Treasury of Lives Entry
Brief Biography:
Sonam Peldren (bsod nam dpal 'dren, 1268-1312 or 1328-1372) was a nomadic
woman remembered for miraculous actions and pronouncements, an unusual death, and
for claiming to be an emanation of the deity Dorje Phakmo (rdo rje phag mo), despite
never having received religious teachings in her lifetime. A nunnery currently affiliated
with the Geluk (dge lugs) sect is built upon the reputed site of her death in the village of
Ya Nga Chamda (ya nga bya mda’; alternative spelling ya nga lcam mda’). The most
extensive source of information about Sonam Peldren is her biography, an unpublished
and untitled manuscript composed by her husband, Rinchen Pel (rin chen dpal, c. 14th
century).
Biography:
Sonam Peldren (bsod nam dpal 'dren, 1268-1312 or 1328-1372) is remembered
today in eastern Tibet in the county of Driru ('bri ru; sometimes also called Nakshö
Driru, nag shod 'bri ru) for her miraculous actions and pronouncements in life, her
unusual death, and for claiming to be an emanation of the deity Dorje Phakmo (rdo rje
phag mo). A nunnery currently affiliated with the Geluk (dge lugs) sect is built upon the
reputed site of her death in the village of Ya Nga Chamda (ya nga bya mda’; alternative
spelling ya nga lcam mda’). This biography is based on the most extensive source of
information about Sonam Peldren, an unpublished and untitled manuscript of her life
story composed by her husband, Rinchen Pel (rin chen dpal, c. 14th century).
The chronology of Sonam Peldren’s life can be divided into six distinct periods:
gestation, birth, and childhood; contentious marriage negotiations; her adult life as a
nomad; the last year of her life, in which she gave religious teachings in spontaneous
verse (mgur), described visionary experiences, and repeatedly predicted her own
imminent death; her miraculous death and the relics produced from her corpse; and,
finally, her posthumous visitations to her husband, in which Sonam Peldren appeared as
the deity Dorje Phakmo to answer Rinchen Pel's lingering questions.
Sonam Peldren was born on the seventeenth day of the tenth month of the earth
male-dragon year, and died on the twenty-third day of the fifth month of the water malemouse year at age forty-four. (Ages given in the biography are adjusted to accord with
international standards.) Her mother was named Nayzang Chotso (gnas bzang chos
mtsho); her father was named Yondag Ngoli (yon bdag sngo li) and was a descendent of
the Tong (stong) clan. Sonam Peldren was born in central Tibet in Dam Sho ('dam shod,)
in the Nol (snol) district, near the Nyenchan Thanglha mountain range (gnyen chen thang
lha,) in a place called Tashipa Janggyap (bkra shis pa byang rgyab.) Sonam Peldren’s
birth name was Geygo (ge god); sometime after her marriage at age seventeen she was
renamed Sonam Peldren. (To avoid confusion, and because she is known today by
moniker Sonam Peldren, I use the latter name throughout this biographical description.)
Sonam Peldren was the youngest of four children: she had two elder brothers named
Azang (A ‘zang) and Kunchog Gyab (Tib: dkon mchog skyabs), and one elder sister
named is Chökyi (chos skyid.)
Little is known of the years between Sonam Peldren’s birth and her marriage at
age sixteen other than that her mother passed away, her father remarried, and that she was
a calm child liked by all. When Sonam Peldren was seventeen years old, her father
arranged her marriage, choosing from among three available suitors: Chakdor Kyab
(phyag dor skyabs), described simply as a nomad from Kham, and who is more
commonly known by (and hereafter referred to with) the name Rinchen Pel; Ga Yar ('ga'
yar), also described only as a nomad from Kham; and Pelek (dpal legs), described as the
chief scribe (dpon yig) from a wealthy local family in central Tibet. Sonam Peldren's
father, with the strong approval of his wife and extended family, betrothed Sonam
Peldren to the scribe Pelek.
Sonam Peldren, however, refused to marry the groom of her family’s choice, and
instead insisted that she marry Rinchen Pel, claiming that her union with Rinchen Pel was
karmically predestined. Sonam Peldren's father, step-mother, sister, brothers, and several
other relatives questioned Sonam Peldren’s refusal to marry a wealthy man from central
Tibet to marry instead a landless man from the "miserable region" (sdugs sa, sic) of
Kham. Sonam Peldren’s fiancé himself was appalled by the adamant refusal of his
betrothed to follow her father's wishes and eventually withdrew his offer of marriage. to
Sonam Peldren’s family reluctantly returned the gifts received from the scribe and his
family; after Rinchen Pel supplied his own gifts, the two were considered married.
The biography of Sonam Peldren records only general stories about the events in
Sonam Peldren's life between her marriage at age sixteen and the final months of her life
before her death at age forty-four. Sonam Peldren lived as a nomad and traveled with her
husband and fellow nomads, first in the central Tibetan region of U-Tsang (dbus gtsang)
until she was thirty years old, and then in the “eight valley” region (Tib: brgyad shod) of
eastern Tibet until her death. Sonam Peldren and Rinchen Pel had four children: two sons
named Sonam Dondrub (Tib: bsod nams don 'grub) and Tsookdor Gyap (Tib: gtsug tor
skyabs,) and two daughters named Goomreel or Goomreem (Tib: gum ril, gum rim) and
Sonam Kyi (Tib: bsod nams skyid.) The birth order of these children, and Sonam
Peldren's age at their birth, is not known.
These years of travel are described in the biography as punctuated by Sonam
Peldren's miracles and acts of generosity. For example, Sonam Peldren's biography
recounts that Sonam Peldren gave nearly all of her clothing to beggars, opting to live in a
simple cotton piece of clothing without shoes; it was said that while other members of her
group developed frostbite underneath their thick clothing, Sonam Peldren, barefoot and
wearing only a cotton tunic, walked unimpeded through the snow, melting it with her
feet. Other examples of miracles attributed to Sonam Peldren include the following:
when traveling over a snowy mountain pass, Sonam Peldren dug a tunnel through the
snow covering the mountain pass and traveled straight through to the other side, shocking
the other nomads who traveled around the peak by reaching their destination first; Sonam
Peldren broke up a knife fight by grabbing four men in each of her hands and holding
them apart until they ceased quarreling; when a bandit stole most of the nomadic group’s
horses in the middle of the night, Sonam Peldren lept onto the nearest remaining horse,
raced down the road after the fleeing animals, and, grabbing the animals' manes with her
left and right hands, and led them back to camp; Sonam Peldren carried the carcass of a
fallen yak up a steep mountainside and back to her nomad encampment for their
consumption; when the ice over a river broke beneath the feet of a pack animal, Sonam
Peldren yanked the yak out of the freezing water by its tail, pulling it to safety; Sonam
Peldren flung a load of barley off the back of one pack animal and onto another when the
animal became lodged in a narrow pass; when a pack animal stumbled and fell over a
rocky cliff, Sonam Peldren reached down and pulled it up to safety. Without exception,
the biography describes these episodes ending with Sonam Peldren glibly attributing her
accomplishments to luck or fortuitous circumstances; for example, Sonam Peldren
explained that a huge wave had actually lifted the yak out of the freezing river. Also
without exception, the biography records that her fellow nomads failed to recognize
Sonam Peldren's abilities.
In the final year of her life, when she and her fellow nomads were traveling in a
Ya Nga near what is now the city of Chamda in today’s Driru county in the Tibet
Autonomous Region, Sonam Peldren gave increasingly explicit religious interpretations
of her actions to Rinchen Pel, and described her dreams, visions, and premonitions of
death.
In particular, Sonam Peldren described recurring dreams and waking visions in
which unnamed various female figures, each with their own retinue, appeared before her.
Explaining that a plague would erupt in the nomad community if Sonam Peldren did not
accompany them by the fifth month of that year, the female figures demanded that Sonam
Peldren leave her nomad group and travel with them. Sonam Peldren interpreted these
dreams and visions to mean that she would die in the fifth month.
Following these visions and for the next several months, Sonam Peldren claimed
to experience visions, gave increasingly lengthy teachings to Rinchen Pel about the
religious nature of her identity and daily activities, and continued to express a conviction
that her death was imminent and that relics would be found in her cremation ashes. While
many of Sonam Peldren's “teachings” focused on basic Buddhist doctrines of
impermanence, non-attachment, and so forth, other speeches made reference to esoteric
Buddhist practices and philosophies, such as the “Great Seal” and other doctrines
typically associated with the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. These teachings were
noteworthy given the absence of any religious training or practice up to that point in
Sonam Peldren's life, a point which Sonam Peldren's husband, family, and community
returned to repeatedly in their criticisms of her claims.
On the predicted day of the fifth month of the water mouse year, Sonam Peldren
declared that she was ready to die. Claiming to see multi-colored maṇḍalas of dākinīs
and tutelary deities in the sky, she conducted an offering ritual, and then declared that she
was ready "to go." Crying "Heek!" Sonam Peldren's body was said to have shot into the
sky, then to have come down and bounced five times, each time higher. Finally, Sonam
Peldren's corpse glowed with white light; gods and goddesses of light poured from
Sonam Peldren’s body, and accompanied her consciousness as it departed for a Buddha
realm. The corpse descended slowly to earth and landed in a seated posture on the
ground. A red drop appeared in the right nostril of Sonam Peldren’s corpse, and a white
drop in the left; when Rinchen Pel wiped the drops away with a flat rock, images of a red
sow and a deity wearing a tiger skin appeared on the surface of the stone. Rainbows were
seen, and that night visions of palaces and various mandalas filled the sky.
Upon cremation Sonam Peldren's skeleton was said to be found covered with
images: dākinīs and dharma protectors; multiple images of Dorje Phakmo, Vajrāpaṇīs,
Buddhas, Tārās, and Vairocanas; the deities Cakrasaṃvara, Vajrasattva, Ratnasambhava,
Amitābha, Maitreya, Vajrayoginī, Dīpaṃkara and Vajradhara; the thirty-two print and
cursive letters of the Tibetan alphabet; multiple and variously-colored sows; an elephant,
vajra, conch shell, fish, and bell; the letter "Ah" as well as the syllable “Tam”; and on her
pelvic bone signs of the secret wisdom dākinī, a triangle, the syllable “Bam,” a flower,
two dākinīs, and three circles of mantras.
For Rinchen Pel, Sonam Peldren’s miraculous death vindicated her claims of
religious authority; others in her community were not convinced. Beginning seven
months after her passing, Rinchen Pel claimed to experience nine posthumous encounters
with Sonam Peldren. The nature of these encounters varied. In some, Rinchen Pel asked
questions, such as why Sonam Peldren's body had been ugly, inferior, and female during
her lifetime; what he was supposed to do with the vast quantity of relics produced from
her corpse; how Sonam Peldren had accrued religious knowledge in her lifetime despite
no visible study or practice of religion; and what the meaning had been of Sonam
Peldren's strange dreams, visions, songs and religious pronouncements in the last months
of her life. In another posthumous vision, when Rinchen Pel retreated to a mountainside
to petition Sonam Peldren for guidance about whether he should ordain as a monk,
Sonam Peldren appeared and sang a verse about emptiness and the nature of mind. In two
other visions, Sonam Peldren chastised Rinchen Pel for neglecting her relics, using them
to get material gain for himself, and for letting others' doubts about the authenticity of the
relics affect his presentation and explanation of them, an accusation which Rinchen Pel
denied. In yet other visions, Sonam Peldren simply appeared in the form of Dorje
Phakmo before Rinchen Pel, along with rainbows, dākinīs, unusual birds, Sanskrit letters
on mountain peaks.
Today Sonam Peldren is remembered as an exemplary female practitioner. The
nunnery Ya Nga Chamda Ganden Khachö Ling Nunnery (Tib: ya nga bya mda' btsun
dgon dga' ldan mkha' phyod gling), called either Khachö Ling or Ganden Khachö Ling
for short, stands on her death site; this nunnery contains a large wall mural depicting
events from the lives of both Sonam Peldren and Rinchen Pel. Resident nuns perform and
offering ritual to Sonam Peldren three times a month. At least one twentieth-century
woman claimed to be an incarnation of Sonam Peldren: Khandro Kunsang (Tib: mkha'
'gro kun bzang, ?-2004), a woman affiliated with the Kagyu sect who gained great
regional fame as a tantric practitioner and healer. A sixteenth or seventeenth century text
describing the history of Tibet's only female reincarnation lineage, the Samdhing Dorje
Phakmo (bsam lding rdo rje phag mo), names Sonam Peldren as an early figure in the
lineage.
Bibliography
Diemberger, Hildegard. 2007. When A Woman Becomes a Religious Dynasty. New York:
Columbia.
Tibetan Language Sources:
Rin chen dpal, c. 14th century. Bsod nams dpal 'dren rnam thar. Unpublished manuscript.
Rid bang bstan 'dzin, 2002. Nags shod ‘bri ru’i lo rgyus. lhasa: bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe
skrun khang.