Dorje Shugden- Tibetan SpiritSpirit"The Mighty One"

The Death of Drakpa Gyaltsen

Tulku Drakpa Gyaltsen was a high lama of Drepung Monastery, a contemporary and rival of the Fifth Dalai Lama, Lobsang Gyatso. He died in 1656 under circumstances that remain disputed. Some accounts hold that he was murdered by supporters of the Dalai Lama. Others offer different explanations. What the sources agree on is what happened next.

After Drakpa Gyaltsen's death, a harmful spirit arose. It disrupted monasteries, afflicted practitioners, and was identified with the dead lama's unresolved consciousness. Various masters attempted to subdue it. According to the tradition preserved by Trijang Rinpoche in Music Delighting an Ocean of Protectors, the spirit was eventually bound and transformed into a protector of the Gelug school. From the 17th century onward, Dorje Shugden practice grew within certain Gelug lineages, championed by powerful teachers, though never universally accepted even within that school.

The Rider on the Snow Lion

Dorje Shugden appears unlike any other wrathful protector. Where Mahakala bares his fangs and wears a crown of skulls, Shugden wears the robes and pointed yellow hat of a fully ordained Gelug monk. He rides a snow lion. In his right hand he holds a sword; in his left, a heart. A jewel-spouting mongoose sits at his side.

The monastic dress is the crux of the dispute. The Fourteenth Dalai Lama, who initially practiced Shugden propitiation himself, came to view the spirit as a worldly being whose sectarian attachment prevented liberation, not an enlightened protector at all. He discouraged the practice publicly beginning in the 1970s. The resulting split between Shugden devotees and the Dalai Lama's followers has divided communities and separated monasteries, and it remains unresolved.