Tsuglakhang Monastery (Former Royal Temple)

“My next two meetings with Khyentse Rimpoche both took place in Gangtok, which I visited from time to time and where I frequently lectured on the Dharma, sometimes at the invitation of the Maharaj Kumar of Sikkim and sometimes at the invitation of Apa Sahib Pant, the Government of India’s Political Officer in Sikkim. Both meetings took place, moreover, at the white-walled, yellow-roofed palace Lhakhang or temple, where the Rimpoche was then staying and where he died in 1959, aged sixty-seven.”

At their last meeting, after Sangharakshita had received the four sadhanas from Jamyang Khyentse in Darjeeling, the Rimpoche gave him a thangka resplendent with traditional Chinese brocade borders. The central figure was a saffron-coloured Mañjughoṣa holding a flaming sword of insight and the stem of a white lotus on which rested a sacred book. He was flanked by Avalokiteśvara and Vajrapāṇi in his wrathful form; below was Green Tārā, and above, in three tiers, a couple of dozen human teachers.

“Moreover, there was a special significance in his giving me the thangka. As he proceeded to explain, through the initiations he had given me he had transmitted to me the essence of the teachings of the great masters who were depicted in it. I was now their spiritual heir and successor. Smiling, he then pointed to the yellow-robed figures in their caves, one meditating and one teaching. Both were me.”

— In the Sign of the Golden Wheel