Pema Lingpa

Who is Pema Lingpa?

Pema Lingpa was a Bhutanese Buddhist saint, blacksmith, and terton (treasure revealer) of the Nyingma school, born in the Tang valley of Bumthang in central Bhutan. Orphaned young, he apprenticed as a blacksmith and metalworker before beginning, in his twenties, to reveal termas — hidden spiritual texts and relics said to have been concealed by the eighth-century master Padmasambhava for discovery at the appropriate time. His best-known revelation came when he dove with a lit butter lamp into Mebar Tsho ("Burning Lake") near Bumthang and emerged, to the astonishment of onlookers, still holding the burning lamp along with a treasure casket and a statue. Bhutanese tradition ranks him second in religious importance only to Padmasambhava himself. He founded and restored numerous temples, including Tamzhing Monastery in Bumthang, worked as a craftsman known for iron-forged objects still associated with his name, and established a teaching lineage, the Pemalingpa tradition, that continues within Bhutan's Nyingma community today. He is also considered a direct ancestor of the Bhutanese royal Wangchuck dynasty. He died in 1521 at the age of seventy-two.

Sources: Michael Aris, Hidden Treasures and Secret Lives: A Study of Pemalingpa (1450-1521) and the Sixth Dalai Lama (1988) · Treasury of Lives, biographical encyclopedia entry: "Pema Lingpa" · Françoise Pommaret, Bhutan: Himalayan Mountain Kingdom