardo. Certain events,11 however, brought him to the attention of the Seventh Dalai Lama, who then requested Khardowa to become his assistant tutor (tsenzhap). From this time forward, the Dalai Lama acted as Khardowa’s patron and it was as a result of the Dalai Lama’s financial assistance that the first temple (Temple of the Sixteen Arhats) was built at Khardo. Shortly after this temple was completed, the Seventh Dalai Lama provided the funds for the construction of a residence at the site, which he used when he went to Khardo to visit his teacher. This building is what came to be known as the Upper Residence (see above). The Seventh Dalai Lama is also credited with having sponsored the construction of the first buildings in what later became the main compound. It was upon the completion of this latter project that he gave permission for eight fully ordained monks to live at the site. He also provided the hermitage with one small estate in the Dodé Valley for its support.

After the death of Zöpa Gyatso, the Seventh Dalai Lama performed all of the necessary funerary rites for his teacher, and sponsored the construction of his funerary stūpa and of his statue. (This existed at Khardo Hermitage until 1959.) The Dalai Lama also undertook the search for his teacher’s reincarnation, whom he found in Penpo, not far from Lhasa. Just as with Zöpa Gyatso and the Seventh Dalai Lama, a teacher-student relationship was established between the second Khardo Lama and the Eighth Dalai Lama Jampel Gyatso (Dalai Lama Kutreng Gyepa Jampel Gyatso). The second Khardo Rinpoché travelled extensively in northern Tibet, and he founded at least two monasteries in Nakchu which then became satellite monasteries of Khardo Hermitage.12 This shows us how even relatively small hermitages (Khardo) could, because of their power and connections, become the mother institutions to larger monasteries (like those in Nakchu). It may be the case that this was as much an economic as it was a religious relationship for Khardo, for the nomads of the region of Nakchu in which the two monasteries were located apparently used the lands belonging to the Khardo Hermitage in Lhasa as a base of operations in the summer when they came to barter in Lhasa. One assumes that having this type of relationship with the Nakchu nomads also meant that Khardo Hermitage hermitage had a source of meat, butter and other dairy products, which the Khardo Lamas probably received as offerings and/or as fees for services rendered.

The third Khardo Lama, Rikdzin Chökyi Dorjé (b. 1790?) had the habits of a tantric siddha. Like the Sixth Dalai Lama (Dalai Lama Kutreng Drukpa), he was renowned for enjoying the diversions Lhasa had to offer, especially its bars. He is credited with several important “treasure” discoveries. So great were his powers that when he was coming back from Lhasa on one of his outings, the statue of Penden Lhamo at Drapchi Temple (Drapchi Lhakhang) would turn its head to look at him.13 The footprint in stone of Rikdzin Chökyi Dorjé was preserved at Khardo until 1959. After he died – sitting next to a small tsen chapel (tsenkhang) at Khardo – the monks tried to cremate his body, but every time they lit the fire it would be magically extinguished, and so the monks decided instead to preserve his mummified body, which was housed in a stūpa in one of the chapels of the hermitage until 1959. The most important Khardo religious festival is one commemorating this lama.

We know little about the next two Khardo incarnations, although it seems that each of them expanded the hermitage and its holdings. For example, the fourth Khardo Lama, who, it seems, was born into a prominent Rnying ma pa family, is known to have built a set of residential rooms at Khardo known as the Gachö Ying.14 And the fifth Khardo Lama reestablished the relationship with one of the monasteries in Nakchu called Jang Chökhor Ling, where, in fact, he died.

The situation is quite different when we get to the sixth Khardo incarnation Jampel Tupten Nyendrak Gyatso (Khardo Kutreng Drukpa Jampel Tupten Nyendrak Gyatso). He entered the Jé College of Sera and became renowned as a scholar. He was a close friend of the famous fifth Radreng incarnation (Radreng Kutreng Ngapa, or “Reting”), who was regent of Tibet between 1934 and 1941, and who studied at Sera around the same time as the sixth Khardo Lama. Khardo Rinpoché had backed Radreng Rinpoché (d. 1947) during his failed attempt to recoup the regency. After Radreng Rinpoché was executed in 1947, the government also retaliated against the Khardo Lama. He was imprisoned, all of his land-holdings and many of the religious artifacts inside the hermitage (for example, the library) were confiscated by the Tibetan government, and an edict was issued forbidding the search for future incarnations. After some time, the Khardo Lama was transferred to the Norbu Lingkha prison, and there are many stories of miracles that occurred during his stay there. He was freed after a few years, but never returned to Khardo Hermitage (over which he no longer had any rights). He lived for some time on the top floor of the Drapchi Temple. He then visited Jang Chökhor Ling in Nakchu, and finished out the rest of his days at the monastery of one of his students, Tokmé Rinpoché (twentieth century), in Nemo.

All of these events were obviously catastrophic for Khardo Hermitage and its monks. Within a matter of a few years Khardo went from being one of the richest and most powerful monasteries in the Lhasa valley to being one of the poorest and most marginalized. However, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama (Dalai Lama Kutreng Chuzhipa) reversed the decision of his regent. He allowed for the next Khardo Lama to be found, and restored to him his previous titles and rights. Tennor Khardo (b. 1957),15 the seventh Khardo incarnation Jampel Tendzin Nyendrak Gyatso (Khardo Kutreng Dünpa Jampel Tendzin Nyendrak Gyatso), was born in Lhasa. He left Tibet in 1984, and presently lives in the United States.

After the events of 1959, the sixty-plus monks of Khardo were forced to leave the hermitage. Except for a few nuns who live in the caves above the hermitage, the site has remained unoccupied ever since. Today, all of the buildings lie in ruins.