Shangom Chöseng

ཞང་སྒོམ་ཆོས་སེང་།


zhang sgom chos seng

Alternative Name(s):

Tokden Zhanggom Chökyi Sengé (rtogs ldan zhang sgom chos kyi seng+ge)

རྟོགས་ལྡན་ཞང་སྒོམ་ཆོས་ཀྱི་སེངྒེ།

XII-XIII c.

Period: 11th–13th // Tibetan Forefathers

In the biography of Khyungpo Naljor, which depicts his six main disciples as a tree, Shangom Chökyi Sengé is mentioned as “the sap of clear light” :

Shangom Chöseng manifested the essence of the body of the deity inseparable from the clear light.

In Taranatha’s History of Mahakala Chadrupa’s teachings (phyag drug pa’i chos skor byung tshul), Shangom Chöseng is portrayed as one of the three disciples of Khyungpo Naljor (with Mokchokpa and Latö Könchokhar) who originated a transmission of Mahakala Chadrupa. It points out that Shangom Chöseng stayed with Khyungpo Naljor for a long time until he was urged to go on a retreat for seven years on the island of the Nam lake (gnam mtsho, north of Lhasa). He then remained five years in Jadur (bya dur, on the banks of the lake, near mount Thanglha) and spent the rest of his life in Tsedeng (rtse ldeng, unlocated).

The biography of Kyergangpa specifies that Shangom Chöseng was an accomplished yogi who stayed twelve years with Khyungpo Naljor. He gave Ötön Kyergangpa a number of transmissions, including teachings from the cycle of Mahakala Chadrupa that he could not receive from Mokchokpa. He thus initiated a tradition known as “the tradition gathering the teachings of Khyungpo Neljor’s two heart’s sons” (Mokchokpa and Shangom Chöseng). This tradition is mentionned in The Thirteen Initiations of the Protector of Wisdom.


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