The ruins of Khardo Hermitage.

Khardo Hermitage is located northeast of Lhasa (and of Sera) on the side of a mountain north of the DodéValley. The hermitage is also located across the road leading from Lhasa to Penpo on the side of a mountain facing Purchok Hermitage (Purchok Ritrö). It is possible to walk directly up the mountain to Khardo from this road, but it is more common to take the footpath from the Negodong nunnery instead. From the nunnery it takes a little over one hour to walk to Khardo.

It may be that the hermitage derives its name from the local site deity (nedak), whose name is Khardo Songtsen.

As is the case with most of the hermitages, certain features of the landscape – and especially of the mountains – around Khardo are seen as signs of the holiness of the site. One group of peaks behind the monastery is called the Soul Mountain of the Buddhas of the Five Families (Gyelwé Riknga Lari). To the left of these is a mountain called the Birth Deity Peak (Trungwé Lhari or Trung Utsé).2 In the middle of this mountain there used to be a ledge that housed a small chapel to the protector deities of the regions of Tibet from which the various Khardo Lamas hailed, hence the name “Birth Deity Peak.” Another prominent peak (to the east) is called the Soul Mountain of Cakrasaṃvara (Demchok Lari). Tradition has it that various hand-implements and bone-ornaments of the deity have been discovered as treasure on this mountain by different Khardo incarnations. On one side of this mountain there is a cave called the “Offering Place Cave” (Drak Chösa),3 in which an entire copy of the Scriptures (Kangyur) was discovered as treasure during the time of the third Khardo incarnation Chökyi Dorjé (Khardo Kutreng Sumpa Chökyi Dorjé).4 The monastery itself is said to have been built on the site of the Haha Göpé Durtrö, one of the classical charnel grounds of the Indian tantras. For these various reasons, the site is considered extremely holy.

The various holy mountains behind the hermitage.

But the location was also made holy by virtue of having been the abode of saints. Above the various buildings there is a cave called Great Heap of Light (Özer Pungpoché). The site-deity, called Khardo Songtsen, is said to have shown the founder of the monastery, Zöpa Gyatso, this cave and told him that he was to reside here. On one particular holy day Khardowa, while living in this cave, found that he had nothing to offer except for a single butter-lamp. His prayers were so pure, however, that when he lit the lamp the entire mountain glowed, “as if thousands of butter lamps were burning.” This is how the cave got its name. Khardowa lived in this cave, and in another nearby one called Cave of Mila (Milé Drak), during his early and mid twenties, before the first buildings were erected at the site.

The hermitage had three major compounds, located one above the other on the side of the mountain. Lowest on the hill was the main compound (usually referred to simply as “the hermitage”). Above that was the so-called “Upper Residence” (Zimkhang Gongma), and above that the Temple of the Sixteen Arhats (Nechu Lhakhang). Today all of these compounds lie in ruins. From an informant’s report, however, we have a good sense of what the hermitage looked like before 1959.

Main compound: This was by far the largest group of buildings in the monastery, housing various important temples, a library, and the residential quarters of the Khardo Lamas. At the front (lowest on the mountain), the compound was three stories tall; at the rear it was two stories in height. As one went in the main door (zhunggo), located at the front of the compound at the bottom-most level, one first came to a room that is said to have been built on top of the uppermost part of the Haha Göpé Durtrö. This was a large (eight-pillar) room that was in almost total darkness. It housed many self-arisen images, but apparently was not for any specific purpose.

As one went up the central staircase, one came first to the (four-pillar) temple that is said to date to the time of Khardo Zöpa Gyatso. This small temple had seating for about 20 monks. It contained statues of the sixteen arhats as well as the large silver funerary stūpa of Zöpa Gyatso built by his student, the Seventh Dalai Lama Kelzang Gyatso (Dalai Lama Kutreng Dünpa Kelzang Gyatso). The mummified corpse (mardung) of Khardowa was contained within this stūpa. In the rear portion of the temple there was a chapel to Maitreya (Jampa). Tradition has it that the two-story statue of Maitreya in this temple was created by a deity. Inside the heart of this statue there was a tooth-relic of the Buddha Kaśyapa, and there was a small window on the body of the Maitreya statue where this tooth could actually be seen.

Inside the ruins of the main compound.

On this same level of the compound there was also a round room that contained the monastery’s collection of wood-blocks and texts. This library contained many special works, such as the texts discovered as “treasure” (ter) by the third Khardo incarnation Rikdzin Chökyi Dorjé (Khardo Kutreng Sumpa Rikdzin Chökyi Dorjé): the Cycle for Gathering Power (Wangdü Khorlo), the Cycle on Gaṇeśa (Tsokdak Lakna Khorlo), etc. Important blockprints of artwork and of the monastery’s ritual texts (yikcha) were also kept there. The collection included texts of all traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. Most of these texts and blockprints were confiscated when the monastery came under the receivership of the government after the Radreng (d. 1947) affair (see below).

If one turned left as one exited the library, one came to the protector deity chapel (gönkhang). This room contained statues of the four traditional deities propitiated in most Geluk institutions (Gönpo, Chögyel, Lhamo, and Namsé) as well as a statue of the protector deity of the monastery, Terdak Songtsen. In the rear of the protector deity chapel, there was another smaller chapel that was only open for one day each year (during the New Year festivities). It contained a large self-arisen image of the deity Wangchuk Chenpo.

Coming out of the protector deity chapel, one arrived at the central courtyard where the side door of the main compound was located. From that courtyard one had access to a variety of rooms which included the tenkhang,5 a large (eight-pillar) storage room, the lama’s estate’s (labrang) (two-pillar) kitchen, a (two-pillar) manager’s room (nyertsang) that served as the office and living quarters for the hermitage’s manager (nyerpa), and a variety of other small rooms where fuel (wood, straw and dung) were kept. Around this courtyard there was also a three-pillar guest room, as well as a room for frying and storing dough cookies.

If one went up one level, to the third floor, one came first to the two-pillar quarters for the Dalai Lama, called the Palace of Great Bliss (Dechen Podrang). The Thirteenth Dalai Lama Tupten Gyatso (Dalai Lama Kutreng Chuksumpa Tupten Gyatso) stayed here, as perhaps did other of his predecessors. The principal image in the Dalai Lama’s rooms was a very special image of Maitreya that is said to have originally belonged to a monastery in Penpo. It is said that the statue levitated, flew to Khardo and proclaimed that Khardo was its true home. There were also metal statues of the Twenty-One Tārās (Drölma) in the Dalai Lama’s rooms. The central Tārā image was of solid silver. There were also statues of the Sixteen Arhats, and various tangkas. Going down the hall from the Dalai Lama’s quarters, one came to the Khardo Assembly Hall (Khardo Tsomchen), a temple that could house over 100 monks. This temple was also called the Gyaré Tsomchen, because the deity Gyaré was supposed to have built the large Maitreya statue found here. The temple had ten “short pillar” (katung), and two “long pillar” (karing); it also had three doors. This temple contained:

• One-story tall metal statues of the Buddhas of the Three Times
• A one-story metal statue of Tsongkhapa (1357-1419)
• The throne of the Dalai Lama
• A life-size statue of the fifth Khardo incarnation Jamyang Chökyi Wangchuk (Khardo Kutreng Ngapa Jamyang Chökyi Wangchuk)
• A life-size statue of Padmasambhava (Pema Jungné)
• A one-story “speaking-statue” (sungjönma) of Tārā
• On one side of the temple there was a complete copy of a printed edition of the Scriptures (Kangyur), and on the other, a manuscript version of the same. The manuscript version is apparently dated to the time of Khardo Kutreng Zhipa Pema Gawé Dorjé. This lama’s steward began a custom of having the monks do at least one yearly ritual reading of the Kangyur, a tradition that was kept alive up to 1959.
• The murals on the walls of the assembly hall were of the Thousand Buddhas of the Fortunate Age.

As one exited the temple, one immediately encountered the four-pillar Palace of the Rays of the Sun (Nyiwö Podrang). This chapel held the funerary stūpa of the third Khardo incarnation Rikdzin Chökyi Dorjé (Khardo Kutreng Sumpa Rikdzin Chökyi Dorjé). It also contained self-arisen images of the sixteen arhats, statues of the twenty-one Tārās, a statue of Tangtong Gyelpo, of Penden Lhamo, a statue of the fourth Khardo incarnation Pema Gawé Dorjé (Khardo Kutreng Zhipa Pema Gawé Dorjé), a statue of Padmasambhava (Pema Jungné) and other lesser images.

Exiting the Palace of the Rays of the Sun, one next came to the series of rooms that constituted the lama’s estate proper – that is, the living quarters of the lama and his immediate family and steward. The first of these rooms was a two-pillar chapel called the Siddha Chapel (Druptop Lhakhang) that housed clay statues of the eighty-four mahāsiddhas of India. They are said to have been made by the third Khardo Lama himself. There were also images of the Five Visions of the Lord (Tsongkhapa) (Jé Zikpa Ngaden). The next room was the private residence of the mothers of the Khardo Lama incarnations. Adjacent to that was a balcony or sun room (rapsel), on the other side of which were the quarters of the administrator administrative head (chandzö) of the lama’s estate. Beyond the steward’s quarters were the private rooms of the Khardo Lama. The lama’s reception room contained various metal statues, including statues of Padmasambhava (Pema Jungné) in eight forms, a statue of Hayagrīva (Tamdrin), statues of Tsongkhapa and the two disciples, and others as well.

If one traveled one flight of stairs up from the lama’s private rooms, one would arrive at another small (two-pillar) protector deity chapel called the Chapel of the Four Statues (Kuzhi Khang), so called because it contained four statues of mgon po. This is the location of the famous “Khardo (Hermitage’s) Lord of Death Machine” (Khardo Shinjé Trülkhor), a mechanical device for conjuring wrathful magical powers (drakchokkyi lé). This “wheel of weapons” (tsönché khorlo) had been utilized at different points in Tibetan history to magically defeat invading forces.6 The machine had the ability to conjure up the powers of different sets of deities (gods, nāgas, etc.) depending upon the direction in which it was turned. Various “trophies” from the defeated parties hung from the beams of the ceiling of this room, including the desiccated hand of the leader of the Dogra troops (defeated, it is said, chiefly as a result of using this form of magic at the time of the third Khardo Lama in 1856). The hands of famous bandits and other criminals had, throughout the years, been added to the collection of human limbs suspended form the ceiling. Next to this chapel, there was a room called the Treasure-House of Vaiśravaṇa (Namsé Bangdzö). It contained eight “wealth-box” (yanggam) where the ritual wealth-vases for the monastery were kept. This room was opened only once a year on New Year’s day; otherwise it was kept locked.

Exiting from the protector chapel and going down the hall one came to the Kadam Chapel (Kadam Lhakhang), a four pillar temple. It contained a one-story statue of the Buddha, as well as statues of the sixteen arhats, statues of 138 lamas of the Kadampa tradition, and the funerary stūpa and image of the fourth Khardo Lama. Next to this chapel, there was the small (one-pillar) “Three Roots” Chapel (Tsasum Lhakhang), which contained a statue of the Thirteen-Deity Vajrabhairava (Jikjé Lha Chuksum) as well as important statues of Tsongkhapa and of Acala (Miyowa). The name of the chapel (“three roots”) derives from the fact that the main statue of Yamāntaka in this room was made from clay over which the three root teachers of this tradition – Drupkhangpa, Purchok Ngawang Jampa (1682-1762) and Khardo Zöpa Gyatso – had recited 100,000 repetitions of the “Yamarāja” mantra of Yamāntaka.

The ruins of the Upper Residence.

The Upper Residence. Just uphill from the main compound is the so-called “Upper Residence” (Zimkhang Gongma).7 This compound was not, strictly speaking, under the aegis of the hermitage, but rather was administered by Tibetan government. It had two floors. On the first floor it contained a protector deity chapel. The Tibetan government would send monks from the Tantric College (Ngakpa Dratsang) once a year (in the summer) to conduct rituals in this chapel. The second floor contained the private quarters of the Seventh Dalai Lama Kelzang Gyatso (Dalai Lama Kutreng Dünpa Kelzang Gyatso), and of Khardo Zöpa Gyatso. It may be that this compound was originally constructed to serve as the residence of the Seventh Dalai Lama when he visited his teacher, Zöpa Gyatso. If this is the case, then this small compound predates the main compound.

The Temple of the Sixteen Arhats.

The Sixteen Arhat Temple. Farther north up the mountain from the Upper Residence is the Temple of the Sixteen Arhats (Nechu Lhakhang), the first structure built by Khardo Zöpa Gyatso at the site. It originally contained only the temple and a small room that served as the first residence that Zöpa Gyatso occupied at Khardo. Later it was expanded, and at a certain point in history the compound was converted into monks’ living quarters, though it is not clear when precisely this occurred.

Farther up the mountainside still are the caves originally used by Khardo Zöpa Gyatso before he built the first structures at the site. Before 1959, women were not allowed inside these caves. Today, nuns use these as retreat places. The nuns also serve as caretakers.

One of the caves occupied by Khardo Zöpa Gyatso when he first arrived at the site. Today it serves as a nun’s meditation cell.

The one former monk from the hermitage who served as our informant in 2004 (and who, as far as we know, is the only member of this hermitage still alive today) told us that he contemplated refurbishing the monastery when liberalization took place in the 1980s. He decided not to pursue this because, on the one hand, he was unsuccessful at receiving permission from the relevant offices of the Lhasa municipal government, and, on the other, because he received a letter from the present Khardo Rinpoché (who lives in the United States) who discouraged him from proceeding with the renovations.

A statue of Khardo Zöpa Gyatso preserved at Rakhadrak Hermitage (Rakhadrak Ritrö).

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.

Detail of a painting of the Seventh Dalai Lama in the collection of the Rubin Museum of Art, from the www.himalayanart.org website, no. 212.

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.

Nuns sit outside one of the Khardo caves. Nuns are the only residents of the site today.

Daily. The 20 fully ordained monks who formed the ritual core of the monastery would gather for “daily tea/prayer” (gyünja), every morning in the smaller of Khardo’s two temples.

Monthly. Five days each month were always celebrated:

• First of the month: Tārā Ritual (Drölchok); and bi-monthly confession ritual
• Tenth: Offering-Ritual to the Lama (Lama Chöpa Tsok)
• Fifteenth: Medicine Buddha (Menla); and bi-monthly confession
• Twenty-fifth: Offering-Ritual to the Lama
• Twenty-ninth: propitiation ritual (kangso)

• First Tibetan month: A cycle of rituals, lasting seven days, focusing on Yamāntaka, Guhyasamāja, and Cakrasaṃvara. These began at the end of the New Year festivities.
• Second Tibetan month: For seven days either the Scriptures would be read, or else the Prayer to the Twenty-One Tārās would be recited.
• Fourth Tibetan month: unknown ritual
• Fifth Tibetan month: The self-initiation rituals of Sarvavid Vairocana, or else of Kālacakra.
• Sixth Tibetan month: the Sixth-Month/Fourth-Day (Drukpa Tsezhi) holy day is celebrated. In addition, one-hundred monks would gather to read the scriptures for seven days during a separate convocation in this same month.
• Ninth Tibetan month: 100,000 repetitions of the Tārā prayer would be accumulated during this month.
• Tenth Tibetan month: Winter Solstice Ritual (Gün Nyidokgi Choga).
• Eleventh Tibetan month: The monks split into two groups. One group would perform White Mahākāla (Gönkar) rituals, and the other, rituals focusing on Tamdrin.
• Twelfth Tibetan month:
  • Fifteenth day of the month: the hermitage celebrated the famous Khardo Tünchö, a festival commemorating the third Khardo Lama. During the festivities, monks from Nenang Nunnery (Nenang Gönpa) came to Khardo to perform various propitiation rituals (for example, to the deity Vajrakīla) in front of the stūpa containing the mummified body of the third Khardo incarnation Chökyi Dorjé (Khardo Kutreng Sumpa Chökyi Dorjé). While the Nenang monks were performing those rituals, the monks of Khardo were simultaneously engaged in other protector deity rituals in one of the other temples. All of the local people from Dodé who worked for the Khardo Lama’s estate (Khardo labrang) came up to the hermitage on this day. Upon leaving, they received a bit of money, some butter, meat, and fried dough cookies.
  • Twenty-ninth day: A ritual involving the Throwing of the Torma as an offering to Mahākāla (Gönpo Torgyak).

Note: The glossary is organized into sections according to the main language of each entry. The first section contains Tibetan words organized in Tibetan alphabetical order. To jump to the entries that begin with a particular Tibetan root letter, click on that letter below. Columns of information for all entries are listed in this order: THL Extended Wylie transliteration of the term, THL Phonetic rendering of the term, the English translation, the Sanskrit equivalent, associated dates, and the type of term. To view the glossary sorted by any one of these rubrics, click on the corresponding label (such as “Phonetics”) at the top of its column.