Jetsun Sherab Senge Thangka

Jetsun Sherab Senge, an outstanding scholar of the great tantric treatises, was one of Tsongkhapa’s six closest disciples. Tsongkhapa instructed him to propagate his tantric teachings and gave him a skullcup full of nectar, a bronze statue of Guhyasamaja Tantra, a copy of the two great commentaries on it as well as a mask and costume of Yama. He thereby made him successor to his tantric tradition and asked him to go to Tsang to spread the teaching of the tantras, prediction that he would find good students there.

On arriving there Jetsun Sherab Senge first performed a Vajrabhairava retreat during which he was served by a spirit woman. He then established Se Gyu Tantric Monastery) and a little later established Gyudme Monastery in Lhasa. He saw to it that the tradition of tantric teachings flourished in both monasteries. Among Jetsun Sherab Senge’s many eminent disciples Jetsun Kunga Dondrub was outstanding. Born in 1419 at Gyaltse Tanag in Tsang, he took ordination at Narthang Monastery at a very early age. He studied logic and valid cognition with Jetsun Sherab Senge and higher knowledge with Kenchen Pal Be’o at Drepung Monastery. He also received extensive tantric teaching including instruction on the Guhyasamaja Tantra and its commentaries from the great master Jinpa Pal of Gyudme and thus became erudite in all aspects of the Mahayana tradition.