Jampäl Namdröl Chökyi Gyaltsen (Lhasa, 1932 - Ulaanbaatar, March 1, 2012) was the ninth jabzandamba of Mongolia and the seventh of Tibetan origin. After the death of Ngawang Losang Chökyi Nyima Tenzin Wongchuk in 1924, the communist regime sought to prevent the selection of a new tulku.
In 1936, Jampäl Yeshe Gyaltsen, the fifth Reting Rinpoche and ruling ruler in Tibet since the death of the thirteenth dalai lama, had discovered that the then four-year-old Jampäl Namdröl Chökyi Gyaltsen was the incarnation of the eighth jabzamdanba, Ngawang Losang Chökyi Nyima Tenzin Wongchuk. That discovery was kept secret because of the disastrous situation in Mongolia for Buddhism.
At the age of seven he became a monk in the monastery of Drepung near Lhasa. At the age of twenty-five, however, he waived his vow as a monk, married and received a number of children. When Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama, fled to India in 1959, he was followed by Jampäl Namdröl, who feared that if, in the newly created situation in Tibet, his identity was revealed, it would then be abused for communist propaganda. In the following years, he fulfilled various functions, including the Tibetan government in exile. After the death of his first wife, he married and in 1975 the couple settled with a total of seven children in the southern Indian state of Karnataka.
In the 1990s, Mongolia became the sole rule of the communist party, and in the country a multi-party system and a form of more or less democracy develop. In that year, 1990, the Dalai Lama also revealed the identity of Jampäl Namdröl as the ninth Jabzandamba. In 1992 he was also installed in Dharamsala as such.
The Dalai Lama named Jampäl Namdröl a few years later as a guardian of the Jonang tradition in Tibetan Buddhism. The first Jabzandamba, Zanabazar, was thought to be the reincarnation of the most important tulku in the Taranatha tradition.
Since 1992, Jampäl Namdröl has been asked the question why he does not settle in Mongolia, which develops in a democratic way, but continues to live in Dharamsala. He always spoke of this as soon as circumstances allow it to be implemented.
For a long time, Jampäl Namdröl probably had a position in the state order in New Mongolia for himself, for example as a monarch or at least head of state. However, consecutive Mongolian governments have always refused to consider such an option.
A second element was the return of the confiscated property of the eighth jab sandamba after 1924. After 1992, consecutive Mongolian governments had returned the remaining Buddhist monasteries and other buildings to the community of faith, but the returned land ownership was not that immense size of 1924. Again, this refused Mongolian governments to consider another option.
In 1999, Jampäl Namdröl visited Mongolia for the first time on a tourist visa. It would take more than 10 years to get Mongolian citizenship in 2010 and obtained. He stayed for a short while in the Gandantegchinlen monastery, but returned to India and Dharamsala. In 2011, he returns to Mongolia as a seriously ill man again. On November 1st of this year he is installed as the head of the Mongolian community of Tibetan Buddhists. On March 1, 2012 he dies.
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