Norbu, Thubten Jigme

▪ 2009

Tashi Tsering; Taktser Rinpoche 

      Tibetan religious leader, scholar, and activist

born Aug. 16, 1922, Takster, Amdo, Tibet

died Sept. 5, 2008, Bloomington, Ind.

was identified as the reincarnation of the Tibetan lama Taktser Rinpoche at age three, 10 years before the birth of his brother, the future 14th Dalai Lama. The 13th Dalai Lama gave him the spiritual name Thubten Jigme Norbu. As an incarnate monk, Norbu studied extensively and was appointed abbot of Kumbum monastery in Amdo. After the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, he was escorted to the capital, Lhasa, by Communist Chinese troops who offered to make him governor-general if he would persuade the Dalai Lama to cooperate. Norbu instead counseled his brother to flee the country. Norbu, who disagreed with his brother's belief in peaceful resistance to Chinese rule in Tibet, worked as a CIA translator and endorsed guerrilla warfare for Tibetan independence. He eventually resigned from the Buddhist priesthood, married, and settled in the U.S., first in New York City and then in Bloomington, where he taught Tibetan studies at Indiana University and founded the Tibetan-Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center. His autobiography, Tibet Is My Country, was published in 1960.

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