Mr. L. K. Advani, the Deputy Prime Minister of India, in a message said, “I am glad to know that the Mahabodhi Society of India, is organising a felicitation ceremony to honour Ven. Gose Lama, founder Chief Priest of Tibetan Monastery at Sarnath, the birth place of Buddhism”.
The message from His Holiness the Dalai Lama appreciated Gen Gose’s lifetime dedication to the propagation of Buddha Dharma, “service to the many pilgrims who come to Sarnath and the welfare of the Tibetan people by being actively involved in many of their movements and projects”.
Gen Gose was a popular Buddhist monk not only amongst the Buddhists community of India but also within the Tibetan Refugee Community. It was his simplicity, straightforwardness and kindheartedness which won him many admirers and his cooperation and advise sought for humanitarian, religious or political activities. He played a significant role to create greater awareness of the Tibetan freedom struggle in India.
Describing Gen Gose’s service to the poor and needy as remarkable and worthy of respect, Kalon Tripa Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche said, “Venerable Thupten Jungney is one of the few Tibetans who have had the privilege of meeting Mahatma Gandhi and since then he has been closely associated with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr. S. Radhakrishan, Mrs. Indira Gandhi and most of the Presidents and Prime Ministers of India”. He was even referred to as ‘Acharya’ by Vinobha Bhave in his correspondence.
Urging the younger generation of Tibetans to learn from the example set by Gen Gose, Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche said, “In the early 1970s Venerable Thupten Jungney was one of the few people who initiated the Tibetan freedom movement and whose mandate was to collect voluntary contributions from the Tibetan refugees throughout the world”.
Born in Nogogyansho, Kham in 1924, Gen Gose (yellow haired Priest) became a monk at the age of 10 in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. He later joined the Gomang College of Drepung Monastery, the biggest monastery of Tibet. Apart from establishing the Tibetan Monastery in Sarnath in 1955, he was also associated with the founding of the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies in the same town. Ven. Thupten Jungney was a former-member of the Tibetan Parliament in Exile (Assembly of Tibetan People’s Deputies).
