Item: Teacher (Lama) - Panchen Lama 1 (4), Lobzang Chokyi Gyaltsen

Lobzang Chokyi Gyaltsen: the First Panchen Lama (1570-1662) and tutor to the Great Fifth Dalai Lama surrounded by his previous incarnations.

With a wizened face betraying the years he wears the patched orange robes of a fully ordained monk and a yellow monk's cap. The right hand upraised performs the gesture of explication of the Teaching and the left holds a book close to the heart. Seated with a meditation cloak wrapped about the legs he rests on several layers of ornate cushions in front of an elaborate backrest of silk brocades.

At the bottom right is a monastic figure, possibly, the 5th Dalai lama, receiving teachings from Chokyi Gyaltsen. At the bottom left is the wrathful protector Begtse Chen, red, with one face and two hands holding an upraised sword in the right hand and a heart and spear in the left; clothed in the garb of a warrior.

The Panchen Lama line of incarnation (tulku) was started by the Fifth Dalai Lama in 1667. Regarded as emanations of Amitabha, their principal seat of power was the Tashi Lhunpo monastery of Southern Tibet.

Jeff Watt 10-98