Dharamsala – The Tibetan government-in-exile in this Himachal Pradesh town is mourning the passing away of a well-known Tibetan Buddhist master in China and praying for his speedy rebirth. Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok, 67, the chief abbot of the Serthar Buddhist Institute, passed away in a hospital in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in China earlier this week on Monday.
“The sudden passing away of Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok will be mourned not only by the Tibetan people but by his international followers,” said Samdhong Rinpoche, a senior official of the Central Tibetan Administration (CAT).
The CAT offered prayers for the soul of the well known Tibetan Buddhist master and sent its condolence to his students and disciples the world over.
“Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok had been suffering ill health since the summer of 2001 when the Serthar Buddhist Institute that housed more than 8,000 monks, nuns and lay students was dismantled and the inmates evicted from the place,” claimed Thubten Samphel, spokesman of the Tibetan government in exile.
At its peak, the Serthar Buddhist Insititute attracted over 8,000 students. Nearly 1,000 disciples were from mainland China. Students and disciples came from as far away as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia.
“Since 1999, Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok was interrogated three times by officials from the Sichuan United Work Front department and the central government Religious Bureau about his connections with the Dalai Lama,” the spokesman alleged.
Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok was born in the Dhok region of Dhokham in 1937. At the age of two, he was recognised as Terchen Lerap Lingpa. When he was 22, he became a fully ordained monk.
In 1980, he started a small hermitage, which grew into the Serthar Buddhist Institute.
With the help of the late Panchen Lama, Tibet’s second ranking spiritual leader, Serthar Buddhist Institute acquired the status of an academy. This meant that the institute did not have to follow the regulation of having to impose upon itself a fixed ceiling on the number of students, unlike other regular Tibetan monasteries.
In 1990, Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok travelled to India, where he met the Dalai Lama.
Since then, he travelled to many countries, including Nepal, Bhutan, the US Canada, England, France, Germany, Taiwan and Hong Kong where he taught extensively on Tibetan Buddhism and culture.
