Thubten Choekyi Nyima, 9th Panchen Lama
Thubten Choekyi Nyima (1883–1937), known as the 9th Panchen Lama, was a Tibetan Buddhist leader. He was born on February 19, 1883 in Dagpo, Tibet, and died on December 1, 1937 in Gyêgu, Qinghai. He is buried at Tashi Lhunpo Monastery in Shigatse.
As the ninth Panchen Lama, he played an important role in Tibetan Buddhism and politics. In 1901, the Mongolian lama Agvan Dorzhiev visited him at Tashilhunpo and learned secret teachings about Shambhala and Kalachakra; Nyima also gave Dorzhiev golden statues. In 1906, Sir Charles Alfred Bell visited Nyima at Tashilhunpo and they talked about Tibet’s situation.
In 1924, Nyima fled to Inner Mongolia after a dispute with the Dalai Lama and his government. He was well liked by the Mongols, and some sources say there were not widespread rebellions in Mongolia in the 1930s because of him.
In China, the Panchen Lama worked to modernize Tibet and held a position in the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission. Chinese sources described him as pro-Chinese. He supported Sun Yat-sen’s ideas through Pandatsang Rapga.
In 1936–1937, monks from Lhasa searched for the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. The Panchen Lama, then in Jyekundo under Chinese influence, said that he should be escorted by 500 armed Chinese soldiers—a condition the Tibetan government would not accept. He identified three candidates and, when the search team reached Taktser, pointed to the boy there as the true reincarnation of the 14th Dalai Lama.
Nyima died in 1937 in Gyêgu, before he could return to Central Tibet. Later, the tombs of the fifth through ninth Panchen Lamas were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and were rebuilt by the 10th Panchen Lama at Tashilhunpo Monastery, in a large tomb called Tashi Langyar.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 18:27 (CET).