Ajay Kumar at 17:49, 5 September 2023

2023-09-05T17:49:57Z

New page

[[File:Gendun Chophel.jpg|thumb|A portrait of Gendün Chöphel while in India (1936)]]
[[File:Rakra Rimpoche and Gedun Chophel la in Lhasa, circa 1949.jpg|thumb|Chöphel (right) with {{ill|Rakra Tethong Rinpoche|fr|Rakra Tethong Rinpoché}} standing in front of the [[Potala Palace]] in Lhasa ({{circa|1949}})]]
'''Gendun Chompel''' or '''Gendün Chöphel''' ({{Bo|t=དགེ་འདུན་ཆོས་འཕེལ།|w=dge 'dun chos 'phel}})<ref name="Lopez2011">{{cite web |last=Lopez Jr. |first=Donald S. |author-link=Donald S. Lopez Jr. |title=Dge 'dun Chos 'phel and Tibetan religion in the 21st century |url=http://enlight.lib.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-AN/an149085.pdf |website= |publisher=National Taiwan University |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220812124742/http://enlight.lib.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-AN/an149085.pdf |archive-date=12 August 2022 |format=pdf |date=2011 |lang=en, zh |url-status=live}}</ref> (1903–1951) was a [[Tibetan people|Tibetan]] scholar, thinker, writer, poet, linguist, and artist. He was born in 1903 in Shompongshe, [[Rebkong]], [[Amdo]]. He was a creative and controversial figure and is considered by many to have been one of the most important Tibetan intellectuals of the twentieth century.

Chöphel was a friend of the Indian scholar and [[Indian independence movement|independence]] activist [[Rahul Sankrityayan]]. His life was the inspiration for Luc Schaedler's film ''The Angry Monk: Reflections on Tibet''.<ref>[http://www.angrymonk.ch/ The Angry Monk: Reflections on Tibet]</ref> He is best known for his collection of essays called ''The Madman's Middle Way: Reflections on Reality of the Tibetan Monk Gendun Chophel''.<ref>{{cite book|last=Lopez Jr.|first=Donald S.|title=The Madman's Middle Way: Reflections on Reality of the Tibetan Monk Gendun Choephel|year=2006|publisher=The University of Chicago Press|location=Chicago|isbn=0-226-49316-4}}</ref> and ''Grains of Gold: Tales of a Cosmopolitan Pilgrimage'', written during his time in India and Sri Lanka in between 1934 and 1946. These essays were critical of modern [[Hinduism]], [[Christianity]], and [[British Empire|British imperialism]]. While condemning places and events like the [[Black Hole of Calcutta]] and the [[Goa Inquisition]], he praised certain British colonial practices of legislations.<ref>{{cite book|title=Sources of Tibetan Tradition|editor1-first=Kurtis R|editor1-last=Schaeffer|editor2-first=Matthew T|editor2-last=Kapstein|editor3-first=Gray|editor3-last=Tuttle|publisher=Columbia University Press|year=2013|chapter=Tibetans Addressing Modern Political Issues|page=753}}</ref>

His [[erotica|erotic]] classic, ''Treatise on Passion''<ref name=Jacoby2017/> ({{Bo|t=འདོད་པའི་བསྟན་བཅོས། |w=‘dod pa’i bstan bcos}}), was completed in 1939, though it was first published posthumously in 1967.<ref name=Butler2018/> Written in Tibetan verse, this poetic and practical work was inspired both by his reading and partial translation of the ''[[Kama Sutra]]'' (introduced to him by Sankrityayan) and by his own recent, and prolific,<ref name=Jacoby2017/> sexual awakening.<ref name=Butler2018/> The work aims to provide extensive<ref name=Rossi2007>{{cite journal |last1=Rossi |first1=Donatella |title=L'iconoclast Gendün Chöphel (1905-1951) e il suo 'Kamasūtra' |journal=Rivista degli studi orientali |date=2007 |volume=80 |issue=1/4 |pages=141–147 |jstor=41913382 |language=it |issn=0392-4866}}</ref> guidance on heterosexual lovemaking and sexual happiness for both women and men in an overtly democratic spirit.<ref name=Butler2018>{{Cite web|url=http://asianreviewofbooks.com/content/the-passion-book-a-tibetan-guide-to-love-and-sex-by-gendun-chopel/ |title="The Passion Book: A Tibetan Guide to Love and Sex" by Gendun Chopel |last=Butler |first=John |journal=Asian Review of Books |date=22 April 2018 |language=en-US |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180426092202/https://asianreviewofbooks.com/content/the-passion-book-a-tibetan-guide-to-love-and-sex-by-gendun-chopel/ |archive-date=26 April 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> By now an ex-monk, Chöphel was happy to compare favourably his detailed sexual guidance (written from a lay perspective) to that contained in an earlier – and much less explicit – work bearing a similar title composed by [[Jamgön Ju Mipham Gyatso|Mipham the Great]].<ref name=Jacoby2017>{{cite journal |last1=Jacoby |first1=Sarah H. |title=The science of sensual pleasure according to a Buddhist monk: Ju Mipam's contribution to kāmaśāstra literature in Tibet |journal=Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies |date=2017 |volume=80 |issue=2 |pages=319–337 |doi=10.1017/S0041977X17000490 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/255E609ADF6C4DDCEC9E92ED4BCA2867/S0041977X17000490a.pdf/the-science-of-sensual-pleasure-according-to-a-buddhist-monk-ju-mipams-contribution-to-kamasastra-literature-in-tibet.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220601232910/https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/255E609ADF6C4DDCEC9E92ED4BCA2867/S0041977X17000490a.pdf/the-science-of-sensual-pleasure-according-to-a-buddhist-monk-ju-mipams-contribution-to-kamasastra-literature-in-tibet.pdf |archive-date=1 June 2022 |url-status=live|language=en}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[Tibet Improvement Party]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
===Translations===

*{{Citation
| last = Chöphel
| first = Gendün
| title = Clarifying the core of Madhyamaka: Ornament of the thought of Nagarjuna.
| place = Arcidosso, GR, Italy
| publisher = Shang Shung Publications
| year = 2006
| edition =2nd
}}
*{{Citation
| last = Chöphel
| first = Gendun
| last2 = Hopkins
| first2 = Jeffrey
| author2-link = Jeffrey Hopkins (Tibetologist)
| title = Tibetan Arts of Love
| publisher = Snow Lion Publications
| year = 1993
| isbn = 0-937938-97-1
}}
* {{cite book
| last = Chöphel
| first = Gedün
| title = Die tibetische Liebeskunst
| publisher = Nietsch
| year = 2006
| isbn = 3-934647-97-9}}
* {{cite book
| last = Chöphel
| first = Gedun
| title = Dhammapada, Translation of the Dharma Verses with the Tibetan Text
| publisher = Dharma Publishing
| year = 1985
| isbn = 0-913546-98-4}}
* {{cite book
| last = Chöphel
| first = Gedun
| title = In the Forest of Faded Wisdom: 104 Poems by Gendun Choephel, a Bilingual Edition, edited and translated by Donald S. Lopez Jr.
| publisher = University of Chicago Press
| year = 2009
| isbn = 978-0-226-10452-2}}

===Other sources===
*{{Citation
| last = Bogin
| first = Benjamin
| last2 = Decleer
| first2 = Hubert
| title = Who was 'this evil friend' ('the dog', the 'fool', 'the tyrant') in Gedun Choephel's Sad Song?
| journal = The Tibet Journal
| volume = 22
| issue = 3
| pages = 67–78
| year = 1997
}}
* Dhondup, K.: "Gedun Choephel: the Man Behind the Legend". ''Tibetan Review'', vol. 13, no. 10, October 1978, p. 10–18.
* {{cite book
| last = Huber
| first = Toni
| title = Guide to India, a Tibetan Account By: Gendun Choephel
| publisher = Library of Tibetan Works & Archives
| location = Dharamsala, India
| pages =162pp
| year = 2000
| url =http://www.namsebangdzo.com/Guide_to_India_a_Tibetan_Account_p/12601.htm
| isbn = 81-86470-25-5}}
*{{Citation
| first = Thupten
| last = Jinpa
| author-link = Thupten Jinpa
| editor-last = Wallace
| editor-first = B. Alan
| contribution = Science as an Allay or a Rival Philosophy? Tibetan Buddhist Thinkers' Engagement with Modern Science
| title = Buddhism & Science: Breaking New Ground
| year = 2003
| pages = 71–85
| publisher = Published by Columbia University Press
|isbn = 0-231-12335-3 }}
* {{cite book
| last = Lopez
| first = Donald S. (Jr.)
| title = The Madman's Middle Way: Reflections on Reality of the Tibetan Monk Gendun Choephel
| publisher = University Of Chicago Press
| year = 2007
| isbn = 0-226-49317-2}}
* {{cite book
| last = Mengele
| first = Irmgard
| title = Gedun Choephel: A Biography of the 20th Century Tibetan Scholar
| publisher = Library of Tibetan Works & Archives
| year = 1999
| location = Dharamsala, India
| isbn = 81-86470-23-9}}
* {{cite book
| last = Stoddard
| first = Heather
| title = Le mendiant de l'Amdo (Recherches sur la Haute Asie)
| publisher = Societe d'ethnographie
| year = 1985
| location = Paris
| isbn = 2-901161-28-6}}
*[[George de Roerich|Roerich, George N.]] and Gedun Choephel (Translator) (1988). ''The [[Blue Annals]]'' by [[Gö Lotsawa]]. Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1976, Reprint in 1979. [reprint of Calcutta, Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1949, in two volumes].

==External links==
*[https://treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/Gendun-Chopel/3866 Peer reviewed biography of Gendun Chopel by Dr. Heather Stoddard on The Treasury of Lives]
*[https://archive.today/20120731122412/http://www.gdqpzhx.com/english/ Gendun Choephel]
*The Story of a Monk Wanderer: part 1 [http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=11820] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402104931/http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=11820 |date=2015-04-02 }}, part 2 [http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=11884&t=1&c=4] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402121310/http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=11884&t=1&c=4 |date=2015-04-02 }}
*[http://www.angrymonkthefilm.ch/en/gendun_choephel/ Gendun Choephel] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151202063943/http://www.angrymonkthefilm.ch/en/gendun_choephel/ |date=2015-12-02 }} – Angry Monk website

{{Buddhism topics}}
{{Modern Buddhist writers}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Choephel, Gendun}}
[[Category:1903 births]]
[[Category:1951 deaths]]
[[Category:Buddhist artists]]
[[Category:Tibetan Buddhists from Tibet]]
[[Category:Tibetan Buddhism writers]]
[[Category:Tibetan painters]]
[[Category:20th-century Tibetan painters]]
[[Category:Tibetan poets]]

Gendün Chöphel - Revision history

Ajay Kumar at 17:49, 5 September 2023