Photograph of Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche

Object location: Living room

Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö (1893–1959) was one of the foremost Tibetan Buddhist teachers of his time. He was a chief exponent of the Rimé movement which attempted to bring the different Tibetan schools together into a unified tradition.

Sangharakshita met Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche in 1957 and received several initiations from him. Due to the Rinpoche’s spiritual eminence and the significance of the initiations, Sangharakshita regarded him as his ‘root guru’. This photograph has graced Sangharakshita’s personal shrines since the time it was taken. It is one of a number that were commissioned from a local photographer to commemorate the occasion of their meeting. 

As his name indicates, Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche was regarded as a manifestation of Jamyang (Mañjughoṣa), the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. 

Jamyang Khyentse was said to be the greatest Tibetan scholar of this century, a vastly learned man of great spiritual experience – and something of a visionary too. 

In the Realm of the Lotus, Windhorse Publications, Birmingham 1995, p.29