Tsering Gyalpo, 1961–2015

On Saturday 27 June, early in the morning, our friend and colleague Tsering Gyalpo unexpectedly passed away from a heart attack. He died in his apartment in Berlin – at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he had been active since last autumn as a Fellow and member in a “Tibet Focus Group” together with Guntram Hazod and Shen Weirong.

His sudden death has profoundly affected us all. But above all, we first think of his family, and our deepest and heart-felt condolences go out to Tsering’s wife and their two children.

Tsering came from a nomadic family in western Tibet, where he grew up as the fourth of nine children, before his parents sent him to Lhasa further education. From here his education led him to Beijing, with studies at the Minzu University and the Ethnology Department of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. From 1994 he occupied a leading position at the Tibetan Academy of Social Sciences (TASS), Lhasa, where for the last 15 years he served as director of the Religious Department of this institution. He greatly influenced the research work of this institute, and the gap he leaves within the whole TASS will be enormous.

From 1995 he was involved in a number of national and international teaching and research programmes, with Guest Professorships at universities in China, and as a research associate at several prominent foreign institutes – in Vienna (1996, 1998, 1999/2000, 2010, 2011), Virginia (2001), Harvard (2004) and Princeton (2006). Widely known are the books, where he essentially participated as co-author or collaborator – text and ethnography based studies on medieval Central Tibet (2000, 2005, 2007). Similarly important are his numerous later studies (in Tibetan, several also trilingual Tibetan/Chinese/English) related to the history of Western Tibet (2006, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014).

From 2001 Tsering increasingly dedicated himself to his West Tibet (Stod Mnga’ ris) research, especially related to the Kingdom of Guge (10^th–17^th century CE). He often verbally stated that his aim was to reveal as much as possible of the cultural heritage of his West Tibetan homeland to the world during his lifetime. He considered that this treasure belonged neither to Tibet nor to China, but to the whole world. This was the standard he set for his own work; it might even be said that this was his central message as a Tibet researcher.

There was something quite unusual in Tsering’s approach as both as a researcher in general and a field researcher in particular: he was a gentle door-opener; in fact, with him many doors opened as if by magic. The range of his findings is enormous. A number of these are known from his publications, but much more material is still unprocessed, and we know from discoveries in West Tibet, which have not yet been recorded – such as collections of unique texts from monasteries whose evaluation would require a multi-annual project. His last work, which will be published this year, is related to an exceptional discovery in South East Tibet where Tsering stayed for an extended period in 2014: a monumental, four-metre high stone relief of the Buddha Vairocana with his entourage, a work from the late 8th or early 9th century.

In Berlin, 2015

 

Most recently, in Berlin he worked on a book project on Zhang Zhung, based on chapters in Pandita Grags pa rgyal mtshan’s Nyi ma’i rigs kyi rgyal rabs skye dgu’i cod paṇ nyi zla’i phreng mdzes. Tsering’s approach to Zhang zhung was characterised by a rather critical attitude towards contemporary Zhang Zhung studies in Western, Tibetan and Chinese works. Many of them were pure fables, he used to say, or more prosaically: “Zhang Zhung is (like Bon) a pot where everything that is found in the highlands, which appears to be old and is not instantly explainable, is thrown into it”.

He was emotionally closely connected to the history of his homeland, and the fact that he adopted for himself the author’s name “Guge Tsering Gyalpo” is simply an expression of this pride. His maternal grandfather came from the small district called Gu ge (not far northwest of Tholing), after which historically the famous Buddhist Kingdom is named.

Tsering was exceptional. Apart from his special talent for getting access to new historical material, his enormous lexical knowledge, and so on, all those who knew him and worked with him emphasised his unique character: humility, generosity and openness. But there was much more. His entire being was one of infinite warmth, and an almost childlike purity. This exceptional combination of characteristics also made it easy for him to develop an immediate rapport with everyone, as well as with worlds not familiar to him. Here at the Institute for Advanced Study, an elite institution where the humanities and life sciences meet, he was immensely popular from the very beginning. And, with ease, he led the wondering Fellows into the fascinating world of his homeland.

With Tsering Gyalpo a pearl of the Tibetan Studies community has gone from us, but even more so a pearl of a human being.

I personally will miss you infinitely, Tsering Gyalpo-la; at the same time I’m so thankful that our paths crossed, that I could learn from you, laugh with you and that you have shown me, and many others, how great people can be!

Guntram

Berlin, 5 July 2015

 Obituary and all photos by Guntram Hazod

 Tsering Gyalpo in his homeland

* * *

Tsering Gyalpo, selection of major publications, 2000-2015

2000

(with Guntram Hazod and Per K. Sørensen) Civilization at the Foot of Mt. Sham-po. The Royal House of lHa Bug-pa-can and the History of g,Ya’-bzang. Historical Texts from the Monastery of g.Ya’-bzang in Yar-stod (Central Tibet). Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

2005

1. a) Gu ge tshe ring rgyal po’i ched rtsom phyogs bsgrigs. Beijing: Krung go’i bod rig dpe skrun khang.

1. b) Cooperation in Per K. Sørensen and Guntram Hazod 2005, Thundering Falcon. An Inquiry into the History and Cult of Khra-’brug, Tibet’s First Buddhist Temple. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

2006

Mnga’ris chos ’byung gangs ljongs mdzes rgyan. Lhasa: Bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang. (Tranl. into Chinese 2014; awarded the Mount Everest Tibetology Prize, 2010).

2007

Cooperation in Per K. Sørensen and Guntram Hazod 2007, Rulers on the Celestial Plain. Ecclesiastic and Secular Hegemony in Medieval Tibet. A Study of Tshal Gung-thang. 2 Vols. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

2009

(With Christian Jahoda, Christiane Papa-Kalantari), The Buddhist Monuments of Khartse Valley, Western Tibet. Austrian Academy of Sciences / AAS Working Papers in Social Anthropology 2009, Volume 9: 1–28. (http://epub.oeaw.ac.at/wpsa9)

2011

Mural paintings of Wa-chen cave in Rtswa-mda’, mNga’-ris (Tibetan, Chinese and English), Lhasa: Bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang. (Awarded the Mount Everest Tibetology Prize, 2013.)

2012

(With Christian Jahoda, Christiane Kalantari and Patrick Sutherland), ’Khor chags / Khorchag / Kuojia si wenshi daguan [Kuojia Monastery: An Overview of Its History and Culture]. Studies and Materials on Historical Western Tibet, Volume I. Lhasa: Bod ljongs bod yig dpe rnying dpe skrun khang.

Forthcoming (2015)

Gsar du rnyed pa’i bod btsan po’i skabs bzhengs pa’i smar khams rdzong rnam par snang mdzad kyi brag brkos snang brnyan skor la rags tsam brjod pa (A Brief Report on a Rock-carve Image of Vairocana, recently traced in Smar khams County and erected during the Imperial Period), in: Czaja, Olaf and Guntram Hazod (eds.), The Illuminating Mirror: Festschrift for Per K. Sørensen on the occasion of his 65^th Birthday.